Say what?

Has there ever been a season where so many designers channel such diverse looks? For instance, we have palest pastels and romantic ruffles alongside second-skin sportswear in neon shades. Whaaat the? And when it comes to who was inspired by what, it gets truly mind-boggling: slippery reptiles, Prehistoric monsters, geeky hillbillies, tattoos, light fittings, soft furnishings? At least that\'s what it looks like to us. Read on to discover the real inspiration behind spring/summer 2010\'s most spectacular fashions.

Alexander Wang: American football?

Just when you thought shoulders couldn\'t get any bigger, along comes Alexander Wang with football on the brain. As in the all-American variety, the sport that grinds the US to a halt whenever a National League game is on telly (remember the Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction witnessed by 140 million US citizens?). Anyone who has spent time in the States will appreciate how this collection is going down. Do they love it? You betcha! Fashionistas too mind. What a way for sportswear to make a comeback. Wang\'s slouchy high fashion handwriting gives sportswear sophistication like never before (was he the inspiration behind X Factor winner Alexandra Burke\'s new video Broken Heels we ask ourselves?). Boned corsets morph into sweatshirts, saucy micro-shorts and mini dresses come in utility fabrics, and every ensemble is created to be worn - as it was on the catwalk - with high heels. Yay! Other highlights included a handbag fashioned out of a deflated football and knee high \"jock\" socks. This designer can\'t put a foot wang, sorry wrong. He shoots. He scores

Picture: Alexander Wang spring/summer 2010.

Alexander McQueen: reptile house at London Zoo?

We kind of rely on McQueen - the Damien Hirst of the fashion world - to make us feel queasy as well as incredulous about clothes. His shows might have mellowed over the years but his ideas haven\'t; each collection seems a bit darker and more disturbing than the last. Take Plato\'s Atlantis, his spring/summer 2010 offering, in which he let his imagination really let rip, revelling in his passion/obsession for natural history. What initially appeared to be inspired by the reptile house at London Zoo, turns out to be McQueen championing Darwin. You never like to delve too far into this designer\'s ideas for fear of nightmares but this was too intriguing to pass. Turns out it\'s his take on what would happen in a post-apocalyptic age where humankind evolves from the sea. This accounts for the reptile/fish/amphibious/alien digi prints and those freakish armadillo shoeboots, as worn by Lady Gaga in her Bad Romance video. Enquiries about these began a matter of hours after the McQueen show went live online at SHOWstudio.com. If you don\'t like spiders or snakes, (or worms, this is the man who incorporated living earthworms into plastic trousers for his debut collection) there are safer designers to examine under the microscope. McQueen remains a rare species indeed.

Picture: Alexander McQueen spring/summer 2010; and inset those armadillo shoes.

Louis Vuitton: The Jackson 5

Hair. There was a lot of it about on the Louis Vuitton catwalk in Paris. Afro wigs in an assortment of shades from blonde to white through ginger, brown and black, were painstakingly teased into halo-like puffy clouds. Could it be that Marc Jacobs was paying his last respects to the late, great Jacko? Well, we certainly couldn\'t help but think of The Jackson Five (circa 1972). It allegedly took the British hairstylist, Guido (known in the industry by his first name only but we can reveal his surname is, Palau), two hours per girl to construct the jaw-dropping giant pom-pom hairstyles. If it were anyone else besides this superleague hairdresser (who created virtually all designer catwalk looks for spring/summer 2010 including Marc Jacobs\' own name show where hair was tightly drawn into topknots like the Siamese children in \"The King & I\"), we might not take the style quite so seriously. Jacobs said post-show about his Vuitton collection, \"travellers - the movement that came in after punk\", inspired it. In which case could the giant Afro simply be a case of hair today gone tomorrow?

Picture: Louis Vuitton spring/summer 2010.

Ralph Lauren: Mid-West cowboy?

Ralph is very good at re-packaging and making clothes, which are, in theory, long past their sell by date, scrub up mighty well. He\'s made a fortune out of recognising the potential of fusty equestrian gear, outdated military uniforms, dowdy tweeds and basic cotton shirts. Now he\'s set his sights on something the late, great Yves Saint Laurent (who invented virtually everything we now think of as modern fashion) always lamented he had not discovered himself: jeans. For spring/summer 2010, designer denim is bleeping uncontrollably on the fashion radar thanks to Hannah MacGibbon\'s collection for Chloé and Ralph Lauren, who both put denim through its paces in their catwalk shows. From baggy dungarees that looked like they\'d been ripped off the back of a cowboy to a finale of satin and lamé evening gowns dyed to resemble that most hardworking of fabrics. Ralph Lauren might have used the red neck, Mid-West farmer as a starting point but the end result was, as you\'d imagine, as sophisticated and high falutin\' as ever.

Picture: Ralph Lauren spring/summer 2010.

Christopher Kane: Barn dancing?

Yee haw. Fancy a square dance? Then Christopher Kane has the perfect collection for your doe-si-doe. Pretty - or should that be \"purty\" - is the new buzzword in fashion, with both Kane and Karl (Lagerfeld) hitting the same note. Chanel was all about models frolicking in the hay wearing checked mini milkmaid frocks and flower-appliquéd clogs. According to Kane and Karl, designer gingham circa 2010, is less overtly sexual than say, the stuff of Eighties Guess adverts but its roots still lie firmly in the American Deep South. Incorporating features like baby blue and pink checks, feather light fan-pleating, puff-sleeves and rosy embroidery - more usually found in childrenswear - and raising hemlines Kane dances with controversy. But the 27-year-old scamp, who hails from Newarthill near Motherwell, could perhaps tell you, Square or Barn dancing actually has its roots in Scottish dancing. With the all-important bra on show this is as sweet as it is sexy. Och yes, when it comes to being sexy Kane is very able.

