Spring 2010

>> Clements Ribeiro Make One More Returner to London Fashion Week —The names keep rolling in — Jonathan Saunders early this week, and now husband and wife team Suzanne Clements and Inacio Ribeiro of Clements Ribeiro are coming back Londonside to help celebrate the Fashion Week's 25th anniversary.  Now, if only the British Fashion Council could score Alexander McQueen, Stella McCartney, or John Galliano, they would be well on their way to reaching that goal to make London the "number one destination" for international buyers and editors. [Telegraph UK]

>> Giles Deacon to Show in Paris for Spring 2010 —Giles Deacon has just been awarded the 2009 ANDAM Award, the prize that allowed Gareth Pugh to take his show to Paris last year — and will be following in his footsteps.  The ANDAM — the largest international fashion prize of its kind at €160,000 (approx. $225,000) — means that Giles will be going against the current of all the designers returning to London Fashion Week for Spring 2010, and taking his show from London to Paris instead. [Hint]

>> INSIDER WIRE —Jonathan Saunders is joining the increasingly longer list of designers — which already includes Burberry, Matthew Williamson, and Pringle of Scotland — coming back to London Fashion Week for Spring 2010 to celebrate its 25th anniversary.  British Fashion Council president Harold Tillman hinted a couple of weeks ago that “there are talks going on with other big names who we’re confident will come back," so Saunders may not be the last to make a return announcement. [Vogue UK]

>> Over the weekend, a "strongly worded letter" from Vogue UK's Alexandra Shulman "sent to scores of designers in Europe and America" — including Prada, Versace, Yves Saint Laurent, and Chanel — was leaked to the Times UK in what some are calling a publicity stunt.

In the letter, Shulman exhumed the size zero fight, accusing designers of an "increasingly disturbing" practice of sending fashion magazines "minuscule" clothes for photo shoots. "I am finding that the feedback from my readers and the general feeling in the UK is that people don't really want to see such thin girls."

She noted that the samples sent were becoming "substantially smaller": "Nowadays, I often ask the photographers to retouch to make the models appear larger." Furthermore, she wrote: "We have now reached a point where many of the sample sizes don't comfortably fit even the established star models. Instead, we are having to use girls with jutting bones and no breasts or hips, to fit them."

So who's with her? »

>> INSIDER WIRE —Marc Jacobs traded his skirt in for pants last night at the CFDA Awards, while Alexander Wang — who says he started wearing shorts a month ago and hasn't switched back to pants — debuted his "suit shorts" from Comme des Garcons: "I always feel awkward in a full get-up. You’ve got to break it up a little.”  He may break with tradition, but it sounds like the Swarovski Womenswear winner is being groomed for big things — he was discussed yesterday at the Financial Times Business of Luxury Summit as a good investment opportunity, and rumors are circulating that for his Spring 2010 show, his usual stylist Alastair McKimm has been replaced with "a certain godhead of a stylist" who "deemed" to take the gig. [FWD, Style File, Alexandra Wilson's Twitter, The Imagist]

>> Matthew Williamson and Burberry are both returning to London Fashion Week for its 25th anniversary during the Spring 2010 season, and now Pringle of Scotland is, too.  It's all part of the plan that Harold Tillman, chairman of the British Fashion Council, has actuated to create more buzz around London's Fashion Week, and he's not planning on stopping with just those three: “There are talks going on with other big names who we’re confident will come back. I want us to be the number-one destination for international press and buyers.”

Does that mean we could see Alexander McQueen, Stella McCartney, or Gareth Pugh back in London — or maybe all three?  The hopes are that all the returners will bring the international press — including Anna Wintour, who usually sits out LFW — back to London with them.  And the efforts might be working: Matthew Williamson's spokeswoman hinted that the designer is considering staying in London after September: “I think that the way the British Fashion Council is reworking LFW will see lots of people coming back. London has been pigeonholed as being about new, young designers and people don’t attend because they wait to see how these designers will develop. The return of some established brands will change that perception.”