THE sight of builders working on Grafton Street during the first week of August and on a Sunday, too is fairly rare. The reason for the fevered activity at the Marks & Spencer site is to keep the job on schedule to make their end of September opening deadline.
Savvy fashion hunters can barely contain themselves this year M&S's fashion consultants include top designers Tanya Sarne from Ghost, knitwear king Joseph, and the super cool Ally Capellino apparently these designers consider it a smart move to work with a chain store so their style can be seen and bought by as many people as possible.
The idea is that if you like the style you'll probably save up for the designers' own label clothes. Retailers in the area are quite reasonably getting white knuckled as the opening approaches.
Someone who won't have to worry about the competition is Louise O'Loughlin, who after eight years in business is in the final week of her closing down sale at Firenze the shop that introduced Irish fashion cognoscenti to a clutch of European designers.