London fashion week celebrates its 40th birthday – but will recession cramp its style?

The city is set to be packed with celebrities this weekend as catwalks and the Baftas collide in the capital

Hours after Caroline Rush, the chief executive of the British Fashion Council, opened the London stock market in Paternoster Square to kick off the 40th anniversary celebrations of London fashion week, Downing Street confirmed that the UK has entered a recession.

A collapse of retail is not the ideal mood music to get this dressiest of birthday parties started but having survived 40 years, London fashion week is bullish about the future. Burberry is building a catwalk in east London’s Victoria Park, while the designer Simone Rocha will take over the capital’s oldest surviving church for a show that will double as a homecoming victory lap after her triumphant Paris haute couture show for Jean Paul Gaultier last month.