Giles
When Giles Deacon launched himself on to the London fashion scene in 2004, his clothes were as anachronistic as Joan Collins in an episode of Skins (now there's an irresistible casting suggestion). She's relevant, by the way, because she would have liked his grown-up, slightly camp take back then, with its loud prints, turned-up collars and a floaty house-gown vibe. Clever styling and Giles's love of suburban glamour gave him something of an avant-garde reputation.

Five years on and the campness has turned dark. Giles has always had a penchant for metal studs and spikes, and they erupted on to leather lampshade skirts (echoes of Hussein Chalayan's famous wooden concertina skirt) and across shoulders again. Combined with crotch-high boots, rubberised T-shirts, silverised corset dresses that looked as though the sharks had been at them and the swathes of fur that turned the models into yetis - and God knows, some of the models looked scary enough already - they added up to a tricksy “is this really what women want to see now?” statement.


Strip away the medieval torture paraphernalia and there were some fabulous investment clothes: corsets, calf-length wool dresses, shorter printed silk dresses, flannel jackets. Accomplished, definitely, but not unlike corsets, calf-length dresses and jackets elsewhere. What this collection lacked at times was the idiosyncratic Giles point of view that - love it, hate it - always made him so distinctive. LA