Flair from Eire

In the grand ballroom of Manhattan's Waldorf-Astoria last week, some 1,200 members of the garment industry crowded in for a look at the latest fashions from abroad. Among the 57 styles paraded across the stage were some from Europe's top designers--Dior, Fath, Balenciaga, Visconti. But the dress that brought the house down was "First Love," the product of an almost unknown Irish woman. Designed by Dublin's 32-year-old Sybil Connolly, it was a dazzling white ball gown made of gossamer-thin handkerchief linen. Sewn into 5,500 minuscule pleats and banded with five strips of bright woven white satin, the flowing dress looked fit for a fairy queen (see cut). Price: $475.

The evening gown was one of 44 designs that Sybil Connolly brought to the U.S. for her first American showings at Gimbels in Philadelphia and later at Filene's in Boston. Though she has been designing in Dublin for ten years, Connolly first caught the eye of the continental trade last year, when she brought out her "Irish Washerwoman" style in line with a new trend to fringed tweeds and shawls.

Most of Connolly's styles reflect traditional Irish dress ("I couldn't design a button anywhere but in Ireland," says Sybil), instead of merely copying the trends of Rome and Paris. She uses native Irish materials, designs many of the fabrics herself, works closely with the Irish weavers, and turns out clothes from $80 to $475. In the middle bracket ($295) is her green velvet, off-the-shoulder "Kinsale Cape" for evening wear. One of the prettiest of the Connolly lot: "Kitchen Fugue," a full-skirted evening dress with stole, made of multicolored Irish-linen kitchen toweling, for $89.95.

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