Desirée Mejer's Fake London label cancelled its February 21 show, and designer Julian Roberts of Julian And announced that he is canceling his February 17 show.

Both designers cited commercial reasons for their last-minute decisions. A spokesman for London Fashion Week told FWD that the reason behind Fake London's decision lay only in production problems with their factory in Hong Kong.

"Last season's spring/summer 2002 show was so phenomenally successful that Fake had to make a decision between either fulfilling all their buyers' orders on time, or producing the show samples for Fashion Week."

Fake London's PR confirmed that there will be a press day for the label after Paris Fashion Week and that a full look book will be shot to make sure editors and buyers see the collection i n its entirety.

Fake London has said that it does intend to show in London for spring/summer 2003.

Roberts' decision not to show is more controversial. In a release sent to all potential attendees of his show he said, "I am not financially supported to show in London and in the past five seasons have tried to introduce new and experimental ways of presenting my collections on shoe-string budgets."

Last season, he projected a film of his collection 150 feet onto the walls of the Natural History Museum. Apparently this just wasn't successful enough, and Roberts has now decided to move the presentations of both Julian And and his second label, Nothing Nothing, to Paris Fashion Week, where he will show at the lifestyledeath Gallery show.

He continued, "I am now developing strong relationships with buyers from the Far East and Europe, so it makes sense that I present my collections in a city I know they will be visiting. Returning to London for spring/summer 2003 could be possible only if the financial problems are successfully addressed."

Claudia Crow of London Fashion Week was amazed at Roberts' reasoning behind the cancellation. She told FWD, "The responsibility of the British Fashion Council is to provide a platform for the designers to show on, not to provide financial support. If they feel they are strong enough to put on a full catwalk show, then their collections should be financially viable. We have worked very hard this season to make sure the buyers get to London. For example, Colette from Paris, an eight-person team from Barney's, and the team from Joyce from Hong Kong are all confirmed. At this point it is down to the designers themselves to produce sellable collections."

She continued, "We strongly believe that for some designers a presentation is more suitable than a show. It is disappointing when we make the decision to give a designer a chance to show on-schedule, and he then drops out a late stage, especially when we vetted 170 designers for the slots available this season, and another designer could have benefited from the slot allotted to Julian And."

As a result there is now some amendment to the show schedule. Ghost has moved from its original slot on Wednesday evening to Fake London's vacated space on Thursday.

The latest schedule can be found at www.londonfashionweek.co.uk.