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london fashion week letizia orue & aiora kintana   Exclusive, �poshy� and all the usual lark. LFW is home for a week to fashion addicts from all over the world. There is absolutely no way jose you�re gonna get into this gig � on the covers of all the papers � unless some big-shot designer sticks your name down on the guest list. Decadent and artificial.
The beast was bore by the British Council but sponsors Nokia, Nikon, Redbull and Co have been responsible for feeding the creature. There are just over fifty fashion shows up and down the catwalk to be added to exclusive brandname clothes, accessories, shoes,... and all to be seen in three different areas. There are also 150 sellers looking for that bottom dollar. Is it worth buying anything here? And at what price?
LFW. SET UP / PEOPLE / GENERAL IMPRESSIONS / SOCIOLOGICAL EVALUATION
Crammed into a plane, we landed at Gatwick Airport. Then there were trains, travellers cheques and plenty of pounds... POUND POUND YOU�RE DEAD!!. Hello London!
We piled onto a bus for the 45-minute trip to King�s Road, smack bang in the middle of fashionable Chelsea, the London version of Beverly Hills. The central headquarters of LFW is to be found here. It�s a kind of structure made up of different glass sections and this is where the organisers have managed to gather together the elite of world fashion, in amongst all the champagne, Redbull and chocolate. The polite press, international buyers and the designer label creations that drive everybody wild are also present. No general public or students, please.
Quickly hoodwinking three muscle-bound security personnel, we are taught how to say The Balde in English by the charming assistant in charge of dishing out credentials: �DI � BEEILD�. We finally get our mitts on the barcodes that will help us infiltrate the whole shenanigans. Why is it that Margaret Thatcher immediately springs to mind the moment we walk through the doors? A quick jaunt around the main showroom leaves us in no doubt that there is very little innovation to be found here. Image is the star of the show, but there�s no naturalness to it; there are nothing but models in set poses. In between a few smiles and �sorry-s� here and there, it�s those with the most powerful credentials and biggest cameras who are bowling people off their feet.

Catwalk
Even though our passes are still warm in our hands, it�s certainly not easy to get into the catwalk area. One of the �Boderline� crowd wouldn�t let us into the BFC tent because we weren�t �adequately attired�.

(Situation):
Him: You�re not on the list.
Us: No no no, sorry sorry, we aare!
Him: I don�t want them in the show.
Us: Dickhead...

Just as well that only happened to us on the first day. We had passes to get into different catwalk shows. In a few others we had to bunk in because we weren�t from mags like Elle or I-D.

The Old Truman Brewery, close to Brick Lane, is an interesting little creative place where East End designers, artists, photographers and DJs tend to gather. This millennium�s new Portobello. At 9:00 we had your typical English breakfast - served on Japanese chinaware - with the heads from the House of Jazz (young designers � most of them conservative bores with their heads stuck up their arses). In their words: �We make sexy provocative clothes for Eastenders.� We certainly didn�t see anything of the like. Clothes based on Cleopatra with a tribal touch thrown in for good effect. Their English style really suited the juglare music they used. They were noisy bastards. The breakfast was great.
We liked the next fashion show by Karen Walker. Her first collection, called �Daddy�s Gone Strange�, is based on a mixture of extremes and can be checked out at.
We had quite a bit of bother at times trying to get some decent photos. Some people still think the size of a camera is important. Well, they have some hope with us. �We are press as well�.
We were more interested in the people knocking around than the actual fashion on show to tell you all the truth. The were loads of mixed styles on display, although most of them were of glam-vintage stock. More inspiration was to be had at the 1001 Cafeteria. Sofas, cushions, coffee, fruit juice and sandwiches in an old factory building. Comfortable and smashing prices. Their address is: 101 Brick Lane London E1 6SE, Tel: 020 7247 9679.
The last catwalk we witnessed was by Russian twins Tana-Naka. They choose the splendid Chelsea Town Hall to stage their show. �The Posh Area�. We had to wait two hours for the Russian wine. Protocol and 16-year-old models. 80s Russian kitsch accessories, fur, cat and clock Baroque combos. Not worth a toss to you.
As far as shapes, fabrics and styles go, neo-romanticism was the head honcho all round. Crazy mixes of street wear and Vintage. If you want to see true London style, you have to get out and about at night. Even though London has been the main home to fashion and style for yonks now, we saw no new ideas or anything remotely of interest. Our greatest discovery was the street markets. You choose.

The only stuff that blew us away was by the following two!
IVANA HELINSKI (Finland). This is the fourth time she has been to LFW and she�s a real breath of fresh air. Her formation as a graphic designer is patent in her collection �For well-educated people�. Her clothes are made at her studios in Finland by a group of ten workers. Ecological dyes and pictures of tents. The more social side of fashion.
SIMEON FARRAR, artist. His debut collection. It was easy for him to get invited along because the organisers really like what he�s doing. He�s not at all taken with the rest of the collections on show. He finds them all �terribly boring�. The two main themes to his work: Blossom & City. He sells more work in Japan, Paris and Berlin than in London... and he�s only starting out! Really incredible stuff, blew our minds.

NIGHT
We�ve decided to hit the town up Kingsland Road�s way. Super-duper gaffs and all kinds of shops.
Crash: Two different buzzes: the bar downstairs with the cheaper drink where you can have a nice quiet chat with any of the gorgeous bods walking around or, upstairs, with its ass-wiggling �Latin� vibe. All the night time activists and clubbers wear purple-pop terrorist t shirts emblazoned with the images of naked ladies over the age of sixty. Total �Style addicts.�
Los Estudios: The Kingdom of Electro Mega-Cool Music. Having said that, the DJ wasn�t on top form the night we were there. An old underground joint. This place used to be a recording studio, but they�ve now given a �clandestine club� feel to it. The low circular ceilings inside have hundreds of names scratched into them.
333: We never got to see DJ Vadim + Herbaliser because we never made it to the club downstairs. Why? Because we were absolutely riveted to the spider lamp, the meek and mysterious Jap and the bunch of Brits who seemed to be having their own private cotillion upstairs. It was something like a parish hall dance, with plenty of pints and a sniff of snogging off en masse in the air. We had a chat with the doorman and his girlfriend Bonnie and we also stayed for the hits-electro pop-funky-soul and beats-hip session while we were at it. The crowd was getting hot, hot, hot. Downstairs looked like a bit of an inferno as well. Scratch and scratch, oh yeah! Address: 333 Old Street EC1V 9LL, Tel: 020 7739 5949, Getting there: Tube/BR: Old Street.
Roberto on the tube. We christened him Cynthia Robertson. 21 years of age. On his way to being a model for Vogue and a stylist. From Burgos.
From what our sources have informed us, not as many things are done here as they make out. We wouldn�t mind staying for a few days more but. It�s not bad here, not bad at all.