‘Dita von Teese’ is dead - long live ethereal girl

London Fashion Week is over and one thing is certain -  the Burlesque stripper look has suffered the cruel boot of fashion. Her scarlet-red lips forming an 'O' of silent protest, her lager-induced jollity snuffed out with a klunk on the pavement, she's flat on her back in her stripper heels.

And what's in, according to the chief druid of fashion, Anna Wintour? Christopher Kane's parade of ascetic models in their barely-there dresses. Enter Ethereal Girl.

As a gaggle of office girls squeezed onto my Tube carriage at Leicester Square last night, en route to a hen party, you had to agree it was time. Fashion can be cruel. The Burlesque look was inspired by the supremely confident performers Dita von Teese and Lady Gaga, graced by theatrical lighting and teams of stylists.

But as the girls on the Piccadilly Line lurched through the carriage in their patent-leather platform heels like clumsy pole dancers, their bodies heaving in their micro-mini bandeau dresses and fishnets, their cleavage dusted with glitter, to me at least, their firetruck-red lips shrieked insecurity.

The new look is reminiscent of the turn-of-the-century Pre-Raphaelite consumptive beauty. With dark circles under their eyes, and wan complexions, the models at the Christopher Kane show would look best in a white nightie on a clifftop or wearing nothing but moonlight. Imagine Edward Gorey's hollow-eyed children, all grown up.

Whereas the Burlesque style looked best when drunk, Kane's models were stone-cold sober, drifting past in their lava-lamp-inspired dresses (above), each beautiful body seemingly dipped in a sparkling, still-wet celestial juice, a translucent coating rather than dressing for exquisite bodies.

The crowd gasped, perhaps at the thought of their best friend – worse still, their best friend's mother - actually wearing such an outfit. And yet once Anna Wintour declared Kane's genius, the mainstream papers reeled out the photographs and no-one dared question her authority.

The truth is, the look will lose its magic beyond the catwalk, without Kane's carefully chosen cast of models with their dirty pretty faces and uber-cool attitude.

Imagine the next wave of hen-night girls tumbling onto the Friday night Tube, dressed in translucent plastic sheaths, doing their best to look like the walking dead. Eeek! Bring back the Burlesque stripper – all is forgiven! ·