On the heels of the acclaimed London Fashion Week, came the much awaited London Fashion Weekend (LFW), a style extravaganza for the fashion conscious members of the public. That’s me, and my BFF, of course, who flew over from New York for the weekend.

Paul got the tickets as a Christmas gift.

Anyhow, on Saturday, with our tickets in tow, we headed over to the brilliant Somerset House, where the venue’s winter skating rink had been replaced by an extraordinary marquee, which played host or rather hostess to the catwalk shows.

Crowds of stylish and a few ‘not so’ stylish young women, a few men, too queued to enter.  What was that about? Oh, the designer tote bag in exchange for the entry ticket. We’ll have one of those, we agreed, jumped the queue since we already had tickets, and collected the coveted bag. Hump, one look at it and we both wondered what the fuss was about, and after looking inside, we felt seriously let down—some Lavazza coffee, an energy bar, some lip balm. Enough said.

Still, we hoped for the best, remembering some years ago when the event was held at the Natural History Museum, a stone’s throw away from my (and Paul’s) flat at the time in South Kensington. There, we shopped until we dropped. Favourite buys included a sheepskin coat and a designer handbag for me. For her, a D&G leather skirt and a fabulous pony skin clutch bag.

With these cherished items in mind, we browsed from show room to show room, often being jostled by crowds, finally to conclude that either we had changed or the target market had changed and drastically. A bit of both I suppose but more the latter than the former. Though we were younger, at least 12 years, our good taste for fashion was well ensconced, even then.  Hence, we hoped that LFW had maintained its taste, too.

But sadly, the variety of designers had not only shrunk but also the ones participating held back the greatest and latest. For instance, I noted a Joseph dress from two years ago, marked down to a heart-breaking price. Heart-breaking because I bought it at full price at Harvey Nichols.  Never mind! The good news is that it’s still in style. Or is it?

Meanwhile, we caught a trend catwalk show, sponsored by the Outnet.com – very nice indeed! The young super models in training, we shall call them, seemed to enjoy strutting their stuff, all but one of them, who looked miserable. But at the risk of traumatizing her, I shall say no more.

Anyhow, though we had tickets for the Julian MacDonald show scheduled for later that evening, we decided to call it quits and head back to MatchesFashion.com on Marylebone High Street, where we had dropped by earlier.

This stock more than lived up to our expectations, featuring beautiful dresses, bags, shoes, etc., but we didn’t score there either. So off to Liberty we went, where we hit the jackpot – at least my BFF did.

I, on the other hand, was left thinking about a few items.

Later that night, we caught up with another friend at the popular Arts Club and dined and danced. And the night before had seen The Mistress Contract at the Royal Court with Paul and enjoyed dining at Chez Bruce, a Michelin star local.

In short, even if LFW didn’t meet our expectations, it turned out to be fashionable weekend in London after all – one that will surely go down in the BFF book of memories. In the meantime, I’m still thinking – all very nice thoughts, indeed!