Until a year ago the only piece of Irish knitwear with an international profile was the Aran sweater. Safe, dependable, the staple of every tourist's newly-purchased wardrobe, it helped to confirm this country's image as a timeless land in which tradition exerted absolute authority.
The Aran sweater was perceived to hold a position in Irish fashion equivalent to the Catholic Church in Irish society.
Then in February 1997 knitwear designer Lainey Keogh staged her first solo show in London, and an entirely different view of Irish woollies was discovered. To the music of U2's as-yet unreleased new album, models such as Naomi Campbell and Helena Christensen sashayed forth in knits so fine they seemed like a second skin, albeit one in gorgeous, jewel-bedecked colours. Critical response was an amusing blend of bewilderment and delight at the unexpected emergence of a major new design talent.
Last week Keogh presented her third collection at London Fashion Week, and the reviews were even more effusive than before. She was hailed as "Ireland's spinner of dreams" by the Times, presenting what the Daily Telegraph called a "fairytale collection" in which, according to the Guardian, Keogh was "clearly not limited by traditional notions of knitwear".
Two days later she was upbeat but sanguine about all the attention. It is a testimony to the enduring power of the catwalk that only after using this form of presentation did she come to the attention of the international press.
Shows are expensive, costing a minimum of £50,000 to mount, but, as the designer says, "You have to do them if you want to be taken seriously in the industry and develop a unique identity. By last year we'd reached a kind of plateau. It was either continue in the same way or stick our necks out and go for the next level. It's a high-risk business but . . ."
Contrary to the impression of many overseas fashion writers, Lainey Keogh did not spring from nowhere fully formed a year ago.
Achieving sudden success after a long, slow training is perfectly normal, she says.
"You do your apprenticeship and learn your craft. A lot of people can get into the show thing far too early. It's important to know yourself and what you do before you go out there."
Now aged 40, Keogh has been designing knitwear professionally since 1984, having trained and worked for a short period as a hospital lab technician. Her first pieces were made for friends, many of whom remain loyal clients.
She has always been fortunate in her circle of admirers, which includes singer Marianne Faithfull, actor John Hurt and Ali Hewson. Every season, models have participated in her shows for no fee, happy to take garments as payment instead. This has a twofold benefit: not only are expenses thereby reduced, but Keogh's clothes are subsequently seen being worn by some of the world's most beautiful women.
Where her career is concerned, she can be exceptionally shrewd, although first acquaintance might suggest otherwise. A profile in an English newspaper last Sunday cheerily described her as "mad", categorising her insanity as the kind of madness "that flirts with genius and sends everyone around it into an anticipatory flap". Keogh's voice is girlish and breathy, her manner often distracted and her conversational tone seemingly vague and unfocused.
Draw her into a discussion of knitwear's techniques, however, and she becomes wonderfully articulate. Perhaps because of her scientific background, Keogh has a particularly keen interest in fibre technology. The majority of her yarns come from Italy, the acknowledged world centre in this area. Many of them are developed specifically for and with her.
She likes to use materials which can offer bulk without weight, can stretch and breathe with the body and play with refracted light. "Finding and understanding the language of each fibre we use is my passion. That's how we spend most of the time in the studio; getting to know how the fibres speak."
In her work, Keogh regularly mixes natural luxury yarns such as silk and cashmere with newly-created material. Her feeling for colour is also highly developed, and in recent collections she has shown an especial fondness for rich metallic threads. Francesca Fearon who reports on fashion for Hello! magazine calls the designer "the couturier of knitwear. She has taken the form into a new dimension and turned it into an art."
Initially, that art had an overtly Irish stamp, as Keogh frequently employed Celtic motifs and a traditional dark palette in her pieces. Today the designs are lighter and more exotic, liable to have sought inspiration as much from India as Ireland.
But according to another influential admirer, Suzy Menkes of the International Herald Tribune, "she does seem to capture the spirit of Ireland in her knitting without being obvious. People are looking for modern romance - we've all had it with minimalism - and she provides a very modern way of having romantic clothes."
Another of Keogh's indisputable merits is the way her designs celebrate rather than attempt to conceal the curves of an average woman's form.
In each of the three London shows to date, she has made a point of using model Sophie Dahl, whose body is a generous size 14plus. Draped in her own designs, Lainey Keogh's own graceful Rubensesque figure proves not all contemporary design necessarily looks best on angular waifs.
She has also shown that knitwear is not just for keeping warm in a cold climate. Indeed, very many of her pieces would barely provide enough cover in even the hottest environments.
Inevitably, there is a price to be paid for such imaginative design and special yarns. Keogh's clothes are not cheap, starting at more than £300 for the simplest item and rising to several thousands for the most elaborate. Every garment is hand-made and can take up to one month to complete. A mere 15-20 workers help the designer meet demand.
"We make to order. Parts of my work are more successful than others, and I do keep that in mind when developing a collection."
Reluctant to give out figures for annual turnover, she will volunteer the information that her business has effectively doubled in the past year. But the high quality of the work and the manner in which it must be produced mean Keogh's potential for further growth will have to be carefully monitored.
"We don't sell masses of volume. We sell in singles of thousands over the course of the year." Since she started, Keogh has gradually assembled a supportive team around her, headed by her agent, Pat O'Brien, who was there at the beginning. Like an Oscar-winner, she can cheerily rattle off a page-long list of people without whose support she could not have achieved her present glory.
"I'm delirious," she says of the superlatives over the past week. "I'm the luckiest woman on Earth because of all the people who help with the production and development in the company."