Fashion World Up In Arms Python Skins.

Animal rights campaigners are furious about this season's fashion trend for python skin.

Designer labels including Jimmy Choo, Calvin Klein, Prada, Fendi, Roberto Cavalli and YSL have all used snakeskin for bags and shoes this year.

Since Kylie Minogue was photographed at a Prince concert last week sporting a python Zagliani bag, demand has risen for the bags costing from £500 for a small clutch to £5,000 totes.

The trend was today condemned by campaigners. Poorva Joshipura, a spokeswoman for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, said: "A python has a hose shoved down its throat, is blown up with water then skinned alive. Then it's tossed onto a pile and is left, sometimes for days, before it dies. The trade is pushing many species towards extinction and the endangered species of tomorrow can be seen in the luxury shops of today."

The European Union is the world's biggest importer of reptile skins. Between 2000 and 2005, 3.4 million lizards, 2.9 million crocodiles and 3.4 million snakeskins were brought in. Designers claim to use skins from "farmed" pythons, but experts warn there is a thriving illegal trade, especially in India and Indonesia.

Zagliani designer Mauro Orietti-Carella said: "Zagliani was founded 70 years ago as a company that specialised in exotic skins bags. We are not following a fashion moment. We do not make as much as the market demands because we are concerned about the use of too many skins, and will only work in an ethical and environmentally responsible way."

Bckstage At The Heatherette Show, New York Fashion Week 2007!

My Favourite American Designer Heatherette. The designs are fabulous, funky and a whole lot of fun.

Backstage @ London Fashion Week 2007

One of my Favourite Designers Gavin Douglas.
His designs are fierce.
WATCH HIS SPACE!

Cokehead Kate

Twelve months on, "brand Kate" has a lower profile after a number of her most lucrative deals, including those with Agent Provocateur and Coco Chanel, were quietly axed.
She entered last year's autumn season with a record 18 major contracts, earning her tens of millions of pounds.

This year the total is down to 11 and these include three own-brand lines - a clothes range for Topshop, a fragrance for Coty Inc and a third for celebrity hairdresser James Brown, an old friend.
Last October's Vogue carried six campaigns fronted by Moss from the likes of Dior, Louis Vuitton and Burberry.
Next month's edition has none, even by those brands that still employ her.
Burberry uses model Agyness Deyn, 20, and Louis Vuitton's face is actress Scarlett Johansson.
Coco Mademoiselle uses 22-year-old Atonement star Keira Knightley.
The actress is also on the magazine's cover, a position Moss has enjoyed 24 times, the last in April.
Experts believe 33-year-old Moss is not the force she was, but is far from finished.
Francesca Newland, deputy editor of Campaign magazine, said: "I see her slightly waning now - but from a very great height. She is still going to be everywhere."
A senior industry source said:"You could say she's past her peak but her peak is not determined by her, it's determined by her ability to sell clothes.
"No one is yet seriously saying she's lost it."

Sergant Beckham V Sergent Cruise!

Victoria Beckham is usually the one handing out fashion tips.
But it seems she borrowed her latest sartorial statement from the husband of one of her best friends.
The Spice Girl raised even more eyebrows than usual when she left Los Angeles airport dressed in a military-style jacket and peaked cap.
The outfit bears more than a passing resemblance to the on-set costume worn by Tom Cruise in his new film Valkyrie.

