LONDON, September 18, 2006 – The Fashion East show has come to be like a tasting plate in one of London's most original restaurants: Turn up, and what you're offered are three flavors of the best up-and-coming talent. The exercise of rendering each collection down to 12 looks only improves the intensity, and this season, it was Danielle Scutt's fifties-meets-seventies power vixens who knocked the audience sideways. Done up in stiffly towering quiffs, red lamé cocktail skirts, and animal prints made into bodysuits and skintight denim, Scutt's women were not for the tame-hearted—and that's exactly how she wanted it. "I'm proud to be a woman. I'm not one of the boys. I think clothes should be empowering and sexy," said this recent graduate of Central Saint Martins. Among the chorus of voices being raised in praise of glamazon style in London, hers is the first that is female—and the difference shows. Fierce shapes she may have, but the odd vivid-red print shirt and piece of leopard-spot denim made it apparent that this is a girl who also thinks about stuff you could imagine wearing.

– Sarah Mower