<p>We would wear any of these looks right now -- and forever! </p>Jamie Trueblood/Paramount Pictures <p>The actresses who've made the biggest impressions in 2011: Jessica Chastain, Viola Davis, Emma Stone, young Shailene Woodley -- are the ones who showed up in the most films or the best films or both. Fashion models outside of Giselle may not be household names anymore, as most magazine covers are now actresses wearing designer clothes, pushing their latest movies -- but that doesn't mean some models didn't have a very good year, too.</p>our editor recommendsRosie Huntington-Whiteley and Burberry's Christopher Bailey Party at Fragrance Launch'Transformers' Star Rosie Huntington-Whiteley Sizzles in New Burberry Fragrance AdTV Ratings: 'Victoria's Secret Fashion Show' Rakes in Record Ratings at CBS

<p>UPDATE: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that DeLeo appears in the video. </p> <p> <p> <p> <p> <p> <p> <p> <p> <p> <p> <p>Frazer Harrison/Getty ImagesNina Dobrev at the Emmys 2011 <p>The title of Emmy's Best Dressed this year will certainly be hard won (as there's some heavy and heady competition), but don't expect the most famous woman to win -- nor even the most famous designer.</p>our editor recommendsEmmys 2012: Tim Goodman Picks Who Will Win (and Who Should)Emmys 2012: Mayim Bialik Will Be in Religious Chic on Awards NightEmmys 2012: From Runway to Red Carpet: What the Stars Should Wear

<p></p><p>Karl Lagerfeld surprised everyone when he picked Alice Dellal, known as model-slash-socialite but mainly for having "punky" and "rocker" style, as the new face of his Boy Chanel handbag collection. </p><p>With her half-shaved head, tattoos and a couple of unconventionally placed piercings, ; she "represents the perfect incarnation of all that is unique about the Boy Chanel handbag collection, which strives [to be] far from conformist notions of femininity."</p><p>We got a sneak peek at the campaign from a short film released last month, a silent film directed by Lagerfeld in black and white called "My New Friend Boy." </p><p> and they're just about as "punky" and "rocker" as you'd imagine: Dellal in her shaved head glory, wearing ripped, footless fishnet tights and a Chanel zip-up hoodie (and no pants). Oh, and carrying the new Boy bag. </p><p>Check out the newest face of the French brand. Do you dig the darker feel of the new Chanel spots?<br></p> <br><p>Alicia Keys has been turning-heads with her sensational style as she makes the rounds during Paris Fashion Week. The singer was spotted at list of high-brow shows including Givenchy, Yves Saint-Laurent, Stella McCartney and Chanel. </p><p>While Alicia has stuck to a black and white palette throughout the week--she's been adding a bit of visual interest with her unique choice of accessories. </p><p>She paired her ivory buttoned-up blouse and tuxedo jacket with a large cross statement necklace to take in the Givenchy show and just yesterday decided to up the style ante by donning a jeweled headpiece to the Chanel runway presentation. </p><p>The dangling hair jewelry was definitely head-turning, but we're not quite sure we love it. But this isn't the first time we're seen Alicia rock a set of crowned jewels. </p><p>In fact, we think the "Empire State Of Mind" singer looked quite regal in the to music producer Swizz Beatz. </p><p>But, what do you think of this most recent attempt?</p><p>Here's a look at Alicia's Paris Fashion Week ensembles and a few other A-listers (like Kanye West, Sean "P. Diddy" Combs and Cassie) who have been running around the the City Of Lights' stylish scene. </p><p><br></p> <br><p>By Linda Rosenkrantz for </p><p>Want to give your baby a name that truly telegraphs a sense of style? One way is by going directly to the world of high fashion: representing several different cultures, the names of many 20th/21st century fashion design icons prove to be exceptionally distinctive, diverse, creative and inspirational. Here are the Nameberry picks for best :</p><p>Public opinions differ on the CW show 'Gossip Girl'. Whether you love it, loathe it, or have never watched it, I find a certain stylish attachment to the show that seems impossible to shake off. 'Who wouldn't want a closet like Blair Waldorf's?'</p>When Karl Lagerfield choose it-girl of the moment Blake Lively as the new face of Chanel, it made sense. <br><br>She’s young, blonde, beautiful, and sporty. <br><br>So, why am I so bored? <br><br>I’ve read reviews from other fashion insiders, and I have to say, I’m not the only yawning. <br><br>This underwhelment is bumbling under the service.<br><br>It was present in the New York Times article by Irina Aleksander, the sub-text asking "whatever, how long will this last? Will people be talking about her in 6 months?"<br><br>Designers have been guilty of choosing girls that are able to have the clothes wear THEM, to showcase their craftsmanship on live mannequins.<br><br>Which is where Lively comes in. When all-American girl gets tossed around to describe your look, it usually means pretty….and kind of boring. <br><br>Yes, I said it. <br><br>Where’s the high fashion? Where’s the rebellion? Where’s the intrigue? I already know her. I’ve seen a million other girls like her as the new thing. It’s been done. <br><br>Consumers are paying for the wonder, elitisim, and individuality that comes with Chanel. Ads are the place to steer the brand in an edgy direction. So, what makes Lively so different?<br><br>The answer: absolutely nothing. <br><br>She the best choice out of what is available right now. It’s a classic case of natural selection. And once the Darwinism of the fashion world will kicks in it'll be survival (literally) of the fittest.<br><br>And I’m afraid, Ms. Lively, won’t be in that group.<p>Blake Lively has certainly become fashion's newest darling -- she's been and and it seems the kind words won't let up any time soon. as the face of Chanel and drilled the actress on how she got into fashion to begin with. :</p>Her mother, Elaine, was a fashion model who fronted a Hanes campaign and teamed up with her daughter to make dresses. "We'd always go down to the garment district with my father. We would go to really cool vintage stores or boutiques and we'd get a bunch of clothes and we'd sew a lot," Lively recalls.<p>[....]</p><p>Yet the actress says she has no ambitions to jump into the melee with a project of her own.</p><p>"I have such a respect for fashion and such an appreciation for it that if there are people like Karl Lagerfeld out there designing, who am I?" she asks. "I want to bow down to them and be a representative for them if they'll have me."<br></p><p>The "Gossip Girl" was also the subject of . She revealed, "I had other opportunities and I would say, 'Thank you so much, but I am holding out for Chanel.' That's who I want to be the face of. And people would say, 'Well, that's unrealistic, they only hire Europeans,' and I said: 'Well, how great. I'll be the first then.'"</p><p>And, of course, there were other designers on-hand to sing her praises. Michael Kors , "You look at her skin and her hair -- she's healthy," Mr. Kors said. "It's the anti-bored, too-cool-for-school, locked in a club for months on end look that you see a lot of young actresses going for. There's something very optimistic about her. I think she's the anti-downer, anti-sad."</p><p>Anyway, take a look at Blake's Chanel ad:</p><p></p> <br><p>Plenty of fashion labels have used mirror in advertisements at one point or another (). But , featuring the lovely actress staring back at herself, is even more familiar than usual.</p><p>Lively's first ad as the new line hit the web Friday, and to our surprise it looks strikingly similar to the spots for her Mademoiselle handbag campaign for Chanel.</p><p>That's right, Chanel -- Lively's fashion champions and home to her BFF Karl Lagerfeld. It wasn't too long ago that Lively was and toting bags for the French fashion brand. and taken the modeling lessons learned at Chanel with her.</p><p>The Gucci ad shows Lively staring out a window into a dark sky overlooking a lit-up city. It's yet so striking similar to the dark Chanel ad also featuring Blake's profile reflected in glass.</p><p>So the real question: intentional or not? Is Gucci pouring salt in Chanel's wound after stealing Karl Lagerfeld's or is the similarity a mere coincidence?</p><p>See the ads for yourself below and tell us what you think!</p><p></p><p>GUCCI:<br></p><p>CHANEL:<br></p><p>Gucci and Chanel aren't the first lookalike fashion ads...<br></p><p></p><p>Want more? Be sure to check out HuffPost Style on , , and .</p><p>In case you've been living under a rock for the past 24 hours (or entirely engrossed with ), you've already heard the startling news: this weekend! </p><p>The "Green Lantern" co-stars, who have been dating for about a year, that took everyone by surprise. While there were plenty of A-listers involved -- Bette Midler and Florence Welch of Florence + the Machine reportedly sang at the reception -- there's no photographic evidence to be had, i.e. no snaps of what we're sure was a stunning wedding dress. With no pics, how will we know what Blake wore??</p><p>! While most news outlets have reported that Lively wore a Chanel gown down the aisle, and can set the record straight:</p>The bride and her bridesmaids walked down the aisle in custom Marchesa gowns designed by Blake's friends, Georgina Chapman and Keren Craig, with shoes created for the celebration by Christian Louboutin. The groom and groomsmen wore specially made Burberry suits with custom leather suspenders designed by the groom's friend, Christopher Bailey. The couple exchanged unique wedding rings by Lorraine Schwartz.<p>Whoa. No love for Karl Lagerfeld? Nor Gucci? Lively has been a longtime pal and muse to the Kaiser, who made her , and . </p><p>Lively also recently , the Italian label's new fragrance. (Despite our secret evil hopes for a juicy feud, it seems like Blake's Gucci gig didn't result in a dramatic fallout with Karl.) </p><p>But both Lagerfeld and Gucci's Frida Giannini have reason to be jealous, since Marchesa's Georgina Chapman and Keren Craig scored the coveted wedding dress gig. Blake in was clad in "a hand-draped silk tulle bodice adorned with custom crystal and rose gold embroidery," according to Marchesa's press office. To be fair, we should have guessed Lively was going to be shopping around for her wedding wardrobe. just months ago, wondering aloud, "Which couture house should I go to?"</p><p>The shoes, on the other hand, .</p><p>For more details, click over to , which has the exclusive scoop for its December issue. </p><p></p><p>Want more? Be sure to check out HuffPost Style on , , and .</p>eGHZmFyID45oENrU906D%2FhMwkuHlFBz7vbH%2Ff%2FInvKhxwb9PFfSCn%2F8qVThGPiQ3fkf6YEs0I8F0fM0LVxM2fSK4I95%2BTaYZjtBUKan59TLkmVgau9HhmJEAACzNaSpRXUuWnWyQh3kn1kf9pMRzikQBOf2JuF1lPI8iKFInWq44PoH8HcJjbT%2BauTR2OQhG<p>It's official: has evolved from his disheveled days into . The has been chosen as the first male face of Chanel No. 5 perfume, . (Gaspard Ulliel appeared in a Chanel men's fragrance ads, but at least as far as we can tell, he was never the official spokesperson of No.5.)</p><p>Mr. Pitt will join the ranks of past promoters of the scent Nicole Kidman, Audrey Tatou and Catherine Deneuve when the ads are released overseas later this year.</p><p>The campaign is scheduled to shoot in London this week, and we're interested to see Karl work his magic on the dreamboat. No word from on exactly why he's taken on the duty of embodying the couture house's best-selling fragrance, but the couple will reportedly take home a seven-figure paycheck from the modeling gig. Brad must have taken when he made the high-paying overseas product-shilling deal.</p><p>This kind of endorsement begs the question: Why is Brad repping one of the most iconic women's scents? He's not exactly the epitome of the effeminate fragrance's target demographic. If the new Chanel face stays mum, we'll just have to wait until we see the ads to piece this together. </p><p>UPDATE: It's confirmed! :</p><p>CHANEL has selected world renowned actor Brad Pitt to be the face of the upcoming advertising campaign for CHANEL N°5. </p>— CHANEL (@CHANEL) <p>Check out Brad and Angelina's style below to get a refresher on the new fragrance aficionado's many looks with his feminine other half.<br></p><p>Also on HuffPost:</p> <br><p>If you needed any more conclusive proof about just how blinkin' good looking Brad Pitt is then this is surely it? The Hollywood star has just been signed up to be the new face of Chanel No.5. You know, the classic ladies fragrance?</p><p></p><p>The 48-year-old actor will make history as the first ever man to front the new advertising campaign for the French fragrance and has reportedly been paid a seven figure sum to do so.</p><p>Brad will follow in the high-heeled footsteps of Nicole Kidman, Keira Knightley, Audrey Tatou, Catherine Deneuve and Lauren Hutton who have all fronted previous campaigns for the scent.</p><p>Brad is due to film the ad in London this week, which is handy, as him and fiancee Angelina Jolie have just .</p><p></p><p>The couple decided to buy the £10million property - Whornes Place in Richmond - .</p><p>> VIDEO: BEFORE THEY WERE FAMOUS: CELEBS IN ADS<br></p><p>Also on HuffPost:</p> <br><p>www.celebuzz.com:</p><p>Yesterday, it was reported that Brad Pitt is going to be the new face of Chanel and now, new details have come to light. Brad is set to begin shooting the ads in London later this week.</p><p></p> <br><p>We like to blithely toss the word "icon" around in reference to our modern day fashion stars: Karl, Kate, Marc, Gaga (and, uh, ). But all it takes is a few costumes to remind us that none compare to a true fashion icon like Coco Chanel.</p><p>The storied fashion designer is getting yet another homage in "The Little Black Jacket: Chanel's Classic Revisited," an upcoming book by Karl Lagerfeld and Carine Roitfeld. The tome honors the jacket created by Coco and worn by hundreds of socialites, models and celebrities ever since. </p><p> at the project, for which Lagerfeld photographed everyone Georgia May Jagger to . </p><p>But our favorite jacket-wearer? Well, it's a toss-up. Carine dresses up as Coco herself, wearing the traditional straw boater, the strands of pearls and that signature jacket. In the unmistakable outfit, the former Vogue Paris editor-in-chief reminds us of what an icon -- a true symbol -- Coco Chanel was.</p><p>Then again, Sarah Jessica Parker wears the jacket on her head. And totally owns it.</p><p>Like we said: toss-up.</p><p>"The Little Black Jacket: Chanel's Classic Revisited" comes out this fall -- will you be buying it?</p><p>WATCH:</p><p></p><p>Carine Roitfeld , but the former editor-in-chief has had no shortage of work since leaving the glossy. </p><p>Two weeks ago, we learned that Roitfeld -- including the catalog, the windows and a short film -- working with photographer Mario Sorrenti and Barneys creative director Dennis Freedman. She told Women's Wear Daily, "It's good to have a new life, because now I can do projects that I never dreamed of before."</p><p>Another such project? Working with Kaiser Karl, apparently. </p><p> Roitfeld styled Chanel's fall/winter advertisements, which were recently shot in Paris. The new pics feature model-of-the-moment Freja Beha Erichsen, and Lagerfeld told the fashion newspaper, "The mix with Freja was genius."</p><p>Will Carine and Karl keep on keeping on, collaborating in the future? Only time will tell. We wonder if one Tom Ford is jealous yet...</p><p><br></p> <br><p>Would you pay $20 for </p><p>No, not shoulder pads. No, not some kind of new, super chic accessory. Cotton pads. Like the things you use to swipe off your eye makeup remover.</p><p>When we first , we balked. $20?? </p><p>But hey, these things are probably nicer than Swisspers. And they are! They're downright international!</p><p>Sayeth Chanel:</p>LE COTON is an exquisitely soft tri-layer pad developed in Japan: its outer lining, made from delicate, handpicked Egyptian cotton, and its inner filling, comprised of lightly entwined, elastic Australian fibers.<p>Nothing but the world's finest to scrub off your mascara clumps.</p><p>And there are more splurge-y cosmetics accessories where that came from; check out some other outrageously priced beauty tools in our slideshow below.</p><p></p><p></p> <br>eGHZmFyID45oENrU906D%2FhMwkuHlFBz7vbH%2Ff%2FInvKhxwb9PFfSCn%2F8qVThGPiQ3fkf6YEs0I8F0fM0LVxM2fSK4I95%2BTaYZjtBUKan59TLkmVgau9HhmJEAACzNaSpRXUuWnWyQh3kn1kf9pMRzikQBOf2JuF1lPI8iKFInWq44PoH8HcJjbT%2BauTR2OQhG<p>Don't steal designer brand names. Just, don't. Because those brands are really big and really rich and pretty scary and they will come and sue your butt. </p><p> this week when the Seoul Central District Court ordered it to pay Chanel approximately $8,800 in damages. As AFP reported, .</p><p>Which may or may not be worse than that time when...</p><p>... a South African boutique owner </p><p>... someone spotted </p><p>... in "The Hangover 2."</p><p>... all those existed.</p><p>That's not counting the countless shoes, bags and clothes that have been confiscated for falsely bearing a designer name (including just last week). What have we learned, class? Don't steal designer brand names.</p><p></p><p>Want more? Be sure to check out HuffPost Style on , , and .</p><p></p><p>After , 46-year-old Kristen McMenamy slipped back into a swimsuit for Monday's Chanel Croisiere show at the Hotel du Cap in Cap d'Antibes, France.</p><p>The silver-haired supermodel led the way for Karl Lagerfeld's cruise collection models, clad chiefly in black, white, black-and-white or a bold print...or a bejeweled turban, in the case of the kaiser's man muse Baptiste Giabiconi. </p><p>:</p>Would-be Marlene Dietrichs sauntered the catwalk in bias-cut gowns of ivory silk that twinkled at the neckline with oversized pearls, their sultry gaits reflecting the very easygoing getaway chic that the Cruise line is meant to embody.<p>"It's about dressing down these very sumptuous looks, about easy elegance," the label's uber-designer, Karl Lagerfeld, told The Associated Press in a post-show interview.</p><p>[...]</p><p>"This is about the women of Cannes, women who mix bathing suits with real pearls and diamonds," Lagerfeld said. "After all, you can't wear fakes into the water."</p><p>Obviously not! What an utterly unsophisticated assumption.</p><p>Take a look at Karl's newest offerings. And to see who sat front row, .</p><p><br></p> <br><p>Chanel's set designer was clearly inspired by the right?</p><p>Today as Paris Fashion Week nears its apogee, Karl Lagerfeld capitalized on the drama, putting on a show that was soaked in luxurious coats and trousers as well as striking scenery.</p><p>As celebs like Alicia Keys and watched from the front row, Chanel's models strutted out in front of jutting crystal-like sculptures, walking on sand that was strewn on the runway. (Fashionista's reporter one woman pocketing some of the crystals and sand.)</p><p>Who walked? Miranda Kerr (of ), who strutted in an embroidered coat with glittering eyebrows, although our fave Karlie Kloss was nowhere in sight. The rest of the collection was similarly dramatic, featuring signature Chanel textiles like tweed and wool, and a crop of sheer plastic shoes that were also adorned with crystals.</p><p>There was also a tiny, Chanel-bedecked tot on the runway -- whose dad Brad is a male model and close friend of Kaiser Karl.</p><p>At the show's conclusion, Lagerfeld ambled out between the crystals to pay his respects to the crowd, who appropriately cheered him for putting on such an artistic fete.</p><p>Check out pics of the runway looks and video of the Chanel finale below:</p><p></p><p></p> <br>eGHZmFyID45oENrU906D%2FhMwkuHlFBz7vbH%2Ff%2FInvKhxwb9PFfSCn%2F8qVThGPiQ3fkf6YEs0I8F0fM0LVxM2fSK4I95%2BTaYZjtBUKan59TLkmVgau9HhmJEAACzNaSpRXUuWnWyQh3kn1kf9pMRzikQBOf2JuF1lPI8iKFInWq44PoH8HcJjbT%2BauTR2OQhG<p></p><p>By: </p><p>Chanel‘s fall/winter 2012 runway presentation ended just hours ago and the fashion world is already buzzing about one standout beauty detail: thick, glittery eyebrows.</p><p></p><p>Want the easy-to-achieve secret behind Rose’s flawless complexion?</p><p>The arch-free appliqués came in a variety of collection-complementing colours and the beading and sequins matched the decorative trim on jackets and jewellery.</p><p>Obviously this is a look made for the runway but with our current obsession with wild nails and colourful, ombré hair, could glitter eyebrows become a trend?</p><p></p><p>More from TheKit.ca:<br></p><p></p><p><br></p><p>Related on HuffPost:</p> <br><p>PARIS - On day two of Paris' haute couture week, Giorgio Armani took fashion on a midnight romance, Stephane Rolland channeled Supergirl-style capes and Chanel got nostalgic for past vintage styles.</p><p>It was certainly a diverse collection of creations from A-lines to dropped waists, palettes that were muted or bright, and styles spanning decades.</p><p>But Tuesday's shows had one key thing in common: imagination.</p><p>"Haute couture will exist as long as people want to dream," Didier Grumbach told The Associated Press.</p><p>The French fashion president, one of the most discreet yet powerful figures in the world of fashion thus answers detractors who predict the demise of the age-old tradition.</p><p>Grumbach believes that couture — an artisanal clothes-making method that exists only in Paris— has many healthy years ahead.</p><p>Haute couture exists against all the odds: creations which range in price from $19,000 to $125,000 being bought by women thought to number no more than 100 in the world.</p><p>"But Armani's coming here to Paris, it shows that fashion needs haute couture. ... It's not just about selling clothes: it's an advert, an ideas factory," added Grumbach.</p><p>Strong showings both from Armani Prive and Chanel prove that couture — 150 years since its birth — still has a lot to say.</p><p>CHANEL</p><p>What do a supermodel and a 79-year-old former French first lady have in common? Chanel haute couture.</p><p>The unlikely pairing of Laetitita Casta and Bernadette Chirac was seen at Karl Lagerfeld's aptly titled "New Vintage" show.</p><p>Their presence showed the unique and enduring allure of 100-year-old Chanel. Down the catwalk, adorned with vintage sketches of Coco Chanel's lavish house interior, went shimmering silk tweed skirt suits, ensembles from the '50s and '60s, and a '30s bolero jacket. Other outfits sparkled with a contemporary metallic sheen.</p><p>In some instances, Lagerfeld resurrected the 1980s. A series of ensembles in big, bold textured checks in black, grey and white channeled the decade's strong shoulders and narrow hemline. In other looks, pink tulle fringing recreated a dropped waist effect from the 1920s.</p><p>Elsewhere, double-breasted A-lines, a Peter Pan collar and ensembles in pale pink and white might have come straight out of Jacqueline's Kennedy early '60s wardrobe.</p><p>The boldest looks came toward the end: Lagerfeld let his pony-tailed hair down in a shimmering electric blue dress that could have been Coco's answer to 1970s glam rock.</p><p>"Ravishing," said Chirac.</p><p>"It's French perfectionism," said Casta.</p><p>"It's hard for the seamstresses," said Lagerfeld. "They toil over the clothes. The tulle with pearl took 3,000 hours. Couture is for a world of privilege."</p><p>"New Vintage" was a typical contradiction in a constantly moving fashion world. But is there ever time for looking back? Not really, according to Lagerfeld.</p><p>"In fashion now, vintage means six months," he said.</p><p>GIORGIO ARMANI PRIVE</p><p>Giorgio Armani found romance in the midnight sky in a sumptuous haute couture collection that followed the changing hues of the sun.</p><p>His accomplished fall-winter collection 2012 on Tuesday began with a daybreak of sorts, in lighter shades of mauve and lavender in organzas and double crepe.</p><p>Shoulders were emphasized, some with upward scooped tailoring. Others had upper bodices in graduated shades of pink — dawn's first rays of sunshine.</p><p>Then as the sun set, the couture got to work.</p><p>Embroidered veils appeared, signalling the dimness of dusk. Geometric embroidery accompanied black tulle tops with Swarovski crystals.</p><p>Spectators gasped as the show climaxed at midnight (in blue, naturally) with some of the most sumptuous dresses seen this season.</p><p>A blue silk bustier dress — the program notes say, made of triple organza — rippled with its generous overlaid skirt and a gentle tulle shoulder shrug.</p><p>The subtlety proves one thing: Armani lives up to his reputation for versatility.</p><p>Only last month, in Beijing he staged a show with bright va-va voom, mermaid silhouettes.</p><p>Here, things were more restrained and the looks, mirroring the cycle of time, oozed elegant sensuality.</p><p>And what better advertisement for elegance across time is Sophia Loren? The beautiful 77-year old film star sat in the front row.</p><p>"It was magnificent," she said.</p><p>STEPHANE ROLLAND</p><p>Haute couture shows are often celebrity circuses.</p><p>But rarely does the front row presence upstage a show, as reality TV star Kim Kardashian and her boyfriend, musician Kanye West, did during Stephane Rolland's rather predictable fall-winter 2012 offering.</p><p>The couple's entrance and exit triggered a crowd that spilled out into the street.</p><p>The media scrum caused a mother and her young daughter to be shoved to the side.</p><p>But the celebrity presence here is no great surprise.</p><p>The French designer — responsible for singer Cheryl Cole's red and white mermaid dress at Cannes — has been courting stars for several seasons now.</p><p>Last season, Yasmin Le Bon was Rolland's muse.</p><p>In this show, he went East and chose Chinese actress Fan Bing-Bing.</p><p>With the celebrity hullabaloo, fashion insiders momentarily forgot the reason they came: the clothes.</p><p>The trains and long capes in many of the ensembles, like last season, floated past giving the model a Supergirl silhouette.</p><p>But the lack of new ideas, made the show feel more like a diluted superhero sequel.</p><p>_____</p><p>Thomas Adamson can be followed at http://Twitter.com/ThomasAdamsonAP</p><p>Style confession time: while we love watching (and could absolutely never afford) Chanel's newest collections, we absolutely adore seeing who wears what in the front row. </p><p>And we weren't disappointed after Tuesday's Haute Couture show in Paris. All the cool girls were there: Vanessa Paradis, Kirsten Dunst, Lou Doillon, Diane Kruger and Alexa Chung to name a few...and we can't get over actress Elodie Bouchez open-toed boots.</p><p>Oh yeah, and there was a runway show featuring nearly every model of the moment draped in Karl Lagerfeld's latest creations. Are chokers coming back in?</p><p>Take a look and tell us who was best-dressed at the Chanel show.</p><p></p> <br><p>PARIS — "Don't take things too seriously," said Karl Lagerfeld standing next to a towering wind turbine inside Paris' Grand Palais, "especially not fashion."</p><p>Chanel's veteran designer, with trademark humor, thus summed up an important message of this Paris season.</p><p>The iconic house's fun, young collection headlined the penultimate day of Paris spring-summer 2013 show.</p><p>The fact the show had nothing whatsoever to do with the several eco-turbines constructed for the event – no doubt at a huge cost to the environment – didn't seem to matter.</p><p>Fashion insiders were busy concentrating on the myriad 81 ensembles_ which made this collection possibly the longest Chanel show in history.</p><p>A pinch of salt, too, may have been required Sarah Burton's ode to the McQueen bee, which mixed regal looking crinolines, 1950s silhouttes with bees and insect armory.</p><p>As ever, the Alexander McQueen's ready-to-wear show was Paris Fashion Week's most original, living up to the spirit of the designer who died in 2010.</p><p>Trends on Tuesday included cutouts, as featured in a strong showing from Valentino – with Jennifer Lopez on the front row – and in Paco Rabanne's signature "69" dics that exposed inches of bare flesh.</p><p>Wednesday – the grand finale of a dense and vibrant week – includes shows from Elie Saab, Miu Miu and powerhouse Louis Vuitton.</p><p>CHANEL</p><p>Fun was the healthy mantra which infiltrated Tuesday's Chanel show – a bright and diverse collection brimming with great new ideas.</p><p>Silver bauble appliques became buttons, A-line skirts were playfully short, colorful checks contrasted funkily with geometric flashes, and feather fringing billowed exuberantly.</p><p>One model in a crossing "C" swimsuit even carried a three-foot (nearly 1 meter) handbag.</p><p>A bold new fashion idea was the reworked bolero jacket with curved shoulders, often spruced up with inflated arms.</p><p>The wide T-shaped bolero silhouette spread onto sweaters and inspired many of the show's best looks.</p><p>Naturally, many of the brighter ensembles stood out, too.</p><p>Bright pink and blue felted oversized sweaters were accessorized to kitsch effect with huge pale or silver pearl necklace clusters.</p><p>There was a highly accomplished delivery of color palette also, which lifted one checked red-and-white A-line dress, with the top part sliced off.</p><p>It paired beautifully with a contrasting, yet complementary loose blue and red coat.</p><p>Another stand out piece was a white bateau-neck ensemble with check navy bands with a clean, slightly sporty vide.</p><p>Lagerfeld, who turns 80 next year, certainly hasn't let age slow him down: It's the youngest collection Chanel's seen for a while.</p><p>ALEXANDER MCQUEEN</p><p>Fashion is body armor.</p><p>At least it is for Sarah Burton, who tapped her fantastical imagination for Alexander McQueen to conjure up fashion week's most original show: Mixing insect-like armory with on-trend stiff bar jackets of the New Look, as well as 19th century crinoline.</p><p>If it sounds strange, it was – set to a backdrop of images of bees and honeycomb – with each model wearing a visor reminiscent at once of the 1950s wide hat, a cage and a beekeepers mask.</p><p>Have fashions over the ages, she seemed to ask, caged and protected us like in the natural world?</p><p>A cinched metal or tortoiseshell waist band – a recurrent Burton feature – which fanned out into a peplum in some of the looks resembled an abdomen of a wasp or queen bee.</p><p>The fascinating collection of 31 looks – which had fashion insiders amazed – was as thought-out as it was perfectly executed with metal mesh materials that sparkled mechanically.</p><p>The 1950s were visited in full skirts which mixed with structuralist fashion: Hard bodice cages, which showed the inner working of corsetry of the crinoline age, on the outside.</p><p>The last collections revisited the queen theme: Billowing structured skirts in beige, soft yellow and vermilion looked like a surrealist take on Marie Antoinette.</p><p>VALENTINO</p><p>"Suggestion is seduction," was the theme of Valentino's accomplished spring-summer 2013 show in Paris, which saw the storied Italian fashion house move subtly more sensual.</p><p>Italian design duo Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli kept their strict, high collars and didn't bare too much flesh but eased their conservative designs, in razor-thin slits and tiny transparent cutouts.</p><p>Elsewhere, diaphanous see-through outer garments in black tulle really worked well in bringing home the collection's message of provocative shyness.</p><p>Some of the outfits sported front bibs – wavy silk U-shaped bands – Valentino's more conservative version of the on-trend ruffle shown by Riccardo Tisci's show for Givenchy.</p><p>Two gorgeous red silk dresses appeared at the end, evoking the spirit of the house DNA.</p><p>Founder Valentino Garavani, 80, was seated in the front row and applauded thunderously when the show ended.</p><p>PACO RABANNE</p><p>Lydia Maurer put a spin on the house archives in her debut collection for Paco Rabanne that included myriad variations on the `60s Do-It-Yourself discs of the Rhodoid dress.</p><p>The starting point of the show was Jean Clemmer and Paco Rabanne's controversial 1960s photo collaboration called "Canned Candies," which resurfaced two years ago: Images of naked women in bold armorlike jewelry.</p><p>Maurer's show thus had a vibe of the sexual revolution with provocative dresses that bared much flesh – all held together with Rabanne's signature "69" disc.</p><p>It evoked the essence of the founder, who first cut his teeth in jewelry design.</p><p>One gold fringed number made a bold gladiator-like statement, marching past to the sound of rustling metal.</p><p>But some of the tailored ensembles let the collection down.</p><p>_____</p><p>Thomas Adamson can be followed at http:/ /Twitter.com/ThomasAdamsonAP</p><p> with Chanel Iman pre-Paris Fashion Week to talk about what's going on in the wonderful world of the 20-year-old Victoria's Secret Angel. Here are our favorite Qs and As from the interview. For more, .</p>What do you think about everything that has been going on with John Galliano?Well, I think that John Galliano is a genius. I've been working with him since I was young, and I admire him. I just wish for him the best.<p>There have been a lot of images or editorials over the last couple of years that feature all black models -- you just appeared in one called February 2011 issue. How do you feel about these types of spreads? Do you feel like they are gimmicks or do you think they help take steps toward more inclusion in fashion?<br>Edward Enninful is an amazing stylist for Italian Vogue, and he called me up and he asked if I would be a part of that story. Of course I said yes. I think that anything that's going to help better the community and [allow it] to stick together and stand strong, I'm definitely going to be a part of. The story came out beautiful.</p><p>So you find them empowering?<br>I think that [diversity] is becoming a very very huge thing for the market. I think that it's 2011, and it's definitely time for change. And I'm just really grateful to be a leader in helping that change. </p><p>Do you see yourself as the Tyra Banks or the Naomi Campbell for the next generation?<br>No, I look at myself for who I am. I think those girls are good at what they do, and they have an amazing name for who they are. I'm my own person, and I want people to know me for who I am.</p><p>. And to see Chanel in the "Black Allure" spread, .<br></p> <br>What is with these ladies?! One V.Secret model is living on water before a show and now another is gorging herself to gain 15 pounds (which sounds really unbelievable considering the fact that 15 lbs would change her measurements...) where is the concept of being fit and eating healthily and whatever that leaves you looking like is what it is? Either side of the polarities (not eating or gorging) is still not a healthy image to project to women. I have some advice for these models, how about not talking about what you eat (or don't) this is one time when I wish these models would stand quietly and look pretty. Stop putting this potentially harmful information out there, young girls are listening, watching and learning. If you can't say anything to upgrade the conversation don;t say anything at all! I know this is harsh but I'm just annoyed!$1 million for a perfume bottle? See, this kind of crap is why I say the world has gone mad. There are people dying of starvation, dehydration, and exposure all over the world, and these people have poured a million dollars INTO A PERFUME BOTTLE!! !! What is wrong with you people!? And what's worse is I guarantee that there not only are people out there who not only wish they could have this silly crap, but people who would actually pay that much for one. And people wonder why so many people want to raise taxes on "the rich." Because of pointless, useless, impractical baubles like this. I personally have never seen the preoccupation and obsession with "shiny things." Jewelry is nice, in moderation. But gold is too soft to be used for anything but. Yes, diamonds are ultra hard, and make for great abrasives and cutting tools, but their ridiculously exorbitant costs make them impractical in wide scale use. And then you have things like this, or rappers who spend a half million dollars on a diamond encrusted cross, then go and rap about killing people, raping women and doing drugs. I say tax the rich at an ever increasing rate commensurate with their level of income, until everyone is within just a few thousand dollars of each other.<p>Have you officially made it as a model when you're a frequent victim of Photoshop disasters?</p><p>If that's the case, then we'd like formally to welcome Chanel Iman to the elite models' ranks. Just like from 2010, something very egregious is going on with this new February cover of France's .</p><p>The cover shoot stars Chanel looking gorgeous as always in a tropical-printed Dolce & Gabbana romper, but wait... what's the deal with her manipulated proportions?</p><p>Is it just us, or are her hands the size of her face? We're pretty sure Chanel doesn't have arms that slowly expand lengthwise as they reach her wrists. A quick scan of her previous campaigns (, , ) reveals that, yep, Chanel's arms are downright normal IRL.</p><p>The whole gaffe kind of reminds us of Maybe it's just a bad month for magazine cover airbrushing. (, anyone?)</p><p>Check out the Photoshop-abused cover below, and see even more retouching disasters in our slideshow. Mon dieu!</p><p>Scroll down for more photos.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Related on HuffPost:</p> <br>eGHZmFyID45oENrU906D%2FhMwkuHlFBz7vbH%2Ff%2FInvKhxwb9PFfSCn%2F8qVThGPiQ3fkf6YEs0I8F0fM0LVxM2fSK4I95%2BTaYZjtBUKan59TLkmVgau9HhmJEAACzNaSpRXUuWnWyQh3kn1kf9pMRzikQBOf2JuF1lPI8iKFInWq44PoH8HcJjbT%2BauTR2OQhG<p>What would you do if you found your man cheating with another woman?</p><p>We're sure there would be lots of be yelling, a complete emotional and physical meltdown--and you may even pile all his belongings into his car and set it on fire (Too much? Gotta love ). </p><p>But in a new short film , model Chanel Iman channels the emotions of a jilted gal in a somewhat unconventional way. The Victoria's Secret beauty decides to slip on some sexy lingerie, sedate her cheating lover and seductively torture him. </p><p>Hmmmm, definitely not the typical reaction but to each their own. </p><p>The film's description reads:<br><br>"After apprehensions that her lover is cheating on her, a woman seeks revenge to ultimate circumstances. What begins as innocent foreplay turns into a deadly game of confession."</p><p>Elizabeth teamed up with and the accessories line Reece Hudson for the film. And although we love , it's hard to notice at anything other than Chanel's killer body and equally killer disposition. </p><p>Check out Chanel and her cunning and revengeful performance in the video above. </p> <br><p>With , we often forget how young some of these gals are. Case in point: Chanel Iman is about to celebrate her 21st birthday!</p><p>To ring in the alcohol-soaked milestone, Chanel's got large-scale plans (although for a girl who's walked the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, "large-scale" is a very relative term). :</p>"I'm going to Jamaica. Me, my family and my closest friends are staying at a really cool resort called Round Hill and I'm going to throw a reggae-themed party on this island."<p>We're also assuming And what will the young model be imbibing? </p><p>"I'm a rum girl," she confessed, "Maybe a Pina Colada."</p><p>Funny -- we're rum girls, too! Maybe we can tag along, Chanel? </p><p>Sigh. We suppose we'll settle for seeing fun party pics afterwards. We just hope they don't give the younger models any crazy ideas... Karlie, you've still got a few more years to go. </p><p>.</p><p><br></p> <br><p>"How ___ is made" videos tend to be all technical and science-minded (read: not our jam). But watching a Chanel jacket come to life before our very eyes? Totally our jam.</p><p>, taking you into the Chanel atelier and right onto the cutting table. The seamstresses carefully cut the patterns and sew the pieces of the iconic tweed, collar-less jacket themselves, finishing it off with a Chanel label on the collar.</p><p>With all the manpower that goes into it, you realize why these coveted jackets are so pricey -- and thus why they're worn most often by celebrities, socialites, royals and the occasional stylist (we're looking at y'all, Caroline Seiber and Rachel Zoe). </p><p>Check out our slideshow of the famous Chanel jacket in all its iterations -- black and pastel, cropped and long, embellished and spare -- and bliss out with . </p><p>WATCH:</p><p></p><p>Want to school your children in the ways of chic? </p><p>Chanel has launched a fun interactive website to accompany an exhibit they're hosting in Beijing, . The exhibit's best feature, in our opinion? It also includes a digital coloring book. YES!</p><p>The coloring app is, we begrudgingly admit, designed for children, but we're kids at heart, right?</p><p>To get started, go to click "English" (if you prefer), then click "Kid's Space" at the bottom. Pick your Chanel design and digitally color away! We'll see you in about 3 hours. When you're done, you can also play .</p><p>Unfortunately, there's no "Order Now" button you can click after you custom-color your Chanel shoes; just our fantasy for the future, Chanel webmasters.</p><p>Check out some of our creations below. How did we do?</p><p></p> <br><p>Chanel cosmetics is aiming to reach a broader range of ethnicities with their new foundation line Perfection Lumière launching in mid September, . </p><p>The new line will include 23 shades, 20 of which will be available in the U.S. The shades are categorized by skin tones ranging from very fair to very dark, and include pink to yellow undertones. </p> executive vice president of Fragrance and Beauté for Chanel in the U.S.. “Chanel’s creative director for makeup, Peter Philips, counts perfect skin among the most important features a woman can have and since joining the brand in January 2008, has made it his goal to create a ‘perfect’ foundation: one that adjusts to the skin needs of every ethnicity and stays in place with a flawless finish.”<p>The company's current leading foundation line Pro Lumiere offers only 6 shades, which is a poor representation of a significant portion of the buying community--minorities. </p><p>Mainstream companies such as Chanel, and CoverGirl are starting to take notice of the large amounts of money black women spend on cosmetics. Let's hope this interest extends not only to the expansion of their color choices but also their advertising dollars. </p><p> of the $263.7 billion spent annually on advertising within the nation, less than one percent is used to target African American consumers, despite the fact that Black buying power is estimated at around $857 billion, according to the 2010 census.</p><p>The campaign for Perfection Luminere will feature Alyssah Ali, an Indian and Spanish model. There is no word on whether a black model will also be represented. Fingers crossed! </p> <br>eGHZmFyID45oENrU906D%2FhMwkuHlFBz7vbH%2Ff%2FInvKhxwb9PFfSCn%2F8qVThGPiQ3fkf6YEs0I8F0fM0LVxM2fSK4I95%2BTaYZjtBUKan59TLkmVgau9HhmJEAACzNaSpRXUuWnWyQh3kn1kf9pMRzikQBOf2JuF1lPI8iKFInWq44PoH8HcJjbT%2BauTR2OQhG<p></p> <p>VERSAILLES, France - As some of the world's most glamorous women prepare for the Cannes Film Festival later this week, Karl Lagerfeld has shown again that he's a step ahead of the game on the Riviera's red carpet.</p><p>The celebrated designer rolled out a baroque-tinged cruise collection on Monday at the seat of French opulence, Versailles Palace, with film stars and other celebrities such as actress Tilda Swinton and singer Vanessa Paradis in appearance.</p><p>"The palace is the perfect place for Chanel, you couldn't imagine anything better," said Paradis, who watched as models filed by with ruffled eighteenth century tulle sleeves.</p><p>Eclectic gold platform sneakers were among the touches that broke up the historic feel, making this one of the funkiest Chanel shows in some time.</p><p>Cruise or resort collections — mid-season show, shown by only a handful of the world's fashion power houses — were created conceived to target wealthy women who travelled on cruise ships in winter.</p><p>Nowadays, they're used as a lucrative means of re-stimulating fashions in the mid-season lull, in an industry that's increasingly buoyant and bucking the global financial downturn.</p><p>Model of the moment Cara Delavigne opened the show in a velvety, pale blue denim dress, with a crisp A-line skirt.</p><p>But the rest of show felt more like Chanel's answer to a Baroque history lesson.</p><p>Beauty spots, bottom-heavy skirts, and floral chokers infused spectators with a feeling of Marie Antoinette's heyday.</p><p>Baroque-tinged wigs and ruffled, courtly hair bows in silk, meanwhile, added a splash of androgyny.</p><p>It's well known that Karl Lagerfeld is a workaholic, but in this show he seemed to have studied every reference under the sun.</p><p>One outfit dizzied: a white, double-breasted skirt suit, with embroidered gold roses and a stiff shawl collar mixed with a short tennis skirt and glam-rock platforms. The width of the skirt and shoulders matched identically, in extravagant visual unity.</p><p>Added to the mix were silver chokers with roses, a look that recalled 18th-century trendsetter Madame de Pompadour, as captured by painter Jean-Honore Fragonard.</p><p>Another look twinned a black, fitted sequined zipper jacket, with a raw-edged, silk bustle skirt which hung like petals in soft pastels of pale pink, blue and yellow.</p><p>One ornately knitted cotton top in white had a jacquard swag with decorative catkins hanging on either side — a strong nod to the Rococo period.</p><p>Was the opulence a bit too much in a country that just elected a Socialist president, who has vowed to tax the uber-rich more?</p><p>"Oh no, lightness is what France is known for. I don't delve into politics here," said German-born Lagerfeld, after the show. "Besides, I can't vote."</p> <br><p>All you Chanel shoppers out there (and we know there are oh-so-many of you), listen up: your clothes are in serious danger.</p><p>We can't remembered the last time a major luxury company had to recall an item, à la Toyota or Fisher-Price. But Chanel, purveyor of some of the most desirable high-end luxury goods, has . </p><p>The danger? The clothes fail to meet federal flammability standards and thus pose a fire hazard to all of Chanel's well-heeled customers, .</p><p>The recall announcement was listed alongside a warning about , and . </p><p>For all of you with said silky garments hanging in one of your many walk-in closets, have no fear. to stop wearing your awesome Chanel shirt and contact Karl Lagerfeld personally for a full refund. </p><p>Just kidding. A phone call to Chanel's customer service will suffice.</p><p>. . </p><p></p> <br><p>We're big fans of high fashion here at HuffPost Style. (Obviously.) But even we're having a hard time wrapping our heads around the price of this whimsical Chanel bag.</p><p>Part of -- remember, the show where ? -- the shell-shaped minaudieres would make the perfect bag for a beach wedding or a fancy Hamptons gala. (The gym, not so much.)</p><p> the resin version of the Chanel clutch sells for $33,000. And the special version that's covered in real pearls? That one will set you back $48,000. </p><p>After we picked our jaws up off the floor, we decided to figure out what OTHER bags you could get for $48,000:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Hmm. While your bag is quite cute, Chanel, we don't think we'll be slapping our Visas down for this one any time soon.</p><p>Check out the devastatingly expensive bag below, and below, see some OTHER really pricey clutches shaped like inanimate objects. (Yes, there are plenty!)</p><p></p><p></p><p></p> <br><p>In case you had any doubts, the Chanel interlocking C's can be put on anything.</p><p>On ping-pong paddles? Sure. How about some tennis balls? You bet. What about heinous neon high-tops, circa 1994? Oh, hell to the yes. </p><p> in Madrid recently and snapped some fun photos of the newest Chanel goods -- there's new nail polish, quilted bags, some skirt suits. </p><p>There was also a treasure trove of branded athletic gear including some pairs of shockingly bright kicks. Who do you expect to wear these, Karl -- the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air? </p><p>Then again, they're just the thing for when you play a game of H-O-R-S-E with (price upon request, obvs).</p><p>Check out the sporty designer gear below -- how much are you loving the idea of Anna Wintour wearing these sneakers?</p><p>!<br></p> <br>eGHZmFyID45oENrU906D%2FhMwkuHlFBz7vbH%2Ff%2FInvKhxwb9PFfSCn%2F8qVThGPiQ3fkf6YEs0I8F0fM0LVxM2fSK4I95%2BTaYZjtBUKan59TLkmVgau9HhmJEAACzNaSpRXUuWnWyQh3kn1kf9pMRzikQBOf2JuF1lPI8iKFInWq44PoH8HcJjbT%2BauTR2OQhG<p>Thou shalt not use the name of Chanel in vain, or so readers of fashion newspaper WWD learned on Monday. The fashion house took out a back-page ad reading:</p>"A note of information and entreaty to fashion editors, advertisers, copywriters and other well-intentioned mis-users of our Chanel name:<p>Chanel was a designer, an extraordinary woman who made a timeless contribution to fashion. Chanel is a perfume. Chanel is modern elegance in couture, ready-to-wear, accessories, watches and fine jewelry. Chanel is our registered trademark for fragrance, cosmetics, clothing, accessories and other lovely things. Although our style is justly famous, a jacket is not 'a Chanel jacket' unless it is ours, and somebody else's cardigans are not 'Chanel for now.' And even if we are flattered by such tributes to our fame as 'Chanel-issime, Chanel-ed, Chanels, and Chanel-ized', PLEASE DON'T. Our lawyers positively detest them. We take our trademark seriously. </p><p>Merci,</p><p>Chanel, Inc."</p><p> to find out more about employing the 'C' word and contacted intellectual property attorney Anne Sterba, who explained that Chanel or any other trademarked label cannot be used as an adjective. Anne told the style site, Chanel is "policing their brand. They have to do it, because if they end up in court with a trademark issue and they can't prove to a judge that they've been trying to protect their brand, they will lose credibility." </p><p>A simple that Chanel was on the prowl for name-droppers as far back as 2004 (and probably before), telling a website named CHANELOVE.com to transfer the domain name to Chanel and "agree not to register any domain name(s) in the future that incorporate the word CHANEL, or any similar word." Chanel, of course, is very protective of its logo, as well, and . </p> <br><p>Karl Lagerfeld has continued his foray into films with a 30-minute-long piece entitled "The Tale of a Fairy," set to be screened at the Chanel Cruise collection show next week. The Kaiser described his new project as "a movie about an ill-advised use of money which begins with violence and ends with feeling."</p><p>We got a hold of the trailer and here's what we can tell you: Anna Mouglalis sits at a cafe and laughs while wearing CC-adorned sunglasses, Freja Beha Erichsen goes topless and then those two ultimately smooch. Meanwhile, Kristen McMenamy has both a gambling problem and a nose ring, and may or may not be involved with Lagerfeld man muse Baptiste Giabiconi, whom she calls a "bad boy" and slaps. Also starring Bianca Balti, Brad Koening, Jake Davies, Mark Vanderloo, Oriol Elcacho, Sébastien Jondeau and Seth Kuhlmann.</p><p>You can find the full production on . Until then...</p><p>WATCH:<br><br><p><br><p><br><p><br><p><br><br><br></p> <br><p>While we prepare our barbecue menus, pack our beach bags and strategize the best firework-watching locations, celebs and designers are in Paris making some fancier plans. It's Couture Week, guys, when all of Hollywood's classiest It Girls pull up alongside designers, editors and assorted socialites to take in the world's best fashion from the front row.</p><p>Yesterday was all about -- and everyone was on hand to judge his success (or failure). But today other designers got their moment to shine, namely and . One day, two major couture shows: who landed the best guests?</p><p>As he does for ready-to-wear, Karl presented his Couture Fall 2012 collection in the Grand Palais. Among the grand guests were Milla Jovovich, Poppy Delevigne, Sofia Coppola, Clemence Poesy, Ines de la Fressange and Karl BFFs Alexa Chung and Diane Kruger. One less predictable face? Leslie Mann, wife of Judd Apatow and the best part of "Knocked Up." Who knew Mrs. Apatow was a couture fan?</p><p>Turns out she's fairly devoted, considering she pulled a double-header and showed up at the Armani Prive show as well. She was joined by Zoe Saldana, Shailene Woodley, Sophia Loren and the typical editor coterie: Anna Wintour, Anna Dello Russo, Carine Roitfeld, etc. </p><p>So... Chanel FTW? Not so fast. Also spotted at Armani were Princess Tatiana of Greece and Denmark and Princess . Royals! In the flesh! Swoon.</p><p>So who has it: the It Girls vs. the Princesses? Judge for yourself in our fashion-filled slideshow. </p><p></p><p>Want more? Be sure to check out HuffPost Style on , , and .</p><p>I have gained some weight and am at my biggest to date in these 22 years. At this size, the only way I'm participating in any of the new fashions is if I get some serious alterations, mainly in the booty region. The worst part about my struggle with ill-fitting clothes was that I didn't want anyone to think less of me as a fashionista. I am ashamed that my concern with my weight gain was not my health or well-being, but what I could no longer wear nor buy.</p>Yon__Ye: Ray Ban ã?µã?³ã?°ã?©ã?¹ã?¯ã??ã?¤ã??ã??è?ªå??ã?®ç??æ´»ã?«å?¥ã??è¾¼ã??ã?ã?®ã??ã??ã??ã??å¿?ã??ã?¦ã??ã?¾ã??ã?¾ã??ã??ã??å­?ä¾?ã?®ã??ã??ã??èª?ç??æ?¥ã?®ã??ã?¬ã?¼ã?³ã??ã?¨ã??ã?¦ã??ã?¬ã?¤ã??ã?³ RB2140ã??ã??ã??ã?£ã??ã??ã?¨ã??ã??ã??ã?¾ã??ã??中学ç??ã?®æ??ã??è¿?è¦?ã?«ã?ªã?£ã?¦ã??ã?¾ã??ã?¾ã??ã??ã??å??人ã??ã??ä¸?æ?¬ã?®ã?¬ã?¤ã??ã?³ wayfarerã??ã??ã??ã??ã?¾ã??ã??ã??ä»?ã?®ã?¬ã?¤ã??ã?³ ã?µã?³ã?°ã?©ã?¹ã?®ã?¬ã?³ã?ºã?¨é??ã??ã??ã?©ã??ã??ã?®ã??ã?¬ã?¼ã?ã?¯ç¢ºã??ã?«ã??ã??ã??ã??ã??ã?§ã??ã??<p>PARIS - "Don't take things too seriously," said Karl Lagerfeld standing next to a towering wind turbine inside Paris' Grand Palais, "especially not fashion."</p><p>This healthy mantra infiltrated Tuesday's Chanel show — a bright, fun and diverse collection brimming with great new ideas.</p><p>Silver bauble appliques became buttons, A-line skirts were playfully short, colorful checks contrasted funkily with geometric flashes, and feather fringing billowed exuberantly.</p><p>One model in a crossing "C'' swimsuit even carried a three-foot (nearly 1 metre) handbag.</p><p>The fact the show had nothing whatsoever to do with the several eco-turbines constructed for the event — no doubt at a huge cost to the environment — didn't seem to matter.</p><p>Instead, fashion insiders were busy concentrating on the myriad 81 looks — which made this spring-summer collection possibly the longest Chanel show in history.</p><p>A bold new fashion idea was the reworked bolero jacket with curved shoulders, often spruced up with inflated arms.</p><p>The wide T-shaped bolero silhouette spread onto sweaters and inspired many of the show's best looks.</p><p>Naturally, many of the brighter ensembles stood out, too.</p><p>Bright pink and blue felted oversized sweaters were accessorized to kitsch effect with huge pale or silver pearl necklace clusters.</p><p>There was a highly accomplished delivery of colour palette also, which lifted one checked red-and-white A-line dress, with the top part sliced off.</p><p>It paired beautifully with a contrasting, yet complementary loose blue and red coat.</p><p>Another stand out piece was a white bateau-neck ensemble with check navy bands with a clean, slightly sporty vide.</p><p>Lagerfeld, who turns 80 next year, certainly hasn't let age slow him down: It's the youngest collection Chanel's seen for a while.</p><p>_____</p><p>Thomas Adamson can be followed at http:/ /Twitter.com/ThomasAdamsonAP</p>Interesting pictures of Chanel. One correction is needed. Pic 4 of 60 with Jackie Kenned arriving in Dallas in her pink 'Chanel' suit is wrong. Jackie liked this style so much she had this copy made by an America for this particular trip. It has been so often referred to as 'Chanel' it has almost been impossible to remove this tag including Wikipedia. It sat in the attic in her house in Martha's Vineyard still with the blood stains in a box marked 'November 22, 1963' for years until her death. The suit is now stored out of public view in the National Archives and will not be seen by the public until at least 2103, according to a deed of Caroline Kennedy. At that time, when the 100-year deed expires, the Kennedy family descendants will renegotiate the matter.<p>If Coco Chanel designed for liberated female customers, it may have been because she counted herself among them.</p><p> a new book entitled "Coco Chanel: An Intimate Life" contains juicy details about the couturier's exciting romantic history, which apparently included an open attitude towards bisexuality, an affair with then-married Salvador Dalí and a German boyfriend named Hans Günther von Dincklage who also might have been a Nazi spy. Biographer Lisa Chaney also chronicles Coco's drug habit (opiates, of course). Who knew? </p><p>:</p>Unearthing an astonishing life, this remarkable biography shows how, more than any previous designer, Chanel became synonymous with a rebellious and progressive style. [...] Drawing on newly discovered love letters and other records, Chaney's controversial book reveals the truth about Chanel's drug habit and lesbian affairs. [...] While uniquely highlighting the designer's far-reaching influence on the modern arts, Chaney's fascinating biography paints a deeper and darker picture of Coco Chanel than any so far. Movingly, it explores the origins, the creative power, and the secret suffering of this exceptional and often misread woman.<p>Plenty has been made of Chanel's eclectic past, including two recent movies. features her romance with Arthur "Boy" Capel plus dalliances with a baron or two, while highlights her romance with the Russian composer. She also served as the subject matter for the , with illustrations by Karl Lagerfeld, , Coco "wasn't only a designer -- she was a woman of her time."</p><p>.</p> <br><p>So you want to be a French seductress. Simply put, it's all about simplicity. Less is definitely more (except, perhaps, when it comes to champagne and personal grooming). Although restraint is key, a significant effort must be put in at all times, as 'prevention' is always better than a cure!</p><p>We were a bit confused by this New York Post headline: </p><p>But it turns out the title is pretty darn accurate: "tacky trannies," , shoplifted $6,000 worth of Chanel bags from Lower East Side boutique A. Turen. </p><p>Store owner Ashley Turen described the male bandits' over-the-top get-ups as "almost like a Halloween costume,” ('tis the season, after all). </p><p>At least they didn't as they made their get-away. </p><p>. </p><p>WATCH: </p><p><p><p><p><p><p></p></p> <br><p>Dakota Fanning, a newly-minted NYU freshman, has been adjusting to college life as well as any celebrity can. </p><p>She goes to class, ... while , sitting front row at fashion shows and donning the kind of oversized sunglasses required for such celebrity outings. </p><p>, Dakota struck the same balance when she stepped out to the gym yesterday in downtown New York. </p><p>The 17-year-old star wore her sneakers, black workout pants and a tough leather jacket. She toted, of course, a giant black Chanel bag.</p><p>We're a bit surprised the bag was not by Marc Jacobs, . But we're not at all surprised that she was doing the classic water-and-cell phone carry, . What good are luxury bags if you actually put things in them? </p><p>.<br></p> <br>Very, very BAD things happen to people who betray their own genetic race, ancestors, family, culture, society, and most of all our Creators. If you actually think that you can go bopping around this world having sexual relations and biracial offspring with those who are NOT your own genetic race, think again!! <br><br>And one last note about the subject of offspring. Have you noticed just how infertile so many men and women are now, and how millions can no longer reproduce on their own? This is one of the primary reasons. When you screw around and mess with genetics and DNA you are playing with fire!! They are unable to reproduce because they are NOT suppose to reproduce. <br><br>Artificial children are just that: ARTIFICIAL! They have are NOT part of our Creators design, plan, or creation, and they certainly have no spirit, essence, or soul. Humans who are implanted, carried, and created artificially are NOT supposed to exist, and there will be a reckoning and punishment for playing Creator, just the same as there will be for betraying your own genetic race. It’s immoral, indecent, unethical, shameful, outrageous, unacceptable, and disgraceful.people have highlighted this! Huzzah! This text has been highlighted. <p>Highlights is a new way to discover the most interesting text on Huffington Post!</p><p>Elle, Hailee, Christina -- all our favorites were out last night... together!</p><p>Fashion's mini darlings, Hailee Steinfeld and Elle Fanning, joined Christina Hendricks, Kate Bosworth, Lydia Hearst and Cat Deeley at the Chanel Intimate Dinner held at the Chanel Boutique in Los Angeles on Thursday night. </p><p>From young to old(er), all the women looked super chic in various combinations of black, white and gray (it was a Chanel fete, after all). We're particularly loving Hailee's gray frock with black booties, although Hailee could pretty much wear anything and look adorable. </p><p>Check out the lovely Chanel fans below -- who had the best look of the night?</p><p></p><p><br></p> <br><p> has become quite the fashion plate over the course of her recent, multi-week "Amazing Spider-Man" promotional tour. For the worldwide journey, the 23-year-old starlet has donned "a million and five" outfits (her words, not ours -- see the vid above), from to .</p><p>But this might be our favorite yet. At Thursday's "Amazing Spider-Man" premiere in Los Angeles, with dark pink embellishments, taking a cue from one of . As she recently told Entertainment Weekly:</p>“I wanted to dress like the Spice Girls [when I was a kid]... I got platform Skechers. I had bell-bottoms. A lot of peace signs. I cut bangs like Baby Spice because I had blond hair. I wanted to be Baby Spice."<p>Thankfully Stone's ditched the Skechers and bell-bottoms (as we all have), but she's still got the sweet, girl-next-door look going on. </p><p>The Spice Girls were not the only fashion idols on Stone's list. According to EW, Emma was was also in the 1988 film "Beetlejuice" -- maybe that explains that from earlier this month?</p><p>We much prefer Emma's lighter, airier look. Paired with her white Chanel frock were strappy sequined heels and a giant gem-encrusted rose ring... on her left ring finger. Trying to tell us something, Emma?</p><p>PHOTOS:</p><p></p><p></p><p>See what Emma's worn on her "Amazing Spider-Man" tour!<br></p><p>Want more? Be sure to check out HuffPost Style on , , and .</p><p>In this photographic series, American photographer Cindy Sherman exhibits new, large-scale works that depict enigmatic female figures standing in striking landscapes, and wearing vivid Chanel costumes. Rather than staging scenes in her studio or using projected images, the dramatic settings were all photographed by Sherman and then manipulated in Photoshop to achieve a painterly effect.</p><p>Sherman's self-portraits are based on an insert she did for Dasha Zhukova's magazine using clothes from Chanel's archive. The images published were significantly altered as Sherman developed the series for this exhibition. Wearing early haute couture pieces from the 1920s designed by Coco Chanel to more recent Karl Lagerfeld collections, she selected eccentric, often fantastical, outfits before pairing them with images she shot in Iceland during a 2010 volcanic eruption and the isle of Capri. While the series recalls photography's early mission to map the "new world," Sherman's analysis equally references the tradition of 19th century landscape painting, where lonely figures are dominated by the magnificent nature that surrounds them. The artist's looming characters however reverse this heavenly view by relegating nature to the supporting role.</p><p>Cindy Sherman's new series is currently showing at <br><br>April 28 - June 9, 2012<br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br>Via </p><p>Follow Evelyne Politanoff on Twitter:</p><p>Georgia May Jagger--the offspring of Mick Jagger and Jerry Hall--is the new face of Chanel. The 18-year-old's Brigitte Bardot-esque looks have garnered much attention...so much that Kaiser Karl couldn't resist shooting her for the campaign. Check out the images and tell us which is your favorite.