Shirts store buttons up for Irish inquiries

Charlie Haughey must have loved shopping at Charvet. First there is the elegant shopfront as you walk north from the Ritz Hotel on the Place Vendome.

Little cherub faces wearing neckerchiefs stare down from a Louis XIV-like sunburst above every window. Crystal chandeliers light up the displays of striped cotton shirts for Ffr1,250 (£150) - more if you have them custom-made, like the former Taoiseach.

There are silk dressing gowns at Ffr7,100 (£852), cashmere and silk jersey sports shirts for Ffr2,950 (£354) and suede slippers at Ffr775 (£93).

The silk ties that Ernest Hemingway was so fond of seem almost a bargain at Ffr565 (£68).

What a delight it must have been to receive the shirts of fine Egyptian cotton, lighter and better tailored than those of Jermyn Street or Savile Row, delivered c/o the Irish Embassy in Paris.

And then there was the exquisite "Charvet blue" colour favoured by French bankers. It must have been a pleasure just to slip the shiny grey ribbon embroidered with "Charvet Place Vendome Paris" from the dove-grey cardboard boxes with their white labels - the cherub and sunburst motif repeated. Ah, the good things of life!

Inside the blond-oak-panelled boutique with its oriental carpets and brass lamps, with its bowls full of cuff-links and tiny champagne-like bottles of the house eau de cologne, the Charvet staff were wary yesterday. For the privacy of a client - however disgraced - is sacred.

A deluge of phone calls from Ireland had alerted the venerable shirtmakers, and they snapped shut like a clam. The press attache, whose name could not be given, was in a meeting, was out, did not return calls.

Could one know the price range of their shirts? "I wager you're from Ireland. We don't give that sort of information on the telephone," a taut voice responded. Could she simply tell me when the business was founded? "You must write us a letter."

So I dropped by the Place Vendome for a little window shopping. The Charvet staff sniffed me out pretty quickly. "Your questions are very pointed. You must be a professional," I was told when I inquired about having some shirts made. "You had better hurry, we are closing."