Vogue's Anna Wintour, Fairchild's Patrick McCarthy, Conde Nast's Jonathan Newhouse, and a few other high-powered editors have ganged up against the Paris season, effectively compressing the nine days of shows into five days of big-designer presentations, with dire repercussions for many new and young talents.

And critics are roaring about the world's fashion capital bowing to the demands of a few pampered Americans.

Leading the groundswell against the schedule is International Herald Tribune fashion editor Suzy Menkes, who penned a furious letter to the Chambre Syndicale, French fashion's governing body, to express her displeasure at the tight schedule of the shows from March 7 to 15.

In her letter to Chambre president Didier Grumbach, Menkes termed the schedule "inhumane and unacceptable" and pointed to Tuesday March 12, when there are 13 shows, as an example.

"A 14-hour working day makes a mockery of the fact that France is the first country in the world to have adopted a 35-hour working week," she wrote.

"The attempt to compress the shows of the big and powerful groups into just five days works contrary to the spirit of Paris fashion, which has always welcomed all designers in a democratic way and has allowed small talents to root and to grow. I abhor the idea of a two-tier system," Menkes continued.

Reacting to Menkes' criticism, Grumbach argued that calling the calendar inhumane "is a little excessive."

However, he conceded, "Suzy is right in that it's now practically impossible for her and columnists from daily papers like Corriere della Sera and The Times to do their job properly. That's not true for magazines, which come with teams of people. I think they are extremely happy with the calendar."

Anna Wintour, one of the spearheaders of the campaign by American editors to push up "major" shows into the first five days of the nine-day French season, has a quick fix though.

"Maybe the solution for people who feel a little stretched is to hire another reporter, at least temporarily, to cover the additional shows," Wintour told FWD, through a spokesman.

"If we can stage all the New York shows in five days, we should be able to do the same in Paris in the same time."

Menkes retorts, "Quite frankly, even if I were in charge of a team of young editors, I'd hate to be someone who only goes to major name shows. Once you have stopped going to see young talent in far-flung places you are lost.

"I don't want to demonize Anna Wintour because she asked a few designers to show early. It's awfully easy to blame one person. But there is simply not the same amount of talent in New York as there is in Paris. That's a fact."

Moreover, Menkes told FWD that when the Chambre held meetings with a series of European fashion editors and retail representatives in fall 2001, everyone present had requested a cutoff point for official shows at 8pm each evening. Instead, all but two days have shows after that hour.

"I feel like we totally wasted our time. They did exactly the reverse," she said.

One of Menkes' biggest complaints was that the new calendar has effectively created a system that discriminates between labels with major advertising dollars and emerging designers, most of whom have been shunted to the last three days.

Asked about the accusation, Jonathan Newhouse, chairman of Conde Nast International, which controls all the Vogues outside of the US, replied, "I don't want to comment."

Newhouse has also lobbied the Chambre. He praised the organization for freeing up one day between the Milan and Paris seasons, and for concentrating nearly all the Paris shows on one side of the Seine.

"Suzy does have some valid points. The calendar is not perfect, but it's a good first step," Newhouse told FWD.

Hilary Alexander, fashion editor of Britain's Daily Telegraph, is far from happy with the new set-up though. "The new calendar does strike me as very unfair to young talent," she tells us.

Like Menkes, Alexander called for a referendum on the calendar in order to protect emerging designers and guarantee professional coverage of the collections.

"I really don't see how the present calendar can work properly. Last season I missed a John Galliano show even though I took the official Chambre bus from the previous official show of Romeo Gigli. This season the calendar is even more congested, so God only knows how it will work!"

Now, the majority of magazine staffers will probably quit Paris on Tuesday after Chanel, even though there are a further 31 shows on the official schedule.

The most ominous sign? Conde Nast International's dinner for all the editors-in-chief and publishers of non-American Vogues, which is usually held on the penultimate evening of the Paris collections, will now be held on Monday, a full four days before the end of the season.

Asked about the switch, Newhouse replied, "We just thought it was a good evening for a dinner."