Instead, they've pitched their tents in richest corner of town. This smart area was, until recently, more associated with ageing dowagers with lap dogs, or shops selling hunting rifles, rather than London's most fashion forward elite.

Of course, Bond Street has always been an artery of international designer finery, but Brook, Albemarle and Davies Streets are where the loaded style mavens are skipping. It was all kicked off earlier this year with the Marc Jacobs shop opening on Mount Street.

Now the Pop Shop at Dover Street Market is pulling them in - Katie Grand's little corner of retail tomfoolery with its zany collaborations with Julie Verhoeven, blown-glass poodles by Gareth Pugh, Miu Miu one-offs and other trinkets and baubles from the Pop magazine editor's favourite designers - all presented under spotted, Perspex mushroom-like domes. What else?

Or, Luella's first shop just along from Claridges, a riot of Colefax and Fowler wallpaper, equestrian paraphernalia and everything from badges to punk-inspired suits. A kind of dressing-up box of all things vaguely aristo and rebellious: punk dressing imagined by Virginia Woolf.

Luella Bartley's return to the London Fashion Week schedule (showing in Claridges' ballroom, no less) this week has generated the same breathless media frenzy as if Princess Di had unexpectedly returned from a rather protracted trip to Paris. Her arrival is one part Prodigal Daughter to two parts wishful thinking. Well, if she can show again in London, the thinking goes, then what's the excuse of other quintessentially English brands like Vivienne Westwood and Burberry to not showing here? Luella could be the vanguard of a peculiarly English invasion.