Reorganisation has been taking place in Wardrobe, one of the most popular locations in Brown Thomas. Not only is it bigger now that the sportswear and hairdressing departments have been moved, but some good new labels have been added. There should be no problem finding that little embroidered, slightly hippy, palish coloured bit of mesh. Mesh is here, it has arrived on the fashion scene and is a feminine material.
The store held a show with all the new Wardrobe names to announce the improvements, although attendance was near impossible to resist given the new labels from the Designer Rooms. These included Jean Paul Gaultier, Missoni, and Dolce & Gabbana (where £1,000 is a mere trifle). But Wardrobe's existing designers stood up well to the grander competition. Ghost, long a mainstay of Wardrobe, is surpassing itself in the new craze for bias-cut mesh dresses sprinkled with sequins and embroidery in the palest greys, lavenders, and white. Always somewhat hippy, Ghost now finds itself at the heart of the new softly feminine ideas that are being interpreted in various ways by many designers this season. But it isn't all sweet fancy. French Connection, a price-conscious collection (dress £75, cardigan £65, jumper £50) manages to combine the practical with the fanciful - with every jacket there is a matching skirt and pair of trousers. There are flowered chiffon camisoles, and silky knit twin-sets in pink add frivolity.
A newcomer here, Karen Millen, who has a string of shops in Britain, cleverly interprets high street fashion, using iridescent fabric for long jackets (£165) and miniskirts (£59.95), adding pretty embroidered mesh tops and fragile silky cardigans. While there is always black and white, colours here and throughout include all shades of lilac and turquoise, and the odd flash of cerise. Her embroidered chiffon slip dresses, so pretty, are £120.
Dolce & Gabbana have their D & G diffusion range here. Black with coffee is a marvellous colour combination, and works beautifully in a fine knit sweater with marabou cuffs (£175) and a double-layered mesh skirt. In their main collection, screen-printed religious paintings are scattered on chiffon skirts and tiny tops (£1,900 for a skirt with Raphael's Madonna and Child on the front). Jean Paul Gaultier, well outside Wardrobe's remit but shown, bounds from Mexico with an enormous black circular poplin skirt and white ruched blouse, inspired by the artist Frida Kahlo in the 1930s, and a complicated Japanese silk number of very novel cut, the silk jacket being without a back, and the sleeves left flowing and open, with a sash crossing over the body.
But it is no hardship to cross back into Wardrobe, where the mood is pretty, light, slightly hippy, with beading, embroidery and fine mesh. Clearly fashion has gone soft, and it is seen at its softest in the now very expensive Wardrobe department. Funny how novel the feminine looks.