The favoured fabric of the season came in some very clever forms. Crisp white lace dresses at Jaeger, Peter Jensen and Meadham Kirchhoff (the latter's scissored into tiny ballerina motifs) are just the start. Lace segues so seamlessly into a print of itself, and other prints plus beading, at Clements Ribeiro and Preen, that it is hard to work out the complex elements. It comes as crunchy 1970s style guipure at Mulberry and is best of all at Erdem, who not only makes the most exquisitely fragile lace dresses so pale there is only a whisper of blue, but also adds embroidery, beading and a dusting of crystal that shimmers like the tiniest snowfall. Extraordinary.

Think Palm Beach with a touch of Stepford wife, an idyllic image of early 1960s life, when women wore pastel ruffled peignoirs (Nicoll) in the bedroom, Pucci-style printed tunics (Fulton) or repressed passion beneath neat A-line dresses (Marios Schwab and Mulberry) by day, and a stunning, bright chiffon gown with a floating train and flying panels and a ton of crystal (Williamson, Antonio Berardi) in the evening. What was seen for so long as dull, now, in the hands of bright young Brits, looks subversive. Funny that.

Following New York's shiny Marc Jacobs look, London's designers have been working with the same new techno fabrics in highly imaginative ways. Katrantzou gives a translucent sheen to her highly complex prints; Preen does similar with pixellated print. Giles turns it into silver foil and then veils it with chiffon, Berardi shows off the rigorous seaming of his tailoring with organza over glimmering patent and Kane presses bright seed-packet flower motifs into it. Schwab's quiet yet stunning, dark seamed chiffons over pastel linings have a film noir tension while Kinder's studded 1920s-inspired chiffons over naive flower prints are punky yet prim.

Black is now strictly for evening, or acts as a foil for white.  Pastels are key - Neapolitan ice cream stripes at Mulberry and Preen, sugared almond shades at Richard Nicoll, Osman and Meadham Kirchhoff. This year's take on last summer's citrus is added spice - candied lemon, saffron, curry, plus soft herbal greens, from apple and olive to khaki. Or sing the blues from  palest powder through china to bluebell (Erdem), hottest kingfisher (Holly Fulton and Roksanda Ilincic) and deep, saturated Klein blue (Matthew Williamson and Paul Smith). Mix them all  up in London's trademark stunning print - like Mary Katrantzou's extraordinary clashes based on birds, flowers and blow-up industrial components - but keep it simple: All that colour and print needs plain shapes, beautifully cut.