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This quote from one of The Times' London fashion Week first reports on the week in 1984, is as relevant today. “The stand-out shows were from the designers who managed to put the creative energy of young London on the catwalk.”

This experimental tenacity is what makes London so unique. In 1984, Bodymap (the label closed its doors before seeing out the Eighties), John Galliano, John Flett and Wendy Dagworthy were shocking the front rows. Today, the names have changed (Christopher Kane, Gareth Pugh and Giles Deacon, are a few of the radicals), but the spirit remains the same. London isn't just about the new and daring though, there are established designers more interested in clean lines than club-wear. Of the original line-up, Jasper Conran, Caroline Charles and Betty Jackson remain.

London might not boast the enormous sponsorship deals of New York or the mainstream trends inspired by Milan or Paris's style purity, but every so often creative forces collide, and a fashion moment occurs. It happened in 1984 and just over a decade later, when the stars aligned again, Cool Britannia arrived. With it came some of today's most influential designers - Alexander McQueen, Stella McCartney and Matthew Williamson.

Times Archive, 1984: London fashion

The London collections drew an international audience not seen in town since the swollen-head sixties

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The week has enjoyed regular royal and political endorsements; in 1988 Margaret Thatcher celebrated the £4.5 million that it generated and so, last year, did Sarah Brown - although the figure had risen to £20 million.

Models have posed difficulties. There was outrage in 1997 when Vivienne Westwood used 13-year-old girls. Then there was heroin chic and size zero. Thankfully, the British Fashion Council is tackling the problems, and for two years Erin O'Connor, an original heroin chic-er herself, has set up a “model sanctuary” between shows.

That's the thing about London Fashion Week, there is plenty of grit and determination. In fact, it's possible that the economic cloud could just generate another seminal moment for British fashion.

Some of the greats of British fashion...

Matthew Williamson

It's your first London Fashion Week show and nobody knows your name. What do you do? Well, if you're Matthew Williamson, you befriend Jade Jagger, get her to tell her mates Kate Moss and Helena Christensen about your clothes, and in September 1997 stun the world with a starry line-up of models (paid in clothes, not money). Williamson started with tropical silks and delicate embroidery; a decade on, although he now shows in New York, he remains true to his bohemian roots.

Rifat Ozbek

After the excess of the 1980s and Ozbek's concentration on kaftans, he wiped the slate clean for 1990 with his famous White Collection. Focusing on a new minimalism and environmentally friendly consumerism, the collection caught the new mood of the times. He showed hooded sweatshirt tops, shiny body-hugging separates and trainers, all meant for the club scene and not for the gym.

Christopher Kane

He managed to persuade Anna Wintour to sit on his first front row in 2006 and became an instant Fashion Week darling. The clothes helped too - neon pink, acid yellow and electric blue bandage dresses that got girls who like to party sitting up and taking note. His decision to use wild colours and unforgiving shapes, when everyone else was doing boxy blacks and nudes, put him at the front of a new revolution. Each season his aesthetic alters slightly, but he is always ahead of the game.

Hussein Chalayan

A designer who thinks outside the box, Chalayan wrote a long work of fiction to accompany his first show. For his second, Temporary Interference in 1994, instead of just running up some dresses on a sewing machine, Chalayan buried them, scattered with iron fillings in a north London back garden. He exhumed the pieces two months later and set a new precedent for original design. Chalayan has since turned a dress into a table and showed wearable and delicate pieces.

Alexander McQueen

His first show at the Ritz included duchesse satin frocks printed with images from Taxi Driver and with 4ft-long sleeves. This collection, in 1993, revealed superb tailoring (learnt on Savile Row) and his original, sometimes shocking vision. From frock coats he moved to tampon strings, gagged models and bronze breastplates. But strip away the McQueen theatre and there are exquisite clothes beneath. A key player in the Nineties Cool Britannia set.

John Galliano

Galliano helped to launch London Fashion Week with his blend of Eastern fabrics and modern pattern-cutting. With the support of Joan Burnstein at Browns, he let his untamed imagination, fascination with historical dress and complex manipulation of fabric rule the London schedule. His style became increasingly feminine and in 1996 Galliano became the creative director at Givenchy. He moved to Dior the following year, where he remains.

Bodymap

Designers David Holah and Stevie Stewart were London Fashion Week mavericks. Among the first to bring music and style together in a manic frenzy of colour and energy, they catered for the adventurous youth market: gender-bending swimsuits, zebra print bodies and psychedelic tracksuits were Bodymap's answer to regular get-up.

Vivienne Westwood

She tore up the establishment on the Kings Road and jokingly glorified royalty and all that's British on the catwalk. Her Harris Tweed collection (1988) saw Westwood's return to London after a stint in Paris; it was inspired by our Queen as a teenager and gave models crowns, tartans, corsets and attitude - as well as some traditional English tailoring.

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