Clothes lines

DEIRDRE McQUILLANperuses the world of fashion

Nina puts best foot forward

She may be taking one step at a time, but in her second footwear collection, Nina Divito offers a wider variety of heel heights, four in shoes and two in boots. The shoes are collared in her signature style in black, white or cream lace, while some have uppers of black lace. A gold sandal or suede stiletto takes off with flying feather decor, while boots, newly-introduced, are more down to earth in every sense – there are riffs on cowboy boots with stocky heels. At €1,100, the most expensive item in the collection is a python ankle boot with velvet tear-drop cut-outs. Prices start at €385 at Brown Thomas Shoe Rooms. Watch out later in the year for a collaboration with Divito for Carphone Warehouse – she will be designing three mobile phone covers for the company in a one-off design project.

One of a kind

A new book on the late Isabella Blow with contributions from high-profile friends in the fashion business reveals as much about them as it does about the eccentric stylist. “Her fearlessness in an industry that runs on fear was legendary,” writes Philip Treacy, whose work she championed right from the beginning, along with that of Alexander McQueen, models Stella Tennant and Sophie Dahl. The photographs, many informal, others staged, are terrific, not surprisingly from one whose face lent itself so dramatically to the camera, like that of another famous eccentric – the Marchesa Casati – with whom she was often compared. Like Casati, who was regularly seen sporting live snakes as jewellery, Blow was rarely seen without an extraordinary confection decorating her head and one of the most glorious pictures taken by Miguel Reveriego shows her in a sweep of black cock feathers.

Isabella Blow by Martina Rink is published next week by Thames Hudson (£29.95)

Go to glamour

Gladys Adams of Tullamore has opened a new shop in Clarinbridge in Galway that draws in customers from near and far for items cherry picked from sources in London, Paris and New York. Adams, who combines vintage and modern clothes and jewellery, used to buy Victoriana, but now, she says, demand is for clothes from the 1920s onwards, particularly 1940s and 1950s prom dresses from the US, which are “walking out of the shop”. Her vintage US hats are also tempting locals and her experience is that despite the recession, people are still buying for weddings and graduations because “they want something different and something special”. Although she recently sold two engagement rings for “whopping” figures, her most expensive dresses are between €200 and €300.

GladysStyle, St John’s Place, Clarinbridge, Co Galway, tel: 091-485881