A MUSEUM consultant from Chiseldon has won a competition to report on London Fashion Week for a national newspaper.

Rhian Tritton, 37, had to write an article on her favourite decade of fashion and another on whether shopping was a drug or a disease.

But for her, winning the competition was the easy part.

Ms Tritton of Draycott Road said: "Thinking about what I am going to wear to the fashion show is taking up more waking hours than anything else now.

"With any invitation somewhere the first thought is always what am I going to wear but with this the stakes are much higher.

"I haven't got a clue what I'll wear but I've got quite a bit of time to think about it."

Ms Tritton, who works as a freelance museum consultant for Swindon-based Steph Gillett Ltd, found out she had won after a phone call from competition organiser, The Guardian.

She said: "I was completely amazed when I got the call. I was delighted but I wasn't sure if I was going to pass out or be sick."

She will head to London, leaving her husband behind to look after their pet dog and chickens, to cover the show from February 13 to 15.

The paper will pay for her travel, hotel and tickets to the show and when she is there she will cast her verdict on the work of such celebrated designers as Paul Smith, Nicole Farhi and Jasper Conran.

She said: "I'm absolutely petrified. Not about the writing, because I know I can do that, but the rest of it."

Ms Tritton is a former curator of Bath's Museum of Costume where she worked for ten years.

It was her time there that gave her the inspiration to write one of her articles.

She said: "For my favourite fashion decade I wrote about the 1950s but it wasn't about the 1950s in general, it was about one designer called Balenciago.

"He was a Spanish man in competition with Dior and I drew on my knowledge from working at the museum. My writing was just a stream of consciousness."

Once she has cast her eye over the work of the fashion elite it will then be her task to write 800 words on the show which will be published in The Guardian.

Gareth Bethell