Giles Deacon up and left London Fashion Week last season while everyone else was heading in the opposite direction.

Thanks to his ANDAM award, he had the opportunity to show in Paris, he did, and now he’s not coming back to London.

As if you could say no to Paris.

Despite the fact that the Giles show was always at the top, the Marc Jacobs of London Fashion Week if you will, and the fact that Giles’ Paris show was alone on the very last day of fashion month, he said, “Sales were up 42 per cent for the spring collection, and a lot of new buyers came to the show. I work in London, employ people here, but I need to look at the bigger picture.”

If showing in Paris means more dinosaurs, we’ll happily jump on the bandwagon.

Crushed Leopard: Can a cast have a cumulative crush? Marie Claire thinks all of New Moon is obsessed with Dolce & Gabbana. Maybe. We think it’s more probable they grab what they see first. {MarieClaire}

Who Is Yvie: Have you checked out YSL’s new blog yet? They’re sending five bloggers around the States for “experience.” Not like Kate’s experience in the commercial, but still fun. {YSL}

Get Your Blog On: If you’ve always dreamed of blogging your way through London Fashion Week, you’re probably too young to enter this competition. If you are old enough though, here’s your chance to land backstage at Somerset House. {Grazia}

Bridge & Tunnel: Try telling a tourist to leave Manhattan to find fantastic shops and they look at you like you have ten heads. Send them here for proof. {Refinery29}

Despite the recession and the almost weekly fashion brand bankruptcy announcements (and the inconceivable amount of pounds spent on their London Fashion Week extravaganza), Burberry continues to outshine their luxury peers.

Their wholesale numbers are down almost 23%. They’ve closed most of their smaller wholesale accounts and the stores they do still sell to buy less, like everyone. But at the same time they’ve learned to make less, guessing the right production numbers and in the end, guaranteeing a better result. Even more importantly, their retail numbers are up by 5% this past quarter, as opposed to being down 8% in the first quarter of this year.

The company’s stock has more than doubled since January and they’re forging ahead with plans to open a minimum of fifteen new stores next year, mostly in Asia and the States. So what does this mean to us? It means we think headlining LFW’s a good luck charm. It also means we’d love for them to knock a few dollars off Anna’s ruffled trench.

Next season’s buzz (too soon?) will surely revolve around Marios Schwab’s debut collection for Halston.

But there’s another Brit with exciting news — Richard Nicoll’s just been appointed Cerruti’s women’s wear designer.

The old Italian house, founded by Nino Cerruti (who’s still very much alive) in the late 50s (women’s came ten years later), was helmed by both Armani and Narciso Rodriguez before filing for bankruptcy. Nicoll told WWD that the brand, “has a strong DNA, and the brand speaks to what I do — elegant tailoring.”

He’s signed on to do three seasons, the first will show in Paris this February, and he’ll continue to show his eponymous collection in London.

Everyone’s always mumbling about when, someday, all the young Brits will eventually helm every major fashion house and each season, a step is taken in that direction.

“But it was less a revival than a remix — in the way that postmodern artists like Rei Kawakubo and Martin Margiela have done so well and that Marc Jacobs makes so palatable: mixing those historical references like samples of songs that you know well to create something new and surprising out of the predictable.” —Stefano Tonchi’s brilliant, and articulate, summation of London Fashion Week on The Moment.

One person can only cover so much of London Fashion Week, so check out The Daily, from the Rubbish team, for runway highlights, cooking class with Richard Nicoll, backstage photos, Somerset House street style & more.

Underneath my New York Fashion Week exhaustion lies some serious London Fashion Week anticipation.

I don’t get to London until Friday, but yesterday’s Rad Hourani show offered a little taste of UK’s fashion scene - well dressed leather clad fashion kids, creatively dressed editors and unwalkable platforms.

The collection though, wasn’t as exciting.

