Fashionista contributor Long Nguyen is the co-founder/style director of Flaunt.

LONDON–What’s a London experience without a little rain? And so it was that around 6pm last Sunday, a sunny afternoon surrendered to light drizzle as several black cars queued to drop just 55 guests off at Tom Ford’s showroom on a side street near Victoria Station for his intimate spring 2012 fashion show. Several male models clad in black three piece suits ushered them inside under enormous umbrellas, a scene more suitable for an embassy dinner than a runway show.

Inside on the second floor showroom, the reception desk was temporarily converted into a bar where waiters served vodka tonic, champagne and still waters. “It has an air of the old Gucci shows with Domenico Desole greetings guests and waiters serving Vodka,” Hillary Alexander told me as we sipped on drinks and waited to enter the main room.

In the late 90’s, in addition to a large bouquet of white flowers and a handwritten note to welcome us to Milano, some of us would get a bottle of vodka, or, on occasion, a 25 year-old bottle of whiskey from Mr. Ford at our hotel room. Then, the designer’s debauched sexy and slinky styles ushered a revolution in fashion. Now, we are in a different moment in time. In this digital age where images from fashion shows hold the attention span of a click to the next page, there is a need for designers to apply a different approach to how fashion can be seen and evaluated.

But back to the show.

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