IT was all our yesterdays ... clothes dating back to the past but not so far that you couldn't remember. Familiar but some almost forgotten names.
Remember Digby Morton and John Cavanagh, famous couturiers in the 1950s. And Irene Gilbert's great elegance, and Jack Clarke's beautiful tweed suits. And of course Sybil Connolly made Ireland's fashion famous, especially in America, where she dressed Jacqueline Kennedy.
Work by about 80 designers is on view at an exhibition, Irish fashion since the 1950s at the Ulster Museum in Belfast.
Most of the designers were at the opening to hear the President, Mrs Robinson, say she had become aware, about six years ago, of how clothes shaped the way you were.
The game of spot the designer then took over. There was lb Jorgensen, Pat Crowley and Richard Lewis. Lorcan Mulanny who works with Belleville Sassoon was talking to Peter O'Brien, designer for Rocha in Paris.
Dr Elizabeth McCrum, Keeper of Applied Art at the Museum, has built up the collection over 10 years, after it was partly destroyed 20 years ago. Each designer showed six or seven garments, resulting in a visual history of what we have worn over the decades.
Taking centre stage are Lorcan Mulanny, Peter O Brien and Philip Treacy, with wonderful evening dresses and inspired hats, while the surrounding groups take in the early red flannel, quilted skirts of Sybil Connolly and the almost Edwardian grandeur of Irene Gilbert, moving on to all the familiar names of the present. Remember Donald Davies's colourful shirt waisters, utterly shapeless but once very popular, and Neilli Mulcahy's printed bainins and experiments with tweed and Mary O Donnell's crochets. It's all here.
The early years give the idea that life was opulent, spent dancing in grand dresses. There are the leaner years of the 1960 suit and then the flowering of the creative knitter, with Lainey standing out.
This is a visual history, a social comment with fabric and thread the medium. The story tells us a lot about ourselves and we come over as controlled and very confident.