Standing in the rain on Grafton Street in Dublin last year, Gladys Adams, owner of a fashion and interiors boutique in Tullamore, stopped to listen to a classical music quartet and was moved to invite them to her annual fashion show.

The Slovak Festival Orchestra turned out to be the highlight of the evening. On February 5th, she is bringing them back to perform at her charity show, which this year has a theme of fashion through the decades. The event, which this year will be introduced by Sonya Lennon, presenter of Off The Rails, kicks off at 7.30pm in the five-star Heritage Hotel in Killinard outside Portarlington, and includes dinner, with entertainment by jazz singer Laura Mulligan and pianist Pat Lee, before the fashion show at 10pm.

There are 30 tables of 10 and tickets cost €85. They are available from Gladys Adams on 057-9341516. All proceeds from the event will go to the Zambia Trust Fund which enables an Irish surgeon to travel to Africa to perform vital surgery there.