Designer deluxe

Louise Kennedy celebrates 25 years at the top of her trade

IT IS 25 YEARS since Louise Kennedy, her hands trembling with excitement, took down her first order from Brown Thomas within 12 months of graduating from the Grafton Academy and winning her first Late Late Show Designer of the Year award. That endorsement followed by the exposure of dressing Mary Robinson for her inauguration as President set her on a career path that has established her reputation as a designer of luxury clothes, interiors, crystal and, soon to be realised, china, linen and bridal wear.

There are many projects in the pipeline. She is just back from India, where she has been supervising work on her winter 2008 collection in Delhi, doing things such as studding Linton tweed with crystal. She is currently preparing further expansion of the LK brand. At the end of the month, she travels to Canada to exhibit in Toronto, then to Moscow to explore further retail opportunities. Her flagship shop in London's Belgravia, along with her presence in Harrods, has opened up a well- heeled Middle Eastern and Russian clientele, who are willing to pay for the luxurious fabrics and hours of handwork that go into her collections. In India, she also sees opportunities opening for her in Delhi and Bombay (Mumbai), where she has witnessed at first-hand the effects of a burgeoning economy. "With my good old drapery background [in Tipperary], there has never been any mystery as to how retail works," she says.

Her current collection, with its focus on the leisured lifestyles of wealthy customers, shows a continuing shift in emphasis towards shapes such as kaftans, jewelled and beaded with extravagance, smooth silk evening gowns - there's a beautiful one in midnight blue - and ladylike twinsets, in cashmere embellished with jet. A luxurious embroidered cream cardigan shrugged over a long black jersey dress, conservative but yet romantic, adds an informal touch to a more formal shape. Suits play a lesser role, and one in a china blue and white print seems destined for smart summer garden parties rather than a hard day at the office.

This collection will be presented in her Merrion Square headquarters at the end of this month as "a little installation" on tailors' dummies rather than on live models "because I built this whole collection around the mannequin and I felt that the slightly softer tailoring was very ladylike. It looked more like Parisian couture shown this way," she says.

Brown Thomas customers will have an opportunity to meet Kennedy next Saturday when, from 11am to 3pm, she will be taking personal appointments for the first time in two years "because it's great to meet customers and get feedback". In September, a special event will take place to celebrate her 25th year in the store and that first order that marked her debut as a designer to watch. "I hit the ground running," she recalls, "and I don't know any other way of living my life. I am even more passionate about my work now, 25 years on."