You are Hype Williams.  You make epic videos for
Puff Daddy and Missy Elliot.  You hang out with Kelis
and Jay-Z.  So when fashion designer Julien Macdonald
flies you down to London to direct his show, it has to be
so much more than just models on a runway...

14/02/2000 14:30 GMT, Sam Sneed editing studio, Dean Street, Soho, London
It wasn't until he heard who was ahead of him in the queue that Julien Macdonald realised quite how big working with Hype Williams was going to become.  "We were trying to work out when he could come over, and it was like, 'Monday's Janet, Tuesday he's got Michael, on Wednesday it's Will Smith, Thursday's Busta...'"
          A long, long couple of weeks ago, Welsh fashion designer Julien Macdonald decided it would be fun to invite American video director Hype Williams over to London to produce his 'Modern Skins' show at the Millennium Dome on the final evening of London Fashion Week.  Now there are only three days left until the big night.
          Designers are arriving from Attik, the graphic design company Hype has recruited to provide a fantastical filmic backdrop for Julien's new collection.  Many of their designs -- dazzling, abstract patterns in bottle-bright pinks and blues -- started life as stills from Hype's videos.  There's a great deal of sci-fi bombast and hi-tech detail, they explain, because "it really has to be something dramatic".
          Hype likes drama.  It's what he does best: reconfigure life in shades so bold and shapes so striking that it looks alien and ecstatic.  Attik's colours remind Julien of brilliant, otherworldly tropical fish.  "I said to Hype, that's what people want," says Julien.  "We want to be in a space world."
          Julien faxed Hype for his help on the show knowing only that he liked the videos for Missy Elliot's 'Supa Dupa Fly', and Busta Rhymes and Janet Jackson's 'What's It Gonna Be'.  And, because Julien's glittering party dresses have found favor with glam R&B goddesses like Missy and Jennifer Lopez, the designer's proposal was met with instand approval.  Hype promptly cancelled his diary dates -- including a video shoot with Puff Daddy -- to travel to London.  But now Hype is here and in control, you do wonder quite where Julien's clothes fit in.
          "People aren't gonna see much of the clothes," he admits, "so I know there'll be some flak after the show.  But, you see, I don't really give a fuck."

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