KEY POINTS:
At London Fashion Week, editors and buyers are always on the look out for a rising star that might equal the international success of British designers Alexander McQueen or John Galliano.
If the cheers that followed 24-year-old Christopher Kane's second-ever catwalk show yesterday were anything to go by, the industry believes it has identified a successor.
Certainly Kane, who only graduated from art college last year, has already developed a recognisable signature: his designs are about sex appeal, and not the coy variety either.
Black leather flared mini-dresses with corrugated trimming that resembled ammunition belts, or clingy velvet dresses in blood-red and glittering with crystals are intended for, as Kane himself put it, "a darker shade of female, a predator."
Tailored leather and belts laden with crystal studs the size of doorknobs might sound trashy, but Kane has an inventiveness and wit that should deflect any accusations of bad-taste.
He has also picked up some powerful supporters.
Donatella Versace was an early mentor, while US Vogue editor Anna Wintour requested a private viewing of Kane's graduate collection.
Another fan of this precocious talent is Naomi Campbell, who reportedly dropped into Kane's studio in Dalston, East London in her Mercedes to pick out a couple of his figure-enhancing dresses.
Although Campbell was not in attendance at Kane's autumn/winter show yesterday in Covent Garden she gave vocal support to the fashion industry on Monday night when she joined the size zero debate in comments made at the Elle Style Awards.
"Don't blame the fashion industry," declared the Streatham-born model, who said underweight girls on the catwalk were suffering from a psychological illness and were not being pressured into looking skinny.
"You can't blame the industry for a psychological disease. It is a disease, like alcohol or drugs, and the industry is not to blame."
Campbell, who won model of the year, praised recent initiatives to ban girls aged under 16 from the catwalk.
And she said her agency, IMG, had issued guidelines to make sure girls at fashion shows are well fed and that the backstage area is an alcohol-free zone.
Womanly curves were not in evidence at Paul Smith's show yesterday, however - but then, he took inspiration from the notoriously gamine it-girls of the 1920s and that era's predilection for female cross-dressing.
Smith's idea of a contemporary garconne progressed from untucked white men's shirts worn with slouchy ribbed sweaters, wide-legged trousers in charcoal-striped suiting fabric and loafers, through to a black silk-jacquard dressing-gown coat that one can imagine might have appealed to Noel Coward.
"There are a lot of female fans out there who like what I do for men," explained Sir Paul backstage after the show.
And just as a tuxedo jacket worn over a chunky fisherman's sweater began to labour his point, Smith sent out pretty flapper dresses with art-deco cut-out details for the more feminine-minded.
Also chic if not exactly new were his tailored little black dresses with pearl collars that were a nod to Coco Chanel's 1920s invention.
On the whole, then, a very stylish illustration of why Smith, who started in the 1970s with a menswear collection, has such enduring appeal.
- INDEPENDENT
