Fire-red faery queen Agyness leads nymphs and sprites on Giles catwalk

The prettiness, and extreme lightness of touch, was all the more surprising from a designer who has long had a love affair with chain mail, leather and other heavy materials. All were banished in favour of fluttering silk and satin in washed-out lilac, petal pink, peach, lavender and pearly grey.

There was an air of deshabillee to the slip dresses with their thin spaghetti straps and flounces at the hem, further emphasised by the models' tousled hair. Corset dresses had boning visible on the outside, the bust picked out in embroidery. A dress the colour of a summer sky at dusk came with pannier hips covered in washed tulle frills. Everything looked as light as air, as though a gust of wind would cause the dresses to flutter off the body. Flutter they did, some of them festooned with hundreds of cutout petals that shimmied as the models walked. Even bags were decorated with loops of silken thread, as though spun by fairy magic. Crystal-studded berets, by milliner Stephen Jones, looked pixie-ish. "I wanted to do something super-romantic, but it had to have a twist somewhere," said Deacon of the satin prom dresses printed with Bambi, blood dripping from his throat.

This was the only dark element and yet there was something unsettling about the pristineness of it all. Maybe it was the brooding music by the Cocteau Twins, or the sight of top models such as Carmen Kass, Mariacarla Boscolo and Jessica Stam looking so pure and virginal. Mancunian model Agyness Deyn dyed her peroxide blonde crop flamecoloured especially for the show.

Asked what inspired the collection, Deacon said he had been moving house and digging up old record collections, particularly those on the 4AD label. Some prints, which were all done in-house, were reminiscent of Cocteau Twins albums from the Eighties. Not that this collection hailed from that era - in its laser-cutting and printing techniques especially, it was as modern as it was romantic.

Romance never goes out of fashion, and nor should this beautiful show.