Onlookers at Peter Jensen's fall 2010 runway show got a quick lesson in the Danish designer's quirky chic: models emerged into an elaborately illustrated schoolroom backdrop, replete with strewn newspapers, parquet floors and tiled walls—an apt setting for Jensen’s current muse, Muriel Spark. Spark, the Scottish novelist who authored The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, is the latest in an intriguing history of off-kilter heroines who have inspired the designer (others include former ice-skating champion Tonya Harding and avant-garde writer Gertrude Stein). To create this immersive mise-en-scene, Jensen partnered with London-based illustrator and long-term friend Charlotte Mann to bring what he terms a “certain naïve aesthetic” to the narrative of the show, which was accompanied by crooning love songs from another friend, The Cardigans’ vocalist Nina Persson. Despite the stark shapes and strong colors of his collections—evocative of the best of modernist Scandinavian design—Jensen claims that he has been more influenced by his adoptive home, London, than Denmark. “I can’t run away from where I come from, but I’ve only ever worked in fashion here,” he explains. Hence, the rich velvet tartans, tweed suiting and smattering of cheeky uniform-inspired looks for autumn.