Last-minute Sinead takes title in style
Charity shop hat from under the bed tops it all off
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SHE almost missed her flight to get to the biggest festival in the West.
But yesterday Sinead Donnelly was thanking her lucky stars that the kind-hearted pilot had permitted her on board as she clinched the prize for the Best Dressed Lady at the Galway Races.
Sinead, from Co Meath, got a huge round of applause from the 32 finalists as she was declared the winner for her mixture of charity chic and designer gladrags.
After 30 minutes in the limelight, giving interviews for TV, she revealed she had no intention of entering the competition when she arrived at Ballybrit. Her modesty won her lots of fans. Her canny fashion sense won her lots of fans among the judging panel, myself included. This is a young woman with a sassy style who combines high-end designer purchases with cut-price bargains, even charity shop purchases. And yesterday, she walked away with a €4,000 voucher from Galway's leading store Anthony Ryan.
Her cream Alice Temperly Grecian-style dress costs hundreds at Selfridges but the organza hat cost just 15 quid at a charity shop seven years ago. When she had no hat for the races, she dug out the charity shop purchase from underneath the bed, stuck on spare pearl beads and metal studs from the dress, grabbed her cream patent Christian Louboutin patent shoes that she wears for work every day, the gold bag she bought at an Italian outlet with 70pc off, gold metal bracelets from Top Shop and away she went.
The end result was stunning and the big-hearted Galway crowd loved it and showed their appreciation. Sinead's enterprise does not end there. An accountant trained at Deloitte and Touche, this Navan-born beauty went into property development in London with her younger brother. She developed the Anam nightclub which was nominated for Club of the Year by 'Time Out' magazine. Now she is developing apartments, but last night celebrated in style at the Radisson.
She nearly didn't make it to the competition as the gate was closed on her flight at Dublin Airport on Wednesday night. But they rang the pilot and she got on board. Now all she has to do is spend her winnings.
One fashionista to watch is Blathnaid Ni Dhonnchadha from Ennis. I spotted her in a pale pink Jasmine Di Melo dress and invited her to be one of the finalists. Later, she revealed how she is joining the TG4 programme 'Paisean Faisean' in September.
Meanwhile, sibling rivalry didn't spill over in the finalists' tent. Identical twins Oneasa and Aishling Barry, from Cavan, were chosen by different judges at different ends of the racecourse and burst out laughing when they found themselves in competition for the coveted prize.
Emily-Jean O'Byrne found herself in competition in the finals with her sister Anne-Marie Clarke from Galway and after a tense hour awaiting the results, Emily-Jean, who is opening her own fashion shop on Abbeygate Street, discovered she was second runner-up in the fashion contest, an encouraging sign for a qualified jeweller who makes the most wonderful hats.
JP McManus's daughter-in-law, Anne-Marie, found herself in the finalists' round-up, wearing a Cherry Chou hat which she bought for €450 at Brown Thomas when she was pregnant.
"This is my first time to wear it," said Anne-Marie, elegant in a Karen Millen strapless floral dress.
Back again to try her luck, teenager Jill Macken from Navan - last year's winner - was chosen as a finalist when the judges spotted her eye-catching outfit in Wexford's colours. The yellow dress came from Chica and the yellow hat with purple trimming was a one-off from Dublin milliner Nessa Cronin, who supplied dozens of hats at Galway from her Madhatter shop in Lr Stephen St.
Nessa's red creation for competition regular, Eva Hayes from Limerick, was a total wow and proved a good investment by the Castletroy teacher who walked away with the best hat prize sponsored by the Ardilaun Hotel, a trip for two to Boston.
