"I like to describe the look as Glamouflage" said Anne Marie Flood, fashion director of the Brown Thomas Group's A/wear chain after the presentation of clothes for spring 2003 at Newman House yesterday.
Flood's amalgamation of the words glamour and camouflage certainly summed up many of the 56 outfits shown, most of which mixed the macho with the feminine.
It's a peculiarity of fashion that what starts on the street is usually taken up by indie style magazines and then tapped by high-end designers before making its way back to the street through chain-stores, albeit in slighty watered-down form.
A/wear is a fashion lead chain so the clothes that will soon be in branches around the country directly relate to those shown in Paris and Milan last autumn.
"Boot Camp" caught many of the main trends: cropped combat trousers, mesh vests in acid colours such as orange and khaki everything - parka coats, cargo pants and wax-like distressed denim jackets.
It wasn't all toughness: most of these clothes were worn with heels, and soft green satin and floral dresses were shown, too. The styling by Sinéad Keenan was young in spirit, but there were also clothes that could be worn by women of many ages such as cream cropped trousers with pearl buttons.
"Urban Punk" added some athleticism to the utilitarian shapes of hooded tops, bomber jackets and vests in the form of bright yellow quarterback T-shirts and tiny ice-blue towelling miniskirts.
The two items which stood out in the next section, "Retro Denim", were very low-rise stretch denim jeans and a cute green velour off-the-shoulder track top.