Clothes lines

Compiled by DEIRDRE McQUILLAN

Boutique of the week

What started as a small newsagent in the 1930s has been transformed in the past decade to Rosalins, a lifestyle and gift shop on Dunville Avenue in Ranelagh. Its neon sign is the oldest in Dublin and is a protected structure. Denise O’Brien and her brother-in-law Donal O’Brien took over the shop 11 years ago and changed it to include books and gifts, and since then “it has grown exponentially”, Denise says. The shop has everything from jewellery and nightdresses to bestsellers, cards, magazines, stationery, table-top items, cufflinks, wallets and much more. It is a one-stop shop for any kind of gift for anyone from a newborn to a retiree. Rosalins, 42 Dunville Avenue, Ranelagh, Dublin 6.

Goodbye Anna

“I express myself synthetically,” Anna Piaggi used to say. The Italian fashion editor, who died last week at 81, liked associating the fashion of the moment with ideas of the past and as she grew older, became even more eccentric in her personal style.

I remember a frustrated senior member of the British Fashion Council trying to get Piaggi, dressed in Union Jacks, into some hot designer fashion show in London, past the unimpressed heavies on the door. She always stood out for the wayward way she dressed – erratic, scatological mixes of colour, shape and pattern from a massive wardrobe – but her main contribution to fashion was her double-page spreads in Italian Vogue from the early 1970s on.

Her book, Fashion Algebra, republished many of those fold-out collations of visual stimuli that allowed her imagination free rein. It was published by Thames Hudson in 1998.

In the loop

When Niamh Waters from the Hook Peninsula in Co Wexford marries next month, she will wear a crochet wedding dress worn by her grandmother Eileen (left) for her own wedding more than 50 years ago, and made by Niamh’s great-grandmother.

Taught by grandmother to crochet at the age of seven, Waters has been "hooked" ever since and has just launched a craft business called Hook Crochet. Her inspiration comes from antique books and from the vast collection of vintage crochet left to her by her grandmother. She now crochets freestyle, making her own patterns, fine jewellery, formal bags, gloves, headpieces and other accessories. Her wedding reception will take place at Loftus Hall, Hook Head, the first to be held at the famous house since it opened to the public recently. See hookcrochet.com.

A cut above

Niamh O'Neill from Dunleer in Co Louth has just launched her first capsule collection. One of a stellar year at NCAD, she graduated with Simone Rocha and Heidi Higgins, then headed off to New York, where she worked with Diane von Furstenberg. She later went to Paris and had six-month stints with John Galliano, Martin Grant and Sharon Wauchob. O'Neill's style has the deceptive simplicity that depends on good cutting. Her collection, in the Design Centre in Dublin and MacBees in Killarney, consists of just eight pieces, including a cashmere coat, wool crepe dress, skirt and jacket. They feature interesting details such as bold suede belts and a pleated grosgrain trim, and cost from €235 to €560. 'You have to take risks. You need to go for it,' she says.