Emerging Irish designers unveiled part of their spring collections at the Design Centre in Powerscourt Townhouse in Dublin yesterday.
The new talent includes 26-year-old Galway designer Joanne Hynes, who showed a corset and white fringed column dress covered in antique crystals, in her second season at the Design Centre.
While this and other garments were one-off showpieces, a ready-to-wear collection is also available which includes an A-line black tulle and satin dress inspired by something Marianne Faithful might have worn in the early 60s.
A new designer this year was Claire O'Connor, a recent graduate of the Grafton Academy. She displayed pink-and-camel suede trouser suits with zip fronts cleverly gathered at the throat.
Also new this season is a sister design duo working under the N.C. Kilkenny label. They offered straightforward suiting and lightweight printed summer dresses. Another newcomer was Patrick Casey, who specialises in evening wear of the beaded, show-stopping kind.
While flower prints, appliqués and beading are clearly trends for the spring, the style varies.
The policy seems to be to cater for all tastes, and the clothes shown yesterday certainly offer choice.
Established Irish designer Louise Kennedy showed a three-quarter-length coat made from a ribboned and woven fabric in shades of blue; white palazzo pants; light-blue and pink dresses with fabric flowers attached, and a red, white and pink sequined skirt.
Flowers turned up again, Japanese-style, on Aideen Bodkin's strong black-and-white printed skirt suits.
They also appeared as muted pink appliqués on Lyn Marr's knitted trouser suits with her signature near-floor-length jackets.
John Rocha and Mary Grant both took the white and off-white route with clothes that, sunshine permitting, will look great in summer.
Rocha used linen and crumpled cotton on jackets with vaguely military detail and parachute silk on a full dress with craft-like silk and wool circle patterns.
Grant's long white cocoon-like dresses worked best when teamed with simple cotton tops with horizontal cut-out segments on the sleeves.