It's all about grey. That and cropped trousers, lightweight padded jackets and a smattering of sparkly dresses, demurely skimming the knee. This was a simple fashion story coming from A-Wear, which has just added new stores, in Galway, Limerick, Newry and North Dublin, to its chain.
In the main, the clothes coming from A-Wear itself and its Vila of Denmark collections are casual and sporty. Later in the season collections by Marc O'Neill and Quin & Donnelly will be shown.
The casual style is set to sweep away the little business suit, so beloved by the career woman, and replace it with tight cropped trousers, sometimes worn with a skirt, featherweight jerkins and padded jackets, mostly short, though some are full-length. Good, versatile knits, and fleeces, often with hoods, zip fastenings and three-quarter-length sleeves, are often substitutes for jackets. That's how casual things are.
Perhaps the most interesting change, though it has been inching in for the past season, is the favoured length of the skirt.
This was once the sole preoccupation of fashion followers, but is now well down the list of what is important.
The news is that lengths should be just below the knee. This gives a dowdy effect, but, teamed with twin sets and peasant-style tops decorated with rosebuds and ruffles, has a quaintness: Prague in the 1940s, perhaps.
Full-length coats are about as formal as it gets for daytime. A long, blonde faux sheepskin, for a mere £120, is one of many fake furs, though another fabric used is boiled wool, not in itself very glamorous, but novel anyway.
Colours include midnight blue and mulberry for evening, and very welcome they are. It's a shifty, lacy, wispy look, and dresses can be worn over narrow trousers.
Prices are reasonable: coats start at £80, trousers and dresses at £30. Evening wear is a bit more expensive. This first show of the season illustrated how casual dressing has caught on, and how colours are best avoided.