Cruise - husband of one of Mrs Beckham's closest showbiz friends, Katie Holmes - adopted the look for his role as Hitler's failed assassin Colonel Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg.
Both outfits included tight-fitting grey tailored jackets cinched at the waist with a distinctive belt, finished off with business-like leather bags.
For Posh, the clothes were designed to get attention at a time when her profile is in decline. After arriving in California amid a storm of publicity, her hoped-for career in Hollywood has yet to materialise.
A source close to Victoria said: "Things are not really going as she had planned.
"Victoria has a small cameo in Ugly Betty.
"She wanted a much bigger role in that - and indeed a lead role in any show at all.
"Katie Holmes had been helping her with scripts and perfecting her acting but even that has not helped the situation.
"Victoria had hoped to be picking and choosing presenting roles too. She had wanted perhaps to guest host on Larry King - in the way that Heather Mills did. But that has not worked out either.
"She had been hoping that the documentary about the Beckhams moving to America would be made into a series, but it was cut right back too.
"Victoria had also set her sights on getting the cover of American Vogue but that too has proved elusive. Basically she pinned her hopes on offers of work coming flooding in but that just has not happened."
Meanwhile New York trend magazine, Radar, voted Mr and Mrs Beckham number 1 in the Overrated Top 100 last week.
The survey concluded: "He's an overpaid soccer star; she's a pointless collection of body parts."

Size 00000

This is the latest shock image to jolt the fashion industry into action over the problem of anorexia.
The picture of emaciated Isabelle Caro, 27, an anorexic who weighs just 31 kilos (4 stone, 12lb), has been displayed on Milan billboards as the city celebrates its fashion week.
Caro, who is French and has her own blog site, said that she had suffered from anorexia since she was 13 as the result of a "difficult childhood".

She added: "I've hidden myself and covered myself for too long. Now I want to show myself fearlessly, even though I know my body arouses repugnance.
"I want to recover because I love life and the riches of the universe. I want to show young people how dangerous this illness is."
Should size zero models be banned from the catwalk? Join the debate, comments below...
The campaign was paid for by Italian clothing company Flash & Partners to publicise a fashion brand for young women called Nolita and the photograph was taken by Italian photographer Oliviero Toscani.
Flash & Partners said in a statement that Toscani's aim was "to use the naked body to show everyone the reality of this illness, caused in most cases by the stereotypes imposed by the world of fashion".
Many people blame the fashion industry and the obsession with stick-thin size zero models for the rise in cases of anorexia.


Calls for action within the British fashion industry led to a full-scale investigation into the problems by a panel of experts this year.

The report by the Model Health Inquiry, which was published last week on the eve of London Fashion Week, made 14 recommendations including requiring models to pass medical checks before being allowed on the catwalk and barring appearances from those under 16.

Unveiling the report, chairman of the inquiry, Baroness Kingsmill, slammed the fashion world for allowing young girls to be exploited. "Just because modelling is seen as glamorous, [the industry] seems to think it is outside normal health and safety issues," she said. "It is time it started taking care of its workers."

But London has failed to go as far as Madrid and Milan, where the authorities have banned the appearance of ultra-skinny models on catwalks by forcing models to carry certificates proving they are healthy.

The move, which dominated Milan Fashion Week last year, followed the death of 22-year-old model Luisel Ramos, who collapsed at a show in Uruguay. It was claimed she had gone days without eating properly.

Speaking at the time, Tiziana Maiolo, Milan's city council official in charge of promoting fashion, said: "We will work together with modelling agencies, with the chamber of commerce for fashion and with doctors to ensure that the agencies and stylists do not favour this phenomenon of anorexia.

"I don't think men want to see skeletal women and I want to say to women who are fuller- figured there is absolutely nothing wrong with this. They are undoubtedly the prettiest women about and the most intelligent."

Despite this, fashion designers in Milan dismissed fashion as having anything to do with the illness. Commenting on the poster Giorgio Armani said he thought such a shocking image was 'opportune' as a way of making people face up to the dangers of anorexia, which he said had little to do with models on catwalks.

He added: "Anorexia has reasons which are not linked to fashion. Even people who take no notice of fashion get anorexic."

Designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana said: "Finally someone is saying the truth about anorexia that it has nothing to do with fashion but is a psychiatric problem.

"We have always maintained this despite all the political campaigns on the argument."

However, Italy's health minister Livia Turco backed the campaign and said: "The disturbing image of Isabelle Caro could open an original channel for communication and encourage people to shoulder their responsibilities in the area of anorexia."