If there is one quality running through all Lainey Keogh's work, it is a distinctive combination of sense and sensuality.
Ever since she first started working as a designer in 1984, Keogh has been seducing customers with her knitwear while retaining a pragmatic approach to the business. She is firmly grounded in an industry noted for its inclination towards flightiness.
Keogh never intended to become a fashion professional; her first pieces were made for friends and she only quit her job in a Dublin hospital laboratory when demand for her sweaters made a change of career inevitable. Since then, the development of her talents and her business have both been organic. Initially, Keogh's garments tended to be loose in form and design alike. Over the past few years, however, they have become steadily tighter, with a tendency to caress and hug the wearer's body.
Keogh is a keen enthusiast of new fibre technology and while she often uses natural materials such as silk and cashmere, these will be blended with elements of Lycra or similar substances to encourage stretch and cling in the finished garment. In her spring/ summer 1998 collection unveiled two months ago, she has used metallic threads as well as pieces of amber and tiny seed pearls.
Steadily building up an international following, she staged her own solo show during London Fashion Week for the first time last spring. The quality of her work - and her ability to extend the technical possibilities of knitwear - encouraged an enthusiastic response from press and retail buyers. Her second show in September was just as well received.
Earlier this autumn, New York department store Saks of Fifth Avenue devoted its windows to her clothes and one of her biggest problems now is meeting orders. All of Keogh's pieces are hand-knitted and supervised by her. Even the most fantastical designs thereby retain a streak of sound commercial sense.