Rooms With a View

Catwalking.com

From left: An outfit from Graeme Black and Kinder Aggugini

A vicarious thrill of London shows is the venues-such splendid rooms with a view. In the space of two hours on Saturday morning, we got to go to the top floor of a long out-of-bounds iconic skyscraper (for although 32 floors might not count as particularly sky-scraping to New Yorkers, that's high enough for Central London) and to Spencer House, (as in once the home of Princess Diana's forefathers).

Kinder Aggugini (who is he? more in a moment) showed on the top floor of Centrepoint which is no longer even in the top 20 highest buildings in London. So why the excitement? After the honeycomb concrete and glass tower was completed in 1966, it sat empty for years because, scandalously, the tycoon who developed it couldn't afford to keep it. In 1974, homeless campaigners occupied the building and the London charity, Centrepoint takes its name form the building that once symbolized heartlessness and greed.

Now, Centrepoint is THE address, although, usually you can only access the uppermost floor as a private member of the very select club, called The Paramount, helmed by the actor and wit, Stephen Fry. Before and after Aggugini's show, people scurried round looking out North, West, South (only to the East, and the financial centers of the City and its off-shoot Canary Wharf do much taller towers pierce the sky) to admire views over Hyde and Regents Park. "I can see my house!" someone shouted, pointing.

Graeme Black held his show at Spencer House, a Palladian villa stuffed with such treasures that no flash photography was allowed in case exquisite art, including paintings which are the property of Her Royal Highness, The Queen, might be damaged. Black is a Scot, although he lived for some years in Italy where he worked for Giorgio Armani and then as the head designer for Ferragamo. His tastes are grand and so were the clothes that, while looking somewhat out of step with current times, looked perfectly proper in such magnificent surroundings.

Kinder Aggugini is an Italian. While his name doesn't roll off the tongue yet, those of Calvin Klein, Versace, Vivienne Westwood, John Galliano of course do, and the 40-something, who first came to London in the 70s-when he, bizarrely, earned the nickname Kinder, which has stuck instead of his birth name Paolo-has worked for all of them. Up to now, Agguigini has been a name the likes of Madonna and the staffers of British Vogue tried to keep their own little secret. His assured mix of hard/soft military-style tailoring with ravishingly pretty muted floral gowns means the secret is out now.