SOME designers spend the days — the hours, the minutes — before their show sweating with anxiety. Julian Roberts and his girlfriend Sophie Cheung, two London designers, checked into the Great Eastern Hotel and went to bed for five days. They decided to hold a (yuck) love-in in the style of, yes, John Lennon and Yoko Ono at the Amsterdam Hilton in 1969.

Apart from the fact that no one needs any more Beatles references, is this acceptable behaviour? Of course, it wasn’t a publicity trick; Roberts handily prefers to describe it as an anti-war protest and an indication of their feeling that to put on a catwalk show would be “wrong, given the climate, not to say boring and repetitive”. That the collection itself — yes, there were actually clothes — was inspired by nightwear provides only the thinnest of excuses.

TALKING OF stunts, one couldn’t help wondering how the three angry women who jumped on to the catwalk at Julien Macdonald’s show — to protest against his use of fur — managed to move so quickly. Could their split-second timing have been due to an artful leak from the Macdonald camp? Although Peta (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) later took responsibility, it says a lot about Macdonald that most of the audience presumed it was an attention-seeking hoax on his part.

VOGUE has given a Channel 4 camera crew roaming access over the next few months for a fly-on-the-wall documentary. You’d have thought that this would have been welcomed by the publicity-hungry designers, PRs and companies whose paths the Vogue staff cross. But at the shows last week several designers responded frostily to the fact that Vogue editors were wired up for sound and ready to transmit: some things, it transpired, were suddenly confidential.

THE NEWS that Sharon Osbourne has bought the new pink Mulberry for Luella bag — as seen on many arms during the shows last week — will disappoint those who like to keep these things exclusive. But in one sense it boosts its appeal. If everyone has the same bag as you — even a well-travelled rock star’s wife — then a real mark of cool is who wears it best.

It’s an interesting barometer. Some items are condemned by an association with a bad celebrity, while other pieces are impervious to the touch of even the most D-list of soap stars. (Some people have a neutral effect, such as Kylie, who has bought a pink Luella bag too.) But the defining factor is how you make it your own: some know how to wear it well, some don’t.

Bag, Mulberry for Luella, £695 (020-7491 3900)

KYRI DESIGNS the kind of clothes adored by footballers’ wives, both real ones and their on-screen counterparts. Hyper-blonde, hyper-thin, hyper-tanned examples of both varieties made up most of the audience at his off-schedule show last week.

It was held at the same time as Temperley, the final on-schedule show which claimed the bulk of the fashion pack. Were Kyri and his crew bothered? Not in the slightest. They had Martine McCutcheon, reasoned a PR, and Chardonnay from Footballers’ Wives (the actress Susie Amy), and Victoria Beckham’s sister Louise Adams and, in fact, the entire Adams clan, bar Posh herself (who is also a fan). You can see why they might not be so concerned about the presence of a few hacks.

It certainly wasn’t a conventional show: the models appeared to be overexcited rather than dour-faced, and the catwalk could have done with a bit of a wash. But it had a liveliness that many shows lack, although that could have had something to do with the two hours of champagne that preceded it.

THE RUMOUR that Tom Ford will leave Gucci when his contract expires next year is still bubbling. Is it true? Who knows — Gucci Group has declined to comment. But perhaps more interesting is the question of who would take over the reins: some say it will be Alexander McQueen, although inevitably McQueen himself denies it, and anyway he is about to open his first London shop.

At Givenchy, it is looking increasingly as if Julien Macdonald will be replaced by Hedi Slimane, currently at Dior Homme. There is no official statement yet but Slimane has admitted he would be happy with the move.

And — do keep up — will Calvin Klein soon leave his throne, as the whispers have it? Narciso Rodriguez, a grade-A graduate of the school of minimalist dressing and a former Calvin Klein designer, is a possible successor: his recent show in New York was one of the strongest of the week and proved that he can hold his own.

Times recommends

• Live chat: Thrifty ways to update your winter wardrobe
• Is anybody out there really listening?
• Nutrition Q&A: Will eating late make me fat?