Every nation is granted a handful of moments defining its sensibility and self-awareness. For Scotland, one of these occurred in 1822 when George IV decided to visit Edinburgh. The trip was largely co-ordinated by Sir Walter Scott who used the occasion to re-invent what he believed to be his country's national dress. Tartans, kilts, sporrans and the whole Highland paraphernalia essentially date from this. Scottish style, easily identified globally, is the creation of a Romantic novelist. Although George IV had paid a visit to Ireland the previous summer, his only legacy from that trip, according to legend, was the straight road running between Dublin and Slane where Lady Conyngham, the king's mistress, lived.
Catholic Emancipation rather than fancy dress was uppermost in the public mind and the opportunity to formulate an Irish style, however fantastical, was lost. In the light of anxieties over our current invasion by British chain stores and what is perceived to be the resultant homogenisation of dress, this lack of traditional Irish style is worth noting. In the present decade there has been a huge explosion in the number of retail outlets, with close to one million square feet of shop space added last year to the greater Dublin region alone.
In 1998, it is predicted, a further 500,000 square feet could materialise around the capital as at least two more shopping centres open. The biggest complaint is that they are dominated by non-Irish multiples who bring a bland uniformity to every site.
High rental costs mean only the biggest companies - Marks & Spencer, Boots and Debenhams are among the most regularly-cited concerns - can afford to take space. Local businesses cannot compete and, so runs the argument, all sense of local individuality is killed off. Obliged to buy clothes from the same few chains, we will soon all end up looking exactly the same.
That is the prosecution's line of attack but the true picture is somewhat different. Ireland cannot claim to have an indigenous style culture under threat. In the field of fashion, here is an instance of a country with nothing to lose because the last time anyone commented on a distinctively Irish sense of dress was back in the 16th century, when wool cloaks were the sine qua non of Hibernian style.
A little over 100 years ago, well-intentioned and well-heeled women led by the redoubtable Lady Aberdeen philanthropically attempted to create an indigenous fashion industry here as a means of relieving poverty. But Carrickmacross lace blouses were always going to have a limited market, not least because of their expense.
Most people on this island, then as now, preferred to dress in the same way as their neighbours across the Irish Sea. The only lasting contribution to Irish style from Lady Aberdeen's era is probably the pitiable costumes with faux Celtic motifs that little girls wear for soi-disant traditional dancing competitions. These are even more fanciful, and infinitely uglier, than any tartan ensemble.
Where local traditions of dress did survive into the present century - predominantly in Connemara where the local women continued to wear red flannel petticoats - they quickly disappeared at the merest hint of prosperity. Like the thatched and whitewashed cottage, these clothes were regarded as symbols of the old, hard life, to be replaced as soon as possible by fashion's equivalent of the centrally-heated bungalow.
The most popular, and longest-surviving, elements of Irish style such as tweed suits, Aran sweaters and linen shirts are now more likely to be bought by visitors than locals. Shops selling such items cater overwhelmingly to the tourist market, while the domestic consumer will opt for a pair of Nike trainers and Levi's jeans. The world's favourite fashions always find a welcome in this country, just as they have done for centuries. Even when the shops on Grafton Street were Irish-owned and not simply new opportunities for English multiples to sell their wares, the stock was little different from that found in London stores. The only distinction between then and now is in the nameplate over the door.
Even today, shops in Irish ownership do not necessarily carry local merchandise. Smartly capitalising on the hostility British chains have excited in some quarters, Dunnes Stores recently ran an advertising campaign with the slogan "The Difference is . . . We're Irish".
But a quick check of labels inside the clothes being sold by Dunnes shows they are very often not manufactured in this country and are almost identical to those available in every other European country. A number of English designers have their clothes made here, just as very many Irish retailers source their products overseas. Buyers for our big chains such a A Wear regularly fly to the Far East where, just like everyone else, they can find cheap material and labour.
The Indonesian factory worker neither knows nor cares whether the T-shirt she produces ends up for sale in Ireland or the US. One garment will turn up in a wide variety of countries with only the retailer's label being changed. The global nature of the clothing industry ensures that eventually the same items are available to everyone worldwide.
Even were a strong sense of Irish style to have existed until today, therefore, it would be hardpressed to resist the pressures of universal fashion. Parents of Irish teenagers know their offspring want to wear clothes identical to those of youngsters the same age in New York and London. Even so, regional variation continues to thrive. Although certain items of clothing turn up all around the world, they are rarely worn in exactly the same way. Almost everyone under the age of 25 wears denim but what they do with it varies from one country to the next. In American cities, for example, for the past few years jeans have been worn baggy and low-slung to show the underwear beneath.
Italian youths manage to look extraordinarily immaculate in denim, while fashion-conscious London teenagers 12 months ago suddenly started to prefer jeans with six-inch turn-ups. In some countries trainers are worn with the laces open, in others the very idea of this would be anathema.
It is not what you wear but how you wear it that matters now. The biggest trend everywhere during the 1990s is the move towards casual clothing but each nation has interpreted this in a slightly different way. Granted the basic product remains the same, whether an Irish or an English retailer sells jeans here matters very little.
The move towards universality of dress now looks irreversible but the evolution of a distinctly Irish style is still possible - even if Aran sweaters and linen shirts are not essential elements in this.
The Scots may be able to claim kilts as their own but remember, they were finally granted only a very limited form of devolution earlier this year.
John Waters is on holiday.