</p><p></p> <br><p>Hillary Clinton isn't one for expensive designer labels, but it seems she is going through a bit of a Chanel phase. </p><p>The Secretary of State spoke at a press conference with Qatar's prime minister and foreign minister yesterday looking chic in a black and turquoise boucle jacket. Paired with plain black pants, the collarless garment looked just like a Chanel (you know, the kind ... which it sort of is). </p><p>Hillary must be channeling Anna, because on Tuesday she wore another Chanel-like look. Clinton met with Mike McFaul, ambassador-designate to Russia, at the State Department in a black and white boucle jacket with a high, buttoned-up collar. </p><p>While we don't know from Hillary herself whether the jackets are, indeed, Chanel (and frankly the Secretary of State has better things to talk about than her clothing labels), they definitely have a prim, high society look. </p><p>Clinton the chunky in white ceramic (a watch we've coveted for a long time). But her tailored pieces this week are still a surprising switch from the more bohemian styles she'd been sporting, including and funky jewelry (and even ). </p><p>But if this is a new Hillary signature, we're totally on board. Maybe she should try having them personalized and selling them, ? <br></p> <br><p>Hillary Clinton has always struck us a low-key, unflashy dresser. So when she stepped out in January , our fashion senses perked to attention. How chic! How ladylike! How designer! (Although to be fair, we have no idea if they're by Chanel. They're just channeling the French brand hardcore.)</p><p>It turns out that wasn't a phase; rather the jackets have worked their way into a regular rotation. Over the course of the past three days, the Secretary of State has re-worn both the turquoise jacket and the high-collared white jacket just two days apart and with nearly the exact same hairstyles as in January.</p><p>She also, we noticed, did the same thing in February: on February 4 she wore the white jacket, followed by the turquoise one on February 5. </p><p>We're digging Hillary's new fashion motto: If it ain't broke, wear it every four weeks on back-to-back days. A girl after our own heart.</p><p>Check out Secretary Clinton's favorite jackets. Is the elegant style fit a good fit for Clinton?<br></p> <br><p>How many times have you seen a quote re-blogged on ? How about one from on ? Or on ? It happens all the time, and it seems to be the same quotes over and over again. </p><p>But, this quote-sharing is no surprise, as fashion designers, models and actresses seem to be full of wise one-liners that stay with you. But, what are the most iconic of all time: Is it, "Fashion fades, only style remains the same" or perhaps, "When in doubt, wear red"?</p><p>There's a lot of competition, but we've rounded up a few others that we think fit the bill from , and more. Let us know: Which do you think is the best and which quotes are missing?</p><p></p><p>Karl Lagerfeld and Ines de la Fressange settled a decades-old feud on Tuesday, with Ines taking to the runway at Chanel's Spring/Summer 2011 show. De la Fressange, now 53 years old, was the face of the fashion house in the '80s, but she had a falling out with Lagerfeld in 1989, "after a fracas over her lending her likeness to the French republic," .</p><p>And don't think their fight didn't get ugly. Lagerfeld once said, "I wish her all the luck in the world, just so long as I don't have to see her any more or hear her spoken about." However, the pair recently made up and Karl has even cast Ines in Chanel's spring/summer ad campaign. He told WWD, "She is beyond stunning. Also, she is the Parisienne." </p><p>Check out images of Ines from Tuesday's show and from her past Chanel catwalks:</p><p></p> <br><p>Move over, and ! There's a new girl at fashion week -- and she's already scored a seat at Chanel. </p><p>, 's daughter with Marc Anthony, sat front and center with mom, decked out in Chanel gear. Pretty chic for a 4-year-old's first show, if we say so ourselves. , wearing a plunging white mini dress and some sexy black and gold pumps. </p><p>Even though little Emme didn't look particularly amused by the always-epic spectacle that is a Chanel fashion show, she was seated just a few seats away from Kanye West and was snapped kibbutzing with famed photographer (we're sure will have a thing or two to say about this). We imagine they chatted about the Saint Laurent collection yesterday and how the shows were so much better before bloggers made the guest list...</p><p>But Jennifer's daughter wasn't the only one attending her first runway -- , , took in his first fashion show alongside Emme. He seemed to appreciate the situation a little more though, tweeting a picture of his impressive Grand Palais surroundings. This obviously wasn't , but with Jennifer's schedule, we're guessing Emme's in for plenty of industry events turned family affairs. </p><p>Check out the photos of Jennifer Lopez's clan at the Chanel show today and tell us what you think.</p><p>PHOTOS:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>At my 1st fashion show.. </p>— Beau Smart (@BEAUcasperSMART) <p>Jennifer Lopez isn't the only star who loves Chanel. Check out more celebs in the French brand!</p><p></p><p>Want more? Be sure to check out HuffPost Style on , , and .</p><p>Coco Chanel would have appreciated the coquettes who artfully arrayed themselves at the Legion of Honor for the MidWinter Gala. Invited by the organizing Junior Committee, these guests knew they had responded to a coveted invitation, and were not going to miss their chance to establish their presence in support of the Fine Arts Museums and their own good graces. Taking their cues from the Mademoiselle and the brand she begat, the women received a double, intertwined C for concerted chic. Blowdryers all over SF had been buzzing all afternoon, cementing updos and eyelashes in earnest.</p><p>There was something amusing about the lithe, dressed-to-the-nines nifties enjoying their cocktails amongst the corporeal muscle-bound bronze nudes of the Rodin Sculpture Gallery. But Rodin focused on the male form, not the gym-sculpted females who had served as their own Pygmalions this evening. The MidWinter Gala is all about the damsel in a dress, ideally purveyed by the marquee sponsor Chanel, whose ravishing décor was enough to want the damsels to remain entrapped in this castle for quite some time. The ladies were themselves mostly works of art, with the teensiest touch of artifice to demonstrate their effort. Invited gentlemen obliged by appearing in their Saturday best, with embellishments as allowable. (Joel Goodrich, your shoes were duly noted.)</p><p>Fundraising aside (although never too far out of the limelight), the evening offered the opportunity for the Heights' yummie mummies to make it a date night, for the sexy single seekers to size up the (small "S") situation, for cooing couples to cement their status on one anothers' arms. Some stalwarts chose to go stag for the night, to no detriment -- this crowd knows one another from way back when the Junior Committee had barely jettisoned the children's table. Judging by the trouble the gracious McCall's staff had in actually compelling guests to leave the cocktail clamor and be seated for dinner, the exquisitely decorated courtyard of the Legion might as well have been a rickety card table off Aunt Alma's kitchen.</p><p>Once they did sit move to the courtyard, they were treated to a double feast, eyes first and palate second. Marquee Sponsor Chanel created a swoon with the all-black tent that served as a smoky backdrop for encircled crystal chandeliers and thousands of white candles. Purple cattleya orchids alternated in silver julep cups with deep burgundy anemonies, the only touch of color on an otherwise black, grey, and silver table. A calligraphied menu doubled as a place card, with a deeply silver-stamped typescript that carried the heft of a debutante invitation. In keeping with the convivial spirit of the soiree, the meal was a perfect riff on francais bistro fare: a lovely pastry-capped tomato bisque and butter lettuce salad, classic filet with bernaise and spring vegetables, with guilty-pleasure cones of frites passed table-side, and an irresistible tart tatin with caramel walnut gelato. Alexis Swanson Traina, whose husband Trevor warmly called the Committee meeting to order, generously donated the delectable Swanson wines to accompany each course: the pear-scented Pinot Grigio, an oaky Oakville Merlot in magnum, and an ambrosial Angelica to add abundance to excess and encourage abundant bidding on the laudable live auction items.</p><p>Those duties were ably carried out by event sponsor Christies' auction house, which had flown its top auctioneer, Los Angeles President Andrea Fiuczynski up to coax up the bidding six irresistible items: tickets to the Chanel fashion show in Paris, dinners at French Laundry and Quince, a tea party at the Palace Hotel, a bowling party at Lucky Strike, a dinner party at the Fine Arts Museum, weekly H.Bloom floral delivery. Bidding paddles were dispensed with in favor of old-fashioned nods and waves, the better to confuse a sidelong shift in the seat with a show of support.</p><p>Once the tables were cleared and the Woodhouse Chocolates consumed, the turntables were turned once more, and Chanel's midnight tent became the MidWinter revels. The art of celebration and seduction became the exhibit on the dance floor, as the evening wound up and then down to a coco-phanous, coquettish close.</p><p>Stretching the canvass: Honorary Chairs Vanessa Getty and Trevor Traina, along with Committee Chairs Kathryn Lasater and the equally effective and effusive Allison Speer; Event Sponsors Marissa Mayer and Zach Bogue, Jean-Pierre Conte, Mo Clancy and Nathaniel David, Jeana Toney and Boris Putanec, Sloan and Roger Barnett, Carol and Shelby Bonnie, Paula and Bandel Carano, Jeremy Stoppelman, Connie Nielsen, Juliet de Baubigny, Anna and Mason Morfit, Serena and Alec Perkins, Gina and Stuart Peterson, Mary Beth and David Shimmon. Co-Chairs, Benefactors, and Members of the Committee, too numerous to mention but gloriously in appearance, helped make the MidWinter into one of the magical moments of the year.</p><p><br></p><p>A lot has changed in Johnny Weir's life since he taped the second season of his reality show for Logo. He's returned to competitive skating and strictly monitoring his diet. He's also now a happily married man and finally enjoying going to practice. But the more his life changes, the more his unique style stays the same.<br> <br>"The show is all about me trying to find my life as a normal person. I have been a figure skater for so long that when I stopped that competitive day-to-day grind, I didn’t know what to do with myself," Weir said. "I don’t know how the world works outside being barked at by a Ukrainian woman and watching my weight.”<br> <br>After wrapping up taping for season two of "Be Good Johnny Weir," he's already back in training, preparing for the next Olympics. </p><p>Weir said that while he was filming, it was nice not to have to wake up early, go to practice, nap, miss lunch, train again, miss dinner, go to bed -- then repeat it all the next day.<br> <br>“It was so nice to have all that time off to eat chicken fingers,” said Johnny, adding that a return to competitive skating was the natural thing for him to do. “I tried everything in season 2. I tried singing, I wrote a book, I was designing and I really tried everything I possibly could. It was a great opportunity. It felt for the first time in my life, if I failed at something, it wasn’t the end of the world. Now I’m skating again because I want to, not because I have to. And that’s a huge change in my life on a day-to-day basis." </p><p>"Time off has been beneficial to my training, but I will never change. I will be 60 or 70 years old still rocking my Chanel blazer with my hair all coiffed," he added.<br> <br>The second season of "Be Good Johnny Weir" premieres on Logo at 9 p.m. on Sept. 17. </p><p></p><p>CelebrityPhotos Of The Week:</p><p>NEW YORK -- If Kim Kardashian and Kanye West are dating together for publicity – it's working.</p><p>The reality starlet and rapper have refused to confirm they're a couple, but they arrived hand-in-hand at Chanel's seventh annual artists dinner at the Tribeca Film Festival Tuesday night. The two happily posed for the cameras, then sat among a galley of stars at the event.</p><p>Other attendees included Robert De Niro, Liev Schreiber, Liv Tyler and Kellan Lutz.</p><p>West and Kardashian – already tabloid magnets apart from each other – have garnered even more attention since they became a rumored couple. West recently confessed his love for her in song, and they've been spotted out together in New York.</p><p>Also Tuesday, E! announced it was extending Kardashian's family reality show for three more years.</p> <br><p>CNN interviewed Karl Lagerfeld for an upcoming special, "Fashion: Backstage Pass." They have only released the teaser so far (the show premieres on Saturday, October 15 at 2:30) but leave it to the Kaiser to give us a detectable quote in the preview. He discusses taking on the role of creative director of Chanel, "You know, when I was asked to do it, Chanel wasn't trendy at all. The owner said, 'I'm not proud of the business. If you can make something, OK. If not, I'll sell it.' And we made something out of it because he gave me total freedom.... The label has an image. It's up to me to update it. What I did, [Coco Chanel] never did, she would have hated."</p><p>We're glad he took on the task! Watch the preview below: </p><p><p><p><p><p> <br><p>Although Karl Lagerfeld "I am a cocktail," and "I have no idea of what it means to take yourself seriously," at the International Herald Tribune's Luxury Heritage conference on Tuesday, the designer did have a bit more to say.</p><p> that he chatted a bit about Coco Chanel herself. Karl remarked, "Coco did a lot but not as much as people think or as much she herself taught at the end of her career." He also dished on a pair of mistakes Chanel made late in her game:</p>"The first was when she said 'Not one man I have spoken to likes a woman in mini skirts'. I think no one dared to tell this 86-year-old lady that miniskirts are great and really sexy," he says. "Number two was when she decided blue jeans were horrible. This was the fashion of the world at that partuclar moment -- it was the Sixties. No one wanted to be told by an old lady that miniskirts and jeans weren't chic. The result was that she lost her power and in the end no one cared about what she did."<p>Oh, Karl. It's never too late for some Chanel denim bellbottoms!</p> <br><p> may be the most famous (and spoiled) cat in fashion. Not only is she the subject (in which the designer revealed that she eats on plates at a table, has two maids that take care of her hair and hates the smell of ), she's also one of the .</p><p>Having made her courtesy of Stephen Gan's Twitpic , . But is the , who currently has just under 14,000 followers, any competition for her owner?</p><p>Take a peek in our gallery below for some of our favorite tweets from . Who do you think is funnier: Man or feline? </p><p></p><p>Want more? Be sure to check out Stylelist on , , and .<br><br></p>I saw the movie about Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel; it was a kind of sad story about her, especially when she lost her male business owner/friend (twice) but I admired how she always tried to stay strong, moved on and kept her business going. She had such great flair in designing two piece suites for women and Chanel No. 5 perfume smells great too.<p>PARIS -- It was blue-sky thinking for Karl Lagerfeld, as he treated guests to a luxury jet-set experience in Chanel's spring-summer collection on the second day Tuesday of haute couture week.</p><p>The wet Paris morning failed to dampen the mood outside the imperial Grand Palais, as guests waited excitedly to see the inside theme – always a closely-guarded secret. The "Cocos" – as one fashionista called Chanel followers – were led nervously down a space-age passage.</p><p>There were gasps as they reached the catwalk: a life-size jumbo-jet reconstructed complete with luggage lockers, walkways and even a Champagne trolley.</p><p>"Are we jetting to New York?" one woman asked.</p><p>On the runway, signature Chanel skirt-suits were given a retro airhostess makeover with wide bateau collars in pastel colors. There was a distinct feel of the 1960s – the glamour days for air travel – with one embroidered silk short dress in pale blue with geometric band features on the collar, sleeves and low waist.</p><p>It was as if stiff-suited Karl Lagerfeld had finally decided to relax into the flight as soft, floaty floor-length silhouettes replaced last season's more fitted, shorter and architectural look.</p><p>But the artistry behind the clothes proved the mile-high couturier had not put his feet up for long: a palette of over 150 different shades was used, with meticulously embroidered silk in dazzling blues and grays – the colors of the sky.</p><p>Raglan balloon sleeves complemented hourglass party dresses in sparkling petrol blue. It provided a much-welcome dash of glamour in a collection watched by cocktail-sipping guests quite obviously enjoying themselves.</p><p>Speaking backstage in the reconstructed cockpit, Lagerfeld, in his traditional shades and powdered hair, said that blue was used because it's an optimistic color.</p><p>Revolutionary the show was not, but the Chanel brand is definitely flying steady with reason to be excited about the future. A strong clientele, and robust business mean that like other couture-producing labels, they are bucking the downtrend in a gloomy financial climate.</p><p>Some watching the show called the collection bold but respecting Coco Chanel's iconic codes.</p> <br><p> is known for fantastic accessories. Whether it's the iconic 2.55 bag that is now more expensive than a small car, or shoes adorned with faux stalagmites, knows his ladies love their accessoires. So when he sent models down the runway this Monday (we're late to the game due to our !) wearing bags with handles that looked like hula hoops, we can only guess how many members of the audience were mentally placing their orders. Our money is on carrying that bag shortly, and of course, over-the-top Vogue Nippon editor will probably make a video where she literally hula hoops with . </p><p>PHOTO:</p><p></p><p>But it does have us wondering: Who will actually purchase the latest ? Can you imagine entering a crowded subway train with a bag whose diameter is larger than your average, umm, car tire? Mon dieu, the dirty looks would be endless (though we suppose that anyone willing to shell out the big bucks for such an extravagant bag isn't taking public transportation). </p><p>What do you think? Would you pay good money for the latest</p><p></p><p></p><p>Want more? Be sure to check out HuffPost Style on , , and .</p><p><br>British designer Simeon Farrar has done it again - caused a stir within the fashion industry that is.</p><p>The man who gave us the iconic 'Kate Mouse' motif tee, even though she's now officially dead (the mouse that is, not the real supermod, obviously), has launched a line of t-shirts with a cheeky nod to fashionistas everywhere.</p><p>The designs, which feature slogans such as Totes Jel Of My Chanel, Tom Ford Is My Homeboy, Gucci Got Game Yo and Dior Is Dope, are part of his new label Blackscore - a more daring, darker and 'punk' edged unisex t-shirt range, independent of his main Simeon Farrar line.</p><p><br>With a team made up of his own staff and some willing helpers keen to experience the buzz of fashwan, all carrying swag bags full of the designs - Farrar made his mark on one of the most important weeks in London's fashion calendar, by stopping well known bloggers, fashion editors, celebrities and supermodels as they made their way into shows, handing them one of the many styles. </p><p>Those who were happy to pose for a pic with their slogan tees and vests included singer Pixie Lott, Topshop's Kate Phelan, style guru Caryn Franklin and models Cara Delevingne, Jourdan Dunn and Charlotte Free, among others. </p><p>Paying homage to fashion's most iconic brands and designers, the collection mixes humour with just a hint of irony, and so it's befitting that on the last day of Fashion Week, TOWIE's Lydia Rose Bright was more than happy to be snapped with her Totes Jel Of My Chanel vest!</p><p><br>"The idea for this little Black Score stunt emerged out of a conversation with The Huff Post's very own blogger Kate Lawson who has always been a great supporter of ours" said Farrar. "Together we came up with the giveaway idea and I thought it would be cool to design a set of images that referenced the fashion industry specifically. Black Score spans many different cultures and subcultures so it was fun to treat high fashion to a bit of BS. The stunt as a whole went down a storm. Everyone loved them. "<br>"I think it brought a bit of much needed excitement to Fashion Week", he added, "Each tee was gladly accepted from everyone from your average fashion fan to celebrities to models coming out of the shows. It was a hungry market and I think we've only just wet the appetite. London Fashion Week got Black Scored good and proper this season. Paris, y'all better watch out."</p>(Jourdan Dunn's got game, yo)<p><br><br>(Cara Delevingne knows who her homeboy is)</p><p><br><br>(Pixie Lott falls for Prada)</p><p><br>The collection will be available on the Blackscore website shortly, and will also be part of an exclusive pop-up at Shop at Bluebird on London's Kings Road. Blackscore will also release new designs all year round, shortening the waiting time between seasons and offering something fresh and funny to keep us all entertained. <br>For more info and to see the other designs in the collection, head and you can also read more about the label and Simeon in a previous interview I wrote for the Huff Post .</p> <br><p>Follow Kate Lawson on Twitter:</p><p>The Internet is abuzz with news of the coming to the U.S. this week. The exhibit celebrates Chanel's iconic black tweed jacket, and, in a nod to the jacket's dynamism over the years, showcases 120 ways the jacket was reinterpreted and reimagined in a series of black-and-white photographs taken by Karl Lagerfeld, longtime head of Chanel's iconic fashion house. The project is the brainchild of Lagerfeld and former Vogue France editor-in-chief Carine Roitfeld. And while Lagerfeld is usually one to toot his own horn, this time, he's actually got something worth about. </p>"The interesting thing is that one simple thing, a little jacket with four pockets, you can play so much and create 120 different types," Lagerfeld said. "It's play time with an item that is timeless."<p>Timeless is right. While it's undeniable that much has changed at the Chanel house since Lagerfeld took the helm (in my opinion, both for good and bad) the brand's adoration of its famed tweed jacket is one thing that hasn't. First imagined by Coco Chanel in 1954, the jacket has been a staple of women's fashion through its many iterations over the years. </p><p>But the jacket didn't just appear out of the ether: it was the result of deliberate design, and borne of frustration. Coco Chanel was nothing if not candid, and of fashion post-WWII, she had some choice words. </p>"Fashion has become a joke," Chanel said. "The designers have forgotten that there are women inside the dresses. Most women dress for men and want to be admired. But they must also be able to move, to get into a car without bursting their seams! Clothes must have a natural shape." <p>History tells us that Chanel was a woman of great spirit and determination, and it was with this spirit that she was inspired to design a jacket that was not only pleasing on the eyes, but was something women -- and even men -- could feel comfortable in. </p><p>And like many classic designs, it's got secrets. Each tweed jacket is with silk, which conceals one of the jacket's biggest weapons: its chain. While designing, Chanel used the chain to help the jacket retain its shape while fitting the contours of the body. To this day, Chanel is one of the few remaining fashion houses to weight its jackets, or, in this case, line them with a fine chain. Additionally, paneling in each Chanel jacket makes it possible for the jacket to expand within three size ranges of its original design. One size fits... many? </p><p>This exhibit gives guests a chance to see some of these secrets. But more than anything, by paying tribute to the Chanel jacket, Lagerfeld is paving the way for its future. As the years pass, I expect the jacket will change. Colors will come and go; it will see new designers and adornments. But in a way, I'm confident it will remain the same: dynamic yet classic, simple yet elaborate. But never outdated.</p> <br><p>Follow Katherine LaGrave on Twitter:</p><p>Images from the Coco Mademoiselle by Chanel campaign Keira Knightley shot forever ago (ok, last September) have finally surfaced. </p><p>Take a look as the actress shows off her cropped 'do, nibbles on a bottle and wears only a bed sheet in what we'll venture to call a non-boring series of fragrance ads. Could such a thing exist? C'est possible. </p><p>All images .</p><p></p><p></p><p></p> <br><p>The new preview for Keira Knightley's upcoming Chanel ad gives a nice behind-the-scenes look at the Joe Wright (Atonement, Pride and Prejudice) directed mini film. The Coco Mademoiselle 'advertising film' will continue Chanel's tradition of pairing directors with familiar muses. Jeanne-Pierre Jeunet with Audrey Tatou in 2009 after Amelie and A Very Long Engagement, and Baz Luhrmann teamed with Nicole Kidman for the Moulin Rouge-esque . </p><p>The spot presents Knightley looking back at her first impressions of the shoot, her narration set against b-roll footage. She recalls being told there was "something about a motorbike," that "it would be beige," and that there would be a "sort of catsuit" involved. The film, which will feature Knightley as a "Chanel Superwoman," will premiere Monday, March 21. </p><p><p><p><p><p></p> <br><p>There were on Tuesday night, but two stars were notably missing: Kim Kardashian and Kanye West. </p><p>KimYe (or whatever we're calling them) tried their best to avoid the red carpet at Tuesday night's Tribeca Film Festival Artists Program dinner. Although if you ask us, the swank Chanel-hosted dinner was a stage of its own, making it a rather fashionable joint appearance for the blossoming couple. </p><p>That is, if they are a couple. asking Kim about the media attention surrounding her new beau. Kanye jokingly replied, "Who are you talking about? What guy are you talking about?" </p><p>Funny one. The couple has been everywhere, and . Kim even .</p><p>But this KimYe appearance is their most stylish appearance -- and our personal favorite -- yet. </p><p>Check out a photo below and scroll down for more pics.</p><p></p><p>See Kim's 72 days of married style when she was with one of her previous exes!<br></p> <br>Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel's headstone in Lausanne, Switzerland<p><br>While on a Chanel high (see my previous piece), it is only fair to pay equal respect to the woman and legend behind the brand that has single-handedly made quilted bags and ballerina flats universal fashion must-haves. Gabrielle, or "Coco" as she preferred, was a complex and complicated woman. Or, atleast, that is how she is portrayed in the three (yes, three) books that came out just this season. Having only read one so far, I can promise that Coco's romances are explored just as thoroughly as the rumors which surrounded her life between the covers of Justine Picardie's Coco Chanel: The Legend and The Life. Between the captivating photos of her past and sketches by Karl Lagerfeld, Picardie's writing makes for an illuminating tale of a woman torn between two lives: fashion designer and wartime woman. </p><p>My personal fascination has been focused on Coco's years in Switzerland. I've spent the past two months living in this country known for the Alps and fondue, and can't help but imagine what it must have been like 65 years ago when the designer frequented the shores of Lac Léman. As Picardie notes in her book, Chanel once said she felt "free as a bird" when visiting Switzerland; her unsmudged red lipstick and conservative clothing concealing a life of lovers, flings, family drama, and a token best friend with a drug problem.</p>Chanel's nickname displayed in greenery across her grave in Lausanne, Switzerland<p><br>Following her death at the Ritz in Paris on January 10, 1971, Coco was buried at the Cimetière du Bois-de-Vaux in Lausanne. The turnout for her burial appeared meager in photos, as a formal, more-sizable ceremony had been conducted in Paris two weeks prior. Her gravestone is recognizable by five lions that appear across the top of her headstone; Coco's astrological sign was Leo, something that defined her to the end. Today, greenery in the formation of her name, "Coco", is perfectly placed across the area where her body rests. Next week, it will be 41 years since she passed.</p>The cover of Coco Chanel: The Legend and The Life; Karl Lagerfeld's illustration of Chanel at rest.<p><br>As written in Picardie's pages, Chanel once said to Paul Morand, "I would make a very bad dead person, because once I was put under, I would grow restless and would think only of returning to earth and starting all over again." I'll keep my eye on her plot. </p><p>A close-up image of Chanel's grave in Lausanne, Switzerland</p><p>I was en route to the Chanel show when I realized my heart was racing. As the car sped down Rue De Rivoli, past the Jardin de Tuileries and towards Grand Palais, I felt my stomach start to knot up. When I pulled up to the pulsing crush of people attempting to squeeze themselves into the imposing marble façade of the building, I finally understood why I was having such a physical reaction to a fashion show. In Paris, Chanel is so much more than fashion -- it is an institution. As I squeezed my way through the crowd I could feel the anticipation building: What would Karl Lagerfeld do next? <br> <br>The enigmatic Karl Lagerfeld is the artistic director and designer of the Chanel brand, and has become an icon in his own right. A lover of spectacle, invitees to this Spring/Summer show were clearly looking to be impressed. As I slid through security, heart still pounding, I marveled at the ornate ceiling before panning down to the massive wind turbines peppering the exceptionally blue, exceptionally long runway. To see the modern architecture of these wind turbines contrasted with the 17th-century venue was both stunning and eerie. The trance-y music washing over the crowd and the brightness of the room made it feel like I'd stepped into an alternate universe: Karl's universe.<br> <br>I took my seat and watched paparazzi clamor over Kanye West and Jennifer Lopez. French style icons like Laetitia Casta and Lou Doillon flitted about the grand room, and I felt totally overcome by the level of production -- we definitely weren't in New York anymore. Just when I thought it couldn't get any better the music picked up and the show began. Models, just specks in the distance, began to materialize on the far-end of the runway. Running some kind of fashionable flight pattern, scores of models resplendent in Chanel made the long journey to the end of the runway and back. <br> <br>With 80 looks in total, the Chanel show felt like it was teeming with energy. So many different design stories floated down the runway: printed boleros were layered on top of dresses, chunky striped platforms were paired with everything from sweet day-dresses to tweedy pantsuits and transparent Lucite hats felt like a fresh take on the classic Chanel wide-brim. Inspired by the 'windmill' motif, the three-dimensional blossoms and embroidery jumping off the finale dresses were a definite highlight. Between the wind turbines, the venue and the breadth of the collection the message was clear: Chanel has energy, and lots of it.<br> <br>After the show, buzzing invitees poured onto the street in front of Grand Palais and struggled to navigate swaths of street-style photographers. Slipping into idling town cars, the fashionable set made their getaway. I grabbed a few friends outside and we teetered in our high-heels to L'Avenue, the fashion canteen on the Avenue Montaigne -- the home of Parisian luxury. Settling on espressos and a plate piled with crème, strawberries and bright raspberries, I couldn't help thinking that Mr. Lagerfeld would approve.</p><p></p> <br><p>Follow Lily Kwong on Twitter:</p><p></p><p>In Los Angeles, where I live, the movie stars are the celebrities. Here in Paris, the celebrities are the fashion designers -- and they're treated like royalty -- oohed and ahhhed at on the street. </p><p></p><p>That said, the biggest A-Lister is Karl Lagerfield and today his show for Chanel was indisputably the hottest ticket in town. All during Fashion Week people here put relationships on the line to try to get tickets. Some don't actually find out if they have a ticket and are actually going until the morning of! Needless to say, I was thrilled when a friend of mine invited me to go. Luckily, our tickets were delivered in advance.<br></p><p>Did the Chanel show for the Spring/Summer 2011 Collection live up to all the mega hype? Yes, and it wasn't just for a novice like me. Many people who'd been to Chanel for years noted it was the best, most elaborate show in Chanel history. Quite frankly, it was a spectacle more than an event. A full orchestra played in the background, while 85 models strutted across the stunning location, The Grand Palais. The models walked around the gigantic, incredibly well-lit, cavernous structure, decorated with 10 foot high fountains and huge black metallic cut-outs -- constructed to resemble low, French garden hedges. The ground -- what the models actually walked on top of -- was covered with a fine, white gravel -- that actually left a powdery residue on your shoes. I didn't dust my shoes off as the dust was seen as a sign of prestige that said I was at the Chanel show!</p><p> </p><p>The clothes were breathtaking - with lots of color, adornment, eyelet inlays, fringe and tons of feathers. The jewelry focused on mixed metallics, chains, lucite-type cuffs adorned with rhinestones and pearl type rounds of all sizes and colors. There is nothing delicate or dainty about Chanel jewelry. It is meant to say "Look at me -- I have arrived!"<br> <br></p><p>Nearly all the models wore platform shoes, made by Chanel, that were rather clunky looking. The had a 1970's feel to them. The upper part of the shoe varied -- but the bottom part was always the same dark colored platform with a rather square, solid heel. That platform shoe sole -- it appeared black -- appeared also in the form of a wedge. The shoe was the polar opposite of say a classic, ladylike Jimmy Choo or a Manolo. No pointy toe. No thin heel. </p><p>A few interesting tidbits:</p><p>All the models wore contacts to make their eyes a rather iridescent green. As if it's not hard enough to walk daintily in tiny, sheer frocks! Pale makeup, dark dark eyes with dramatic kohl shading on the entire lid. </p><p></p><p>A few of the models sported jackets with teeny, tiny shorts and their bums (also tiny!) hanging out. </p><p>There were no models who were women of color. Apparently, the designers want all the models to look similar so that all eyes are focused on the clothes.</p><p>The front row is where top editors, famous and important people, and royalty sit. At the very center of the show in the front row (pictured below): Vogue Editor Ana Wintour seated next to Susan Tolson, wife of Charlie Rivkin, U.S. Ambassador to France.</p><p></p><p> Unlike many of the other shows during Fashion Week, at the Chanel show, a vast majority of the attendants wear an item by the designer. But you don't have to be decked out head to toe. For example, Vogue's Wintour, pictured above, wore a dress by Chanel, but a maxi length, fur trimmed coat by another designer. </p><p>The show lasted about 20 minutes and it was quite dramatic when the white haired Karl Lagerfield came out at the end with all the models. Everything about this fashion guru is so dramatic -- down to his collar-- which must be five inches tall and so starched it almost looks like a neck brace.</p><p></p><p> After the show was over, he greeted the VIP's like rocker Courtney Love pictured above. Then he sat and spoke with the press for nearly an hour. He was constantly mobbed -- people were literally tripping to get to him -- and he had no fewer than 8 bodyguards. He apparently is easy to spot here in Paris as he travels in a gold Hummer.<br> <br>The outfit range at Chanel was full spectrum -- from jeans and motorcycle boots to floor length evening attire. One man was even dressed as what looked like one of the Village People from way back when! I'll have more on that -- plus some of the celebs who were there and their favorite outfits -- in the next blog. For more photos, check out </p><p>Follow Linda Grasso on Twitter:</p><p>Before I began my biography of Coco Chanel, I knew what you probably know: she was one of the most famous fashion designers in the world, who liberated women from corsets, created the sexy little black dress, and designed nubby wool jackets with braid trim and gold chains. Oh, yes, and those black tipped beige sling-back shoes and the quilted bag with chain handle. And, of course, Chanel No. 5. She was a genius, everyone said -- and the model of a self-made, independent woman.</p><p>What I learned along the way, as I researched the life of this fascinating and infuriating woman, surprised me: women had been liberated from the corset long before Chanel arrived on the scene, by the designers Paul Poiret and Madeleine Vionnet. Many other designers were creating clothing in soft jersey, with menswear inspired lines, at the same time as Chanel. Her little black dress -- which I had pictured as low-cut and body-skimming -- had long sleeves, a loose dropped waistline, and looked like it should be worn for a board meeting rather than a nightclub in the Roaring Twenties. And the boxy jacket, shoes, and bag: those came from Chanel's comeback in the 1950s, after she was already a stunningly famous designer. I was surprised, too, that she didn't sew and couldn't draw; that she signed away 90% of her business to the company that agreed to market her perfume, Chanel No. 5 (and spent the rest of her career suing for restitution of her rights); and that she died a lonely, bitter woman. Famous as she was, she could be paranoid and cruel. She lied to cover a past of which she was ashamed; she lied to cover her own insecurities. </p><p>Even though she has the reputation of being independent and fearless, she always yearned to find a man to protect her. Being loved, she said, was the most important goal a woman could achieve. Without love, and without a man, a woman was nothing. Those ideas don't sound very liberated, and yet, even though her ideas about life and love were widely known throughout her life, Chanel was someone many women wanted to emulate.</p><p>Certainly, she was a genius; she had a fine intuition for what women wanted to wear, an amazing appreciation for fabric, and infallible sense of line. But her genius was not only for fashion. Chanel was her own most famous model. Slender and flat-chested, she looked great in her own designs -- in fact, she claimed that she first tried on all of those designs herself -- and women dieted and wore flattening bras to try to copy her figure -- an impossible challenge for women who were not, and never would be, petite.</p><p>She was brilliant at marketing herself as a celebrity, and one of my goals in this biography is to show how her public -- the women who coveted her fashions and perfume -- helped to create her legend. These women followed her flamboyant, and much publicized love life (among her many lovers, she was courted by the Duke of Westminster and a Russian Grand Duke, and had an affair with Stravinsky); they saw photos of her vacationing in Venice and Biarritz and at fabulous parties in Paris and London. She was photographed by some of the most talented artists of her time -- like Cecil Beaton and Man Ray. One of the first print ads for Chanel No. 5 showed Chanel herself, in a gorgeous beaded gown, standing in her own elegant rooms at the Ritz in Paris. She appeared in fashion magazines along with her famous friends, like Jean Cocteau, Serge Diaghilev, Salvador Dali, and a host of dukes and duchesses. Before there were movie stars, there was Chanel. And by the time Gloria Swanson and Ina Claire became famous, Chanel already had been the epitome of glamour, for decades.</p><p>Today's print ads for Chanel perfumes, featuring the lithe and lovely Audrey Tautou perfectly capture the image of Chanel that has persisted since the 1920s, when she burst on the fashion scene. She fashioned herself as a beautiful romantic heroine, ensconced in luxury, pursued by a handsome lover. The legend is irresistible even now, and Chanel is the genius who created it.<br></p>I think Lisa uses shoes as an independence statement. She and I had some face time shortly after Zoe was born, and she was wearing shoes that the soles were separating from; had silver duct tape around them to keep them together, struttin' around L.A. like that, in places where she was sure to be noticed. As I recall, Lenny (who was with us), wear wearing similar foot attire. Did it diminish her? No. Was it a blatant statement of not being bound to other people's ideas of what was "cool", "chic", even "appropriate"? Certainly! Sure, the thought "Why would someone with more than enough money for some Cons, at least for PayLess, run around like that?" eventually flashed through my mind, as an afterthought -- way after; like a couple of days after. Why? [A. She's dear to me and it just didn't occur to me to think that way, and B)] Because her Light's not limited by what' she wears!!! I was more impressed by who she is, so much so that how she had dressed that evening was completely irrelevant. Such is the case now; the lady be SHININ', unusual choice of footwear notwithstanding.<br><br>Consider how many people come dressed to the 9's without the candle power Lisa has. [Even without the entertainment career], she's a star; let her shine, Julee, and stop raggin' on her for the elements she chooses for her own solar system! At least her shoes are shining too!!They are lovely young women, but dam, all I want to do is go up behind them pull the shoulders back and tell them to stand up straight. I've seen the slouching stance on really tall girls trying to be shorter, but these girls are peanuts. A lot of women it seems in the entertainment industry think this slouchy look is the way to look, they don't know how to show themselves off to advantage, how to carry themselves. Did you ever see Sophia Loren or Grace Kelly slouching for pictures?<br><br>As long as I'm on a roll, my other pet peeve, if you are going to wear those tall stiletto heals learn to walk in them, don't walk like a truck driver.<p>Admitting that she paid $500 for a new floral print Vera Wang bag, Adriana Castro couldn’t help but blush.</p><p>“I got it on sale two months ago,” the hospital coordinator said quietly, away from the ears of her teenage niece. “It was originally $2,250. And it’s something different, not like your typical black or brown leather.”</p><p>On a recent Saturday at mall in Los Angeles -- where nearly everyone sports a sparkling logo or three -- Castro wasn’t shopping, but hanging out with her family. “I don’t shop as much as I used to,” she said. “Especially for splurgy items, clothes, shoes. With the economy, you try to be more conscious.”</p><p>Still, it’s hard to resist a good sale once in a while when, at least for the moment, you have a job. Castro wasn’t the only one to treat herself this holiday season. Industry insiders have noticed a comeback of what they call “aspirational shoppers” -- those women and men who spend big chunks of their incomes on bags, watches, gadgets and other status symbols. Armed with credit cards, they’re charging "affordable" luxury brands like Michael Kors -- the self-proclaimed " -- toward whirlwind success.</p><p>But are these luxuries really affordable? In an economic recovery that is still itself , some are worried that the return of middle-class overspenders is no more than a relapse in disguise.</p><p>Armine Melkonyan, 35, of Los Angeles, bought the classic quilted Chanel "Timeless" bag in December after obsessing over it for nearly two years, paying with a credit card. The price? $2,100, according to a sales representative at the Beverly Hills Chanel store. Melkonyan doesn’t have a job right now -- she’s a student at the Los Angeles City College -- but says the money isn’t a problem. "You just have to keep up with the bills every month,” she said.</p><p>Banks, it seems, are just as relaxed as Melkonyan, handing out cards with uncharacteristic generosity. Bank of America, for one, saw a 50 percent surge in new during the last three months of 2011, compared to the same period of 2010. In November, meanwhile, rose 7 percent, according to merchant processing company First Data.</p><p>Stores noticed the change. Luxury department store Saks Fifth Avenue, one of the biggest winners in the 2011 holiday retail tussle, reported same-store sales up 7.7 percent in the last three months of 2011, which it credited in part to middle class shoppers.</p><p>“You are clearly seeing aspirational customers starting to shop,” CEO said on the company’s earnings call with analysts last week.</p><p>Of everything sold at Saks, handbags did particularly well. Macy’s, a mid-range department store, saw similar trends. “I think [the customer] really wants designer and logo right now,” said Russell Orlando, Macy’s accessories fashion director in an interview. “The whole classic piece in leather at a higher price point is driving the business ... It’s been going on a year now.”</p><p>The aspirational "look" is becoming a fashion trend, as well. Michael Kors, one of retail's most profitable brands, has championed the aesthetic with logo-covered bags ranging from to . </p><p>The "sweet spot" for shoppers is $348 to $398, Michael Kors executives told analysts on the company's most recent earnings call with analysts, saying "jet-set" no less than five times. "Jet-set" is Michael Kors’ favorite buzzword for its look: Picture soft leather and classic prints, safe enough to wear in Minneapolis or Milan. raised $944 million in an IPO in December, valuing the company at $3.8 billion.</p><p>Ironically, a $348 tote might just be what kills the trip to Europe for some people.</p><p>Genevieve Spitz, 23, of Boston, says she sometimes has to pick between plane tickets and shopping. "I'm one of those people who'll say 'Wow, I love that piece. I'm going to buy it, no matter the cost. And then I do. Unless, of course, I could buy a plane ticket to Spain instead."</p><p>"I'm not buying designer stuff," Spitz says. "It's more like, can I technically afford those $300 shoes? No. Will I be unable to afford food for the next few weeks if I buy them? No."</p><p>As in dieting, it's especially hard to say "no" to cravings after a long dry spell. More than three years after the recession began, many Americans are looking for small tokens to make life feel richer, like high quality fabrics or an eye-catching watch.</p><p>George Loewenstein, professor of economics and psychology at Carnegie Mellon University, is working on a study with colleague Russell Golman examining how society's image of "the good life" impacts consumer decisions. "Sometimes people are worried that they're poor or appear poor, so they spend money as a way to reassure themselves," Loewenstein said. "But of course, it's about the worst possible strategy you could have."</p><p>For any class of shopper, the current push by banks to issue new credit cards will no doubt create temptation to overspend. "Credit cards anesthetize the pain of spending money," Loewenstein said.</p><p>Melkonyan, for one, isn't losing sleep over her new Chanel bag -- unless you consider the late night parties where she’ll wear it. "I don't care about the brand; it's not because [the bag] is expensive," she said. "I want something beautiful."</p> <br><p>Styleite.com : they unearthed photos of Martha Stewart from her modeling days in the early 1960s. </p><p>On "Martha" this morning, Andre Leon Talley disclosed that Karl Lagerfeld recently told him that Stewart was once a Chanel model. Who knew? So Styleite dug around and found some incredible images (albeit not from the Chanel shoots). Here are our two favorites. .</p><p></p><p><br></p> <br><p> seems to have it all these days -- a lucrative career, plenty of chances to and . But it seems that there's one more thing on the actress' wish list: a Chanel skateboard.</p><p>Even though she seems to be a t-shirt and shorts (well, ) kind of girl, the newly-engaged star : </p><p>soooo I really need a custom @ skateboard!Aint that right @?!</p>— Miley Ray Cyrus (@MileyCyrus) <p>Who knew the 19-year-old had such high-brow sports gear taste? And with on an episode of Keeping Up With The Kardashians, her beau and , we're thinking that luxury sports equipment is here to stay. And if Karl Lagerfeld's listening, he just might find it in the kindness of his heart to send a Chanel skateboard Miley's way.</p><p>What do you think of these sports-related indulgences? Are these expensive products worth the high price tags?</p><p>Check out Miley's style evolution and see if you think she's grown up enough to get a Chanel skateboard!</p><p></p><p>Want more? Be sure to check out HuffPost Style on , , and .</p><p>The stars came out in black and white for the Chanel Couture Fall 2011 show in Paris on Tuesday night. </p><p>Karl Lagerfeld's glamorous gal pal Diane Kruger channeled old Hollywood glamour in vintage Chanel Couture (okay, so it was Fall 2009), while rising starlet Elle Fanning rocked chunky white platforms and a swingy dress from Chanel's Spring 2009 couture collection.</p><p>But it was Milla Jovovich who took the couture cake, pairing her black skirt and Chanel bag with a sheer white tanktop and a black bra. How 1990s of you, Milla!</p><p>As for the clothes? The Kaiser went dark and brooding, with classic suits and layered dresses in black and gray with pops of magenta.</p><p>Click below to check out last night's front row dwellers and some of our favorite runway looks. </p><p></p> <br><p>Yesterday marked what would have been Coco Chanel's 129th birthday, despite dying in 1971 her legacy still lives on. Coco was a pioneer in the world of fashion with a colourful and exuberant character. Her iconic designs from the 'little black dress', the boucle jacket, the classic quilted bag and strings of pearls still remain relevant today and are wardrobe staples for many fashionistas. She redefined how to dress women with classic and timeless designs and she was a firm believer in elegance...and of wearing perfume! She left the world with a legacy of fabulous, wise and witty quotes which transcends generations, and here are a few favourites. </p><p>"A girl should be two things: classy and fabulous."</p><p>"Dress shabbily and they remember the dress, dress impeccably and they remember the woman."</p><p>"A woman who doesn't wear perfume has no future."</p><p>"Some people think luxury is the opposite to poverty. It is not. It is the opposite to vulgarity."</p><p>"As long as you know men are like children, you know everything!"</p><p>"Don't spend time beating on a wall, hoping it will turn in to a door."</p><p>"Fashion fades, only style remains the same."</p><p>Here are some of my most favourite Chanel designs of late, which showcases how this classic French brand is still relevant, timeless and oozes as much elegance as when Coco first opened her very first shop in 1920.</p><p><br>Images from </p><p>I make no secret of my love for elegant design, so today I would like to bring some Chanel styling in to interior design. Below are some rooms that Coco herself would adore, all you'll need to do it pop on your box boucle jacket, have a spritz of Chanel No.5 and imagine an era of timeless sophistication. Voila! I'm thinking a classic black, cream and neutral colour palette, pearl, luxurious accessories, and simple, classic designs, with of course copious amounts of Parisian chic. </p>Image from Image from <p><br>Image from <br></p><p>I hope Chanel will continue to give us aspirational and elegant designs. Oh, how I love Chanel!</p> <br><p>Follow Nikki Wright on Twitter:</p>eGHZmFyID45oENrU906D%2FhMwkuHlFBz7vbH%2Ff%2FInvKhxwb9PFfSCn%2F8qVThGPiQ3fkf6YEs0I8F0fM0LVxM2fSK4I95%2BTaYZjtBUKan59TLkmVgau9HhmJEAACzNaSpRXUuWnWyQh3kn1kf9pMRzikQBOf2JuF1lPI8iKFInWq44PoH8HcJjbT%2BauTR2OQhG<p> paints vibrant multicultural murals with disjointed narratives that confuse and delight. With a bold palette and bolder sense of humor, Abney creates bizarre scenarios that add a hint of perversity to each piece, resulting in a mashup of celebrity and literary references.</p><p>Abney's scenes are full of bizarre costumes and undecipherable symbols, and even her characters' faces resist familiarity, looking more masklike than natural. The images are forceful, viewers can sense a political passion but cannot quite decipher the "moral," similarly they buzz with both masculine and feminine energy. To make sense of her work, we asked Nina some questions:<br></p><p><br> HP: Can you describe how you found your visual language??<br> <br>NA: I think it kinda found me. I work very intuitively, so my visual language is a combination of the different things I'm interested in as well as whatever happens in the moment that I am creating a painting. And I feel like my visual language is, and will continue to constantly change as times goes on. I am always trying new things, and editing out different elements in my work.</p><p>HP: Would you call your work narrative driven? Is there a message or more of an experiment/experience??</p><p>NA: ?I think my earlier work was more narrative driven, in which I focus on one particular story or experience, but I've become more interested in mixing disjointed narratives and abstraction, and finding interesting ways to obscure any possible story that can be assumed when viewing my work. So I don't necessarily aim to send out a particular message, rather I want the work to provoke the viewer come up with their own message, or answer some of their own questions surrounding the different subjects that I touch in my work.?</p><p><br>HP: ?To what extent is your work personal/autobiographical? Do you think all artwork is autobiographical in some way??</p><p>NA: I do think that all artwork is personal/autobigraphical in the sense that it's a reflection of the artist's thoughts. I treat the canvas like a journal in that it's a place where I can release any concerns, emotions, and just the different thoughts swirling around in my head in general.  ?</p><p>HP: ?That kind of alludes to what I was going to ask you about all the diverse ground you cover in your work (religion, politics, sex). Would you say that in your head they are all on an equal playing ground??</p><p>NA: Definitely. There's so much information that comes at an individual during the course of a day.  In one day, I may read the paper, get on the internet and browse through YouTube, my Facebook timeline, look at Twitter, watch the news, watch Bravo, VH1, read gossip blogs, listen to music, and do this all while talking on the phone and texting, so it's ??impossible for me not to cover a multitude of topics.  I'm living in an age of information overload.  ?</p><p>HP: What's a work of art that inspires you?? </p><p>NA: Dana Schutz's painting ? and </p><p>Take a look at Abney's wild worlds below, and let us know what you think in the comments section.</p> <br><p>Here at HuffPost Style, we love sharing what we do on social media. (If you follow us on , , , and you'll know that we sometimes like to overshare.)</p><p>In case you missed it, we've rounded up some of our latest photos, and this week was a big one for HuffPost Style. Some of our favorite snaps included a champagne celebration on Monday after , blog editor drinking wine with "" star Ramona Singer and (we're already coveting). </p><p>Check out the photos below and make sure to follow us on your iPhone or Android.</p><p></p><p>Want more? Be sure to check out HuffPost Style on , , and .</p><p>'Tis the season for holiday gatherings, parties and galas! </p><p>But as the invitations start piling up, so are your worries about what to you'll wear. Never fear, is here. </p><p>The online boutique is the premiere destination for fashion forward gals looking to rent designer dresses for next to nothing. You can indulge in 145 designers and 20,000 dresses at up to 90% off their retail prices. Yes please! </p><p>And just in time for the holidays RTR has teamed up with the vintage store to offer its stylish shoppers . </p><p>If you've always or flashing a pair of double-C earrings, now is your chance. Prices range from $100 to rent a pair of earrings (retailing $1,210) to $350 to rent a handbag (retailing $3,850). Rental periods last four to eight days. Just enough to flaunt your finds! </p><p>Sure, that's still a bit pricey--but if you've always wanted to splurge on a Chanel accessory, shouldn't you test one out to see if it's worth the dough? </p><p>Here's a look at the amazing vintage Chanel items available to rent.<br><br></p> <br><p>A cranky customer is seeking restitution of HK$50,000 -- and, get this, two Chanel bags -- from a luxury Hong Kong department store after </p><p>32-year-old Dion Leung Wai-yin says she went to the store to validate the authenticity of a HK$17,900 Chanel bag she had previously purchased there, after finding some defects in the bag. That's when her nightmare began:</p><p>"I was locked in a VIP room, [an employee] served me hot chocolate and he started to chit-chat with me. When I asked him when were we going to discuss the bag, he tried to [talk] about his divorce, the size of his feet and where he came from," Leung </p><p>Leung also says that she was suffering from anxiety and depression at the time, which were both exacerbated by the 90-minute wait she endured in the store's VIP waiting room. Nevertheless, she still accepted a full refund of the price of the bag, which management offered her after her wait.</p><p>The store has released an . They've also offered Leung a HK$10,000 gift voucher, even though she requested the higher sum of money, and two new Chanel bags as restitution for her emotional distress. </p><p>Is she accepting? </p><p>Also on HuffPost:</p> <br><p>Despite last week's media frenzy over braved the paparazzi cameras at today's Chanel Couture show. </p><p>Wearing a slinky silver satin dress under a black jacket, the actress, model and longtime Chanel muse joined Paris' chicest women for Karl Lagerfeld's couture presentation. </p><p>Held in a faux airplane complete with a carpeted aisle and window seats, the runway show featured plenty of short-sleeve, sky blue dresses that recalled vintage airplane uniforms. </p><p>But that he didn't want to "make it too literal," which made sense given how many die-hard Chanel couture fans were in attendance. After all, Diane Kruger, Caroline Sieber and Alice Dellal will be needing some high-fashion threads to wear this season and they can't be looking like the cast of "Pan Am."</p><p>As for Vanessa, we're not as certain. With compounding her already under-the-radar ways, Paradis might be making this one of her only public appearances for some time. But if she had to pick just one event, we wouldn't be surprised if her beloved Lagerfeld's couture show was it.</p><p>Check out the stylish show-goers aboard Air Chanel as well as select runway looks. What do you think of the collection?<br></p> <br><p>Jerry Hall and Georgia May Jagger, Patti Hansen and Theodora Richards -- model moms often produce the chicest daughters.</p><p>Yasmin and Amber Le Bon are no exception. hit the runway with daughter Amber at yesterday's Chanel show, strutting amongst the sumptuously laid tables for the brand's Pre-Fall 2012 presentation. </p><p>The pair wore donned two of the 78 (!) looks presented by Karl Lagerfeld in Paris' Grand Palais. The theme of the show was India, or some glamorous version thereof, with Chanel's typical skirt suits and trousers rendered in shiny silks and luxurious lace with gilt embroidery. Some of the models, both Le Bons included, even sported elaborate metallic headgear. </p><p>While top models like Jacquelyn Jablonski, Arizona Muse and Crystal Renn () walked the show, we're mostly impressed by the dynamic mother-daughter duo -- particularly Yasmin, who somehow looks about a day older than her daughter.</p><p>That's what happens when you have supermodel genes.</p><p>Check out the photo below -- can you tell who's the mommy and who's the child? (Fine, we'll tell: Yasmin is on the left, Amber on the right).</p><p>PHOTOS:</p><p></p> <br><p>The runway used to serve as a backdrop against which designer looks could pop. Lately, however, it is the sets themselves that do much of the popping. The background becomes the foreground in this Chanel 2012 Spring/Summer runway, designed by Zaha Hadid. Hadid, the first woman to win the Pritzker Prize for architecture, is known for the strong, curving forms of her elongated structures. She has designed everything from the National Center for Contemporary Art in Rome to a high speed train station in Naples. </p><p>She first teamed up with Chanel's Karl Lagerfeld in 2008 with Chanel Pavilion, a gargantuan, mobile pavilion based off of Chanel's signature quilted purse. described the piece as incorporating "undulating surfaces and flowing volumes converge, constantly redefining the quality and experience of each exhibition space, while guiding movement throughout."</p><p>Her new construction captures a playful side of Chanel not often explored. Candyland icecaps and bleached coral decorate this bubble of fantasy, against which Chanel's classic couture truly does pop. Rather than walk in a straight line, the models mill around in all different directions as if scuttling across the ocean floor. The view seems possible only by opening a clam shell and gazing in at the miniature world in the pearl inside. </p><p>Watch below to see fashion and fantasy dressed up in all white. </p><p></p> <br><p>Chanel is privately owned by the Wertheimer family and reserves the right to ensure any financial figures remain under wraps. But its spectacular revenues are a given. It should come as no great surprise, then, that the clothes, too, were not for shrinking violets.</p><p>Models with glossy, slicked-back ponytails and huge glittering eyebrows wore boucle wool parkas with jewel-encrusted hoods, skinny cropped trousers and striped knits, layered one over the other. Here was a grey flannel cap-sleeved ankle-length gilet decorated with what looked like a map of the solar system, there the iconic little black dress, with a bodice finished with hard-edged tiles of mirrored plastic. Some of the accessories were equally striking – even including, in one notable case, a three-year-old child.</p><p>If last season, Lagerfeld's message was one of sweetness, for the autumn a tougher aesthetic came to the fore. Colour was almost invariably dark: bottle green, navy, plum, black and shades of grey; embellishment was loud and proud as opposed to fragile and more than a nod to the Eighties came in the form of Lurex and an oversized silhouette.</p><p>Then, of course, there were the money-spinning accessories: heavy metal cuffs, the famous quilted 2.55 bag dangling from gilded chains and necklaces finished with lozenges of semi-precious rock all made an appearance. Later in the day, Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli, designers of the Valentino label, also hardened up the prettiness of their summer collection in favour of something more austere.</p><p>Theirs was a subtle shift, however, and a lovely one for that. Soft black leather was finished with frogging and braiding – a nod to the military mood that has been seen elsewhere – but executed with restraint. Cotton dresses in black and Valentino red and with youthful scalloped edges were similarly refined.</p><p>If the idea behind employing new talent to reinvent old names is to draw future generations into the fold, then this show was a brilliant demonstration of that. Suffice it to say that all of those young, beautiful and, of course, rich enough to invest in high-end designer fashion would do well to spend their money here.</p><p>This autumn's must-have accessory</p><p>Everyone knows cute kids can make great accessories, and the three-year-old boy who graced the Chanel catwalk yesterday was no exception.</p><p>Despite knowing the dangers of working with children and animals, designers often do – they know it's a surefire way to grab headlines and extra column inches, not to mention lull their audiences into a broody swoon.</p><p>For autumn 1999, Alexander McQueen punctuated his autumn snowstorm show with a pair of young, red-headed twins, who only added to the other-worldliness. Last September, the London-based label Meadham Kirchhoff had a troupe of pre-teen ballerinas pirouette along the catwalk before models returned for a finale.</p><p>And Jean-Paul Gaultier, always one to take things to extremes, had models walk different breeds of dogs for autumn 2006, as they showed off his priceless pieces.</p><p>Harriet Walker</p><p>Anna Wintour, we all know, now regularly graces the British capital's shows with her presence: they're more likely to be held in the dazzling penthouse of a west London office block or in the Royal Courts of Justice than in a snooker hall in the outer reaches of Hackney or an underground car park with concrete ramps where – in more well-mannered circles – a runway might be. The British Fashion Council ambassadors, meanwhile, from ladies who lunch to First Ladies, are glacial and groomed, dressed in London-born designs. In the past they would simply have been grumpy and perhaps in possession of a statement hat.