London

Read the mid-week report here

Here we are again: London Fashion Week, the biannual event that sees the Natural History Museum witness creatures way weirder and more wonderful than mere dinosaurs: curiously clad fashion folk. For s/s 2008 things are already looking as marvellously bonkers as can be. What with Luella Bartley, Matthew Williamson and Stella McCartney all back to the motherland to show collections on the London catwalks, all eyes are back on our fair city. The reason? A crop of confident, cocky and pioneering new designers including Gareth Pugh, Christopher Kane, Marios Schwab and, new this season, Louise Gray. Add to that a thriving dress-up club scene that relies on London fashion designers to clothe it, and you've got one heck of a wildly creative fashion enviroment. Feature continues

Peter Jensen's quiff and oversized jacket look

Anna Wintour seems to think so too; we spied her in the front row of the brilliant Gareth Pugh show (a copy of Time Out's current Style Issue on each front row seat) which featured a punchy mix of body-hugging suits made of Swarovski crystal and cubic heads, tight slashed leather mini-dresses and a mink-fur jacket fashioned into a swarm of mice which walked out to a fevered applause. Next Todd Lynn, the American designer who chooses London over New York, delivered his signature body-skimming tailoring inspired by heavy rock music, it's already a label worn by Bono and Mick Jagger. Earlier in the day knitwear queen Louise Goldin injected some punchy primary colours to her stunning figure-hugging knits; Markus Lupfer gave a new luxurious energy to the Spanish label Armand Basi and Danish designer Peter Jensen whipped up some wonderful candy-coloured frocks in diaphanous silk, some worn with patent lavender-coloured shoes. Actually, we are off to get our nails painted this particularly on-trend shade as we speak...

Best show so far... Marios Schwab
Greek/Austrian designer Marios Schwab’s black layered dresses peeled and curled off models like fruit skin, revealing brightly patterned prints underneath. He teamed cocoon-like panelled dresses with beaded hearing aids, hair-pieces and pearls. It all seemed rather sophisticated, but for all its conceptual triumphs, there were a few perfectly draped LBDs peppered throughout for the faint-of-heart. Odd enough to shock and slick enough to wear.

Peter Jensen's patent lavender shoes

Parties and happenings...
On Saturday afternoon, a gingham and check-shirted crowd of mainly male fashionistas (and, curiously, rocker-turned-photographer Bryan Adams) descended on East End eatery Bistrotheque for rather civilised tea party. Why? To celebrate the new issue of men’s style bi-annual Fantastic Man, created by the publishers of saucy gay mag Butt. Meanwhile, over in chi-chi west London madcap designer/illutrator Julie Verhoeven was entertaining a boisterous champagne-swilling, fairy-cake-scoffing crowd and Gossips' Beth Ditto at the Mulberry pop-up store 199 Westbourne Grove, London W11 (020 7229 1635; www.mulberry.com). The shop will be selling her limited edition accessories and T-shirts for the line until Oct 6. Last night, the most fashionable fashion types headed down to Gareth Pugh’s BoomBox-hosted after show party and danced into the wee hours; Kylie, a fan of Pugh's avant-garde designs, popped in to join the fun.

Trend alert
Beading: fashion interns have worked their fingers to the bone this week, keeping up with the burgeoning trend of beading. With hundreds of wooden and plastic beads hand-sewn on to Peter Jensen’s cute and camp creations, Marios Schwab beaded the sleeves of a jet-black cropped jacket and strung his models in webs of pearls.

Lavender: German designer Markus Lupfer’s first collectionfor Spanish label Armand Basi featured soft, washed-out lavenders in sleeveless raffia tux-jackets and billowy ‘80s jumpsuits, Peter Jensen’s models trotted along in lavender patent footwear and Danielle Scutt’s snake print swimsuits and zebra stripe dresses also featured splashes of this season's it-colour.