Eight o’clock on Sunday morning at the Duke of York’s headquarters in Chelsea. We are backstage at the Roland Klein fashion show, part of London Fashion Week. The lights are bright and the seats are empty. The models complain that it is freezing.

By the time the show starts at 12.30 there will be 32 of them. Right now, 10 sultry and tired-looking ones are on the catwalk being accessorised and sartorially refitted. Others wait backstage, gossiping and smoking. Many appear to have got the job by dint of having anorexia and you wouldn’t look twice at some of them without make-up on.

This lasts 25 minutes and costs around £75,000, which doesn’t include making the clothes. None of the models has rehearsed for the show and some of them arrive only 10 minutes before it begins.

Melissa, in Klein’s fake fur, fur boots and a velvet jacket, draws earnestly on a cigarette, then stubs it on the carpet. ‘Dah-ling,’ says Kevin, the producer, kissing the air around model Anjani’s cheeks. Round him the girls keep doing silly walks and pelvic thrusts, in a parody of the job. ‘Can you see my knickers?’ another girl asks him. Model Dunya laughs and says the girls’ ages vary. ‘But we all lie about them.’

It’s 9.30am and Yasmin Le Bon is gossiping. ‘It’s like I had to walk down the runway with one foot, basically.’ Yasmin (who gave birth five months ago to Saffron) looks sensational even in rollers.

Backstage seems like a communal changing-room on the first day of Harrods’ sale, except for the constant thumping music coming from the stage area. A makeshift Neville Daniel hair salon has been set up in the corner, like some pre-fab theatre. By 11am the dressers (women who look like Debenhams sales assistants and help the models change) are sitting doing their knitting. Some processed chicken sandwiches have arrived which, amazingly, the models wolf down. In addition, lots of them put sugar in their coffee.

Everywhere, girls are now doing their faces, one in a yoga position on the floor in the semi-darkness. ‘We do it better, we know our faces better,’ intones Sonia. ‘It’s like,’ says Yasmin, who is doing her own make-up, ‘do they have 30 sets of clean brushes? You don’t want an eye infection.’ At 11.15am four of the models are still missing, rushing in from other shows. The ones who are here are standing around looking bored, in curlers and smoking incessantly. The atmosphere is relaxed. Instead of bitchiness, one hears pleasantries. The only nasty remark came when one model asked where the lavatory was. ‘She’s pretending she’s never been to the toilet,’ sneered her colleague once she’d sashayed off to the Portaloo. There are now about 80 people backstage, in roughly 10 by four metres. The talk is multinational. ‘He paid me 5,000 Deutschmarks for two hours’ work,’ one model is trembling with excitement as she tells her friend. ‘Non lo so,’ comes the reply. There are cries of ‘Did you see your picture in the paper? It’s good’, and ‘Did you do Paul Costello? He’s nice, eh?’. By 12.15pm, the photographers are encamped around the catwalk. The panic about who sits where is over. Roland says: ‘You only have to sit one person wrong and you’ve ‘ad it.’ He hasn’t made his models rehearse, because he wants them to be spontaneous. ‘Just walk,’ he says. ‘Just look natural.’ But he is in a tizz, because the curtain at the back of the walk has been put on the wrong way round.

At 12.20pm, the last model arrives, with windswept hair and no make-up. A squeak goes up in the salon. And now she’s got to wear a bustier and it doesn’t fit. The noise level is increasing, the atmosphere becoming more manic and the excitement is palpable.

‘Into outfits, please,’ the cry goes up at 12.30pm and the hired dalmatian who has to walk up the er, catwalk, starts barking. ‘What pretty lingerie, dah-ling,’ says one model to another. ‘Do you think I’m too small to wear this bra?’ the recipient of the compliment asks the producer. ‘Have a baby, they get bigger,’ he says. ‘Then they go,’ says Yasmin, dolefully. It’s 12.40pm. The music is thumping and the sound of the audience can be heard. The hairdresser is throwing a wobbly because there’s no spray. ‘Come on, we’re starting,’ says Kevin, squeakily. ‘Melissa, Elizabeth, now.’ ‘Take your cigarettes away. Cigarettes off,’ yelps Roland. Suddenly even the plainest ones look stupendous.

At 12.50pm, a force 10 panic is blowing. ‘Who starts off?’ says one girl. ‘Where are the steps?’ asks another. ‘Quick, Melissa, you’re on,’ says Roland. ‘I can’t go on like this,’ she says.

Nearby, Moschino’s male models, who have taken little notice of the girls getting changed in front of them, are themselves now in various degrees of undress and watching the Roland Klein show on the monitor. ‘That doesn’t work at all,’ says one. ‘The dog’s dying to get off.’

The girls run across the room and change clothes at the speed of video fast forward. The hairdresser drags his hands through their hair just before they go on stage. There is a crowd of models waiting to hit the catwalk. ‘Where are they going?’ Roland is crying. ‘Go down the stairs. Behind the scenes is turmoil. But up front things look sleek as clothes make their way sexily up the catwalk. ‘You ‘aven’t been,’ Roland keeps accusing. (Answer: ‘Yes I have.’) ‘You’re all on,’ screams Roland for the finale.

Backstage there are big smiles, claps and euphoria. The show is over. All the models kiss Roland. The dressers take the clothes back. One girl puts on her thermal vest and a pair of skimpy shorts. The others return to the models’ uniform of jeans and cowboy boots. They kiss the air and call au revoir and ciao, and walk out into the rain with their make-up still on their faces.