Caoimhe O' Dwyer

The look: Romantic, delicate, tasteful lingerie and her equally beautiful womenswear in colours of neutral, ivory, gold, beige and black, using silks and lace

The Caoimhe O'Dwyer woman: "I don't specifically design with a type of person in mind – it's just for people who like nice things"

Although lingerie isn't the only thing that Caoimhe O'Dwyer designs, it's what she's becoming best-known for. "The lingerie just got more attention because what I was doing was hand-finished, using beautiful lace and silk," she says.

While doing a degree in languages and business in France, she fell in love with the fashion industry and after graduation, went to NCAD to study fashion.

"When was in college I did womenswear as my major degree but I always had huge interest in how everything was made and the fact that everything comes from the shape of the body. And I just love antique lingerie, so there is a strong influence of that through my work," she says.

Gaining experience working for designers like Anna Sui, in 2004 O'Dwyer won the La Perla award for Best International Ladies Lingerie Collection, which opened many doors and she spent 2005 in Bologna in the La Perla headquarters.

Deciding to come home, she did some consultancy work for an Irish-based design house before focusing her attention on her own designs in 2008. The recession has seen a few of her stockists close down, and has meant she's been doing more made-to-order pieces and commission for evening wear. "It suits my lifestyle at the moment as I have two babies, a boy and a girl of one and two years of age – it's very busy so I'm trying to get a balance between my work and my home life," she says.

O'Dwyer describers her designs as "really beautiful pieces that are not going to be just for one season. They're keepers. There's a classic element to them but they're still very contemporary."

Prices for her briefs start from €50 and the camisoles from €120 – fabrics and the workmanship involved (everything is made in her studio and hand-finished) dictate how much something will cost.

Ultimately, her goal is to ride out the recession. "I think that the lingerie side got carried away a little bit and that's good, I don't want to play that down at all. It is very important to what I do," she says.

She would, however, like to move into corsetry, something she can't do yet because there isn't a suitable manufacturer in Ireland and she won't do it unless she can get it perfect. "You get one chance; you get one shot at it. Your return customer is your most valuable customer. They come back to you and they spread the word. You have to get it right the first time."

www.caoimheodwyer.com

Matt Doody

The look: Figure-flattering, comfortable but always with an element of drama.
Does a great range of headgear too.

The Matt Doody woman: "She's confident; I think you would have to be a little bit to wear some of the clothes because they're quite strong. But she's any age. I sold the same dress to an 80-year-old and a 20-year-old"

'Boutique' is too pedestrian a word to describe this Aladdin's cave of loveliness, where Matt Doody sells his handmade dresses, capes, corsages and jewellery, with one wall devoted to head pieces. The 32-year-old, from Cahirciveen in Co Kerry, opened a shop last month in the Powerscourt Centre, Dublin, and it's been the culmination of several years' work. Having studied for an arts degree, followed by cheffing for a year, he enrolled in the Grafton Academy in 2005. He then joined The Loft at the Powerscourt Centre and was there for nearly two years at weekends, working part-time in coffee shops during the week. Now, the shop is open for business and well-known fans include Amy Huberman, who wore one of his vintage-style head pieces to the Horse show and The Tudors costume designer Joan Bergin, who wore one to the Emmys.

In terms of the current collection, he says: "I've added some tailored pieces to it and I've focused on two fitted dresses that are just a great shape." He tries to keep the prices as reasonable as he can: a camel cape sells for €170; a silk one-shoulder black evening dress with a sash is €450, while evening dresses are €850. The dramatic silk-satin corsages, which are finicky to make, start at €45.

Doody makes everything himself and has his machine out back, where he retreats when the shop is quiet (“I made three dresses yesterday,” he says) and doesn’t look to many external influences for inspiration. “I prefer to just to sit down and design. I haven’t watched TV in about a year-and-a-half and I don’t buy papers and I don’t read magazines. So I’m not up with the latest celebrities – although Cate Blanchette would be great to dress,” he says.

Women love his one-shoulder dress. “It’s quite loose but very comfortable to wear. When women wear them to weddings, they’re delighted because they can eat and drink!”

www.mattdoody.com

Claire O'Connor

The look: Classic dresses with a little twist and couture-like bespoke pieces with lots of hand detail. But she also has a hip-hop influenced second label too

The Claire O'Connor woman: "She's independent and quite classic but likes to make a little bit of the statement"

Claire O'Connor says she's been trying to find her own style since she set up on her own in 2004 and that this season, her third at the Design Centre at Powerscourt, she's discovered it. Her dresses, in colours of shocking pink, purple and slate grey, are well-cut and relatively simple, with twists like a puff shoulder, starting at €495. "They're quite classy. In this climate, I try and make pieces that aren't restricted to one season, so that they're investment pieces." A graduate of the Grafton Academy, she has worked with designers like Marc O'Neill and Jen Kelly. Her focus is on dresses and evening wear, as well as wedding dresses

Is it tough being a young Irish designer right now? "There has been more of a push to buy Irish and not just in fashion. But during the Celtic Tiger, people would buy a new dress for any occasion. Now it's 'I'm buying one and it has to last'. The manu­facturing thing is also a bit of a setback. For Irish designers, there's little or no manu­facturing done here and you want something that's up to the level. If you're selling a garment that's €600, it needs to look €600."

She currently makes everything herself, which not only includes the Claire O'Connor label but also a relatively new label called Lil'c Couture, which is inspired by hip-hop and New York. "If you think of hip streetwear, it's almost rough looking – baggy trousers and over sized tee-shirts," she says. "I wanted to use the influence of that but make it more girlie. I'll get a vintage NBA tee-shirt and sculpt it over a boned bodice."

