WEAR IS THE SENSE IN LONDON FASHION WEEK? - Daily Star

Try as I might, I just dont see why London Fashion Week gets all this time and attention

25th September 2011

By Sally Bercow

THANK goodness London Fashion Week is over! Ive had my fill of hearing people obsessing over ridiculously-priced designer clothes.

Its been impossible to open a paper without reading about which celebs have been spotted in whose front row (Pamela Anderson at Vivienne Westwood, Kate Moss at Mulberry, Pippa Middleton at Temperley, etc, etc), and what (or, more to the point, who) they are wearing.

Over-hyped doesnt even begin to describe it.

Try as I might, I just dont see why London Fashion Week gets all this time and attention.

Yes, Im sure its quite fun if you actually get to go to an event. Or if youre rich enough to buy high-fashion designer gear.

But really its just one big, back-slapping love-in for the privileged (no, Im not jealous honest).

What does any of it have to do with the real world anyway?

If youre earning the average 26,000 salary, youre hardly going to splash a grand or so on a designer frock, are you?

And the clothes themselves modelled by glassy-eyed, teen-age stick insects are designed for the skinny, not your average size 16 with boobs, hips and wobbly bits.

Ive tried to get interested in London Fashion Week. Really I have. Its great for tourism. And fashions worth a cool 21billion a year bringing 816,000 UK jobs.

But pretending the high-fashion designer catwalk is the fashion industry is a bit like saying the Harrods Food Hall represents the supermarket sector its not, its just a small part of it.

I know too that a taste for designer clothes is supposed to be part of being a good political wife (although I gave up trying to achieve that long ago).

Like her predecessor in No.10, the lovely Sarah Brown, PMs wife Samantha Cameron often pops up on fashion show front rows.

She sparkles in a succession of designer outfits (which, as the Camerons are worth millions, she can afford) and throws champagne parties for the fashion elite.

Now of course Im interested in clothes. Isnt everyone, really? Weve all got to get dressed and we try at least some of the time and, in my case, with mixed results to look half-way decent.

Actually, if Im honest, I love clothes I spend far too much time shopping online and the Zara changing room is almost my home-from-home. But designer high fashion? No thanks.

Even if I could afford it, I think its so wasteful to spend that much. Karen Millen and Reiss are as high as I go, thanks.

Ive got just one designer piece to my name a blue dress I wore on Celebrity Big Brother.

And that was 70% off online at theoutnet.com, probably because its a season or two out of date (so a fashionista wouldnt be seen dead in it, daahhhling!).

Nope, Im a high street girl. Why be anything else when retailers ike Topshop and New Look pick up on trends at record speed and sell them (in real sizes, not just size six) for a fraction of the price.

Of course, the catwalk has some influence on the high street. But making so much fuss about a fashion week just doesnt make sense.

The high street is so much more democratic and doesnt make those of us without a fortune in the bank and a 26inch waist feel inadequate.

With ordinary folk losing their jobs and hard-working families facing massive pressure just to make ends meet, London Fashion Week seems absurdly elitist and out of touch.

Sorry, Sam Cam, but I just dont see the point.