Fashion focus: Haute Scoture

THERE is a belief, widely held, that the fashion industry is a load of fluff and nonsense run by gay men and women with eating disorders, dedicated to producing £1,000 dresses for bony teenagers.

• Chrisopher Kane's work paraded on the catwalk

There is, it must be said, some truth in this and life in fashion-land certainly involves a good deal of air kissing and precious few carbs. But it is also an important sector of the economy, contributing 21 billion a year to the UK's coffers. It employs 816,000 people, more than any of the other creative industries. The rag trade is the 18th biggest industrial sector in the country, on a par with telecommunications. We are now a country that manufactures more clothes than chemicals.

From the loose-change couture of the high street to the so-bonkers-it's-fabulous Vivienne Westwood, Britain is famous for ahead-of-the-curve fashion. A good deal of this heat is generated during the biannual London Fashion Week, six days of catwalk shows, exhibitions and parties that started this weekend. The organisers, the British Fashion Council (BFC), estimate 5,000 buyers, journalists, photographers and film crews are currently crawling over the capital in uncomfortable shoes.

America's most important department stores - Barneys, Saks, Bergdorf Goodman and Neiman Marcus - are all present, and exclusive US boutiques Opening Ceremony and H Lorenzo have crossed the Atlantic for the first time. There are prestige buyers from the old money economies of western Europe and the emerging markets in China and the former Soviet republics. Six overseas Vogue editors (US, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Brazil) are just some of the opinion-forming writers and stylists vying for the best seats.

It may be called London Fashion Week but this year, it's all about the Scots. Everyone wants to see what Christopher Kane, the self-deprecating 28-year-old from Newarthill, near Motherwell, will do next. Since graduating from Central St Martin's College's world-famous fashion course in 2006, he has been the wunderkind to watch. Unusually for an industry in which it is very easy to be the next big thing and painfully difficult to be the steadily growing business with a full order book, Kane continues to excel. He collaborates with Swarovski, Donatella Versace (who tried to snap him up after he graduated) and Topshop. He has just won the BFC/Vogue Designer Fashion Fund Award, of 200,000. As soon as the cash hits his account, he told Vogue, he plans to hire more staff.

The world will have to wait until tomorrow to see what the man who brought us neon lace bandage dresses, cashmere biker jackets, see-through snakeskin, paillettes like tea plates, and gingham corset tops wants us to wear next winter. But, in the wake of Kane's international acclaim, there is huge interest in other talent emerging from Scotland.

Jonathan Saunders, who is a few years ahead of Kane and has a more grown-up aesthetic, is not so popular with the fashion poppets who get papped at parties but has established a solid worldwide reputation for his tailoring and use of colour. Pringle, after years in the golf club wilderness, added "of Scotland" to their name, hired Clare Waight Keller (former employers: Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, Gucci) as creative director and set about reinventing their heritage brand as high fashion.

And hot properties such as Louise Gray and Holly Fulton, whose wild art deco prints and breastplate necklaces have caught the eyes of Lanvin designer Alber Elvaz and Sex And The City stylist Patricia Field among others, show that Kane and Saunders are not one-offs.

David Mullane, who ran Glasgow's hugely influential Warehouse in the 70s and 80s, bringing John Galliano and Comme des Garcons to the city, admits to a flush of patriotic pride to see so many Scots doing well at London Fashion Week and abroad. "When Pringle put Scotland in their name, they were making a very loud statement. They are trying to do what Burberry did."

Burberry, which returned to London Fashion Week in September 2009, is key to the week's commercial success. A multi-million pound luxury brand, headed by incredibly smart creative director Christopher Bailey, it has ditched its checks-for-chavs image and become a highly desirable international commodity. The American, Canadian and German buyers may come to London to swoon over Kane's kooky lace twin-sets but they place hefty orders for Bailey's wearable pea coats.

