Inside London’s Fashion Scene

Oxford Circus Underground station (exit 8), London

Guided by Sue

Savile Row to Stella McCartney. London. Paris. New York. Milan. The only places in the world where fashion happens at the very highest ampage. And it's our turn. Been happening this week. London's Autumn/Winter 2016 Fashion Season. So, come on, let's head down that way – London catwalk(s) way – on this Tour du Jour. Step into the London of Giorgio Armani and Naomi Campbell and Dior and Yves Saint Laurent and Prada and Kate Moss and Karl Lagerfeld and Alexander McQueen and Miranda Kerr and Louis Vuitton and Chanel and Balenciaga. The London of wall-to-wall celebrities and the world's greatest photographers and "Paris thin" and collections, couture and costumes and uber-on-trend and the new black and the effortlessly chic and impossibly expensive. To say nothing of hand models, foot models and models who can smile. And for that matter, how "they" see us (they call us "real people"). Let alone lift the lid on the unpleasant truths beneath the surface – the harrowing stuff that's not discussed or acknowledged publicly. How they keep "Paris thin", for example. All part of "the fashion process", part of the world of "the unreal people" – the one-in-a-million genetic types (you know: "tall, perfect skin, baby face, masses of blonde hair, body of a goddess, your basic nightmare"). As for "pre-requisites" – well, you have to like the female form and be partial to extremely beautiful things and astonishing luxury and fancy getting a peek behind a very exclusive London curtain and not be averse to seasoning the whole thing with a touch of "the serious" – fashion is, after all, one of the most important informants and signifiers of popular culture.