«I JUST READ EVERYTHING»

The scenario raises a rarely discussed issue: why is women's fashion so dominated by gay men? And is the wonderful world of fashion really tainted by heterophobia? It's true that naming straight designers can easily revert to a dull parlour game second only to listing famous Belgians in its count-them-on-one-hand limitations (even then, one's insider friends will take pleasure in telling you that there are question marks over the shortlist anyway) and fashion's more controversial spokesmen do little to dispel the myth. Here's Tom Ford on the subject: 'I love women,' Ford told Interview magazine this year. 'But I lust after beautiful women in the way that I lust after a beautiful piece of sculpture… My lust for them is the same as my lust for beauty in all things… that's why I think gay men make better designers.'American designer Michael Vollbracht, from Bill Blass, claims gay men may actually be genetically superior at fashion. 'I am someone who is really pro-homosexual. I am an elitist. I am better than straight people. Women are confused about who they want to be. I believe that male designers have the fantasy level that women do not.'So perhaps it is not surprising that in 2005 Tara Subkoff, one of the co-founders of the US label Imitation of Christ, damned fashion as 'a gay man's profession' and even went so far as to accuse American Vogue editor Anna Wintour of supporting only 'young, gay men'.

-This is London