With London hosting its biggest season for a quarter of a century, who better to open the proceedings at Somerset House—a little, British Louvre-on-Thames, with full Georgian trimmings—than fashion's most-loved milliner, Stephen Jones? With the generosity of spirit that is buoying up the collective morale in this city, Jones and Michael Howells (the British set-design maestro who creates Galliano's runway fantasias) showcased the work of four young milliners on a turntable dais of stacked Beaton-esque black-and-white hatboxes and Jasper-ware Wedgwood urns. The showcase set the tone for a five-day concerted national effort to consolidate the city's rep as a hot spot for young talent that is underpinned by a culture of internationally experienced creative elders who are happy to help raise up the new—and companies and designers, like Burberry, Pringle of Scotland, Antonio Berardi, and Jonathan Saunders, who have voted with their feet and brought their shows back to British soil.

Bookending a day in which, for once, the weather cooperated beautifully, Sarah Brown, the prime minister's wife, held a joint party with her next-door neighbor, the chancellor of the exchequer's wife, throwing open Numbers 10 and 11 Downing Street to designers, retailers, and foreign press. Mrs. Brown, in a black dress with a richly embroidered hem from Erdem's pre-collection, spoke animatedly about the importance of fashion creativity as a defining aspect of Britain's identity—and a major contibutor to the national economy. Then she nipped into an anteroom where, as it turned out, Gordon Brown had looked in to be introduced to Christopher Bailey, Christopher Kane, and the newcomer Joanna Sykes.

— Sarah Mower