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  Peter Jensen and his topsy-turvy installation.
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  Les Trois Garçons overfloweth.
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  Lashings of Loewe.

By this time in the season, the vast majority of shops are awash with the remnants of last winter's 75% off scrag-ends - Rei Kawakubo's experimental, esoteric Dover Street Market, however, is the glorious exception to this (and almost every other) rule. Today marked the unveiling of their latest biannual 'transformation,' inviting a familiar host of fashion behemoths (Rei herself, protégé Junya Watanabe and Messieurs Elbaz and Ossendrijver at Lanvin, to name but few) and a new clutch of names to contribute to the Changing Rooms-style remodelling shenanigans. Foremost for the SHOWstudio crowd was the space devoted to our favourite Dane and first-time Dover Street entrant Peter Jensen, who took over the store's new Mini Exhibition space on the third floor with a specially-designed collection of six new dresses featuring his trademark prints, this time on luxurious pleated silk-crepe. To accompany these unique frocks was the space's inaugural exhibit, a spectacular but typically whimsical topsy-turvy cardboard cityscape created by Shona Heath, perfectly reflecting Jensen's idiosyncratic idiom.

Restauranteurs, raconteurs and now retail mavens: Les Trois Garçons took over both the ground floor window and a substantial chunk of the second floor. The studded leatherette octopus in the window (you have to see it to believe it) gave me the creeps, but their 'soft corner' crammed with taxidermy, ormolu-ed commodes and gewgaws of every description was doing quick business already. Maybe it's the old-fashioned Brit love of a good rummage - this is a market after all? On the subject of great Briticisms, the revival of the Casely-Hayford label (a late-80s/early-90s London staple) has been powered by just that: witness the fusion of McLaren/Westwood-era punk and Duke of Windsor-inspired suiting. Designed by Casely-Hayford senior Joe (former Creative Director and Gieves and Hawkes) and his son Charlie, the range is underpinned by a subtle subversion, expressed primarily through quality craftsmanship and the tricks of tailoring. The highlight, for me, was a hybrid of polished brogue and classic English walking boot - naturally enough, manufactured in Northampton.

Of course, my final stop was the Dover Street basement and Stuart Vever's more-resuscitated-than-revived Loewe (quickly becoming something of a fetish for my good self). Patchworked stingray, stamped patent, gold chains, snakeskin trims and a crocodile suitcase, Lindt-brown, brass-bound and retailing at around a cool 40k (according to French Vogue, bien sur). Worth every penny.