Carbs on the catwalk? Lovin' it

Who knew that this season’s biggest fashion bunfight would have been just that — a battle not about handbags, heels and hems but panettone, pastry and pralines? Last year, two of the world’s largest luxury goliaths, Bernard Arnault (owner of Louis Vuitton, Dior and Céline) and Miuccia Prada, were slugging it out for ownership of one of Milan’s oldest cake shops, Cova, founded in 1817 and situated on the city’s answer to Bond Street, Via Montenapoleone. Arnault, France’s richest man, won that battle, but Prada fought back in March by acquiring a large stake in the 190-year-old Pasticceria Marchesi, which opens a pop-up branch in Harrods today as part of its Pradasphere event.

Many worried what this would signify for the fashion world. Would elasticated waistbands be making a comeback, or perhaps Pasticceria Marchesi’s signature bake, the colomba (a dove-shaped cake filled with orange peel and topped with almonds), would soon be stamped with the Prada triangle?

Prada and LVMH are not the only ones getting in a flap over carbs. At Paris Fashion Week, Dasha Zhukova (Roman Abramovich’s partner) was holding court over baked potatoes with Julia Restoin Roitfeld and Diane Kruger at Caviar Kaspia, a panel-led room on Place de la Madeleine (OK, the potatoes come topped with caviar: €333 for beluga and a snip at €79 for mere white sturgeon). At the dinner for The Glamour of Italian Fashion at the V&A, Tom Ford and Naomi Campbell hit back at the 5:2 reign of terror by tucking into potatoes and ice cream.

One of Moschino’s most hyped new arrivals has been designer Jeremy Scott’s Maccy D icon sweater dress at £492 (in liveried red and yellow) trumpeting: ‘Moschino — Over 20 Billion Served.’ Anya Hindmarch is also feeling savoury; there’s a waiting list for her high-shine £995 ‘crisp clutch’ (below), inspired by a crumpled crisp packet, after it debuted in February at London Fashion Week.

Earlier on in LFW, models ‘thought Christmas had come early’, says James Tregaskes, party organiser for fashion PR company Karla Otto, whose clients include Valentino and Givenchy. They couldn’t get enough of the focaccia and mini pizzas from Soho-based bakers Princi that he ordered in for the Simon Gao show. Tregaskes adds that jam- or custard-filled St John Bakery doughnuts are favourites with the fashion and art sets and have been served at Lanvin shows.

Moschino’s A/W 2014 Milan invite was a giant block of chocolate resembling a Hershey bar, and Hindmarch also had bags in the shape of Quality Street chocolates and packets of Digestives. A mouthful of carbs now marks you out as the ultimate rebel (though naturally, you’ll need a coupe of Dom Pérignon in one hand, and that doughnut should be bijou in size to be properly chic). Ali Warburton, MD of Ravenous, which caters at Diane von Furstenberg’s London parties, thinks the chic stodge trend is all about money. ‘Carbs are cheap, so clients can spend more on the bar,’ she says.

Even LA-ers are rebelling against the tyranny of lean cuisine. Food at Leonardo DiCaprio’s housewarming party at the $5.3 million Palm Springs mansion he bought in March was Rat Pack-themed, with dishes including mac and cheese, potato salad, cakes and cookies, while a milkshake maker churned out fabulous brown sugar shakes.

Carbs have become so naughty that chowing down on a burger will generate nearly as many headlines as accepting the role of a transsexual in a major Hollywood production. Check out the shots of Elton John’s Oscar party guests, including Lady Gaga, Donatella Versace and Jared Leto, hanging out by the In-N-Out Burger van this year. Or consider the waves caused by Cara and Jourdan’s ‘burger’ selfie, taken minutes before their Burberry runway show in London Fashion Week last September.

There’s no doubt about it. There is a nutritional free-for-all going on right now. The story of Bill Clinton’s doctor, Mark Hyman, telling the former president to give up his vegan diet because it was making him fat was breaking news in last month’s New York Times. Jean-Claude Vacassin, founder of W10 Performance Gym, is convinced that ‘people are bored of fad diets’. Vacassin, whose old-fashioned attitude to carbs has attracted a clutch of Victoria’s Secret models and former Pussycat Doll Ashley Roberts, says: ‘The problem is that people do low carbs from Monday to Friday but then eat crap and drink like fish at the weekends, so the body is constantly under the cosh.’

He adds that so-called ‘gluten intolerance’ might simply be a case of ‘gut impermeability because you’ve been drinking too much alcohol’. W10 offers bespoke ‘macronutrient ratio’ advice, measuring the amount of carbs, fats and proteins to suit your body.

Fashion writer Bronwyn Cosgrave says that Brits are obsessed with fad diets because ‘the UK lacks the reverence around food culture that exists in France and Italy’. Artisan patisserie in Europe is the equivalent of high fashion, she says, because ‘after the French Revolution, while dressing flamboyantly was frowned upon, it was acceptable to go to town with fancy cakes’. Who can forget the key role of Mendel’s decadent cakes and pretty pink boxes in Wes Anderson’s Mittel-European fable The Grand Budapest Hotel?