Fashionistas breathed a sigh of relief yesterday as the war between the organisers of the New York and London fashion weeks ended in compromise.

The future of London Fashion Week had been put in doubt after the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA), which organises New York Fashion Week, announced it would be starting a week later than usual from next season, thereby squeezing London from its current six days to only four.

The new deal, hammered out at a meeting in London yesterday between the organisers of the four big fashion weeks – London, Paris, New York and Milan – means London will now have five days while New York gets to start a week later and will run for eight days.

The CFDA’s original proposal would have meant many British designers were not able to show, and left others with little choice but to abandon showing in London in favour of New York, or possibly Paris.

New York said the move was necessary to help its designers, who were having problems completing their collections in time. But it caused outrage in Britain where it was seen as a direct threat to a fashion industry that is now, according to Harold Tilman, chairman of the British Fashion Council, the UK’s second-largest employer, generating £40 billion a year.

The threat even prompted the Prime Minister’s wife, Sarah Brown, to support efforts to get New York to back down. Mrs Brown, who hosted an enthusiastically attended reception for the fashion world at Downing Street on Monday evening, told The Times that she had written to the CFDA emphasising the importance of London Fashion Week to the British economy.

British buyers and magazine editors had threatened to boycott shows by some of the US’s biggest fashion names if they overlapped with London Fashion Week. “This was a problem of America’s own making,” said Alexandra Shulman, Editor of British Vogue. “It unilaterally decided to show ahead of Milan, London and Paris ten years ago. And now there are problems, it expects everyone else to rally round.”

Although not an ideal outcome, the deal means London’s place in the fashion calendar is assured, for now.

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