Picture: The gingham dresses spotted on the spring/summer 2010 Christopher Kane catwalk.

Stella McCartney: Curtains?

Let\'s just call her Stella McCatwalk shall we? She\'s pretty much spot on when it comes to pinpointing the hottest trends of the season. And she\'s done it again with her digi-splodge rose print dress which is, without a doubt, \"of-the-moment\". Expect this to be the dress we see in every editorial and on red carpets henceforth. As gorgeous Russian supermodelski, Natalia Vodianova sashayed down the Paris runway wearing a pleated, one-shouldered billowing garment that resembled a pair of curtains (or КОНЕЦ in Russian fact fans), from a \'70s seaside motel, we weren\'t convinced. But on reflection the curtain dress with its pretty print, super-swirling ruffles and fan pleats does tick several trend boxes for spring/summer 2010. We\'re (curtain) hooked.

Picture: Natalia Vodianova takes to the catwalk for Stella McCartney\'s spring/summer 2010 show.

Prada: Chandeliers?

You really have to pay attention to whatever Miuccia Prada does, because a couple of seasons later whatever has been her inspiration kicks in. And some. Take black lace. She did it and then one year later so did everyone else. That said, I\'m not so sure her thigh-high fishing waders of winter just gone will have the same effect. Crystal chandelier shoes are another thing entirely. Never mind the new shape these are the new \'sound\' of fashion. I predict sales in the IKEA lighting department - which sells loose chandelier components that you can put together yourself - will rocket the moment women everywhere discover the hottest shoe trend from the spring/summer 2010 Prada catwalk in Milan. Here, clear plastic shoes were covered in chandelier shards dangling frivolously from straps and heels. Thanks to Miuccia it\'s no longer about low being the new high, or kitten or spindle heels. It\'s about twinkling - and tinkling - as you walk. \"It\'s about optimism,\" declared Miuccia post-show. It\'s not, I tell you. It\'s about chandelier shoes.

Picture: A model wearing the perspex chandelier shoes takes to the catwalk during the Prada spring/summer 2010 show.

Giles Deacon and Jeremy Scott: Dinosaurs?

Jeremy Scott\'s show at London Fashion Week was so, like, Prehistoric. No really it was. The madcap American channeled the Stone Age with an impressive cast of cavewomen models wearing the sort of gear last seen around the time dinosaurs roamed the earth. Actually, it was rather more like an outtake from the 1960\'s Technicolor cartoon, The Flintstones, which in 2010 celebrates a whopping 50 years on the air this year (Yabba Dabba Doo!) This was the inspiration behind Scotts\' collection worn on the catwalk by Pixie Geldof, Daisy Lowe and Liberty Ross, in a series of Wilma Flintstone-esque neon-orange sabre-tooth tiger-print one-shoulder frocks and bikinis. Hairdos were as you\'d expect all very \"Pebbles\", Fred Flintstones daughter, updated by crazy-colour wigs secured by a fake bone and looking like they\'d been dragged backwards by a pterodactyl.

Dinosaurs also inspired Cumbrian-born designer Giles Deacon whose models stalked the Paris catwalk carrying handbags in the shape of triceratops. (The show invite was a dinosaur balloon). Most shocking of all? No, not the black widow spider print on T-shirts and dresses, but models sporting fake grey hair inspired by the greatest living fashion dinosaur of all, Daphne Guinness.

Picture: From left; Giles Deacon spring/summer 2010, and right; Jeremy Scott spring/summer 2010.

Holly Fulton: New York

Edinburgh-born Holly Fulton is in a New York state of mind. Not content to be home to a new wave of exciting designers, Gossip Girl and the new Sex And The City movie (not too long to go now girls!), all fashion eyes are swivelling to Manhattan. Fulton\'s Art Deco prints on her spring/summer 2010 range were clearly inspired by that instantly recognisable skyline, the one that makes you feel like you\'ve stepped onto the set of a movie (or fashion-conscious TV show) every time you see it. Who could ever tire of the magnificent pointy top Empire State building? Who would have thought it could translate so seamlessly onto sequinned Sixties shifts, (Empire) statement plastic and crystal embellished necklaces, dangly earrings and supersized clutch bags? Fulton, who studied textiles at London\'s Royal College of Art, says her collection was in fact inspired by a piece of art by Eduardo Paolozzi called Wittgenstein in New York. Cool. We hope this young designer gets some sort of commission from the Big Apple after this.

Picture: Holly Fulton spring/summer 2010.

Rodarte: Maori tattoos

As Viz magazine might put it, models at this show got their ‘tats\' oot. Very nice they looked too. Tribal tattoos, similar to the Polynesian art form of the Maori folk of New Zealand, appeared to be the focal point of the most recent by collection by Kate and Laura Mulleavy, the sisters behind Rodarte. This show more than any other had European fashion editors hanging off the edge of their seats lusting with desire (at last that much-longed photographic assignment to New Zealand is justified!) Although we are used to Rodarte fashion statements being at a tangent to mainstream trends, this one was punchy enough to hold its own. Every catwalk outfit was a small fashion installation complete with elaborate hand-dyed fabrics, tassels, goth-style cobweb knitwear and elaborate macramé patchwork tailoring. One more Kiwi link. The actor, Elijah Wood, was at the show, as he is at most Rodarte events. Wasn\'t he Frodo Baggins? And wasn\'t Lord of The Rings filmed in New Zealand? Laura Mulleavy reveals the collection was in fact inspired by a trip to Death Valley in her native California and based on an idea about a woman who escapes an apocalyptic encounter where she is virtually burned alive and has to scavenge through a war-torn landscape for clothes. Remember that next time you moan about not having a stitch to wear.

Picture: Rodarte spring/summer 2010.