good times, bad times, who knows?

The question at London Fashion Week is: do you want the good news or the bad news first? The outlook for British fashion depends on where you look.

At SS Daley's show in a light-flooded Royal Academy gallery, the picture was rosy. Harry Styles, who became Steven Stokey-Daley's financial backer when he took a minority stake in the brand earlier this year, made a power couple front row alongside Anna Wintour, who teamed her signature sunglasses with a Harris-Walz stars-and-stripes campaign scarf.

The show was a hit, with the audience charmed by Dalmatian-print silk garments and romantically oversized Brideshead Oxford ...