The runways and fashion haunts of London, New York, Milan and Paris are the spiritual home of the faddish diet. If it doesn't involve obscure dietary supplements, torturous self-denial or extreme surgical procedures, fashion's alpha crowd simply aren't interested.
The Karl Lagerfeld Diet
Cacti, fish and horse meat
When the Chanel designer tripped onto the catwalk at the end of his Summer 2001 couture show a full five stone lighter, rampant speculation abounded. Top three theories featured: a course of fat-inhibiting injections; tax bill related stress; and a diet of pureed baby food. In fact Lagerfeld's dietician Dr Jean-Claude Houdret had devised a diet for Lagerfeld featuring a fat-busting cactus derivative. All meat (bar horse) was replaced by fish. Chips were out, but boiled or steamed potatoes were OK. Dr Houdret and Lagerfeld plan to co-write a book detailing the finer points of the diet.
The Alexander McQueen Surgical Procedure and Diet Regime
Liposuction and chitosan
During a famously unsuccessful sabbatical designing for Givenchy, Alexander McQueen took the predictable step of piling on weight as an expression of his discontent. He finally celebrated leaving Givenchy with an extensive liposuction session. Although he cheerfully admitted to the procedure, McQueen later complained that it hadn't really worked for him, and that he'd resorted to a combination of sensible eating and fat-busting dietary supplement, chitosan, to get thin.
The Anna Wintour Signature Lunch
Red meat
If you know anything at all about card-carrying fashion tyrant and editor-in-chief of American Vogue, you'll probably know this: she never takes her sunglasses off, and she maintains her admirably rail thin frame with a signature power lunch - rare hamburger, no bun. Wintour orders her meat on a daily basis from the kitchens of the Royalton Hotel (she sends an assistant round to pick it up), and yet is rumoured to insist that none of her staff ever eat lunch in the office.
The Jodie Kidd Diet Spaghetti Bolognese and a full English breakfast
In 1995, when Jodie Kidd was widely believed to be the thinnest person in the world she grabbed the opportunity to share her diet secrets with the public. 'They should come and watch me eat,' she told one journalist. 'I might look like a stick insect, but I eat like a horse.' Kidd's diet, she insisted at the time, included a lot of 'meat, junk food...and fry ups.' Hard to know for sure whether or not she was protesting too much but, since taking a two-year break from the runway, she's admitted she was too thin and has gone up two dress sizes.
The Sophie Dahl Exercise and Diet Regime Food combining
Sophie Dahl kicked off her bid to dominate the modelling industry on a diet of rice puddings and fried breakfasts. Her voluptuous body was her USP. But within a year, she had ditched the excess flesh in favour of something a little more sleek. 'I didn't come here to be a crusader for curvy chicks,' she said, and promptly dropped two dress sizes under the auspices of London-based personal trainer David Marshall whose fitness ethic revolves around a set of 22 exercises, and a food combining regime that encourages disciples to eat carbohydrates and protein separately.