</p><p>And then there's Meadham Kirchhoff, consisting of the designers Edward Meadham and Benjamin Kirchhoff, whose clothes are as desirable as they are marginally deranged, whose hair and make-up is reminiscent of Leigh Bowery's in his heyday and whose mise-en-scène has been known to transport the audience everywhere from a hyper-real flower garden (the colours were brighter, somehow, than nature ever intended) to a satanic St Trinian's (think plaited white wigs, crimson lips and the soundtrack to Psycho). Their show titles are no less evocative: 'He Gave Me Blue Roses. LIFE! (Vicariously)', 'A Wolf in Lamb's Clothing', 'I Am a Lie That Tells the Truth'.</p><p>They are, then, the brilliantly anarchic exception that proves the rule. Oh, and they claim to be "somewhat allergic" to Samantha Cameron, who is unlikely to be spotted in anything carrying their label any time soon.</p><p>"We're a bit reluctant to do interviews," Edward Meadham says from their studio in Dalston, east London, where the two designers live and work with their lovely, preternaturally glossy cats. He's dressed in red mohair jumper and shorts and shiny pink stockings.</p><p>"People always write about how moody we are and how dirty our house is which upsets Ben because he's quite a clean freak." In fact, there is nothing even remotely grubby about the space in question. Meadham's room is painted an orange so bright it's positively throbbing. Benjamin Kirchhoff's office is more subdued and populated by well-cared-for plants. The latter's clothes are chic, black and understated. Are Meadham and Kirchhoff bad-tempered?</p><p>Not today, certainly. In fact, the odd flash of vitriol, directed primarily at themselves, is, as it turns out, as entertaining as the clothes.</p><p>Here's Meadham talking about the autumn collection, for example. "It was about all the things I'm not," he says, "about all the things I've always hated myself for not being..." And that is? "Fun. The shows are entirely my way of being nice, you know; they're my way of being really nice. Because I'm not nice. I want everybody to sit there and feel completely joyful and not hate themselves for five seconds."</p><p>True to his word, in the past year alone, the label has offered up a troupe of Courtney Love lookalike can-can dancers (Meadham is among the singer's most obsessive fans), a group of fledgling prima ballerinas, and a parade of glam-rock poster girls complete with rainbow-coloured teeth and ears, all of which was indeed enough to bring a smile to the most po-faced commentator's lips. The collections themselves have been witty, pretty, beautiful and brave.</p><p>Ostrich feather chubbies, crystal-fringed silk bloomers, ankle-length ruffled chiffon dresses and jackets made out of what looks like the grandest vintage furnishing fabrics imaginable, all executed to a level not often found outside the Paris ateliers, have earnt Meadham Kirchhoff a following that extends way beyond the fashion establishment. They have a predominantly teenage fan base, they say – everywhere from America to Lithuania – and they are more than happy to communicate with these young aficionados directly.</p><p>"Very often we see kids making their own version of our things," says Kirchhoff. "I saw a girl the other day who'd covered a pair of jeans in the heart pinafore we made for summer. Someone else has made the cardigan. We love that."</p><p>For his part, Meadham has recently received an elaborately crafted fanzine, inspired by their work and sent to him by another young, like-minded soul. "The fact that this girl took the time to do that," he says – it clearly took a lot of time – "it makes me happy... Happy and sort of touched and proud."</p><p>When Meadham Kirchhoff collaborate with Topshop, any merchandise sells out almost before it makes the rails. No less than 25,000 sets of Meadham Kirchhoff nail stickers sold through the high-street chain.</p><p>Ask Meadham how old he is and he comes back with: "too fucking old". Kirchhoff who is, on the surface at least, the gentler soul, says they are "ageless and constant". Meadham started life in Somerset ("it was kind of idyllic, I used to play in the countryside") and then West Sussex ("I think I was always the weird gay one at school").</p><p>Of southern French extraction, Kirchhoff was born in Chad and moved to Guinea until, aged 15, his parents sent him to school in France. "I had no social skills, no knowledge of coolness, or music, or movies or anything. I wasn't made to feel very welcome. I think Ed and I both grew up being socially awkward and not necessarily having a tonne of people around us and only very few who we felt comfortable with," he says.</p><p>Both of them were also, in their own very different ways, above averagely interested in fashion. Meadham made clothes for his toys and later bought Buffalo platforms and Huggy Bear records. Kirchhoff used to source fabric and then give his drawings to street tailors in Africa and have suits made. "I probably looked like a right tit," he says now. "But I didn't care."</p><p>They met at Central Saint Martins where Meadham studied womenswear and Kirchhoff menswear and launched Benjamin Kirchhoff, purveyor of the latter, after graduating in 2002. Four years after that, Meadham Kirchhoff was born.</p><p>"It's not just about the clothes," Kirchhoff says of their label today. "It extends to the presentation, to the hair and make-up – we always direct the way it's choreographed, everything about it." Their attention to detail is such that Meadham Kirchhoff's shows even smell of a particular perfume: a different one is given to them by Penhaligon each season. "We try to create a world," Kirchhoff says.</p><p>It's a world populated and influenced by the things Meadham in particular identifies with. "It's a whole visual language and an attitude that goes with it," he says. "Courtney and Hole, that just never goes away, the Riot Grrrl situation. Siouxsie Sioux. I saw David Lean's Great Expectations when I was about four and thought it was just the most amazing thing. I love Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire..." He stops to think: "In fact, I think my whole personality is actually Blanche [DuBois] and Stanley [Kowalski]. They're having a bit of an argument in my head."</p><p>"It's about an individual and a person and that has to come through more than the clothes you're going to sell somehow," adds Kirchhoff. "I read a lot when I was young. I loved [Emile] Zola, the way that every single aspect of a story is described to you, like the sound a glass makes, a chip on crockery, a rip on a dress... All those things had a really big impact on the way I see things."</p><p>Perhaps unsurprisingly, Vivienne Westwood is the single living designer Meadham claims to be indebted to. "She was incredibly important to me when I was younger. She's the only one I can think of who has done, as far as I can tell, exactly what she wanted, forever, and seems to still be very much in control of what she does."</p><p>Westwood, it almost goes without saying, has also made a career out of an uncompromisingly original and often confrontational stance and that – in the current climate, at least – appears to be increasingly rare.</p><p>And with that in mind, Benjamin Kirchhoff states: "We do things how we want to do them and not how someone else expects us to do them. It's not that we don't play the game... but we play it on our own terms."</p><p></p><p>Model: Lucia at IMG</p><p>Make-up: Alexandra Byrne at Terrie Tanaka using Chanel S 2012</p><p>Hair: Cher Savery at MY-Management using Kiehl's</p><p>Photographer's assistant: Jed Skrzypczak</p><p>At Prabal Gurung, models wore cat's eye sunglasses by Linda Farrow Project – an extreme update of the Fifties-style eyewear seen over the summer, but in this rendering deconstructed and given wavy edges to soften the graphic frames against the face. Perfect for sheltering behind in wintry sun.</p><p>Meanwhile, the sci-fi smoky-glassed visors by Alexander McQueen are the most statement showpiece to have gone into production since the label's sky-high armadillo shoes. Part-cyborg, part Olympic velodrome, it's just the ticket to top off the new season's Star Trek-meets-sports luxe look.</p><p>Jewellery-wise, go goth or go glam. Leather accessories have been in the style doldrums, thanks to the ubiquitous 50 Shades of Grey, but Lanvin's black leather panther choker is a suitably fierce and scarily sophisticated return to form, embellished as it is with jewelled eyes and mouth. Grrr. But if glitz is more to your taste, Dolce & Gabbana's opulent, stranded gold necklace evokes all the arcane and baroque elegance of the Italian duo's heritage, dripping with pearls, curlicues, roses and rosary-esque beading.</p><p>Feet come into sharper focus too, but shoes are anything but razor-like. Instead, think clump: Acne's elasticated slip-on brogues in high-shine and slightly sinister black leather are key to this autumn's "ugly" trend, while at Balenciaga Nicholas Ghesquiere mixed the Eighties with out-of-this-world references to create a retro-futurist shoe: a wedge and kitten heel combined in the form of an Edwardiana ankle boot. Phew.</p><p>Print will play an important role in your wardrobe this season, but it shouldn't stop at your ankles. Follow Mrs Prada's example (for a change) and take it to your shoes as well, mis-matching the patterns on your stompy heels to the swirling lino-graphs on your painfully hip trouser suit.</p><p>Even wardrobe staples aren't immune to an overhaul, as at Givenchy, where designer Riccardo Tisci gave the timeless riding boot an altogether more functional makeover, affixing leather gaiters to knee-high wedge-heels, upping the dominatrix factor considerably but in a characteristically unconventional way.</p><p>Finally, pay attention to what is hanging on your arm. The It-bag is dead, but long live its blinged-up cousin, the statement bag. At Miu Miu, classic doctors' bags were streakily marbled in incongruous and sludgy colours; Chanel's clutch, meanwhile, looked more like it had been rough-hewn from the wall of a quartz mine, topped off with a hunk of semi-precious masquerading as a clasp. And Marc Jacobs' elegy to old-fashioned elegance at Louis Vuitton included a glittering and sequinned structured handbag in the shape of the house's famous monogram print. At the show, Jacobs provided porters to carry these for his models, but you may have to tote your own.</p><p>Alan Grieve is a 21st-century Dickensian. He was the bright young solicitor who earned the trust of a self-exiled millionaire called John Jerwood (even the names have a Dickensian ring), and with the fortune left on Jerwood's death he created his own empire. In 20 years, Grieve has given £90m to the arts, building theatres, dance houses, libraries and creative facilities, and helping the careers of countless young artists, performers and craftspeople.</p><p>At Hastings, among the fishing boats and net sheds on the Stade, a working beach where the Peggottys of David Copperfield might easily live still, Grieve has built the latest and perhaps his last in a line of capital arts projects. For a while there was a vociferous protest against the plan – an effigy of a gallery was even burnt on the beach long before any designs had been drawn up – because it would be seen to clash with historic Hastings, but the campaign ran out of steam when the understated architecture emerged as being rather complementary.</p><p>Costing a modest £4m in an £8.5m development partnership with the local authority, this seaside gallery joins the South-east coast "string of pearls" of Margate's Turner Contemporary (£17m), Eastbourne's refurbished Towner (£8.5m) and Bexhill's De La Warr (£8m). The Jerwood Gallery opens on Saturday, devoted to 20th-century British art.</p><p>Grieve is the last of the Victorian "entrepreneur philanthropists" – his own phrase – autocratic, single-minded and the only recipient of a National Lottery grant to give it straight back. When searching for talent to help him, he is inclined to look no further than his own family: his art historian daughter Lara Wardle is the new director of the Jerwood Foundation, and his son, Tom, is the architect of the new gallery in Hastings. The eldest of his five children is "fashion's first lady", Amanda Harlech of Chanel.</p><p>Grieve has personally assembled the art that the gallery has been built to house, filling a hole in what was on offer, he believes. Latterly, this has been done with advice from Lara, former associate director of 20th-century British art at Christie's, and from the new director of the gallery, Liz Gilmore, who was brought from the Arts Council where she had been head of visual art. "It is a private enterprise for the public benefit, and that's true philanthropy," he says.</p><p>Grieve was 30 when the senior partner of his Gray's Inn law firm asked him to look after a "tricky client", tricky because he and his pearl business were based in Tokyo. Grieve travelled the world for Jerwood as his business lawyer, becoming his friend and confidant. In the mid-1970s, he was given power of attorney to create a charitable foundation, the chief interest of which, initially, was Jerwood's old school, Oakham, to which he gave close to £8m. "He had no children but he had money and he liked education and the arts," Grieve says. "He did what he wanted to do."</p><p>When Jerwood died in 1991, Grieve took control of an organisation with huge assets but no order. Even to establish the extent of them took him two years. He acquired property, principally the handsome Fitzroy Square townhouse that was the Jerwood headquarters until last autumn, and he invested shrewdly enough to treble the assets. His CBE came in 2003.</p><p>Grieve has a Micawber-like respect for good financial management – "It isn't my money, after all" – and an extreme aversion to paying what he considers over the odds. He made a handsome profit for Jerwood when he sold Fitzroy, moving the Foundation to a converted Notting Hill mews.</p><p>The art collection, he estimates, is worth around £6m but cost only £1.5m. He has never paid more than £100,000 for a work, yet has assembled a canon of British art which started with Frank Brangwen and David Bomberg, and has progressed through Sickert, Augustus John, Stanley Spencer, Winifred Nicholson, L S Lowry, Christopher Wood, Terry Frost and Keith Vaughan. He has added Jerwood Painting Prize winners such as Craigie Aitchison, Maggie Hambling and Prunella Clough, and the gallery will show a large representation of the collection, plus temporary exhibitions, starting with Rose Wylie. "It's still organic, we'll continue to buy, but sometimes we fail at auction because we're not prepared to pay prices we can't afford," he says. Most recently, Lara failed to buy a Tristram Hillier when bidding broke Jerwood's ceiling.</p><p>It was the painting prize that started Jerwood's serious arts sponsorship in 1994. At £25,000, it was the richest of its kind when it was phased out in 2004. Then came the first major capital commitment, the Jerwood Space in Southwark, south London, a much-needed dance and drama rehearsal facility. The rents are calibrated according to what the client can afford, and this is the project for which Grieve applied for lottery funding.</p><p>"I made an application, like a lot of people in those euphoric days, and it took quite a while, very bureaucratic, but eventually we got a grant. I only kept it a few weeks before I realised that the Arts Council would want to bear in on me, tell me I hadn't done this or that. So I rang up Gerry Robinson [then chairman of Arts Council England] and asked to whom I should make the cheque out. I think you'd say he was taken aback."</p><p>When the Royal Court was on the brink ofclosure, considered unsafe in the mid-1990s, Grieve offered £3m to help rebuild it. A news story suggested he insisted the quid pro quo should be a renaming to "Jerwood Royal Court" but that Buckingham Palace vetoed the idea. "Absolute nonsense," he retorts.</p><p>The Royal Court rebuild was by the architects Haworth Tompkins for whom Tom Grieve later worked, but his own practice, HAT Projects, was born after Jerwood's Hastings scheme was already under way. Hastings was chosen as a site, with the advice of a planning consultant, Hana Loftus, as much for the amenable attitude of the local authority as for the seafront site, and Loftus later joined HAT as Tom's co-director. "When we were being considered, I knew nepotism would come up, and I asked Hana's advice," Tom Grieve says. "She told me to look at the project and nothing else, and then make my decision if the offer came. As it was, my father pretty much left us to do our job." Alan Grieve, unfazed, refers to "enlightened nepotism". He and his co-trustees, he says, chose, from a competition, a practice which came in at "a bargain" £4m, well below any other.</p><p>His enlightened philanthropy, however, will never realise the dream of the Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, of taking the burden of arts funding from public subsidy. "Politicians will always do that, whenever there are cuts they will try to come up with an alternative [to public funding of the arts], but there isn't one," he says, "not without the tax breaks American givers get, the difference between America and Europe. Philanthropy will continue to work alongside subsidy here. It won't replace it.</p><p>"Philanthropists have always been key to the arts, particularly to the Victorians when there was no state subsidy, and sponsors like Cadbury and Leverhulme were the nearest thing," he says. Now their equivalents are the foundations set up by Paul Hamlyn, Isaac Wolfson, W Garfield Weston and Jerwood – but without the colossal pound power of a century ago.</p><p>The new philanthropists are business leaders who can see to the end of a project and make assessments accordingly, without "blind chucking money at something" he says. "The thing about Jerwood is, there must be tangible identifiable results before we start. That's absolutely characteristic of us." And very characteristic of Alan Grieve.</p><p> </p><p>The Jerwood Gallery, Hastings, opens Sat (01424 425809, jerwoodgallery.org)</p><p>The luxury car marque lost the top spot to the technology superbrand, which has just launched its iPhone5 to near universal acclaim, falling to third place after dominating the annual CoolBrands list for six of the last seven years.</p><p>The 11th annual poll placed YouTube second, Twitter fourth and Google fifth.</p><p>Just under 3,000 British consumers and a panel of 39 "key influencers" – including the chart acts Rizzle Kicks and Plan B and the actor David Harewood – ranked a shortlist of 1,200 brands from more than 10,000 initially considered.</p><p>The panel scored each brand for factors including innovation, originality, style, authenticity, desirability and uniqueness ahead of the public vote.</p><p>The BBC's iPlayer, the Glastonbury festival, Virgin Atlantic, hi-fi maker Bang & Olufsen and department store Liberty rounded out the top 10. Almost half the list is made up of technology and media brands (45 per cent) compared with just a quarter last year, while a record number of online brands made the top 20.</p><p>Among the highest movers into the top 20 were Twitter, Skype and Nikon. YouTube was up eight places from last year while Facebook did not feature at all in the top 20.</p><p>It is also the most "affordable" list yet, with 25 per cent of the brands featured being free to consumers – including YouTube, Google, Twitter, Skype and BBC iPlayer, and 15 per cent of them costing under £10 – including Haagen-Dazs, Ben & Jerry's and Vogue.</p><p>Luxury brands that have fallen out of the top 20 include the car brands Maserati and Ferrari and the fashion houses Chanel, Vivienne Westwood and Alexander McQueen.</p><p>Stephen Cheliotis, chair of the expert council, said: "It is interesting that in this age of austerity our perception of cool has increasingly shifted from aspirational, luxury brands to free or more affordable brands."</p><p>It’s been subject to some upheavals. Toer van Schayk’s planned new version of Ode – a lost 1920s ballet that was groundbreaking in its use of film and lighting – had to be abandoned for personal reasons. In its place, company director Wayne Eagling staged a solo from another 1920s ballet, Le Train Bleu, and his own new version of Jeux. The cheers that greeted Eagling’s Jeux suggested personal support. He will step down as director at the end of this season, an unexpected decision that has caused controversy.  </p><p>His Jeux is literally a mixture. Nijinsky’s original ballet is lost. This version draws on photographs and on the sequences Kenneth MacMillan choreographed for the 1978 movie Nijinsky. Eagling sets all this in a rehearsal studio, with a framework of Nijinsky creating the ballet. It’s a slight work, with dancers waving tennis racquets or watching each other in involved trios. There are some appealing, darting moves for the women, in chic 1920s sports dresses.  Gavin Sutherland conduct’s Debussy’s lovely score.  </p><p>Vadim Muntagirov bounds through the very jolly solo from Le Train Bleu, Nijinska’s response to the sporting 1920s. Dressed in a bathing costume designed by Chanel, he turns cartwheels with and without hands, dips into a diving pose and whirls onwards.   </p><p>The evening opened with a fine account of Balanchine’s Apollo. Zdenek Konvalina, a very elegant dancer, plays the young god with smooth lines and intelligent phrasing. He’s matched by Daria Klimentová’s Terpsichore, danced with clarity and warmth.  </p><p>Serge Lifar, one of the stars of the original Ballets Russes, went on to create Suite en blanc in 1943. It’s a classical showcase, stuffed with solo roles and opportunities for display. Muntagirov, Laurretta Summerscales and Ken Saruhashi shine in the pas de trois, buoyant and quick. Nancy Osbaldestone boings through the pas de cinq, matched by her four cavaliers.  </p><p>Elena Glurdjidze is outstanding in the “Cigarette” solo, with curling, floating arms and grand authority. Lifar’s view of classicism features academic steps and lots of chic, with dancers tilting flirtatiously into slanting poses. In the pas de deux, Erina Takahashi leans against Konvalina, tipped sideways without turning a hair. The company dive into Lifar's grand finale, ending the evening with a flourish.    </p><p>Until 1 April. Box office 0871 911 0200</p><p>As studies show an ever greater number of Americans suffer adverse medical reactions, sometimes severe, upon involuntary exposure to artificially scented substances, bans are being imposed across the country on the wearing of smelly aromas, whether pricey perfumes or bottom-shelf colognes.</p><p>Freedom of expression is a fiercely guarded right in the US, but it is slowly being trumped by something more modern than the Constitution – allergies. As many as 50 million Americans suffer from some form of allergic condition that can be triggered by things ranging from foods – gluten, peanuts, dairy and chocolates are popular culprits – to animals and chemical substances, including perfume.</p><p>"It's got no formal action behind it but it is working," says City manager Tim Young, referring to the sign that has been hanging near the front entrance of City Hall in Tuttle, Oklahoma, for the past four years. It merely says, "Allergy Alert! No Fragrances Please!" Anyone who spritzed before leaving home is asked to wait in the public area and meet the official they wanted to see there.</p><p>The policy was adopted for a simple reason. "We had a former employee who had some extreme medical issues with this," Mr Young said. "She kept working as long as she could, but when other people came in with certain fragrances, she would turn red and swell up and we had to take her to the hospital."</p><p>Though hard to enforce – no one has deployed any pong-patrols yet, nor is it easy to determine how much fragrance is too much – edicts elsewhere in the country are stricter. On a federal level, the US Census Bureau enacted a ban on scent-wearing for employees in all of its offices in 2009 and the US Health and Human Services Department followed with a similar policy a year later.</p><p>The city fathers in Portland, Oregon, a place with a history of progressive social initiatives, instituted a fragrance ban for all city employees last year. It also told custodians of public buildings to use scent-free cleaning products.</p><p>The science of perfume allergies is not simple. The most vulnerable are sufferers of Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS), who can react to an array of substances that go into perfumes but also into paints and cleaning fluids. By some estimates just over one in 10 Americans has MCS. But experts say asthma patients are also at risk because perfumes can set off their symptoms.</p><p>"The chemicals in some of these products can trigger nasal congestion, sneezing and the runny nose," said Stanley Fineman of the Atlanta Allergy and Asthma Clinic. "With the asthmatics, there's really good data showing their lung function changes when they're exposed to these compounds."</p><p>National attention to the problem can be traced back to 2006, when a Detroit public worker, Susan McBride, sued the city, saying that perfume worn by co-workers had prevented her from doing her job because of allergies. The city paid $100,000 in compensation and issued a city ordinance against scented bath products for public employees. For two years now, public servants in Motown have been told not to wear perfumes, colognes, body lotion, scented deodorant or use scented candles.</p><p>When Hollywood stars aren't posing outside, you'll be able to start your walk at the film festival's main venue, the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès (00 33 4 93 39 01 01; palais desfestivals.com), at the western end of the Boulevard de la Croisette. This shorefront slab of concrete and glass has rolled out the red carpet for Hollywood's finest since 1983 – the first Palais was up the road at the JW Marriott hotel. It is vast, containing 35,000sq m of exhibition space – take a closer look on a tour (00 33 4 92 99 84 22; admission €3).</p><p>Next, head east along the south side of La Croisette, the city's palm-lined seaside drive. The California-style mix of sun, sea and sand is said to have informed the choice of this city for the film festival back in 1946. Look south-east out to sea, where Ile Ste-Marguerite rises before you, one of the two Iles de Lérins. Tucked behind it is the second island, Ile St-Honorat (00 33 4 92 99 54 40; abbayedelerins.com), home to the Cistercian monastery that built Cannes out of a fishing village. Today, the monks produce fine wines. Boats make the 20-minute journey there between 8am and 6pm in summer from the ferry terminal just beyond the Albert Edouard jetty (cannes- ilesdelerins.com; €13 return).</p><p>Continue along the poodle-ploughed promenade until you see the sign for Rado Plage (00 33 4 93 94 20 68; rado-plage.fr), the oldest private beach restaurant on La Croisette, run by the same family since 1958. Dip down the stairs to enjoy a coffee and watch the glamorous people on its blue-striped sunloungers.</p><p>Cross the road near the Hotel Martinez (00 33 4 92 98 73 00; hotel-martinez.com) and admire one of the strip's grand hotels, dating from 1929, a favourite for the stars. Double back along the north side of La Croisette to a Belle Epoque treasure, the Carlton Cannes hotel (00 33 4 93 06 40 06; ichotelsgroup.com), the festival's unofficial HQ.</p><p>A few steps further west brings you to La Malmaison (00 33 4 97 06 44 90; cannes.com), the sole public art gallery, set in the only surviving original section of the 19th-century Grand Hôtel. The summer exhibition, "Picasso, les Chemins du Sud", opens on 1 July. Browse the designer shops that line La Croisette – Dior, Chanel, Gucci – until you reach Rue des Etats Unis. Turn into it and walk for a couple of minutes till you hit Rue d'Antibes, the Oxford Street of Cannes. Turn left, and walk a block to the junction of Rue des Serbs, where you should stop and look north to see the huge Marilyn Monroe mural on the side of the Best Western Cannes Riviera, one of a series of film-inspired murals around the city.</p><p>Continue all the way down Rue d'Antibes until you reach Rue Emile Négrin, where you turn right, then take a left into Rue Meynadier for some tasty local shopping. At number 22, you find the deliciously pungent cheese shop Ceneri (00 33 4 93 39 63 68; fromagerie-ceneri.com). The dishes at number 31, Au Bons Raviolis (00 33 4 93 39 36 63), include the southern French take on pizza: pissaladière. Pata negra is the star of the deli-café Le Comptoir des Gastronomes (00 33 4 93 68 61 83).</p><p>Turn right on to Rue Louis Blanc, then left into Rue du Marché Forville to reach the covered food market where you'll see heaps of fish. At the western end, carry straight on and peep into the sombre 16th-century Chapelle de la Miséricorde. Turn left, out of the chapel, along Rue de la Miséricorde, right into Rue Meynadier and right again into Rue St-Antoine, a steep cobbled street lined with bistros that comes alive at night. The road becomes Rue du Suquet – Le Suquet is the name for the old town, which you're now entering.</p><p>Mantel (00 33 4 93 39 13 10; restaurantmantel.com) makes a good lunch stop. Refreshed, leave and continue up the hill. Turn right at Place du Suquet and right again into Rue de Pré. Fork right into Rue Louis Perrissol and continue up to Eglise Notre-Dame d'Espérance (00 33 493 39 17 49) and Château de la Castre (00 33 4 93 38 55 26; admission €3), the Gothic church and 12th-century castle that crown the old city. Climb the tower for views across the bay and inland to the posh hillside enclaves of Californie and Super Cannes.</p><p>Make your way down to Rue Louis Perrissol, cross on to Rue Montchevalier and go down to the bottom of the hill on to Rue Georges Clemenceau. When you reach a halt at the pavement's edge, look up and you'll see the giant Cinema Cannes mural on the side of the police station. Pick out the stars and characters, from Charlie Chaplin to Roger Rabbit. Turn right for Place Bernard Cornut Gentille and on to Les Allées de la Liberté, site of the Hôtel de Ville and, at weekends, a flea market. Here stands a statue of Lord Brougham, the English peer who founded modern Cannes. Cross the road to the Palais, and your slice of Cannes is complete.</p><p>Fresh cuts</p><p>Get the star treatment at the new spa at Hotel Martinez (see main text) – the L Raphael Beauty Spa (00 33 4 92 98 74 90; l-raphael.com). Its indulgent three-, four- and seven-day Beauty Cruises promise to tackle signs of ageing or help with slimming. Cannes's latest lodgings include Five Hotel (00 33 4 63 36 05 05; five-hotel-cannes.com). The slick boutique property, tucked behind La Croisette, has 45 rooms and 15 suites, a spa and restaurant. Doubles start at €360, including breakfast.</p><p>Travel Essentials</p><p>Getting there</p><p>The nearest airport is at Nice, served direct from the UK by British Airways (0844 493 0758; ba.com), easyJet (0843 104 5000; easyjet .com), Flybe (0871 700 2000; flybe.com) and Jet2 (0871 964 0016; jet2.com). A bus service, No 210, departs Nice airport every half-hour and takes 50 minutes to Cannes for a fare of €26.50 return; it is run by Nice Airport Xpress (00 33 8 20 48 11 11; uk.niceairportxpress.com).</p><p>In summer, arrive in style by helicopter with Hélisécurité (00 33 4 94 55 59 99; helicopter- saint-tropez.com), a 15-minute journey costing €300 return.</p><p>Kate Simon travelled with British Airways, which offers two nights at the five-star Hotel Martinez from £309 per person in May, including return flights from Gatwick to Nice and B&B accommodation.</p><p>Further information</p><p>Cannes Tourist Board: </p><p>She once was a model – a first generation super, in fact - and her effortless hauteur lit up the catwalks, not to mention the covers of any number of glossy magazines, for more than fifteen years before she married outgoing French president, Nicolas Sarkozy. Since February 2008, less than a year after he was elected and three months after divorcing his second wife Cécilia Ciganor-Albéniz, Bruni Sarkozy has adapted effortlessly to her role as immaculate first lady, like an aristocratic duck might to water. Overnight, she ditched high fashion and even higher heels in favour of a discreetly expensive and comparatively demure (read serious) wardrobe. In terms of any style credentials at least, she has barely put a foot wrong.</p><p>Whether stepping of a plane on her inaugural state visit to London in 2008, perfectly elegant in head-to-toe haute couture, or gracing the cover of the Sunday Times magazine photographed by Juergen Teller, her face scrubbed clean of make-up and in nothing more attention-seeking than blue jeans and white T-shirt, the sight of her has proved enough to bring grown men to their knees. When, that same year, Christies New York auctioned a naked portrait of her taken by Michael Comte in 1993 at the height of her success as a mannequin, its value was estimated as between $3,000 and $4,000. It sold for $91,000.</p><p>Mme Bruni Sarkozy has natural good looks and poise in spades and that certainly works in her favour. More than that, though, her judgement regarding what to wear and when and how to wear it is faultless. If Jackie Kennedy, with whom she has most often been compared, was chastised for her failure to wear American labels, Bruni Sarkozy has consistently flown the French fashion flag for public appearances. Here she is smiling graciously in tailored grey Christian Dior coat, matching pillbox hat and paper flat pumps, there she beams happily in Chanel black jacket and white boucle wool dress or perfectly draped sapphire blue Yves Saint Laurent gown. That she exudes the class she was born with is a given, on- and off-duty, and always with grace.</p><p>Only heightening her appeal: lurking just beneath her groomed surface lies a less polite creature – a veritable tigress, in fact. She is a reputable singer/songwriter, actor, mother and woman who springs to her husband’s and children’s defence through good times and bad. The effect is potent to say the least. It’s not news that her tenure has brought with it a degree of controversy: rumours of extra-marital affairs, forthcoming divorce and, more recently, comparisons with Marie Antoinette following her admittedly somewhat deluded claims to live “a modest life”. In Undressed a little known 1998 documentary following the history of 20th century fashion, she demonstrated the difference between a “natural move” and a “model move” for the camera, explaining that the point of the latter was “to look down on people”. In the end, however, her power as a clothes horse par excellence is only added to by the humanity of any more earthly flaws.</p><p>This article previously implied that Bruni Sarkozy and Nicolas Sarkozy were a couple when Nicolas Sarkozy was elected in May 2007. This has since been amended, as they did not meet until November 2007, and married in February 2008.</p><p>Chisato, who has been showing in Paris since 2003, was in good company yesterday, part of a packed schedule that included some of the biggest names in the industry from France and further afield: Cacharel, Vivienne Westwood, Jean Paul Gaultier and Commes des Garons.</p><p>Kenzo, Céline, Hermès and Givenchy unveil their women's ready-to-wear collections today, while Stella McCartney, Chanel and Louis Vuitton will be showcasing their latest designs tomorrow, Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively.</p><p>The first ever fashion week was staged in New York in 1943. Paris Fashion Week was launched 30 years later in 1973, with Milan the next to follow in 1979. London finally jumped on the bandwagon in 1984.</p><p>And what of the clothes? More than anyone else in the French capital, M Lagerfeld knows how to showcase the workmanship of the petites mains that staff the specialist ateliers responsible for haute couture's execution. This was spell-binding – from feathered angel wings finishing languid gowns to tiny strips of fragile organza applied to more dresses, every one massaged by hand until edges were frayed just so.</p><p>It all started, as always, with the boucle wool suit that is this house's most well-known signature. It was almost chubby this time, warm but clearly light as a feather, in gentle shades of pink and grey, shot through with sparkle and with glittering jewelled buttons. Should the Chanel couture customer want a bag to match, the new clutch, so soft and plump one could cuddle it, comes with a chain handle so that no one can snatch it.</p><p>There was nothing uptight about this collection. Instead, kaftans, sweaters and even a proudly utilitarian all-in-one, only densely covered in sequins coloured cornflower blue and bright rose, were the ultimate demonstration of the luxury of not caring. The woman who wears these clothes is as relaxed in her highly exclusive wardrobe as the rest of us might be in jeans and T-shirt. For the more conservative customer, there were coats that nodded to the mid-20th century haute couture silhouette that M Lagerfeld understands well. He was there the first time, after all. Any vintage appeal was modernised, not least by accessories including painted pewter leather gauntlets and silk slippers with suitably ferocious metal toe-caps and heels.</p><p>Chanel's haute couture business is not just for show. Such unique pieces may only sell in small numbers but they are vital to the maintenance of this elevated craft form nonetheless. To demonstrate its commitment to the skills of the workshops in question, some of which are staffed by seamstresses who trained under Mlle Chanel herself, 10 years ago the company she founded bought seven of Paris's leading ateliers including Lesage (embroidery), Goossens (goldsmiths), Lemarié (flowers), Guillet (feathers), Massaro (bespoke footwear), Desrues (costume jewellery) and Michel (millinery) with a view to expanding their businesses. Since then, these have not only provided a service to Chanel but also to high-end ready-to-wear labels including Lanvin, Balenciaga and Louis Vuitton among others, all of whom call on their expertise for more elaborate designs.</p><p>But nobody does it like Chanel. As ever to end the haute couture presentation, M Lagerfeld took his bows with the bride, who couldn't have looked more romantic in over-blown gown fluttering with pure white marabou.</p><p>Barrie Knitwear, part of the collapsed Dawson International, is expected to be sold back to its management in a deal valuing the Hawick-based business at between £3m and £5m within a fortnight. The management bid – led by Jim Carrie and Clive Brown, who have backing from an Edinburgh-based businessman – became favourites following the collapse of previous sales talks last month. The company behind the US menswear chain Brooks Brothers – Italy's Claudio Del Vecchio's Retail Brand Alliance – had been in talks to buy the brand. </p><p>Famously never compromising design for comfort, the master of shoe couture seems surprisingly taken by my flats. "I'm really not a fascist," he murmurs. "Everyone wears what they feel great in, or comfortable with. It's a beautiful day, you have an armless shirt: it goes with flip-flops."</p><p>I was expecting Louboutin in person to be as intimidating as his shoes, but he's playful, chatty and as expressive as any self-respecting Frenchman, frantically conducting the air for emphasis. "I don't hate the idea of comfort," he says. "I just don't think it's important for me as a designer, it's not in my creative process. Some people say, for instance, they're in a comfortable relationship. I favour someone who would tell me: 'I am in a very passionate relationship'. It's the same thing for shoes. I would rather someone say, 'Your shoes look passionate and sexy', than 'Your shoes look so comfortable'." He says this applies equally to his own relationships. "I'm really not a comfortable person," he adds. "I don't think comfort equals happiness."</p><p>His vertiginous, red-soled shoes stand accused of anti-feminism. This he dismisses, leaping into dangerous territory with both well-shod feet. "Madonna is a feminist and has been doing more for the cause than all the grumpy feminists, who are giving nothing back by being grumpy," he says. He believes suggesting women should not wear heels is actually anti-feminist. "It's saying women are not smart enough to make their own choices."</p><p>We meet at Claridge's, the day after Louboutin, 49, launched Martini's quest to find the new face of the drinks brand. He will be one of the judges. "Their philosophy of 'luck is an attitude' is similar to my own motto: 'Why not?'."</p><p>I'd caught a glimpse of him at the Design Museum the night before, at the current exhibition celebrating two decades of the spikes, studs, sequins, curves, arches and toe cleavage that make his designs so sexy, if unashamedly impractical. To say he'd given a short speech would be an oversell, but he believes speeches are very Anglo-Saxon. "It's not in the French habit," he says. "Even for weddings, here you have the best man doing their fun speeches. I've been best man for weddings and would never even think to do that."</p><p>He may have been 20 years in the business, but shows no signs of resting. He's opening four new men's stores worldwide, and is working with Disney to design Cinderella's glass slipper for the animation. This month, he announced he would be launching a beauty range – so fans can presumably match their nail varnish and lipstick to their scarlet soles. He says the venture, a collaboration with Batallure Beauty, is a "natural progression", but won't reveal more until the official launch.</p><p>He's also expecting the verdict of his appeal against a judge's ruling that Yves Saint Laurent's use of red soles in their designs in July did not infringe his red sole trademark. Despite his protests to the contrary, his anger over the battle is clear. Especially because PPR Group, owner of both YSL and Gucci, was last week awarded £3m in a trademark infringement case against Guess (clothing).</p><p>"In my opinion, they understand a signature when it's about them, but don't see when it's about somebody else," he spits. "There is something incredibly hypocritical in PPR trying to break what I consider is my trademark. It's incredibly rude and double standards," he says, gesticulating with frustration. "I'm like a mouse with this elephant that can crush me. They have spent so much money on lawyers. But I have to stand up for who I am, and for everyone who believes there is still the possibility to start your own thing, instead of having to be paid and employed by just one or two possible groups."</p><p>Before setting up his own company, Louboutin designed shoes for YSL, among others. But he believes the current company has no relationship with the late designer. "As far as I'm concerned, it is driven by marketing people who don't know what they're talking about, and is totally apart from its fabulous and wonderful creator. He would never have done such a thing like that, for sure."</p><p>Louboutin grew up in the 12th arrondissement of Paris, unaware of his parents' poverty until a classmate offered his mother a maid's job. An only son, with four older sisters, he was doted on. "She [mother] was a free spirit, never judging, the best support. When you have this education, driven by love, it keeps you straight for a long time – and when you have a solid character, you can do anything."</p><p>His father, a cabinet maker, taught him to follow the grain. "He showed me a piece of wood and said, 'You see, there is a line. If you go in the direction of the grain, you can do beautiful sculptures. If you go against, it never works: you end up having splinters.' I took it literally, but also as a metaphor – go in the direction of the grain of life and good things happen to you; go against it, and you end up breaking yourself and everything around you."</p><p>He left home aged 12, and acts as if this is unremarkable. "I never had a conflict; I was just quite mature. I left, but came back for lunch; left, came back another day to sleep in my old bedroom. When I was 15, I came back for a few months, and then left. It never was a break. It was much more natural; the progression of it."</p><p>He went to live with a photographer 10 years his senior, and spent his teenage years at Folies-Bergères, one of Paris's oldest music halls, where he wanted to design shoes for the dancers – an ambition he never fulfilled. He was also a regular at the theatre, watching only the second half of plays, as he could slip in during the interval for free. He spent time in Egypt, a year in India, and returned to Paris in the 1980s, where he worked with the shoe designers Charles Jourdan and Roger Vivier, credited with inventing the stiletto. His first store in Paris opened in 1991.</p><p>While Louboutin remains close to two of his four sisters, who both wear his designs, "two don't live in France, so I barely see them," he explains. "And I never was that close. I have 23 years difference with my oldest sister, and I'm 16 years younger than my second sister."</p><p>He splits his time between four houses: in France, Portugal and Egypt, and a 13th-century castle in the Vendée, western France. He has been in a non-comfortable relationship with his partner, the landscape architect Louis Benech, for the past 15 years. "I could not live with someone 24/7. I just never did, and I could never do. But, yes; it's very nice to go by yourself to do your thing, and then you meet. It's very much a reflection of where I've been with my family. I never remember any conflict in my family, people shouting or anything," he says. Having shod anyone who's anyone, he might be forgiven for having few ambitions left. In fact, he has much he still wants to achieve, including designing a pair of shoes for the Pope. "It would be exciting – a fun collaboration. He's very much a designer, you know." Perhaps. But I can't help wondering how Benedict XVI would fare in a pair of flip-flops.</p><p>Curriculum vitae</p><p>1963 Born in the 12th arrondissement of Paris, the son of a cabinet maker and a homemaker.</p><p>1975 After being expelled from school three times, he runs away from home aged 12 to live with a friend.</p><p>1979 Appears in several films, including the cult classic Race d'ep released in English as The Homosexual Century.</p><p>1981 Returns to Paris after time spent travelling in Egypt and India, with ambitions of being a shoe designer. Works at Charles Jourdan.</p><p>1991 After several years working as a freelance designer for such companies as Chanel and Yves Saint Laurent, Louboutin forms his own company and opens his first shop in Paris with Princess Catherine of Monaco as his first customer.</p><p>1997 Meets long-term partner, landscape architect Louis Benech.</p><p>2007-09 Tops the Luxury Institute's Luxury Brand Status Index for three consecutive years. Customers include Gwyneth Paltrow, Lady Gaga and Kim Kardashian.</p><p>2011 Files an unsuccessful $1m trademark infringement suit against YSL, with the judge saying: "Louboutin's claim would cast a red cloud over the whole industry, cramping what other designers do, while allowing Louboutin to paint with a full palette."</p><p>2012 Opens 1,000sqft boutique in New York, a location in Turkey and the first Louboutin Men's Boutique on Rue Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Paris. In May, announces launch of own beauty range.</p><p>From mainstream witch to indie darling – or, more precisely, from Fleur Delacour in the Harry Potter series to Chloe in In Bruges – Poésy is increasingly bestriding the Anglo-Gallic film-making divide, a duality neatly encapsulated last year when she played both the French national icon, Joan of Arc, in the Cannes-competing Jeanne Captive, and a piece of arm candy in the hip American cable show Gossip Girl.</p><p>"I feel very privileged to have been welcomed in England in that way," says Poésy, who flits between London and Paris almost as often as the Eurostar. "I always thought that there was a little door that was open for me." Her latest English project has also been her most daunting – and although the role of Queen Isabella in Shakespeare's Richard II is only a minor one, the challenge of mastering iambic pentameters for the BBC's upcoming cycles of Shakespeare plays was considerable.</p><p>"It was like learning how to speak another language," she says in accented but perfectly fluent English. "You do Shakespeare at drama school but you do it in French. It's interesting to see, when you study theatre in France, the different translations of Shakespeare – because obviously in England you just work on one material."</p><p>She was able to learn from her Bard-hardened Richard II co-stars, Rory Kinnear, Ben Whishaw and Patrick Stewart, and to reflect with amusement how she managed to get into the Conservatoire National Supérieur d'Art Dramatique (France's equivalent of Rada) by performing, in English, Juliet's balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet. "No one had any idea of whether it was any good," laughs Poésy, who took her mother's maiden name for the stage. Her father, Etienne Guichard, is a theatre director, who used to pretend to Clemence and her younger sister, Maëlle, that their TV only played videos of movies.</p><p>After a stab at couture that ended after a disastrous work-experience placement when she was expected to stitch together a wedding dress, Poésy grudgingly accepted her thespian fate.</p><p>"I was the one in the family who was saying I wanted to do something else," she says. "Mostly because I felt a bit silly saying that I wanted to be an actress before I actually was an actress – or it might have been being scared of failure." A string of French roles playing teenagers ensued, before her English-language breakthrough as Mary, Queen of Scots in Jimmy McGovern's 2004 BBC drama Gunpowder, Treason & Plot – a role that led to Harry Potter. Her mother, a schoolteacher, had already encouraged her to read JK Rowling's books, although Poésy says she only really became interested in witches – "what were considered witches in those days" – when reading up for her role as Joan of Arc.</p><p>Harry Potter led to a variety of English language parts, from the aforementioned In Bruges, with Colin Farrell ("people love that film"), and the 2007 TV mini-series War and Peace, to playing Jim Sturgess's enigmatic girlfriend in the London-set horror film Heartless and as James Franco's lover in Danny Boyle's 127 Hours. Now Poésy is involved in a somewhat more unusual romance, Mr Morgan's Last Love, an age-gap meeting of lonely hearts between a free-spirited Parisian and Michael Caine's retired and widowed American philosophy professor. It sounds like Lost in Translation.</p><p>"Yuh, it's two lonely people finding each other, except it's Paris and not Tokyo," she says. "It's not a real love story but there's a lot of love in it... It was lovely to get to know him. He's incredibly simple, and he's got a very playful approach to the whole thing still. "</p><p>Apart from being an actor, Poésy is also a musician (she plays guitar, and sang on last year's debut album by the Last Shadow Puppets' Miles Kane) and fashion icon – a face of the perfume Chloé and now the new face of Dutch urban fashion chain G-Star Raw – as well as being something of an all-round It Girl and muse for Karl Lagerfeld at Chanel – although she thinks the Lagerfeld connection is exaggerated.</p><p>"I'm not that close," she says. "It's very strange to read these things". One poster we won't be seeing however, is of a naked, or semi-naked, Poésy. After a bad experience as an 18-year-old starlet, she has a clause in all her contracts that states that any nude scenes she films can't be used in trailers or publicity stills. "People can find the scene and so whatever they want on the internet," she says defiantly, "but at least they can't use on the trailer."</p><p>'Birdsong' is out on DVD on 12 March. 'Richard II' is on BBC2 in July. 'Mr Morgan's Last Love' is released this autumn</p><p>But the autumn/winter 2012 collections, which kicked off at the Ritz in Paris last night with Donatella Versace's first bona fide Atelier Versace catwalk show since 2004, demonstrate that haute couture is thriving.</p><p>There may be no more than a few hundred women wealthy enough in the world to afford couture, but industry figures say the business is "an active one".</p><p>Earlier this year, Versace chief executive, Gian Giacomo Ferraris, told Women's Wear Daily that the company's couture workshop, which today employs about 30 seamstresses, had escaped restructuring cuts made in 2009 because Ms Versace "protected and maintained it".</p><p>But the cost of a runway show was deemed prohibitive. Instead, private clients and celebrities have been viewing the collection behind closed doors. After healthy haute couture revenues for 2011, and a slightly larger presentation in January this year, more money is now being invested in this, most upscale and elitist, arm of the label.</p><p>Given that the economy continues to nose-dive, it may seem surprising that Versace is by no means the only fashion house to report significant, even double-digit, growth in sales of haute couture. This craft is the jewel in fashion's crown ? each of these garments are hand-sewn, beaded, embroidered and fitted to suit the client's every curve. Such exclusivity is expensive. Prices start at about £20,000 for a simple day suit. It is not uncommon for more complex pieces to weigh in at 10 times that amount.</p><p>Chanel is expanding its haute couture business, too. That collection, designed by Karl Lagerfeld, will be shown on Tuesday. "We feel more and more interest from customers for something unique," Bruno Pavlovsky, president of Chanel fashion, told Women's Wear Daily. "People are looking for top quality."</p><p>The company, which is privately owned, reserves the right to keep exact figures to itself, but said 2011 was "a very good year". Couture is a "small business" Pavlovsky continued, "but an active one" nonetheless.</p><p>Both Givenchy, presided over by Riccardo Tisci, and Valentino, designed since the Roman couturier's retirement in 2007 by Pierpaolo Piccioli and Maria Grazia Chiuri, have injected new life into the twice-yearly calendar. This time Maison Martin Margiela, famed for transforming found objects into hand-worked designs, has been invited onto the official schedule for the first time.</p><p>All eyes are on Christian Dior in particular, meanwhile, where Raf Simon officially took over from John Galliano in April. His debut on this most rarefied catwalk takes place later today.</p><p>Photographs: Katya De Grunwald</p><p>Model: Smita at IMG</p><p>Make-up: Angela Davis-Deacon at Sue Allatt using Chanel Hydra Beauty Serum</p><p>Hair: Jan Przemyk at Naked Artists using Kiehl's</p><p>Retouching: Samuel Bland</p><p>From the top floor of the by now lovingly restored and quietly impressive place the views over the city, including the famous cathedral with the Rubens' altarpiece, are spectacular. This particular area is reserved for buying appointments and all of that profession who attend can expect to be served with traditional Flemish fare – meatloaf with cherries and roast potatoes, to be precise. Much of the raw structure of the building has been preserved and it is furnished by an eclectic mix of antiques. Van Noten is an avid collector and so, when the Antwerp courts of justice chose to rid themselves of any original 1930s fixtures and fittings, for example, he was only too happy to take these items off their hands. There's a black, high-shine 1960s sofa here, oil-painted portraits of King Baudouin and Queen Fabiola of Belgium in gilded frames there, all of which form a perfectly harmonious and relatively domestic counterpoint to a sense of industry and modernity that is also very much in evidence throughout.</p><p>On the third floor, bolts of fabric from past seasons are piled up on shelves alongside zips, buttons and labels. Van Noten's labels are distinctive, as the size of the garment is printed beneath his name. Although the complex nature of his design process renders his twice-yearly collections more difficult than most to copy, the archive is a precious commodity and is closely guarded for that. It is testimony to the fact that Van Noten's rise to success was a gradual one that it dates back no further than the mid-Nineties. Until that point, and still struggling to make ends meet, he paid his models in clothes, as was the custom with any up-and-coming name worth his or her credentials at the time. On the second floor, the newly arrived (and vast) spring/summer collection hangs in polythene wraps and is subjected to rigorous quality control before being shipped around the world to upwards of 500 points of sale.</p><p>Van Noten's office and studio is on the fourth floor. He's dressed today in smart blue chinos and sweater (I am reliably informed that he doesn't wear jeans) and is kept company by his dog, Harry, a magnificent Airedale terrier with a butch bark and a gait like a prima ballerina, all out-turned toes. "Harry is a lot of work," Van Noten says. On weekdays and when he doesn't have the run of the designer's famously lovely garden at his 19th-century home on the outskirts of the city, Harry has his own unusually glamorous dog walker.</p><p>It's more than 30 years since Van Noten founded his business. With a turnover estimated at around 50 million euros a year, it is a minor miracle that the label remains entirely independent and ultimately under the control of this unassuming and highly civilised man. In the last decade of the 20th century, when corporate superpowers were snapping up each and every designer name they could get their hands on, Van Noten resisted the temptation to play along, although "I thought at certain points that was maybe the way to go, that that was the future. The big groups weren't only buying labels but also all the factories. Our shoes were made in Italy. The heel manufacturer was sold to Gucci, I think, the last manufacturer to the Prada Group and the producer itself was bought by Armani. My most important yarn suppliers were also bought by Prada. And it's still like that at least some of the time." In the end, though, "that's not my way of doing things. I like to choose my own way forward. I really do want to create something that I personally like a lot."</p><p>For similar reasons, Van Noten doesn't design a pre-collection or any subsidiary lines, preferring instead to concentrate on two ready-to-wear collections for both men and women a year, all four of which he shows in Paris. "For me, the show is the only moment when I can tell my story," he says. "It's the way I communicate my ideas to the world." The collections are expansive in that they include both high-end and entry-point pieces.</p><p>"For me personally, there's too much fashion around in this world," Van Noten says – not something one might expect to hear from the mouth of a fashion designer. "There are too many images, too many impressions and the danger is that the whole thing is lost in one big blur. That's a pity. Before you had only images from ready-to-wear designers, now there's Topshop, Diesel... Everyone does fashion shows and produces imagery that is as strong as possible, just to attract attention. In the past, it was twice a year for men and twice a year for women and then there was couture. It was far more definite and there was breathing space in between."</p><p>Given that today's industry is notoriously driven by money-spinning accessories, it is equally remarkable that less than 10 per cent of this designer's business is based on those. "I'm a fashion designer, not a shoe designer," he says by way of explanation. "I like to design clothes. It seems strange to me that people buy a whole outfit in a high-street store, but they still have very expensive shoes. OK, shoes and bags are important but not so important. The whole thing, the combination of all the elements, is important." Van Noten chooses not to advertise or bombard celebrities with his designs, although he has dressed Cate Blanchett and Maggie Gyllenhaal for the red carpet. "Who are the clothes for?" he wonders. "It is challenging to create clothes for people who perhaps don't have the perfect body, who aren't a size 38, and to put those into the collection too. Why not? It's a real world out there."</p><p>We are talking today about his offering for his spring/summer collection, currently flying out of stores, and something of a departure from Van Noten's signature, more ethnically-informed work. Now, as always, however, the fabrics take precedence, providing the starting point for the collection – although never at the expense of the silhouette, which is just as considerate of its wearer's needs as it always has been.</p><p>"The idea was to find things that were aesthetically interesting but which have no connection with fashion at all," the designer says. "I thought: 'What would happen if we use elements on garments that were not created to be printed on garments?'." Van Noten looked at technical drawings of butterfly wings from the 17th century and at 18th-century black-and-white etchings of landscapes. "What's on the etchings? A lake and some houses. So, OK, that's the way they used to do it, now let's look at the modern way of doing it. So we have water from the 18th century and we have 21st-century water, too."</p><p>Then there's his collaboration with the photographer James Reeve to consider – Van Noten first came across his work at the Hyères International Fashion and Photography Festival in 2010 when he was president of the fashion side of the event, which is aimed at nurturing young talent. "He obviously has a completely different way of looking at cities," Van Noten says. Reeve's night-time images of everything from London's Albert Bridge to the casinos of Las Vegas have a similar quality to that seen when flying over urban spaces at night. Applied to clothing, at first sighting each piece appears to be scattered with tiny jewels. It is only when looked at more carefully that these patterns reveal themselves to be figurative. "We had to find a balance between the prints and achieving a garment that is nice to look at and, especially, nice to wear."</p><p>You do indeed, but there is something uplifting about wearing an oversized cotton dress or vest that turns out to be printed with blue sea, green palm fronds or ancient black-and-white sycamore trees – or indeed all of these things at the same time. "The danger with prints like these is that we would end up with very simple sack shapes – you can't use too many seams," Van Noten says. The solution? The cut of the garment looks to mid-20th-century Spanish and Italian haute couture – and to Balenciaga especially – for inspiration. "French couture at that period was very Cardin and Courrèges," Van Noten explains. "Whereas in Spanish and Italian couture it was more about lace and about ruffles – olé, olé! – and I like that much better."</p><p>Dries Van Noten was born in Antwerp in 1958. His grandfather was proprietor of a men's ready-to-wear clothing store in the city. His father was responsible for a larger designer clothing boutique in its suburbs. "It was a completely new concept," Van Noten remembers. "Until that point, all the stores were in the city centre. This was destination shopping ... on a Saturday people would drive to the store. It was menswear, womenswear, childrenswear, there were small fashion shows every weekend." Van Noten's elder brother and two sisters were at university studying by this point, so he used to join his father after school and do his homework there. His mother also owned a clothing store and collected antique linen and lace. "During the school holidays, I accompanied my parents on buying trips to Milan, Florence and Paris," Van Noten says. It is fair to say, then, that fashion is in his blood.</p><p>By the time he was 18, in 1976, Van Noten was ready to enter the prestigious Royal Academy of Fine Arts in his home town and to undertake the rigorous fashion course there presided over by the infamous Mme Prigot. "She thought that long hair for girls was untidy, that they had to have a chignon, or she just took them to the hairdresser's herself and paid for them to have it cut off. Oh, and she didn't like knees," says Van Noten now. "She thought the only good fashion designer in the world was Coco Chanel. It was the end of the 1970s. It was punk. Of course, when you have that many restrictions you rebel against them and that makes things quite interesting.</p><p>It is the stuff of legend that, with Ann Demeulemeester, Dirk Van Saene, Dirk Bikkembergs, Marina Yee and Walter Van Beirendonck, Van Noten formed the Antwerp Six, perhaps safe in the knowledge that few outside their native country would remember, or even be able to pronounce, their individual names. In 1986, and with Van Noten having worked as a freelance designer since graduating in 1980, they drove their collections to London in a van and took the biannual collections in the British capital by storm. They were all completely different, both personally and professionally, of course, but they shared a belief that it was possible to break from tradition and to create innovative fashion without outside financial support. It says something of those involved that, to varying degrees, they went on to do just that. Although Van Noten remains friends with most of his contemporaries, he brushes off any suggestion that there is a shared Belgian aesthetic. "But we maybe do look more at clothes piece by piece. That's why shops can easily sell Belgian designers, because they can mix their clothes with other things."