The lights went up on Brown Thomas today as the start of the Christmas retail season commenced.

Today we discovered that the upmarket fashion retailer enjoyed a bumper 2015 with sales rising by 115 and underlying profit increasing by more than 60% .

Latest numbers for Brown Thomas show it achieved turnover of 172.5 million euro in 2015 up from 155.4 million in 2014.

Profit after tax rose to 15.6 million euro .

Sales at the flagship Grafton Store rose by 15% online revenues increased by 1345 albeit of a modest base.

Brown Thomas launched its new website in 2015 and plans to add additional features after Christmas .

A the Christmas sales season starts this weekend the retailer hopes to benefit from the uplift in the economy .