“In contrast to Alex Shulman’s letter to the industry, I have very rarely experienced situations in which the samples are too small for the models (once or twice, mostly things with corsets) but have lost count of the number of times I have had to send a tailor to a celebrity’s house to take in a sample I have lent them…Sample sizes got tiny about the same time celebrity magazines started to multiply like those weird mushrooms that grow under the trees that dogs like. Up to that point there just were not that many ‘red carpet’ opportunities that it was worth schlepping samples around for…Whilst it is admirable that she [Shulman] has such strong feelings, it puts the fashion houses in a very difficult position as the value of celebrity coverage, particularly to beauty sales, is so high there is little they can do to back away from lending to x-ray thin celebrities.” Interesting excerpts and opinions on the sample size debate from an anonymous insider publicist on the LibertyLondonGirl blog