</p><p>Van Noten's own pragmatic approach is certainly refreshing. "Doing only the creative part of the job would be boring," he says. "In the end, it's all part of the same thing. What's the point of designing something if afterwards you don't know whether it sold? It's not that if something sells really well we're going to repeat it, because everyone who wanted to buy it has done so already and will want to move on to something else. But it keeps me in touch. I keep in mind what people want and maybe also why they want it. Did other countries buy it? Yes, no. Why did a collection not sell very well in one country when it sold fairly well in another? Maybe the balance of certain shapes wasn't right, the volumes were too oversized or not oversized enough. It's interesting. I like to look at that."</p><p>Van Noten says that he is, for the most part, left alone when out and about in his home town. "People recognise me but not too much. I'm more recognised when I walk around in Tokyo or Hong Kong than I am here. And that's good because I'm not really a big fan of that. I like to have my own life. I have my house. I am able to do things I like to do which are not always the most fashionable..." He lives with his long-time partner, Patrick Vangheluwe, and they work together, too. Cooking and gardening are both high on their list of favourite pastimes.</p><p>"I think it's the dream of every fashion designer to have six months off," Van Noten says. "To have a sabbatical just once because it all goes so fast. But that's impossible. I'm forced to think about the future because I have a responsibility to the people who work for me and who have been working here for 10 years, as well as to the people who open stores and to suppliers. We have a few thousand people working for us in India who do the embroideries, for example, so I have to make sure that every season I sell so many pieces of embroidery that represent so many hours of work..."</p><p>Although Van Noten travels frequently, he's as likely to spend the summer driving around the northern English countryside as fly off to anywhere more obviously exotic. He has spoken in the past of his clothes being inspired "by travel of the mind". Of Paris, where he has a second office and showroom, he says: "I'm always very happy to go to Paris but I'm always, also, very happy to leave. Paris is a city where you need a lot of energy to survive."</p><p>Dries Van Noten is Antwerp's most successful designer. His stand-alone store on a corner at the city's centre, around a 15-minute walk from his office headquarters, is a destination for local residents – who queue round the block each time a new collection arrives – and tourists alike. It's an elegant space where staff are attentive and well-informed but never intrusive.</p><p>"Antwerp is a very easy city to live in, I think," the designer says. It helps that it is lovely to look at, too. As so too are Dries Van Noten's clothes. They are a multi-faceted, cultural and philosophical reflection of one another in more ways than one. Above all, though, both are somehow modest – this is neither a city nor a fashion designer that likes things loud.</p><p>"I don't really want to make clothes that shout," Van Noten says. "I think the people who buy our clothes are quite individual. They're not buying them because they want the label or because they want people to admire that label. They're buying them because they like them."<br><br>MODEL: LEAH DE WAVRIN AT IMG <br><br>MAKE-UP: EMMA MILES USING JAPONESQUE <br><br>HAIR: CHRISTOPHER SWEENEY AT DWM USING BUMBLE &BUMBLE <br><br>PHOTOGRAPHER’S ASSISTANT: JED SKRZYPCZAK <br><br>ALL CLOTHES FROM THE DRIES VAN NOTEN SPRING/SUMMER COLLECTION, AVAILABLE FROM HARVEY NICHOLS, HARVEYNICHOLS.COM; SELFRIDGES, SELFRIDGES.COM; AND BROWNS, BROWNSFASHION.COM. <br><br>ALL SUNGLASSES DRIES VAN NOTEN BY LINDA FARROW, LINDAFARROW.CO.UK</p><p>Reclining on a plush cream sofa with short, slicked hair and red lips, wearing a fitted black cocktail dress, she is every inch the sophisticated socialite. Poor Emma Watson, I then counter immediately, having constantly to prove to people like me that she isn't 11-years-old any more.</p><p>Her new role as the face of Lancôme's "Rouge in Love" lipstick range will go some way towards changing that view – shot by Mario Testino, the campaign captures her youthful vitality in a new and chic, gamine expression. It's rather more urbane and quite apart from the reputation for precociousness that the Harry Potter franchise – fairly or not – has foisted upon her.</p><p>"As I've got older, and since I cut all my hair off, I've felt a bit more liberated about trying different things out," she smiles, when I suggest she has successfully shaken off the fetters of having played a gawky teenage witch for a decade. "I think there's this idea that lipstick is something quite old or something you'd only wear at night. The nice thing about these is that they're really translucent, like a tinted lip balm, so you can wear them in a more casual way."</p><p>If she sounds like a professional, that's because she has been one for the majority of her 21 years. Picked from thousands to play Hermione Granger at the age of nine, after eight auditions for producer David Heyman, Watson is now – eight films later – rumoured to be worth £43m. She signed a contract with Lancôme in April to feature in the commercial for its Trésor Midnight Rose fragrance, and has been at Selfridges all day to promote the brand's latest launch of lipstick and nail varnish.</p><p>"Make-up is actually something I've always really loved," she continues. "The hair and make-up department on the Potter films were the people who saw me first thing in the morning and last thing at night, so that space was somewhere I felt at home. When we had spare time on set, I'd do their make-up and get them to teach me how to do stuff." Make-up artist on the films Amanda Knight remembers Watson making up extras for crowd scenes, too, but Watson has today left it to the professionals. "I haven't had my make-up done for two or three months," she says, as if expecting me to say, "No way!" I raise my eyebrows and she laughs. "I know! But it's really weird for me because I used to have it done every day. So it felt like a treat today."</p><p>She refers regularly to privileges and treats, to feeling lucky and counting her blessings, and she doesn't seem troubled or distracted by the host of opportunities available to her. She is studying English at Oxford, on a secondment from the American Ivy League campus Brown.</p><p>"It's just given me time, really," she says. "People use their time at university and at school, which I didn't have, to really think about and figure out what they want to do, and who they want to be. And it's been so nice not to be pushed around or pushed into doing things."</p><p>In fact, Watson has carefully peppered her career with choices that pertain very closely to her own interests, putting her name to a collection for eco-fashion range People Tree as well as partnering with designer Alberta Ferretti to work on a "Pure Threads" ethical line too. Her next film, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, will be released later this year. She paints and reads books. She has, she tells me guiltily, a university essay to hand in the next day, not yet finished.</p><p>"Doing the Potters was such a bubble," she says, "and then having to figure out how to function in the real world has been a challenge. But it's been the small successes for me: I know how to use a washing machine, I can cook. It's worth it to me not to feel disconnected from everything, feeling like I'm in touch with people who do other things than acting or being in the entertainment industry."</p><p>In a few hours, she will host the Lancôme pre-Baftas party, posing in a crimson lace Valentino dress for the world's cameras. But for the moment, she has her bare feet hooked up underneath her and is fiddling with her BlackBerry; she looks at the basil plant poking out of my shopping bag and wonders what I'm having for dinner. She is terribly normal – if elfishly beautiful – in her rendition of a well-brought-up young woman.</p><p>"I think humour has been a help," she says. "I have schoolfriends, a group of people around me, who have carried me through this whole experience and aren't fazed if they ask, 'Oh what are you doing tomorrow?' and I say, 'I'm going up to see Mario [Testino] in Notting Hill, he's shooting me for the new Lancôme campaign.' I don't know – it is mad, and some days I feel a bit mad, but it's the balance that keeps me sane. I don't fully live it, this side of my life."</p><p>Watson is sanguine about the attention she receives and is logical about it; she plans to travel more now that she has a more lax schedule, and talks about going to the post office, buying milk, getting the Tube, though I can't believe for a minute that she is actually able to do these things fuss-free. "Some days, for some reason, I can't go anywhere and I'm like, 'That was a mistake,' and other days no one will even notice me."</p><p>There was a time, though, towards the end of the Potter franchise, when Watson came of age and began appearing on front rows at shows such as Chanel and Burberry, in whose billboard campaigns she featured along with her younger brother in 2009. "I was fully game for 'Throw me in this, throw me in that,'" she admits, "but I'd like to develop my own sense of style, and dress for myself. The press destroyed me over this Rodarte dress I once wore – it was bright blue with chains on it." She laughs and shivers slightly. "I loved it. And I wore a leather Christopher Kane dress with embroidered flowers all over it. It wasn't that crazy, but at the time..."</p><p>She seems to have ridden out the post-Potter publicity admirably, though. "Fashion gave me a chance to feel like I was something outside of Potter," she explains, of her appearances front row at shows such as Chanel and Burberry. "I'm a multidimensional person and that's the freedom of fashion: that you're able to reinvent yourself through how you dress and how you cut your hair or whatever."</p><p>Her haircut was, of course, an international sensation, and turned into a global debate. Was it a good idea, did she regret it, why did she do it? Watson faced compliments and criticism in equal measure, staggeringly so. This was more than the average celeb 'do and more like a cultural event: Potter fans were horrified, while the fashion industry discreetly applauded the severing of Hermione's bookish locks.</p><p>"I had journalists asking me if this meant I was coming out, if I was a lesbian now." She rolls her eyes. "That haircut did make me realise how subjective everyone's opinion is. Some people were crazy for it and some people just thought I'd lost my shit. All I can do is follow my instincts, because I'll never please everyone."</p><p>The hues are saturated, pure, sharp, clean – proto colours. There is a hallucinogenic edge to it all. Any minute now a white rabbit might come hopping down the cobbled streets, an elephant with flapping ears might glide between the dreamy spires. I wonder about the latitude and the intensity of the light. Up here on the shores of the Baltic, I reason, we might be closer to the sun. But then what's reason got to do with anything?</p><p>If logic had any rules, this small former Soviet republic in the furthest corner of north-eastern Europe should be drowning in the whirlpool of the eurozone. But it's not like that. Despite a brief blip when the property bubble burst and the economy went into reverse around 2008, this Baltic Tiger is back, not quite roaring, but purring nicely. The good times are rolling on. The anticipated growth figure this year is just under 2 per cent – not thrilling by the Estonian standards of the early 21st century – but George Osborne would be over the moon if he could make a similar projection.</p><p>In the commercial heart of Tallinn the Soviet-era Kaubamaja, with its natty new "K" logo is unrecognisable from the department store that marked its dreary communist inception – its acres of high-end retail are now as glitzy a temple to consumerism as you could hope to see on Fifth Avenue. Viru Keskus, the mall next door, is equally awash with talismanic international brands – Chanel, Armani, Swarovski, Calvin Klein – powerful enough to erase all memory of the grim old days.</p><p>Following independence in 1992, the headlong rush for all things Western was perhaps inevitable. Hotelier and restaurateur Martin Breuer recalls how it used to be. "People wanted to eat exotic – they wanted to eat strange – after so many years of Soviet rule. The stranger it was, the better it was." But over the past 20 years tastes have matured into something less flashy and more indigenous. Style and quality come with an Estonian imprimatur these days.</p><p>Restaurants are finally recognising the joys of sourcing locally. The recently opened F-Hoone (F-Block) in the Kalamaja suburb keeps it simple. The restaurant is popular with the bohemian set – it is housed in a former electro-mechanical factory reputed to have turned out components that went into space in the Sputniks. The interior is an effortless mash-up of industrial chic, exposed steel joists, naked brickwork, and vibrant colour. The atmosphere is warm and open. The food is unfussy; my salmon is fresh, lightly poached and excellent value.</p><p>Fashion boutiques such as Nu Nordik, at VabaduseValjak 8, and Naiiv, at Pikk 33, also suggest a new aesthetic: cosy, quirky, fun, warm, and outrageously vivid. Designer Liina Viira uses Estonian folk motifs for inspiration. Her shop, Naiiv, displays a range of knitted hats, scarves, bags and dresses. The eruption of carnival colours challenges any preconception you may have that Scandi/Nordic design is muted and minds its manners.</p><p>In a similar vein, Etno.ee at Tartu Road 6 is a sign of the times – the store takes evident pride in the country's ethnic design traditions. Folk patterns from various parts of Estonia are given a new twist and deployed to invigorate a range of household goods – cushions, kitchen stuff, lampshades. A bright yellow pair of wellies printed with folksy floral designs from the island of Muhu catch my eye partly because of their sheer exuberance and partly because I am headed for the island.</p><p>Muhu is a two-and-half-hour drive west from the capital. The ferry from Virtsu to the island feels like an ice breaker – navigating a narrow channel through the frozen sea. Mini floes grind against the hull of the boat, giving the short crossing the feel of an Arctic expedition.</p><p>Padaste Manor dates back to 1566, though the current structure is largely 19th-century. Framed by ash trees, the house stands out against the surrounding snow in its warming cream and terracotta livery. It was rebuilt from a ruin in 2008 by current owners Martin Breuer and Imre Sooaar, part of a long-term love affair with a property that they took on in 1996.</p><p>Now it is a luxury hotel, finished tastefully in the modern idiom under the marketing tag of Simple Luxury. Gold taps and chintzy drapery are conspicuous by their absence. Stripped wooden floors, kilims and animal-skin rugs, occasional antiques and log fires set the tone for cool and cosy comfort. It's tempting to stay indoors for the duration.</p><p>Martin's pitch for his hotel is disarming: "Nothing much happens here," he says. "A farmer moves a cow from left to right in the morning and from right to left in the evening, and then his day is done. There are no spectacular things – no big mountains, no waterfalls, no things which have an 'awe' effect."</p><p>I get his drift but he is being unfair. The manor is located on the shoreline of the Gulf of Riga. The view stretches out from the front of the property through the grounds onto the frozen sea and onwards to some small islands. Martin is right – there are no mountains or waterfalls or wildebeest sweeping majestically across the plain. But there is plenty to awe the visitor in many subtle and magical ways.</p><p>Today the sun and clouds are playing tag. The light changes by the moment – the landscape is benign one minute, sullen and menacing the next. The view is perpetually on the cusp, always rearranging itself into the next tableau.</p><p>There are of course things to do, and this afternoon a horse ride in the ice and snow has been arranged. A lovely idea, in theory, if I forget the deep mutual distrust that usually characterises the relationship between horses and me. As I arrive at the stables an elf comes bounding out to greet me. This is Martin Kivisoo, the horseman of Muhu. He has a long white beard and is wearing a white sheepish hat. For a few seconds I am not sure which way up his face is.</p><p>My mount is called Racy, a gentle horse I am assured, suitable for beginners. She is part of a tough and ancient Estonian breed that can be left out in all weathers – and here that can mean -30C for weeks at a time. Martin spends much of the ride telling me about the spirits of the forest. We dismount at a seven-way crossroads in the juniper forest. This is an auspicious spot, he explains, to honour Uku, the ancient Estonian god of the sky and the harvest. We circle a holy rock, bang it with a smaller rock and throw grains (which Martin carries in his pocket for just such eventualities) towards the west as a gift. I'm OK with all this as it means less time in the saddle.</p><p>His assistant, Kati, is keen, however, that I do some riding – and keeps breaking the horses into a trot. Try as I might I have never mastered the rhythm. The more I try the worse it gets. The bumpity-bump is not good; not good for me, not good for the unfortunate horse. We are mercifully at the end of our ride, within yards of dismounting, when Racy decides enough is enough. And tries to kill me.</p><p>She shies to the right and throws me off her back. I land on my head on the crème brûlée icy crust of the snow. I am upside down with my feet still tangled in the stirrups. This is not an attractive look – luckily no photos are taken. I am removed from the vicinity of thundering hooves. Racy appears to be smirking. No damage is done, though my dignity is sorely bruised.</p><p>The sunset back at the manor is dramatic. As the shallow sun begins to dip, a red blade of light travels like a laser up the grand avenue, illuminating the canopy of the barren trees and bathing the manor in an eery pink glow. Having locked on to its target the red beam intensifies until the house looks as if it might be catching fire. Looking westwards, the heart of light is blinding, a rose-tinted halo projects around the reeds and shrubs poking through the ice.</p><p>The Simple Luxury slogan seems slightly disingenuous when dinner is served. As befits the restaurant named the best in Estonia for the past two years, it is an elaborate feast for the senses. The seven-course tasting menu is calibrated to the seasons and leans on local traditions and ingredients, which can include, somewhat counter-intuitively, ostrich reared on a local farm.</p><p>Tonight's medley is more traditional: courses include cod with cauliflower mousse, beetroot consommé and steak with wild mushroom sauce. Chef Peeter Pihel saves the best till last with his Muhu Apurokk. It looks deceptively like cheesecake but is, in fact, his take on a local pudding made with potato and sour milk. It is served with gooey fermented birch sap and flakes of liquorice and ash meringue. The apurokk is beautiful to look at and seductive and mysterious in the mouth.</p><p>In the morning, Martin Breuer marshalls his guests for a walk on the sea. We don snow shoes. Martin takes us to the edge of the shore, which is indistinguishable from the frozen sea. It's a blazing sunny day and there are visible fissures in the surface of the ice. He reassures us by going ahead. "I weigh more than most of you, so if you follow where I tread you should be OK," he jokes.</p><p>The guests are a varied group, from Italy, Holland, Russia, Estonia and North Wales. It is an unlikely location for the tribes of Europe to be coming together. Our shadows are elongated on the glittering crystal surface. Occasionally the ice is cratered and volcanic, in other places it has thinned to a transparent lens through which we can see flowing water.</p><p>We shuffle to a small island across the bay, cooing at the wonders around us in a babel of European languages. As we return I glance back and see the line of footprints we have left on the surface of the sea. The laws of physics have been suspended. I am in Estonia. It seems the most natural thing to walk on water.</p><p>Travel essentials</p><p>Getting there</p><p>Sankha Guha travelled with Regent Holidays (0117-921 1711; ), which offers a twin-centre holiday with four nights at the Telegraaf Hotel in Tallinn and three nights in Padaste Manor on Muhu Island, both with breakfast. The starting price of £995 per person based on two sharing includes return flights with Estonian Air from Gatwick and transfers. Ryanair (0871 246 0000; ) flies to Tallinn from East Midlands, Edinburgh, Luton and Manchester; easyJet (0843 104 5000; ) from Liverpool and Stansted; and Estonian Air () from Gatwick.</p><p> </p><p>Further information</p><p></p><p>Holiday beauty is no less haphazard, although it may be the one time of year we actually have the space to pamper ourselves. Hair gets crispy, skin frazzled and dry, and those "no make-up make-up" looks become increasingly unrealistic thanks to the blistering, honking redness beneath the foundation.</p><p>You may roll your eyes at the prospect of a holiday beauty regime, but take the time to suss out some key products and you'll look better than ever on your return. Whether it's a beach break, an urban escape or something altogether more exotic, looking after your assets while you're away will prolong the feeling of well-being even when your feet are firmly back under the desk.</p><p>Sun protection is key, so invest in a quality cream that won't dry out your skin – remember to reapply regularly and watch out for strap marks. The recent profusion of BB (beauty-benefit or beauty-balm, dependening on who you ask) creams combine the hydrating qualities of a moisturiser with the tint of foundation, and usually include some kind of SPF – these are a great choice for when you can't be bothered with a full face of slap but fancy a reassuring bit of coverage.</p><p>Going away is also an excuse to lavish yourself with chic miniatures that comply with luggage regulations, the larger sizes (and corresponding prices) of which might usually make you balk. Eve Lom's £75 travel kit includes four of the renowned facialist's most famous and feted products, while Chanel's travel-size No 5 perfume is every bit as elegant as the original – but at £62 for a pack of three mini fragrances.</p><p>Seek to make life as easy as possible – if you're heading for the beach, invest in a surf spray that will make any tangles look intentional; look for a really good waterproof mascara, too. Start using a gradual tanning moisturiser before you leave so that you'll fit in straight away – and don't forget a snazzy bag to carry all your bits and bobs in.</p><p>Beauty travel tips from the experts</p><p>Alessandra Steinherr, Beauty Director, Glamour</p><p>The air con on planes is diabolical so I carry Clarins HydraQuench Serum, £40, with me. It's great for travel but also to ease post-sun dryness. A total holiday multitasker.</p><p>Bobbi Brown, make-up artist</p><p>Multi-use products are perfect for travel because they make packing less of a hassle. My essentials are concealer, foundation stick, and a good moisturising balm, which I use on my face, lips, cuticles, and even my heels.</p><p>Jayne Demuro, Head of Beauty, Selfridges</p><p>As soon as I set foot on an aircraft I can feel the moisture leaving my skin. I use Clinique Moisture Surge Extended Thirst Relief (£30) as an initial hit and top up my skin with face spray for the duration of the flight.</p><p>Laura Mercier, make-up artist</p><p>I love to travel, but don't like what it does to my skin. For flights I take something cooling for my eyes. My new Tone Perfecting Eye Gel Crème is the perfect light texture to relieve and calm skin and keep you fresh.</p><p>Additional research by Rosa Schiller Crawhurst</p><p>At Louis Vuitton, comically oversized headpieces had a gently crumpled, elegant flamboyance, while Marc Jacobs opted for a similar look in his eponymous collection, just furrier, wider, brighter and taller.</p><p>For Grand the hair was about "colour and proportion". Hairstylist Guido Palau clamped the hair straight at Prada, brushed it back off the face and lengthened it with extensions in artificial hues matched with the models' natural colour, while at the McQ Alexander McQueen show he created a dense ring of hair that hovered, suspended above the forehead in a donut-shapedring. Crowning confections these certainly were.</p><p>But they were only half of the story. What about the face? One need look no further than the multibillion-pound cosmetic industry to know that make-up matters. Over the years designers have become increasingly interested in what the make-up artist Alex Box, a long-term collaborator of Rankin and Pugh, terms "face architecture". Think Hussein Chalayan's tear-drop wooden mask, Gareth Pugh's ecclesiastical mouth lights or McQueen's veil spiked by enormous antlers. Sounds a bit heavy? As luck would have it, many designers found a new lightness of touch with their fashion-forward creations north of the neck.</p><p>Take Rei Kawakubo's spring/summer offering for Comme des Garçons, where frothy rounds of creamy fabric bordered plain, childlike faces. Or Sarah Burton's collection for Alexander McQueen, where fabric crept up from the body, encased the skull and reached down on to the face. The finely woven lace in balmy pastel hues crafted a graceful softness from the macabre silhouette. Burton sought the femininity in a futuristic aesthetic for autumn, with mirrored visors adorning plain ladylike faces.</p><p>Kawakubo, meanwhile, inverted her previous season's silhouette by covering the face completely with a bondage-style balaclava that grew out of a bright floral body suit. The silhouette was constrictive but the character was warm and invulnerable. The thinly woven balaclavas pulled down over faces painted with a spirited flash of red lipstick at Rick Owens had a similar effect. His models strode out against an inferno; this was, he later asserted, a look he saw as completely wearable.</p><p>Predictably, not all designers embraced covering the face in such a theatrical fashion. Instead, traditional make-up was whipped up to show that eye shadow and lip-gloss were not for the sartorially small minded.</p><p>At Meadham Kirchhoff, designers Edward and Ben came to make-up artist Florrie White with a clear vision for their autumn winter show: 1990s supermodel meets 1980s drag queen. "It was gradual, as if the two were meeting each other," White says. As the old-school glamour and sculpted features of Christy Turlington entered a collision with Trojan, the drag queen at the heart of the Eighties club scene, a scrawl of paint around the eye grew into an hallucinogenic eye patch, a nude lip became a canvas for hyperactive pastel doodles. And those eyebrows? Lest any detail get lost in translation, each zig-zag was scrawled on by Edward.</p><p>The conflation of traditional beauty with an unusual element captured attention elsewhere. Bejewelled, ruler-straight eyebrows – embroidered in collaboration with the Maison Lesage – provided a graphic embellishment against a simple and austere base at Chanel. Colour was big elsewhere. Baby-blue hues and licks of white paint were flicked across the eyelids at Miu Miu in playful flourishes, while Prada dispensed a lesson in grown-up glamour, with orange scored across the eyebrows, a smoky-black lid and a flash of purple underfoot. Charlotte Tilbury took inspiration directly from Prabal Gurung's clothes for her autumn/winter creation. "We wanted to complement and enhance the clothes by creating an enchanting beauty look inspired by 'beetle wings' and birds of paradise. Dual tone teal green and bright blue shadows were applied diagonally on the lids all the way up to the eyebrows like colours in a peacock's feather."</p><p>As Tilbury aptly surmises, "the make-up looks for autumn were about making the girls look beautiful with a twist". So what had designers and make-up artists beating the same drum? For Grand, this was partly a reaction against celebrity models: "It was about keeping the girl blank, creating a blank canvas." Box applies this diagnosis to the look in general: "It's amniotic times and people want to wipe the slate clean." It is ironic and perhaps fitting for fashion's often contradictory grand narrative that the simplicity of new beginnings is located in a cacophony of colour and concealment. For this year, at least.</p><p>Make-up maestros</p><p>Kevyn Aucoin</p><p>Arriving in New York City in 1983, Aucoin quickly caught the eye of photographers Steven Meisel and Irving Penn and soon became the go-to make-up artist. "His signature touch was transforming a face by using neutral tones to sculpt, define, highlight and shape the complexion, minimising and maximising features," Charlotte Tilbury says. A true master of sophistry, Aucoin made up Cindy Crawford for her first Vogue cover.</p><p>Serge Lutens</p><p>Born in 1942, Lutens is a fashion veteran: his precocious work for French Vogue in his 20s earned him the task of launching Christian Dior's make-up line in 1967, where he created an industry powerhouse. "He did everything and really pioneered a rounded look," Alex Box says. Lutens has collaborated with the Japanese brand Shiseido since the 1970s and launched an eponymous collection of essentials in 2005.</p><p>Gucci Westman</p><p>Westman is something of a world-wide tastemaker. She was International Artistic Director at Lancome from 2003, until she took up the position of Global Artistic Director at Revlon in 2008. She speaks five languages, trained at École Chauveau in Paris and turned Cameron Diaz into frumpy Lotte Schwartz in Being John Malkovich.</p><p>Pat McGrath</p><p>Vogue has called her "the most influential make-up artist in the world". Not bad for a girl from Northampton. McGrath moved to London in the early 1990s and worked for i-D and The Face before going on tour to Japan with Caron Wheeler from Soul II Soul. Twenty years on and McGrath counts 20 of the world's greatest designers as clients.</p><p>Peter Philips</p><p>Philips did not pick up a make-up brush until he was 27: a degree in graphic design was followed by further study at the Antwerp Royal Academy of Fine Arts. On graduation in 1993, Philips cultivated his passion working with Alexander McQueen and Raf Simons before his appointment as creative director of Chanel make-up in 2008.</p><p>Charlotte Tilbury</p><p>If you haven't heard of Tilbury, you will have seen her work with covers for Vogue, Vanity Fair, W, LOVE and Pop, and ad campaigns for Versace, Tom Ford, Stella McCartney, Givenchy and Louis Vuitton under her belt. Tilbury makes her subjects look beautiful and interesting; think high-octane smoky eyes or a glazed lip on glowing skin.</p><p>How much spare time does he have? Not only is he creative director at both Chanel and Fendi, his K Karl Lagerfeld line – a more accessibly priced selection of shirts and signature high collars – launched earlier this year on Net-a-Porter, and he cut the ribbon on a pop-up store devoted to his image in Selfridges last month.</p><p>Previous shows for his eponymous label have seen models wearing bejewelled motorcycle helmets, complete with interior iPod slots. Clearly, there's no danger of the creative juices running dry.</p><p>When asked backstage at Fendi last week how he managed to keep on top of his workload, Karl Lagerfeld simply said: "I love what I do. That's the best motivation there is." A lesson to us all, perhaps.</p><p>Intricately tooled leather, languid skirts weighed down by tiny chains hand-sewn into their edges, opulent crystal embroideries and more made for darkly romantic and spectacular viewing. And should madame be interested in one-step dressing, she need look no further than long, lean, all-in-ones with their own haute couture boots attached.</p><p>Chanel</p><p>A Chanel garden party at the Grand Palais was peopled by quite the most beautifully dressed models in the world. Nobody knows how to showcase the skills of the haute couture ateliers better than Karl Lagerfeld and there was a romance and even emotional power to these hand-worked garments that took the breath away. Far from uptight, the silhouette was, for the most part, relaxed, or dégagé. Mlle Chanel herself would have approved. To sum up: these were throw-on pieces, if only for the world's wealthiest and most sartorially discerning women to wear and then pass down to their daughters and granddaughters.</p><p>Christian Dior</p><p>Three hundred thousand freshly cut flowers is excessive even by haute couture standards but that was what met guests to spectacularly beautiful effect at the hôtel particulier in the chic 16th arrondissement of Paris for Raf Simons' debut for Christian Dior. The clothes were like blooms themselves – skirts resembled upturned lilies and tulips; New Look-line dresses were embellished with petals of silk; and colour ran the spectrum from Victorian garden roses to vivid blue delphiniums. More masculine – and a gauntlet thrown down to Hedi Slimane, perhaps – was a perfectly cut tuxedo and black cigarette-legged trousers, best worn with jewelled bell tops.</p><p>Jean Paul Gaultier</p><p>This was a vintage couture season for Jean Paul Gaultier. By the close of the show the audience were cheering at the audacity of the vision and indeed the clothes sent out by the couturier. If an intimate salon environment and the importance of seeing the workmanship of the petites mains up close was the overriding story, this was a grand gesture, old-school style. Models wore long, lean, deconstructed tuxedos, beaded flapper dresses, laced leather and frisky sheer organza… And that was just the boys.</p><p>Valentino</p><p>Pierpaolo Piccioli and Maria Grazia Chiuri's show for Valentino balanced a respect for the traditions of haute couture with an understated elegance that was more contemporary by nature. A deceptively simple midnight blue velvet gown, a navy cape that only its wearer would ever know was double layered (chiffon and cashmere) and "tree of life" prints and embroideries featuring the plumpest and prettiest birds were all executed with the refinement that is by now the hallmark of this designer pairing. Like Valentino in his heyday, they know how to showcase exquisite workmanship, while always ensuring clothes remain light.</p><p>Maison Martin Margiela</p><p>Maison Martin Margiela's Artisanal collection is small and studiously imperfectly formed. This house loves the authenticity of age, and its flaws are left intact. An Edwardian silhouette dominated here but was given a tender twist: doorknobs from that period replaced buttons; leather baseball gloves were flattened and transformed into an S-bend jacket. Models' faces were masked – a signature of this very innovative collective – but this time, coloured crystal was applied to the surface. Imaginative, innovative and made entirely by hand, of course.</p><p>Giambattista Valli</p><p>Exuberant flower prints and ruffles everywhere from neckline to hem almost threatened to engulf the slender models wearing them at Giambattista Valli's haute couture collection. Restricting his colour palette almost entirely to shades of red and green, with the odd splash of vivid iris, only added to the drama of this, a fashion fantasy inspired by the most high-impact of gardens. Models stepped out with butterflies where otherwise their lips might be, a strangely surreal and slightly macabre sight.</p><p>Atelier Versace</p><p>Strips of patent leather were studded with solid rose gold for the Atelier Versace collection as modelled by Ms Versace herself as she stepped out to take her bows. This was the designer's first haute couture catwalk show for almost a decade and it was big on the high-octane glamour the Italian label is famous for, from blazing colour – bright rose, violet and citrine – to patchworked rubber, silk and lace held together with oversized stitches threaded with glittering beads and crystal metal mesh. Prints – a Versace signature – referenced tarot cards and the work of Picasso. It was all a matter of "deconstruction and reconstruction", Ms Versace said.</p><p>Armani Privé</p><p>Eschewing his 1980s shoulder line in favour of a softer silhouette and, often, an empire line, Giorgio Armani showed three sections in the old-school manner, moving from day to evening to night-time, signalled by a backdrop on to which was projected a sunrise, a sunset and, finally, a starry sky. Soft, black wide-legged silk velvet trousers were worn with blouson jackets and little flat pumps. Narrow evening dresses in more velvet or embroidered with crystal beads were high on shimmer and shine but always polite. Sophia Loren sat in the front row, as did many a client. They looked good dressed in the grand old man of Italian fashion's designs.</p><p>Up in the Air</p><p>9pm BBC2</p><p>(Jason Reitman, 2009) George Clooney (below, with Anna Kendrick) stars as a corporate "downsizer", paid to do the unpleasant business of firing people, whose neatly ordered life unravels once he learns his own job is at risk. A comedy about the depersonalisation of modern life, and thus also the importance of making human connections, Up in the Air lightens its satirical and cynical mood with just the right amount of romanticism. ****</p><p>Saturday</p><p>Australia</p><p>6.50pm Channel 4</p><p>(Baz Luhrmann, 2008) It's set in a real time and place – Australia's northern territory before the outbreak of war, and then during the post-Pearl Harbor Japanese invasion – but Baz Luhrmann's kitsch, mock-epic romantic adventure story is an impressive work of pure filmic artifice; the country's landscapes made to look as vivid and pretty as a painted studio backdrop. Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman star.  ****</p><p>Monday</p><p>Coco Before Chanel</p><p>6.50pm Film4</p><p>(Anne Fontaine, 2009) Focusing on the period in Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel's life before she was famous, and eschewing the triumphalist narrative favoured by most rags-to-riches biopics, this film also stops just short of reclaiming the elegant Chanel (Audrey Tautou, above) as a feminist figure. It instead shows us the compromises which this most uncompromising of women was forced to make in patriarchal Belle Epoque France. ***</p><p>Tuesday</p><p>The French Connection</p><p>1.30pm & 12 midnight Sky Movies Modern Greats</p><p>(William Friedkin, 1971) William Friedkin brought a near neo-realist sensibility and aesthetic to bear in the making of this gritty policier, so that Gene Hackman's (above) hardman cop "Popeye" Doyle, and the streets of Seventies New York that he swaggers down, still feel tough, raw and real. Meanwhile, the famous car chase set the standard against which others measure themselves to this day. ****</p><p>Wednesday</p><p>Frankenstein</p><p>8.30pm Sky Movies Classics</p><p>(James Whale, 1931) Boris Karloff (above), with the help of the make-up artist Jack Pierce, defined forever the way that Frankenstein's monster looks and acts in the popular imagination, and made him a more sympathetic and tragic beast than he is in Mary Shelley's novel. The film is the greatest of Universal's Thirties and Forties horrors: a haunting, melancholy work of gothic beauty. *****</p><p>Thursday</p><p>Total Recall</p><p>10pm ITV2</p><p>(Paul Verhoeven, 1990) The biggest-budget action film of its day, this sci-fi mind-bender adapted from a Philip K Dick story stars Arnie Schwarzenegger (above, with Sharon Stone) as an interplanetary superspy who thinks he's a construction worker. Or is it the other way round? Violent, somewhat ludicrous and now badly dated, it is still terrific fun. See it before the remake with Colin Farrell is released in August. ****</p><p>Friday</p><p>We Need to Talk about Kevin</p><p>10.15pm Sky Movies Premiere</p><p>(Lynne Ramsay, 2011) Tilda Swinton stars as Eva, a woman whose life has been shattered by an act of violence committed by her son Kevin – a malevolent teenager with whom she's had a fractious relationship his whole life. Lynne Ramsay's expressionistic, uncomfortably up-close adaptation of the Lionel Shriver novel is haunted by Eva's fear that she didn't give birth to a monster, but created one. ****</p><p>Way before crime, my infatuation with the sexy Latin manager of my health club had turned into a deep friendship, and culminated in true love so strong that it bound us together no matter what... even when heroin made the man I knew with the heart of gold, unrecognisable. He says prison saved his life because he had to hit rock bottom. But like Robert Downey Jr, he did finally stop using and changed his life around. When I finally saw Gil after two years into his sobriety, he looked like Captain America, strong, clear-eyed and definitely reborn. And that's when I proposed to him...</p><p>I had been visiting Gil for months when I overheard some women talking about sleeping in the prison. "Can I really sleep in your cell with you?" I asked one day. My handsome, Puerto Rican boyfriend's frowning face burst out laughing. "You mean trailer visits?" he cried. "Honey, you have to be married to be eligible for an overnight visit in the little cabins." "Well, then let's get married..." The words popped out of my mouth immediately, and then I argued for weeks, finally convincing Gil that it was the only sensible thing for us to do. It would make waiting for freedom all the more tolerable and fill the void I always felt after leaving him. When I wasn't with him, half of me was torn apart.</p><p>It took six months of paperwork to get the approval needed, but we were finally granted our first overnight visit. However, now I was in a quandary: what would be the perfect outfit to begin my jailhouse honeymoon? In this movie of my life, I needed to look the part I wanted to play. My outfit was like Harry Potter's cloak of invisibility – a shield to make me impenetrable and not allow the ugliness, stress, and fear from those prison walls to affect me and the precious time alone I would have with the man I loved. I was insistent on creating an oasis and on bringing sunshine and freedom into that den of despair. So, I scoured the store for hours until I found what I was looking for, a beautiful pair of pale-lavender, linen overalls; they were perfect. I felt the soft light linen between my fingers. They were casual but also luxurious and utterly impractical, which made them all the more perfect. And they fitted like a glove, making me feel feminine and sexy. As I looked at myself in the mirror I thought, the overalls looked thoroughly appropriate to walk through the corridors of the all-male prison. I envisioned myself almost floating down the halls, confident and happy in my lavender overalls, my own suit of armour. I was determined to bring pretty to that place, no matter what.</p><p>Soon, I was next in line to be processed through the prison's security check-point. "Take off your shoes, jewellery and hairclip," a mean-looking female guard barked. Barefoot I walked through the metal detector in my overalls. The alarms went off as if I had been carrying a Magnum 45. I was shocked. "You can't go in if you don't get through the metal detector. You'll have to leave." "But I have nothing to hide!" Tears welled up in frustration and anger at the sheer stupidity and pig-headedness of those who held the keys to my happiness. Then it hit me – the 20 small silver engraved buttons on my overalls. The metal detector didn't differentiate the small buttons from a gun. The guards knew that I was not carrying a gun, but they were cruel and having a good laugh at my expense.</p><p>I had a choice: I could change clothes or leave. I stepped into the bathroom, wiped my tears, and pulled a Brazilian sarong from my bag. I had nothing else to wear. I handed the overalls to the guard, then passed through the metal detector easily. She glared at me and returned my garment. It took all my courage but I walked ahead through the prison, barefoot and naked underneath the flimsy wrap. I was led to a backyard with four little cabins enclosed in 20-foot concrete walls, but standing outside one of them was Gil. In one night and two days, I was transformed. Our goodbye was so hard but seeing the same guard again, I smiled. I would play by the rules, but I was unwavering in my way, too.</p><p>'The JM Barrie Ladies' Swimming Society' by Barbara J Zitwer is published in April by Short Books</p><p>"Discontinuing the association with her is also good PR for Nivea because it allows them to reiterate the values that they don't feel she aspires to," says Claire Beale, editor of Campaign. "Celebrity endorsements give brands an instant value to tap into and if you associate yourself with a big personality you'll instantly gain credibility with all the people that love that celebrity. The problem is celebrities often don't behave themselves."</p><p>While Rihanna's firing might seem somewhat unwarranted, there are plenty of other celebrities who have given good reason to be dismissed. Both Wrigley and the Milk Processor Education Program (that's the "Got Milk?" campaign to you) quite rightly terminated contracts with R&B performer Chris Brown after he pleaded guilty to assaulting his ex-girlfriend (yep, Rihanna).</p><p>Fashion labels such as Chanel and Burberry quickly deserted Kate Moss after she was caught on camera allegedly snorting cocaine (although the entire industry has since done a U-turn after realising the supermodel is far too valuable to blacklist). Another star who must regret allegedly dabbling in drugs is Michael Phelps, who had a lucrative deal as the face of Kellogg's (despite everyone knowing that the swimmer chows down fried egg sandwiches, omelettes, French toast and pancakes for breakfast, not a sad little bowl of Corn Flakes). After pictures surfaced of the Olympian apparently puffing on a bong, the two soon parted ways.</p><p>Infidelity doesn't go down well with big business either. Wayne Rooney was dumped by Coca-Cola and Tiger beer after being caught cheating on a pregnant Coleen, while Tiger Woods' extra-marital escapades cost him not only his wife but deals with Gatorade, AT&T, Accenture and Gillette worth millions (although probably not quite as much as the divorce settlement).</p><p>And while cheating on partners is not appreciated by sponsors, celebrities should remember not to cheat on the product either. Just last month Brazilian footballer Ronaldinho had his sponsorship deal with Coca-Cola revoked after he turned up at a press conference sipping on a Pepsi. A can of fizzy drink is usually about 60 pence; this one cost £500,000.</p><p>So it is with Haider Ackermann who first showed at the Paris collections 10 years ago now and who has built up a loyal following with the most sartorially forward thinking. Now, though, his runway presentations and the highly singular vision they represent are one of the high points of the French fashion season across the board.</p><p>Still – and relatively speaking – Ackermann works against the mainstream. His collections comprise a stately procession of models, each wearing their own individual, intricately worked and impeccably realised style. Colour sings. The drape of his fabrics is among the finest in the industry. Leather is moulded, tooled and washed until it is as delicate as tissue paper. There are no money-spinning bags or other trinkets to detract from the story that is, and always has been, the clothes.</p><p>There is little straightforward about Ackermann's designs. In fact, they are often so complex that when, for example, in March 2011, Lady Gaga appeared on the front cover of American Vogue wearing Haider Ackermann, the hapless fashion editor responsible for styling her look called the designer to ask for his personal help dressing her. No "how many fashion editors does it take..." jokes called for, please. Oh, and the fact that Ackermann even ended up in that position in the first place is quite a coup. The prime cover spot of any glossy magazine worth its credentials is predominantly the preserve of big-brand advertisers. Haider Ackermann, which is independently owned, doesn't have the budget for that.</p><p>Ackermann was born in Santa Fe de Bogotá in Colombia and adopted by French parents. His father, a cartographer, travelled across Africa with his young son and a brother and sister, also adopted. Ackermann remembers Ethiopian women draped in bubu. "When you're a child, everything seems so much more big and tall and they have these very skeletal figures and a certain fragility. I still project those women." Certainly, a sense of proportion reminiscent also of Giacometti's sculpture is part of the picture. In Algeria, Ackermann saw "mysterious women hidden behind metres of fabric, slippering through the medina of Oran", and enveloping the female form more than exposing it continues to be important to him.</p><p>Aged 12, the designer moved with his family to The Netherlands, and then on to Antwerp where he furthered his education at the Academie des Beaux-Arts, alma mater to Martin Margiela, Ann Demeulemeester and Dries Van Noten to name just three. Raf Simons, the newly appointed design director at Christian Dior (Ackermann was rumoured to be in line for that position too, incidentally), didn't study at the celebrated fashion school in that city but he was at the epicentre of its creative scene while Ackermann was a student. "He [Haider] never graduated because he couldn't finish his collections. If he had to do five silhouettes, he would only do three. But they were the best," Simons has said. In Belgium, Ackermann learned that it was important to consider the comfort and dignity of any future devotees. "There is so much respect for the woman who will ultimately wear the clothes in the Belgian school and the intention is always not to make decoration out of them," is how he puts it. "It's about the woman first and foremost. The clothes should only reflect what she is."</p><p>After college Ackermann spent a short time as an intern at John Galliano before setting up his own label. So naïve was he that when he debuted on the catwalk he neglected to invite any buyers. Still, the style press were in attendance and knew a good thing when they saw it and it wasn't long before his designs were sold in Colette in Paris, Corso Como in Milan and Louis in Antwerp. Since then, his company has grown, organically and in a perfectly well-judged manner. Ackermann is no fool and has never claimed to be averse to working for a label other than his own. As well as being name-checked for Dior, he was thought to be the most natural successor to the aforementioned Margiela when he retired in 2009. For now, though, his prime concern is his signature line. That Ackermann has friends in high places is a given. Karl Lagerfeld for one endorses his talent. In 2010, the Chanel creative director told press that the younger designer would be his preferred successor as and when the time comes. Praise indeed.</p><p>Perhaps more importantly still, the actor Tilda Swinton loves Haider Ackermann. No one wears his preternaturally long, lean and covered silhouette quite so imposingly. A little over a year ago she talked to her friend for Interview magazine. "I just feel this satisfaction that what seemed so clear and inevitable to everyone around you for so long – that people would one day be open to your work – is finally taking place," she said. "You must feel that there's such a Haider-shaped space that you're filling now for people beyond the few of us who'd been invited into your world before..."</p><p>That Haider Ackermann-shaped space is a million miles away from fast fashion and the endless invention and reinvention of trends. Instead it is opulent, modest, majestic even and a deliberately slow burner... The more closely you look, the more lovely it all seems. It is precious, then, in the best possible sense of the word.</p><p></p><p>In keeping with the fashion world's tradition of the long and simmering feud, this weekend's outburst is just the latest salvo in a skirmish that began last January, when one of Newsweek's fashion contributors described the ponytailed creative director of Chanel as "overrated". Robin Givhan, the scribe in question, undoubtedly touched a raw nerve. Even though she is the first person to have won a Pulitzer prize for writing about fashion, Lagerfeld dismissed her critique imperiously, taking pains to point out that he had never heard of her.</p><p>It was no coincidence earlier this year when Ms Givhan found her ticket seated her with the hoi poloi at Chanel's show in Paris Fashion Week.</p><p>Nevertheless, Lagerfeld had ammunition left, so at a press conference on Friday he let Ms Brown have it: "First of all, Tina Brown's magazine is not doing well at all," he said to an international press pack, warming to his theme as he ripped into the story: "She is dying ... I'm sorry for Tina Brown, who was such a success at Vanity Fair, to go down with a shitty little paper like this. I'm sorry."</p><p>Newsweek, of course, was having none of this, though it avoided expletives and loaded its return fire with statistics: "In the past year since Tina Brown took over as editor-in-chief of Newsweek, newsstand sales have increased 30 per cent year on year, advertising pages have seen a 27 per cent increase for the first quarter of 2012, we have over 2.2 million people engaged in our social media communities and, perhaps the most telling indicator of the renewed vitality of Newsweek, subscription renewals, in a consistent state of decline since 2005, rose by 3 per cent last year."</p><p>In truth, the most likely outcome is that the two protagonists will air-kiss and make up at some point. But theirs is just the latest in a long and ignoble tradition of handbags-at-dawn encounters between the great and the good of the fashion world.</p><p>Tony Cragg, a very English sculptor, suffered from it at the start of his career, when he first moved to Wuppertal, near Feldmann's home town of Düsseldorf. Cragg would scour the banks of a neighbouring river for bits of like-coloured plastic – shards of blue bleach bottle, say – and turn them into two-dimensional sculptures. They were lovely, in a Povera kind of way. But they also seemed specifically local, to do with German history, a need to remake from fragments, to work in a childlike way.</p><p>In Feldmann's case, this urge to reconstruct has taken a more conceptual turn. In his show at the Serpentine Gallery – the first, oddly, in a British public artspace – is a group of five vitrines, each containing a woman's handbag with its contents emptied out and put on display. These Feldmann bought from their owners intact: you wonder how he broached the subject.</p><p>One vitrine is labelled Susanne, Berlin, 38 years, its handbag a garish red number with a torn handle, the contents including Chanel nail varnish and face powder, a BlackBerry and a great many cigarette filters. By contrast, Renate, Cologne, 43 years has artistic interests – there are art postcards and gallery tickets – while Oriane, Berlin, 27 years (old Nokia, pebble, earplugs, L'eau d'Issey roll-on, scuffed shoes) seems the most scatterbrained.</p><p>Seen under glass, the handbags have the feel of evidence, perhaps from a mugging. What we deduce from them is the characters of their owners. Feldmann is big on the idea of completeness, of Vollständigkeit. Here are the total contents of a finite thing, unedited and unmediated. And yet for all their information, for all their intimacy and unguardedness, the vitrines remain entirely boring and unrevealing.</p><p>That, in a nutshell, is Feldmann's message, restated again and again in different media over the past 40-odd years: more knowledge is only ever more knowledge, never omniscience. When he photographs each of the 68 strawberries in a half-kilo box individually and tacks all the pictures to a wall unframed and unadorned, we can truthfully say that we have seen every strawberry in a particular punnet. And so what? It tells us nothing of the essence of strawberries, of strawberriness. Likewise with the six beautifully printed and framed slices of rye bread on one wall of the Serpentine's central gallery, or with the sequence of shots – empty frame, bow, whole boat, stern, empty frame – of a tug passing up the Rhine.</p><p>It is, in its strange way, compelling: the more evidence Feldmann gives us, the less we know; the stronger his positives, the more we feel the negatives around them. In a curtained-off niche in the Serpentine's West Gallery is an installation called – unusually for Feldmann, who prefers his work anonymous – Shadow Play. This consists of a trestle table with spotlights on it made from coffee tins, each light illuminating a spinning turntable covered in what can only be called "stuff": from memory, a statuette of the Eiffel Tower, another of HM The Queen, a model of a British Airways jet, the upper half of a Barbie, two bridal couples (one heterosexual and one same-sex) from the tops of wedding cakes, and much, much else besides.</p><p>You could go on reciting the ingredients of Feldmann's recipe until you were blue in the face, although no amount of listing would prepare you for the outcome. Projected on the niche's back wall, à la Noble and Webster, is the shadow play of the work's title, a joyous and yet macabre place, redolent of fairgrounds and travel and glamour but also of Hitchcock and nightmares. As with Webster and Noble, the trick is not in the transformation from solid to shadow but in the fact that we are still amazed by it even though we can see – we are forced to see – how it is done. Facts, in Feldmann's world, are not an antidote to astonishment, nor to ignorance.</p><p>All this makes his insistence, often voiced, that he is not an artist faintly irritating. For Feldmann to say that he is merely an archivist is less modest than it sounds. Beneath this claim is the suggestion that his work is unmediated, honest, found rather than made. That is not childlike: it is untrue. The contents of Renate's handbag have been laid out differently from those of Susanne's, and it is Feldmann who did the laying; likewise, who chose when to press the button of his camera as he stood by the Rhine? Or what junk to put on Shadow Play's turntables? But his belief, in the end, is that we should never believe anything – including him.</p><p> </p><p>To 5 June (020-7402 6075)</p><p>Visual choice</p><p>Gillian Wearing gets a first retrospective at the Whitechapel Gallery, east London. See if you can stare down her personal, pithy photographic works and films (till 17 Jun). Industrial steel sculpture in the grounds of a stately home? That's the unlikely juxtaposition at Chatsworth House in Derby-shire, where 15 of Anthony Caro's works have found a home till 1 Jul.</p><p>Two of her most recent films, the raucous comedy-drama Bachelorette and Lars von Trier's apocalyptic Melancholia were released first on VOD (video-on-demand) in the US. It is fitting, although not very flattering to her, that Bachelorette should have become a No. 1 hit on iTunes at just the time that Robert Aldrich's caustic thriller What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? (1962) is being revived. (Marking its 50th anniversary, Aldrich's classic is being shown in a restored print at the London Film Festival this month.)</p><p>"Women old enough to know better act like horny sailors on leave, absorb mass quantities of alcohol and drugs, and generally behave horribly," complained USA Today about Bachelorette. The more serious problem for Dunst, though, is that when your movies are watched first on laptops and TVs rather than in cinemas, your mystique is bound to be compromised.</p><p>No one is suggesting that Dunst is yet in the same doldrums as Baby Jane Hudson, the one-time child-star turned hectoring harridan, who torments her sister in What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? Nonetheless, Dunst's case illustrates how completely Hollywood has been transformed since the heyday of female stars like Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Marlene Dietrich, Gloria Swanson and Greta Garbo. These actresses may not always have controlled their careers but they were ferociously protective of their screen image.</p><p>Dietrich, for example, was (as her New York Times obituary made clear) "a thorough professional and perfectionist, expert in make-up, lighting, clothes and film editing." Having been tutored by Josef von Sternberg, who discovered her and directed her in films from The Blue Angel to The Scarlet Empress, she knew exactly how to project glamour on screen.</p><p>Garbo, meanwhile, had her own cinematographer, William H. Daniels, who used filters and side lighting to make her close-ups as striking as possible. Her hermit-like existence once her Hollywood career was over helped her retain an air of mystery.</p><p>As for Joan Crawford, she grew up dirt poor but, once she became a star, went to extraordinary lengths to live up to her fans' expectations. In an interview with the American writer Studs Terkel, she revealed that on a typical publicity tour, she changed costumes five times a day and travelled with 36 matching bags and gloves.</p><p>"It gives you a responsibility to be to them [the fans] whatever they want you to be," she told Terkel in his book American Dreams: Lost and Found. "It's quite a responsibility, dear friend. You get on your mettle. You get a little taller, you stand on your toes."</p><p>It's easy to mock the vanity of Hollywood's aging divas. As What Ever Happened To Baby Jane and Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard make very evident, the one-time stars led wretched lives, forever peering back into their pasts. Norma Desmond, the forgotten star played by Gloria Swanson, isn't exactly a role model to emulate. Nonetheless, as she so famously put it as she remembered the silent era: "We didn't need dialogue. We had faces."</p><p>The problem for Dunst's generation is that these stars don't have "faces." If their movies are being watched on laptops and TVs rather than the big screen, they become just yet more talking heads. When sadistic celebrity gossip sites publish pictures of them getting drunk or taking their garbage out, fans are reminded very forcefully of how earthbound they now are.</p><p>The fans have long had a sneaking interest in the dark side of the industry. From the Fatty Arbuckle controversy in the early 1920s (when the popular comedian was charged with murdering the actress Virginia Rappé) to the deaths, suicides and illicit affairs covered in scandal sheets like Confidential ("uncensored and off the record"), the private lives of the stars have always been pored over in exhaustive detail. The popularity of Kenneth Anger's muckraking Hollywood Babylon books underlined the fans' interest in prurient yarns about the misbehaviour of their idols. However, countering this worm's eye view of the business were the films the stars actually made. Whatever allegations Anger made about Crawford's misdeeds and dubious career choices in her early years, we could see her up on screen in Grand Hotel or Mildred Pierce. Even late in her career, in a film as curdled and vicious as Baby Jane, she retained the glamour and arrogance of a real movie star. With a contemporary tabloid idol like Lindsay Lohan, the balance isn't the same at all. She hasn't made enough movies to distract from the constant stream of unflattering stories about her private life.</p><p>It's obvious that many contemporary actresses yearn for the glamour they associate with an older Hollywood. That's why so many are playing stars from that era. Lohan's new film Liz & Dick, in which she stars as Elizabeth Taylor opposite Grant Bowler's Richard Burton, premieres on American television next month. Meanwhile, Nicole Kidman recently started shooting Grace of Monaco, a biopic in which she stars as Grace Kelly. Last year, we had Michelle Williams' virtuoso turn as Marilyn Monroe in the British-made My Week With Marilyn. Sienna Miller is shortly to be seen as Tippi Hedren in The Girl and Scarlett Johansson is playing Janet Leigh in the new film Hitchcock.</p><p>What is equally clear is that these contemporary stars will struggle to emulate the power and charisma of Davis, Crawford, Monroe, Kelly, Hedren et al. on screen. This isn't to do with their ability. They are mostly fine actresses. Their problem is that the machine that helped create the older stars is broken. Keira Knightley is fortunate in having a cinematographer (in Seamus McGarvey) she works with regularly both on films like Anna Karenina and on her Chanel ads. Nonetheless, the armies of publicists, make-up artists and technicians who helped mould stars like Davis and Crawford have long since disbanded. Notions of what constitutes glamour have changed too. Outside pop promos and advertisements, the highly stylised lighting, camerawork and make-up that characterised Dietrich's collaborations with von Sternberg would seem jarring and odd to audiences today. The roles that stars are taking has changed too. After all, portraying a coke-snorting, hard-drinking party girl (as Dunst does in Bachelorette) isn't quite the same as playing Queen Christina. Greta Garbo's movies didn't premiere on VOD – and she never had to share the screen with male strippers either.