Two Irishmen stopped the traffic in London on Saturday with spectacular effect.
The police were on the scene to ensure cars did not shunt each other as drivers were distracted by a posse of supermodels either riding through Mayfair on horseback or emerging from stretch limousines and Lamborghinis to the strobe of flashbulbs and disappear into a famous Bond Street jeweller's.
Milliner Philip Treacy and fellow Irishman Patrick O'Neill of United Aliens helped turn the opening day of London Fashion Week into a major happening.
From now on Tiffany will be significant not just for Audrey Hepburn's famous breakfast but also for a soiree Philip Treacy hosted to show his spring collection and new range of hats for men.
The sight of his friend, cabaret singer Grace Jones, wearing a black sequined coat and glittery gold, tilted stovepipe hat, dancing on top of a black limo will stick in the memory.
Treacy had rounded up all his celebrity friends and customers - from Jade Jagger and Kate Moss to Marianne Faithfull, Bryan Adams and Boy George. Models wore cocktail hats, sparkling trilbies and homburgs, and sweeping fedoras with their crowns tilted forward, in bright shades of pink, purple, turquoise and black.
Jade Jagger loved the homburgs with the down-tilted brims. Marianne Faithfull especially liked the copper-coloured version. "I thought is was fantastic," she said of the show. "Although some will be hard to wear, I saw a few that would be really wearable."
Exhilarated by the response, Treacy admitted he had thought the show would be a disaster because there was so much potential for something to go wrong. As Boy George, who owns several Treacy hats, said: "The milliner is a perfectionist."
But by the end Treacy was swept up with the euphoria. "It turned out fantastic, especially when Grace started dancing on the car. She just loves a hat."
A few hours earlier and looking like a modern-day Pocohontas, supermodel-turned-polo player Jodie Kidd paraded a group of models on horseback through a quiet residential street in Mayfair much to the amusement of pedestrians. This is the third show for United Aliens, a fashion and art collective which includes fashion designer Roberto Henrichsen, poet Patrick O'Neill, milliner Cosmo Jenks, Jodie Kidd, photographers, and maverick artists Jake and Dino Chapman.
They describe it as "holistic" couture and the collection was designated Alion's Amazonia Invasion of Europe. "Amazonian" models, including the famous veteran model Verusckha, looked as if they had emerged from the jungle in boldly coloured fabrics wrapped, layered, draped and suspended over the body.
"It is Amazonia - florid and colourful," O'Neill enthused, explaining how the fabrics tap into the healing qualities of colour. In her asymmetric red dress, Jasmine Guinness looked like Haiwatha with her hair pinned in tiny plaits and adorned with a feathered Mohican head-dress by Cosmo Jenks.
Paul Costelloe was the third Irishman to make his mark on the opening day of fashion week. It was a gentle whimsical walk through the countryside in a show inspired by the film Pleasantville, which is set in 1950s mid-west America.
Crisp, white, Irish linen dresses, drawstring, peasant blouses and navy, button-through dresses teamed with headscarves, white socks and men's brown brogues conjured up nostalgic memories of those hedonistic, pastoral days of summer. Trust Costelloe to leave us glowing with optimism - a perfect entree to the summer collections.
Francesca Fearon will report on John Rocha's show tomorrow.