Frank McNally at the RDS: There's a lot of adjudication going on at the RDS this week, most of it carried out by men in bowler hats.
However, the judging was nowhere more intense than around the band green yesterday as the best-dressed ladies competition neared its climax. The hats and voices were softer here, but the opinions could be harsh.
"The dress is nice - it's just a pity about the shoes," they murmured, as the latest short-listed candidate was paraded across the stage. "I'm not wild about that hat either," they added on reflection.
Fortunately, none of the several hundred adjudicators crammed around the green yesterday had a vote in the actual contest, which was decided by a panel of experts, who kept their analyses private.
As has become traditional, there was also a best-dressed man's competition - won by Gerry Grenham from Rosses Point, Co Sligo. But it seems like a comment on the state of male dress-sense in Ireland that, where the women get prizes of jewellery, dinner vouchers and the like, the best-dressed man gets a new suit from Louis Copeland. Talk about a hint.
The real business was the women, however, and after careful deliberation Louis and his fellow judges placed the €10,000 Appleby diamond necklace around the neck of 24-year-old Julie Redmond, a nurse from Galway now living and working in Dublin.
Not only did Julie beat off all the other competitors, her silk floral-print dress was also well ahead of the fashion curve, according to Louis, who revealed that its citrus green would be the dominant colour in next year's spring collections.
"Citrus green men's suits?" we asked, horrified.
"Women's dresses; men's shirts and ties," Louis clarified, to widespread relief.
The "Most Creative Hat" competition was a double for Galway milliner Bridget Higgins, who last week scooped the top prize at Ballybrit.
Here her horse-shaped feather-and-sequins number was carried to victory by Kildare woman Amanda Reilly. Only in women's fashions can you have the horse on top and a person from Kildare underneath. But it has been a big week for Ms Higgins, who may soon have to abandon her home-based operation and open a shop.