</p><p>'What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?' screens at the London Film Festival, 18 & 21 October</p><p>It is filled with the new and exclusive Karl Capsule Collection; Karl, the affordable range for men and women; and Karl Lagerfeld Paris menswear, a more upscale affair. All of these are designed, according to the press release, to allow customers “to experience the Karl Lagerfeld world”.</p><p>Judging by the bright young crowd in front of the store's main entrance and dutifully lined up at the sides of its escalators, in anticipation of the arrival of the man himself, more than a few are intent on doing just that.</p><p>"You know, personally, I don't even think that I'm famous," says Lagerfeld, at this point in full possession of his body and comfortably installed in a suite at Brown's Hotel for the afternoon. He is due to drop in on the launch in question before long.</p><p>"I wouldn't say I was a beginner but you're only as good, not as your last show, but your next show. I can't go into a shop without people in front of the door taking my picture on their iPhones. That's very strange to me."</p><p>He will doubtless be more taken aback still, then, when he sees that the outline of his profile also graces everything from the interiors of lifts at the aforementioned department store to the T-shirts of those operating them or showing guests to the roof where cocktails are served and Alison Mosshart is DJing.</p><p>"Yes," he says. "Sometimes even I'm surprised at what can be done with my head." Surely, though, he must realise that his self-styled, always black-and-white image – from the clothes, to the hair to the dark glasses – has as much in common with a lithograph as a living, breathing, human being.</p><p>"But I didn't do that on purpose. I see myself more like a cartoon. I wanted to become a cartoon artist when I was a child. I'm pretty good at it." His skills as an illustrator are unrivalled as anyone even remotely interested in fashion will know. "But I never proposed my face [as part of the branding]. The company asked me if they could use it. I personally am too modest, if I can say that, to make such a proposition."</p><p>It must be a relief, in an age where respect for privacy is conspicuous by its absence, that people at least have the courtesy to seek permission before stamping his silhouette here, there and everywhere. "Yes. Yes. Yes. Everybody still has to ask if they can use my head… the head doesn't come for free." Whether he fully understands it, Lagerfeld is as instantly recognisable as royalty and rock stars but nowhere near as intimidating as might be imagined. And he is perfectly well-mannered to boot. "I got here two hours ago," he says, "It's fun. It's nice. One shouldn't be too difficult, no? It's the first time I see London with so much sun. It's beautiful. All those Regency buildings in the sunlight. The standard is really quite impeccable."</p><p>Although great pains are taken by his people to separate the designer's work on the line that bears his name from that of his creative directorship at Fendi and, of course, Chanel, Lagerfeld says what he wants to say, when he wants to say it. And given his long, spectacularly grand career and ability to keep up with the times, that is as it should be. And so the Karl and Karl Lagerfeld collections are "a reflection of me as a person and the others are more like an interpretation of a style. It's never mixed. Fendi never looks like Chanel, Chanel never looks like Karl Lagerfeld. I don't know how I've managed it. I think I have no personality but in fact I have three." Lagerfeld's public persona has effectively blocked any real attempts at probing over the years and the personality he speaks of is therefore communicated on a surface level. "You see a silhouette. There's nothing else to see. I remember a photographer saying to me, 'I have to spend three days with you to know what's behind the image'. I said, 'You're wasting your time; there's nothing there'."</p><p>Both Karl and Karl Lagerfeld rely on sharp cuts inspired by menswear, on a monochrome colour palette on the contemporary uniform of T-shirt and jeans and – closer still to the designer's personal style – detachable high collars and fingerless leather gloves. For his part, Lagerfeld's skinny black brocade trousers are of his own making as indeed is his tie, but his shirt is made for him now, as always, by Hilditch & Key and his narrow black jacket is Dior Homme. "But I have worn Dior for a long time," he says.</p><p>Lagerfeld's output is more diverse than any other designer's: he is responsible for everything from Chanel haute couture where money is no object to the accessible Karl. In 2004, he was the first big name to collaborate with the Swedish high-street chain H&M: he says it was that company's decision to use his photograph in the accompanying advertising campaign that made him a household name.</p><p>"I'm very much against the idea that 'commercial' is a boring word because you cannot make a collection that nobody wears. Fashion is what people wear and what they buy. I know exactly what can be done and for what price. I know what costs what and why something is expensive or affordable. That is part of my job. I think it's very pretentious to think that you are only catering to a limited group. I am lucky, though, as I have the total range."</p><p>Luck, in a world where Lagerfeld's very longevity is the exception that proves the rule, has nothing to do with it. Instead, his is the infinitely protean model that has set the standard for contemporary fashion as practised by everyone from Miuccia Prada to Marc Jacobs. As well as designing Karl, Karl Lagerfeld, Fendi and Chanel, Lagerfeld has a publishing imprint, 7L, a subsidiary of Steidl, and he is also an accomplished photographer.</p><p>"I'm militating for a 48-hour day but that's a problem, especially in France, with the 35-hour week," he says. "I have 35 hours of rest. But I'm not tired, so that's okay with me. I have the job I want and the right circumstances in which to do it. Nobody has that like I do."</p><p>If Karl Lagerfeld is blessed then his good fortune pales into insignificance as compared to that of his one-year-old cat, Choupette. "Now, Choupette really is famous," he says. "She has become the most famous cat in the world. I even get propositioned by pet food companies and things like that but it's out of the question. I'm commercial. She's not. She's spoiled to death. Obviously. "</p><p>Choupette travels with Lagerfeld to St Tropez on his private jet "in the cockpit, with the pilot, she loves looking at the sky". She has three maids whose duties include keeping a diary of all activities and taking her to the vet for a check-up every 10 days. "I don't take her," Lagerfeld says. "I don't want her to be furious with me."</p><p>And with that he's off to make a brief appearance at his own party and then back to Paris. "Choupette waits for me at the front door," he says. "She doesn't like being alone. She gets moody."</p><p>The actress has decided to give the clothes to auction, with proceeds going to her favourite charities including the Gurkha Welfare Trust, after being inspired by M&S's Shwopping campaign. The outfits, which include the Jean Muir clothes she modelled, will be sold in September by Kerry Taylor auctions.</p><p>Lumley is spokeswoman for the Shwopping campaign, which has seen shoppers donate more than half a million garments in store over the last six weeks, which are all given to Oxfam. The chain store is hoping that more than a million cast-offs will be donated by the end of the month, with items either sold in Oxfam shops, sent to Senegal where they are sold to local market traders, or used for fabric to stuff car upholstery.</p><p>Lumley said she believes there is a much-needed step change in people's attitudes to conspicuous consumption.</p><p>“I think it's dying of its own accord, I think it becomes disgusting: people opening their cupboards to 400 pairs of white high heels or something, and you go, 'You're ill actually'. To a certain extent, magazines, advertising and sales pushes have tried to [create the image] of a carefree kind-of girl who has 80 bags. You'd want to give her a tight slap,” she said.</p><p>“I was born after the war, and we were brought up by our mothers with the notion of make do and mend. A new thing was quite a thing: during the holidays we might go out and get one new skirt. On the continent, when I was growing up and was a model, a French girl would choose one well made tweed skirt, one beautiful cashmere jersey, her hair would be glossily done. She would have one Hermes silk scarf - and she'd look like Grace Kelly. We've got a more hectic, hooligan attitude here which is very good for fashion but sometimes leads you down the primrose path to hell.”</p><p>She believes we simply need to have more respect. “Before you buy things, think about it, and before you throw them away, think about it. Why can't schools give a rule: 'Never throw clothes away'?”</p><p>The Shwopping campaign is aiming to kick start a 'buy one, give one' culture on the UK high street to try to prevent the one billion garments that are thrown into UK landfill each year - some one in four of all items bought. Every M&S has bins to donate clothes, and the company hopes to eventually get one garment back for every one sold: a total of 350m a year. A new YouGov poll, published tomorrow [MON] has revealed that, in contrast to the Duchess of Cambridge and Livia Firth championing repeat wearing of clothes, one fifth of people in the UK have binned an outfit after just one wear. Three quarters of people have thrown unwanted clothes into the bin over the past twelve months, as opposed to recycling them, while one in five women admitted to having more than 100 items in their wardrobe.</p><p>Looking round the Oxfam sorting depot in Milton Keynes, where the Shwopping garments are sent to be sorted; donated books are scanned for the online store and bric-a-brac is sifted through, Lumley declares of her character Patsy: “She wouldn't understand anything of this: it would literally mean nothing to her. She would be amazed, quite possibly disgusted, but actually she'd have no idea: she only wants Chanel that has been given to here - she doesn't have any feeling about this. She is landfill.</p><p>“Edina is the one who is the shopper. She'd buy everything that is new and fashionable, whether it fits her or suits her or not. Ab Fab shined a light on fashion and the notion of how it can become extremely foolish, and can lead you into an area of great folly and overspending.”</p><p>The colours are pretty – all the shades of white, pastel pink, blue, primrose and mint green – the silhouette is reminiscent of one a princess might like – wasp waists, bell-shaped skirts and a narrow shoulder – and embroideries are the sweetest imaginable – jewelled daisies and more meadow flowers decorate the surface of silk chiffons, organzas, jacquards and lace.</p><p>As for pattern... perhaps the most conspicuous technological advancement in recent years can be witnessed in the rise and rise of the engineered print. Be it figurative, graphic, photographic, whatever, these are as busy, bold and modishly mismatched as even the most fierce fashion follower might dare to wear. Nothing escapes this mindset, least of all the still-ubiquitous skinny jeans. They come stamped with everything from tropical landscapes to exotic blooms, and in colours intended to dazzle, to boot.</p><p>This is no time to be shy, then.</p><p>The principle reference across the board nods to the age-old art of haute couture. Couture equals quality: hand-workmanship and an attention to detail and finish that is second to none. It's a no-brainer, really. When times are tough, the sartorially discerning go in search of that rare thing, an investment piece, a garment which looks as though it might actually be worth any hard-earned cash and which might be passed down through generations as a bona-fide heirloom. Worry not that this may lead to the type of bourgeois, French style that, in our modern times, seems just a tad on the heavy side. In the finest designers' hands, it has been duly subverted. Raw edges, a marginally larger-than-life line and a naïve, home-spun feel ensure that clothing that has its roots here boasts a spontaneity that is more contemporary in flavour.</p><p>For those who prefer a more understated look, good news comes with the minimal aesthetic still upheld by Phoebe Philo at Céline, providing a much-needed counterpoint to any overriding nostalgia and/or sweetness. Androgynous tailoring, oversized cotton dresses and coats, and masculine shirting are all very much on the agenda with just this sort of woman in mind. Sportswear, too, gets more than a look in: lace-trimmed, body-conscious Aertex and a splash of true red in an otherwise monochrome world ensures all those possessed by Olympic fever can dress to match.</p><p>Shoes, meanwhile, run the gamut from spike-heeled stiletto to stomping brothel-creeper and from fetishistic ankle boot to ballerina flat. And bags come in the form of jewelled clutches, purses not unlike those your granny might once have carried and, of course, satchels, which remain the functional carry-all of choice.</p><p>The simplest piece may cost upwards of £10,000. For more elaborate designs, meanwhile, the sky's the limit. And who, in their right mind, and in this day and age, is prepared to invest in that? On the other hand, one might not unreasonably argue that, given the circumstances, such attention to detail is just the thing the discerning fashion follower is looking for: garments that can be worn and loved season after season, year in year out, and then passed down to a daughter or grand-daughter like a fashion heirloom.</p><p>Haute couture equals quality, the story goes, and there is no arguing with that, which is why, presumably, so many ready-to-wear designers have turned to it for inspiration. Despite the fact that their fashions are for the most part machine-made, the spirit of hand-craftsmanship has been reinvigorated and, in at least some cases, the finishing touches executed by hand.</p><p>Junya Watanabe's treatment of lace – the most classic and resonant of all the haute couture fabrics – is far from predictable or banal. Lace, of course, carries with it a symbolism that is unparalleled – lace for christenings, lace for weddings, funereal black lace. It is an important addition, then, to any woman's wardrobe and even life.</p><p>Conventionally, however, lace is frilled and stereotypically feminine, sewn in delicate pale colours and fit for a fairytale princess. Watanabe is not one for conservative treatments of heritage clothing. In fact, if there is a single unifying feature to his brilliantly diverse body of work it is his combination of a profound respect for timeless fashions coupled with an inventiveness, imagination and technical expertise that is second to none.</p><p>The designer has in the past applied this to everything from tartans, tweeds and bouclé wool – another haute couture stalwart, incidentally, thanks to Gabrielle ("Coco") Chanel. He has worked frequently with denim – patch-worked, fused with vibrant African inspired prints – and collaborated with Levi's, in the first instance, to make jeans under a joint imprint and now under his own name.</p><p>In Watanabe's hands, the trench coat becomes a thing of great beauty and any trace of fustiness is overthrown. As for Savile Row inspired suiting... Suffice it to say that Watanabe is probably the most inspiring tailor of the ear – particularly where taking menswear and adapting it to fit the female form is concerned.</p><p>Watanabe's lace dresses are cut in the type of slightly stiffened and proudly acrylic threads that is also an integral part of his handwriting, and that would doubtless make the lacemakers at Chantilly, say, drop their thimbles in horror. For the most part following a sportswear-inspired line, with not a flounce or furbelow to be seen, in some instances black opaque panels and more intricate patterns make an appearance, although there is nothing trussed-up or old-fashioned to be seen.</p><p>This is lace, then, that retains all the sweet romance of the original but with a freshness and ease that is all new. It has also been vibrantly recoloured: there's not a cliched Miss Havisham shade of ivory or cream to be seen. Instead, choose from gunmetal grey, leaf green and rose and, pictured here, very slightly hyped-up violet, lilac and candyfloss.</p><p>The woman who wears these clothes won't be accessorising her lace dress with talon heels. That would be too obvious – too jolie madame – by far. Watanabe's signature take on footwear is, almost invariably, studiously heavy and flat, and this season's robust handling of the archetypal schoolgirl Mary Jane is no exception. Under-cutting any trace of woman as trophy still further, meanwhile, the powers that be at Junya Watanabe insist that all dresses be photographed with accompanying and decidedly demure cotton slips worn beneath them. No flashing of flesh required.</p><p>While other designers' takes on lace have been less extreme, and simpler to boot, Miuccia Prada's ultra-cute A-line dresses for Miu Miu are similarly stiff – even stiffer – and cast in strong block hues not normally associated with the fabric – plum and tomato layered over pale yellow and beige included. For Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs' lace designs are more retro in their unabashed pastel coloured prettiness and the attention to embroideries and finish are nothing short of extraordinary. Given that this remains the wealthiest designer brand of the LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy) stable, Jacobs has all the skills of the Paris ateliers which execute haute couture proper at his fingertips and that shows.</p><p>There is, by contrast, a slightly distressed look to Peter Copping's patch-worked treatment of lace at Nina Ricci, which embraces the haute couture tradition wholeheartedly while subtly subverting it. Finally, the great Roman couturier, Valentino Garavani, was always a lace lover par excellence and throughout his long and grand career was known for his relatively restrained handling of this delicately beautiful material. His successors – Pier Paolo Piccioli and Maria Grazia Chiuri – are similarly enamoured but there is a clean-cut modernity to their no-frills variation on an age-old theme that will suit a younger customer in search of some of the most exclusive ready-to-wear available down to the ground.</p><p>She was among bidders who paid almost half a million pounds for items from the personal collection of Daphne Guinness which was sold at Christie's. The lots went for four times the original estimate.</p><p>Gaga is understood to have set a new high for a McQueen, bidding £85,250 in a sale which saw her facing rival bids from institutions and couture collectors from around the world.</p><p>The record price was for an ivory silk tulle empire line gown, entitled The Girl Who Lived In The Tree.</p><p>Another McQueen - a metallic silver mini-dress dating from 2008, the year before he committed suicide - also beat the previous record, fetching £79,250.</p><p>Guinness was auctioning items from her personal collection to raise funds for the Isabella Blow Foundation, which she set up in memory of her friend to support emerging fashion talent.</p><p>Fashionista Blow killed herself in 2007, and her own extensive wardrobe - sold to settle debts on her estate - was bought in its entirety by Guinness to keep it intact.</p><p>Chart-topping star Gaga has spoken of her admiration for Guinness and Blow in the past.</p><p>She said in one interview: "Isabella and Daphne are two exceptional human beings, women, icons.</p><p>"Daphne, like Isabella, is a huge source of inspiration for me. I cherish them both. It is as if we are all cut from the same cloth."</p><p>The top lot of the sale was a photograph of Guinness taken by Mario Testino for a 2008 British edition of Vogue magazine. It was sold for £133,250.</p><p>McQueen was found dead in his Mayfair apartment in February 2010, days before London Fashion Week. His death shocked the fashion industry.</p><p>Christie's confirmed that Gaga was a bidder but was unable to provide further details of the items she purchased. Bidders from 21 countries took part.</p><p>Guinness said: "This cause is close to my heart. I am genuinely touched by the response it has generated, and truly excited for the future of the Isabella Blow Foundation.</p><p>"I'm overwhelmed by how many bidders took part this evening and I'm particularly moved by Lady Gaga's support for the foundation. I like her very much, and it's lovely to see the nascent beginnings of something that may help other people."</p><p>The collection went for £467,800, including buyer's premium.</p><p>Other items on sale came from designers such as Chanel, Gareth Pugh, Lacroix, Prada and Gucci.</p><p>PA</p><p>Perhaps the set was a reference to the essentially optimistic, gentle, protective and beautiful nature of the clothes. Sweet trapeze shapes, moulded sweaters and tulip dresses ensured space between garment and wearer – modesty more than in-your-face glamour appeared to be the message.</p><p>Such things are relative. If the clothes – black chiffon dresses appliqued with silk petals in faded colours, optic white columns embroidered with garlands of flowers and the Chanel suit, predominantly following a youthful and naïve Sixties line – spoke of innocence, the marketing of the money-spinning accessories confirmed experience. Lagerfeld is the most accomplished image maker in the industry, after all, both in terms of his work and glittering persona.</p><p>The Chanel quilted bag looked anything but shy, oversized and nestling in what resembled a pair of black leather hula hoops for handles. The Chanel pearls were the size of gobstoppers shimmering in clusters at slender necks and wrists, and the Chanel sunglasses went so far as to feature the house founder's own silhouette – finished with more ropes of pearl again – at one corner of their frames.</p><p>"It was a celebration of femininity," Sarah Burton said of her exquisitely judged collection for Alexander McQueen shown later in the day. And that it was, in all its guises. First came the exaggerated curve of a structured hip on a densely embroidered, wasp-waisted golden jacket that upheld the hourglass silhouette this house is known for. It was followed by crystal encrusted tortoiseshell caging and corsetry worn under and indeed over overblown organza dresses appliqued with meadow flowers. They were as sexually charged as they were sugary.</p><p>Any sweetness came at least in part courtesy of the humble worker bee: honeycomb bodices gave way to skirts woven with swarms of that insect that caught the light prettily as models walked. Black patent beekeeper hats, fetishistic neck pieces and glittering black fishnet thigh-high boots with laced seams ensured that a spicy undercurrent was always part of the story. And hopefully it always will be. The woman who wears this label is, after all, queen.</p><p>The fact is that you can't ski in Las Vegas, though the name of the Las Vegas Ski & Snowboard Resort suggests otherwise. It was known for most of its 48-year life as Lee Canyon, on the reasonable grounds that that is where it is located, but in 1995 it converted to what one might call the Ryanair school of geography, and changed its name to the mouthful commonly abbreviated to LVSSR. It is actually about 40 miles from the city. But one of the many things tolerated in Nevada (along with gambling and, in some counties, prostitution) is travelling at 75mph on a freeway; given that linear Las Vegas has such a road running its entire length, 40 miles means 40 minutes' travel time or less. Which isn't a bad commute from a city to the slopes.</p><p>After the name-change, the next important event in LVSSR's life occurred in November 2003, when its management was taken over by the US ski-resort owner and manager Utah-based Powdr Corp. (Powdr also owns the property, jointly, with a local family big in real estate.) The "resort" part of LVSSR's name is as misleading as the rest, since this is a small ski hill with just four lifts serving 11 intermediate trails and a vertical drop of only 860ft (unless you are prepared to hike up from the of the lifts). But Powdr is a company with big ideas; hence its "Master Development Plan" to expand LVSSR, a $35m project involving 10 new lifts and 50 trails.</p><p>It's one thing to make a plan, another actually to execute it. But last July, the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, on whose land LVSSR is located, gave its approval to the expansion, which also involves increased snow-making facilities, bigger parking areas and new guest facilities. The co-owners also have the means to fund the project; does that mean it is actually going to happen? I put that question to LVSSR's director of business development, John Morelli. "Yes," he said.</p><p>That was one reason for heading off to into the Nevada desert. The other was to confirm something which seems self-evident: that Las Vegas has the best après-ski anywhere in the world.</p><p>The route out of Las Vegas starts with the usual lane-changing chaos of an urban highway, then settles into a fast, comfortable drive along a wide desert valley. Just before Route 95 reaches the vast airforce base at Indian Wells there is a turn-off marked "ski area", and the 15-mile climb begins. On either side of the road – blessed with official Nevada Scenic Byway status – are stubby cacti growing so densely that you would swear they were being cultivated as a cash crop. The route winds up into what is the biggest natural forest in the contiguous United States, until the roadway suddenly widens on a sharp bend. This is where skiers park their cars, at 90 degrees to the carriageway with the radiator grille up against the verge.</p><p>At the lift base there are offices, ticketing, equipment rental and a café/restaurant, plus two ski-school yurts. Beyond, a couple of middle-aged lifts climb to the upper slopes, and another – old and slow enough to be their father – labours up the nursery slope. This was real, old-school skiing; and I loved it.</p><p>The weather helped: it was beautiful, as it very frequently is in Nevada, and LVSSR – in a mountain bowl with north-facing slopes and a south-facing sun deck – gets the benefit of blue skies without compromising the skiing surface. In unusually dry early-season conditions, the snow was almost entirely man-made, but meticulously groomed. The fun park, a high priority on a hill where 75 per cent of tickets are bought by boarders (at $50 on weekdays, $60 weekends), was equally pristine. Crowded? Hardly: with barely 40 people on the slopes, we had almost two acres each. And the atmosphere was as relaxed and friendly as it usually is in small ski areas.</p><p>Currently the area gets fewer than 150,000 skier-visits per year, but LVSSR's management reckons that number should triple when the planned expansion (to 500 acres) is completed, in 10-12 years' time. Almost all the new terrain – including seven trails for advanced skiers – will be above the existing ski area, and from the snow deck Morelli showed me where the new top boundary would be. The pitches looked impressively steep at the top, although gradients are difficult to judge from below.</p><p>The new terrain will certainly make the journey up from Las Vegas well worthwhile. And what about the drive down to Las Vegas? That's not so much worthwhile as essential, because LVSSR has no lodging and (barring a dramatic change in US Forest Service principles) never will. Las Vegas, on the other hand, is said to have more than 12,000 hotel beds – a lot for a place that prides itself on burning the candle not only at both ends but in the middle, too: it's the only place I know that has a nightlife and a "daylife", which is frequently just more of the same thing.</p><p>On a first visit to the Strip, the southern part of the city with most of the notoriously excessive hotels, there's a lot to take in, some of it hard to keep down. The architectural pastiches – Eiffel Tower, black pyramid, Italianate lake and canals – are much bigger than I expected, clumsier and less playful. Pumped out on to the sidewalks, "classic rock" is perpetually in your ears and sex in your face.</p><p>Clothes cling to the girls out on the town, their high hems and heels making them look like Pretty Woman hookers. And half-naked women are advertised for sale on the hoardings-on-wheels being driven along the Strip, and on fliers handed out by hawkers. All these women could, apparently, be in my room in 20 minutes; for what purpose is not stated, though small print on the leaflets has a helpful reminder that "prostitution is against the law in Clark County", Las Vegas's local authority.</p><p>The city famously advertises its amorality with the slogan "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas". I know what that means, but while wandering around the lobby of the Wynn hotel I was cheered by the thought that what happens in Vegas stays there rather than coming to a neighbourhood near me. A mood swing started, and I began to get on to the city's wavelength.</p><p>Wynn is the classy Las Vegas resort hotel: its owner Steve Wynn collects artworks by Rembrandt, Turner and Picasso and hangs them in his hotels. The hotel's shops are pure Bond Street – Louis Vuitton, Chanel and Cartier, plus Ferrari and Maserati – but they share the lobby with the sort of garish one-armed bandits that you'd see in an amusement arcade on a pier. Somewhat to my regret I was booked to dine there at the Sinatra, which – sure enough – plays and displays the singer to excess. The food in this Italian "theme restaurant"? Absolutely first rate.</p><p>Such confusion of tastes reached its apogee at the Cosmopolitan hotel, in which I stayed. Upstairs it's all high style and design; in the lobby there's just the low life of gamblers smoking, drinking and playing the slots, night and day. My preferred way of crossing the vast lobby was to drop down a level and walk through the parking garage.</p><p>The point about Las Vegas is that it is utterly indiscriminate, a giant bazaar which sells everything, good and bad. You just have to find the good stuff.</p><p>I found the Marquee, a fabulously animated dance venue in the Cosmopolitan, with retro styling and thunderous electro music. I found Dig This, a construction-machinery driving experience curiously appropriate to a city whose buildings have a short lifespan, and also curiously thrilling. I found the old Downtown area, so much more engaging than the the Strip. I found the romantic Neon Boneyard, a museum of historic Las Vegas signage. And I found, to my great surprise, that it's not the après-ski scene that is so good, but rather the pre-ski scene: Las Vegas and the surrounding desert are sensational in the dawn light.</p><p>Travel essentials: Nevada</p><p>Getting there</p><p>* Stephen Wood travelled with Ski Independence (0131-243 8097; ) which has a one-week Las Vegas package including non-stop flights on BA (0844 493 0787; ba.com) from Heathrow and room-only accommodation from £969 per person, based on two sharing.</p><p>* Virgin Atlantic (0844 874 7747; virgin-atlantic.com) flies to Vegas from Gatwick and Manchester.</p><p>Staying there</p><p>* Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas (001 702 698 7000; cosmopolitanlas vegas.com) has doubles from $160 (£107) for Terrace Studio. Marquee opens 10pm-4am, Mon and Thurs-Sat; cover charge from $20 (£13).</p><p>Visiting there</p><p>* Dig This (001 888 344 8447; dig this.info). Bulldozer or excavator drive is $210 (£140) for 90 minutes.</p><p>* Neon Boneyard (001 702 387 6366; neonmuseum.org). Tours at noon and 2pm, Tues-Sat, $15 (£10).</p><p>More information</p><p>* Las Vegas Ski & Snowboard Resort (001 702 385 2754; skilasvegas.com)</p><p>Styling: Gemma Hayward</p><p>Photographs: Rhys Frampton</p><p>Model: Saray at Ford Models</p><p>Hair: Gow Tanaka using Paul Mitchell</p><p>Make-up: Adam de Cruz at Yumikoto using Chanel S 2012 and Hydra Beauty Serum</p><p>Stylist's Assistant: Emma Akbareian</p><p>Photographer's Assistants: Rokas Darulis, Andy Picton</p><p>Filming and Editing: Daniel Burdett</p><p>Retouching: Oliver Ingrouille</p><p>With thanks to , 0844 692 6792. return flights London to Miami with Delta Airlines from £547.</p><p>Shot at Kimpton's Surfcomber Miami, South Beach; </p><p>Such indulgence – and some might call it pure fashion whimsy – was once the preserve of the haute couture ateliers. Now however, and increasingly, it is making its presence felt in the ready-to-wear collections too.</p><p>As is often the way, it might be argued that it all started with Chanel. Ten years ago now, this famous French name bought six of the most revered couture ateliers in Paris, saving them, the story goes, from extinction. Given that at the turn of the 20th century there were around 500 such workshops up and running, specialists in everything from buttons to bows, and that today no more than a handful remain, that may well be true. Chanel bought Lesage (master embroiderers), Lemarie (specialist in feathers), Massaro (shoe makers responsible, among other things, for the Chanel two-tone pump), Goossens, (goldsmiths), Desrues (costume-jewellery makers), Maison Michel (milliners) and Guillet (creator of fabric flowers). And their names were news once more.</p><p>Putting its money where its mouth is still further, to showcase their work, the monolithic French brand introduced an annual metiers d'art collection which it continues to show in exotic destinations all over the world – most recently Versailles, a far from shy location particularly given that the presentation took place only days after the election of Socialist president, François Hollande. You have to hand it to Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld. He is nothing if not provocative. In the meantime, the raised profile of the time-honoured institutions in question decrees that everyone from Balenciaga to Louis Vuitton now turn to them to ensure that the more elaborate pieces in their womenswear collections are finished just so. Such craftsmanship comes at a price, of course. And so it is not uncommon for a single garment to cost five figures. Make no mistake, despite an unstable economic climate, there is a market both for haute couture proper and for this, which may perhaps best be described as high-end ready to wear, today just as there always has been.</p><p>"I think that with so much competition around and with times being quite difficult people really do want good quality," the Nina Ricci designer Peter Copping told W Magazine recently. His collection, with its light-as-a-feather hand-finishing, garnered rave reviews across the board and was nothing if not testimony to the fact that the few people left in the world prepared to spend thousands on a single garment insist that it be precious.</p><p>"People want investment pieces," Copping continued. "And if something does reference haute couture, well, then that's a no-brainer, really." Indeed.</p><p>And so Chanel's spring/summer ready-to-wear collection features lace, silk blossom and a veritable ocean of pearls, Louis Vuitton's jewelled floral embroideries are among the most exquisitely wrought imaginable and Balenciaga's iridescent fringing is so special that the house is keeping the techniques behind its development under wraps.</p><p>It should come as no great surprise that in London, where designers are less likely to have the means to tap into such elevated resources, a similar viewpoint results in a more irreverent and homespun aesthetic but one that is delicate and highly complex nonetheless. The pyrotechnic presentation of Meadham Kirchhoff's all-singing, all-dancing summer collection almost belied the fine workmanship – much of it executed by hand – that has gone into the creation of this season's fondant-pale lace dresses, curvaceous brocade jackets, and appliquéd knits. Christopher Kane's collection of embroidered silks and oversized cashmere cricket jumpers, meanwhile, appears to fuse the golden age of haute couture and school uniform as far as silhouette is concerned, all while pushing fabric development forward. In particular, reflective appliquéd flowers in childlike colours which, upon closer inspection, resemble nothing more than a young girl's sticker collection steal the show. Yellow pansies, orange dahlias, giant daisies and blue roses are scaled up then edged with silver sequins or trapped between layers of aluminium organza and the effect is as sweet as it was uplifting. The end result is also clearly more make-do-and-mend in spirit than anything the aforementioned Maison Guillet might have to offer.</p><p>And that, it almost goes without saying, is precisely the point. Backstage immediately following his show last September, Kane said he had been thinking about "a teenager living on a council estate, in her bedroom, dreaming". It is perhaps no coincidence that this designer – and his sister, business partner and creative collaborator Tammy – grew up in Motherwell lusting after (and later saving up for) the opulent designs of Gianni Versace especially. Certainly there is a heartfelt atmosphere to this collection that suggests any references are close to home.</p><p>With that in mind, since graduating from Central Saint Martins in 2006, Kane has not only been responsible for an increasingly accomplished twice-yearly own-name womenswear collection, he has also collaborated with Versace's sister, Donatella. In the manner of the finest fashion fairytale, he is now single-handedly responsible for designing her label's more youthful Versus line.</p><p>The cashmere company has been keeping people warm for 215 years, but recently efforts to combine its long heritage with more modern glamour has given the Scottish firm's chances of cracking the global market a rosy glow.</p><p>Johnstons is in its fifth year of a collaboration with Christopher Kane, the multi-award winning designer who has dreamt up outfits for Kylie Minogue videos. Never mind that it is the only remaining vertical mill in the UK – meaning it does everything from taking the raw fibre to producing the finished garment for its own label. Supplying luxury brands including Chanel and Hermes has helped to lend it a new-found cachet with fashionistas.</p><p>Linny Oliphant, brand manager at Johnstons says: "We have recently re-branded and spent £1m on our Eastfield Mills site in Hawick. We remain true to our roots and customers love our heritage and the fact we are made in Britain."</p><p>With London Fashion Week in full flow, it is reassuringly familiar story. Add in hopes that the Olympics and Queen's Diamond Jubilee will lure the rich and famous to Britain from around the world, and 2012 is shaping up to be a big year for the British luxury goods.</p><p>Capitalising on this unique opportunity was top of the agenda last month at a breakfast organised by Walpole, the British luxury body, and hosted by jeweller Boodles on Bond Street.</p><p>There is a chance for some of Walpole's members to move up – from being part of a cottage industry to genuine challengers to those few UK fashion powerhouses, such as Mulberry and Burberry.</p><p>London Fashion Week is important to the capital: it pumps £30m into the economy and brings in £100m of orders for the designer brands that grace the catwalks. However, the show is still in the shadow similar events in the major fashion centres like Milan or Paris. As the chairman of a major Italian luxury goods house says: "London is known for watching the young and the up-and-coming designers but not for the large, established luxury houses."</p><p>Many of the designers whose garments make it on to the catwalk have wafer-thin profits; the most successful designers globally are supported by wealthy conglomerates that make the real money on perfume sales.</p><p>The figures also show the UK hasn't completely cracked the fashion market. The UK exports an impressive £3.9bn of clothing and footwear a year, but this is dwarfed by the £14.6bn of imported garments.</p><p>A handful of British luxury brands have made it big. Burberry has a market cap of £6.3bn and Mulberry is worth more than £1.1bn. Other successful labels have been snapped up by overseas buyers, with Jimmy Choo and leather goods firm Belstaff owned by Swiss company Labelux and McQueen and Stella McCartney part of French group PPR.</p><p>Like Johnstons, they are making the most of the British credentials as a way of wooing spenders. Burberry has been big on promoting its 'Made in Britain' roots. It is sponsoring a scholarship at the Royal College of Art and Design and last year expanded its factory in Castleford, West Yorkshire. The group even shows videos of its factory in overseas stores.</p><p>Harold Tillman, chairman of the British Fashion Council and owner of Jaeger and Aquascutum, says: "We are having our time. British fashion is back and we have the opportunity to grow globally. People want to buy British – made in Britain reeks of quality. Our customers are international – not just Chinese but from across the globe."</p><p>Upmarket jewellery brand and host of the luxury breakfast get-together, Boodles, also boasts a long history. Michael Wainwright, sitting in the plush surroundings of his lavish white leather and silk upholstered boutique in the heart of London's luxury sector, is the fifth generation of his family to run the 214-year-old business. Wainwright is trying to ensure the business keeps up with the 21st century despite its age, and is launching a website in Arabic and Mandarin in May. There are also shops planned for Hong Kong to add to the five Boodles has in the UK.</p><p>However, Wainwright argues that UK luxury groups cannot rely on using their long lives as unique selling points. For example, handbag and accessories brand Mulberry has been a dazzling performer and is a relative newcomer [created in 1971]. </p><p>Wainwright says: "It isn't just about the heritage, it's making the people behind the brand accessible."</p><p>Wainwright is doing just this by cancelling his summer holiday, so that he is in town to welcome shoppers to his London stores during the Olympics and Diamond Jubilee. Similarly, Burberry will open its huge Regent Street flagship store before the Olympic flame is lit in late July The influx of summer visitors mean sales are expected to rocket. A 3.5 per cent increase forecast for the London's West End alone. The New West End Company predicts an additional £16.6m in revenue as a direct consequence of the Games. There will be impossibly wealthy tourists spending implausibly vast sums from the US, China, Russia, Middle East, Nigeria and Brazil.</p><p>The Jubilee celebration has a ready made face of luxury: the Queen and the Royal family. Julia Carrick, chief executive at Walpole, says: "For the luxury sector, the Queen and her family are the best ambassadors of all. The Queen has helped British brands expand to become global players." </p><p>Verdict Research forecasts the global luxury goods industry will increase by £37bn to £107bn by 2015. This market is not just important to the brands themselves. The manufacture of luxury goods does its bit for the UK's economy, while there is a wealth of other jobs the sector supports.</p><p>Luca Solca, Crédit Agricole Cheuvreux global head of European research with a focus on luxury, says: "The most important British brands seem less dependent on domestic manufacturing than what one typically finds in Switzerland or France. Hence, most of the benefits to the British economy come in the shape of high level job creation – creation, marketing, commercial and general management are typically in London – retail investments and operations, and all of the indirect effects a heightened level of economic activity typically brings."</p><p>The UK doesn't have luxury conglomerates on the scale of LVMH, Richemont or PPR but brands are – after two centuries in some cases – investing in global expansion for a brighter, luxurious future.</p><p>Johnstons of Elgin</p><p>Sales: £50m</p><p>Johnstons has been dyeing, spinning, weaving and knitting cashmere since 1797.</p><p>Burberry</p><p>Sales: £1.5bn</p><p>Thomas Burberry, a 21-year-old draper’s apprentice, opened his first shop in Basingstoke, Hampshire in 1856</p><p>Paul Smith</p><p>Sales: £196m</p><p>Sir Paul Smith opened his first shop in 1970 in his home town of Nottingham and by 1976 he had shown his first collection in Paris. He now has 12 different Paul Smith collections.</p><p>Mulberry</p><p>Sales: £122m</p><p>Founder Roger Saul was ousted from the Mulberry board in 2002 after a spat with then chief executive Godfrey Davis. The Somerset based company will soon be headed by a Frenchman when Bruno Guillon joins from French rival Hermes next month.</p><p>Since reaching an all-time high last July of 1,600p, the group has failed to move above that. Last night, however, it closed close to the top of the Footsie after Credit Suisse upgraded its advice to "outperform" following a survey of 20 of the world's most upmarket department stores.</p><p>Scribblers from the broker noted that, compared to last year's results, an increasing number of respondents believed the image of Burberry – at one time more linked to football hooligans than fashionistas – was now at least at the same level as brands such as Louis Vuitton or Chanel.</p><p>At the same time, nearly half of those surveyed said they expected Burberry to perform better than its luxury rivals while all planned to either increase or keep steady the amount of space in their stores dedicated to its products. These findings, said the analysts, suggested "sustained, top-line outperformance" for the group, adding that it looked "healthier than ever". </p><p>Burberry's response was to shoot up 68p to 1,392p, with the move coming amid the revival of speculation it could become a bid target. Credit Suisse's scribes believe its 100 per cent free float meant there was a "potential takeover risk", although traders, who have heard the idea many times, were unimpressed.</p><p>Considering the boom in growth it is enjoying from China, Burberry will not have been harmed by the shock decision of the country's central bank to cut interest rates in an attempt to prop up growth.</p><p>It meant the lack of activity from the Bank of England was forgotten as the heavyweight miners charged up on the news. Rio Tinto and Xstrata raced up 115.5p to 3,015p and 28.2p to 966.8p, helping the FTSE 100 rise 63.68 points to 5,447.79, although US Fed boss Ben Bernanke, playing down hopes of stimulus measures, dampened the mood late in the day.</p><p>Having watched Glencore reach an all-time low of 334.35p last week, the trading giant's boss, Ivan Glasenberg, has decided to give it a push. The group revealed he has spent nearly £10m on almost 3 million shares, raising his stake to 15.8 per cent. </p><p>Given a lock-up expired last month on employees' shares – including some of Mr Glasenberg's – traders were encouraged by the fact he was buying instead of selling. The chief executive had promised to spend a "substantial" proportion of the recent £70m dividend he received on shares.</p><p>The vote of confidence helped lift Glencore 13.45p to 361.2p, while it was also helped by the news that Australian regulators have approved its takeover of Canadian grain giant Viterra.</p><p>Tullow Oil spurted up 30p to 1,468p after revealing it had struck oil off the Ivory Coast, giving a boost to the explorer's hopes of finding black gold in other nearby prospects.</p><p>Diageo slipped 4p to 1,577p as Liberum Capital's Pablo Zuanic suggested it may need a name change in order to achieve its goal of taking control of the world's biggest tequila brand, Jose Cuervo. "Sealing the deal may be as simple as buying shares back to pay [Cuervo owners the Beckmann family] and rechristening Diageo," said the analyst, who suggested "The Johnnie Cuervo Walker Co". </p><p>On the FTSE 250, Kesa Electricals powered up 4.24p to 54.1p following promising sales data from the high street. Fund manager Schroders has raised its stake in the retailer, which will be relegated to the small-cap index at the end of next week, to more than 11 per cent.</p><p>A rather busy session left Synergy Health 40.5p better off at 864.5p. As well as publishing its full-year results, the sterilising equipment supplier also announced a share placing and revealed it had struck a $25.1m (£16.3m) deal to buy US rival SRI/Surgical Express.</p><p>The widespread rally was accompanied by gossips reheating a number of familiar bid tales. Chip designer CSR (6.4p better off at 208p) and iron ore producer Ferrexpo (7.8p better off at 207p) were among those once again finding themselves the subject of takeover speculation, although dealers were playing it down.</p><p>Down on Aim, Ithaca Energy shifted up 5.75p to 115p on the start of oil exports from its Athena field in the North Sea. The explorer remains more than a third lower than before its admission last week that takeover talks had ended without a deal being struck – some, however, still hope it could receive a hostile approach.</p><p>H&M, it goes without saying, is a less elusive beast. That's not to suggest that it is not an inspired one. Karl Lagerfeld, who was the first big designer to collaborate with the Swedish-born store in 2004, credits the link- up for making him a household name. Not bad given that, for the past three decades, he has been creative director of Chanel. Dutch designer pairing Viktor & Rolf's collection for H&M – which famously included a budget but beautiful wedding gown – sold out in minutes and then turned up on eBay priced 10 times the original amount. Ditto collections by Stella McCartney, Lanvin...</p><p>In 2008 the high priestess of the fashion avant-garde, Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garcons, worked with H&M. The enlightened queued round the block to gain reasonably priced access to this often impenetrable name. More recently, Donatella Versace's collections for H&M have made those enamoured with dressing to impress very happy.</p><p>But before you buy when the collection goes on sale worldwide on 15 November, there are some things you need to know about Martin Margiela – or Maison Martin Margiela, please. The label's Belgian-born namesake's retirement was officially announced in 2009. The house is now owned by Renzo Rosso of Diesel but still designed by at least some of Margiela's long-standing team. They have done much to keep his signatures alive. And they are? A broad, sharp shoulder – really broad, the sort that would barely fit through the door. The colour white – from the coats worn by all employees to the cracked white paint that decorates the showroom and the blank, white label tacked roughly into main line clothing. NB too: cloven-toed "tabi" boots which are more comfortable than they look; leather leggings (Margiela's were among the first and best) and any amount of trompe l'oeil (a bra printed on to a nude jersey body, say).</p><p>Don't say: "Martin Margiela, I had dinner with him last week." You didn't. And everyone will know you are lying. Do say: "Ah, Martin Margiela. The most influential designer of the past quarter century." That may well be true.</p><p>"I hide it pretty well but I do go into a show really anxious and it doesn't get any easier," he says, his elbow propped on the back of a sofa in the Savoy Hotel suite where we meet. "I've found that the nerves haven't subsided in 15 years; they are worse than they were in the beginning. I guess you've got more at stake. The business is bigger now so there's more to lose than there was back then." The man best known for boho chic pretends to bite on his fist for emphasis: "I just try to white-knuckle it and keep calm."</p><p>Chances are he has nothing to worry about. Since showing his – legendary, in fashion circles at least – colourful debut collection, Electric Angels, in London in 1997 on the models Kate Moss, Jade Jagger and Helena Christensen, Williamson has attracted a legion of A-list fans, including his friend Sienna Miller, and built an international presence. His latest pieces, being unveiled at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, are inspired by Russia and its costumes, palaces and tsars – and, more subliminally, by the economic downturn.</p><p>"In a way it [the recession] has inspired because I think it's made designers really look deeper into their offer. That garment has to have many more reasons why you would buy it than it did pre-recession," says Williamson, 40, himself decked out in designer threads from Etro and Thom Sweeney. "It's harder, and I think there are more challenges, and people want the same quality but they want a lower price point." Yet his business has enjoyed an "upswing in the highest price point", with customers opting for "a box-ticking" – as opposed to fashion – piece that will last.</p><p>Williamson's latest project is for charity. He has collaborated with Sainsbury's to create three canvas shopping bags being sold in aid of Sport Relief: at least £1.50 of each £5 bag goes to the charity. He recently visited Kids Company in Kilburn, north London – one of Sport Relief's good causes – and worked with children on an art project.</p><p>As a child, Williamson used to draw and paint every night after school and he knew from an early age what he wanted to do for a career. Born in Chorlton, Manchester, the self-confessed un-sporty designer was named after the celebrated Manchester United manager Sir Matt Busby, thanks to his football-fan father, David. He was inspired to draw by the way his mother, Maureen, a receptionist for a chain of opticians, dressed, and went on to graduate in fashion design and printed textiles from Central Saint Martins, London in 1994. Three years later, he founded his fashion house with his business partner Joseph Velosa.</p><p>Nowadays it is Miller, as opposed to his mum, who is recognised as Williamson's muse. Although he says he does not think of just one person when he designs, he describes the actress as "inspirational". "You know, she's willing to try anything and her sense of humour is very close to mine and our eye is drawn to the same things, creatively speaking."</p><p>Williamson is about to move into a new London home with his partner, the model Stephen Baccari, and dog, Coco (after Chanel). He believes British fashion is in a better state than ever, turning over money that "is not to be ignored". And he says definite effort are being made, including by the Government, to support the industry. "I think the future's very hopeful if they continue to see those new designers into their middle term of growth," he says. "I think it will finally dispel the idea that London is just about creative talent that then disintegrates, which it was back in the day."</p><p>Start at Piazza San Babila, a busy intersection that used to lie just outside Milan's medieval walls. In the Middle Ages, merchants had to declare their goods at this gate before entering the city. The red brick church of San Babila (00 39 02 7639 4297) dates back to 1095.</p><p>From here you can enter the Fashion District up Via Bagutta. This street of restaurants and antiques shops was a poor bohemian area in the 1930s, frequented by artists. As you emerge on Via Sant'Andrea, Palazzo Morando is on the left, containing a very good museum of costume (00 39 02 8846 5933; ). Vogue is staging a fashion event here, open to the public, from 21-24 September.</p><p>Walk to the intersection with Via Monte Napoleone for espresso (€1) at Caffe Cova (00 39 02 7600 5599; past ). This stylish sequence of rooms opened in 1829. In those days Monte Napoleone was where the aristocracy of Lombardy built its townhouses. Who would have guessed that it would one day become the most fashionable addresses for a new kind of Italian aristocracy, the Milanese couturier? Today this street is so important it even has its own glossy magazine, Monte Napoleone, and Cova is where the fashion press congregates during Fashion Week.</p><p>Now turn about and head east down Via Sant'Andrea past Chanel, Hermès, Miu Miu and Gianfranco Ferré. Crossing Via Senato and passing along Via San Primo, the Baroque building on your left is Palazzo del Senato, with its convex façade. A statue by Joan Miró stands outside.</p><p>At the intersection with the busy Corso Venezia look for the plaque on the Banca Commerciale Italiana, which commemorates the birthplace of Count Luigi Torelli, the man who hoisted a large Italian tricolour on top of the Duomo during the fight for independence in 1848.</p><p>Across Corso Venezia, weave through to Via dei Cappuccini. This area is one block after another of gorgeous early 20th-century apartments. The best is at the intersection of Cappuccini and Via Vivaio: Palazzo Berri-Meregalli (1914) was designed by Giulio Arata of Piacenza. These apartments are an unrepentant mishmash of Liberty style, oriental mosaics, statuary, cantilevers and frescos.</p><p>Turn left up Viale Piave and immediately, on the opposite side of the road, at Number 24 is a former cinema still called the Metropol. This now belongs to Dolce & Gabbana who converted it into its showroom for use during Fashion Week. Further up Viale Piave is the Hotel Diana Majestic (00 39 022 0581; ). Three sets of unmarked black double doors on the corner with Via Lambro signal the entrance to Gucci's private Fashion Week showrooms.</p><p>Crossing Piazza Guglielmo Oberdan, note the massive 19th-century ceremonial gates of Porta Venezia. These mark the beginning of Corso Buenos Aires, which contains about 350 fashion outlets, the highest concentration of clothing stores in Europe. Serious shoppers should divert now.</p><p>Turning back towards the city centre, enter the Giardini Pubblici, opened outside the old city walls in 1790. Here, between the park's trees, is where Alberta Ferretti stages her shows in a marquee. Keeping to the right of the Natural History Museum (00 39 02 8846 3280; ), see if you can spot the statue to General Giuseppe Sirtori. Sirtori was a comrade of Garibaldi who fought during the unification of Italy and died in 1874.</p><p>Emerge in Piazza Cavour and go through the 12th-century city gates known as Archi di Porta Nuova. Heading towards the city centre down Via Manzoni, the Armani Hotel Manzoni (00 39 02 8883 8888; ) is on your right. Here you can live the style in a hotel where every piece of furniture has been personally chosen by Giorgio Armani. Turn right in front of the Grand Hotel et de Milan (00 39 02 723 141; grandhotel etdemilan) where Giuseppe Verdi died in 1901. In the 1970s at the beginning of the Italian ligna pronto (prêt-à-porter) movement, many fashion houses presented their first shows in this hotel.</p><p>Head towards Via Borgonuovo and you'll pass the Armani Bookstore and Café (00 39 02 723 18600; ). At 11 Via Borgonuovo stands a 17th-century palace that is now the headquarters of Armani. Here the "Divine Giorgio", a former Milanese medical student, will be presenting private views next week.</p><p>Fresh cuts</p><p>Galleria del Corso is a little brother to the stately Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II. Last year it was converted into a café, multi-store, recording studio, multiplex cinema and the Ambassador Hotel (00 39 02 7602 0241; ), where doubles start at €202.50 (£162), room only.</p><p>This autumn, Daniele Confalonieri of Hotel Principe di Savoia (00 39 02 62301; ) is offering Passion Night, a vodka-based cocktail which was created for last week’s 2012 Vogue Fashion Night Out, at €20 (£16) a glass.</p><p>Travel essentials</p><p>Getting there</p><p>Railbookers (020-3327 2439; ) offers short breaks to Milan from £389 per person, including rail travel from London St Pancras via Paris and two nights’ B&B accommodation.</p><p>You can fly to Milan on British Airways (0844 493 0787; ) from Heathrow and Gatwick and easyJet (0843 104 5000; ) from Gatwick.</p><p>Staying there</p><p>In the heart of the Fashion District, the Four Seasons (00 39 02 77088; ) at Via Gesu 6/8 offers double rooms from €676 (£542), room only.</p><p>More information: Tourist Information: 00 39 027740 4343; <br>Milan Fashion Week: </p><p>Mr Murdoch, shunned by most political leaders since the phone-hacking scandal broke, will be at the poolside with his wife, Wendi Deng, and business leaders. The visit is part of Mr Johnson's drive to use the Games to promote London and encourage investment.</p><p>Sources close to the Mayor said he was "very comfortable" about being photographed with the tycoon. He is understood to regard Mr Murdoch as an important supporter of British sports through initiatives such as sponsorship of Team Sky cyclists, including Bradley Wiggins. A spokesman for Mr Johnson said: "The Mayor has always said he would use the Games to shamelessly promote London as the leading business hub in Europe ."</p><p>In 2010, Mr Johnson described phone-hacking allegations as "codswallop cooked up by the Labour Party" and a "song and dance about nothing". He later said he "misunderstood the severity of the allegations".In an interview in March, he said: "I don't regard [Mr Murdoch] as quite the satanic influence that some do. He did a great deal to set the newspaper industry free."</p><p>Basketball star's wife turns to retail therapy</p><p>Retailers in London's West End have seen a decline in footfall since attention turned eastwards, but thankfully one determined shopper seems keen to revive their fortunes. No, not Mary Portas but Vanessa Bryant, wife of the US basketball player Kobe Bryant. Not renowned as a spendthrift, she took to Bond Street clutching a red Chanel purse and emerged from one designer store with a bag of goodies so large it could accommodate a small child. Mrs Bryant, who is in London with their two young daughters for a fortnight, is reportedly "furious" with her husband and "embarrassed" after he was pictured chatting shirtless to two women at a nightclub in Barcelona last week. </p><p>Swimmers father gives unpredictable interview</p><p>The father of the South African swimmer who beat Michael Phelps in the 200m butterfly gave a gloriously unpredictable interview to the BBC's Clare Balding yesterday. Bert Le Clos, father of 20-year-old Chad Le Clos, was dragged to a poolside spot after his son's tearful medal ceremony. Seconds later, the producers surely wished they hadn't. Speaking in gruff, Afrikaans-accented English, and sweating profusely, Mr Le Clos ignored Balding's questions. "I've never been so happy in my life," he said. Defeating her attempts to rein him in, he rambled: "Wow. Look at him. And he's beautiful. Look at this. What a beautiful boy." </p><p>When asked about his family, Mr Le Clos also took the chance to make Lord Coe's day a little bit worse. "My other son is here, the small one. I can't find him. We're all over the place. It's not easy to get tickets." </p><p>Country of the day – San Marino</p><p>The Most Serene Republic of San Marino is only 24 miles square, surrounded entirely by Italy, and has only 31,000 inhabitants, yet it has competed in 12 summer Olympics since 1960 (though without ever winning a medal). This surely qualifies it for the adjective we British often apply to such tiny nations: plucky. This year, San Marino has sent a team of four, kitted out by the Italian fashion label Salvatore Ferragamo, no less.</p><p>The burgers were good, as burgers go, and a couple of decent cocktails dealt with the inner curmudgeon. But as I turned in my £30 share of the bill, I experienced that same feeling of vague resignation that closes many of my meals out in the British capital. It took another six months before I hit on exactly what was disappointing me about London's dining scene, and it was in the last place you might have expected: Paris.</p><p>Long considered to have fallen behind London as a culinary trendsetter, the French capital is viewed condescendingly by all but the most informed of foodies and Francophiles on this side of the Channel as a teacher we've outgrown. They will point to crummy tourist-trap brasseries, overblown haute cuisine and McDonald's at the Louvre as evidence of its dramatic fall from grace. And where it does succeed, it is still playing catch-up, poor thing, they will simper. The truth is, here in London, we have nothing to learn from Paris any more.</p><p>On an early autumn night a few weeks ago, however, I found myself in east Paris, in the rough and ready 20th arrondissement, receiving what felt like a re-education in dining out. A French friend had recommended Roseval, a new restaurant run by talented young chefs Michael Greenwold, a 28-year-old Brit, and Simone Tondo, a 24-year-old Sardinian, that has become an instant hit since its July opening.</p><p>An unassuming little corner plot, Roseval seats around 20 in its pocket-square-sized dining-room. Roughly plastered white walls and simple wooden furniture allow the space to breathe but retain a homely feel. Unlike London, where the fashion for "no-bookings" means a meal now routinely begins with a two-hour wait, there's no queuing or names on clipboards, just plain old reservations. And no choosing what to eat, either – like many Paris restaurants now, Roseval offers a set menu only, although you can ring ahead for special requirements. I was more than happy to cede control – a welcome pause in the endless flow of decision-making, there's also something companionable about eating the same thing as everyone else at the table.