Designer wars as Banks savages Topshop Kate

Kate Moss has been self-deprecating about the fashion range she is being paid £3m to produce for Sir Philip Green at Topshop, describing the collection as "just bits from my closet".

The supermodel obviously wasn't anticipating the fury of the fashion designer Jeff Banks who, in an attack on the current high street penchant for celebrity "designers" such as Moss, has questioned her creative ability and the part her wardrobe played in the new collection.

"Can Kate sharpen a pencil or draw a matchstick man? Banks asked. "I wouldn't put money on it. I'll bet [Kate Moss] just grabbed one of her many Prada bags, rifled through her wardrobe ... and turned up at Topshop's head office in Oxford Street for a quick hour's briefing with the in-house designers and buying staff."

Amid a frenzy of anticipation about the Moss collection, to be unveiled on 1 May, Sir Philip's staff mounted a strong defence of the model yesterday, dismissing Banks - a man who has twice been named British Designer of the Year and whose standing in retail fashion has led to him to present 300 episodes of the BBC's Clothes Show - as a man out of touch with the industry.

A Topshop spokeswoman said: "Kate Moss has had a huge input in the range from every level, from the design concept of the garments to the fitting and the logo. The fashion industry may be a different place to one Jeff Banks is used to. Top designers like John Galliano don't cut patterns, they have pattern cutters. That's the industry."

Moss, the company said, was neither a full-time member of staff nor a trained fashion designer - and there was nothing wrong with developing the contents of her wardrobe. "Most brands have made quite a lot of money out of copying what she wears. She's been in the industry since she was 14, she's been surrounded by the best designers and attended a million and one fittings and shoots. She's hardly in a factory stitching clothing, but she's been totally involved from the beginning."

Banks is not the only one expressing doubts over Moss's credentials. In the United States, where the range will be launched in the store Barneys, the New York Post declared that the collection "looks like Kate copying a lot of other people's stuff Kate's worn before". Other critics have called the range "Duplikate" and "bland".

But it will take more than a few doubters to diminish excitement over the Moss collection, which features 50 designs priced between £12 for a ribbed vest top to £150 for a raw-edge cream leather jacket. It has been given the ultimate accolade for a British high-street collection by featuring in a spread in the May edition of American Vogue.