THE weather was appalling, the traffic jams impenetrable, the queues to gain admission unbelievable. But despite these handicaps, the consensus yesterday evening was that Dublin knitwear designer Lainey Keogh's debut show at London Fashion Week had been an indisputable success.
Held in the Cobden Working Men's Club - contrary to its name, a fashionable meeting place popular with those Londoners for whom work is a largely unfamiliar concept - the show opened with actor and long time Lainey Keogh admirer, John Hurt, reading Seamus Heaney's poetry while uilleann piper Ronan Browne played a lament.
Most fashion journalists at the show had to have the nature of the instrument explained to them, but they all immediately understood the design of clothes, beginning with a sumptuous silver grey full length coat in deep pile chenille, worn with a body hugging dress of the same colour.
This ensemble was worn by Mary Campbell, just one of the models who had volunteered their services to Lainey Keogh. The whole event was a procession of some of the most familiar faces and bodies in modelling.
Helena Christensen stepped out in a square necked double layered gold crochet sleeveless shift, while Honor Fraser appeared in a rich brown honeycomb stitch long dress teamed with a voluminous taupe wrap around mohair coat. Iris Palmer wore a high bulloning fluffy grey coat to the knee and Jodie Eidd trailed through in layers of peathued cashmere.
Applause for each piece was led by a group of Lainey Keogh's family and friends. However, they were not alone in admiring the designer's unique approach to knitwear, either comfortably loose and roomy or else fearlessly revealing and close.
The final dress, like the first worn by Naomi Campbell, was a daring sliver of dark green crochet cut high over one hip and low around the bust.