Versini ‘taking legal action’ to stop fashion party photo appearing online

Cheryl Fernandez-Versini was the victim of wrong place, wrong time after an unfortunate photo emerged of her online.



The image was taken in the bathroom at the British Fashion Awards on Monday night, while The X Factor judge was washing her hand, and there’s lines on the shelf above the sink that people have wrongly assumed are drugs.

The fashion journalist who captured the image posted it with the caption ‘sadness in her eyes’ but quickly deleted it after realising how it could be misconstrued.

Cheryl has always been staunchly against drugs, and there’s no evidence to suggest that it actually is drugs. More likely spilled Champagne left behind by another party goer, or reflection from a light above.

Now she has reportedly started legal proceedings to ensure the photograph does not appear online again, with her lawyers sending round a legal notice prohibiting its publication.

A source told The Sun: ‘It’s outrageous that someone in the fashion industry has taken a picture of Cheryl like this and posted it publicly. She absolutely despises drugs and any connection linking her to them is ridiculous. She was just using the toilet.

Creative burnout hitting the fashion industry hard

Dior, Lanvin, Baleciaga. These are just some of the iconic names in fashion that have suffered high-profile departures from designers in recent weeks. One big reason is creative burnout. Simply put, fashion designers – and other staff of the major fashion houses – are being spurred by the ubiquity of the internet and the trend of fast fashion to create collections and shows at an increasingly rapid rate.



1.Why are all these people leaving, what's going on?

There is too much information, too much product too fast, too much demand. And fashion is the fastest creative cycle, historically speaking its faster than technology. It was a six month cycle, but now it's a three month cycle and actually if you talk to a designer at a major house like Dior or Chanel, it's a three week cycle. They have to create whole collections in three weeks.

2.So how does that work in the studio?

It means they have to come up with the ideas, communicate the ideas to the seamstresses, the people who create the samples, create the samples, fit the samples, make the clothes, ship the clothes back to the studio, fit the models, produce a runway show.


3.Who is providing this pressure? Is it the designers themselves, is it the houses they work for, is it major retailers, is it the high-end retailers? 

It comes from all different directions. I mean the retailer wants more product, the public wants more product and information. They're consuming information and product at a much faster rate because of the internet, obviously. But they're also consuming it because of fast fashion. Fast fashion has become kind of the scapegoat for all of this. But I don't think you can point the finger at one specific person, or system, or part of the culture. I think its just everything is much faster now. In the fashion world you're not just seeing the creative talent leave, but also the business side, great managers are leaving because it's too much pressure.