I’ve never seen Crow look so scared. And this time, she’s got a point.

We’re standing in Miss Teen’s flagship store in Oxford Street. The shop floor is huge and shiny and practically empty. For now. The perfect shopping opportunity, you might think, but oh no. We’re not shopping, we’re waiting. And we’re not the only ones. There’s just one very large pane of glass between us and the biggest, loudest mob I’ve ever seen. It’s been building up for hours. It can see us. It’s shouting our names and it’s counting down until it can reach us.

One pane of glass, that is, and a SUPERMODEL.

Svetlana Russinova is posing in the window. She’s wearing one of Crow’s little gold embroidered corset dresses with a flirty skirt that shows off her legs. I remember Crow designing that dress last spring.

Every now and again Svetlana looks back over her shoulder at us three girls, huddled together in the shop, and says something helpful like, ‘There’s thousands of them. Really. Oxford Street is full. Are you sure they’ll fit inside?’

No, frankly, we are not. We’re not at all sure we’ll fit even half of them inside. Or that we’ll survive the process. Or, more to the point, that we’ll have enough of Crow’s new high-street collection to sell to them when they get here.

Andy Elat is the only person who seems even vaguely relaxed. He’s the man who owns Miss Teen. He said, ‘We’ll do a big launch for the new collection before Christmas. Everyone’s talking about it. It’ll be huge. You’ll love it.’

If he’d said, ‘It’ll be like being in the middle of a natural disaster, with sequins,’ we’d have got the picture. But he didn’t. So here we are.

Crow looks the most terrified, but she’s got her brother Henry for comfort. She’s clinging on to him for dear life. I’ve got my friend Jenny and I’m sort of clinging on to her, but to be honest, she’s more clinging on to me.

‘They look angry,’ she whispers. ‘Are you sure we should let them in, Mr Elat?’

‘They’re just excited,’ he says calmly. ‘OK, Svetlana. You’d better come down now. Thanks, love. Two minutes, lads.’

The security guards nod. They are big and scary-looking and they’ll probably be OK. We are small, teenage and unarmed. I’m trying to remember why I ever got involved with Crow. Or why I thought launching a high-street collection would be a cool idea. Or why I didn’t decide to do it from A MILLION MILES AWAY.

‘Three. Two. One. Open the doors, lads.’

Scream scream scream scream. And the next thing we know, they’re coming straight for us.

This is it. My friend Crow is now officially a high-street designer. Stella McCartney’s done it. Christopher Kane has done it. Now it’s our turn.

I watch as the crowd run over us and through us and past us, anxious to get their hands on their favourite pieces before they go. Thank goodness Andy overruled me about Jenny. As Crow’s official business manager (yes, really!) I had originally wanted Jenny to be the face in the window, posing in Crow’s stuff and looking amazing. Jenny’s red-headed and curvy and funny, and she’d be a great advert for the fact that Crow’s dresses can look good on anybody. Plus Jenny was the first sort-of famous person to wear Crow’s stuff in public, before there even was a label.

But Andy thought it would be better to have an internationally famous supermodel for today, rather than a slightly chubby sixteen-year-old who’s been in one movie. And looking at Jenny now, in her ‘vintage’ (last year’s) Crow prom dress, positively shaking with fright, I have to admit he had a point.

Svetlana comes back to join us. She’s changed into poured-on skinny jeans and a hoodie with the hood up, so she looks like any other tall, blonde, thin, gorgeous person and doesn’t get spotted by too many people in the crowd.

‘It’s going well,’ she says. ‘They’re loving it. Look!’

If by ‘loving it’, she means throwing pieces in the air, grabbing them in large piles, fighting over them and crying, she’s right.