“The girls from Liverpool and the Indian girls go for them,” says the Dior assistant.

“Well, I’m from Liverpool, and I think it’s like a Barbie shoe,” says Eagles’s mate. “I’ve never seen a girl in Liverpool wearing a pair of those. I could really see Jodie Marsh in that — at Stringfellows.”

Eagles looks over the selection in the concession, which is largely bags, shoes and entry-level clothing — scarves, tops and those J’adore Dior T-shirts. “They remind me of ‘I love Benidorm’. I really do not know who buys them,” she says, fingering a £255 sequined one. “Some of it’s young, fun and bold, like disposable high fashion at top prices. But even if the prices were high-street, I still wouldn’t buy it. I suppose it’s a real emblem of how much disposable cash is around.”

Her mate says: “It makes me think of that Shania Twain line, ‘All we ever want is more/A lot more than we had before’.”

Justine Mills, the owner and buyer of Cricket, Liverpool’s fashion HQ for footballers’ wives, explains why, in a city of peacocks who love nothing more than dressing very up, and will spend their last pennies doing so, you can’t find Dior. “We have Roland Mouret, Balenciaga, Stella, Chloé, Missoni, Matthew Williamson and Temperley. But we don’t stock Dior, because, although I think it has a fantastic designer, the best, I imagine the people who buy it are Russian prostitutes.”

The words “Russian prostitute” come up again in the weeks spent trying to figure out who is Dior woman now. The label, once known for its raffiné tailoring, romantic evening dresses and strong sense of colour, is now frequently spoken of in those somewhat racist bywords for a tasteless logo whore. Even the two most devoted Dior junkies I unearthed used those cruel words when we went for a good rummage around the Sloane Street shop. Even they found some of the kit revolting.

Fashion takes a hard line on Dior’s designer, John Galliano. He is, officially, a genius, and is always spoken of in reverential terms. If you own a piece of Galliano’s Central St Martins graduation show — famously sold lock, stock to Joan Burstein of Browns as it came off the catwalk — then you own a fashion Picasso. The maverick prince joined the house of Dior in 1997, and has been credited with raising one of Paris’s most distinguished ateliers from the dust. His couture shows are a fashion spectacular, the work of a genius designer at the top of his game, but he also bears responsibility for the entire design empire — the ready-to-wear, accessories, perfume, children’s clothes, watches, jewellery and beauty. From a £30,000 couture dress to a £10 lip gloss, it is all under Galliano’s creative thumb.

He has said that when he designs couture, he has someone real in his head, someone who epitomises modern style — Kate Moss or Gwen Stefani, perhaps. I wonder whom he had in mind when he was designing the plastic high-heeled mules in white and pink? There is a chasm between the glamour, creativity and spectacle of catwalk Dior, and the utter trashiness of much of the Dior that makes it into the shops. The French are whispering about the tarnishing of the once chic brand. Two Parisian stylists told me how they had stood outside the shop on Avenue Montaigne, laughing.

A high-end freelance fashion stylist, who would not be named (insult Dior and you will probably never be allowed access to its clothes again), concurs: “I definitely think that the stuff in the shop is absolute trash. The shows are an amazing spectacle, but bullshit compared with what ends up in the shops, where there is pink and chiffon and diamanté all over the place.

“It’s a case of emperor’s new clothes, because nobody in London does that look. I imagine Britain is not a big market for them. Who wears that shit?” Another international fashion commentator, who also refused to be named, sees Dior as “that strange mix of high-fashion concept and something trashy and naff. It is for people with flashy money. And for those who can’t afford the suit, there are hair bobbles and handbags. Under Galliano, Dior has become more accessible, but his accessible lines don’t sit comfortably with the prêt-à-porter. It is like he is having a laugh at the customer’s expense”.

Galliano doesn’t see it like that, of course. “The trick, I guess, is to get a happy balance of creativity and originality with commercial appeal,” he says, “to create a mood or personality that everyone can tap into and buy into.” Or, as Sidney Toledano, the president of Dior, puts it: “The creative side defines the concept of the collection — the vision. The business side is responsible for bringing the designer’s vision to life ... with the consumer.”

But what sort of consumer? I am in the store on Sloane Street, the only Dior shop in Britain. Upstairs, the shoes, handbags and sunglasses draw a crowd of bridge-and-tunnel shoppers in crisply ironed peasant wear, straight outta Epsom. The majority of the shoppers are American, wearing hijab or doing the bubble-gum high-fashion thing that the Japanese do so well. Downstairs, where the clothes are, there is just an overweight mother of the bride and her pal. Of course, there is stuff I would grab in a trolley dash — the odd vest, a pair of black silk MC Hammer pants, a petrol-green, classic Galliano bias-cut dress, spoilt only by a blatant logo’ed buckle on its hip. But I am here for the horrors, and my basket overfloweth: fringed suede hot pants, brown jeans in logo-ed fabric, a fuchsia frilly top, appliquéd and sequined denim, even midriff-baring tops (even New Look has dumped the crop top — midriff-baring is desperately fashion old hat). The nipped-in jackets in the palest denim with white lace look great in the ads, but would take some wearing to look anything other than Moscow moneyed in the real world. The pièces de résistance, though, are white-and-pink logoed silk-jersey sports separates. Teamed in a certain way, they look remarkably like shell suits.

Times recommends

• The Boxing Day tsunami: five years on
• What took place in 2010...
• Can you really cure a hangover?