Much excitement. A Pakistan fashion event at Kensington Palace; surely Kate will drag along the Duke? Maybe even a recently singled Harry would be tempted to walk the catwalk waving the Chand Sitara?

No such luck. Despite what the invites may have hinted, the Orangery is not the palace proper but a park cafe in the gardens surrounding Princess Diana’s imposing former home. It serves rather delectable scones with strawberry preserve and clotted cream to the public for under a tenner and it is eminently open to renting for high society events.

But let’s not quibble. The venue is grand, the setting idyllic. It’s a slightly nippy summer evening in London and everyone it seems is dressed to the nines. If there’s a fashion parade to behold it’s at the cocktails pre-party where everyone is perfecting the art of air-kisses. The conversation is a muddle of oohs, aahs, "Who are you wearing?" and "Oh God, the OK Pakistan team got caught in the crossfire at Karachi airport!"@FAT_Pak (Fashionistas against the Taliban), eat your heart out.

Meanwhile, as usual we’re running on Pakistan standard time, but the canapés are little dollops of rejuvenation and the celeb-spotting reasonably engrossing so all is forgiven. There’s Ali Zafar looking dashing in a variation on a white tuxedo supporting friend and PR Strategist Ammara Hikmat of Encycl-omedia, who along with London fashionista/TV presenter Sadia Siddiqui has put the evening together. And you couldn’t possibly miss Canadian pop manchild Abbas Hasan, attracting deserved attention for a heavily sequined jacket with fur throw that may well have been unearthed from Michael Jackson’s HIStory World Tour. In a more conservative dark suit, Zohaib Hassan rounds off the boy’s music section.

Director Gurinder Chadha (Bend it Like Beckham, Bride and Prejudice) possibly the best known international celebrity at the event is mobbed by the press on the red carpet, but later is surprisingly ensconced in the second row for the show. After nearly two hours of hobnobbing, the event finally begins. Since it never hurts to get a second opinion I have decided to seat myself amidst seasoned fashionistas; To my right and beyond are Farzana Baduel who Hello Pakistan tells me has vintage Valentino and an Ungaro Flamenco dress in her closet (qualification enough but she also runs her own PR firm) and Ayesha Mustafa, impeccably attired founder of the ethical accessories brand Fashion ComPassion. To my left there’s Ahlya Fateh, former Managing Editor of Tatler Magazine who pretty much launched Russian Vogue for Condé Nast and now runs the fabulous Tata-Naka brand for Georgian born twin sisters Tamara and Natasha Surguladze. Ahlya knows anything and everything about fashion collections from here to tomorrow, so no bit of fashion burglary can pass unnoticed. And I am wearing an Ajrak cape by God knows who with a string of pearls. If this isn’t the fashion writer’s dream team, then who is?

So after much ado Kristiane Backer walks on to the catwalk to introduce the evening. Interesting choice. Backer is a former MTV presenter who discovered Imran Khan, Pakistan and Islam around the same time and recounts all of this in her 2012 memoir From MTV to Mecca. Backer and the Khan split in 1995 but she was obviously very influenced by her former boyfriend’s evangelising. "We talked about the tyranny of fashion, and how the less figure-hugging clothes worn by Muslim women positively affected the way they were perceived and their own self-confidence," she writes. The clothes that Backer introduced at the Fashion Parade may not have quite fitted that prescription but I guess she did learn a thing or two about Pakistani fashion that evening that IK possibly hadn’t told her.

That reminds me – the fashion. Ah well. It took off quite well. A veteran Faiza Samee showed a summery pattern-on-pattern collection with loosely draped off-shoulder silks and palazzo pants tangoing with trailing, whimsical chiffon jackets. Samee has always been a mistress of colour; but this time she showed her ability to infuse print on print clash with a certain joie de vive. My critic’s circle approved though they – and I – felt a little reminded of Sania Maskatiya’s Kuamka Collection, showc-ased at Sunsilk Pakistan Fashion Week this year. Point to ponder, but I think Maskatiya’s silhouette was less capricious with a snugger fit so perhaps just enough of a distance was maintained. Perhaps.

Next on the ramp was Ayesha Hashwani whose designs had enough glamazon factored into them to even throw down the gauntlet at Donatella Versace. For my money I much preferred Hashwani’s cooler lines embellished with throwaway chiffon trails at Fashion Pakistan Week two years ago but I’m sure some with a lot more moolah to spend might find the bling worthy of a piece here or there. Maybe one of the long velvet coats – though I’ve seen better versions of those from HSY about six years ago at a show at the royal courts of justice in London.

