Gucci's demands disrupt London Fashion Week

Gucci has been accused of throwing London Fashion Week into disarray by requesting models fly to Milan early for fittings.

The bi-annual UK fashion event is sandwiched between versions in New York and Milan, which has often caused problems.

It means many of the most in-demand models have to spend hours flying between all the countries as they try to secure shows.

London Fashion Week began last Friday, but on Saturday Gucci creative director Frida Giannini requested models come to Milan for a pre-casting for the label's show this Wednesday.

"Gucci demanded that girls fly to Milan on Saturday to meet Frida to see if she would consider them for her show, which meant Saturday got trashed," Premier Model Management founder Carol White told British newspaper The Telegraph.

"Then the girls were expected to fly straight back to London, and if Gucci were interested, fly back to Milan again on Sunday for another round of casting, then for fittings on Monday."

It has apparently caused major problems as Gucci is such a huge show. Model agencies are keen to get girls on their books a slot at the presentation, so immediately sent them to the casting.

According to the publication, many of the London Fashion Week shows had difficulties due to the scheduling.

"It's been a total nightmare for us," an insider at Todd Lynn told the newspaper.

"We lost ten girls out of 19 girls. We were getting calls from agents at 1.30am on the morning of the show pulling girls we had just fitted, while other girls just didn't turn up to fittings at all after they'd been confirmed.

"When we called their agencies to find out where they were, we were told sorry, they've gone to Milan."

This comes after the rescheduling of the Marc Jacobs New York show also caused problems for London Fashion Week.

It was pushed back to 8pm on the last day of the American event after Hurricane Irene interfered with work for the collection. That meant many models walking in the show couldn't get to London on time on Friday.

It's been suggested the London schedule features too many designers in too short a space of time, which could be part of the issue.

- AAP