Banination: Paul Smith bars fashion journo from show

[la_sonnambula]

As some of you may remember from Cathy Horyn's article about being banned from Giorgio Armani's shows, the Guardian's deputy fashion editor and contributor to Vogue and 10 Magazine Hadley Freeman was served with a lifetime ban from Jean Paul Gaultier shows. A lone incident is turning into a list. Paul Smith has now joined M. Gaultier in declaring the persona of Ms. Freeman as non grata. It is a list that promises to grow, as long as Ms. Freeman insists on writing hilarious, pungent, insightful, clearheaded and often refreshingly irreverent articles and designers continue to have egos as big and fragile as a child's dreams.

A few passages from the article:

Although bans have been sprinkled around the fashion press for some time, they do seem to be coming down with increasing frequency - a sign, perhaps, of a growing anxiety in the luxury market that with the impending economic downturn not as many people are buying £900 dresses and trousers. It is also likely to be a reflection of the power of advertising. Fashion magazines and some newspapers are financially dependent on fashion advertisers, which muffles the writers who work for them. They are unable to say anything remotely negative about the clothes, out of fear of losing that precious £100,000-a-year advertising account, which is why so much fashion coverage often reads as little more than advertorial puff and fluff. Designers then get used to such obsequiousness so that any words of dissent are treated as a shocking display of heresy.

Giorgio Armani is not averse to imposing bans. He is also the biggest advertiser in the business. In his time he has forbidden Colin McDowell, senior fashion writer of the Sunday Times, from darkening his doorstep after making what the latter describes as "some disparaging remarks about his clothes". Armani has since re-extended an olive branch but McDowell says he declined to accept it: "I simply said that seeing as I find it impossible to write positively about the clothes he is designing these days, it's best if I don't come."

Moreover, trying to control all negative press seems a fruitless endeavour: images from fashion shows are on the net before the reviews hit the paper and people around the world can make up their own minds. It would take a pretty speedy critic to beat the internet, and a pretty deluded one to claim that they can prejudice the minds of potential shoppers around the world.