When Bristol Evening Post journalist Sarah Feeley met fashion designer Paul Costelloe, the pair got on so well that he invited her to his fashion show which officially opened London Fashion Week. Here she describes how she spent the day surrounded by fashionistas wearing clothes which cost more than her car and sitting elbow-to-elbow with the world's leading fashion journalists...

Darling, I adooore that top. It's fabulous. Who's it by?" said the fashionista dressed neck-to-knee in Gucci, peeking over the top of her designer sunglasses.

"Thanks, I got it from this little place I know in Bristol," I replied, smiling and staring down at the silk, mandarin-collar, wrap-around top I bought for £6.99 from Primark.

Surreal is not the word. I was standing in the Chelsea sunshine outside a giant marquee, surrounded by beautiful people wearing designer clothes which cost more than my car.

Queues of fashion fans were trying to sweet-talk the stern-looking door staff into letting them in to watch the show and 6ft models were strutting down the path as if it were a catwalk.

Paul Costelloe is a famous Irish fashion designer whose clothes have been worn by royalty, rock stars' wives and rich celebrities.

Paul and I met at a fashion show at the Mall at Cribbs Causeway, which was hosted by his old mucker, former Clothes Show host Jeff Banks.

When Jeff pulled him on stage for a quick chat, Paul told the audience that if he could dress any woman it would be Cherie Blair, as her style "needs a bit of work".

Minutes later Paul, who was sitting next to me, handed me a piece of paper. He had sketched the Prime Minister's wife wearing an outfit he had just designed for her in his head. Wow.

As he dashed off for an afternoon appointment in Paris (as you do), Paul kissed me on both cheeks, took my business card and promised to send me an invitation to his London Fashion Week show.

"Sweet idea", I thought, "but he's so busy it's never going to happen."

Two days, a hand-written invitation and a train ride later, I was sitting in a huge plush marquee off London's Kings Road, elbow-to-elbow with the world's leading fashion journalists, waiting to watch Paul's fashion show, which officially opened London Fashion Week.

When the lights went down the gabbling audience hushed and the hairs on the back of my neck pricked up as the pack of national newspaper photographers disappeared behind their lenses.

Supermodel Jodie Kidd strode out of the wings with a burst of music and a flash of light, dressed in a Fifties-style black dress, delicate white gloves, and - bizarrely - white ankle socks with black high heels.

The striking 6ft 1in model, formerly a painfully stick-thin "superwaif", recently revealed that many designers refuse to book her now she has put on two stone in weight and looks healthy.

How fitting, then, that there she was as the star model for a designer who champions the cause of real women, a man who once said: "There is a huge gap between what looks great on wafer-thin models and what looks great on real women."

Kidd and co paraded up and down in Paul's fab new collection.

Confusingly, on planet fashion it's not autumn at all, it's spring/summer next year. So the show was packed with pretty dresses, expertly tailored summer jackets, cool spring knits and pleated skirts, all in ice-cream pastels. Not bad for a man who used to work in a pig factory.

The applause was deafening as the models took a bow and Paul stepped blinking onto the catwalk, a supermodel on his arm and a look of humble pride and utter relief on his face.

Determined to thank the designer himself for inviting me, after the show I jumped onto the catwalk to join journalists and camera crews from all over the world jostling to interview Paul.

After squeezing my way to the front I waited for a nano-second break between interviews and grabbed Paul's arm.

He spun around and smiled, kissed both my cheeks and thanked me for coming.

I had just enough time to thank him and tell him I loved the clothes before the fashion pack lurched forward and I was lost in the crowd.

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