Designer vows to replicate her stolen garments

ONE of Ireland’s top fashion designers is determined to work her fingers to the bone replicating haute couture garments worth thousands of euro stolen from her studio.

Helen Cody will be up against the clock —– most of the 18 pieces that were taken were due to be showcased at the Irish Fashion Awards at the end of next month.

The awards are part of Dublin Fashion Week and Ms Cody has been nominated for Designer of the Year, together with John Rocha.

“The heartache of it all is that everything I do is handmade and laborious,” Ms Cody said yesterday.

The stolen pieces, worth more than 20,000, included hand-made dresses, coats and jackets made from antique lace, cashmere, tulle and silk. Many of the garments, taken from the designer’s studio in Dublin, were made with rare Victorian lace and buttons.

Ms Cody discovered that the studio had been broken into when she arrived at the premises yesterday morning with a colleague.

“The alarm was going and I noticed that the bars on one of the windows of the studio had been broken,” she said.

“It feels very sinister because they targeted new work that I have not shown publicly yet.”

There were also pieces taken that were for her own couture show at the Spiegeltent in Iveagh Gardens, Dublin, in September. Most of the stolen items were black and came from her autumn/winter collection.

Ms Cody pointed out that she only moved into the premises a month ago and no signage had been put up.

But there was no question of her hanging up her tape measure and putting away her sewing pins.

“Designers are incredibly resilient people and I have an incredible team that I work with. We will do our damnedest not to let them beat us,” she said.

Gardaí at Kevin Street Garda Station confirmed they were investigating.