Last night in the elegant surroundings of the Irish Embassy in London, Paul Costelloe presented his autumn-winter 2005 collection to an invited audience and simultaneously launched his new range of jewellery. The collection, inspired by paintings of François Boucher in the Wallace Collection, was an effort to "reinstate the l8th century in the 21st", according to the designer.
"It is all about escapism. We have had the '60s and the '70s and people want something else now," said Costelloe backstage. This is the second time in recent years the embassy has hosted a fashion show to promote Irish designers. According to Ambassador Daithí Ó Ceallaigh, whose initiative it was, "it is one way of advancing Irish interests during London Fashion Week and we all benefit from it".
Deliberate references to the period were evident in frock coats with upturned collars, satin pantaloons, lace cuffs and highwayman boots. A mixture of tweed, satin and silk shantung and different textures like brocade, velvet and Jacquard added up to a feeling of luxury and opulence.
Strongest points were, as always, sharply cut tweed suits, some with flared skirts, some with kilts, and chunky handknits, with chiffon dresses in painterly combinations of colour and print.
"I coveted every single coat and cardigan," the novelist Edna O'Brien told The Irish Times afterwards, "they were timeless and inspired. But the dance frocks I leave to the younger generation."
Jasper Conran, who, like Costelloe, has successfully diversified into other areas of design, had femmes fatales like Faye Dunaway and Tokyo Rose in mind for his collection, which also heralded the opening of his new flagship store on Sackville Street.
This was a tightly focused line-up of handsome, razor-sharp chalk stripe trouser suits glamorised with luxurious Mongolian wraps and veiled berets that dramatised the face. The colours said it all: black, gunsmoke and cold steel. For evening there were slinky dresses in chocolate jersey or damson silk velvet worn with killer heels, elbow gloves and "pink gin" feather jackets.
"It's the sexiest collection he has ever done," Mary Quant remarked afterwards. The shop, a listed, four-storey Georgian townhouse, was equally breathtaking.
If Conran evoked Hollywood glamour and Costelloe l8th century romanticism, a young Danish designer based in London, Peter Jensen, explored his childhood Scandinavian origins for a show inspired by Fanny & Alexander, Bergman's epic l982 film. These were clothes for chilly winters in cold colours like blue, grey and white with oversize bobble hats, knitted bonnets and hand-embroidered socks over shoes. Nostalgia showed in little Alice in Wonderland velvet dresses, grey school jackets with white-cuffed shirts and black smocks over white embroidered gypsy blouses. It was a charming collection with cute, modern touches like fir tree or snowflake printed chiffon dresses and grey coats embroidered with birds.
Another Scandinavian in the cultural melting pot that is London Fashion Week this season is Anne Sophie Back whose début catwalk show yesterday was a subversive and determined anti-fashion statement in which half-hearted, pony-tailed models in indistinctive jeans, denim skirts, combats and T-shirts sent up the whole idea of clothing as flattery. Everything seemed deliberately designed to make their wearers look larger and lumpier, more unkempt and uncaring. Earrings were even worn left in their plastic presentation packs. Nothing could be further from Jasper Conran or Paul Costelloe's visions - but that's London Fashion Week, which ends tomorrow.