At the moment, Lil'C pieces are made to order from her Dublin studio, where her day starts at 7am and often ends at midnight. "My mum always jokes, 'It's your daytime job, it's your night time job, it's your night out, it's your night in, it's your hobby'. But when you're reaping the rewards and it's for yourself, you don't mind so much. I certainly wouldn't be working for someone else until midnight."

Claireoconnor.ie

www.lilccouture.com

Ella Boo Designed by Grainne Walsh

The look: All about the dressing up but keeping it fun, with little quirky details

The Ella Boo woman: "Coordinated but not in a straightforward way – not in a 'coat and dress hat' way. Not mumsy"

When Grainne Walsh was app­roached by Gerry Burke – a friend and salesman she had previously worked with – to create a new label, she wasn't entirely convinced. It was the depths of the recession, but Burke convinced her there was a gap in the market for a young, new range of occasion wear that was reasonably priced and so Ella Boo was born last year.

It is Burke's third label and she has a solid design history, having worked in fashion in New York and Canada, including Victoria's Secrets, as well as teaching and freelance design.

The label's name is in honour of Burke's daughter Ella ("I thought it wouldn't be a fad if I named it after his daughter and the novelty wouldn't wear off," Walsh jokes.)

She wasn't sure what direction the clothes would take initially. "Gerry knew the price that we needed to pitch the garments at. I was guided by how I could get garments in at that price but I didn't know really how it was going to be. The first season I started with a bit of daywear, a bit of casual wear, a bit of dress, a bit of evening," she explains. "After the first season, it was so obvious that people only wanted dressy up. So really, it was decided by the customer."

Launched in 2009, the label has already made quite an impact and Xposé presenter Aisling O' Loughlin has been seen in an Ella Boo creation. Manufactured in Istanbul, fabrics are generally European and a typical dress ranges from €150 to €270, while a coat is €200 to €300.

"I should be saying it's a difficult time and I know it is for most people – I've struggled myself in the past – but this has just snowballed. I don't know why," Walsh says. "Gerry is a great sales guy and the designs seem to be right. People want to see something new and fresh and good and they want to invest in it so the label has done really well."

She's happy with where Ella Boo is headed right now.

"Ireland is selling as well as it can be. People want exclusivity so you can't really sell to boutiques close to each other; generally it's just one in town. We've a good few stockists in the UK but we could probably increase that hugely with the right agent over there."

087 2206337 for stockists

Kate + Ava

The look: Inspired by the hedonism and decadence of Studio 54. Think structured dresses in metallic fabrics for strong women, and not for girlie girls

The Kate + Ava woman: "Likes fashion but isn't a slave to trends. Prefers parties and dinners to nightclubs and wants good quality pieces that last, rather than throw-away fashion, but has a mixture of both in her wardrobe"

Kate + Ava is a fabulously glamorous name for a label, invoking visions of Kate Moss and Ava Gardener, both of whom you could imagine in any of the label's creations. Kate is Kate Reilly and Ava is Ava Cassidy. The two attended the Grafton Academy in Dublin and after college decided to pack in jobs that neither of them particularly liked to do what they both loved most – making clothes – in 2006.

Since then, Reilly and Cassidy have been quietly racking up the fashion brownie points with their collections, where dresses feature prominantly, but which also includes coats, jackets, trousers and skirts.

"We try and make the clothes as easy to wear as possible, although not everything is easy to wear – there are a few showstoppers that you need a good figure for – but we generally try and look after people who are conscious of their bums or their arms," says Ava.

"We're not size 8s ourselves and we want to be able to wear the collection."

As to how the division of labour works, Kate says: "We both design, we both do all the pattern-cutting but I'm the one who decides the direction of the collection. Ava is better than me at sales."

The task of hounding boutiques to stock the label they do themselves, although their online store will be up and running soon. In the early days, trying to get the labels into shops was awkward but now they're better known it's slightly easier (Seagreen in Monkstown and Muse in Waterford are just two boutiques that carry the label) but it's still an upward struggle. "It's tough at the moment and we've lost a few shops in Ireland but we've gained a few in England which is good," says Kate. "We have to expand outside of Ireland to grow the business."

If they could dress any celebrity, who would it be? "I'd love to see a really big Hollywood celebrity wearing our clothes so that we could break into America – like Charlize Theron or Cameron Diaz," says Kate. "Yeah, I must work on that and send them a dress…"

www.kateandava.ie

Designs for life: The Irish fashion names who made big waves on foreign shores

Sybil Connolly
(1921-1998)

Her heyday was the 1950s and 1960s, when American high society favoured her dresses. Jackie Kennedy famously wore a Sybil Connolly dress when she sat for her official White House portrait.

Paul Costelloe

The Limerick-born designer, who trained in Paris, is well-established in Britain and a champion of clothes for 'real women'. Fans included the late Princess Diana.

John Rocha

With over 20 years in fashion, Rocha has honed his distinctive style, which includes knitwear and hand-painted silks. Daughter Simone has followed him into the field.

Marc O'Neil

Based in London, the former womenswear designer for Mulberry is currently senior designer for the Autograph collection at Marks & Spencer. Madonna and model Jasmine Guinness have worn his designs.

Quin & Donnelly

Liz Quin and Caroline Donnelly have more than 30 years' experience under their belts and their suits are the preferred choice of smart, stylish career women.

Joanne Hynes

A St Martin's graduate, Hynes is known for her statement dresses and leather jackets and her current autumn/winter collection, which she describes as 'Debased Glamour', cements her reputation as one of Ireland's most exciting contemporary designers.