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Despite the simmering row over "size zero" models at London Fashion Week, which ended Friday, it is designer Giorgio Armani, an unashamed admirer of slender figures such as Lily Cole, who has dominated talk around the catwalks.
Armani's first ever London show wowed the British capital with an array of guests including singers Beyonce and Bryan Ferry and, of course, Cole parading his clothes on the podium.
The show came after the Italian admitted in a column penned as guest editor of the Independent newspaper, that he favoured models "on the slender side" because "the clothes I design and the sort of fabrics I use need to hang correctly on the body".
His comments may not go down well with critics including British Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell, who noted that young girls "feel themselves inferior when compared to the stick-thin young women on the catwalk".
Five models deemed too skinny were barred from the Madrid Pasarela Cibeles fashion shows earlier this month and the mayor of Milan, Letizia Moratti, has threatened a ban when the city's fashion week gets under way Saturday.
But it would be impossible for the fashion world to ignore the views of a big name such as Armani on the issue.
London's five-day clothes fest ended Friday with a big name finale from Brit Julien Macdonald, who formerly worked with Chanel and Karl Lagerfeld.
Other highlights of the week have included shows by the resurgent British label Biba and a spectacular array of catwalk colour from Indian designer Manish Arora.
kah/lc/jp
AFPLifestyle-fashion-Britain
AFP 222106 GMT 09 06
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