Buttying up fashion folk

IN this libel-conscious age it's not often that you can safely report hat you spent an entire fashion show surrounded by queens. On Tuesday night A-Wear took overt the Smithfield fruit and veg market to introduce the collections of its three young Irish designers Cuan Hanly, Mary Gregory and Marc O'Neill. In an inspired bit of staged management, the Brown Thomas team headed by Catherine Condell, and John Redmond, which organised the show, simply placed rows of chairs on either side of the long central aisle to create a catwalk and left the aforementioned sacks of potatoes and other fruit'n'veg where they were. The VIP section (there's always a VIP section - even in a draughty warehouse) was just outside Paddy's Place - the market's chip butty caff. Proving that fashion victimry extends to all things, one label-luvvie proclaimed the sausage sarnies "divine" and there was much high-pitched oohing and aahing over the "delish batch bread".

The clothes were terrific. A-Wear is, of course, to be loudly applauded for putting its money behind these young designers - without the support of the chain the talented tyros wouldn't have a hope of funding entire collections and more importantly making their clothes affordable and available throughout the country.

Cuan Hanley, with his stunning collection of suits, was perhaps the least recognisable name on the cat-walk. The 29-year-old Dubliner trained at the Grafton Academy and then went to work for Paul Smith in London (at the last minute Paul sent his apologies - he had hoped to be there but pressure work ruled out his planned Dublin trip). Cuan roped in several of his friends as models including Sean Moncrieff, who took the current vogue for models to look sulky and fairly miserable a bit too much to heart for my tastes. Dave Fanning was his usual groovy self as compere: mercifully, he didn't go down the old "and Monica is wearing a dashing two piece in stretch jersey" route, and kept his introductions to a minimum.

The really big fashion name in the audience was Peter O'Brien, the man from Finglas who is now the designer at Rochas, the French fashion house. He was home on a week-long family visit before the madness of the International shows begins in the autumn.