In the recently published Fashion Babylon, there's a great anecdote describing what must be one of the first recorded incidents of a label being WAGGED.

Victoria Beckham at the Chanel couture show with Karl Lagerfeld

Years ago, when Tom Ford was creative director at Gucci, he spotted Victoria Beckham out and about wearing some of his designs. Worried about the negative effect that this could have on the brand, he allegedly called his London PR and demanded to know who was responsible for putting Posh into the outfit.

The PR told him that she had bought the clothes at full price at the Gucci shop. Ford is reported to have screeched: "Well, somebody stop her!"

Whether or not this story is true, it illustrates the problem that high-fashion houses now face; once a label's clothes or accessories are seen on who a designer deems to be the "wrong" person, its credibility can plummet.

As a group, no one has done more to kill off a handful of trends and labels than high-profile footballers' wives. Being WAGGED is now the greatest danger facing any new It-bag or hot label.

So step forward, once more, the former Posh Spice. Victoria Beckham last week debuted her freshly cropped hair (a move to distance herself from the other WAGs) during an evening out with her friend Christopher Bailey, Burberry's creative director. The outing was duly "papped".

A few days later, an item appeared in a newspaper diary alleging that Bailey had received a severe dressing down from Burberry bosses for socialising with the Queen of WAGs. It was rumoured that the company, which has spent years trying to shrug off its chav associations, saw the publicity as a major setback.

No one has done more than Bailey to transform Burberry into a major fashion player with consistently praised fashion collections - he is one of the industry's key trendsetters. For the record, sources at Burberry deny Bailey was reprimanded following the dinner.

All the same, would Burberry's new Manor bag be quite so desirable if it was given a high-profile outing by Mrs Beckham? Would we all be lusting after the label's limited-edition gold trench if she had been there first?

For serious designer labels, there is a tightly defined hierarchy of who is desirable and who is not, and the WAGs almost uniformly fall into the latter category.

Just as an outfit or an It-bag sported by Kate Moss or Sienna Miller is an almost guaranteed sell-out, being WAGGED can damage the brand's desirability.

Once, Chlo¨¦'s bags were the most coveted accessories known - each season the latest design, from the Silverado to the Paddington, would be an instant sell-out.

It helped, of course, that very few of us could afford to blow ¡ê1,000 or more on one intoxicating fashion fix. This summer's Betty - oversized, slouchy and multi-pocketed - was first spotted on Kate Moss, whose patronage, of course, made it must have - for a while.

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