Hot Looks: Violin femme

All of us have different sides of our personality which we reflect in our choice of clothing.
On our more morose days, we might wear simple clothes in simple colours. Feeling a tad more confident, we could dress outside our comfort zone. For fiddle player Zoe Conway, however, things work a little differently: her sartorial choices are often determined by the kind of music she is playing and the environment in which she's playing it.
"If I was playing in Whelan's or wherever, I'd go for a modern, cutting-edge look," she says. "But I love getting dressed up. It's a treat to play with an orchestra in a concert, and have to wear a dress. In fact I think I have more nice clothes like that than normal, casual clothes."
Yet her love of dolling up doesn't reflect in the time it takes her to get ready - she claims she just needs half an hour to prepare for a night out.
"And that includes make up," she beams proudly. "Although I generally do my make up in the car. If someone else is driving, I should add."
Does she not run the risk of getting eye-liner all over her forehead?
"Oh no, I have a very steady hand," she says. "It comes from having to go to fiddle lessons in Dublin as a kid. My dad used to drive me from our home in Dundalk. So I used that time to do all my homework. I can write completely legibly in a car now, and can get quite precise with my make up too!"
That said, her discerning taste means she doesn't pile on the make up to look like a Rocky Horror reject - instead she goes for the natural look, believing that "the best way to wear make up is look like you don't have any on at all".
Her can't-do-without item is Yves Saint Laurent's Touche Eclat, and she'll splurge on good foundation (Clinique), though she's not fussed about the brand of colour cosmetics as the quality isn't so important.
Touring with the likes everyone from Rodrigo y Gabriela to Riverdance, she has the ability to pick up clothes in random places - her fave purchase was an all-important wedding dress.
"I'd just had lunch in Bordeaux, France, with some of the other members, and when we were walking back we came across this bridal shop," she says.
"I knew what I wanted for the wedding, which was last September. I'd even cut pictures out of magazines - and then I saw this gorgeous pale ivory dress and just fell in love with it," she says. "I went back the next day wondering whether I should get it, especially because I always imagined trying it on with my mother and sisters. But when I rung them to ask them what I should do, they just said that if I liked it that much, they were sure it was perfect. So I got it, and had to carry it around with my for the rest of the tour!"