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1953: fashion editors gather to watch Dolores, one of Norman Hartnell's top "mannequins", display the dressmaker's latest creation in his Bruton Street salon. Hartnell, commissioned to design the robes for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, was a leading light as Britain developed its own fashion industry after the war.

1999: he would have cut an unlikely figure alongside the elegant Norman Hartnell, but the new British hero of haute couture, East End boy Alexander McQueen, showed the romance of his predecessor at British Fashion Week. Belying his boot-boy image, he presented soft pinks, greys and whites in a show that turned catwalk into theatre.