</p><p>That we were in playful but skilled hands was made clear by the starter: a salted ricotta soup with mackerel and heirloom tomatoes, prettily sprinkled with chive flowers and lemon breadcrumbs, took the bright flavours of a salad into unexpected forms. A dish of cod, tempered bone marrow, tangy wild sorrel, and pil-pil emulsion sitting atop soft, buttery potato was a featherweight delight, while 12-hour-cooked pork belly, finished on the grill, deglazed with Muscat grape juice and served with endive and gambas fair cured me of my indifference to that meat.</p><p>After a perfect panna cotta topped with sweet, earthy fig, the final course of almond ice-cream, cloaked in crumbs of olive-oil cake and 28-month-aged pecorino and spiked with wild blackberries was a fitting summation of the chefs' facility with vivid combinations and lightness of touch. With each course, Greenwold and Tondo zipped back and forth from their basement kitchen to present the dish to diners.</p><p>It was a great meal by any measure, but at a prix fixe of €35 (just shy of £28), it was jaw-dropping. With a rather indulgent wine choice, we knocked the price up to nearer £40 a head, but it still felt like a steal for something genuinely special. Shuffling into the night, buoyed by a glass of dessert wine on the house as we waited at the bar for a cloudburst to ease, I reflected on what the same sum might have bought me in London. My burger and kitchen roll with a few more cocktails on the side? A couple of decent courses, provided you opt for the house wine, in Soho?</p><p>Before the Olympics, in a last-minute sales pitch for the city, Boris Johnson boasted that London had more Michelin-starred restaurants than Paris – though it's odd that, when those stars were more plentiful on the Continent, they connoted fussy soft furnishings and overwrought food, whereas now they are used as hard evidence that Brits do it better. No matter – for the vast majority of people, comparisons at that high-falutin level are about as relevant as whether you should buy Chanel or Burberry.</p><p>You can, of course, eat fantastically well for rather a lot of money in London – and for very little, if you go frill-free. It's finding something in the middle that's not mediocre which is the problem. If you're neither a restaurant critic nor exceptionally wealthy, just someone in gainful employment who'd like to go out for a properly good, interesting meal without breaking the £50 ceiling, London is a tricky prospect. If you're not crazy about inane gimmicks or gentrified fast food, it can be quite depressing.</p><p>Paris, meanwhile, is full of possibilities. Happily for its denizens, Roseval is not a bargainous aberration, but typical of a local, independent restaurant scene founded on the talents of a fresh generation of young chefs, many of whom are not French, but have cut their teeth in some of the city's most creative kitchens and are now boldly striking out alone with their first ventures. Yes, there is also a clutch of trendy burger and steak joints, but they aren't setting the tone. Meg Zimbeck, editor of the Paris by Mouth restaurant blog, cites the recently opened Abri and the reopened Vivant Table, both of which have Japanese chefs, alongside Roseval as her top picks of the new season.</p><p>Common features include addresses in scruffier parts of town (but we're talking mainly the 10th and 20th arrondissements here, not the back end of the banlieues), low-key décor and a deliberately relaxed environment – all of which mean they can offer inventive dishes and pristine produce at a ridiculously fair price.</p><p>"I still think that one can eat better in Paris than almost anywhere else in the world, but the action is no longer happening at the haute-cuisine level," explains Zimbeck. "Chefs who have interned at Michelin-starred restaurants are now performing on smaller, more personal stages where they can innovate and use ingredients that go beyond foie gras, truffle and turbot. The calibre of lunch that you can have in Paris for €25 is unmatched anywhere in the world."</p><p>Youthful, dynamic and international in outlook, the scene is miles away from the aforementioned caricature of Parisian cooking over here. When I call Greenwold, to ask if he and Tondo will share their insider perspective on the contemporary Paris scene with a Londoner, he seems surprised: "I just didn't think anyone knew much about what's going on over here," says the Oxfordshire-raised chef. "I see articles about Paris in the food and travel sections of British papers, but I don't feel there's been that acknowledgement of what's been happening here."</p><p>I mention that the most recent face of Parisian dining is expat Brit Rachel Khoo, who had TV audiences drooling over her mismatched crockery, vintage dresses and her own, not especially exciting, "takes" on French cooking. "Is she a chef?" asks Tondo. "Well, she describes herself as a food 'creative'… I think she opened a pop-up restaurant in her flat," I offer. Tondo rolls his eyes.</p><p>So though we clearly love a bit of Amélie-esque Paris, when it comes to bistronomie – the move away from classic haute cuisine towards a more experimental style of cooking, offered in casual "neo-bistro" surroundings and at more affordable prices – we have been pretty slow on the uptake.</p><p>The seeds were sown by chefs such as Pascal Barbot as far back as 2000, but it found its full definition in the mid-noughties. In 2006, French-born Basque chef Inaki Aizpitarte brought daring reinventions of bistro fare and a slug of rock'n'roll glamour with his highly acclaimed Chateaubriand (Greenwold's training ground and currently 15th in the World's 50 Best Restaurants list). Gregory Marchand, returning from stints in New York and London, where he worked closely with Jamie Oliver – whose influence may be detected as much in his fashion sense as his approach to food – opened the insanely popular Frenchie in 2009.</p><p>Beyond a commitment to quality, simplicity and accessibility, the rules of bistronomie are pretty much that there ain't no rules – creativity and individuality are its watchwords. It's this ethos that has encouraged the Roseval generation to forge ahead with their personal visions, diversifying the scene and maintaining its dynamism.</p><p>All this flies in the face of accounts of the demise of Parisian gastronomy – as recently as 2009, US journalist Michael Steinberger's award-winning Au Revoir to All That presented a seemingly persuasive argument that the decline of the country's food, yoked to the offering in Paris, mirrored France's dwindling political and economic status. Although purporting to be as much eulogy as elegy, Steinberger's tome drove another nail into the metaphorical coffin in which international media seemed happy to inter Paris's culinary prowess.</p><p>Yet Steinberger's argument has not dated especially well in these recessionary times. Mocking the French distrust of free-market economics and globalisation, he also drew a direct link between the "vast amounts of wealth created in London", Spain's "flourishing" economy and their rise as gastronomic powerhouses, fuelled by diners with deep pockets. But if (temporarily) booming economies spurred a certain kind of innovation, the new genre of dining that was being created in Paris was better placed to weather a downturn. Increasingly, it looks as though the French were wise to have scaled things down in the dining-room while others were ramping them up.</p><p>Paris's latest clutch of restaurant openings also shows up the fallacy of another broader claim often made about France, that the country's labour laws and bureaucracy strangle entrepreneurial spirit. I ask Greenwold whether it would have been any easier to open a restaurant in London. Though he admits the bureaucracy was maddening, it seems to galvanise the city's cheffing community (friends in the business obligingly lent Greenwold and Tondo their business plan to copy). And the bottom line is money: "We could do what we wanted here for a lot less. Even in east London I can't imagine we could have opened this for less than half a million; here we did it for 150k. Our rent is expensive by Parisian standards, but cheap for London. We'd love to do something in London, but we'd need serious investment." The figures go a long way to explaining differences in the capitals' dining options. In Paris, you can go small-scale and do OK. In London, mere survival requires something very commercial. Something like a burger on a piece of kitchen roll, perhaps.</p><p>Not long after my Paris trip, I speak to Luc Dubanchet, the food critic and former Gault-Millau guide editor who 10 years ago, bored with the capital's staid restaurant scene, founded Omnivore, a food publication set up in explicit opposition to the Michelin Guide and the stuffy approach to eating he felt it encouraged. Since then, the magazine has fought passionately to define and promote the new wave of jeune cuisine simmering away in Paris.</p><p>I ask Dubanchet if he is pleased with how far the city has come. "Well, I was right that we could do better – so that's good," he laughs. "Paris is great now; you can feel something there which is about excitement rather than history and Michelin stars. But it's fragile. Everywhere, not only in France, you have to fight for something new all the time."</p><p>It is in a spirit of enquiry and exchange that Dubanchet launched the Omnivore "World Tour", a series of events across the globe connecting local chefs with their counterparts from Paris and around Europe for a programme of dinners and masterclasses. The Roseval boys are among those now involved: Tondo showed me a large Babushka tattoo on his arm that commemorated their stint at a recent Moscow event, confirming the youthful, irreverent nature of the gatherings.</p><p>I ask whether either of them might be acquiring some London-themed body art any time soon. "I think so," says Greenwold. "I don't know how the kind of thing we're doing over here will go down to be honest. The [east London-based chefs] Young Turks are part of Omnivore and I know that they've got quite a lot of attention in London with some of their combinations. James [Lowe] does a dish that's aged steak cut into a tartare with an oyster emulsion. It's really good, I'm not knocking it as a dish, but if you look at what's been going on there, it's not that out there. If people think that's crazy in London, they're going to think that the kind of stuff Inaki does, and maybe we do sometimes… well, they're going to think it's fucking weird." Perhaps we're not quite the cutting-edge sophisticates we think we are.</p><p>Dubanchet is a big fan of a good hamburger, so he has no sympathy for my kitchen-roll-related woes in London. But he is unimpressed when I tell him of a recent meal in Piccadilly's new Brasserie Zedel, the vast, Disney-esque repro French bistro that has been serving up competent oeuf mayonnaises and choucroute at chain-restaurant prices to the general approval of the city's critics. "There are so many French copies. Even here in France there are French copies. Why another one?" he sighs. "You have to be careful you don't get too complacent. Otherwise, you will wake up and find that you're, well, French."</p><p>Ooh la la! The brightest young stars of Parisian cuisine</p><p>Abri</p><p>Already a foodie favourite since opening last month. Japanese chef Katsuaki Okiyama turns out exquisite plates, such as potato soup with coffee and cardamom foam, in a low-fi setting. A prix fixe four-course lunch is €22; six-course dinner €38.50. Abri's excellent sandwiches, served all day, are fast becoming legendary too. 92 Rue du Faubourg-Poissonnière, 75010, tel: (00 33) 1 83 97 00 00</p><p>Chatomat</p><p>The international pedigree of the young couple behind this diminutive restaurant (Victor is French, Alice Italo-Brasilo-French) makes for bright, thoroughly modern cooking in an unpretentious atmosphere befitting its Ménilmontant location. Described as adorable by Le Figaro's redoubtable critic François Simon, dinner à la carte averages €40. Closed lunch. 6 Rue Victor Letalle, 75020, tel: (00 33) 1 47 97 25 77</p><p>Chez Aline</p><p>Although strictly speaking not a restaurant, this is unlike any snack bar you'll have known. Housed in a former horsemeat butchers, Delphine Zampetti (aka Mrs Inaki Aizpitarte) turns out superlative sandwiches (from €4.50) and a couple of plats du jour (€10). Try the rabbit baguette with sundried tomatoes or go old-school Parisian with a simple jambon-beurre. 85 Rue de la Roquette 75011, tel: (00 33) 1 43 71 90 75</p><p>Restaurant Pierre Sang Boyer</p><p>A finalist in the French equivalent of Masterchef, Korean-born Boyer opened a spot in trendy Oberkampf this summer, where imaginative but polished cooking rules: veal tartare with figs; gambas with aubergine caviar and frozen banana slices. Trust us, it's good. The four-course prix fixe is €35. Sadly, no reservations are taken. 55 Rue Oberkampf, 75011, no phone</p><p>Vivant Table</p><p>The bistro formerly known as Vivant has reopened with an upgrade on the menu as well as the name, thanks to two skilled Japanese chefs, Atsumi Sota and Masaki Yamamoto. Early whispers describe the food as "mind-blowing", but there have been quibbles over the prices – €45 for the fixe – which shows the value Parisians expect. A bar à vins opens next door soon. 43 Rue des Petites Ecuries, 75011, tel: (00 33) 1 42 46 43 55</p><p>Perhaps this goes some way toward explaining the phenomenon of the celebrity fragrance: we just want to feel like our idols do after they've had a wash. Lopez's scent is credited with reigniting the Nineties vogue for superstar endorsement a decade ago and remains top of the perfume parade, bringing in an estimated £570 per hour for the curvaceous singer, or £50m in the past 10 years.</p><p>"The trend started back in 1991 when Elizabeth Taylor launched 'White Diamonds'," explains Alessandra Steinherr, beauty director at Glamour magazine. "Many have come and gone since then and, of course, some are beyond hideous, while others are beautifully formulated and super popular. The good ones stand the test of time and the bad-quality ones tend to disappear."</p><p>In the past six months, Lady Gaga and Madonna have released their own fragrances, as have – rather lower down the celeb spectrum – Amy Childs (of The Only Way is Essex fame), X Factor runner-up Cher Lloyd and X Factor judge Tulisa Contostavlos. Clearly, there is a market for these products.</p><p>While the most popular overall – in terms of sales – remain Jennifer Lopez, Sarah Jessica Parker and Britney Spears, for many years "Shh" by Jade Goody was a bestseller. Launched in 2006 after Goody's stint on Big Brother, it sells today (three years after her death) as a collector's item on eBay.</p><p>"Fragrance has become increasingly part of everybody's daily dressing ritual," says Nicholas Gilbert, an olfactory expert based at London's top-end scent shop Les Senteurs. "The price point of celebrity fragrances seems to explain their popularity, however, you get what you pay for."</p><p>Most celebrity scents, he explains, use inexpensive fruity notes that are easily created and have widespread appeal among the nostrils of the masses. Sweet fruits, such as blackcurrants, strawberry and peach, are popular, as are "fantasy floral accords", invented concepts such as Red Vanilla Orchid, Dewy Lotus Flower, Coconut Orchid. Typically, celebrity scents combine fruity top notes with a floral heart and a cake-like base, with vanilla a common ingredient in many.</p><p>"Vanilla's comforting," Gilbert continues, "because it recalls the security of youth and nursery desserts, and is considered by some to be an aphrodisiac."</p><p>But celebrity fragrances tread a thin line between sex and sensuality: most of these products must be accessible to young fanbases with uneducated palettes, which is why so many of them smell so sickly sweet.</p><p>Pint-sized popstar Justin Bieber's fragrance "Someday", launched in 2011 (the bottle sports a rubber floral effigy uncannily like that of Marc Jacobs's "Lola") is a case in point: starting notes of mandarin, pear and berries ends in vanilla and soft musk. Wearing it for a day is like being trapped in a fudge kitchen.</p><p>"It explains a dream," Bieber told fans when it launched. "Someday I will drive a BMW. Someday I will be an astronaut."</p><p>When Bieber debuted his second perfume "Girlfriend", British high-street chain The Perfume Shop reported selling one bottle a minute in the opening weekend, and a 132 per cent rise in online sales on the previous year. "All records were broken with the launch of 'Girlfriend'," says the store's advertising manager Michelle D'Vaz. "It's safe to say Bieber fever is still a phenomenon."</p><p>Refreshingly, when reports last year surfaced that Lady Gaga would release a fragrance, the popstar said she wanted it to smell of "blood and semen". Since then however, she has had to row back a bit: the resultant scent, which came out last month, is merely based on the molecular structure of these two substances, and is structured by three accords – that is, three sets of notes which harmonise together. Belladonna; honey, saffron and apricot, and Tiger Orchid combine to make a singular perfume that is presented in a bottle that resembles an onyx egg clutched by an alien claw. Righto.</p><p>It might not sound very nice but what Lady Gaga, along with Madonna and reality-television star Kim Kardashian, has done is de-sweeten the celeb scent shelves. Madge's "Truth or Dare" is a traditional white floral scent undercut with amber, while Kardashian's mixes a difficult tuberose with sandalwood. They're very different from the other citrus celeb offerings: whatever one might think of buying into a brand because of the famous face behind it, these perfumes are noticeably more complex and less obviously wearable.</p><p>"I feel that fragrance houses need to take a risk to smash the mould of what a celebrity fragrance can be," says Gilbert. "The continued focus on group testing that the mainstream insists on using is leading to a homogenisation of the celebrity-fragrance market."</p><p>But Sarah Jessica Parker remains a cautionary tale. After releasing the bestselling "Lovely" in 2005 – capitalising on her profile at the end of the Sex and the City television series – she went on to create another product "Covet", a woody chocolate and lavender scent or fougère that she was heavily involved in building, and which proved simply too challenging for the common nose. It was swiftly discontinued.</p><p>"It's really down to how the celebrities approach the making of their perfume," says Steinherr. "How involved they are, how much it is a personal project or just a way to make a quick buck.</p><p>"Of course, initially the face of the fragrance is the determining factor as to whether the perfume sells, but the trick to getting longevity and repeat sales is to produce a great scent."</p><p>Ultimately, if it smells nice, most people will probably like it and part with their hard-earned cash for it. And others will do as a friend of mine does: decant her favourite fragrance – "True Reflection" by Kim Kardashian – into a Chanel No. 5 bottle so that her secret remains safe.</p><p>A brief glimpse of the former Libertines frontman's tattooed torso and scarred belly reveal the ravages of his 32 years. He quickly replaces his T-shirt, which had been inside-out, and begins posing moodily for photographs, in a room littered with strange objects: taxidermy, antique furniture and canvases. Is this for a music video? Has he got an album coming out? No. It may look pretty rock'n'roll, but it is, in fact, the start of Doherty's bid to be taken seriously as a fine artist.</p><p>Jumpy like a cat, Doherty shows me around London's Cob Gallery, where his first UK solo art exhibition (he showed work at the Chappe gallery in Paris in 2008) will open next week. Most of the artwork is yet to arrive, but nine canvases are scattered around the black-walled, underground space in Camden. The paintings are spare, with lots of white space showing through linear outlines, glued-on paper and Doherty's spidery scrawl. Their unifying feature, apart from the artist's signature, is that they have been painted in blood. Doherty's blood. It is a technique he refers to as "arterial splatter": an ex-girlfriend's father coined the phrase. The streaky, brown-ish marks, by turns thick (as if he's just swished a bloodied thumb across the surface) and bespattered (he squirts his blood from a syringe) are unmistakably human.</p><p></p><p>A further 20 new blood-paintings will be shipped in from Paris, where the singer now lives, to form the top half of a collaboration between the curators of Cob and another gallery, Guts for Garters. The show is called On Blood: A Portrait of the Artist. The first part of the title refers to his blood paintings, and the latter half to a decision by curator Cassie Beadle to exhibit a selection of strange curiosities, trinkets and detritus hoarded by Doherty over the years.</p><p>Painting is something of a collective process for Doherty. A "fucking accurate" portrait of his friend Peter Wolfe, from the band Wolfman and the Side-Effects, was drawn by his friend Alizé Meurisse, and Doherty has added a splatter or two and some song lyrics into the mix. An early portrait of The Libertines, which the artist modestly disparages, has been added to, not only by his eight-year-old son Astile, but also by his good friend, the late Amy Winehouse, who drew a small self-portrait in her own blood.</p><p>"She was on the phone to her dad when she did that. She said, 'Dad, I'm with Pete and he's making me draw with my blood!' He didn't like me much, her dad."</p><p>The actress Charlotte Gainsbourg added a sketch of a house to a painting called Leet Strife – a less pretentious title than "Street Life", he says.</p><p>Doherty explains that for his newest works he has been using watercolours. He says it is the only way he can begin to replicate the "emulsive, wishy-washy residue on the neck of a crack-cocaine bottle". Alarmingly, he then reaches into his pocket and pulls out a broken crack-pipe ("It's an old one, I promise") and holds the glass up to the light so I can see the silvery remains of the drugs.</p><p>"Look at the colours, the oranges. You see that there? You can only get that with watercolours."</p><p>Marc Quinn made wonderful sculptures from his own frozen blood, but is there something a bit faddy and pretentious about painting with it? I suggest that the self-harm element might be rather gruesome, but Cob curator Victoria Williams has an intriguing take on it. "It's about breaking down the boundaries between yourself and your art. I don't think it's destructive, it's quite giving actually," she says. "It's certainly not about gore."</p><p>Later in the day, the curators, Doherty and his manager are getting ready to drive a van to Wiltshire, to the mansion the artist used to rent from Lord Cardigan but vacated after the roof fell in. There is some anxiety, Doherty having arrived over an hour late, that they will not get to rifle through the storage container there until after dark. Doherty is rather apprehensive about what they will find.</p><p>"Everything flooded when the roof fell in," Doherty says. "Then it froze, then it flooded again when it melted. We stuck everything into storage but lots of it was ruined. Have you ever seen mould that looks all fluffy and white like snow?"</p><p>I haven't. Nor have I met Doherty before, although he insists that I have: that famous face, his dishevelled hair now touched with grey, eyes outlined by lack of sleep and a smirking, disarming smile.</p><p>The curators have quite a task ahead, sifting through the piles of "silks, bones, leathers, skulls, palettes – what's that thing you put canvases on? – oh yeah, easels, frames, boots, laces, wigs, mannequins..." that are, apparently, Doherty's passion.</p><p>His proclivity for hoarding leads him to talk about his infamous on-again, off-again relationship with the supermodel Kate Moss, from whom he finally separated in 2007.</p><p>"Kate used to collect elephants, so I'd buy them for her wherever I went," he says. "When we split up she destroyed all my stuff, but she didn't destroy my elephants. Because I couldn't get over her for a while I just kept buying elephants and now I've got a huge elephant collection for sale. I might post them anonymously to her as a wedding present."</p><p>Despite Moss having married her long-term boyfriend, Jamie Hince, last July, her name is rarely printed without mention of her tempestuous relationship with Doherty. The singer's penchant for heroin and crack-cocaine led to the end of their relationship and the model's association with him dented her reputation and helped to earn her the epithet "Cocaine Kate". Moss publicly split from Doherty after footage of her allegedly taking cocaine at a studio where he was recording with Babyshambles was sold to the press. Prosecutors decided not to charge the supermodel, in the absence of forensic or direct eyewitness evidence, but Moss lost contracts with H&M, Burberry and Chanel before admitting herself to rehab.</p><p>I ask Doherty if he has any regrets about the demise of their relationship. He is silent for a long time: "I suppose I must have, but I was a bit unhinged at that time," he shrugs. "The drugs. The thing is, she knew from day one when we began our relationship that I was using very heavily. She knew that. So, you can't suddenly turn around and say, 'you've got to stop all that'. I do have regrets about Kate, but I wouldn't want to talk to you about them. I'd only talk to a highly skilled doctor with large amounts of morphine and a hypnotherapist. And a small monkey."</p><p>He laughs and then lets out a scream before putting his finger in his mouth. He has cut it on the broken crack-pipe in his pocket. He bleeds only slightly, but it's a sign that we need to talk about something else. I joke that I've got some paper in case he wants to make a drawing. He declines, the mood having dropped, and for a moment the connection between his art and his well-documented self-harming hangs in the air.</p><p>The show is a chance for Doherty to revitalise his image in the wake of his many falls from grace. In 2003 the singer was ejected from The Libertines, at the height of their success, by his one-time best friend Carl Barât, thanks to his increasing dependence on Class-A drugs. Doherty went on to front Babyshambles, with whom he released two albums, and also produced a solo record called Grace/Wastelands in 2009, but his celebrity reputation has always rather eclipsed his music. In 2010 The Libertines reformed for appearances at the Reading and Leeds Festivals – but, as the release of Roger Sargent's film about the band's revival, The Libertines: There Are No Innocent Bystanders, released next month, reveals, with Doherty the appeal of the story is usually greater than the sound.</p><p>Doherty has been in prison three times, had at least 15 court appearances, a conviction for burglary, more than 26 drugs charges and is currently on bail for cocaine possession. I ask how he is managing his addictions.</p><p>"I've stopped injecting," he says, giving credit for this improvement to a new girlfriend, whose name he decides not to disclose, but whose parents he is meeting at their Oxford home this evening.</p><p>"The only way I see myself in a serious relationship is if I am toning it down a bit. When you're banging up all day you can't really have someone else in your life, especially if she's an English rose. I wouldn't let her touch anything, I just wouldn't." Doherty tells me he is being treated at a walk-in clinic for users and is currently on a pharmaceutical opiate called Subutex ("Posh and Becks, as they call it"), which "doesn't get you high" but suppresses withdrawal symptoms.</p><p>Gone is the implant which he had in his stomach to block the effects of heroin. "Jesus Christ, thank God them days are over. That was when I was up in front of a judge every five minutes and he was saying, 'get clean or go to jail'". Doherty had quite a hard time in prison.</p><p>"I got on OK in Pentonville [in 2006] because it was kind of my local, if you like. A lot of people wanted to get me, but more wanted to do me a favour. In Wayland last year it was lads from east rather than north London, and loads of other places. People I didn't know." As soon as he arrived, he says, people started getting at him, requesting money and drugs for protection. "I didn't have any money, I didn't have any drugs. One guy said he was going to stick a fork up my arse. I threw my telly at him because I thought that would get me put in isolation."</p><p>Instead, they moved Doherty to another wing where he found an ally in his cellmate who "didn't like bullies, basically". Between them they managed to fend off the attention. "A lot of those guys are just scared little boys inside. If you stand your ground they back down."</p><p>When Doherty speaks it comes across that the constant danger, the addictions, and the hell-raising parties all stem from his wish to emulate the bohemian ideal. This was clear in his Libertines days, when the band's red jackets and the presentation of Doherty as a kind of Nick Drake of our times – a new romantic, a poet and a rebel – were still doing their work.</p><p>A decade on, the figure who describes quite eloquently and earnestly his passion for a time when men wore smoking jackets and when drugs and art were synonymous, seems deflated. I hope that the art will be a positive step for Doherty; his enthusiasm for it recalls the old Pete – the showman and the optimist.</p><p>"I have a distinct memory of friends I had at school whose parents were, for want of a better word, bohemian. That was the kind of England that I thought I should have belonged to," he says. Instead Doherty grew up in a series of barracks, the son of a Catholic Army Major, and received little encouragement for his creative pursuits.</p><p>"My family used to say, point-blank, 'We'd support you if we thought you could sing, or we thought you could write songs, but you can't'."</p><p>Last year his widely publicised estrangement from his father ended after a good meeting at his little sister's wedding. "The family was all there together and I think my father was a little bit surprised at how compos mentis I was. He turned around and said that I was welcome to come home for Christmas. That was the first time in six years he's said that."</p><p>Repeated flayings in the tabloid press from 2005 onwards – his fans loving his Keith Richards-esque behaviour, his detractors revelling in his destruction – took its toll on Doherty. Never mind the fact that he courted it to start with. Three years ago he upped sticks to Paris to avoid the relentless attention. He loves it there, his own modern-day bohemia.</p><p>"The media circus got a bit twisted when I was in London. It became a bit of a joke, really. In Paris, they're so serious I can take myself really seriously too. I can get really morbid without people telling me to cheer up." He still has a loyal fanbase and he hasn't abandoned his music. He has already played a couple of secret gigs in London this year.</p><p>Despite this retreat from public life, Doherty hit the headlines earlier this week when the South African supermodel Lindi Hingston told the South African Sunday Times that she had given birth to his baby six weeks ago. Pictures of the little girl, who has been named Aisling, appeared in the paper. There is a distinct Doherty pout to the baby's features. When I ask the man himself about the pictures, he claims not to know anything about the press coverage.</p><p>"I'm really surprised she's done that [talked to a newspaper]," he says rather sadly, looking to his manager for confirmation and support. "The little girl was two months premature. I said I'd try to be there for the birth. You know what, I don't want to talk about that." So she is your daughter?</p><p>"Yeah, she's mine," he says, adding: "We're using the baby's blood in one of the pictures". I'm almost certain he's joking. Almost.</p><p>On Blood: A Portrait of the Artist, Cob Gallery, London NW1 (cobgallery.com/ gutsforgarters.com) 26 February to 4 March</p><p>Some of Mrs Thatcher's iconic outfits of the time are shortly up for sale at Christie's, courtesy of a private collector – God knows how the collector got his or her hands on Mrs Thatcher's best frocks in the first place, but we don't inquire. There is an amazing bright yellow one with an interesting side-button effect, very Chinese empress. There is one in ultramarine with tutti-frutti cuffs. There is a black one with a broad polka-dot lapel, which Mrs T gave a conference speech in – there's a photograph of her with an artfully matching pussy bow.</p><p>Marvellous. All of them British, not a single one of them anything other than massively redolent of a time, and a place, and a social milieu, and an overpowering personality. Interestingly, they used to be described, as Mrs Thatcher described herself, as a size 14. The size 14 of the 1980s, apparently, is the size 10 of today.</p><p>Politicians often struggle quite hard to be identified with a particular item of clothing, or a look, or a prop. Sometimes it happens without them trying (Michael Foot's donkey jacket). There is Harold Wilson's pipe. There was poor John Major's underpants. There is David Cameron's apparent attachment to the Boden dad catalogue.</p><p>Impossible to think of Norman St John Stevas without thinking of monogrammed red velvet house slippers. Sometimes – I know this is a recherché example – the 1990s Tory MP Dame Jill Knight will come into mind for no reason other than the massive herbaceous-border frocks she used to wear in the chamber.</p><p>But nothing comes near the Thatcher look as an embodiment of a political figure, and, actually, of a political creed. It would be absolutely impossible for anyone to put one of these incredible outfits on and then say out loud, "Do you know, I really think the public service needs to be applauded for the way it values consensus in debate." You just could not go on giving free state milk to children with one of those jackets on.</p><p>Mrs Thatcher was not, in fact, averse to discussing the detail of her wardrobe. At one hallucinatory moment in the 1980s, she took part in an Angela Huth documentary for the series Forty Minutes and answered questions about her clothes, including her underwear – she bought it from Marks & Spencer, she said, adding, "Doesn't everybody?"</p><p>The whole period between 1975 and 1990 was rather like that. To look at these beautifully made, highly performative garments is to see the other side of Vivienne Westwood, of Adam Ant's stage costume, of a shouty T-shirt that said FRANKIE SAYS RELAX. As Marie Antoinette could tell you from the other side of the guillotine, political beliefs fade and lose their meaning. But style, carried on with enough conviction, can last for ever.</p><p>Brad the gent</p><p>What a gentleman Bradley Wiggins is, really. Not everyone noticed his exemplary behaviour on winning the Olympic time trial. He was informed that he had the best time, but made no response, even though by then, the subsequent riders could not match his time, indeed had already exceeded it. He only raised his hands in celebration when the last rider had crossed the line.</p><p>This beautiful behaviour was interpreted by the BBC commentator, however, as Mr Wiggins not knowing that he had won, or not being able to believe it, or something. Nothing of the sort. As with the moment in the Tour de France when he slowed down, refusing to take advantage when his rivals suffered punctures from scattered tin-tacks, Mr Wiggins was just behaving with great respect and decency.</p><p>No one these days wants to be considered a gentleman. It hasn't seemed like much of an advantage for decades. But to behave consistently well, like Mr Wiggins, and to do the right thing without being ordered to is the best lesson the Olympics can give us. We're not going to ride as fast as him, but we can all endeavour to raise our manners to the status of ethical principles.</p><p>Must 'Vertigo' look down on the rest?</p><p>Interestingly, the once-a-decade poll of Sight and Sound into the greatest films ever made has moved Hitchcock's Vertigo into the first place, replacing Orson Welles' Citizen Kane. It's curious, however, that this exhaustive poll of the world's critics couldn't find anything later than 2001: A Space Odyssey in their top 10. Have no films scaled the heights since 1968? What about Pulp Fiction? Or anything funny, like Tootsie?</p><p>Well, we all have our personal lists. It's difficult to know, however, whether we are living in a golden age of cinematic archive or not. From one point of view, it is easier than ever to source classic films. You used to have to wait until your local repertory cinema decided to show Last Year at Marienbad. Now you just get it off Amazon.</p><p>On the other hand, those repertory cinemas have now almost all gone, and the curatorial function they performed of introducing people to the classics of the past has disappeared. You are not going to watch Juliet of the Spirits if you've never heard of it. </p><p>But the retro-style photo booth is back in a big way. Standalone cubicles are popping up on streets and in bars in London and beyond. They're also fast becoming a fixture at parties and weddings. "There's been a huge rise in demand," says Seamus Ryan, founder of Boothnation, a photo booth rental company that counts Chanel and Calvin Klein among its clients. "It's spread so much that there is virtually a new photo booth company set up every week."</p><p>Next Saturday sees the world's first photo booth festival, being held off Columbia Road in east London. For £10 you can have unlimited use of more than eight bespoke photo booths including the Warhol-esque Pop Art booth, disco booth and 3D booth.</p><p>Now, of course, most have gone digital so there's no longer any danger of smudging your dewy snaps. The agonising wait for them to develop is over too. "The whole process is a lot quicker so you can have your prints in 20 seconds as opposed to five minutes", says Ryan.</p><p>Photo booths have been capturing stolen kisses and drunken flashes since 1925. What's their enduring appeal? "Because there's a curtain and no photographer, you lose your inhibitions. You can be yourself and therefore the pictures that come out are unique," says Ryan. "What's nice is that it has the same effect on every social class, no matter how wealthy or humble they are. Everyone has the same silly response to a photo booth."</p><p>Alexander McQueen's Sarah Burton said that her show, which buzzed with golden honey bees, was "a celebration of femininity", and that could be a mantra for the season as a whole.</p><p>In place of ephemeral, trend-driven fashion, spring's focus is on character, of putting a look together more than stepping into a single statement piece. The Paris catwalks, still home to the most gifted designers, are the place where individuality shines. And so it did, brightly.</p><p>If there is an overriding mood, it is a minimal one. That could be seen in the pure lines and fondant-bright colours at Hussein Chalayan, in the prevalence of white and in a love affair with the trapeze line given to the world by Yves Saint Laurent but this season all over other designers' runways too.</p><p>Raf Simons's debut ready-to-wear collection for Christian Dior was so full of ideas it was difficult to keep track of them, on the runway at least. Simons paired a fine-gauge knit sweater with an overblown silk skirt, elaborate bell tops with black shorts and veiled black, strapless cocktail dresses to lovely effect. This was a huge collection, most impressive, perhaps, for its diversity: almost every piece told its own story.</p><p>Nicolas Ghesquière's collection for Balenciaga not only upheld the new season's central contradictions – hard and soft, masculine and feminine, black and white, often in a single garment – but also had a humanity to it that was good to see. Models looked as if they'd stepped straight off the street in their own clothes – albeit amazing clothes – wearing tiny golden charms round their neck and rings on every finger. The new so-called "minimal ruffle" (can there be such a thing?) found its spiritual home here – it is, after all, a name famed for architectural rigour. Tailoring – with sharp, laser-cut edges and in double-faced fabrics that stood away from the body – was masterful; the elaboration on dresses extraordinarily complex but never fussy.</p><p>"Crushing. The energy of an explosion," was how Rei Kawakubo summed up her Comme des Garçons collection and, with scrap-metal crowns made of battered upturned paint cans and broken toys, that rang out loud and clear. The clothes began with toiles – pieces of garments in raw-edged calico squashed together to form dresses, tops and skirts: a sweet frilled sleeve here, a ragged shoulder there and the odd padded protuberance. Glittering pale silver and gold followed and finally black, which was where this collection truly sang. Comme des Garçons pretty much invented the non-colour of modern fashion and uses it less these days now that everybody else does. This was a masterclass in invention: brilliant, brave and bold.</p><p>The spirit of punk that swept the London collections was evident in this collection and in Dries Van Noten's show, too. Here arms were stripped off jackets and wadding was on show, the tartan beloved of the movement was cut in finest silk chiffon, and black leather thongs tied the open backs of tops and jackets to suitably déshabillé effect. There were shades of grunge, too, as Dries Van Noten's woman layered a boyfriend sweater over a shirt, over a pair of floral-print sheer trousers, over tailored shorts.</p><p>"Friendship, beauty, support, life" were the words that Phoebe Philo used to describe her collection for Céline, which was her most gentle so far and wonderful for that. Clothing that caressed its wearer was deceptively simple – the low-slung but still hugely elegant proportions are clearly worked on to the nth degree. The pairing of white and ivory shouldn't work but it did. The teaming of sandals that make Birkenstocks look light with coloured mink was equally unexpected: witty and surprisingly pretty. The finest raw-silk dresses were finished with coarse cotton fishnet, the most lightweight pale-gold trench coats were fashionably frayed all to discreetly but extremely desirable effect.</p><p>Next season's Miu Miu girl is equally relaxed and mischievous too, as always. Miuccia Prada's take on film-noir heroine meets nerdy student was as upbeat as it was – for all its maverick playfulness – chic. An exaggerated A-line silhouette was here juxtaposed with a more distressed, narrow one as aged fabrics and skins – including bags – rubbed shoulders with the super-shiny and new. Add to the mix giant fur stoles, long leather gloves and elegant court shoes gorgeous in rose pink… We could all be forgiven for wanting to be this person. Maison Martin Margiela's muse was something of a swot too, with her heavy glasses (sans lenses), jewelled nose clips and in clothes that were ultimately French classic with a huge twist.</p><p>How great to see yet another new lease of life on the Chanel catwalk, where a youthful and fresh play on scale – shoes, bags and pearls were huge, clothes were teeny tiny in places, bell-shaped and swinging on bodies in others – was on show. The Chanel suit, meanwhile, was barely recognisable: bolero jackets, A-line dresses and colours that one might not unreasonably want to eat.</p><p>At Junya Watanabe, the Puma logo appeared on the back of some of the designs – a collaboration, perhaps? No. Watanabe simply acknowledged the fact that he'd borrowed high-performance fabric from the PPR-owned brand. Lucky Puma. This show took sport couture to a new level: bright, clashing colours, T-shirts and trousers with curvilinear go-faster stripes, techno-stretch dresses that made the body-conscious look cool (that's not easy) and spiked, studded silver head pieces all made for a look that the sartorially discerning bright, young thing will love to wear.</p><p>The shadow of Helmut Newton loomed large over collections including Peter Copping's Nina Ricci (black fishnet, zips and underwear as outerwear more dominatrix than David Hamilton in flavour), Givenchy (a lovely juxtaposition between the curve of an oversized frill and a more sharp-edged silhouette) and Lanvin, where a particularly powerful vision of a woman was upheld as Parisian style was duly reinvented. The "underpinnings as outerwear" theme that ran through the aforementioned Burton's collection also nodded to this woman, all while showcasing the fetishistic attention to detail this house is now known for.</p><p>More "butter wouldn't melt" than siren was a perfectly pitched show by the Valentino designers, Pier Paolo Piccioli and Maria Grazia Chiuri, the refinement of which doubtless fills that house's namesake with pride. And finally – fashion heaven courtesy of the Louis Vuitton designer Marc Jacobs. Perfect set, perfect soundtrack and perfect clothes all worn by not-quite-identical twins who were more beautiful than nature ever intended.</p><p>One in four admitted they would break the law for a bargain and in the last year close to one in three adults (29%) came across suspected stolen items for sale at a market, pub (22%) or auction website (21%).</p><p>In a study involving more than 2,000 people, it emerged a growingnumber of burglars were stealing brands to order and using shops and auction websites to sell illegal goods.</p><p>According to the criminologists' research, one in 20 (5%) burglaries committed last year was carried out with the intention of finding a specific brand.</p><p>The research was undertaken by home insurer LV= and involved interviews with burglary victims and convicted thieves.</p><p>It revealed the stealing to order trend has increased in the past five years.</p><p>Apple, Samsung, Sony, Microsoft and Dell items topped the thieves' shopping lists because they could be sold on easily for a largeproportion of the retail price.</p><p>The average going rate on the black market for popular items by these manufacturers are £345 for a stolen iPhone, £210 for an iPad and £160 for a games console - around half the cost of buying them new from an official retailer.</p><p>Government statistics show burglaries increased by 14% last year,from 651,000 to 745,000 in 2011, with victims losing £1,400 worth of belongings on average.</p><p>Small electronic goods are the most commonly stolen items.</p><p>One burglar told researchers: "Almost everyone I know sells moody (stolen) stuff online.</p><p>"Just get a photo from the internet and put it up.</p><p>"Wait till the orders come in and then go out and get it."</p><p>Auction websites have helped expand the marketplace for stolen goods with most of the thieves who took part in the research saying theyused auction websites to sell stolen goods.</p><p>Although most online auction sites have strict rules prohibiting sellers from using them to sell stolen goods, many thieves said they gotround this by having multiple seller identities.</p><p>As well as online auctions, thieves said they took orders from more traditional sources including markets and car boot sales, as well as some convenience stores who take 'under the counter' orders from customers in the know.</p><p>One burglar said he worked with a contact at a phone unlocking stall in a shopping centre who takes orders 'off the street' from willing buyers.</p><p>When selecting properties to target, unsurprisingly burglars targeted easily accessible properties in affluent neighbourhoods.</p><p>Burglars also trawled bins to garner clues from receipts and packaging.</p><p>High value fashion brands were also highly sought.</p><p>Mui Mui and Prada were the most common handbag brands that are ordered, as these can usually be bought for around a third of the cost of buying them new from an official outlet.</p><p>Designer perfumes and toiletries were also highly desirable with thieves mainly seeking out Chanel branded products, which can fetch around 23% of the official retail price.</p><p>Although handling stolen goods can result in a jail term, those who want the latest must-have brands at a fraction of the retail price are driving the trend.</p><p>John O'Roarke, LV= managing director, said: "It is not surprisingthat thieves are focusing on electronic gadgets, which can be easily concealed, transported and quickly sold on.</p><p>"Our own theft claims data shows a shift in recent years from larger electronic goods, such as TVs, to smaller electronic items - although the overall monetary value is the same.</p><p>"Legitimate owners must take care not to fall victim to theft by leaving goods in view from the outside of their home and should take care to dispose of receipts and packaging properly."</p><p>PA</p><p>It is a craft form realised not by superstars. Instead, while it takes a couturier to direct the skills of the petites mains who staff the Paris ateliers, many of whom trained under the likes of Yves Saint Laurent, Coco Chanel and Hubert de Givenchy, it is they who are ultimately responsible for the sheer beauty of the finished garments. When Givenchy retired, he took his final bows alongside them. It was a poignant gesture.</p><p>These people are, usually, French-born and -trained although as the Italian designers behind Givenchy (Riccardo Tisci), Valentino (Pierpaolo Piccioli and Maria Grazia Chiuri) and Versace go to prove, that country has its share too. They study for years, at school and on internships with fashion's great names. They pass their skills down through generations. A younger contingent is growing steadily, meaning the future of what to some is an anachronistic discipline is assured.</p><p>That is a very good thing. We may not all be able to buy haute couture, but that doesn't stop us marvelling at such painstaking and lovingly performed labour.</p><p>The men and women in question, famously, wear little white coats. Once their work is done, it is handled with little white gloves to ensure its immaculate surface is not damaged in any way.</p><p>In a world that seems to speed up by the minute and one dominated by throwaway fashion all too often created in far from ethical conditions, haute couture is at the opposite end of the spectrum. More than anything else, it takes time to create such elaborate garments, and that is perhaps the most precious commodity of them all.</p><p>And that, perhaps, is the reason behind Hedi Slimane's bewildering debut for Yves Saint Laurent – the designer has been working as a photographer since he left Dior Homme in 2007.</p><p>The show itself has since been entirely upstaged by the almighty and very public spat between Slimane and Cathy Horyn of The New York Times. But less of that, please, and more analysis of why the former chose to take a retro route last Monday when the anticipation that sprang up around his appointment in the first place was reliant on his bringing the hard-edged, architectural modernism that we all know he is capable of bringing to this most revered name.</p><p>Slimane could so easily have sent out a small, tight, hard-edged and ice-cool collection based on the narrow and androgynous tailoring that he was always known for – the Le Smoking tuxedo remains the most famous Saint Laurent signature and if anyone can reinvent that, then he can. But he chose instead to follow a warmer route and to reference Saint Laurent in his absolute heyday – the late Sixties/early Seventies – which, given Slimane's fascination with music, and rock stars' wives, is heartfelt, and I like that.</p><p>I would also be more than happy to wear the shrunken jackets and skinny jeans he sent out for spring/summer 2013: however scathing the reviews, I'd be prepared to place bets that I'm not the only one where that is concerned.</p><p>It is unfortunate, given the open-door policy today adopted by houses as successful as Prada, Chanel, Louis Vuitton and now Dior – all direct competitors – that the powers that be at Yves Saint Laurent were so fiercely elitist and controlling with regard to everything from seating arrangements at the show to the publication of portraits of Slimane himself. It served only to raise the bar and nothing short of perfection would have made this degree of antipathy towards people who are, in the end, trying only to do their jobs, acceptable.</p><p>Here's hoping, though, that what appears to be arrogance is more a case of new-boy jitters. I say: give the man a chance.</p><p>If you're going to wear a train, at least do so with conviction: there's enough fabric on display here to upholster an entire bungalow in Hendon. Perhaps for that reason Fan Bing Bing looks very proud of herself in her strapless, corseted curtain. Do you think there might be someone curled up asleep in there?</p><p>Tilda Swinton</p><p>Beautiful, golden Tilda Swinton is probably the only woman on the red-carpet circuit who dares to wear fashion as it appears on the runway. And she looks all the more brilliant for that. This is designed by her friend, Haider Ackermann. She sat next to him front row at the Chanel show at Versailles earlier this week and he's quite lovely, too.</p><p>Barrie Knitwear, part of the collapsed Dawson International, is expected to be sold back to its management in a deal valuing the Hawick-based business at between £3m and £5m within a fortnight.</p><p>The management bid – led by Jim Carrie and Clive Brown, who have backing from an Edinburgh-based businessman – became favourites following the collapse of previous sales talks last month.</p><p>The company behind the US menswear chain Brooks Brothers – Italy's Claudio Del Vecchio's Retail Brand Alliance – had been in talks to buy the brand. The administrator, KPMG, had also held talks with US retailers, including the department store group Nordstrom, who had also been a customer, but these talks came to nothing.</p><p>Blair Nimmo, the head of restructuring at KPMG and joint administrator of Dawson International, would not comment on the identity of the new bidder but said: "Since our appointment as administrators we have worked hard to achieve a successful sale of the business. The sales process has taken a little longer than originally expected, which is due to the late withdrawal of the initial preferred bidder." </p><p>"We are pleased to report that we are now in advanced discussions with a new preferred bidder."</p><p>Dawson, which was listed on the Alternative Investment Market, collapsed into administration in August due to huge pension deficits thought to be in excess of £50m.</p><p>Supplying Chanel with cashmere makes up around 60 per cent of Barrie Knitwear's business. Chanel owed £800,000 at the time of Dawson's collapse and it is thought the French luxury goods company has played a close part in working with Barrie's management to secure a bid to rescue the business.</p><p>In the year to the end of March, Dawson turned over £9.7m, earning profits of £1.1m and had employed 180 people. </p><p>A lifelong horserider from the Chilterns, the 56-year-old housewife does not venture into the capital often. But, along with others wandering Greenwich Park yesterday lunchtime in a terribly genteel cavalcade of Hunter wellies and Chanel scarves, it was the turn of the countryside (or at least the posher end of it) to revel in a spot of Olympian elation.</p><p>Clutching her Union Flag, Mrs Ball said: "Simply wonderful. I could barely look as Tina approached the final fences. It is lovely our sport can make its contribution. I was mucking out 48 hours ago. Now I'm looking at the Thames, celebrating a silver medal."</p><p>Of course, notwithstanding the presence of HRHs William, Kate and Harry to cheer on Team GB royal Zara Phillips, the tweed-wearing Establishment did not have a monopoly on the jubilations on the Meridian.</p><p>For every perfect fedora at the equestrian venue, there was (whisper it so the Olympic brand watchdogs do not hear) a wonky Nike baseball cap and for every pair of jodpurs, a distinctly urban pair of rapper's jeans.</p><p>The resulting effect was something of a cross between the V Festival and Badminton, only with less mud and more smoked salmon and prawn sandwiches (the unchallenged best seller on the seafood stall).</p><p>As one ruddy-cheeked denizen of the shires, his leather wellies hitched up to his knees, put it: "It's all rather jolly, don't you think? Great atmosphere. Even the wine is passable."</p><p>The day had begun with hopes high that Britain could secure its first gold in equestrian eventing in 40 years after two days of dressage and treacherous charging around a London park in the cross-country. It reached its crescendo just after 1pm when mother-of-two Cook's final round, with a single penalty point, narrowly secured second place ahead of New Zealand.</p><p>It is a quirk of equestrianism that it is the team with the lowest score that triumphs. And in the end no one had a lower score than Germany, whose team, despite their last rider knocking down two fences on the final round to gasps of "ye-sss" from the less well-mannered end of the home crowd, finished with 133.7 points, comfortably ahead to Britain's 138.2. Not even the 12 fences designed to evoke Britishness, from a Cutty Sark and a montage of Trafalgar Square to Stonehenge, could deter a Teutonic triumph.</p><p>Overseers of equestrianism bridled, appropriately, at suggestions that their sport, with its thoroughbred steeds and followers, might be a touch elitist compared to, say, BMX or boxing.</p><p>A spokeswoman for British Eventing said: "We are the ultimate equestrian challenge; a healthy outdoor sport, where women and men of all ages compete on an even playing field. Thousands of volunteers and spectators support the sport at fantastic rural locations every weekend."</p><p>In the end, as Cook and 51-year-old colleague Mary King failed to push home their medal claims in the individual competition, it came down to the British team's unquestionably poshest Posh Bird to provide the common touch. Or, more to the point, her husband.</p><p>Rugby playing bad boy Mike Tindall, there to support his wife Zara Phillips, was asked what his thoughts had been as she completed her final round, in which she clipped down two fences.</p><p>Tindall replied using a robust four-letter Anglo-Saxon term unlikely to be deployed when he's in the presence of his wife's grandmother, before adding: "You always get little uptight. You want her to do well. And it ended up a really happy afternoon."</p><p>Meanwhile, the Queen's granddaughter, who expelled doubts about the merit of her own selection by scoring a perfect round to finish eighth overall in the individual event, showed how to deal with oiks unaware of equestrian etiquette.</p><p>When asked by persistent press photographers to pose while embracing her husband, she replied: "We already did. You missed it."</p><p> </p><p> </p><br><br><p>Age and experience need not be a barrier to Olympic glory</p><p>Amid the parade of gilded youth, it is easy to forget that experience also counts for something when it comes to sporting endeavour, writes Cahal Milmo. None are more experienced than Hiroshi Hoketsu, who at 71 is the oldest competitor at London 2012.</p><p>He and his horse, Whisper, take part in the individual dressage this week. Hoketsu, who competed in his first Olympics in Tokyo in 1964, leads the senior competitors who include fellow equestrian Ian Millar, 65, of Canada, who will break the record for most Olympic appearances by taking part in his 10th Games in London. The rower Greg Searle, a nipper at 40, won gold in Barcelona 20 years ago and has come out of retirement to compete in the men's eight final today.</p><p>Japan's Hoketsu, who looks 20 years younger than his age, swats aside questions about his advancing years. He said: "I don't know how you're supposed to feel at 71. I'm the same physique as I was at university. There's no special secret. I used to get up at 5am, go riding, go home and leave for the office for 30 years. Now I sleep until 7am. Luxury."</p><p>Saving the best till last is also something of a sporting tradition. Briton Mary King, who at 51 won a silver yesterday in her sixth Games, will, by Hoketsu's standards, have at least four more Games in which to improve that tally. But Hoketsu will not overtake the world's oldest Olympian, Sweden's Oscar Swahn, who was 72 when he competed in shooting in 1920. He has ruled himself out of the Rio 2016 Olympics because although he feels up to it, he worries that his horse will be too old at 19.</p><p>From the outer limits of probability Europe conjured the magic number 14 to retain the Ryder Cup. The impulse is to write that twice to make doubly sure. All around Medinah folk of a European persuasion were asking how this could happen. Perhaps the answer was tattooed across the sky. Midway through the afternoon “Spirit of Seve” appeared overhead in tiny puffs of cloud. It became possible to believe as Europe's heroic top order came in one after another in a blaze of scoreboard blue that the great man was indeed pulling celestial strings. First, Luke Donald then in quick succession Paul Lawrie, Rory McIlroy, Ian Poulter and Justin Rose impaled the American foe to bring Europe level in this incredible contest.</p><p>At 11 apiece a triumph that at the start of play had looked beyond Europe's battered golfers was suddenly, tantalisingly within their grasp. Lee Westwood made it 12 points and Sergio Garcia came from behind to beat Jim Furyk at the last. Garcia pointed to his left sleeve, where the players wore a tribute to Seve Ballesteros, feeling certain that the father of the European Ryder Cup team had his hand on the rudder of fate. Jose Maria Olazabal, the Europe captain, dared not look. It came down to the last two matches, Martin Kaymer versus Steve Stricker and Francesco Molinari against Tiger Woods.</p><p>Kaymer needed a half at the last to secure the winning point, and spare Molinari, who had fallen one behind at the 17th . Easier said than done after finding sand off the tee. Stricker was feeding off adrenalin, too, and from the middle of the fairway could get no closer than 20 yards. His birdie putt sailed 12 feet past. Kaymer followed him past the hole leaving him an eight-footer to retain the cup for Europe. It never looked like missing. Cue delirium.</p><p>Europe were required to overturn history as well as a four-point deficit. Only eight times in 38 previous meetings had this team, firstly as Great Britain and Ireland and subsequently Europe, prevailed in mano a mano combat on the last day. The degree of difficulty simplified the challenge. It was win or bust straight out of the box. Olazabal top-loaded his line-up sending out his four best players in a high-risk strategy to put points on the board. No one could argue with that.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>As much as they tried to guard against complacency, the American team betrayed a sense of comfort in their easy deportment at the start of play. Vice-captain Freddie Couples was bouncing around the first tee like a puppy, conducting the bonding session with the American supporters boxed behind the tee. Most of the seating had been taken three hours before the whistle went. As many as 40,000 were expected through the gate. There was the inevitable communion with America's mascot-in-chief Michael Jordan, who resembled a tower block with a coat on so much did his impressive physicality dominate the setting.</p><p>Europe responded with subtelty in the shape of Pep Guardiola. The former Barcelona coach was in the house with his wife and two children.</p><p>Keegan Bradley has been the screaming face of American endeavour. In deed and mood he had set the agenda over the opening two days. Hitherto unanswerable, the singles pairings threw McIlroy his way. At least it would do eventually.</p><p>Between them Captain Olazabal and his four lieutenants left their prize asset in bed. This was the morning when everything had to run like clockwork, no mistakes, everyone on his game. While preparations were under way at the course McIlroy was watching from his hotel room believing his tee time was an hour away. The Golf Chanel clock ticks on Eastern time. McIlroy was on Central time, an hour back. Oops.</p><p>While Bradley was sprinting around the tee box, working the crowd with his Arnold Schwartzenegger impressions, his opponent was speeding to Medinah via police escort. With less than 10 minutes to his tee time, McIlroy bolted from the front passenger seat to the putting green. No time to loosen up on the range. A quick swig from a water bottle and a munch on an energy bar and McIlroy was on the gantry making his way from the putting green to the tee.</p><p>This insane development with Europe in the midden bettered any of the cock-ups fashioned by Sir Nick Faldo at Valhalla four years ago. Never mind. Donald was out first after returning a point in the gloaming alongside Sergio Garcia on Saturday night.</p><p>Ranged against him was Bubba Watson on a course that was made to measure for the long-hitting Masters champion. He hadn't reckoned with Donald's surgical precision, silencing his noisy assailants in the stands, who taunted him over his majorless state. Donald had the major winner at four-down before prevailing at the penultimate hole to claim the first point of the day for Europe and reduce the deficit to three.</p><p>That would soon come down to two courtesy of the brutally efficient dispatch of Brandt Snedeker by Lawrie. Up ahead Europe's go-to sorcerer, Ian Poulter, was locked in a tense duel with Webb Simpson. Poulter was understandably slow to rise after the intensity of the previous day and fell two behind at the fourth and again at the sixth, but he was all square at the 12th and fully engaged once more.