London Fashion Week 2015: From catwalk to High Street

Twice a year, London's grand neoclassical Somerset House, welcomes a tumult of fashion designers and their models dressed in their finest gladrags.

The courtyard becomes the centre of London Fashion Week - a far cry from the building's sober past as home to the Inland Revenue.

This year sees the event's 61st year, during which more than 250 designers will showcase their collections for autumn and winter to a global audience.

For those outside the fashion industry, it can be difficult to appreciate why this week is so important. Fashion has long been criticised as frivolous and superficial, dictating trends that are swiftly cast aside.

Indeed, watching the crowds teetering on vertiginous heels, heads topped with designer sunglasses, arms toting handbags and hands clutching smartphones, it is easy to understand why.

Yet while it may look like a big party to outsiders, the week is a crucial one for the industry.

"It is incredibly important because it's the showcase of the very best of British businesses to an international audience," says Caroline Rush, chief executive of the British Fashion Council.

"The British fashion industry is exceeding the current economic growth we are seeing in the UK - because we are exporting all over the world."