Everyone loved the slashed pants and zipped leather jackets - especially with open slits at the elbows. Though when the collection turned black and white, more than one person whispered “Gareth” down the row and in the elevator downstairs the group discussion ended with, “Umm.”

It wasn’t bad, it’s just that everyone was so excited and the collection proved less than thrilling.

Lily Allen’s landed the cover of ELLE UK’s October issue in honor of the 25th anniversary of London Fashion Week.

They’ve put her in a blond wig and custom outfits by Brit designers including Richard Nicoll, Stella McCartney, Burberry and Giles. The crystallized, body con Louise Goldin’s her favorite.

In this behind the scenes video, which also features photographer Rankin talking about how “uber-cool” Lily is, she says she’s never really been into the whole Kate Moss, Sienna Miller thing and jokingly claims Alexa Chung’s her London Style Icon.

It’s the graphic rock star make-up we really couldn’t take our eyes off of though.

Meet Blue Logan, if you haven’t already.

A couple of years ago a friend dragged the soft-spoken Brit to a show at London Fashion Week, Aquascutum he thinks, and he started to draw the models as they walked down the runway. Within a few shows he realized the people in the front row were just as, if not more, interesting.

Now his drawings pop up in Vogues, both UK and American, on Style.com and a bunch of other fashion-loving sites. He’s been in New York this summer preparing his sandwich shop, Cheeky’s, sketching the cool kids in the Hamptons or at the Jane and starting a project he might call, “I’m on the List” about the nature of waiting in lines in New York.

He was in Paris before this and counts India as his favorite place, but he’s in love with New York right now and we’re happy to have him. How he works, after the jump.

Shorts-Gate: The sheer number of stories about MObama wearing shorts is simply insane. We’re pretty sure that lots of people wear shorts in August in Arizona. Is there really a need for a national debate? {Time}

JC/DC: Jean-Charles de Castelbajac’s diffusion line is launching at LFW and he needs models. We’re thinking a Gaga sighting could be job perk. {Dazed Digital}

Quelle Horreur! You can’t seriously expect people to find a way to stir their own coffee, do you McKinsey? Don’t you know that this is Condé Nast? {Page Six}

We’ve still got about a month to go before London Fashion Week begins, so this is sure to not be the last of this sort of announcement, but Sass & Bide will be yet another of the lines returning to show in London this season.

Designers Sarah-Jane Clark and Heidi Middleton, who live in Sydney, said they came up with the concept for the line in London ten years ago and that “to be returning here 10 years later, showing in a city that we love so much and that fuels our creativity, is really exciting!”

I’m a huge fan and was kinda hoping they’d end up back in NYC again. Instead their UK fans like Twiggy and Kate (who showed up for their Shine party earlier this summer) will likely be front and center. It’s quick becoming increasingly more difficult to mask my jealousy that Britt’s heading to LFW sans me.

Vogue UK has just reported that YSL’s Stefano Pilati will be making an appearance at LFW - in his role as Creative Director for the label Veryta.

The line is actually designed by fashion illustrator Tanya Ling and uses fabrics by Pilati BFF Filipo Binaghi. The Vogue eds say that the collection is incredibly easy to wear and romantic and filled with separates you just want to touch. Unfortunately there aren’t any preview pictures available.

It’s unclear exactly how big a hand Stefano had in guiding Tanya’s designs, but it sounds like they had a lovely old time.

Pringle’s magical trio of hipness - Lydia Hearst, Daisy Lowe and Pixie Geldof - has been replaced with none other than Tilda Swinton.

The three heiresses landed at Pringle at the end of last year when the almost two hundred year old Scottish knitwear brand had a slight identity crisis and focused all their efforts on attracting a younger customer. The girls starred in a beautifully shot black and white ad campaign and walked the AW09 show in Milan, but sounds like it didn’t work so well.

We can’t really imagine anyone so different from the three as Fashion’s beloved Swinton and even Pringle’s CEO said of the fellow Scot, “We don’t want to go away from [our traditional customers] — we believe Tilda is more inclusive, as both young and more mature people identify with her acting.”