</p><p>They came to the par-three 17th locked together but when Simpson found sand off the tee the initiative passed to Poulter at the last. It proved to be the point that tied the teams after McIlroy speared Bradley at the 17th. Having overslept at the PGA and won by eight, McIlroy was not overly concerned. He led from the fourth hole, and though pegged back briefly at the 12th, hit the accelerator with birdies at 14 and 15 and won it at the penultimate hole. Golf, bloody hell.</p><p>It doesn’t disappoint: airy, spacious and packed to the rafters with the most sought-after labels, the second floor has been transformed. Eight boutiques – Chanel, Dries Van Noten, Balenciaga and Lanvin among them – surround a central space representing some of the more avant-garde names, such as Maison Martin Margiela, Ann Demeulemeester and Junya Watanabe.</p><p>From today, the Designer Galleries play host to an exhibition of digital installations from some of the designers whose wares are stocked there. Comme des Garçons, Rick Owens, Alexander McQueen and many more have created unique videos of their spring 2012 collections which will be screened in the area, to better reflect their clothes in motion, and to explain some of the references and inspirations behind them.</p><p>“The brief to the designers was very open,” explains the store’s creative director, Alannah Weston. “The only stipulation was that there was a strong female character at the centre of each film.”</p><p>“The space isn’t just intended for shoppers,” explains award-winning set designer Simon Costin, who has worked on creating an environment for the films, using giants beds and sofas. “Any member of the public can come in and see the films. We hope people will come away having seen a familiar medium used in a new and surprising way. The films are really beautiful, and use the notion of fashion in an unexpected way.”</p><p>Overall, the department aims to provide a more personalised and individual service, allowing customers to opt into text and email confirmations of when their favourite labels arrive, and with the addition of an on-site tailoring service to ensure garments fit perfectly, there and then.</p><p>“We know that our customers are sophisticated, global trend-makers,” says Ms Weston. “And we look forward to presenting beautiful designer pieces, including some exclusive looks, in a serene and elegant environment.”</p><p>The videos are part of a digital push across the floor, which features an ultra-high-tech fitting room equipped with an interactive mirror that can take photographs and record short videos of customers, which they are then able to email to friends and loved ones to get second opinions – or to themselves, simply to savour the moment they tried on the dress of their dreams.</p><p>While the sweeping statement in question is not strictly speaking true, as Queen Victoria, not to mention the grandees of the 17th-century Spanish court, might have argued, it is certainly impressive and they were long gone by the time she laid claim to it. Luckily, Chanel is referring specifically, of course, to the little black dress, launched in 1926 and designed to be worn at times other than during a period of mourning or indeed when swanning around Barcelona circa 1620. The couturier, who favoured neutrals throughout her career personally and professionally, did make black the fashionable colour to see and be seen in at all times – from day to evening and dressed up or down, depending on the taste of its wearer.</p><p>Black is also the starting point of the company's new fragrance, Coco Noir. It is integral to the spectacular success of this, the mother of all French status labels, that all elements – from perfume to nail polish and, of course, any clothes – spring from the biography of the founder, however laterally. Coco Noir comes in a signature perfectly simple square bottle with rounded, faceted edges – only jet and opaque as opposed to crystal clear like the iconic design for Chanel No 5, known not only for its beauty but also its radical simplicity. The gold details discreetly in evidence on the Coco Noir bottle, meanwhile, refers to Mademoiselle's fascination with the Byzantine and the Baroque and, specifically, her love of Venice: she first visited the city in 1920 to promote her beach pyjamas and generally soak up inspiration. That city was then still the principal gateway between East and West and the experience of going there lent her aesthetic a darker, richer and more elaborate style. Chanel met many of the people with whom she would collaborate in Venice, including Serge Diaghilev, the founder of the Ballets Russes, and the illustrator Christian Bérard. If every fragrance begins with a story, then this is both a precious and romantic one.</p><p>The juice itself, created by Jacques Polge, the Chanel master perfumer since 1979, is rooted in similar concerns. As individual as a fragrance may be, Polge argues, it can "only exist because of those that came before it". Coco – debatably Coco Noir's exotic predecessor – was launched at the haute couture collections in July 1984 at the Paris Opera, where the scent of it filled the air. At its heart are spices, evocative of the Orient and the Coromandel screens that filled Chanel's Paris apartment. The original Coco is also distinguished by its floral-amber accord. Coco Mademoiselle followed in 2001, a fresher and lighter fragrance further infused with jasmine and rose. For its part, Coco Noir is based around sandalwood, vetiver, frankincense, patchouli, vanilla, tonka bean and white musk. It is a rich and complicated scent described by its maker as "a great nocturnal Baroque", poetically enough. Nonetheless – and this perhaps is key to all Polge's work – a lightness prevails thanks maybe to top notes of grapefruit and Calabrian bergamot, rose absolute, narcissus, jasmine, pink peppercorns and rose geranium leaf.</p><p>It is not every day that Chanel launches a new fragrance. Unlike many of fashion's big names that may now produce upwards of four new scents a year, the company affords Polge the luxury of time. Then there is the not-so-small matter of the unparalleled creative freedom he enjoys. And it shows: Coco Noir is the latest in a long line of olfactory endeavours that will serve to cement the reputation of French fashion's most spectacularly successful and magical name.</p><p>More Scents of Success</p><p>No 5</p><p>Created by Ernest Beaux in 1921 and with Chanel's star in the ascendant, it is said that, almost a century on, a bottle is still sold somewhere in the world every minute. It is the most successful and enduring fragrance in history. Essentially a rose-jasmine accord, it was revolutionary in the first instance for its inclusion of aldehydes, powerful-but-unstable synthetic molecules that enhance aromatic scents. At the time, the fragrance industry was characterised by one-note floral perfumes. No 5 is a far more complex creature and one that changed the face of fragrance for all time. In fact, No 22 was introduced at the same time. Then Beaux came up with Bois des Iles, a woody chypre and Cuir de Russie, a precursor to androgynous fragrances.</p><p>No 19</p><p>Beaux was succeeded in 1954 by Henri Robert, whose first launch was Pour Monsieur, the only men's fragrance introduced during Chanel's lifetime. It wasn't until 1970 that No 19 was born, commemorating Chanel's birthday – 19 August. It is a powerful rose-iris that is as beautiful as it is daringly confrontational. Last year, Jacques Polge reinterpreted the scent with the launch of 19 Poudre, a softer variation but unmistakeably an elegant and acquired taste nonetheless.</p><p>Cristalle</p><p>In 1974, Robert also created Cristalle, a summery scent that is very much a reflection of sparkling times. This time, citrus-based – Sicilian lemon and Calabrian mandarin to be precise – Cristalle was also created with Coco Chanel's life in mind and her life on the beach in Deauville, Biarritz, in particular. A newer version of the scent, Eau Verte, was issued in 2009.</p><p>Antaeus</p><p>Jacques Polge took over Chanel's fragrance division in 1979 both to create new fragrances and add new formulas to existing classics, in particular to develop Chanel's eaux de parfum – headier than eau de toilette but lighter than pure perfume. His first new launch was a men's fragrance, Antaeus, created in 1981. This is a woody, leathery scent and one this time inspired by the love of Coco Chanel's life, Boy Capel.</p><p>Chance</p><p>In 2003 Polge came up with Chanel's most youthful fragrance, which is a floral oriental following in the footsteps of Coco Mademoiselle, Chance. Its difference is immediately apparent from the sobriety of the brand's perfumes in general: the juice is a pretty pink and the bottle round.</p><p>Les Exclusifs</p><p>In 2007, Polge excelled himself with Les Exclusifs. Initially released as a series of 10 new fragrances, but still growing, they are more expensive than the company's other perfumes and available only from Chanel's boutiques and website. Karl Lagerfeld favours the Eau de Cologne from this range. No 22 is the brilliantly abstract reworking of the original. Since the launch, Polge has added new perfumes to Les Exclusifs, most recently, Jersey – inspired by Coco Chanel's use of that fabric, once the preserve of men's underwear but famously incorporated into her designs.</p><p>Photographs: Andrew Leo</p><p>Model: Zhulin at IMG</p><p>Hair and make-up: Krystle G using Chanel S 2012 and Hydra beauty Serum</p><p>Photographer's assistant: Chloe Coates</p><p>Stylist's assistant: Magda Bryk</p><p>Location courtesy of the Barbican Centre; </p><p>But these were no ordinary robberies. Prugo is charged with breaking into the homes of a series of celebrities including Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and Orlando Bloom. Last month he took the stand offering a deal whereby in return for testifying against his alleged partners in crime – Courtney Ames, Roy Lopez and Diana Tamayo – all but two of the charges would be dropped. If grassing on his former friends proves successful, Prugo could be looking at a sentence of just two years. He is due back in court next month for the verdict.</p><p>Prugo's hearing is the latest instalment in a saga that has dominated America's gossip pages since he was first arrested back in September 2009. Prugo is a member of the 'bling ring' – a group of affluent, club-hopping, (mostly) teenage Valley kids who, motivated by a warped obsession with celebrity, proved to be one of the most precocious burglary gangs in Hollywood history. They used Twitter to track when their targets were out, Google Earth to work their way into their mansions, and came away with a haul worth more than $3m. It's a story so perfectly of the moment it's as if it were lifted straight from the pages of a movie script.</p><p>Now Sofia Coppola, who came from Hollywood 'royalty' and has long been preoccupied with the vacuous nature of celebrity, has started making the movie. Shooting began in March (with Emma Watson as lead) and it looks as if the f film will be out even before the final few perpetrators have been sentenced for their crimes.</p><p>"Nick is feeling very despondent right now," says Prugo's lawyer, Markus Dombois. "He is physically very small and slight and is going to find jail difficult. I'm concerned for his safety. He was never the ringleader in all this. He's not completely without blame but he was like the little brother tagging along, he did it out of infatuation. He doesn't have a problem testifying against these people. At first they were his friends but now he realises how morally bankrupt they are."</p><p>The bling ring spree started towards the end of 2008 at the $4m Hollywood Hills mansion belonging to Paris Hilton. Initially, the perpetrators consisted solely of Prugo and his friend Rachel Lee, a classmate from Indian Hills high school in a wealthy Los Angeles suburb. They met when Prugo transferred there after being kicked out of his previous school for non-attendance. Lee was outgoing and popular – recipient of the highly coveted 'best dressed' award in the 2007 Indian Hills Year Book. By contrast, Prugo was quiet and awkward. She took him under her wing and the pair quickly became inseparable.</p><p>"In a platonic sort of a way Nick was in love with Rachel," says writer Nancy Jo Sales, who was one of the first to pick up on the story and is now a consultant on Coppola's movie. "He was a shy, troubled guy who followed this alpha female around. She kind of got him to do her bidding."</p><p>Prugo says they decided to target Hilton's place because they figured she was "dumb". The pair arrived at her mansion nervous and under the cover of darkness to find she had gone out leaving the key under the mat and both the door and her safe unlocked. "They found cocaine lying out on the bed and jewellery all around the place," says Dombois. "It was like stepping into a store on Rodeo Drive when the owners were out."</p><p>At first they were discreet. When Hilton returned she didn't even notice she had been broken into. But it didn't take long before things escalated. Lee started carrying around Hilton's door key, like a trophy, on her own key chain. She began bragging about their deeds to friends and the ranks of the bling ring swelled to around six. And it was Lee who introduced the bling ring break-in rallying cry of, "Let's go shopping".</p><p>"It became like a party atmosphere and Lee kept getting more people involved," says Sales. "I think they may have all had different motivations but certainly the designer labels were the main draw. They were totally obsessed with luxury brand names like Chanel and Prada. Nick told me that when they went into these starlets' houses they were just so shocked at the amount of clothes they would have – bags and bags of things that hadn't even been opened. I think that they idolised these people but at the same time there seemed to be a weird resentment, too – a feeling of you've got way more than you need so I'll take them from you. It was a great thrill. There was a feeling of power. They would go out wearing these clothes and joyriding around LA."</p><p>As time went on, their deeds began to buy them access to the celebrity world they so coveted. Adorned in their pilfered luxury labels and buoyed by their increasing sense of notoriety, they started getting into fashionable clubs such as Les f Deux and Miyagi's bar on Sunset Boulevard, where LA wannabes would gather in the car park after hours. They started hanging out with celebrities and, rumour has it, one of the bling ring even started a dalliance with a famous actor. For a while it looked as if their crimes were beginning to pay.</p><p>But it wasn't long before the net started to close. On Oscar night 2009, while she was out working the red carpet, they robbed the home of Audrina Partridge, star of The Hills, a faux-reality show, ironically also about the lives of a group of pampered LA fashionistas. "I watched the security video," said an incredulous Partridge, "expecting to see these big scary guys, but instead it was these kids." The bling ring made off with $43,000 worth of her possessions including a laptop, jewellery and jeans, which Partridge said, "were made to fit my body to my perfect shape". She posted the surveillance video straight on to her website.</p><p>Then, after being burgled four more times, Hilton finally woke up to what was going on – only after one bling ringer, Roy Lopez, allegedly helped himself to more than $1m-worth of her jewellery, stuffed into a Louis Vuitton tote bag. Another big haul was found in the house of Orlando Bloom when, joined by Indian Hills classmate Alexis Neiers, they came away with a Rolex watch collection as well as artworks totalling nearly half a million dollars. "Lee was moving to Las Vegas," explains Dombois, "and she fancied some artwork to furnish her new place."</p><p>The final straw came when they broke into Lindsay Lohan's place. According to Prugo, Lohan was Lee's fashion icon and her ultimate celebrity prize and she made the journey from her new home in Vegas specially to do it. The resulting surveillance shots, showing them casually stuffing their bags, picks out their faces as clear as daylight.</p><p>"The security videos are amazing," says Sales, "Nick always looked very jumpy and scared, but Rachel was so blasé that at one point she went to the toilet and had a bowel movement. Can you imagine doing that in the middle of robbing someone's house? It's mind-blowing."</p><p>But by this stage the videos hardly mattered as the bling ring's bragging had seen to it that the police had already received numerous tip-offs. Detectives simply used Facebook to work out who was friends with who, to put together the final pieces of the puzzle. One by one, at the tail-end of 2009, the members of the bling ring were arrested.</p><p>"It's one of those cases that defines a moment in terms of youth culture and media culture," says Sales. "Some of the attitudes of those kids were really unpleasant and disturbing and it holds up a mirror to things we are witnessing in American youth culture right now – the obsession with celebrity and the obsession with fame. Unfortunately, there is just no shame any more. The only currency is fame itself."</p><p>What it also demonstrates is the level of confusion we have now reached between celebrity and non-celebrity – and in turn, reality and non-reality. "The other striking thing it shows is how the wall between celebrities and ordinary people has completely broken down," continues Sales. "It's absolutely permeable now. You have celebrities acting like real people – making themselves all the more available and accessible all of the time. And you have real people acting more and more like celebrities by having reality shows and tweeting to their followers. There used to be a sense that Hollywood celebrities were god-like creatures who rarely came down from the mountain and mingled with the common folk. Now it's completely blurred."</p><p>Dombois agrees. "I think these kids felt the people they were robbing weren't actually real people – because they were celebrities. And I also think they felt they were vicariously participating in the whole celebrity lifestyle," he says. "In LA today, for some people, attention and fame is worth much more than any amount of money could ever be. I think that may be what has happened here."</p><p>Tellingly, when the bling ring's activities were reaching a crescendo, Alexis Neiers, then aged 18, who describes herself as a hip-hop and pole dancing teacher, was actually shooting a pilot for her own reality show. The original intention was that it should be yet another programme about a Hollywood party girl but, no doubt, to the glee of the producers, it quickly morphed into the story of her battle to stay out of prison.</p><p>The show, entitled Pretty Wild, was commissioned immediately and premiered on E! in March 2010. Neiers's court hearing duly turned into a media circus. She chose her outfit carefully, had her make-up touched up on the court bench and coyly pleaded no contest to felony burglary. She was sentenced to six months and ordered to stay clear of Orlando Bloom's home. In the event she was out in just 30 days, which fitted in perfectly with filming schedules. The show was never commissioned for a second series.</p><p>"Neiers was only being filmed for a pilot that might or might not happen," says Sales. "Then she got a reality show because of the burglary and then she actually does become famous. It's like the dog eating its own tail."</p><p>It's also worth pointing out that the very celebrities that the bling ring so admired – Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan – had themselves been regularly waltzing in and out of jail (Lohan five times in as many years). These days, when Lohan has a court appearance, the attention it attracts is far greater than anything she commits to celluloid – as if the courthouse steps have superseded the red carpet in a twisted new pecking order. And, as if the story couldn't turn any more in on itself, Neiers actually found herself, for one night, in a cell right next to Lohan. "It was insane," she told Extra, the American celebrity news show. "It was mayhem. They put us on lockdown all day. I got the feeling the girls were actually excited. They were screaming 'I love you Lindsay, I want to be your girlfriend'."</p><p>Inevitably, all the members of the bling ring ended up, with help from expensive lawyers, fighting their corners and pointing fingers. Lee is currently doing four years in Valley State Prison for Women in Chowchilla, central California. "The last two years of my life have changed me from an irresponsible and childish drug and alcohol addict towards becoming a responsible adult," she wrote in a letter to LA Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler before being sentenced. "I was really messed up from so much substance abuse as well as poor choices of friends."</p><p>Out of all of them, Prugo seems to have suffered the most. After his arrest he said he was finding it difficult to breathe, sleep and eat. "I was even losing my hair," he says. And in his naivety, after his arrest, he confessed to crimes that the police had no idea he had committed.</p><p>Despite her guilty verdict, Neiers still flatly denies everything. "Eventually my story will come out," she said, doing the rounds on yet another chat show. "I witnessed a robbery. I didn't know whose house it was at the time until I woke up one morning with cops all round my house. It was devastating. I did make a bad choice of friends and I was out drinking that night and got taken to a very bad place. I already had a career going, I had goals, I had a show. Why would I do something like that?"</p><p>As her 'celebrity' career limps on, it's a denial that betrays a distinct lack of remorse. "Aside from perhaps Prugo, I just don't think they had any sense of consequence whatsoever," says Sales. "I think it's a hangover from the Bush era – when there was very much a feeling of no consequence. These kids did not seem to have any notion that there would be any outcome to their actions. They were so reckless and so utterly blasé about committing very serious crimes."</p><p>And still the bling ring controversy goes on, as it turns out Coppola, again blurring the lines between fact and fiction, has employed some of the perpetrators in the making of her movie. Dombois says that Prugo was offered $20,000 to consult on the movie but turned it down because he did not want to appear to profit from the case. Neiers, meanwhile, signed up immediately.</p><p>"The bottom line is that Sofia Coppola was going to make this movie with or without my help," she says, "so why not give input and help her to make it a little more accurate?" Also, she says, the pay cheque proved particularly helpful as her 22-year-old 'sister' Tess Taylor (not a birth sister, but a friend who had grown up living with her) was in the throes of heroin addiction and the money earnt would pay her way through Pasadena Recovery Centre.</p><p>The detective who led the investigation, Brett Goodkin of the Los Angeles Police Department, has also been employed by Coppola to play himself in the film. With three defendants still possibly facing trial, he has been accused of jeopardising their cases. "It's very generic cop kind of stuff," he said in his defence. "It's not like I'm Bruce Willis." Meanwhile, David Diamond, the lawyer for the bling ring defendant Roy Lopez, has just subpoenaed Coppola to have access to the entire payroll so he can see exactly who has been paid and for what. The story looks set to rumble on and on through the courts.</p><p>"It's a fascinating case which is why Coppola is making a movie out of it," concludes Dombois. "People may be saying these people are losers and criminals, why would you glorify them, but it's a societal and cultural phenomena and that's why it's of such interest. And why is Coppola making the movie right now? It's all about money – you've got to hit while it's hot. You've got to remember, we're talking about America here."</p><p>THE DIRTY HALF-DOZEN</p><p>Nick Prugo</p><p>Twenty-one-year-old Prugo was a founder member of the bling ring. He was on prescription drugs for ADHD. Prugo would surf the internet to establish the target's itinerary and address.</p><p>Rachel Lee</p><p>Lee had a tricky relationship with her mother and stepfather and moved to Las Vegas not long before the break-in at Lindsay Lohan's house. Her Audi A4 was used as the getaway car.</p><p>Alexis Neiers</p><p>Neiers claimed to be so inebriated on the night of the break-in at Orlando Bloom's house that she had no idea what happened. She was found guilty and served 30 days.</p><p>Courtney Ames</p><p>Ames, another student at Indian Hills, had been a good friend of Lee's since 8th grade. The LAPD has pictures of her at Les Deux nightclub wearing a Diane von Furstenberg leather jacket allegedly belonging to Paris Hilton.</p><p>Roy Lopez</p><p>Lopez, a bouncer and the oldest of the group, at 27, was charged with one count of residential burglary of Paris Hilton's home and allegedly stole up to $2m of her jewellery.</p><p>Diana Tamayo</p><p>Student president who was voted as having the 'best smile', Tamayo reportedly once aided the burglary operation by crawling into a target's home through a cat flap.</p><p>LENA CORNER</p><p>£1,415, brownsfashion.com</p><p>After the success of the label’s PS1 satchel schoolbag, the PS11 takes Proenza Schouler’s accessories into more grown-up territory: it’s modern and minimal, roomy and tough, and the colour will keep even the most fashionable shopper happy.</p><p>2. Prada</p><p>£1,500, Prada.com</p><p>In the show, this appliqué leather bag was carried alongside all manner of clashing prints – you don’t need to do this, as it makes quite the statement on its own. A bit Seventies, rather nostalgic and uniquely strange, this number has Prada written all over it. Not literally – they’re flowers.</p><p>3. Chanel</p><p>£1,830, 020 7493 5040</p><p>Chanel’s Boy bag is named after Mademoiselle’s great love, Boy Capel, and is a new take on the classic Chanel quilted bag. This versatile version has more of a gothic flavour, which will fit in perfectly with autumn’s dark romantic trend.</p><p>4. Gucci</p><p>£1,760, gucci.com</p><p>Forget what you think you know about velvet – Gucci’s Frida Giannini has reinvigorated it with a gothic equestrian feel. The gold hardware forms part of the brand’s signature, while the panelling feels new and modern but isn’t about to date any time soon, either.</p><p>5. Miu Miu</p><p>£1,195, miumiu.com</p><p>At Miu Miu this season, the doctor’s bag is a key accessory. This tan leather version is less traditional, with its double clasps, but feels all the more special for it. The classic, warm and natural tone will go well with everything else in your wardrobe too.</p><p>6. Alaia</p><p>£1,400, net-a-porter</p><p>Make the ultimate understated statement with this perforated leather tote bag by fashion’s demigod Azzedine Alaia. It’s chic, classically elegant and spacious – and will only look better with age.</p><p>7. Louis Vuitton</p><p>£2,510, louisvuitton.com</p><p>We know we’ve been banging on about this North South tote from Louis Vuitton, but it truly is something to behold. The luxury label’s classic monogram print is picked out in twinkly paillettes on felt and will add a bit of sparkle to your routine.</p><p>8. Dolce & Gabbana</p><p>£1,810, 020 7659 9000</p><p>This season, the classic Dolce & Gabbana shape gets a baroque tapestry update – two of the biggest trends of the new season – and features one of the Italian duo’s favourite things: gold. It might look like something your nana did in front of the telly, but this ladylike bag is pure luxury.</p><p>9. Celine</p><p>£1,195, celine.com</p><p>If you don’t already own a floppy, over-sized clutch bag, where have you been? This fold-over version from one of Paris’s most desirable labels is one of the best around, showcasing all the sleek hallmarks of designer Phoebe Philo’s minimal style. And you can fit everything you need in it without too much trouble.</p><p>10. Marni</p><p>£250, net-a-porter.com</p><p>Is it a bag or is it Puffa jacket? Marni’s utilitarian and sporty shopper is like carrying a lightweight sleeping bag on one arm, and if you don’t want to add bulk to your body with the Puffa trend this autumn, why not try it out with accessories instead?.</p><p>2. Ladylike tote in tan</p><p>£36, warehouse.co.uk</p><p>Get the ladylike look in the bag (geddit?). This feminine option is structured and of medium size, with a tote handle as well as a long shoulder strap.</p><p>3. Black and cream shopper</p><p>£79, marksandspencer.com</p><p>From M&S's premium Autograph line, this cream and black shopper is made of high-quality leather. The unfussy aesthetic of the shopper is becoming increasingly popular.</p><p>4. Orange satchel</p><p>£199, hobbs.co.uk</p><p>If you're looking for a bag that is the height of style, then this good-quality leather version ticks all the right boxes. It comes with a detachable shoulder strap.</p><p>5. Black sturdy</p><p>£89.90, massimodutti.com</p><p>An elegant option with its understated style, you can rest assured this black leather shopper will never be deemed unfashionable – only covetable.</p><p>6. Green</p><p>£135, cosstores.com</p><p>Here's the Swedish brand's pared-down take on the usually clumpy satchel. Gone are the messy straps and pockets. Clean lines and lightweight leather are the order of the day here.</p><p>7. Purple shoulder bag</p><p>£45, missselfridge.com</p><p>If you have Céline and Chanel tastes without the bank balance to accomplish such lavish buys, then you will be interested in this brilliant leather shoulder bag complete with chain handle.</p><p>8. Gold shopper</p><p>£79, riverisland.com</p><p>The leather on this unstructured golden shopper is super supple and the finish only gently shimmers, so the overall effect is pleasingly subtle more than dazzling.</p><p>9. Fabric handbag</p><p>£110, frenchconnection.com</p><p>A nice alternative to all-over leather or pleather, this cotton bag mixes grey, black and brown. It's roomy, too, so ideal for anyone who doesn't travel day-to-day lightly.</p><p>10. Punched-hole tote</p><p>£79.99, zara.com</p><p>This tote bag from Zara has been a huge seller for the brand. Its latest makeover sees the sturdy leather bag updated with laser-cut patterns, which gives it a sporty feel.</p><p>£ 650, </p><p>Monroe gave a young Brooklyn photographer his big break by choosing him to photograph her. And here is the result – a limited-print-run heirloom of a book.</p><p>2. Magnum Contact Sheets</p><p>£95, </p><p>If you are serious about photography, you'll want this book. It lays bare the creative process by juxtaposing a famous image with the photographers' contact sheets.</p><p>3. Photofile: Sarah Moon</p><p>£9.95, </p><p>Moon has shot for Vogue, Harper's and Chanel. This new book is a showcase of both the scope of her work and of her ethereal, otherworldly style.</p><p>4. The Artist's Body</p><p>£12.95, </p><p>This 250-image book is best thought of as a photo essay, a rumination on the way artists have used their own bodies to create art through the 20th century.</p><p>5. Mario Testino Private View</p><p>£44.99, </p><p>Testino makes fashion types' hearts beat that bit faster. The Peruvian has also taken on the world of formal portraiture.</p><p>6. World Press Photo 12 by Teun Van Der Heijden</p><p>£16.95, </p><p>The stirring yearly annual put out by World Press Photo. Categories covered include: people, general news and sport.</p><p>7. Bob Willoughby: Audrey Hepburn</p><p>£ 44.99, </p><p>Willoughby's snaps of Hepburn, span the late 1950s right through to the peak of her My Fair Lady fame.</p><p>8. Dorothea Lange</p><p>£7.95, </p><p>Lange was the first woman to be awarded the Guggenheim Photography Fellowship and this book showcases her most famous work.</p><p>9. The Sites of Ancient Greece by Georg Gerster</p><p>£39.95, </p><p>With tails of strife and discord the daily bread of Greece, it is easy to forget why the country has beguiled so many.</p><p>10. In The Moment: The Sports Photography of Tom Jenkins</p><p>£30, </p><p>Few have proved more adept at capturing the passion of sport than Jenkins.</p><p>2. Pink-Silver multi-glitter</p><p>£2.99, Barry M, Superdrug and Boots nationwide</p><p>The multi-hued tones create a pretty pink with a slight disco finish that's ideal for weekends, and when you let your hair down.</p><p>3. Shrimply Devine</p><p>£6.95, Sally Hansen, 01233 656366</p><p>This promises to last up to 10 days, combining base, top and colour coats, and with a brush designed to cover the nail in one stroke.</p><p>4. Early Green</p><p>£5, GOSH Cosmetics, 0845 671 0709</p><p>Crisp green is a refreshing choice and taps into the season's trend for ice-cream inspired colours. Easy to apply and long lasting.</p><p>5. Sassy Pink</p><p>£4.99, L'Oreal, available nationwide</p><p>A gel-based formula that's designed to glide on, helped by the paddle-shaped brush, to help achieve a smooth, even finish without the expense of a salon visit.</p><p>6. Bikini so teeny</p><p>£7.99, Essie, Boots and Superdrug nationwide</p><p>The finely milled glitter in this icy-blue shade will create a subtle shimmer that lifts the finish from anything too flat. A great colour for tanned toes.</p><p>7. Burnished Rouge</p><p>£25, Tom Ford, 0870 034 2566</p><p>Disciples of red nail polish will have an old faithful shade that they return to. But this luxury number by Tom Ford is shot through with golden shimmer, and will stand up to the full glare of the sun.</p><p>8. Holiday</p><p>£18, Chanel, 0207 493 3836</p><p>You may not want your tan to look orange, but that doesn't mean it should be verboten for nails. This tangy option matches the brand's sheer lip gloss in Calypso.</p><p>9. Amchoor</p><p>£14, Nars, available nationwide</p><p>Designer Thakoon Panichgul's eye for modern and feminine colour is distilled into a long-wearing, high-gloss finish formula.</p><p>10. Artful Dodger</p><p>£12, Butter London, Harvey Nichols nationwide</p><p>A chemical-free polish which gives a shot of colour without being too bright, and hopefully will match the ocean as you paddle through it.</p><p>Tell us Fashion</p><p></p><p>More than just your average online retailer, TellusFashion sells not only designs from the most exciting new brands but also showcases multimedia content to go along with it including a magazine, blogs and an industry-networking hub.</p><p>Not Just a Label</p><p>  (Elizabeth Dunn shoes, £235)</p><p>If your preferred sartorial tastes lie with off-the-beaten-track designers, then you've found your haven. Not Just a Label, with its thousands of brands, is the world's leading online platform for new designer talent.</p><p>ASOS Marketplace</p><p></p><p>Marketplace is the democratic retail space created by online behemoth ASOS. The site is made up of smaller boutiques showcasing under-the-radar labels, indie brands and vintage-clothing sellers for the ultimate eclectic fashion forum.</p><p>Young British Designers</p><p> (Elise Berger dress, £255)</p><p>Created in recognition of great British design talents, this website is a stage for home-grown talent at the beginnings of their career. Designers include one of this season's NewGen winners, JW Anderson.</p><p> </p><p>Budget:</p><p>Awear</p><p></p><p>With 31 stores on the high street, Awear is a household name over in the Republic of Ireland. The online store, however, has quickly made a name for itself across the UK with its fashion-forward pieces at purse-friendly prices.</p><p>Linzi Shoes</p><p>  (Shoes, from £40)</p><p>Bringing the fast-fashion experience into the footwear forum, Linzi Shoes offers an impressive array of shoes and boots at prices that make it hard to check out with just one pair.</p><p>Glamorous</p><p></p><p>A daily delivery of new lines means you won't have to search far to find something you like. It's with dresses that this retailer really comes into its own with hundreds of styles in rainbow-worthy colours and prints.</p><p>She Likes</p><p> (Red dress, £22)</p><p>With new trends emerging on a near-weekly basis, websites such as She Likes are a welcome addition to the fashion scene. You'll find instant trend injections for your wardrobe at prices that won't break the bank.</p><p>Lavish Alice</p><p></p><p>You'll be in good company with a purchase from Lavish Alice, which counts celebrity names including The Saturdays' Mollie King and Little Mix among its growing fan base.</p><p>Boohoo</p><p>  (Blazer, £30)</p><p>In the eight years since its launch, Boohoo has become one of the leading online retailers in providing trend-led fashion for those on a budget. Taking inspiration from celebrity style, Boohoo has won many awards for its price-savvy designs.</p><p>Own the Runway</p><p></p><p>Using the catwalks as its inspiration, Own the Runway provides an affordable way to recreate high-fashion looks. It's not just the clothing that's worth a look, there's an impressive array of footwear to boot.</p><p>Missguided</p><p></p><p>Having established itself as a must-visit destination for on-trend fashion, Missguided is leading the way in showing you how to wear it, too, with an interactive fashion blog and trend section.</p><p>Stylist Pick</p><p></p><p>Aiming to give a more personal approach to online shopping; after a short questionnaire Stylistpick offers its customers a selection of pieces to suit their look carefully curated by a team of fashion stylists.</p><p>Prodigy Red</p><p> (Striped shirt, £14.99)</p><p>With dresses priced as low as £9.99 and shirts from £14.99 you can't really go wrong with this value-led fashion retailer. Expect to find a colourful array of on trend items at prices you really can't argue with.</p><p> </p><p>Vintage:</p><p>Vestiaire Collective</p><p></p><p>This is the online equivalent of a high-fashion car-boot sale where the online community comes together to buy and sell each other's wares, with the added advantage of an online team who check over the quality of every item.</p><p>Rokit</p><p>(Dress, £250)</p><p>One of the best names in the vintage market, Rokit started out almost two decades ago from a market stall in Camden. Its vintage clothing can now be enjoyed globally with worldwide shipping.</p><p>Vintage Seekers</p><p></p><p>In addition to its beautiful array of vintage clothing and watches, Vintage Seekers also offers art and wine for sale via its seeker personal-shopping service.</p><p>Style Sequel</p><p> </p><p>Style Sequel is a website that aims to give pre-owned, high-end designer clothing a second lease of life by selling it on to a new owner. Among its treasure-trove of second-hand pieces you'll find Chanel handbags and Christian Louboutin shoes.</p><p>Love Miss Daisy</p><p></p><p>For those in the market for vintage clothing but who prefer not to go down the rummage route, this site is for you. Love Miss Daisy sells vintage pieces from the Forties through to the Eighties, plus a stunning selection of wedding dresses.</p><p> </p><p>Discount:</p><p>Lux Fix</p><p> (Lara Bohinc boots, Prices vary)</p><p>Lux Fix showcases an ever-changing roster of designer collections, but this site is a rarity in that it offers stock from current-season collections at special (changing) prices. The only catch is that you'll have to sign up as these special deals are open to members only.</p><p>Yoox</p><p></p><p>One of the largest fashion online retailers, Yoox's roster of brands includes Alexander McQueen and Prada, but where this site really comes into its own is with its carefully selected end-of-season product sales.</p><p>Then and Now Shop</p><p> </p><p>This site says what it sells on the tin. Representing the "then" is past-season designer collections selling at discounts of up to 75 per cent off, while the "now" is a select collection of current-season stock from up-and-coming names.</p><p>Cocosa</p><p></p><p>One of the front-runners in time-limited online sales, Cocosa has established its reputation with an impressive and varied selection of sale goods. Look out for its newly launched beauty section with big-name brands at bargain prices.</p><p>TK Maxx Gold Label</p><p></p><p>TK Maxx has long been one of the leaders in discount designer fashion. It upped the ante, however, with an online presence and the introduction of Gold Label; reserved for only the most luxurious of designer labels.</p><p>BrandAlley</p><p></p><p>The supermarket of online-sale shopping, Brand Alley features a daily line-up of brands from French Connection to D&G. In addition to the timed sales there's now also a year-round outlet section with no shortage of bargains up for grabs.</p><p>eBay Fashion Gallery</p><p> (French Connection dress, £29.60)</p><p>For those not wanting to go through the anxiety of bidding wars and buying from unknown sellers, eBay's Fashion Gallery provides a forum for discount clothing direct from the retailer, cutting out the middlemen but retaining the saving.</p><p>Secret Sales</p><p></p><p>There's nothing more exciting in the world of shopping than feeling like you're part of a private club. Secretsales.com has nailed the members-only formula to bring amazing discounts on fashion and accessories with new sales every day.</p><p>The Outnet</p><p></p><p>From the team behind Net-a-porter.com, The Outnet is a site dedicated to selling designer womenswear at discounted prices. It's worth signing up to email updates for the promotional sales with even further reductions.</p><p>My Habit</p><p></p><p>With online giant Amazon the brain power behind this online store, it's safe to assume it won't disappoint. Based in the USA but with flat-rate international delivery, the site offers 72-hour sales on women's, men's, children's clothing and interiors products too.</p><p> </p><p>Boutiques:</p><p>The Dressing Room</p><p></p><p>Based in Hertfordshire, this award-winning boutique has built up a dedicated clientele. Jeans lovers will enjoy its impressive array of premium denim brands including Hudson Jeans, Paige, Current/ Elliott and Mother.</p><p>Sefton</p><p></p><p>A highlight on Islington's trendy Upper Street, Sefton has been pulling in the crowds both in-store and online with its exciting mix of menswear designers as well as its popular own line.</p><p>Austique</p><p> (Christina shorts, £210)</p><p>Austique made its name with its diverse range of international designers both established and up-and-coming. Fans of popular Aussie brands such as Zimmermann and Camilla and Marc will love this site.</p><p>Coggles</p><p></p><p>With 30 years under its belt, Coggles, which started life in York, has become a master of its trade: more than just an online clothes shop, you'll find books, homeware and vintage pieces alongside its established mens- and womenswear collections.</p><p>Cricket</p><p>  (YSL bag, £1,185)</p><p>Cricket is the leading independent-clothing boutique based in Liverpool specialising in high-end designer womenswear. Log on to find offerings from the likes of Isabel Marant, Lanvin and Chloé.</p><p> </p><p>Luxury:</p><p>LN-CC</p><p></p><p>LN-CC, or Late Night Chameleon Café, takes the same approach of fusing a retail concept within an art installation online as it do with its store. A progressive array of labels is on offer in addition to lesser-known Japanese brands and a selection of rare books and music.</p><p>Avenue 32</p><p></p><p>A newcomer on the luxury online-shopping scene, supplementing the range of brands on offer the site focuses on providing high-end editorial content with an online magazine that includes designer profiles and trend reports.</p><p>My Theresa</p><p></p><p>German-based online store My Theresa has established a reputation as one of the world's leading online retailers. The site boasts more than 160 international designers and stocks hard-to-find online labels such as Balenciaga and Tod's.</p><p>Far Fetch</p><p> </p><p>In Far Fetch you'll find an online store that allows you to shop at the world's best boutiques all in one place. It hand-picks the boutiques on offer to ensure the most diverse and luxurious offerings online. This autumn sees new signings from Miami-based boutique The Webster and London's Browns.</p><p>Moda Operandi</p><p></p><p>A first in online retail, Moda Operandi operates an online trunk-show concept in which you are able to make orders direct from the unedited collections of designers such as Zac Posen and Marchesa months before they go on general sale.</p><p>Stylebop</p><p>  (McQ dress, £255)</p><p>A decade since its inception, Stylebop has become a leading name in luxury labels online: two million users a month log on to check out the great mix of established designers such as Pucci and Balmain with newer names Casadei and Raoul.</p><p>London Boutiques</p><p></p><p>London is a hotbed of designer boutiques and this site makes shopping in them all a breeze. Shop from stores such as Notting Hill's The Gathering Goddess or Shoreditch's 11 Boundary without ever having to leave your lounge.</p><p>Shoe Scribe</p><p>  (Casadei shoes, £690)</p><p>This website is a haven for all things footwear-related; think shoe shopping, shoe news and even a shoe valet who can sort out everything from maintenance to styling dilemmas.</p><p>Watch That Label</p><p></p><p>Sometimes the best fashion finds are the ones from under-the-radar brands. Watch That Label is a site dedicated to bringing only the best new names in luxury fashion for those looking for something a little out of the ordinary.</p><p>Mr Porter</p><p></p><p>It's not only the fairer sex who love to shop online. From the same fashion team that forged Net-a-porter, is the menswear version, Mr Porter – equally as sleek and as well stocked as its award-winning counterpart.</p><p> </p><p>For hire:</p><p>Girl Meets Dress</p><p></p><p>The perfect solution for those looking for something a little bit special to wear but without the whopping designer price tag.</p><p>Kennedy Purple</p><p>, (Balenciaga bag, 1 week £45)</p><p>If you can't afford to buy the latest designer it-bag don't despair because with Kennedy Purple you can now rent it instead. For a fraction of the retail price a new handbag from designers such as Chloé and Mulberry can be yours on a weekly or monthly rental basis.</p><p>The Shortcut</p><p></p><p>For those conscious of not being seen in the same thing twice, rental website The Shortcut offers a solution with its array of flirty party dresses for just £14.99 per weekend. Plus there's free postage, free returns and no need to worry about cleaning.</p><p>Wish Want Wear</p><p></p><p>As one of the UK's leading online dress-hire websites, on Wish Want Wear you'll find a roster of dresses for every occasion, whether it's black tie, bridesmaid duties or summer barbecues, in a range of sizes and brands.</p><p>That Dress</p><p></p><p>Eliminate the guilt factor of purchasing yet another evening dress by renting one instead. That Dress offers designer frocks to rent from as little as £35 and with a £3.95 damage waiver there's no need to panic about a little wine spill.</p><p>New York Fashion Week is under way, and this landmark hotel will surely have a few well-dressed guests slinking down its hallways at present. Not only is it set amid the glittering boutiques of Fifth Avenue, but The St Regis also boasts two sumptuous designer suites. There's the Dior, which comes with a pristine white living room and juliette windows that open on to the Manhattan skyline. Or the Tiffany, where rooms are dashed in the jewellery designer's trademark turquoise shade. Both come with butler service, naturally.</p><p>The St Regis, Two East 55th Street, Fifth Av, New York, US (001 212 753 4500; ). Suites US$9,500 (£6,333), B&B.</p><p>Missoni Hotel, Kuwait</p><p>From Edinburgh to the Emirates: this is the second outpost by the playful Italian fashion house, following on from its inaugural hotel in the Scottish capital. The latest address, which opened last year, lords itself over Kuwait City's cosmopolitan shopping enclave of Salmiya. Inside, pretty pastels clash with bright citric colours, the Six Senses spa soothes and there's a choice of two restaurants. The Choco Café has a delightful outdoor terrace and sweet treats stamped with Missoni stripes.</p><p>Missoni, Arabian Gulf Road, Symphony Center, Kuwait (00 965 2577 0000; ). Doubles start at 63 Kuwaiti dinar (£140), B&B.</p><p>Hôtel Le Notre Dame, Paris</p><p>This is the third hotel masterminded by revered designer Christian Lacroix. The latest haunt bears the same rich satins, opulent fabrics and graphic prints that have long set Lacroix apart as one of the world's leading couturiers. His interest in theatrical costumery and historical figures abounds in the 26 rooms which display murals of Paris, past and present. The location, as its name suggests, is directly across from the city's Gothic cathedral.</p><p>Hôtel Le Notre Dame, Quai Saint-Michel 81, Paris, France (00 33 1 43 54 20 43; ). Doubles start at €206, including breakfast.</p><p>Armani Hotel, Milan</p><p>An elegant palazzo on the via Manzoni is the site of Armani's second hotel. Much like the brand's first hotel foray within the soaring, stiletto-shaped Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the new hotel cuts a fine figure with a soft, sophisticated blend of creamy, chocolate shades in each of its 95 rooms. The polished restaurant and lounge look out across the red rooftops of the Italian fashion capital, with floor-to-ceiling windows, lacquered surfaces and a liberal use of marble throughout.</p><p>Armani Hotel, Via Manzoni 31, Milan, Italy (00 39 02 8883 8888; . Doubles start from €432, room only.</p><p>Schlosshotel im Grunewald, Berlin</p><p>Silver of hair and serious of face... there is only one Karl Lagerfeld. The creative king behind Chanel and Fendi turned his hand to hotel rooms when the opportunity arose at this fittingly regal palace. Set in leafy Grunewald, it has the air of an exclusive country house. There are high ceilings strung with chandeliers, vast rooms with wood panelling, high notes in the Vivaldi restaurant and a sultry cigar lounge.</p><p>Schlosshotel im Grunewald, Brahmsstr 10, Berlin, Germany (00 49 30 895 840; ). Doubles start at €239, without breakfast.</p><p>Claridge's, London</p><p>Old-world elegance was given a modern makeover at Claridge's when the timeless Mayfair hotel collaborated with Belgian design doyenne, Diane von Fürstenberg, to unveil a series of rooms and suites. Some are refined and honey-hued, others are monochrome with fine gold detailing, bespoke fabrics and geometric prints. There's also a more audacious clutch which flaunt the signature DvF leopard print and bold floral patterns.</p><p>Claridge's, Brook Street, Mayfair, London, United Kingdom (020-7629 8860; ). Doubles start at £495, room only.</p><p>Lip and Cheek stain in Tainted Love, £36, Tom Ford, harrods.com, </p><p>Coco Noir fragrance, 50ml £75, 100ml £106, Chanel, 020-7493 3836</p><p>Instant Definition mascara in 04 Intense Plum, £20, Clarins, </p><p>Pure colour nail lacquer in Berry Desire, £14, Estée Lauder, </p><p>Nail varnish in Rouge Garonne, £18, Dior, </p><p>Stella eau de parfum, £67, Stella McCartney, </p><p>Nail lacquer in Rougemarie, £10, MAC, </p><p>Ombre Solo eyeshadow in Deep Night Purple, £21, Yves Saint Laurent, </p><p>'Notting Hill Gate' frame sunglasses, £606, by pq eyewear designed by Ron Arad, 36 Beauchamp Place, London NW3, 020-7581 6336</p><p>Embellished shoes, £1,110, Prada, 16-18 Old Bond Street, London W1, 020-7647 5000</p><p>Wool and sequin North South bag, £2,510, Louis Vuitton, 17-19 New Bond Street, London W1, 020-7399 3856</p><p>Silk floral scarf, £255, Gucci, 18 Sloane Street, London SW1, 020-7235 6707</p><p>Velvet and lambskin shoulder bag, £1,711, Chanel, 26 Old Bond Street, London W1, 020-7493 5040</p><p>Bonded flannel fedora with leather trim, £169, Emporio Armani, 020-7823 8818</p><p>Artemis gold necklace, £175, Lulu Frost, </p><p>Crystal heel boots, £1,000, Chanel, as before</p><p>Styling: Gemma Hayward</p><p>Photographs: Catherine Losing</p><p>Set design: Sarah Parker</p><p>Assistant: Jemma Pearson</p><p>We're not sure about: Villain of the piece</p><p>According to the folk behind the latest fragrance off the Ed Hardy conveyer belt, "it's good to be bad", but whether that should refer to someone's odour is a matter up for some debate. With "kisses as sweet and addicting as crème brûlée", it sounds truly nauseating.</p><p>We're buying: Chic charity tees</p><p>The work of London fashion luminaries Jonathan Saunders, JW Anderson, Mary Katrantzou and Richard Nicoll may usually be out of reach for most, but these charity T-shirts are not only priced in the double digits, but will help support The Dispossessed Fund which fights poverty in London.</p><p>£60, matchesfashion.com</p><p>We can't wait for: Chanel's new store</p><p>Beauty buffs will be counting down the hours on their perfectly manicured fingers until the launch of Chanel's beauty boutique. The 57-square-metre space will be dedicated to exclusive products, make-up classes, and even a nail bar from the polish trendsetters themselves.</p><p>From 24 July, chanelatcoventgarden.com</p><p>We're cheating: Wrap it up</p><p>For nail-art obsessives who can't make it to the salon and aren't quite ambidextrous enough to achieve the same results at home, fashion favourite brand Wah Nails has extended its product line to include these easy-to-apply stickers with a choice of six of the most popular patterns.</p><p>£7 each, Boots nationwide</p><p>Languishing on the unloved list for a while, paisley prints have become a signature for young designer J.W. Anderson. The pyjama print jumped from nightwear to the catwalk as Haider Ackermann and Stella McCartney showed silky separates festooned with the twisted teardrops.</p><p>An Olympian year</p><p>Who can blame designers for latching on to the Olympics and running with it – excuse the pun. Sports fans will be pleased to see that sweatshirts, shorts, bomber jackets and hoodies have been given a high fashion spin in luxurious fabrics and a pastel palette.</p><p>In a flapper</p><p>Gucci led the glamorous Gatsby-era charge with a black-and-gold showing of fringed flapper dresses. If you're worried about playing dress-ups, make-up is a good way to achieve a subtle version of the trend. Nars' metallic smudge sticks (£17, Nars; from selfridges.com) make a gilded eye a doddle.</p><p>Vroom, vroom!</p><p>The retro references continued with Prada's hyper-feminine outing, of which muscle cars were a signature motif – on everything from stilettos (£650, prada.com) to skirts and bags. Hourglass curves made an appearance in Dolce & Gabbana's Mediterranean vegetable medley while the minimal pedal pushers and gingham at Jil Sander were a crisp take on the Fifties era.</p><p>Water world</p><p>Pearls were slung around models' waists, dotted down their spines and through their hair at Chanel's underwater-inspired extravaganza. Iridescent fabrics, jewel-encrusted netting and undulating ruffles all mimicked the delights at the bottom of the ocean. The conch-shaped clutch bags with a pearlescent finish are the accessory of the season, if you've a spare £18,200 (Chanel, 020-7493 5040).</p><p>Get waisted</p><p>Modern and sleek, this season, peplums, whether attached above or below the waistline, added volume to a straight silhouette at Céline and Dries Van Noten or emphasised an hourglass figure at Givenchy and Jason Wu.</p><p>Nailing it</p><p>Mix up the sweetness of the season with Dolce & Gabbana's new kohl collection which features a series of vampy, glamorous nail shades (£17, harrods.com), or match it with Chanel's newest must-have additions – three pinkish shades named for the months of spring.</p><p>Sweetness and light</p><p>There's no getting away from it, saccharine pastels are one of the biggest colour stories this season, shown by almost everyone. The girliness of the hues is not for the faint of heart – although it may feel easier to wear fondant shades as make-up rather than clothes.</p><p>Bobbing along</p><p>A newly chopped bob can be a refreshing beauty statement for the spring, but if you're not quite ready to take the plunge with the scissors, the faux bobs as seen at Jil Sander are a good place to start.</p><p>Short shorts</p><p>Forget the Daisy Dukes or tailored city shorts, this season the shape resembles nothing so much as a big pair of knickers. Scarf prints and florals showed in the last-ever D&G collection, while at Balenciaga, Nicolas Ghesquière balanced teeny-tiny shorts with boxy shoulders.</p><p>Lace ups</p><p>Spring and lace go hand in hand and the intricate fabric is sexy (of course) at Dolce & Gabbana, romantic at Valentino and Erdem, and colour-contrasted at Miu Miu and Junya Watanabe. The supersize broderie Anglaise collars at Louis Vuitton are one of the key buys of the summer.</p><p>Darling buds of May</p><p>This season, florals are graphically printed, appliquéd and embroidered. Follow the trend up the garden path with Gucci's new Flora Garden collection (£72 for 100ml, available nationwide), Stella McCartney's lily-of-the-valley-inspired L.I.L.Y or Jo Malone's newly customisable classic Red Roses.</p><p>Thirty thousand bright children from poor backgrounds will get the chance to go to top private schools under plans unveiled yesterday. More than 80 top fee-paying schools, including Westminster and Manchester Grammar, have agreed to award places solely on academic merit. An education charity is pushing for the policy to be included in the three main parties' 2015 manifestos. </p><p>Labour: cut number of women in prison</p><p>The number of women in prison must be reduced, the shadow Justice Secretary Sadiq Khan will say today. Almost 11,000 women were jailed last year – separating some 17,000 children from their mothers. A Labour government would create a Women's Justice Board. </p><p>Obama and Romney prepare for debate</p><p>President Barack Obama and his Republican rival, Mitt Romney, were yesterday busy preparing for the first presidential debate, due to be held in Denver tonight. Ahead of the contest, Mr Romney signalled a shift in his stance on immigration policy. </p><p>Government risks complicity in torture</p><p>The British government will be complicit in torture should Abu Hamza and his fellow terror suspects be extradited to the US, a senior UN adviser warned. Juan Mendez said the solitary confinement they would endure in US "supermax" prisons amounts to torture. </p><p>MPs summon Ahmadinejad</p><p>The Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been summoned to parliament to answer questions about the currency, with the rial at a record low against the US dollar. Alarm over the currency has sparked a rise in the number of Iranians buying foreign currency. </p><p>Opposition leader wins shock victory</p><p>The triumphant leader of Georgia's opposition coalition, Bidzina Ivanishvili, has called on President Mikheil Saakashvili to step down after securing a shock victory in Sunday's parliamentary polls. </p><p>Tube train strikes 12-year-old girl</p><p>A 12-year-old girl was taken to hospital yesterday in a "life-threatening condition" after being struck by a Tube train during rush hour. The incident, which police are treating as non-suspicious, occurred at Brixton in south London at 8.40am. "People were petrified and some were screaming or crying," a witness said. </p><p>Inquiry into Pope's former butler</p><p>Judges in the Vatican have ordered a probe into the treatment of Paolo Gabriele, the Pope's former butler arrested in the "Vatileaks" scandal. Taking the stand yesterday, Mr Gabriele denied theft but accepted he abused the Pope's trust. He is accused of stealing documents and passing them to the media.</p><p>Ryanair boss says his £1m pay is unfair</p><p>The outspoken chief executive of the budget airline Ryanair has claimed that his £1m pay last year made him "the most underpaid and under appreciated airline boss in Europe". Michael O'Leary said being paid 20 times more than his average employee was unfair, because he works "50 times harder". </p><p>Six-year-old beat me up, says gym teacher</p><p>A 14st gym teacher in New York has sparked more than few smirks after claiming that a 6-year-old student weighing just 50lb had physically assaulted him. John Webster fractured his ankle and injured his knee after the alleged assault, according to the New York Post. </p><p>Trip to swingers' club on expenses</p><p>A German insurance giant has revealed that its employees put a trip to a swingers' hotel in Jamaica on expenses when it published an internal audit on a public website. Ergo, primary insurance unit of Munich Re, the world's biggest reinsurer, unveiled a website containing details of 12 similar incidents. </p><p>Chanel takes over Grand Palais in Paris</p><p>Wind turbines graced Paris's Grand Palais for a Chanel show unrivalled in scale and spectacle yesterday. The set was thought to be a reference to the gentle, beautiful nature of the clothes, which included black chiffon dresses appliqued with silk petals. The collection had a youthful 1960s theme, complemented by bold, oversized accessories. </p><p>American Airlines flights lose seats </p><p>A major airline is checking its passenger seats after some came loose following take-off on three separate flights. American Airlines said the incidents occurred on a flight last week between Vail, Colorado, and Dallas-Fort Worth and again on Saturday and Monday. </p><p>Sir Chris takes a ride in his velodrome</p><p>Six-time Olympic gold medallist Sir Chris Hoy cycled the first lap of the Commonwealth Games velodrome named in his honour yesterday. Sir Chris said he hoped the Commonwealth Games venue in Glasgow would mean that the next generation of champions came from Scotland. He hopes to compete in the 2014 Commonwealth Games should he stay injury-free.</p><p>BFI to spend £500m to develop industry</p><p>The British Film Institute (BFI) will invest £500m in the country's movie industry over the next five years in a bid to develop talent outside London. Equipment will be provided to 1,000 community venues across the UK, while the Film Fund will see its budget increased from £18m to £24m.</p><p>Year-long trip may blast off in 2015</p><p>The first year-long mission to the International Space Station may begin in March 2015, after an agreement between ISS partners. Alexei Krasnov of Russian space agency Roscosmos, said yesterday the two-person expedition will be a test for future flight lengths. </p><p>Pupils made to write cards to prisoners</p><p>A teacher has received a warning letter from the New York City Conflicts of Interest Board for making her fifth-grade pupils write Christmas cards to a friend serving time in prison. The cards contained the children's names and in some cases addresses. They were intercepted by a prison officer. </p><p>Tom Sawyer was a firefighter</p><p>The hero of Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer was a heavy-drinking firefighter, according to an American magazine. The Smithsonian claims the real-life Sawyer met Twain in San Francisco in 1863. Sawyer said of Twain: "He could drink more and talk more than any feller I ever seen."</p><p>If Alès is a spiritual man, then it is this breathtaking garden, located a few hours south of Paris, that surely serves as his altar. For much of his working life, nature has provided Alès with a never-ending driving force; first as a hairdresser to the Parisian beau monde (his salon is still located on the same spot on the Avenue Franklin Roosevelt where he first opened in 1965), where he revolutionised a technique 'the brushing', more of which later; and then as the person who developed and exploited the commercial potential of plants in hair products. "Even today, after working with plants for so many years, I believe that we are only at the beginning of understanding all they can teach us," he enthuses.</p><p>Here, set among 380 hectares of ancient woods and oaks, cedars, pines and sequoias planted by Alès, his 'garden' is a calming escape from the hectic outside world. At its heart lies the secret of Phyto's success, an impressive apothecary garden they call the 'Phytotèque' (as in a bibliothèque, but for plants rather than books). Run by his daughter Patricia, this is the company's true chemistry lab (they have a scientific one in Paris, too), complete with buzzing bees and butterflies, where they grow hundreds of different species of plants, all to be used in some way in a Phyto formula. Thirty varieties of basil and every kind of thyme, rosemary, lavender, rhubarb and mint you can imagine; unusual species like Arachis hypogaea (peanut) and pink Malabar spinach, Opium poppies and Anthemis tinctoria, a vivid yellow chamomile used for its hair-dying properties; and exotic (often endangered) plants being nurtured by the family for posterity.</p><p>Nearby is a superb rose garden with more than 200 species of roses; close to the 18th- century house (apparently built by the Marquis du Durantis for his mistress), lies the cathédral des sapins – an oval-shaped enclave of pine trees and a little path leading to a statue of Sainte Marie – and a little further away, a whole patch dedicated to the large, elegant silver-green-leaved beauty of the hosta plant, the symbol for the Phyto brand. There are ongoing experiments too, like the 5,000 ginkgo biloba bushes recently planted, extracts of which are used in the Phytocyane shampoo for thinning hair. It was "the only tree to survive the effects of the Hiroshima bomb" says Alès. "I feel there is a magic that lives in that tree."