The face of Burberry has leapt to his death in Milan.

Tom Nicon, 22, the French male model who has been the front of Hugo Boss, Louis Vuitton, Versace and Burberry campaigns, died after falling from his fourth floor apartment on Friday according to police reports.

Nicon was in Milan as part of the prestigious Milan Fashion Week which began on Saturday, and had attended a Versace fitting just hours before he was found dead outside his building, after his modelling agency, Success, searched for him following his no-show at a meeting.

Sources close to the model have suggested that he had been battling depression since he broke up with his girlfriend, which police described as a complicated affair. Authorities are treating the death as suicide and the organisers of the fashion shows said they would proceed as a tribute to the model.

Nicon’s death is another in string of suicides that have beset the fashion industry over recent months. In February, Alex McQueen, who this week had his ashes scattered in Scotland, took his life while in London after allegedly being unable to cope with the passing of his mother. In May, Noemie Lenoir, the French model who was the UK face of Marks & Spencer, attempted to commit suicide in a Parisian forest before being found by a member of the public. South Korean Daul Kim, 20, who had fronted campaigns for Gap, Chanel, Vivienne Westwood and Karl Lagerfeld, hung herself last year after another apparent battle with depression.

Noemie Lenoir, the stunning French supermodel know for M&S adverts, is recovering in a Paris hospital after an alleged suicide attempt.

Lenoir, who has become a household name in the UK, apparently tried to kill herself while at the house of her former boyfriend, French footballer Claude Makelele, by a potentially lethal combination of alcohol and pills.

Lenoir is most well-known as the £10 million former face and body of Marks & Spencer. Lenoir, 30, has also fronted fashion campaigns for Next, Victoria’s Secret, l’Oreal and Gap. She is presently in a high-profile relationship with Carl Hirschmann, the controversial Swiss millionaire.

The model was discovered near the home of Makelele, in a forest on the outskirts of Paris. It is believed that she had been drinking a large volume of alcohol – thought to be spirits – and taken several types of drugs while she was staying at the footballer’s home, though no details of exactly what was taken have as yet been released. Makelele, at the time, was in Paris to accept a footballing lifetime achievement award.

Earlier in the evening, Lenoir had telephoned an ambulance, advising operators that she had become very ill, but then called back to cancel the dispatch. She was later seen heading groggily in the direction of the woods, where she was found by another passer-by who was out for a walk with his dog.

She later regained consciousness at the hospital, but is still showing signs of what medical staff described as an obvious attempt to hurt herself.