FRESH fashions in a fruity place: A-Wear, the Brown Thomas-owned chain of shops, known for picking up on the latest and best, showed three collections in the Fruit and Flower Market, in Smithfield, Dublin.
Marc O'Neill, Mary Gregory and Cuan Hanly differ in every possible way. Hanly designs for men, while Mr O'Neill and Ms Gregory pull in opposite directions, one austere and slick, the other flowing and soft. But, together, the three sum up the style of the times.
Marc O'Neill, now entering his second successful season at A-Wear, uses very little fabric (that must please the accountants), very little detail and very few colours.
He likes dark brown and navy blue, highlighting them with creams and white. It's a range of cropped wool jackets and pleatless trousers, shirty, shirts and a somberly patterned dress that has a shirt collar and long sleeves. It's a bit 1950s and Jackie O, but, all the same, is sharp and contemporary.
The Gregory Collection, said to be inspired by a huge number of modern painters and a philosopher (Gibran), is also tight on colour: black and cream and bronze and black.
There is wool and satiny fabrics and a flowing line. She likes clothes that are long, light and a little bit arty. There is a lot to like about all this, the main thing being that the clothes flatter. That's something pretty novel.
Cuan Hanly likes the tough of velvets, moleskin and jersey. He has jackets and trousers and jeans in all these. His shirts are silky to handle, and his PVC belts slither in the hand. Though a bit sissy, especially black velvet with a white shirt, the cuffs worn outside the jacket, it is a glamorous range, and of course, olive green is a non-sissy colour.
A-Wear is clever in being able to entice bright, creative designers into making exclusively for them. Prices are sweet ... a Hanly jacket is about £150, trousers £75, an O'Neill jacket is £110, trousers £59, a hand-painted tunic dress by Gregory, is £129.95. There are compromises made, of course, but no harm ever came from a bit of discipline. And most of all these are disciplined clothes that have plenty of what it takes.