‘We’ve got to do this systematically,’ said Will. ‘We’ve got two days. Take notes, talk about prices, and we’ll make our choice tomorrow.’

‘Well I’ve got to have this one,’ said Isabelle, holding up a hanger of poison green satin. ‘It looks like dragon skin.’

Will hustled her on, always looking at prices, scribbling numbers in his notebook, picking up business cards, filing them carefully away in his organiser.

By mid morning, the hall was full – and now the racks of clashing colours had competition from the exotic creatures who had come, it seemed, as much to be seen as to see. There were designers, stylists, photographers, PRs, journalists, agents and models. There were ‘wannabes’ in all those categories. There were fashion students, who looked young even to Isabelle and Will, earnestly scribbling and sketching, struggling to take it all in. There were the has-beens, the also-rans, the never-weres, positioning themselves at prominent corners, hoping to be recognised, shrieking when they saw someone they knew, ostentatiously kissing, comparing scrawny necks and fake tans, rattling bangles like prisoners rattle their chains.

The women were all underweight, starved and anxious looking. The men had taken steps to eradicate any signs of masculinity – eyebrows were plucked, faces shaven down to the dermis, polished to a high shine with tinted moisturiser. There was enough make-up in the room to paint the Pont Neuf several times over. Perfumes mingled in the air to form a slightly nauseating uniform scent – the smell, thought Will, of fashion. Voices were raised against inappropriately loud sound systems. It was like a cross between a sex club and Heathrow in terminal meltdown.

Isabelle wasn’t hearing (or smelling) any of this. She had a faraway look in her eyes, a look that Will had seen many times when they were at St Martins together – a look that told him that Isabelle was a real designer, a woman with artistic vision, while he would only ever be a good businessman. She needed him, to bring those visions to life – and he needed her, her instinct, her passion, her talent. And more? Did he need her for something else besides? They had been skirting around the issue of sex for weeks now. She expected it, he could see that. She would not be the first woman in his life, and she might not even be the last – but what was the point of leading girls on when you had no intention of following through? A quick fuck at fifteen could be put down to curiosity, inexperience or just plain greed. But they were adults. They – he – knew what they wanted. She wanted him, and tonight, in that impossibly romantic garret high above the noise and grime of the boulevard, the dome of Sacré Coeur just visible from the window, she hoped to get him.

But he didn’t want her. Not for that, at any rate.

Now his energies were focused on the business of getting a Cissé dress on the red carpet at the Oscars. Okay, so there was unresolved sexual tension between them – so far, so Hollywood. But this was was not a movie. There would be no passionate embraces among mountains of taffeta on the studio floor. This was reality, and one of them was going to be disappointed.