The secret world of freebies

It emerged yesterday that Elizabeth Hurley packed all 19 of the glamorous gowns she wore to host the Fashion Rocks gala for the Prince's Trust into an enormous suitcase and lugged the lot home. Designer outfits such as the burgundy-and-cream-print handkerchief outfit by Gucci, the powder blue sequined frock by Versace, and the orange satin sheath by Ralph Lauren.

The total is estimated to be worth around a quarter of a million pounds, but is explained away by the charity's organisers, who said yesterday, "Like everyone on the evening, Elizabeth Hurley gave her services entirely free ... Any gowns that were given to her were arranged privately between Miss Hurley and the designers."

Much as Stella McCartney, Karl Lagerfeld et al hold Ms Hurley in a very dear place in their hearts, they were not being entirely altruistic. Liz Hurley is a star, thus ensuring their wares were plastered all over the papers the next day. Her endorsement was priceless - I don't doubt that the sight of Hurley in a Chanel frock will boost sales, if not of the label's couture collection, at least of its eau de cologne. What I do have a problem with is the culture of collusion between the luxury-goods industry and those people in the fashion industry who are not stars, but whose job it is to report impartially on the business for the benefit of their readers.

Now, I don't want to seem ungrateful, especially as Christmas is right around the corner, but the gleeful acceptance of often very expensive gifts by those who work on the glossies (men's magazines included), is one practice that most readers are blissfully unaware of. (It isn't restricted to fashion, by the way, but includes the beauty industry as well. Have you ever wondered why you rarely read a piece that is critical of a new moisturiser, when that product has probably been biked in gross to the beauty editor's bathroom, and the parent company has taken out a glossy double-page ad in the same issue ...?)

Take my time as editor of Marie Claire magazine. I arrived used only to Fleet Street, where gifts are frowned upon, and was amazed on my first day to have my office filled with so many bouquets of orchids the size of toddlers I thought I had died prematurely, which would have been a shame as I wouldn't have been able to enjoy the biscuit-coloured Jil Sander suit that magicked its way to my desk. Or the shiny black Tod's briefcase. "Ooh, this is nice," I said to myself. "I must be popular, how kind and thoughtful ..."

People who work in fashion are, on the whole, generous and lovely. But there was a flip side to the gift-giving that didn't go so far as stopping me doing my job, but did make it very difficult indeed to be honest with my readers. For example, I was once whizzed in a motor launch to a spa on the island of Capri to be exfoliated, all so that I would put a certain brand of shoe in the mag (which I'm afraid I duly did, too - even the best of us can be bribed).

Nothing, I soon found out, in the world of the glossies is by chance. For my very first cover shoot, with Nicole and Natalie Appleton, I was told by my team I simply had to use Gucci, as they hadn't had a cover credit so far that year. We put them in Gucci bikinis and not only did we get the advertising we needed, lo and behold, a shiny new snaffle handbag plonked on my desk, with a lovely note from designer Tom Ford.

Then there were the generous discounts in designer stores, usually around 40 per cent, but, occasionally, I would go into a particularly generous shop (usually Italian), hand over my credit card, and be told there was no charge. Embarrassing, but nice all the same.

The twice-yearly fashion shows were a revelation. My hotel room would be heady with flowers, not just a weedy old bunch of tulips, but literally hundreds of them, and handbags, handbags and more handbags (editors-in-chief would get top of the range, descending to weeny purses for the assistants). We would all then take our booty to the next day's show and compare size and, therefore, status (Anna Wintour, of American Vogue, always had the biggest and shiniest). Then, once back in the office, there was the ritual of the "look book": bound photographs from every catwalk show, from which I would be expected to choose one outfit from each designer; I remember with fondness a blue suede coat and orange chiffon dress by Alberta Ferretti (every designer had made it their business to know my size). The front-row seats of every show would always have some kind of extravagant gift, too: a bottle of perfume, say, or in the case of Frost French last month, a £90 GameBoy Advance.

The shows were nothing compared to what would descend in the run-up to Christmas. One year I counted 22 handbags, a hamper, numerous bottles of scent, silk bed linen, cashmere throws, candles, champagne, leather diaries, silver picture frames, a Louis Vuitton suitcase monogrammed with my initials worth nearly £1,000, a leather coat, a silk dress, underwear, Sergio Rossi shoes, vouchers for numerous hairdos, skincare and a wicker Gucci sun lounger. I felt as if I was in a very upmarket version of The Generation Game.

Now, editors and their fashion teams will probably argue, quite rightly, that the fact they are seen wearing all this stuff is good for the brand (a cutting-edge young stylist can give a new bag kudos). And some, I am sure, eschew the gifts - the legendary Suzy Menkes, fashion editor of the International Herald Tribune, has a strict rule never to accept so much as a hanky. (In case you are wondering, I saved up all my gifts and gave them to my staff, the lowest paid getting the most expensive; the truly hideous things were sold in aid of the anti-fur campaigners Peta - I thought there was a nice irony here.)

But perhaps the global downturn in the industry has its good side. Freebies were thin on the ground last season, with even the Italians uncommonly subdued, and so perhaps the glossies can begin to reclaim their integrity.

Oh, and I learned an important lesson editing a magazine, by the way: never to take the gorgeous pressies and the lavish invitations in any way personally. The day it was announced I was leaving, I didn't receive so much as a single, solitary daffodil.