Inside Style by Annmarie O'Connor - as featured in The Dubliner - Feb 10th
I’m not great at keeping secrets. The strained expression on my face is a dead giveaway that something is up; or that I’ve been using the Athena 7-minute Face Lift. As the latter is no secret, the former usually lands me in hot water. Thus, I’ve been keeping a low profile and avoiding Facebook lest my trigger finger inadvertently puts a hole in my poker face.
Finally I can spill the proverbial beans; I may even fling them wantonly whilst skipping along Grafton Street. This season I’ll be styling the Joanne Hynes / Helen Steele catwalk show at London Fashion Week – a huge coup for Irish fashion and this new creative colloboration label.
As news goes this is big, so you can imagine my utter despair at having to keep this under my baker boy cap until details were finalised. No telling family, no telling friends, no telling colleagues, no telling. As a journalist and professional talker this wasn’t just a challenge; it was a feat of untold willpower.
When solicited as to whether I had ‘any news’, I stuck firmly to a standard issue of “Nothing. Why?” accompanied by a look of beggaring belief. Queries regarding my plans for London Fashion Week received similar treatment; often an indecipherable “Pffff...” followed by a lolling head shrug. I knew that keeping up such pretence had a shelf life which would reach its expiry date sooner rather than later should a glass (or three) of wine make its way into the equation.
Thus, my social life reached a sudden impasse. Excuses to avoid social outings ensued, and I found myself counted amongst the ‘off booze for January’ brigade much to my own chagrin. I felt like Neo in the Matrix when Agent Smith makes his lips disappear – only without a bug embedding itself into my residual self-image.
Once confirmation reached us that the show would be going ahead at the Freemason’s Hall in Covent Garden on Thursday, February 22nd at 11:45am (Plug? What plug?); the pressure was off and I could yak in manner of a proud New Yorker. And so it goes. I am yakking and shall continue to do so well after the much-anticipate runway reveal. There might be no stopping me. Gasp! You’ve been warned.
