Fashion has spread westward this year with the opening in June of Design Platform, a clothes shop in Clifden's new Station House Hotel complex. Catering for both men and women, Design Platform stocks a mixture of Irish and international labels, the former including Paul Costelloe and Lainey Keogh, the latter brands from France and even South Africa.
Carol Anne Joyce, who is responsible for the enterprise, says she wants to have as many exclusive names as possible. When it comes to stock, her principal requirement is for "anything exciting that I see. I'd hope to develop the shop with a lot of things that people won't find anywhere else".
At around 2,000 sq ft, Design Platform is larger than most such shops in the State and therefore needs customers to keep it busy. Obviously Clifden during the summer months attracts plenty of visitors, but the town tends to be quieter over the winter period. "A lot of people have apartments and holiday houses around here in Connemara," confirms Carol Anne Joyce, "but we get local people shopping as well".
In addition, she finds Galwegians travelling on Saturday or Sunday to the west coast. "The 50 miles from here to Galway is becoming much shorter now."