Designer Peter O'Brien is talking about glamour in its current interpretation. "It's this media culture, ladette kind of thing that says 'go on, spoil yourself, put some plastic tips on your fingernails, extensions in your hair, nylon on your eyelashes and silicone in your breasts'. It's so charmless, this notion that a woman is only valued if she's 'hot'. Oh, there you go..." he breaks off mid-sentence as a young woman totters across the hotel bar in skyscraper heels. She illustrates perfectly what he has just described. Her tiny dress has a perilously plunging neckline, displaying breasts ample enough for three women. O'Brien sighs, not with admiration, more resignation. "Women have fought against that whole attitude for a century, but now there is this aspiration to being a size zero with a cantilevered bust and a forehead that doesn't move. It's so ugly. But then, what do I know?"
Probably a lot, if we're talking about elegance and style. This is the man who spent 22 years in Paris, honing his couture skills at the ateliers of Christian Dior and Hubert de Givenchy before designing his own collection under Chloe and becoming artistic director at the House of Rochas. Now back living in Ireland for the past four years, he is currently celebrated for his wispily romantic dresses and neat tailoring under his own name in a 'commercial couture' range, formerly available through A/Wear, but coming up this autumn at Arnotts. A limited-edition book of his fashion illustrations is also due for publication.
On the subject of glamour in an older context, O'Brien's designs whisper of a style of dressing that harks back to the '30s and '40s. The construction of the clothes, such as finely rolled hems, French seams, covered buttons, and neat little collars, plays a role in the classy way they drape and fall, as do his materials, especially his favourite wool crêpes, crêpe de chine, and silk chiffons that flatter womanly curves rather than expose them. Waxing lyrical about his 'frocks', as he calls them, is fine and dandy, but words must be chosen carefully. Because this most unpretentious of men – in a profession not always renowned for quiet reflection – cannot stand fashion speak.
"Clothes that 'whisper' is good. But I can't bear 'on-trend'. Or 'this season's must have'. The celebrity linkage with fashion houses? I loathe it. The word 'celebrity' brings me out in a rash. And when it's used as an adjective, I really have to go and lie down in a darkened room. Celebrity toothpaste. Celebrity toilet roll. I cannot bear it," he says with feeling. Mention of Lindsay Lohan and her brief association with Ungaro only provokes him further. "It makes no sense whatsoever. Why not give Sarah Jessica Parker Kofi Annan's job when we're at it. It's just ludicrous." It also may sound ludicrous to say that fashion is not really his thing, but it's the fleeting, ephemeral nature of it that holds little interest for this designer, who says he's "not into re-inventing the wheel" every season, but rather, refining a signature look. Aware that his look may not instantly be appreciated by a generation brought up on Heat or OK! magazines, he's also conscious of coming across as a grumpy old man.
"I can't bear the notion of some balding, over-weight, middle-aged man making declarations about what women should and shouldn't wear – and I never want to do that. And besides, whenever I'm asked if I think Irish women are chic, it doesn't really matter what I say, they're not going to believe me anyway." Softly spoken and with a self-deprecating sense of humour, O'Brien is also very private about his life away from the design studio. He has never courted 'celebrity' and can think of nothing worse than being famous. On the other hand, there's an acceptance that having a public profile goes with the territory of being a designer. All of which made appearing as a judge on TV3's recent Style Wars reality style series quite a big deal for him. And while he laughs at reports in the press that he "went to war with the producers" over the treatment of one contestant, he is uncomfortable with the whole premise of reality television generally.
"If you have even the remotest bit of human empathy, it's really uncomfortable to be in a hot stuffy room, cameras focused on you, and seeing a young woman get very upset. One of the cameramen said something about a problem with his tape and he had to reload it. There was a suggestion that they would re-shoot that last scene again and I thought, 'I can't really do this'. So I left. And then I had a think about it, said to myself, look, no one's died, everyone has to accept what they are letting themselves in for. So I came back eventually. But having said that, I think we have become numbed by this almost prurient pleasure-taking in other people's suffering. And there is something questionable about the notion that someone being in tears can be entertainment. The kids on the show were all great – they were the reason I did it. Overall, it was a fine experience. But I just don't know if reality television and I are exactly a marriage made in heaven. I'm probably too measured, or maybe over-sensitive. But I know I could never tell someone that they've "grown as a human being". Number one, it's so presumptuous. And number two, it doesn't mean anything. "
Born in London in the 1950s, the O'Brien family moved to Dublin, living for a time in Finglas and then Dun Laoghaire. As a very young boy, he remembers glamourous aunties wearing full-skirted cocktail dresses with tulle underskirts. "My mum's sisters were very chic. There is a picture of myself with Auntie Nora on O'Connell Street bridge, and she is in this fabulous salt 'n' pepper tweed suit. It's very much Dior's New Look, with a circular skirt, nipped waist jacket with velvet collar, and she is wearing a tiny hat. When I was young, the people who I thought were elegant or stylish – although 'stylish' is a word that's now become meaningless – were those in Hollywood photographs. Carole Lombard in a pea coat and white trousers, sitting on the steps of a plane. Or Kate Hepburn, who always wore the plainest dress, or trousers, and with a sweater draped round her shoulders. I've always been attracted to that less-is-more attitude to dress. So given the glamour aesthetic now, it's not really my moment," he laughs.
