His focus: the fantasy and frivolity of the fashion business. This was no better epitomised, in Downton’s opinion, than by outrageous Paris Fashion Week collections at the turn of the century, when he stepped off the Eurostar fresh-faced. “The works are based off of the shows that really stuck with me, inspired by uncompleted sketches. A lot of them were early: 1997, 1998. I was new, and I was in Narnia. I arrived the same year John Galliano went to Dior and Alexander McQueen went to Givenchy, which was a lot like pulling two grenades. Fashion prior to that was in a doldrum phase, and it enlivened everything,” he says.