A hard week for Harold Tillman Harold Tillman failed to change the fortunes of Jaeger and Aquascutum, and sold both companies to pay off debts this week. What went wrong, asks Luke Leitch. Twice a year Harold Tillman, CBE, chairman of the British Fashion Council, makes a speech at 10 Downing Street. He gets rather nervous beforehand, but then gets on with it: banging the drum for London Fashion Week at Samantha Cameron's regular fashion industry shindigs is part of his (second) job. READ: London Fashion Week label Jaeger bought out by Better Capital Since becoming chairman in 2008, Tillman has announced some impressive advances for this country's premiere fashion showcase: Burberry was lured back to London's catwalk from Milan, fashion week was moved to a new HQ at Somerset House, and a report in 2010 established that 1.3 million people -half of them under 30 - are employed in Britain's £20 billion a year fashion industry. Under his watch, London Fashion Week, long viewed internationally as the scatty junior sibling to Paris and Milan, has grown in stature and power. Then this week came the news that Tillman's day job - captain and majority shareholder of Jaeger and Aquascutum - had suddenly crumbled around him. Tillman sold Jaeger, which he once described as "the British Ralph Lauren" and of which he was terribly proud, to the venture capitalist John Moulton for £19.5 million, most of which will go to pay off the company's debts. Yesterday it was reported that the Jaeger deal was done to insulate its employees from the losses being racked up by Margaret Thatcher's clothier of choice, Aquascutum, which Tillman acquired in 2009 and spent around £30 million unsuccessfully striving to turn around. This is the second time in his colourful career - he was, for a while, the youngest person to float a company on the stock exchange, and recruited George Best for fashion's first footballer-endorsement deal - that Tillman's fortunes have taken a beating in line with the economy. Three months before 1987's "Black Friday," he took a loss-making subsidiary of Austin Reed named Honorbilt public, then was wiped out when the crash came. The Department of Trade and Industry threatened him with disqualification as a company director for three years, a threat he managed to fend off. READ: Aquascutum on brink of collapse Just what the future holds for Aquascutum and Jaeger - and its hundreds of employees - remains worryingly unclear. Aquascutum went into receivership yesterday. It certainly seems extremely doubtful whether both companies will show new-season collections at London Fashion Week in September. Tillman might be feeling pretty low today, but not, we hope, so low that he is tempted to walk away early from his chairmanship of the British Fashion Council. As Boris Johnson noted recently: "Harold's retail flair and business acumen are the perfect foil for the astonishing creativity of our fashion designers." He should have at least one more Downing Street speech left to get nervous about.