The British Fashion Council’s just made another announcement: People’s Revolution is taking over their stateside PR.

Kelly Cutrone’s firm will work to promote both London Fashion Week and British designers in general in the US.

And what better way to do that, really, then invite Bravo along to LFW to watch Kelly in action planning and promoting the BFC’s 25th anniversary celebrations at Somerset House. They’d like her to increase awareness of British fashion among US buyers and also, if possible, increase attendance at the week’s shows - most consider it the easiest to skip. Though we would never miss it.

Considering People’s Revolution’s probably the best known fashion PR firm outside of the industry itself, we’ll expect more crowds, more parties and more drama.

Woo-hoo.

London Fashion Week has already been shaping up as the place to be this fall.

And now for those of you not in New York the week before, there will be even more places to celebrate, this time for high street fashion.

According to Vogue UK, stores like Topshop, Mango, H&M, Urban Outfitters, and New Look will be banding together from September 7-11 to hold champagne-filled late night shindigs, collection previews, and even beauty workshops.

We won’t be able to make it as we’ll be ensconced in all things NYC. But we’re sure you Londoners will have a good time for all of us.

Add another slot on the London Fashion Week calendar: Clements Ribeiro is returning for the first time since 2005.

The husband and wife team will be presenting in the British Fashion Council’s new space at Somerset House, not in the main venue.

The duo told Vogue UK, “The rooms have wonderful proportions and are perfect for the intimate setting we want to create for our salon presentation.”

We’re guessing they’ll pack the room.

We’d gotten so used to waking up every morning to the news that yet another designer would be returning home to London for Spring 09 that we don’t know what to do with the news that Giles will be showing in Paris.

First, we should congratulate him for winning the ANDAM award, the same €160,000 endowment that sent Gareth Pugh to Paris one year ago. The prize, given by France’s National Association for the Development of the Fashion Arts has been previously bestowed upon designers like Margiela and Viktor & Rolf putting Giles in even higher company.

But really we’re kind of devastated. His clothes and spirit are so thoroughly British that the grand celebrations of the BFC’s 25th Anniversary will be lacking without his presence, not to mention that despite the crazy fun that is British Fashion Week there really are just a handful of internationally known designers in town - Luella, Westwood’s Red Label, Chris Kane and now probably Marios Schwab which makes Giles’ show one of LFW’s stars.

Meanwhile, we are excited to see how or if his designs change for such a different atmosphere and probably audience. Can we expect Anna’s presence?

Jonathan Saunders will join his Brit friends at London Fashion Week this September.

He, like Burberry, Pringle and Matthew Williamson before him, will return to the UK in honor of the British Fashion Council’s 25th anniversary after showing in New York for the past couple of years.

The BFC’s averaging about one glorious return per week and considering LFW doesn’t start until September there’s room for about twelve more to change their mind.

Between this, the recession and the move from the Natural History Museum to Somerset House we’re expecting major changes for fall - here’s hoping the BFC’s grand celebrations make for one serious week long party.

In October, Nick Knight and SHOWstudio announced they’d be launching an epic exhibition at Somerset House to coincide with London Fashion Week SS09 and the BFC’s 25th Anniversary (the celebrations for which we’re already SO excited).

Well, now we know that the exhibit will showcase the site’s collaborations with designers, artists and models including Alexander McQueen, Liberty Ross, Gareth Pugh and Julie Verhoeven, as well as new collaborative films made specifically for the celebration and it’ll run from September through December.

One room will function as a photo studio, housing Nick Knight and his team preparing for on-site shoots. So you can watch his preparation live, instead of edited into a slick video. And while they’ll be shooting one hundred portraits of London’s hippest models, actors, musicians and artists, he’ll also be working with a major model.

And considering his taste in girls- Kate, Natalia, Irina, Daria, Lily - we’re kind of dying to know who it is. Guesses?