From fairies to child's play London Fashion Editor Hilary Alexander sorts the real from the surreal as Britain's brightest young designers - and a few of the older favourites - show their autumn/winter collections

If you want to know what hangs in the wardrobe of someone suffering from a multiple personality disorder, look no further than London Fashion Week. For the past four days I've tried to envisage myself as a fairy (wrong!), a traffic warden (no thanks!), a pirate queen (if only!) and a Seventies throwback (been there, done that!).

I've watched as goths, Dickensian ragamuffins, waifs and snow princesses have flitted by. I've sighed as yet another asymmetric skirt flaps unevenly down the catwalk, and I've lost count of the number of sweaters that mysteriously seem only to match a microscopic bikini bottom. These are meant...