Closet secrets

With uncanny foresight, sisters Karen Foley and Lesley O’Toole opened a secondhand boutique specialising in designer labels precisely as the boom went bust. Here, the extravagant purchases made for wedding or debs, race meeting or significant birthday are dangling from the rails just waiting for a second outing.

We spotted an unworn Prada top, with its original price tag, reduced to half price. Diane Von Furstenberg and Ben de Lisi labels were there, alongside Irish designers, incuding Mary Grant and Aideen Bodkin. But it is the designer shoes and handbags – Louis Vuitton, YSL, Coach, Gucci, Sonia Rykiel, Miu Miu, Jimmy Choo – that really send the bargain hunter’s heart a-flutter, attracting custom to the Secret Closet in Howth from all over the country. It has been such a success they have added another room upstairs.

You’ll find the fashion-mad sisters, who have already appeared on TV3 and the Gerry Ryan Show, in The Secret Closet in Abbey Street. They are open six days a week – closed Mondays. See thesecretcloset.ie or telephone 01-8325853.