Suzy Menkes will be honoured with a Special Recognition gong at next week's British Fashion Awards, it was revealed today, for her services to fashion, designers and journalism over the past 25 years of her career.

She's a familiar presence on pretty much every front row, in her favoured Issey Miyake ensembles and famous front roll hairstyle, but how much do you actually know about her? We pick from her bon mots...

1. She doesn’t do designer friends: 'I have never, in 40 years, spent the night under the roof of a designer’s home. You just can’t get too close.'

2. She doesn’t do fast fashion: 'There’s something morally wrong about having a dress that costs the same as a cappuccino.'

3. But she doesn’t do luxe either: 'I wouldn’t pay $6,000 for a handbag even if I had the money, because it just seems out of sync with life.'

4. She went to Anna Wintour’s 21st birthday party.

5. She once hid under a stage for four hours in order to get into a Karl Lagerfeld for Chloé show in Paris uninvited.

6. She had a ‘traumatic’ experience at design school and vowed to ‘find another way to work in fashion’.

7. She didn’t get on that well with her first fashion editor boss: 'She was not bad in the mornings… except  after hangovers… and dreadful after lunch.'

8. She sometimes helps enthused young people sneak into fashion shows with her.

9. She doesn’t do cotton: 'I must be the only fashion editor in the world who cannot bear to wear cotton T-shirts. I can only wear silk.'

10. She finds modern fashion uninspiring: 'There’s too much business around today and not enough fantasy.'

11. She doesn’t rate Kanye as a designer: 'What I’d say to [him]: don’t give up the day job – or this case, the night job.'