Model night for students of fashion

THE must have accessory backstage during London fashion week was a personal spiritual healer. At one show, not one but two were on hand presumably to ensure that no unfashionable auras made it onto the catwalk.

In Dublin at the Pepe sponsored Fashion Dance Party in the POD on Monday night things were a little more down to earth, with models recruited through Trinity Students' Union as part of its 21st anniversary celebrations. It was generally agreed that model for the night, botany student "Conor McGuinness, got the sartorial raw end of the stick. His all white outfit looked alarmingly like a babygro and no, it had nothing to do with the fact that his father is top obstetrician Dr E.P.J. McGuinness.

Everyone was a bit too cool to make googly eyes at OTT and Only Us, the two boy bands in attendance, but 21 year old Glen Clarke of OTT says that although the band is only six months old, mobbing by hordes of giddy girls is a regular occupational hazard. Couturier Jen Kelly was there because fashion comes from the street and you have to keep up with what's going on". He is currently putting the finishing touches on the costumes for the New York opening of Riverdance next week and says that as the show is sold out, a return to the States is already being planned. Jen is missing his usual visits to the European fashion collections because he had to stay home in Dublin supervising the final hem lifts on the Riverdance costumes.