BIO: Sybil CONNOLLY, who died at 77 in 1998, popularized Irish fabrics like tweed, poplin, lace and linen by softening their colors, their textures and their construction. An exhibition of some of her creations (including fabrics, glass she designed for Tiffany and porcelain) can be found at The Hunt Museum, The Custom House, Limerick, until 22 Sept. 2002. Designs incorporated into her TIFFANY & Co. ceramics and Tipperary Crystal stemware were inspired by 18th century botanical drawings by a Ms. DELANEY. Connolly's success started with a red flannel petticoat, the much-lauded "Irish Washerwoman Look" so popular in NY in the 1950s. Pleated linen and easy elegance remains her indelible emblem, and her legacy is that she opened new avenues for fashion designers. "You have to decide," she once said, "whether you want to create the beautiful or the merely fashionable." Some of her gowns have incorporated overskirts of Carrickmacross lace. The August 1953 issue of "Life" magazine featured a model wearing a white linen evening dress and magnificent red Irish-inspired wool cape of her design. Connolly, described by former Taoiseach Jack LYNCH as a national treasure, was born in Swansea in Wales of an Irish father who was a Waterford insurance salesman, and a Welsh mother. At 17, she went to work in BRADLEYs, the Royal Court dressmakers in London in 1938. She recalled holding the pins at Buckingham Palace for Queen Mary at a time when an apprenticeship in "model gowns" could take three years. On returning to Ireland she joined the Richard ALAN fashion house, where she became a director at the age of 22 and started her own label. But what really made her name and ultimately her fortune was her famous trip on the "Queen Elizabeth" to New York. It was the worst crossing in the ship's history and when the liner finally docked, the press were out in force to greet her. In the ensuing coverage the young Irish designer was swept into the public eye and interest in her clothes propelled her into stardom. She was as famous as the people she dressed - Elizabeth Taylo! r, Merle Oberon, Helena Rubenstein, the Astaires, Jackie KENNEDY, and Jean Kennedy SMITH (who was U. S. ambassador to Ireland). One Ms. Connolly's exquisite wedding dresses was in layered pleated linen decorated with Irish crochet and blue ribbons. Sybil had a wonderful sense of color - she once sent a clematis leaf to a linen mill as a color reference! Today, her pleated linen dresses from the 50s and 60s are harder to come by in auction houses than Dior. Ms. Connolly decorated houses, designed nuns' habits, wrote books on gardening, Irish houses and crafts. Other hobbies and interests included theological research, Irish Georgian architecture and collecting silver. Beautiful examples of her work, to include a stylish daffodil-colored suit with large petal-like collar, can be found in the Sept-Oct 2002 issue of "Ireland of the Welcomes."