Isabelle resisted the temptation to tell Maya that she looked better than she’d ever looked before, and settled back into the chair. Elle Japon were featuring them as, it seemed, they were always destined to be featured – as the new wave of young British designers, momentarily putting the UK back on the fashion map before the spotlight moved on to Paris, New York or Milan. The fact that both of them were about to shake the dust of England from their Jimmy Choos for lucrative contracts with French couture houses did not dim this moment of Anglophilia. Maya had already crossed the Channel, and was comfortably ensconced in Laruche with a massive salary and minimal workload, most of which was farmed out to her eager minions. Isabelle, while she had not yet officially decided to say ‘oui’ to Givenchy, knew in her heart that she would.

Isabelle was in make-up for thirty minutes – twenty-five minutes longer than she would have taken at home. Maya did not emerge for another hour and a half.

‘That fucking seaweed has brought me out in lumps!’ she screamed. ‘You can’t photograph me. You’ll have to reschedule the shoot!’ Minions rushed from every side – Maya never rolled less than six deep – and moved towards the lift. Photographers screamed at assistants who screamed at translators who said, very quietly, ‘We beg you to reconsider, Miss Rodean,’ but by then it was too late, Maya was in the lift and the doors were about to close.

‘Great,’ said Isabelle, looking up from a copy of the magazine, ‘they can just feature me on my own. Suits me.’

The lift doors moved together, and would have closed completely had not Maya stuck her foot in the gap, risking irreparable damage to nearly two thousand pounds’ worth of shoe.

‘On second thoughts,’ said Maya, marching right back in again, ‘my schedule is packed, and who knows when I’ll find the time to get back to Tokyo.’ She snapped her fingers. ‘Mirror.’

A mirror was produced, and she observed her face like a man who suspects he’s cut himself shaving.

‘You’d better damn well Photoshop me to death, darling,’ she said to a young man with huge blue-framed spectacles and a gold lurex scarf, whom Isabelle took to be the art director, ‘or I will have your guts for garters. Translate that!’

‘I’m sure someone has a paper bag,’ said Isabelle, as they took their places on two thrones that had been set up in the middle of the studio. She half expected to see Union Jack bunting and corgis.