Two opportunities arose during 1998 for a consideration of the sorry state of fashion at the end of the 20th century. Unfortunately, neither occasion was used to any advantage.

In May, Sybil Connolly died and with her passed the final link with a generation of designers who had first invented the concept of Irish fashion 50 years ago. Connolly's passing was barely noticed and her contribution to this country inadequately marked.

In an age when women in business barely existed, she displayed international marketing skills and was astonishingly successful at selling her designs overseas. Not only was she one of the first people to create fashion with an identifiably Irish character, she went on to promote Ireland around the world better than most of those who have followed her in the field.

Is the idea of Irish fashion still possible today? Perhaps not of the rather homespun linen-and-lace kind designed by Sybil Connolly and her contemporary Irene Gilbert. But even in a global economy, other countries have managed to retain a distinctive national identity in fashion. Both the French and the Italians have a clear sense of their own style which is immediately recognisable to outsiders. Nor is such an identity only available to nations with a long fashion history.

The great surprise in this business during the present decade has been the emergence of Belgium as a centre of fashion excellence. A wealth of talent has sprung from Antwerp, which is not even the country's capital but has nonetheless consistently produced some of the most exciting new designers - Ann Demeulemeester, Martin Margiela, Veronique Branquinho, Dries Van Noten - in the 1990s. These are the people who are currently deciding the direction of fashion in the next millennium.

Why has nothing similar occurred in Ireland, particularly during this period of unprecedented wealth and optimism? Why is it that we now have more designers than ever before both at home and abroad and yet no identifiable school of Irish fashion?

A chance to ponder this conundrum was offered in early October after Paul Costelloe made some rather intemperate remarks about the dearth of stylishness among Irish women in response to a feature in Image magazine.

What might have been a helpful debate on the subject instead soon settled into expressions of self-righteous indignation that a designer should have been so unsupportive of his potential clients. At its silliest, the response to Costelloe's comments was a proposal that his clothes should be boycotted.

Lost in this welter of denunciation was any analysis of why there should still be no style that is both specific to and indentifiable with Ireland. Nor during the past 12 months has there been any thought about the effect on retailing in this country of the remorseless assault by British chainstores.

How, after all, could Irish men and women have their own sense of style when all the clothes offered to them are exactly the same as those available to their nearest neighbours? 1998 was the year in which the British multiples conquered Ireland, turning Dublin's premier shopping thoroughfare Grafton Street into the mirror image of London's Oxford Street.

In the autumn, yet another enormous shopping centre opened - Liffey Valley in west Dublin. Not only is this a joint venture with an Englishman, the Duke of Westminster, but British multiples dominate its 250,000 square feet of retail space.

THE consequence of this new invasion is uniformity and blandness among retailers. There is little to differentiate one shop from another other than the name over the door and even this can be deceptive when so many stores are actually part of the same group.

The caution of British multiples is horribly apparent just at the moment when all of them are offering consumers exactly the same items of clothing. Everywhere, there are bias-cut slip dresses, beaded cardigans and navy trouser suits for sale; it is impossible to detect any variation between one chain's range and the next.

Deeply uninspiring, the consequence of this homogeneity has been consumer indifference. In early December, during what should have been the commercially busiest time of the year, many British multiples were already offering reductions of up to 50 per cent on their clothing ranges. Sales have declined seriously among the chains.

In November, Marks & Spencer announced a 23 per cent fall in profits and described the clothing market as a "bloodbath". In early December clothing retailer Arcadia - which owns Principles, Top Shop, Dorothy Perkins and Burton Menswear among other chains - warned of seriously falling profits. The share values of other large groups including Debenhams, Next and Oasis have tumbled in recent months.

While every company has come up with a variety of reasons for this crisis in retailing - imminent recession is a particular favourite - so far none of them appears to have given any consideration to consumer boredom as a explanation even though it makes complete sense. Not only are the clothes for sale very much the same from one outlet to the next, they are all similarly uninteresting.

There is something deeply symbolic in this season's favourite colour being grey: safe, conservative and drained of all vitality. What is being offered to the Irish consumer at the moment is mass-market fashion at its most uniform. Only in small, independent retail outlets is it still possible to find innovative fashion.

This is where a fashionable future lies for Ireland. A new Sybil Connolly and a new sense of national style are never going to be discovered on the shelves of British multiples.