Flutes of champagne should be quaffed in a leisurely fashion on a chaise-longue and two wise Kerry women have decided to do just that. Never mind viewing the clothes in the new Louise Kennedy outlet in Brown Thomas, Dublin. Mary Flynn and her sister, Brid Brassill, both originally O'Hanlons from Tarbert in Co Kerry, are taking a breather and enjoying the party.
Outside, a long, black limo pulls up to the main department-store door on Grafton Street and an elegant couple emerge. The scene lacks only a few crazed paparazzi, and so there are no photographs to record the impressive entrance of the President of the High Court, Frederick Morris, and his wife, Valerie Morris. They, too, have arrived for the small party upstairs to mark the opening of Kennedy's latest outlet in Dublin.
This spring "there's an explosion of colour," says the Thurles-born designer. And yet she herself is decked from head to foot in black. Not like Paul Kelly, the Brown Thomas managing director, who is in a light grey suit and with blue shirt and tie - an Armani suit, Versace tie, Zegna shirt and black Prada shoes. And he's a Waterford man, to boot. All Waterford men are snappy dressers, you know. Really.
Two great friends of the designer, Dubliners Catherine Burke-Kennedy and Dervila Moloney, who will soon be sisters-in-law, have much to discuss. There's the upcoming marriage of Dervila to designer Nial Burke-Kennedy in June and the birth of Dervila and Nial's baby boy recently.
Forget Shaws (Almost Nationwide) and its Gionni line in bags - Leonie and Cathy Reynolds (daughters of the former Taoiseach) won't go out carrying anything other than Louis Vuitton. Oh, not at all, they laugh, each holding her own bag: such an item is considered by some fashaholics to be the ultimate accessory. Tonight both of them, too, are dressed in black, nearly-matching Louise Kennedy suits. Do they co-ordinate their look each day, we wonder? Of course, they joke.
Later, all the friends taxi down to Ocean, the new Conrad Gallagher restaurant on Dublin's Charlotte Quay, for something to eat.