Oh dear. In a real fashion catastrophe, three of the most popular style magazines on the planet have somehow contrived to feature the same dress on their latest covers.

Prada will no doubt be delighted, with their dress appearing on the front page of Vogue, Elle and W all at the same time, but industry analysts are wondering how such a faux pas could have happened in a business which employs teams of people to make sure that this precise incident is avoided. In what is the industry equivalent of three supermodels turning up to a party in the same outfit, the coincidence is somewhat of an embarrassment to all concerned. Fashion houses such as Prada go to great lengths to ensure that rival photo shoots are not given the same outfit, something which has left the respective magazine editors scrambling to deflect criticism.

While Elle magazine said the situation was not surprising given that the dress was so fabulous, Vogue attempted to point out that the dresses were not the same, saying that they had not even noticed the other covers.

Danish model Freja Beha Erichsen appears on the cover of British Vogue in tangerine version of Prada’s diffusion line Miu Miu, while Lily Allen is featured in a lilac lace version for UK Elle, and Eva Mendes adorns the cover of US glossy W in a yellow number. As if that wasn’t enough, model Mona Johannesson appears in the lilac dress on the cover of Swedish Elle.

One of the planet’s most influential female fashion bloggers has slammed the use of curvaceous models on the catwalk.

Une Fille Comme Moi (A Girl Like Me) blogger Garance Dore, whose webpage garners some 50,000 hits every day, said that the recent trend towards plus models by leading fashion houses such as Louis Vuitton and Prada were little more than a gimmick.

The 35-year-old photographer turned fashion critic told reporters in Paris that the industry was being naive and presumptuous to assume that the catwalk was a place for differing body shapes, but did acknowledge that this may change in the future. Right now, it seems, Dore feels the best outfits should be worn on the best bodies.

Dore said that the concept should not be treated as a big deal, so to speak, but that UK Fashion Week had deliberately made a joke of the concept, aiming for shock value and publicity for being seen to be progressive in its approach.

Dore further said that the use of larger models by magazines to project a healthy body image was unconvincing, a reference to the French glossy Elle whose latest edition features the plus-sized Tara Lynn on the cover and in a 20-page luxury label collection. Also, the January edition of V magazine was a Size issue, with both Lynn and fellow buxom beauty Crystal Renn both featuring, heavily.

Somewhat controversially, Dore said that it was not necessarily a good thing to showcase plus sized models because they were not really physically healthy.