"It's a real dress season," Arnotts' fashion director Mhairi Roche told The Irish Timesyesterday at the launch of its spring/summer show in the sculpture room at the Hugh Lane Gallery.
It is the first time a fashion show has taken place there and many of the dresses, teamed with ladylike Audrey Hepburn coats, reflected the elegance of the location.
Dresses were fun, feminine, occasionally frivolous and mostly French. They came in lace, prints, sunshine yellows, polka dots, metallics and chiffons.
There was one in sassy stripes from Custo Barcelona, another artfully composed of black and white silk scarves, and several from Maje in gold metallic brocade or black cotton trimmed with lingerie lace. A French label introduced last season, a measure of its appeal was that at least three of the Arnotts' buying team were wearing Maje dresses yesterday.
Ms Roche and buyer Jane McGann have spread their net across Europe and the US for interesting brands not stocked anywhere else in Ireland and their cosmopolitan collection was reflected in the variety and colour of yesterday's show.
Along with dresses there were trench coats and knits, raffia sandals and ballerina flats in keeping with current trends. Newly introduced is Vivienne Westwood's diffusion line "Anglomania" and an olive cotton dress with side draping very typical of her style opened the show.
The presentation was attended by new chief executive David Riddiford, who will be in charge of the €700-800 million Arnotts' "Northern Quarter" plan, which will see the expansion of the store to over 37,160sq m (400,000sq ft), more than twice its current size.
"We want Arnotts to be more relevant for 25- to 45-year-olds and improve the fashionability of the store," he said. Work on the new development, a two-year project, is due to start next spring.