A few years ago it was Deepak Perwani paying homage to the female arists Amrita Sher-Gil (less successfully) and Frida Kahlo (more innovatively) by turning them into his muse. Now it’s Seher Tareen putting German artist Gustav Klimt’s celebrated lovers to work in her new collection. However, planting an iconic but overused image seemingly randomly onto an outfit doesn’t make it high fashion. Tareen’s designs would have benefited had she used them as a starting point rather than the end in itself. But would Klimt have had as much of a jaunt in Mithadar as Frida did in Kharadar? Either way our fashionista gang of four was not moved. I did however like a bolero jacket in gold filigree, which attempted to capture the Klimt ethos less literally.

My response to the next collection was a bit half and half. As in I liked Anamika Khanna’s intricately embr-oidered long open jackets with romantic ruffles but balked at the Bollywood sharara pants. I had heard quite a bit about Zara Shahjahan’s Love Bug collection – but at the end of the day Lanvin’s already done it and Alexander McQueen and Damien Hirst have poured all the little insects of the world into their magnificent jewelled scarves. So how do you better that? The long and short of it is you don’t. Especially when the London high street has done pretty decent rip-offs already. I would have asked the fashionistas what they thought but spirits were flagging by this time and at least one was busy sending off text messages.

I have always felt that jewellery is almost impossible to display on the catwalk so I am not going to say too much about Nazneen Tariq’s collection except that it looked pretty enough from a blurry distance. Suffice it to say that one or two of British designer Romero Bryan’s structured designs stole the sequence. The finale from Nomi Ansari was a slice of his Pakistan Fashion week collection. Someone muttered "Sarah Jessica Parker in Chanel Couture at the Golden Globes, 2004" when a model walked on in a flouncy princess dress. I thought it was more her at the Emmys in Chanel Couture 2003. But either way it was definitely ahem "inspired" by Sarah J and Chanel. The collection did have a sense of playfulness and red-carpet potential; the girls felt Kim Kardashian would have happily bought the gold jersey dress.

To be fair to Nomi Ansari after four hours of playing fashion – including lengthy speeches and a raffle break for a heart-warming cause (the Great Ormond Street Children’s hospital) in between – it’s a tad difficult to pull off a huge finale. You can’t break the flow of a show and then hope the audience’s interest will magically revive. However, monotone choreo-graphy aside the lighting was well designed, the models professional. And apart from the time tardiness, the organisers should give themselves a pat on the back for a fairly seamless event.

But at the end of it all I am tempted to ask who exactly are these shows targeting? "This is the progressive side of Pakistan and I hope you will embrace it," said main organiser Mustang’s Sadia Siddiqui in her short speech. I would have expected the rather well-heeled and predominantly Pakistani audience who occupied the two rows at the show, some wearing newer, others well-known Pakistani designers, were already giving Pakistani fashion a tight enough hug. There was a smattering of British (mostly British Indian) sponsors also present, but generally speaking this was not a crowd that needed an introduction to the vibrancy of Pakistani fashion. It was already buying it.

This conundrum of who Pakistan fashion’s audience is needs to be sorted out. It has loomed large over successive Pakistan London Fashion Weeks equally. Let’s be frank; it would seem London fashion shows from Pakistan cater to the diaspora – which, of course is perfectly fine. They should be catering to an audience which is looking to invest in Pakistani fashion, if that is indeed what is happening after all the hoopla and spectacle. It should also feature designers who are able to contextualise collections and market them more effectively to British Asian audiences. Certainly the Pakistan Fashion Parade had a different crowd from the Pakistan Fashion week held at the London Paddington Hilton a few short weeks ago. For one that was a ticketed event and open to all and the Parade was by invite only so invariably more inner circle. Having said that, as Ahlya Fateh remarked, if she wanted to buy Pakistani fashion she would probably get friends in Karachi to pick it up for her for a decidedly more reasonable price and bring it along on their next trip. So these shows only work when you don’t have the time – or the contacts – in Pakistan for proxy shopping.

But here’s the crux – if you want to market Pakistani fashion abroad to a more varied audience you have to come up with a different sort of event, at the right time and the right place. Fateh suggests a Victoria and Albert event for Pakistani haute couture for instance, with a series of talks. And both of us are in agreement that young aspiring Pakistani designers need to interact with their counterparts in the UK, to learn from each other and also potentially to work together on collections. Perhaps an exchange programme with premier London design college St Martin’s? The alternative Pakistani fashion from Wardah Saleem and Ali Xeeshan recently shown at the Southbank Alchemy festival in London for example would be much more suited to this sort of dialogue.

And if only Pakistan fashion would dismount from its high horse and invite high street department store buyers who would actually be interested in picking up a new range or are looking for fresh suppliers to supplement regular seasonal collections. Ahlya Fateh suggested House of Fraser and Marks and Spencer for a start. She’s on the right track.

Until then, in the cruel light of day and after the butterfly socialising is over, Pakistani fashion shows in London will be all about an uneven choice of designers with little else to boast about at the end except a tidy sum of sponsor money.­