Chris Hunt, a fashion PR who has worked with many nascent Scottish designers, will make his way round every major Scot at the event. Only four individuals - Kane, Saunders, Fulton and Gray - have full catwalk shows but there are plenty others at the fringe events and within the Somerset House exhibitions. He namechecks Henrietta Ludgate, hosiery innovators Bebaroque and knitwear stars Angela Cassidy and Alice Palmer as his must-sees.

Kane, Saunders and Gray studied at St Martin's and continue to live in London. It's not essential; Bebaroque produce their exhibitionists-only tights in an unassuming unit near Hibernian's football ground while Ludgate offers clients fittings in London, Glasgow or Inverness.

"A carefully constructed presence in London can enable Scottish designers to work from here and still be taken seriously," says Hunt. "There are challenges - contacts, planning, logistics - but the relatively low costs of overnight couriers to magazines or buyers is more than compensated for by the saving made by paying for a London studio."

Fashion blogger Jonathan Pryce, who runs the Garcons de Glasgow street style website, is less sure. "There are many designers who try to make it and stay in Scotland which I think is admirable and shows great confidence. However there are only rare occasions when that is possible."

Passing on London Fashion week is, they both agree, a mistake. "I believe London is necessary to grow a designer brand," says Hunt. "It's a ready made showcase to help international markets identify who they want to pick up."

But what if you can't afford a stand, a train ticket, a hotel room and a week away from your studio? Three years ago, Iona Crawford, a young designer who works from a converted sheep byre on her parents' Stirlingshire farm, had just produced her first collection. Unable to afford the 5,000 to rent an exhibition space, never mind the 20,000 for a runway show, she planned to squeeze in with a friend, sleep on the floor and launch a guerilla raid. "Not much came of it," she recalls. "I have been back since then, just to have a look, but I now prefer to go to Paris or Tokyo. I have found it very hard to get any recognition in London.

"If you speak with a Scottish accent and are female and are not based in London, it's tough. I don't know why they call it the British Fashion Council because I have found it very Londoncentric."

So on Friday, instead of wheeling an enormous case full of precious dresses on to the London-bound train, Crawford was on a photo shoot at Turnberry lighthouse. Like Kane and Fulton, she will launch her autumn/winter collection this week. Unlike them, hers will be revealed in a film shown at the Blythswood Hotel in Glasgow. "Of course I would love to go and show in London but it is very difficult to get that opportunity. Without financial backing or sponsorship it is very, very hard."

Top of the Scots

Christopher Kane

Kane exploded into fashion's consciousness in 2006, when his St Martin's degree collection was shown in the window of Harrods. Together with sister Tammy, his business partner and fitting model, he has built up an international reputation and stockist list. Always unpredictable, Kane's clothes (which tend to be short, tight, wildly coloured and embellished, possibly made of leather, chiffon or lace) often threaten to tip into vulgarity but never do.

Jonathan Saunders

Print and colour are the trademarks of Glaswegian Saunders' work. He has worked for Chloe, Alexander McQueen and Christian Lacroix as well as producing his own label. He made the cover of Vogue in 2004; Kylie, Madonna, Sienna Miller and the normally patriotic Michelle Obama have all worn his designs. Saunders decamped to New York Fashion Week for a couple of years, returning to London last year. He has just opened an online shop (best seller, the floral cashmere sweater, 595) and is considering menswear.

Holly Fulton

The work of Edinburgh College of Art graduate Fulton is hard to miss. Her huge art deco graphics, often embellished with crystals, and her graphic, navel-grazing necklaces mark her out as the coming talent. Fulton set the gossipy fashion world a twitter when Patricia Field, the New York stylist, put Sarah Jessica Parker into one of her dresses in Sex And The City 2.

Louise Gray

Gray, originally from Fraserburgh, describes herself as an embroiderer as well as a designer, and there is a strong element of needlework in her collections. She plays around with colour and texture, fearlessly clashing yellow and orange and then throwing in a dash of lime green for good measure. Her recent collaboration with asos.com means that her whimsically stitched pieces are now available at just pocket money prices.