As you all know Fermanagh people are renowned for being happy however many of us don’t exactly dress the part. For many getting dressed in the morning can be a struggle and many either don’t care or don’t take any notice of what they put on.

Many will say they are too busy to think about what they wear or in fact don’t actually care about fashion but in reality we all make a choice to part with our hard earned money to purchase the clothes we wear so every single one of us makes a choice to purchase what we wear.

Fashion is a serious multi million pound industry which employs countless people all over the globe from seamstresses to designers and models to magazine editors and right down to the shop sales assistants here in Fermanagh.

Many will say they’re just clothes and ridiculous amounts of money are spent every day on designer goods when the people who actually put these clothes together are earning the least. It may interest you to know that the designers themselves don’t earn a huge wage especially new designers and in fact when a designer first starts out many don’t make it.

Without financial backing many designers remain in debt for the majority of their career.

This time of year is always most worrying for a designer as they finish off their collections for the season ahead. They rely on public opinion therefor if a fashion critic gives a bad review they may face a financially quiet year.

A designer’s work all comes from ideas, musings and artistic flair and they put everything into their work for us to wear and enjoy.

Everyone has their role to play within the industry even you and me. It all begins on a page, the items are made, displayed by models, styled and photographed for magazines, written about by fashion journalists, promoted by advertisers, bought by fashion buyers, displayed in shop windows by visual merchandisers sold by shop assistants and worn by you and I.

So as you can see fashion is a serious industry with many designers being known for being very deep thinkers. Autumn Winter is a particularly dark month for designers as they cater for the cold, wet and dark months ahead, particularly if you think of Fermanagh.

However, Autumn Winter 2014 seems to have brought a change as fashion becomes fun.

Chanel had fun with food, models danced down the runway, gave high fives and were actually smiling and laughing.

They were taking selfies with the crowd and the clothes were slightly off the wall. Sponge Bob square pants and McDonalds were the inspiration behind Moschino, 1960s style space dresses at Ashish, Chanel took grocery shopping to a whole new fashion dimension and Anya Hindmarch was thinking of breakfast when she designed her collection of Tony the Tiger and Kellogg’s cockerel handbags.

Although I can’t see many Fermanagh folk dressing in Sponge Bob trousers, I have already seen one or two with the Moschino McDonalds chained handbag (although I am guessing not the real deal).

I think this winter could really be fun here in Fermanagh with lots of exciting prints and bright colours making a welcome appearance in our local stores.