Peter’s friends acting up for his big Dunnes launch
Itend to wear black in autumn. My fashion sense is second to ‘nun’. Sorry. My favourite fashion designer Peter O’Brien, who never wears black, is launching his new collection for Dunnes on Wednesday at their Grafton Street store. The date in question might prove to be something of a problem for the eternally dashing, even debonair, ‘Saint Peter of The Cloth’.
Nothing too troubling, of course, but the prestigious launch lands right in the middle of the Dublin Theatre Festival, “so the night may be a thespian-free zone as a lot of my pals will be treading the boards on the evening in question”.
“Hopefully the collection will provide lots of drama, anyway, as we have added more soft dresses — or flou as they say in Paris,” Peter added helpfully — “than before with chiffon, detachable collars and kilometres of sun-ray pleated crepe de chine. We have velvet-trimmed greatcoats for Chekhovian heroines and satin-trimmed tuxedo pieces for the mysterious film noir gal.” (I had to ring Sunday Independent fash deity Constance Harris to ask what any of this means, I hope you know.) Be that as it may, those who will be attending on the night include Claudia Carroll, Lorraine Keane, Sharon Smurfit, Pamela Flood, Claire-Laurence Mestrallet and Ruth Monahan.
The normally unflappable designer is not sure where he will be bringing his loyal coterie after the launch on Wednesday. But given his favourite restaurants are Wilde at the Westbury, the Trocadero (“being a frustrated actor”), the Canal Bank Cafe (“my absolute local gaffe and canteen”), La Maison, and Angelina’s, you can expect to witness a fashionably discerning last supper with Saint Peter in one of those venues this week.
I have booked tables in all of them just in case.
“You know more about my social life,” ‘Saint Peter of The Cloth’ told me, “than my mother does.” Cue theatrical pause. “I suspect she knows far more than she lets on.”