"Absolute and utter bullshit, " was how Joanne Byrne of Presence PR described the claim that associating a product with the pope is "100 times better" than an A-list celeb. Byrne is an accomplished placer of products, long using subtle guerrilla tactics to get her clients' products used by the right people.

"Product placement has been around as long as there's been products, " she says.

She'd rather have someone like Colleen McLoughlin, footballer Wayne Rooney's "ancee, pictured with her client's wares. She recounts a story wherein McLoughlin appeared in a photo toting a certain handbag, which was priced by the accompanying story at £700.

"By the close of business that day, every shop in the area had sold out of the bag in any colour. The price was actually £200. But the shops saw the story and sold the bags for £700, and they "ew off the shelves."

Likewise she'd rather Wayne Rooney didn't have her clients' gear . . . "imagine he's wearing that baseball cap in a pub brawl."

Byrne would prefer stay away from politicians as well.

PR man Paul Allen has been perhaps the boldest in this regard, shoving a pint of Murphy's into the hand of Bill Clinton on a pub visit in the 1990s. Then again, nobody went out looking for those yellow trousers after Bertie's beach walk with G8 leaders a couple of years ago.

In business, Byrne reckons a tailor might want to be the "rst to get famously scruffy Michael O'Leary or oh-socasual Richard Branson into a suit. But Louis Copeland wouldn't be "rst. Dublin's best-known tailor would rather stick to Pierce Brosnan and other stars he's suited up, memorialised on his Capel Street shop's wall of fame. His preferred target has already passed, however.

"Marlon Brando in The Godfather, " said Copeland when asked to name the ideal model for his menswear.

He's also keen to note he stocks suits from Italy's Canali, out"tters to the Ryder Cup team later this year. What about the pope?

"I'd have a go, " he says. Vatican fashionistas, keep your eyes peeled. Richard Delevan