Silver fox is the height of fashion

I THINK Paul Costelloe is flirting with me. I won’t let it go to my head though, because I think he flirts with everyone.

I ain’t complaining. Tall, talkative, with the slightest lisp and the tiniest stammer when he’s really animated about something, this silver fox knows how to turn on the charm.

He’s in Cork to showcase his capsule collection he’s put together in a limited time span for Arnotts. He has a strong enough client base down south to merit him rocking up to Hayfield Manor in his jeans and Converse to show his fans his creations. He’s clever, this one.

He had four months, max, to produce the goods, so, he says himself, he didn’t take any chances.

“I had a short time to get this ready, and unlike the autumn collection for London Fashion Week, I was working with a limited source base, in many cases I picked some of my winners from previous seasons and tweaked and changed them,” says the 67-year-old.

“I played it fairly safe. I took styles from the wives of the Ryder cup, the jacket navy with the trim, for example — those fashions were already there, the work was already done.”

Costelloe’s credentials are impressive. He has designed uniforms for the likes of Aer Lingus, British Airways and Delta Airlines. The England Women’s Cricket Team, Great British Federation Cup Women’s Tennis Team and the wives of the European team at the Ryder Cup in Chicago also got the Costelloe treatment. He has dressed Princess Diana, while Zara Phillips wore his design to William and Kate’s wedding and, more recently, two of his coats to Cheltenham.

Born in Dublin to a raincoat maker from Limerick and an American mother, Costelloe left school at age of 16 to work in a pig factory in Cappoquin, Co Waterford. In the 1960s, Costelloe headed for the heady streets of Paris (“I can’t remember how long I was there, a couple of years anyway”) and trained in the Faubourg Saint Honoré Hautes Coutures boutiques. By the time he was 23, he was design assistant at Jacques Esterel. Not bad going. From there to the more commercial corridors of Marks & Spencer, who sent him to train in Milan. Then he added New York and Philadelphia to his passport stamps, returning to Dublin to set up his own independent label in the late 1970s. By 1994, he was king of Knightsbridge, and the sky was the limit.

Then he wrote an article in the Sunday Times in 1998, describing some Irish women as “ambitious mutton” who “wouldn’t know style if it tottered up to them on 10-inch heels”. I pointedly cross my ankles, flicking my eyes down to my demure, hardly-there heels, just to let him know what camp I’m in. The article didn’t earn him many fans, but it did, he admits, make him a celebrity.

He expanded, grew, got bigger. Then, shock, he had to shelve his autumn-winter 2011 womenswear range because of hassle with a deal following the collapse of his arrangement with Signature after it went into receivership.

“I had an enforced break from London Fashion Week,” he shrugs, “three seasons and I think I’ve gained from that experience.”

The Arnotts collection is Costelloe, from the simple two-tone pink and navy shift dress (€240) to the pretty pink jacket with peter pan collar (€310). There’s a matching pink shift dress, but the beauty of this 28-piece collection is you could quite easily mix and match every piece.

It’s price sensitive too, with the range starting at €150, and going up to €495, for the white belted safari jacket.

“I’m very happy with it,” says the father of seven. “It’s good for the creativity to work with a limitation, not to have too much choice. Everything I did was me — everything.

“When you’re working on a big collection, working with a whole team, it’s different. I think it’s my stubborn Irish streak, I quite like having control. I want it to be a statement for what the brand stands for, I’m not looking at it from a greed point of view or an ego point of view, I just want it to be me again.

“In the last 10 years, I have had a very comfortable license, but how much of it was me? I’m enjoying it now, it’s challenging, it’s refreshing,” he says with a smile.

Later, when he’s MCing the intimate fashion show in the genteel Hayfield manor, he segues into a monologue about style.

“It’s about being comfortable, at ease, not posing, being confident and having a good relationship with a man ... or a woman, who gives a damn?” he says laughing, eliciting a little cheer from the ladies. He has them eating out his hand, with his raffish turn of phrase and his saucy descriptions of the pieces.

He’s a salesman, a showman, a performer.

“Isn’t this such a cute dress? It’s a special dress for a special person. It’s easy to take off too.” Cue sighs and giggles from the audience. “I’ll fit you, I’ll pin you, I’ll push you into a size eight,” he tells them.

Yep, he flirts with everyone.

He seems like he’s enjoying himself. He’s working hard to promote his clothes, his reputation, himself, really. The brand, the man. That’s what you’re buying, whether it’s specs from his optical range or spoons from Dunnes. The name maketh the market. And that name is Costelloe.