With 45 official shows scheduled over just five days, and a generous array of other associated events happening around the city over the same period, London Fashion Week is an intensely competitive occasion.
Designers try a variety of means to snatch publicity; they present late at night, in a quirky (and usually hard-to-find) location, with bizarre special effects and celebrity models.
Intermittently, however, the traditional approach will be taken. That means a ramp down which models file in clothes devoid of trickery or special effects, while the invited audience sits on relatively comfortable chairs and takes notes.
This was the choice yesterday for Paul Costelloe. The Irish designer offered clothes as simple and straightforward as his presentation. With no fuss and nothing fancy, each piece had a clean appeal aimed particularly at the younger end of Costelloe's clientele.
Women in their 20s will immediately respond to loose drawstring linen trousers and long skirts, baggy mannish shirts in striped or plain cotton poplin and comfortable, soft-shouldered jackets.
Colour was every bit as muted as cut, with a palette of stone and khaki or pistachio green to the fore. Cotton sweaters came in these same neutral shades, as did long shirt dresses in linen or silk, gathered at the waist by fine bands in the same fabric. In the midst of so much understatement, there were one or two errors of judgment, in particular, the pedal-pushers trimmed with tiers of broderie anglaise. These looked, in every sense of the word, like bloomers.
The lack of trickery in Paul Costelloe's show was emphasised by its successor, Helen David's aptly-named English Eccentrics label, which opened with a trapeze artist.
Eventually, contortions complete, she left the floor to models who appeared in a series of elaborately embroidered, beaded and sequined dresses. The cutting techniques are always fairly straightforward in an English Eccentrics collection. What matters here is surface decoration and the mix of different materials to produce a gorgeous melange.
Accordingly, the simplest grey chiffon tunic became transformed into an extravagant confection, thanks to lavish application of beads and sequins.
Simplicity of design still lies at the heart of English Eccentrics. Finding it here is somewhat harder than in Paul Costelloe's collection.