Inside Style - Trolley Dolly

Inside Style by Annmarie O'Connor - as featured in The Dubliner magazine - August 19th

“Where are you going?” “Are you just back from holidays?” “Mommy why is that tall lady carrying a suitcase?” These are just some of the questions that beset me on my weekly styling runs. Being a practical soul, I always carry my trusty trolley dolly while pulling clothes; if only to stem the rumours that I am shopping my way out of the recession. Unwittingly this tactic has raised its own set of scruples. 

Only recently I stopped for coffee in Starbucks when the barista, bemused by my excess baggage, asked me point blank what the deal was.  “I’m a stylist,” I replied, pointing to my M&S rollercase. Silence. Snigger. It didn’t wash.  Each time I now pop in for my skinny latte, she demands further explanation.  I think she’s convinced I’m harbouring refugees or that I’m some sort of prodigious kleptomaniac. “Maybe she thinks you’re fabulously homeless?” offered a friend.

I scoffed at the flippant quip only to have it corroborated by a total stranger in a nameless bar. “You’re that girl with the suitcase!” (Insert mortification here.)  It appears I’ve achieved infamy of sorts – albeit the mundane kind. I would have been happy with a ‘that girl from the telly’ – but hey, when life throws lemons, why not order a gin and tonic? This, by the way, is what I did; several in fact.

Ever since I’ve been fostering Howard Hughes-like paranoia, convinced the greater Grafton Street catchment area has me pegged as an oddity. Let’s face it, you wouldn’t exactly catch Rachel Zoe schlepping bags down Melrose. There again, she does charge $6,000 a gig and until Armani starts Fed Exing couture to casa Kimmage, it looks like I’ll have to put up or shut up (at least until this rant is over).

Meanwhile, I can comfort myself with the memory of getting Zoe and her reality TV crew backstage access to Giambattista Valli at Paris Fashion Week. It was a serendipitous victory (considering I was standing for the entire show), but one that resulted in a ‘Thanks sweetie,’ from the Queen of the Zoebots herself. With this I’m convinced there’s a fashion Buddha doling out karmic bonus points for good behaviour. Maybe next time, he could pitch in a free taxi, a foot massage or a front row seat. Just a suggestion...