SO the photographs have been taken, the Champagne sipped and the goodie bags nabbed and the A-listers have happily done their front row duty.

And now finally the flurry of international Fashion Weeks are over (heck even our own here in Liverpool has just one day left to go).

First there was London, with all its edgy cool and the likes of Peaches and her pals pouting from the sidelines.

Then we had New York, where Posh Spice confirmed her credentials as a serious designer by unveiling her second fashion range and winning praise from all corners.

From there the fashion pack headed for the madness that is Milan Fashion Week where, if ever proof were needed, it became abundantly clear that the 80s are well and truly back.

And today, as ever, the party will come to an end with some posturing in Paris.

After last year’s haute couture shows, where the circle of designers hitting the runway gets smaller every year as the number of women able to pay upwards of £30,000 for a dress dwindles, some had expected this year’s Fashion Weeks to reflect the current ongoing world recession. But even if the productions and the number of models had been scaled back for some fashion houses, there was no sign of the cutbacks on the catwalks.

John Galliano said it best before his show for Dior last week when he announced: “This is a credit crisis, not a creative crisis”, adding in one interview that “in downturns it is my role more than ever to inspire the dreams of women”.

Elsewhere in Paris, pundits have been declaring this as Stella McCartney’s year.

Her collection was definitely beautiful and one of the most wearable but even more eye-catching than the clothes was Stella’s front row – her Beatle dad was there, naturally, squeezed in next to larger than-life rocker turned fashion icon Beth Ditto.

Able to cause a stir in an empty room, one can only imagine what the delicate Parisian ladies made of that one.

Mind you, the sight of Beth in all her curvy glory would have been nothing to anyone who had sat through Vivienne Westwood’s show a couple of days earlier.

The doyenne of British fashion had beach babe Pamela Anderson literally bursting out all over on the runway in black satin and pink tutus.

It was an injection of pure sex and silliness into the sometimes stuffy style world and made sure as ever, all eyes were on the Dame.

Here in Liverpool, organisers of only our second ever fashion week, which ends tomorrow with a huge party at Nation, have been pulling out all the stops to focus eyes on our city’s style.

And they too have a bit of Westwood on offer… Tim Westwood that is.