Last week I attended the annual Queen’s University Fashion Society showcase where student designers presented work shaped by identity, place and experience.

It was thoughtful and ambitious, the kind of show that makes it clear there is a lot of creative energy here, even at this early stage.

But it also got me thinking about the way we judge success in Northern Ireland.

There is a tendency to describe people here as ‘humble’, as if we are reluctant to praise our own. But that does not quite ring true: if anything we are just hard to convince.

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There is a sense that something has to be proven elsewhere before we are willing to fully back it ourselves.

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