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Prince Charles: Fashion Icon? Me?

At a reception at St James Palace to officially launch London Collections: Men, Prince Charles batted off suggestions he was a sartorial icon.

The Prince of Wales confessed he dresses like a "stopped clock", and poo-pooed the notion that he might ever be a fashion icon.

Yet if his reception at a St James Palace party to launch London Collections: Men - the men's fashion shows - tonight was anything to go by, he should stop scoffing.

Designers including Tommy Hilfiger, Tom Ford, Oliver Spencer and Nicole Fahri queued up to meet the Prince, as did other professionally dapper dans, including the singer Tinie Tempah and the comedian David Walliams.

Mr Walliams said: "I asked Charles what he wears. He said mostly Primark, but George at Asda too: he likes to mix it up."

Heaven forefend: The Prince of Wales wore a Turnbull & Asser shirt, tie and handkerchief with an Anderson & Sheppard suit (double breasted) and a pair of 43-year old black Lobb shoes.

He told his guests: "I'm finding it very hard to live with myself, ladies and gentlemen. Because someone suggested that I might be an icon of fashion. After 64 bleeding years. I don't know why."

[Related article: Prince Charles makes the list for GQ's Best Dressed 2012]

He added: "I have lurched from being the best-dressed man to being the worst dressed man. I don't know why - presumably it sells publications. Meanwhile I have gone on, like a stopped clock - and my time comes around every 25 years."

Maintaining his elegant, aspic-clad style was, he said, thanks to the expertise of Savile Row's tailors "who have done their best to deal with my impossible measurements."

Several designers due to present their spring 2013 collections over the next three days granted the Prince a sneak preview. The designer Christopher Raeburn said Charles had been particularly keen on a pair of white-soled Dr Martens shoes worn by his model. And the designer JW Anderson, whose (male) model teamed a pinstripe smock with a black silk headscarf, noted the Prince seemed particularly taken with the headscarf: "He said it reminded him of somebody," Anderson reported.

Also at the event was Jeremy Hunt, the embattled Secretary of State for Culture. Mr Hunt confessed a particular admiration for Nicole Fahri's clothes, said he thought David Cameron the nattiest-dressed politician in Britain, and added: "I did buy two Richard James suits just after Christmas."

Wisely, he said he purchased each with an extra pair of trousers, to mitigate against wear.

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