He left school early, just after completing his Inter Cert, and got a job in display in Arnotts. But by 19, he was itching to escape the Dublin of the l970s. "Dublin then seemed grey, but, looking back, I wish I had appreciated it more at the time. There were antique shops on Grafton Street. Switzers and the old BTs was still there. I suppose I was quite brave, moving to live in digs in Croydon. I got a job in Alders, and from there finally moved to live in London." All the time, he continued drawing. He sent off a series of sketches to Eve Pollard, who edited the women's pages of the Sunday Mirror, and she encouraged him to seek a place at the renowned Central St Martin's College. From there, he went on to study for a post-graduate degree at Parsons School of Design in New York.
But it was to be in Paris where O'Brien became something more than another fashion designer. As a couturier, he brought out a collection under his own name in 2001, inspired by one of Ireland's celebrated beauties, Hazel Lavery, and a trip to Japan, or what he calls his 'Hazel goes to Osaka' range. An obvious advantage for a designer in the world's fashion capital is that materials and expertise are instantly accessible. "In Paris, if you want red chiffon, you make some phone calls and you have 30 samples on your desk that afternoon. There are ateliers where people make hats, and silk flowers. There is a whole tradition. In Dublin, apart from Murphy Sheehy, there are no fabric shops. Apart from Rubanesque, no ribbon or haberdashery." The location may have changed, but his method of actually getting down to work hasn't.
"It's very instinctive. I have a pencil and a sketchbook. It's usually late at night. There's a deadline – because I am a terrible procrastinator. It used to be coffee and cigarettes, now it's tea. I do a hundred sketches, hate all of them. But then the 101st might be something I like. And that's the start of a collection."
He has a love of painting, specifically 19th-century portraiture and the work of John Singer Sargent. Doing fashion drawings all the time has led him into bad habits with his own attempts to paint, he says, and he is currently attending a drawing group led by James Hanley in the RHA. Vintage jewellery is another passion – but it must be pre-1890, he says, because old-cut diamonds are more beautiful than newer, 'vulgar' designs.
He calls up images on his iPhone to show favourite paintings and pieces of jewellery. While he loves old jewels, he's not into overdoing the accessories with "bits of feck". There are frequent trips to Paris to exhibitions such as the Madeleine Vionnet retrospective – "the best designer who ever lived; an exhibition anyone who has the remotest interest in clothes should attend". He also flits back and forth to London to much-loved bookstores in Charing Cross Road, although two of his favourite haunts have closed down, one to a fast food outlet, the other to become a nail bar.
But his annoyance at the closure of specialist shops in London is nothing compared to his frustration at what passes for modernity and progress in his native city. O'Brien's current soapbox subject is the destruction of the capital.
"There is so much of Dublin that I like – you are near the sea, you can be in the Wicklow mountains in half an hour. But why do we knock down so much of it? Two-thirds of Dublin is gone. They put up these shopping malls – they work in the suburbs where people can drive to. All that happens in the city centre is that they turn into Ilac centres. The tourist board are obviously aware of that because photographs in their brochures are usually of the Pepper Canister church, the Custom House, or Parliament Street at night when no-one is getting sick and the convenenice stores are closed. After 15 years of the Celtic Tiger, we now have ugliness pervading ever corner. And the problem is if you express concern over architectural patrimony or the history of Dublin, it's immediately perceived as being west Brit and élitist. There is an obsession with modernism that I think is linked to our history. There is a desire to get rid of any remnants of colonialism. But does having a Louis Vuitton bag shop on Grafton St really make us modern?
"And now the Carlton cinema is going to be another shopping mall – full of more crap that none of us need. I only say this because people are so influenced by their environment. Having lived in Paris, seeing how protected it is, has nothing to do with class – it's a civic pride, a confidence."
It's confidence too that has French women unconcerned about fleeting fashion trends, and who instead, "buy quiet little dresses and jackets from Isabel Marant" that last for years. Or French university students, wearing their boyfriends' sweaters, skinny jeans, and ballerina pumps, and their hair loosely caught up with a pencil. Young Irish girls are beautiful too, he adds, but despairs about "the gorgeous students I see when walking by the Institute on Leeson Street but who have about 14 layers of crap on their face. I want to say to them 'You're 18, you are never going to be as pretty again. Why are you hiding that beauty? Then there are those kids at the Wesley disco on a Friday night – have you seen them? I was with a bunch of French people recently and as we went by, one young shocked French guy asked 'Is it Mardi Gras?' God, I really am moaning and groaning a lot about Dublin, aren't I? But it's really because I care about it."