London Fashion Week

London, 13 February. Julien MacDonald's models went strolling down the cow skin-covered runway yesterday, at the opening day of the London Fashion Week. Not only did the girls wander up and down ex cattle, but half of the collection consisted of fur. Luckily Ace Ventura didn't turn up, so the show went on successfully. The collection was nice but fairly unimpressive. It seemed almost over-co-ordinated with a lot of styles all thrown together; not necessarily on the same outfit, but more an attempt to cover up all styles and areas. Lots of gun metal and bronze, some mustard yellow, metallic red: mostly rich, earthy/metallic tones were the colour range. The girls with the fur reminded us of Sloane Rangers trying to achieve a bohemian style - expensive looking pencil skirts matched with fox fur coats. Perhaps it's the next step of style we should be looking out for, but it did very little for us. As always, the Vogue team praise the designer. Have they ever done anything else?

Emma Cook kept it nice and tidy and office-like. This is also a diplomatic way of saying it was plain, simple and square looking. The basic colours were black, bottle green and metallic grey. The show finished with slightly stronger autumnal numbers with subtle pattern. Total absence of bags, jewellery and very nude makeup made this a rather un interesting show. No queuing up for the summer 2006 collection, we're afraid.

From one extreme to another; Fringe Basso & Brooke didn't play down the colours or the creativity for that matter. Their display felt very much like Versace meets Japan, mixed with a little Middle East charm thrown together. We're not entirely sure what the designer's vision of this was though. Being their second show since the design start, it was not as rude as the very first introduction to the design - patterns of male genitals on luxury fabrics. Although this show's title "The Succubus And Other Stories" might have caused more than one person to blush...

Finding the perfect runway is difficult. The selection shouldn't show too basic, simple lines as we'd get terribly disappointed - after all the business is glamour and this is what we'd expect. But a show full of totally un-wearable, luxurious evening gowns a la red carpet is not good either... Hard to please? Maybe. Whatever the results have been so far, we can't wait to see the next few days report on the week.

Below from left: MacDonald, Cook and Basso&Brooke