Fashion capitals hammer out schedule compromise

more news from the London Fashion Week

London Fashion Week staved off a tight squeeze between rival shows in New York and Milan next season in a compromise deal with fashion councils in New York, Milan and Paris, the British Fashion Council said on Tuesday.

BFC Chairman Harold Tillman said in a statement that the four fashion capitals agreed to secure London a five-day slot on the global fashion calendar. That means London loses one day from its current six-day catwalk schedule.

“I am delighted that this meeting has brought our fashion capitals closer together,” Tillman said. “It has highlighted our interdependence, commitment to nurturing talent and our sharing of ideas and goals.”

The agreement means London, which generates some 100 million pounds in business and 50 million pounds in media advertising, will not be squeezed into a four-day sprint.

That would have forced the BFC to consider making decisions about two-tiered schedules or juggling its commitment to cutting-edge youth designers against big-drawing names such as Vivienne Westwood and Paul Smith.

Talk of the squeeze emerged last year after the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) announced it intended to move its dates for the upcoming autumn 2009 season in February.

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Why London is still a fashion capital

so if you have any doubts you may read this article

The last seams are being neatened and seating plans finalised – London Fashion Week opens tomorrow for another season of hype and delight. Next year’s event will be the 25th since it started as a few exhibition stands in a London hotel. Now it’s a thoroughly professional outfit, with more than 50 official shows, nearly as many off-schedule ones and several major exhibitions – the showcase for a £750 million designer-fashion industry that exports £500 million worth of clothes annually, not to mention acclaimed designers to work worldwide. Even the Prime Minister’s wife is throwing a party.

Fashion Week is the subject both of effusive reporting and vexed debate – everyone agrees that London is inspiring and exciting, but short of funds and manufacturing facilities. In the words of Hilary Riva, of the British Fashion Council, it will “never be Milan or Paris, but its creativity and diversity are the best”. The people who make it happen – from designers and models to editors and retailers – care passionately about it. We asked those who are most influential right now what London fashion means to them.

Jane Shepherdson
CEO, co-owner and creative overseer of Whistles, where her input is starting to show. The former managing director of Topshop, she set up its New Generation designer sponsorship scheme, and has worked with ethical fashion company People Tree.

“I couldn’t imagine working anywhere but London. The rawness, energy and dynamism are unique. We take more fashion risks and we’re more irreverent. British people are not afraid to be different, try new silhouettes, even look a bit silly. Women here aren’t desperate to look sexy, slick and glossy.

“We have youngsters of all nationalities in our design studio, but 99 per cent of them are British-trained. The lack of investment in this country is not in people but in facilities. Whistles, for example, has only five per cent of its manufacturing here – and that’s in really specialist areas. The reason may be historical – we simply don’t have those long-established, European-style luxury companies.

“It’s hard for designers to rise above the £600,000 turnover level – investors start at £2 million. We’d like to help with that, and, likewise, the ethical side, by using small suppliers. Our customers demand it – another area where Britain is ahead of the curve.”

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Size-zero: Here we go again…

again and again and again…

As the New York fashion industry prepares to launch new collections starting on Friday, followed by London on 14 September, attention is again drawn to models and their weight.

After the furore at London Fashion Week last spring, with calls for a ban on size-zero models, not only has nothing been done, but the unrealistic super-skinny image is now being positively promoted again internationally.

MTV is under fire for promoting competitive dieting and fuelling the damaging size-zero catwalk culture, following the announcement that it is to launch a controversial new TV show in which girls must lose between 30 and 80lb in the hope of becoming a model. The channel is advertising the show Model Maker with a request for “girls willing to shed the pounds” in a three-month boot camp in a quest to become a “self-confident, high-profile fashion model”.

Recruitment adverts – featuring the statement “Women come in all shapes and sizes, but models don’t. Skinny, no body fat and size zero are the words and phrases associated with models. Chubby, well-fed, and big-boned are not …” – have been condemned by eating-disorder charities as promoting extreme dieting.

“This is perpetuating the idea that it is only by becoming as thin as possible that you can be a success,” said Susan Ringwood, chief executive of the charity Beat. “It also puts out the message that it is OK to engage in extreme dieting practices, and it is not.”

Meanwhile, the British Fashion Council also faces fresh criticism this week for abandoning plans for models’ health certificates – which would make sure that all girls on UK catwalks had a healthy body mass index. In failing to introduce the certificates, as recommended by the Model Health Inquiry panel following an investigation into the extreme thinness of catwalk models, the BFC has been accused of “shirking its responsibility” on the issue of size-zero models.

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Fashion capitals end London’s plan to ban size zero

I can´t help myself but these models are far too thin:

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The initiative was set up following public concern at the ’heroin chic’ look of ultra-thin catwalk models

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An initiative to banish “size zero” models from Britain’s catwalks has been abandoned after other fashion capitals refused to follow London’s lead.

The planned requirement for models to obtain a doctor’s certificate proving that they were in good health had stong government support. But it was feared that models would boycott London Fashion Week, and New York, Paris and Milan said that the measure was unworkable.

Hilary Riva, chief executive of the British Fashion Council, will confirm that the scheme is being dropped in an open letter to the industry today.

Ms Riva blamed impracticalities in implementing the health certificate plan, a feeling among models that it discriminated against them and a lack of support from industry bodies in the other fashion capitals.

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