</p><p>Nothing goes to waste – the rows of American sweetgum (liquidambars) are harvested every three years for their leaves, which provide a foaming agent for Phyto's shampoos. Every leaf, bud, bark and stem is investigated for potential benefits, and – once distilled in the drying barn – it is sent to the Phyto lab to provide the ultimate benchmark of quality for comparison when the company sources ingredients in bulk for the production each year of their range.</p><p>At 82, Alès is living proof (if it was needed, given the legion of Phyto fans and hundreds of clinical studies to back his innovations up), with his own thick locks and the smoothness of his hands, of the magic of plants. Not bad for a young Spaniard who arrived in France in 1937 with his family, escaping their homeland's civil war, with an initial ambition to study architecture. "In the summer of 1946, before I was meant to start university, my father said to me, 'get a job'," Alès recalls in his soft, slightly stilted English. "So I took a job managing the stockroom in the biggest hairdressing salon in Paris at the time – owned by Louis Gervais, with more than 103 employees on the Champs Elysées in Paris – and when I walk in, and it's so nice, the ladies are beautiful, the salon is beautiful, so I told my father to forget architecture, I want to be a hairdresser." His father was shocked. "He said, 'this is work for women, not for you', but I told him that to make ladies more beautiful is the best job in the world. My father said 'OK'."</p><p>When he asked Gervais for an apprenticeship, Gervais took Alès to the stockroom, climbed on top of a chair and wiped the top of the shelf with his finger. It was spotless. "He said 'OK, I take you'," laughs Alès. It was also here that Alès first saw the hands of the women who did the shampooing all day, their hands swollen and nails destroyed by chemicals, and the first seeds of his idea for a much more gentle, less harmful range of products was quietly sown. "I started to look at plants, and to see how they grow and survive – I began to think it is possible to look at how to create a synergy with the human body and nature to create something more gentle."</p><p>Of course, it is impossible to imagine now, but at the time, everyone told him his botanical lotions and more natural approach to hairdressing would never work. When all the world was fixated with setting a lady's hair in chemicals and rollers in the late 1950s, Vidal Sassoon was on one side of the Channel starting to conjure glamorous new ways of cutting geometrically, and Alès was embracing the natural movement of hair by inventing 'The Blowout', much loved by A-list clients like Catherine Deneuve. "It was purely mechanical – I worked out the way the hair naturally grows and falls, so it went with the movement of the hair from the roots rather than against it," he explains. With it, he invented a round brush that, combined with a hairdryer, allowed hair to be 'brushed' in a way that allowed it to fall in sleek bouncy folds.</p><p>It was finding ways to rescue his client Brigitte Bardot's bleached and dried-out locks in the early Sixties that inspired Huile D'Alès, and then came his groundbreaking Phyto 7 which used the synergy of essential oils extracted from seven plants – calendula, sage, burdock, willow, soybean, rosemary and althea – to create an innovative natural hair conditioner. His long-term client Madame Pompidou introduced Alès and his products to Jacqueline Kennedy, who promptly spread fanatical word across the Atlantic. Phyto (or Phytotherathrie as it was called – phyto/plant, thera/care, thrie (from trixos)/hair) was an instant smash on a worldwide scale.</p><p>At first, however, Alès and his wife Jacquie – with help from his children Sylvie, Romain and Patricia – were making the products from the kitchen table at home in their house in Provence; this was the early 60s. He had even taken his ideas to L'Oréal but they were not interested, believing the future of haircare lay in chemistry not nature. With a small loan from a friend (and fellow high-profile hairdresser Jacques Dessange), Alès decided to manufacture for himself and started to sell his small collection of 12 products through pharmacies, including one at Saint Louis hospital in Paris, famous for its work in dermatology, from 1969. There he met Professor Vachon. Vachon was the first, in 1974, to confirm through clinical studies the beneficial effects Alès instinctively knew the active plant ingredients were providing in Phyto. Soon, products like the anti-frizz Phytodéfrisant (one of only two French products to be included in the exalted American beauty magazine Allure's Hall of Fame, the other Chanel No. 5) and Phytoplage (the first sun protection haircare) took the world by storm.</p><p>For Alès, despite the global success and acclaim (and a few hiccups along the way, including legal wrangles with L'Oréal after they bought Alès's silent partner Dessange's 49 per cent share of the business), it is still the search for 'plant magic' that keeps him going. "I am always looking at new plants and the synergy of how one can reinforce another's properties." The company, with its hi-tech, innovating scientific lab complete with doctors, pharmacists and scientists, works closely with the French National Centre for Scientific Research and Alès remains continually inspired by past botanical medicinal discoveries such as the cancer-treating drug Taxol (derived from the bark of the Pacific Yew), penicillin (from humble fungi) and the cure for leprosy (derived from the oil of the Chaulmoogra nut). He has made various inroads into finding a commercially viable, consumer-friendly solution to hair loss and alopecia – in fact, "we have one clinically proven solution right now, derived from a very ordinary plant used by Egyptian women to encourage the flow of breastmilk, but the smell is too awful," Alès sighs.</p><p>Back at La Lienne d'Alès, it's evident that if there are going to be any major scientific breakthroughs, they will be found here, unearthed possibly even by accident, through the Alès family's trial and error and passion for plants. "Trees have a message – whether it's in their leaves or bark, even where some look very simple and ordinary, there is a power there. We are only just skimming the surface of trying to assimilate the synthesis of what nature does. We need to look to it for the answers," he says. "I have just planted 400 more oak trees and I realise that I probably won't see them grow," Alès admits, aware that he is in his twilight years despite his still sprightly acuity and enthusiasm. "When we bought this land, some people had already planted some trees, and I am adding some more; and if they continue for the next generation I will be happy."</p><p>For more information, visit </p><p>2. Prada</p><p>£2,450, 020 7647 5000</p><p>The Prada collection is among the most feted of the spring/summer season, crafted in hyper-feminine fabrics and in colours to match. This Pyramide bag is just the thing to finish such a gentle look.</p><p>3. Proenza Schouler</p><p>£1,685, net-a-porter.com</p><p>The large version of this designer satchel is still as light as anyone might wish for, and will hold everything the modern woman needs to carry with her. This red version looks great with jeans.</p><p>4. Pierre Hardy</p><p>£1,075, Pierre Hardy, brownsfashion.com</p><p>What's not to want about this brightly coloured backpack? It's unlikely that anyone carrying this modish design in the colours of the spring/summer season will get lost.</p><p>5. Givenchy</p><p>£1,400, selfridges.com</p><p>The Antigona is as practical a bag as it is lovely to behold. It's big enough to function as a work bag, easily holding notebooks, papers, make-up and more, and has top handles as well as a shoulder strap.</p><p>6. Olympia Le-Tan</p><p>£1,110, brownsfashion.com</p><p>Olympia Le-Tan has made a career – and a business – out of crafting handbags that take their inspiration from the covers of books and films.</p><p>7. Chanel</p><p>£985, 020 7493 5040</p><p>It's a basic tote in a great colour but let's face it, the selling point of this is its logo. It's cut in cotton canvas, with leather trim and a signature leather and chain handle.</p><p>8. Yves Saint Laurent</p><p>£1,660, ysl.com</p><p>This Yves Saint Laurent classic has been given a sporting makeover, crafted as it is in the finest leather punched to resemble Airtex. The finished thing is as light as the proverbial feather.</p><p>9. Alexander Wang</p><p>£980, Alexander Wang, thecorner.com</p><p>Wang is the toast of New York and cool girls will love to carry this great leather bag. It's big enough to fit half a life in and looks gorgeous in ultra-luxe, grey suede.</p><p>10. Mulberry</p><p>£995, mulberry.com</p><p>This "travel day" bag is very much like the bestselling Alexa but with gleaming gold hardware added for good measure. It's even cuter that way but still light, though, which is clever.</p><p>Io9, the science fiction blog, suggests that mermaids might be just the thing to fill the vampire-sized hole in the lives of teenage readers. It notes there have already been 18 young adult books about the mythical sea creatures released this year. And by not being bound to the many rules dictated by vampire lore, the mermaid genre is much more flexible. The young adult mermaid fiction being released includes every underwater scenario from murderous sea nymphs to sunny, hippy tales about the ocean. Some are stories of friendship; other love stories.</p><p>Orange-prize winning Helen Dunmore has written five mermaid books for young adult in her Ingo Chronicles series, the most recent of which, Stormswept, was published earlier this year. In the US, titles such as Wake, about a teenaged siren, Wrecked, which has a merman as the main character and Fathomless, which will be published in the UK next month, are making waves. Studio execs will be watching closely the reading habits of teenagers. The success of the Twilight and The Hunger Games books has translated into big box office. So if it is mermaids that are currently capturing teenagers' imaginations then it is surely only a matter of time before a couple of dark, angsty films are given the green light. And in the same way that two Snow White films were released this year (Mirror, Mirror and Snow White and the Huntsman), a similar battle between mermaid-themed films seems almost guaranteed.</p><p>For those who grew up with the familiar faces – and tails – of Splash's Madison, played by Darryl Hannah, and Disney's Ariel, it might seem strange that mermaids have only now been rising to the surface. Sure, for die-hard mermaid fans there was H2O: Just Add Water, an Australian teen soap. But it's only recently that there have been signs that mermaids are ripe for a comeback, with Lady Gaga donning scales for her "You and I" video last year and Katy Perry, looking rather more glamorous and a lot less otherworldly as a sexy sea creature in an ad for GHD hair products.</p><p>The fashion world, typically one step ahead of the game, embraced sea nymphs in their spring/summer 2012 collections. Chanel had Florence Welch singing live in a huge white seashell at its underwater-themed show and designers such as Alexander McQueen, Givenchy and Armani have all been inspired by mermaids of late. And with Azealia Banks, currently one of the hottest acts in music, proclaiming to be the first mermaid of hip-hop, having released a mixtape called Fantasea (track titles include "Atlantis", "Aquababe" and "Neptune"), as well as putting on "Mermaid Ball" gigs in New York and LA, are mermaids set to replace vampires and werewolves as pop culture's new mythical obsession?</p><p>It looks like it's time for a sea change.</p>Her marriage is wonderful, she's given up alcohol and from tomorrow she's hosting the nightly 'Strictly' spin-off show 'It Takes Two'<p>Wear the trousers</p><p>Trousers are the new skirts. Often, however, they are worn with a tunic and/or dress – a case of enjoying the best of both worlds which is always good. At Junya Watanabe flocked velvet dresses are worn over tailored pants borrowed from menswear; Marc Jacobs styled narrow, empire-line dresses over cropped designs for his own label and at Louis Vuitton and at Prada too the shoulders are narrow, the hemlines wide by comparison.</p><p>From left to right: Marc Jacobs, Prada</p><p>It's a wrap</p><p>Stating the obvious: it's autumn so a coat is important. This time that coat must be big. It looks lovely in its masculine incarnation at Dries Van Noten, has a military borrowed from menswear toughness at McQ, is a signature cut in soft gabardine at Yohji Yamamoto and also in wool at Maison Martin Margiela. Jean-Paul Gaultier's parkas have a luxe-utilitarian appeal and Chalayan's oversized grey wool version is trimmed with neon: to ensure any wearer will be seen in the dark? Left: Chalayan</p><p>Baroque is beautiful</p><p>The fragility of surface embellishment was once its very appeal but now the opposite is the case. Crystals the size of cough sweets feature at Miu Miu. Marni's jewelled buttons are the size of saucers. At Lanvin lace, fur, ribbons and bows are piled onto jewelled cocktail dresses.</p><p>From left to right: Lanvin, Miu Miu</p><p>The new gothic</p><p>Givenchy's Riccardo Tisci has long channeled a gothic mood and made many a well-dressed woman and indeed man about town very happy by so doing. At Gucci, Frida Giannini is of a similar frame of mind this season; Peter Copping's take at Nina Ricci is more scary fairy and sweeter for that; Karl Lagerfeld's vision for Chanel is also softer though still spooky. Finally, at Versace a predominantly dark collection is embroidered with jewelled crucifixes. Vintage.</p><p>From left to right: Nina Ricci, Gucci, Givenchy</p><p>Hell for leather</p><p>Leather is more prevalent than ever in the form of full mid-calf length skirts at Christian Dior and Hermès and total look and totally black in the totally great Loewe and Valentino collections. For Stefano Pilati's final collection for Yves Saint Laurent belted racing green and ox-blood tunics are the height of tough luxury and then there's Celine leather which we all want.</p><p>From left to right: Valentino, Yves Saint Laurent, Celine</p><p>Winter flowers</p><p>More fairies, this time flowery ones. There's nothing more lovely than blooms printed, embroidered or appliqued in the autumn season. Valentino's are delicate in all the shade from pales pink to black. Dolce & Gabbana's are more exuberant. Christopher Kane's flowers are plain nasty in funereal flocked velvet and Giles Deacon's crushed roses on white satins and silks unashamedly romantic. At Alexander McQueen, Sarah Burton's blossom-encrusted designs appear almost to be growing on models frames like otherworldly flora and fauna.</p><p>From left to right: Alexander McQueen, Dolce & Gabbana, Giles Deacon</p><p>The big easy</p><p>Dare to wear clothing that is oversized in the extreme and – at Comme des Garçons and also, more discreetly, Celine – flattened. Sci-fi inspired sweatshirts with moulded sleeves at Balenciaga make for some of autumn's most covetable clothing as does voluminous wool tailoring at Haider Ackermann – most beautiful in blue. For Raf Simons' final collection for Jil Sander, the new Dior designer developed an oversized haute couture-inspired silhouette for an audience that was visibly moved by it. Acne's take is tough and utilitarian.</p><p>From left: Comme des Garçons, Haider Ackermann, Balenciaga</p><p>Punk princesses</p><p>Punk's riotous spirit is all present, correct and as anarchic as expected in the British capital where Meadham Kirchhoff's Leigh Bowery-inspired glamour girls, Louise Gray's brilliant mix-and-match colour and pattern, Kinder's twisted prints and Sister by Sibling's leopard knits with masks and ears are loud and proud. And of course, Vivienne Westwood is still the trailblazer here.</p><p>From left to right: Meadham Kirchhoff, Louise Gray</p><p>But that isn't quite why Daphne Guinness, heiress to the beer fortune and granddaughter of Diana Mitford, has donated a selection of 102 of her own dresses, coats, shoes and suits to Christie's, where they will be auctioned next week.</p><p>Two years ago, Guinness, 44, halted the planned sale of the late Isabella Blow's wardrobe at Christie's by buying the collection in its entirety. She said at the time that the breaking up of the fashion editor, stylist and muse's belongings would be "carnage".</p><p>"It gives me enormous satisfaction," she said yesterday at Christie's, "that my seemingly impetuous decision to purchase the entirety of Isabella's collection is now clearly going to set a few injustices to rights."</p><p>The takings will go to The Isabella Blow Foundation, a charity created by Guinness which supports young artists and designers, as well as funding research into depression and mental-health issues. Blow, who died in 2007, is credited with having helped nurture the talents of designer Alexander McQueen and milliner Philip Treacy, among others. Her personal pieces showcase some of Britain's most important designers.</p><p>Blow's mantle has been taken on by Guinness in the years since her death. She has been an artist, model, perfumier and designer, among the very small circle of women who still buy bespoke couture clothes from the likes of Chanel, Dior and Balenciaga, as well as supporting young London designers and collecting their work.</p><p>Recognisable by her idiosyncratic platinum and black-striped beehive, Guinness dresses in a way that is eye-catching and, at times, a bit gothic. Lady Gaga once described her and Blow as "exceptional icons" and soulmates. But many of the pieces going under the hammer are from her early years, before she had honed her personal aesthetic.</p><p>A purple textured A-line coat by Christian Dior, estimated to go for £1,000, was a favourite piece during Guinness's late-20s, while a lemon yellow satin and hide bubble dress by Christian Lacroix was the first piece of couture she ever bought, in 1987. There are several pieces created by Alexander McQueen before his death in 2010 – a pair of black leather boots estimated at £2,500 and two dresses worth around £20,000 each – as well as a pair of Guinness's trademark heel-less shoes by Noritaka Tatehana, which took more than eight months to make. Entry-level prices start at around £250 for a Givenchy dress and a Valentino skirt suit.</p><p>The Guinness auction collection is as surprising as it is diverse – given her reputation for extreme edginess, many of the pieces are more accessible than you might imagine, and they show a clear evolution in her personal style over the years, from timeless classics to the more outré numbers.</p><p>"The clothes are all by really important designers," says Christie's fashion and textiles specialist Clare Borthwick, "and they embody who Daphne is. Pieces from the big houses are always going to be a good investment, but I always advise people to collect things that they love, because you're going to have to look at it every day and you can't always guarantee what's going to make money in the future."</p><p>The funds raised by the sale, estimated to reach £100,000, will also go towards the upkeep and maintenance of Blow's extensive collection, which is set to go on show at the London design college Central Saint Martins, McQueen's alma mater, later this year. "The best thing is that [Blow's collection] can be seen and touched and conserved for the next generation of talent," says Guinness.</p><p>Photographs: Andrew Leo</p><p>Model: Adina at IMG</p><p>Hair and make-up: Krystle using Chanel S/s 2012 and Hydra beauty Serum</p><p>Photographer's assistant: Catherine Losing</p><p>Shot on location at Hylands House, Chelmsford</p><p>The 84-year-old died in his home on the city's famed Mulholland Drive, surrounded by his family and loved ones.</p><p>Among younger generations of women, Sassoon's name will be mainly associated with the brands of hairstyling products that made him millions.</p><p>Yet Wash and Go was not merely the name of his shampoo. It was a fashion concept that went some way to helping the momentum of the women's liberation movement in the 1960s, as he snipped away at the intricate and cumbersome hairstyles of British women to introduce bolder, simpler looks – most famously the bob – which required far less work. With the beehives and bouffants gone, so too were the curlers and the hours spent sitting in them at home.</p><p>"Women were going back to work, they were assuming their own power. They didn't have time to sit under the dryer any more," he told the Los Angeles Times in 1993. However, he added that his approach was not just about practicality. "My idea was to cut shape into the hair, to use it like fabric and take away everything that was superfluous." The fashion designer Mary Quant – whose clothes were intrinsically linked to Sassoon's cuts – labelled him the "Chanel of hair".</p><p>Last night the celebrity hairdresser Nicky Clarke said Sassoon was "one of the top five Swinging Sixties icons along with the Beatles, Carnaby Street, Mary Quant and the Union Jack". He added: "What he did was bring in a form based on Modernism. He just brought that to hair that worked in terms of it being all about the cut."</p><p>Sassoon opened his first salon on London's Bond Street in 1958, and began opening more in Britain and across the Atlantic in the mid-1960s as excitement grew around his styles, which also included the five-point cut and the Greek goddess. His ideas had ever-increasing influence in the fashion world, leading to him being flown from London to Hollywood at a reported cost of $5,000 simply to cut the hair of the actress Mia Farrow – with a pixie look – for Roman Polanski's 1968 cult film Rosemary's Baby.</p><p>Born in 1928 to a poor Jewish family, Sassoon joined the 43 Group to fight fascists on the streets of London in the 1940s, leading the author Michael Rosen to pay tribute to him last night. On one occasion he was arrested and spent a night in a cell for his troubles.</p><p>He left for Palestine to fight in Israel's war of independence in 1948, and later, in 1982, he established the Vidal Sassoon International Centre for the Study of Anti-Semitism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.</p><p>He was made a CBE in 2009, commenting after receiving his award from the Queen at Buckingham Palace that the monarch's hair had a "beautiful colour".</p><p>Despite moving to the US he maintained a strong affection for the UK – not least through his support for Chelsea FC. Indeed, his love of football led him to say in 2007: "I thought I'd be a soccer player but my mother said I should be a hairdresser, and, as often happens, the mother got her way."</p><p>Sassoon's personal life proved somewhat rocky, taking in four marriages. He had four children with his second wife, but their eldest daughter, Catya, died in her sleep on New Year's Day 2002 after an accidental overdose. He is survived by his fourth wife, Ronnie.</p><p>It certainly doesn't appear to be. On her feet are the signature elevated platforms, a variation of which Naomi Campbell famously fell from back in 1993. On her head is an oversized helmet complete with a veil of bronze sequins, Westwood's fiercely glamorous alternative to military netting. The designer is recreating a style that she dreamt up for the Paralympics closing ceremony – this is the morning after the night before – where she was asked to appear as Queen Boudica riding a chariot conceived by stage designer Joe Rush and the Mutoid Waste Company. Joe Corre, her son by Malcolm McLaren, and Andreas Kronthaler, her husband and partner in design, went along for the ride.</p><p>"Joe [Rush] is a friend of mine and he'd done all these brilliant things," she says. "When he asked me to be Boudica, I said: 'No, get a model, you don't need me, anybody can do that'. And then afterwards I thought: if I can use it, then I'll do it."</p><p>And use it she did. Vivienne Westwood, Queen of Punk, grande dame of British fashion, media manipulator par excellence, one-time agent provocateur and now, more passionately evangelical still, full-blown activist, went so far as to avoid the dress rehearsal, knowing that should her intentions become clear, they might be quashed, whether they were to save the planet or not.</p><p>"I had to deceive everyone because I had this thing printed inside my dress and I knew they'd have checked," she says, her sense of mischief clearly as acute as ever. "They'd have asked: 'Have you got any branding?', 'Is there any nudity?'." Given that Westwood famously picked up her 1992 OBE from the Queen wearing no knickers, they might hardly have been blamed for that. These days, though (and now a Dame), she has serious issues, over and above mere indecent exposure, in mind. "I didn't feel that guilty because, you know, if I'd told them what I was up to they'd be duty-bound to stay on the safe side and not allow me to do it – and people always end up liking that sort of thing I think."</p><p>She hasn't seen the televised version of the stunt in question as yet. Westwood doesn't approve of watching TV, although she did cast an eye over at least part of July's Olympics opening ceremony. "I thought the beginning, with this green, pleasant land, the towers coming up, the hospital beds and the Queen was really wonderful. After the punks though… Whatever… I'd had enough." And the closing ceremony, where she was one of only five fashion designers represented (the others were Burberry, Victoria Beckham, Christopher Kane and Alexander McQueen), also failed to capture her attention more than briefly. "I did see the bit with my dress but, honestly, that's not so important to me. Fashion is my job and I just get on with it."</p><p>Vivienne Westwood, now as ever, uses fashion as a platform to express her views and, at the very least, tell a story that extends beyond the realm of clothes. Her interest in the bigger picture belies the fact that she is among the most influential designers in history. This season alone, London-based designers including Louise Gray, Meadham Kirchhoff, Sibling, Kinder and more have referenced the anarchic spirit with which she made her name. In America, meanwhile, it was announced last week that the subject of next year's most important fashion exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute will be Punk: Chaos to Couture, a show that will, doubtless, follow Westwood's trajectory more closely than any other's. And that's a smart move: the parallels between the world then (the late Seventies) and now are impossible to ignore for even the most polite fashion commentator. In the past, Westwood has reluctantly spoken about the impact of the movement she dressed so impressively. Now, though, she says: "Johnny Rotten's songs really were very clever weren't they? 'No future. Your future dream is a shopping machine'. Yeah. That's what he was on about and that is what we are, we're a consumer society."f</p><p>Not only did Westwood give the world the uniform of punk, but there followed 1981's Pirates, her first collection shown in Paris, that ushered in the New Romantic movement. "The punk always used to take things around himself out of the gutter, if you like, any old rubbish," she once told me. "There were these Irish punks who used kettles as handbags and do you remember getting crisp packets and baking them in the oven so they shrank? They were wearing those like brooches. Then there was Sid [Vicious] with his toilet-paper tie… Malcolm and I always said that we wanted to get off this island and plunder history too, and the world, like pirates. We didn't want to be seen as token rebels."</p><p>The Buffalo Girls collection (1982) – inspired by Latin American Indians and featuring asymmetrically-layered skirts and petticoats – came next and, not insignificantly, bras worn over blouses a good 10 years before Madonna's Jean-Paul Gaultier-designed conical bra. Later, Westwood gleefully reclaimed (and reinvented) the uniform of the British aristocracy and of royalty with mini-crinis, Harris Tweed and crowns; she turned to French Old Master painting for inspiration for, by now, signature corsetry and overblown ballgown skirts. The list goes on, and on, and on. More recently, and in line with a move towards more ethical values, she has reintroduced the virtues of DIY designs that were once an integral part of punk's spirit, advocating the joys of, say, cutting up a tablecloth to make a skirt or wearing your (male) partner's underwear as shorts – just as she herself does. Suffice it to say, though, that her skills as a pattern cutter are rather more deft than most.</p><p>For more than 30 years, Westwood has designed clothes for heroes. Outrageously flamboyant if not plain outrageous, they are beautiful, brave and often swim against the tide. Of today's so-called icons, she says: "Thatf Victoria Beckham, she always looks neat and sort of minimal and tidy". "That's not bad and her designs are good designs if you happen to like that sort of thing." She pauses for a moment before adding, with patrician hauteur: "But I don't". It would be "really great", she adds, if also neat and "posh – which is good" Kate Middleton and Samantha Cameron "formed the habit of not always changing their outfits, and wore the same things over and over again". As a woman in control of one of very few independently-owned and globally-recognised brands, she is also a force to be reckoned with. And people love Westwood for that, from fledgling designers for whom she is a source of inspiration, to the obsessive – truly obsessive – Westwood devotees who save up to buy her clothes. For Westwood, the thinking behind her brand is straightforward: "You have a more interesting life," she argues, "if you wear impressive clothes."</p><p>So what is more important to the designer than fashion and the company she has presided over for so long now? She is a patron of Reprieve and Liberty. She supports Amnesty International, Environmental Justice Foundation and Friends of the Earth. She is a long-time advocate to free Native American Leonard Peltier. She backs the Greenpeace Arctic Campaign and this year donated £1 million to rainforest charity Cool Earth. Her interest in human rights stretches right back to childhood. "I've said this before and I was embarrassed to tell people at first, but I think I was about four when I came across this picture of the Crucifixion. It was in my cousin's calendar. I'd never seen it before being a Protestant. Anyway, I just couldn't believe it. And ever since then I've thought people have to stop doing these terrible things."</p><p>Five years ago, meanwhile, she read environmentalist James Lovelock's Gaïa hypothesis and surmised that humanity was "an endangered species… Our economic system, run for profit and waste and based primarily on the extractive industries, is the cause of climate change," is how she explains it. "We have wasted the earth's treasure and we can no longer exploit it cheaply… Economists treat economics as if it is a pure science divorced from the facts of life. The result of this false accountancy is a wilful confusion under cover of which industry wreaks its havoc scot-free and ignores the environmental cost." At around the same time Westwood wrote her manifesto, 'Active Resistance to Propaganda', a text peopled by everyone from Ancient Greek philosophers to Disney cartoon characters – Westwood is interested in appealing to the young especially – to inspire an interest in learning and culture, in place of indiscriminate consumption.</p><p>Westwood is not unaware that all of the above begs the question: how can a designer at the forefront of a globally recognised and, yes, ever-expanding fashion business possibly point the finger at anyone without also incriminating herself? "Guilty," she says, literally holding her hands up. "My main point, though, is quality rather than quantity. It's a question of trying to have less product but for it to be great. I am definitely very worried about the extent of shipping and travelling. We're a worldwide operation and we're sending clothes all over the world, all of the time, and we have to find ways of dealing with that, of running down our carbon footprint. I want to see what we can do with the company that will be usefully good. What I'm always trying to say to the consumer is: buy less, choose well, make it last."</p><p>Putting her money where her mouth is, she has now changed into somewhat more modest attire – a draped white organza "summertime" dress which hails from her spring 2000 Gold Label collection: it is 13 years old. "Andreas moans at me sometimes and says myf clothes are beginning to look a bit threadbare or something," she says, "but I don't care. I like these things. I'm kind of insisting that however lovely a dress in a more recent collection may be, I actually like this one just as much so I don't need it."</p><p>Vivienne Westwood was born Vivienne Isabel Swire in Glossop, Derbyshire, on April 8, 1941. Her father came from a long line of cobblers; her mother worked in the local cotton mills when she wasn't at home looking after her children. When she was 17, her parents bought a post office and moved to South Harrow in Middlesex. After working in a factory for a short while, Westwood went to teacher training college and then married Derek Westwood and had her first child, Ben, by him. The marriage lasted three years, during which time she taught and made jewellery which she sold on a stall on Portobello Road. She soon met McLaren (then Malcolm Edwards) and became pregnant with her second son, Joseph. In 1971 she gave up her day job. McLaren had opened a shop called Let It Rock at 430 King's Road, London, and Westwood filled it.</p><p>It is the stuff of fashion history that in 1972, and in line with the fashion that was developing its own distinct character, the name changed to Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die and then, in 1974, to SEX. When, in 1976, the Sex Pistols, managed by McLaren, released "God Save the Queen", it became known as Seditionaries until, in 1980, and with Westwood disillusioned with the mainstream's adoption of punk and its main protagonists, she renamed it World's End. "I realised that they weren't real anarchists like we were," she remembers of punk's later, less radical protagonists, "they just wanted to be in a gang and smash anything to do with the older generation like kids do." That name – and indeed the clock that hangs on its façade telling the time backwards – remains.</p><p>In 1976, Westwood, punk legend Jordan and then shop girl, Chrissie Hynde were photographed at the store wearing the type of rubber clothing inspired by fetish and pornography that SEX, in the period immediately prior to Seditionaries, was known for. Westwood herself, however, though in stockings, suspenders and suitably intimidating platform-soled footwear, is wearing a man's white shirt. On to that apparently unassuming garment she has scrawled the French Situationist slogan: 'BE REASONABLE: DEMAND THE IMPOSSIBLE'. It would be reasonable, neatly enough, to argue that this marvellously audacious sentiment still drives her.</p><p>"You can save the rainforest for £100 million," she says, for example. "It's not that much money. It's the advertising budget of Samsung. They could protect the rainforest for that budget and would get so much publicity out of it if they chose to do that." Westwood was invited to 10 Downing Street by former advisor to David Cameron, Steve Hilton, specifically to discuss this subject. "I couldn't believe it. A Conservative government that was interested in saving the rainforest. I thought that was brilliant. He was brilliant. Then he left. I don't hate David Cameron but all politicians are just so delayed."</p><p>She is nothing if not outspoken. Westwood speaks disparagingly about Barack Obama (she's vehemently opposed to the use of drones) and Tony Blair is "a war criminal – he should be in The Hague". Neither are her views on feminism quite what one might expect them to be. "I've got people here in this company who pay as much to the baby minder as they earn at work," she says. "Because they'd rather work than look after their child. But I think they have to really think about what they're doing."</p><p>It seems only fair to point out that Westwood herself works and always has done. "I know and I was a terrible mother," she shoots back. "I didn't put my children first. You have to work today to make money but my mother didn't have to and we managed. I'm really glad to have been born during the war and afterwards during rationing time. We weren't rich but we were probably happier which I know is a cliché but it was before we had all this…" – she searches for the word – "this stuff."</p><p>At 72, Westwood says that her greatest indulgence is reading (she's currently immersed in a biography of Aldous Huxley) and visiting art galleries. With the showing of both her spring 2013 Red Label collection at London Fashion Week and her Gold Label collection staged in Paris only days away, how, I wonder, does Vivienne Westwood find time for her day job?</p><p>"Yeah, well, Andreas would like to know that as well," she laughs. "I just keep saying it's not my priority. Andreas is the most brilliant designer I have ever met. He's a genius. I've finally persuaded him to come out on to the catwalk with me now. He does at least half of the work. He's about the lining and the stitching and all of the fabric and everything. I'm the geometry of the thing. I usually work out the cutting principles, and the tearing of cloth, that comes from me too. I don't want to retire because my job gives me the opportunity to open my mouth and say something and that's wonderful. If I stopped, I wouldn't have my voice any more and I need it. What I wouldn't think is good is for a new person to become a fashion designer. I'd think, well, why on earth would you want to do that? There are enough of us now. A girl said to me recently: 'I really want to be a fashion designer but I also like biology'. I said: 'Do biology'."</p><p>In the end, there is as much warmth, wit, intelligence and imagination to Vivienne Westwood herself as there is to her clothes which, for all her outside interests, remain a powerfully potent force.</p><p>She knows that, but: "If I'm going to talk to someone for two hours then it can't just be about fashion. You know, I never really wanted to be a designer in the first place but about 15 to 20 years ago I decided that if I was going to continue I'd be better off starting to like it. I do think looking your best is really, really good for the spirit and my clothes allow people to project their personalities and express themselves. I offer choice in an age of conformity." A perfect Vivienne Westwood pronouncement.</p><p>All clothes and accessories from a selection by Vivienne Westwood Gold Label, Red Label and Anglomania collections, available from 44 Conduit Street, London W1, 020-7439 1109, . Vivienne Westwood Gold Label and made to measure couture is available from 6 Davies Street, London W1, 020-7629 3757</p><p>STYLIST: GEMMA HAYWARD</p><p>PHOTOGRAPHER: DAN SMITH</p><p>MODEL: Georgia Frost at Select</p><p>MAKE-UP: Alexandra Byrne at Terrie Tanaka using Chanel A/W 2012 and Rouge Allure 2012</p><p>HAIR: Peter Lux at Frank Agency using Bumble & bumble</p><p>STYLIST'S ASSISTANT: Lottie Dight</p><p>Right now, massive, mind-bogglingly graphic woven epics by the celebrated photographer Craigie Horsfield on the theme of the circus are causing jaws to drop at Art Basel. Decades after artists like the Icelandic Dieter Roth, and feminist icon Judy Chicago – whose needlework and textile series, Birth Project, caused a stir in the 1980s – led the charge, the number of contemporary artists having woolly ideas is growing at a rate of knots.</p><p>So what is the draw of the loom? Adam Lowe of Factum Arte, the Italy-based studio that makes digital tapestries for the Louvre and the British Museum, believes a surge in interest over the past 10 years was inevitable: "Artists across the disciplines are attracted by the materiality and complexity of tapestry, particularly in a new age where the generation of the image – and often the output, too – is digital."</p><p>Like Grayson Perry's enormous Walthamstow Tapestry from 2009, a subversive Bayeux Tapestry of our time featuring Chanel handbags, Superdrug and a woman giving birth to the Devil, which was woven from digital files on a Jacquard loom (an automated, rather than human-operated, machine) in Belgium. It returns to the public eye at the opening of William Morris's London home next month, just weeks after six of Perry's new pieces (also digitally-woven, using a mechanical loom to create his images in tapestry form), The Vanity of Small Differences, launched at the Victoria Miro gallery.</p><p>But the human touch is by no means obsolete. A hundred years after it was founded in 1912 by William Morris's weavers, Edinburgh's Dovecot Studios is holding the torch for cutting-edge hand-weaving. Having been saved from closure in 2000, Dovecot has for the past four years occupied a vast space on the site of the city's first public baths. Now in its centenary year, the studio has been transformed beyond recognition.</p><p>On the day I visit Dovecot, the excavated ladies' pool is in the process of being styled for a fashion show. The day before, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra was playing one of a number of regular chamber concerts in among the looms, with guests looking on from the original gallery that circles what was once the main swimming pool; the walls are lined with abstract wall-hangings and colourful tufted rugs featuring geometric shapes and lighthouses, by artists including Alan Davie.</p><p>In August, as part of an ongoing series of centenary celebrations, this space will host a musical history of the studio, A Tapestry of Many Threads, co-written by creative polymath Alexander McCall Smith. It is all part of an attempt, explains Dovecot director David Weir, to break down the boundaries between artistic disciplines. "We've always occupied an unusual territory," he says. "Tapestry is a craft-based skill but the studio has always worked with contemporary designers," Weir, who used to work as a laywer, knows what he's talking about when he adds: "We don't live our lives in a single dimension."</p><p>Several feet below the original water-level in what was once a magnificent swimming pool, Naomi Robertson and colleague Jonathan Cleaver beaver away at their looms, producing pieces for Peter Blake and Peter Saville. Robertson replaced Douglas Grierson last year when the latter retired after 50 years as Dovecot's master-weaver and Robertson is making relatively fast progress on a series of woven versions of graphic images for Peter Blake, including a tapestry of his famous target symbol, beloved by Mods in the 1960s. Metres away, Cleaver is working on another piece called After, After, After, Monarch of the Glen, a group collaboration by Peter Blake, Peter Saville, and the Dovecot weavers (of which there are five). The piece acquired so many 'After' prefixes because it was reinterpreted by a number of artists: Cleaver's woven work is based on a print by Peter Blake of a picture by Peter Saville, which was based on Landseer's original painting, Monarch of the Glen. It is, Cleaver says, a modern take on the tradition of the stag in wall-hangings.</p><p>Working eight hours a day, Cleaver has been given three months to complete the work: "Initially we made samples to give Peter and Peter an idea of what we were thinking of doing; there were discussions about layout and lettering; you could do it lots of ways," he says. Eventually, the piece will be reproduced several times as a limited edition, and every piece will vary as each weaver painstakingly blends their own colours as they work.</p><p>It is a long slog, but one Dovecot director David Weir says a computer cannot hope to match: "Handmade tapestry is a thought process, everything is slow and deliberate... A machine can't replicate the human touch, the happy accident or the editorial decision." Adam Lowe, whose Factum Arte studio have also made digital tapestries for Perry and Quinn, disagrees: "Traditionally, the arts have been defined by their medium: printmaking, metal-working, painting... We are now in an age where we can take one sense and transform it into another using computers. Just look at the transformation of sound into light in discos."</p><p>"As a craftsman and an artist, the point is to build bridges between processes and ideas, and the reason weaving caught on is exactly that, because it is something many artists can do," Lowe adds. Digital tapestry is certainly more cost-effective than handmade – a copy of Perry's Hold Your Belief Lightly, for example, will set you back a relatively affordable £950.</p><p>By contrast, Dovecot's prices range between £5 and £15,000 per square metre, depending on the size of the project and the level of detail. "Because of the skill involved and how labour-intensive it is," Weir admits, "tapestry's most prized asset is its biggest obstacle: few people can afford it." It was ever thus: on his deathbed, Henry VIII was considered the world's richest man, based not on his stash of gold or silver, but on his inventory of woven masterpieces. But this rather expensive sense of tradition remains part of the appeal, Weir says: "When the rest of the world becomes increasingly challenging, there is a retrenchment to what is true, respecting the values of craftsmanship and making."</p><p>Today, the bulk of commissions for Dovecot still come from corporate collectors such as PepsiCo, which commissioned a piece by Frank Stellar, now hanging in its HQ in New York, and Rolls Royce, IBM, and the London Stock Exchange. While public buildings are still key clients – a 7mx7m Ron Kitaj/Dovecot piece hangs in the central atrium of the British Library, while Castle of Mey, woven for the Queen Mother in the 1950s, takes pride of place in her Caithness home – the number of private collectors, Weir insists, are increasing, with "rich yachtsmen" among a new breed of collectors chasing after the prestige a magnificent tapestry still affords.</p><p>However, with the price of wool sky-rocketing (thanks to increased world-wide demand) and with misconceptions about the art form still rife, the life of the modern weaver is still not perfect. "The biggest problem," Weir says, "is getting recognition as an artist in your own right." One of Hockney's first observations on a collaboration with the Dovecot weavers in the 1970s was not well-received, he adds: "Hockney complained that one line had taken three weeks. After a number of conversations, he learnt that collaboration is about a dialogue, about creating something between the designer and the weaver's individual visions."</p><p>In order to prove that they are more than mere technicians, in 2008 Dovecot asked its employees to create their own pieces in response to their new site. The results are dazzling. At the front entrance, Naomi Robertson's portrait of a female bather hangs opposite a colourful, more impressionist, piece by Douglas Grierson, in which their former master-weaver depicts a number of artists, including Hockney and Monet – alongside Damien Hirst's formaldehyde shark – in a brightly-coloured work.</p><p>"Sometimes I wonder," Weir admits, standing next to a mannequin dressed in a neon-pink woven corset, "what would William Morris's weavers have made of this?" His instincts are that they would have approved.</p><p></p><p>Styling: Gemma Hayward</p><p>Photography: Rhys Frampton</p><p>Model: Teresa at Union</p><p>Hair: gow tanaka using Paul Mitchell.</p><p>Make-up: Adam de Cruz at yumikoto using Chanel S 2012 and Hydra Beauty Serum</p><p>Stylist's Assistant: Emma Akbareian</p><p>Photographer's Assistants: Rokas Darulis and Andy Picton</p><p>Filming and Editing: Daniel Burdett</p><p>Retouching: Oliver Ingrouille</p><p> </p><p>With thanks to and The Surfcomber Hotel, Miami, </p><p>All prices subject to change during sales</p><p>Working and studying in fashion often brings to mind scenes from ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ with menacing figures at the root of fashion houses or magazines that make decisions on the latest trends, which affect everybody whether they realize it or not. Working in fashion is a career that many aspire to. with glamorous ideals painted by the media. Everyone can and has to engage with clothes and whether you realise it or not, this plays a huge role in your life and how it maps out; first impressions are always important. Why wouldn’t you want to be part of such a huge and influential industry?</p><p>Certainly part of the stereotypes behind fashion are true; it is a competitive industry - each job opening one ‘a million girls would kill for’, which means that an ambitious and hard-working nature is needed to survive and thrive in an ever-changing industry. It’s true as well, that we get discounts from friends of friends with a network of contacts all eager to scratch one another’s backs! However I’m sorry to deliver the news that fashion is not simply glamorous – we just work with glamour, but some of it is bound to rub off.</p><p>My story starts with a foundation course at my local college in general art and design where I took classes in ceramics, textiles, illustration and photography to experience previously unknown aspects of the arts. I produced two collections, one on regency dress and the other inspired by Midsummer Night’s Dream, and gained a distinction from my initial year immersed in design.</p><p>From here the London College of Fashion was my first choice for my studies since the course BA (Hons) Fashion Design and Development combined the savvy sense of business with the practical knowledge of design and garment construction. For me, each aspect of fashion supports and makes sense of the others within such a dynamic industry. London is, and forever will be, one of the fashion capitals of the world and a designers’ playground. That’s why creative people gather here, and where my college, one of the best in the world for fashion, forms an amazing community under the University of the Arts umbrella. The myth that an arts degree may be easier than others is just that: a myth. Working in any creative industry is a lifestyle rather than simply a job. Once you’ve completed one project you’re on to the next. They overlap, and you carry it with you in your mind wherever you go. It may be hard work but it enhances the world and makes you who you are.</p><p>The course offered ‘live projects’, which meant working with clients such as Volcom and Kings College London to get industry feedback on targeted designs for a specific customer in mind. My year prepared a portfolio and prototypes for new NHS nurses’ uniforms, and Volcom commissioned a younger perspective on women’s sportswear. This was perfect training for eventually working for a brand where the brand’s ethos and customer profile informs the outcome of their collections.</p><p>The third year of the course is a year-long placement year to gain experience of the industry first-hand and help us to see which direction we might wish to follow both in or final year project and in our future careers. I worked at Mulberry Company Design for the full year as a raw material buyer for both sampling and production purposes. Mulberry celebrated its 40 year anniversary last year and still remains one of Britain’s most successful heritage brands. During this year, I was offered a part-time role in Product Development which suited my skills of being a creative designer whilst still applying business sense to every decision made.</p><p>Working three days a week at Mulberry whilst studying in my final year pushed me to start my own business, Make Fashion British, to unite young designers such as myself with manufacturers here in Britain. I graduated in July with a 2.1 and am now working at Mulberry which is a wonderfully friendly company with an extraordinary team. I have the opportunity to work on the runway collections and work backstage during London Fashion week, dressing the models and preparing the outfits to be viewed at their best. Famous names abound in the fashion world and I have rubbed shoulders with Jimmy Choo, Lana Del Ray and Anna Wintour to name but three.</p><p>I would recommend a career in fashion to those who appreciate beauty in design, are ready to work hard under pressure and understand that fashion is one of the world’s largest international industries that has moral and economic issues as well as being the glittering show-stopper on the cover of Vogue.</p><p>Check out heels in the shape of coral on Chanel's shoes, Versace's shell-patterned dress and Peter Pilotto's tropical beach holiday-inspired patterns – and keep an eye out for the trend filtering through to the high street soon.</p><p>Some fashion trends are hard to work in the home, but this one can look better in interiors than on your back. The secret is to keep it simple. Add a marine motif to a neutral, sea-inspired palette and you're on trend without living in a Disney theme park. White can be your mainstay here, and accents of navy, turquoise or any other shade of blue work well. Distressed wood chairs or simple Danish lines are the perfect foil for ocean themes. Choose curtains or upholster an armchair in cream and navy stripes and you'll immediately evoke a seaside feel or pick a wallpaper with a watery theme to add a sophisticated note.</p><p>Then top up your scheme with a few on-trend objects – scallop-shaped plates, a distressed wooden boat, pretty patterned cushions or sea-inspired objets d'art. And at this time of year, when summer feels as though it may never reappear, bringing a little of the seaside into your home can go a long way to lifting your mood.</p><p>As the number of high-spending visitors from mainland China rises, tourist spots and shops, hotels and businesses in Britain are trying to encourage their custom.</p><p>The Hippodrome Casino opens in central London in a fortnight, with one exit on to Chinatown decorated in metallic colours according to feng shui principles housing a separate Chinese community centre. Harvey Nichols announced last month that it would be introducing Chanel and Christian Dior to its store to appeal to overseas customers, and a sea-view property in Dorset has just gone on the market for £888,000 – seen as lucky as number 8, ba, sounds similar to the word for wealth, fa.</p><p>With the number of Chinese visitors rising 35 per cent last year to 150,000 and expected to double by 2020, the Chinese tourist market is growing increasingly important to the UK. Not least because the average Chinese visitor to Britain spends around £1,700 – three times the average of £567.</p><p>Stephen Boxall, managing director of the Ritz, said: "Chinese clientele have become some of the world's most discerning spenders, consistently listing Hermès, Chanel and Louis Vuitton as some of their favourite brands. Looking at the impressive double-digit growth in sales to wealthy Chinese tourists at both Harrods and Selfridges since the introduction of UnionPay terminals, it is clear this is a market with a significant expendable income, a desire for luxury brands and an increasingly well-travelled population who are looking to spend in the UK."</p><p>Patricia Yates, director of strategy and communications at VisitBritain, said: "China is clearly one of the most important markets. This is why we're making every effort to not only showcase Britain's culture and heritage, but also show exciting city life, our music scene, that our shopping is the best and that we have beautiful countryside."</p><p>But plans to set up Britain's first purpose-built Chinese holiday resort in Llandeilo, Carmarthenshire, were put on hold this year after the Welsh government said designs were unacceptable.</p><p>The report of the Design Commission for Wales into the 100-bed hotel and 80 holiday home resort, with signs in Mandarin and English, read: "The bland, disparate and rootless architectural language, designed to appeal to international clients irrespective of site and location, does not do justice to the quality appropriate for this site."</p><p>Lamidi Evbuomwan, an architect with contractors Maxhard, said in May: "It is unfortunate that the plans have been delayed because I believe this project would have regenerated the area."</p><p>Gambling</p><p>British racing is launching a multi-lingual website with Mandarin and Cantonese to promote itself to international tourists. While many racecourses serve Chinese fast food, Richard Mounsey, spokesman for the British Horseracing Associations said it was "quite a way from what you would pick up on the streets of Shanghai". The Hippodrome casino, opening on 13 July, has a back entrance opening on to Chinatown. The principles of feng shui have been adhered to on the Chinatown side, with metallic colours on the south side of the building. It also has a Chinese community centre with separate entrance, Chinese-speaking staff and all paperwork in Chinese. Chairman Simon Thomas said: "There is a dedicated cabaret theatre, which will see Chinese cabaret, and we will also be celebrating all of the Chinese holidays."</p><p>Tour operators and travel</p><p>VisitBritain is overtly courting the Chinese. It sent a Queen lookalike over to Shanghai for the Jubilee as well as a 3D canvas in Shanghai so people could virtually visit Buckingham Palace. Windsor Castle and London Bus Tours offer Chinese brochures and audio guides. The Roman Baths in Bath now attract 60,000 mainland Chinese visitors a year since translating their website into Mandarin.</p><p>Glamorous Travel will use the numbers eight and six on tour car number plates and hotel rooms, but avoid the figure four as it is associated with death. Any tour price containing that figure is upgraded to five. Chief executive Yan Zhang said: "Our clients like attending exclusive clubs, especially the Oxford and Cambridge Club in London, because those universities are highly regarded by Chinese internationals."</p><p>Shopping</p><p>High-end stores are courting customers from China. Burberry said that 30 per cent of UK sales were to Chinese customers last year.</p><p>Harvey Nichols is introducing classic brands such as Chanel and Christian Dior, as they appeal to foreign shoppers, while Harrods and Selfridges have China UnionPay terminals instore. Harrods reported a 40 per cent increase in sales to Chinese customers after introducing more than 100 terminals. Chinese shoppers spent an average of £3,500 over Christmas 2010. The prestigious department store hopes this figure will double over the next five years. Selfridges is offering Chinese language lessons to staff.</p><p>The designer store outlet Bicester Village is such a success – it has become the UK's most visited Chinese tourist destination outside London – that when David Cameron met the Chinese ambassador for advice on enticing more Chinese to Britain, the ambassador suggested to the Prime Minister that the UK should be building more just like it.</p><p>Feng shui</p><p>The Chinese art of maximising good energy – qi – is being adopted by homeowners and businesses. There has been a 10 per cent increase in people joining the Feng Shui Society in the past year, and a similar increase in the number of Chinese people contacting the society when they are buying, selling or renting property. The South-east is known as the wealth corner, and it is auspicious to place a fish tank or money plants to encourage prosperity.</p><p>The society's Jan Cisek says businesses are especially keen. Brands including Coca-Cola, Orange, British Airways, Hiscox Insurance, Hilton Hotels and Marriott Hotels all use feng shui in a variety of business-related ways. High street banks also observe certain principles, such as rounding the corners within branches to avoid sharp lines.</p><p>Property</p><p>The magic number 8 – associated with wealth – has led to Sotheby's Realty setting a guide price of £888,000 for a penthouse apartment overlooking the beach on the Sandbanks peninsula in Dorset.</p><p>Peter Bevan, head of UK Sotheby's International Realty's Mayfair office, said he believes that after China's currency is internationalised "the mainland Chinese could be the dominant purchaser in the London property market". He said clients are often looking for investment properties which their children move into while studying, so locations close to leading universities are popular. Ultra-wealthy Chinese buyers look to Knightsbridge, Mayfair, Belgravia and Kensington specifically for new freehold houses or luxury apartment blocks.</p><p>Harrods Estates has received an increasing amount of interest from Asian buyers, with 42 per cent of its sales coming from Asia.</p><p>Hotels</p><p>Congee for breakfast and Chinese tea in the bedroom, along with noodles and Chinese newspapers, are all touches designed to appeal to discerning Chinese tourists at London's top hotels. At the Ritz, numbers of Chinese guests have trebled since the hotel introduced China UnionPay (China's only domestic bank card) terminals. Mandarin- and Cantonese-speaking staff have increased, and guests arrive to find chrysanthemum tea, Chinese biscuits and Chinese magazines and newspapers in their bedrooms. A butler can advise on stores accepting UnionPay.</p><p>The Dorchester offers Dragon's Pearl tea and noodles with Chinese newspapers, and ensures Chinese-speaking staff will be on duty.</p><p>Hilton Hotels run to Chinese teas in rooms as well as slippers and a dedicated Chinese TV channel. Apex hotels translated their website into Mandarin in February and in two months saw revenue grow by 676 per cent.</p><p></p> <p>Musto goes on: "Calvin, darling, you're embarrassing yourself. What's worse, you're embarrassing the whole community. You were never really that much of a gay hero in the first place. Remember when you suddenly had a wife because, as AIDS made it uncool to be gay, you took the wussy way out and closeted yourself so you could sell more T shirts and perfume?" Burn. Klein has been increasingly open about his sexual orientation in recent years — but only since departing the fashion label that bears his name. The whole thing is really worth reading. []</p><p>"When he wasn't casting aspersions on other luxury brands, he lobbed ribald jokes as an Italian variety show flickered on the television behind him," writes Women's Wear Daily of its interview with designer Roberto Cavalli, otherwise known as bizarro Berlusconi. Says Cavalli of his new outpost in Japan, "I will demonstrate this to the dear Messrs. Chanel or other people like that. Fine, you dress the grandmothers and the mothers and I'll dress their kids." The designer, who is 70, says he plans to live another 50 years. In which time he intends to have sex 15,000 times. []</p> Cosmopolitan's new Adele cover is out. This is the first time we can recall seeing Adele's face and body on the front of a magazine. [] H&M shot models and their families for its new holiday campaign. Included are Jerry Hall and her daughter, the model Georgia May Jagger; Kristen McMenamy and her two sons; and Karen Elson and her fraternal twin sister, the model Kate. [] Meanwhile, the current issue of British Vogue includes a Tim Walker photograph of a model dressed like a yak, riding a yak. The yak-like outfit costs £5820. []<p>We've already dissected and evaluated the female characters' , makeup, and costume choices based on early Great Gatsby images (and that ) — now it's time for the men. Brooks Brothers was the "official clothier" for the film, which is costume-designed by Catherine Martin (who won an Oscar for her work on Moulin Rouge). Martin trawled the company's 1920s archives of clothing and advertising imagery (such as that seen at right) to produce more than 500 men's day and evening outfits for Baz Luhrmann's $125 million adaptation. Maybe the movie won't be any good — but at least it will look good. []</p> Unsurprisingly, Jonathan Adler and Simon Doonan's Shelter Island summer home is gorgeous and kinda kitschy in just the right proportions. [] Jimmy Choo — which is no longer associated with former creative director and co-founder Tamara Mellon — is unveiling a collaboration with artist Rob Pruitt. That apparently resulted in the dégradé, lace-printed zebra heels seen here. []Fashion editor Anna Piaggi was an old-school fashion eccentric. The longtime Vogue Italia contributor, who died on Tuesday in Milan aged 81, wore a wardrobe that was exceedingly varied — she claimed in interviews to never wear an outfit publicly more than once — but nonetheless had some common touchstones. Piaggi was particularly given to opera glasses, capes, canes, undersized hats (the better to show off her finger-waved blue hair), and elaborate shoes. If clothes are, as James Laver wrote, "the furniture of the mind made visible," then Anna Piaggi's mind was a riot of contrasting prints and textures, Stephen Jones headpieces, and corporate uniform items. Here are some of her best outfits.<p>Alessandra Ambrosio has confirmed she is four months into her second pregnancy. For those of you who can count, that means that yes, she was already pregnant (about eight weeks) when she walked the Victoria's Secret show. Imagine! Two months along and still ambulant! Us magazine seems very, very impressed that Ambrosio was still skinny, too. They must think that's some kind of record. []</p> The hilarious YouTube channel Pronunciation Manual — a spoof of the more useful Pronunciation Book — would like to embarrass you in front of your friends quicker than you can , "Thanks, I bought it at Versayce." [] A peeved-sounding Douglas Hannant told the Post that Jason Wu ripped off one of his designs in the latter's 2012 pre-fall collection. "If I knew that Jason Wu liked my dress so much, I would have sold it to him," said the designer. Hannant's dress was also worn by Anne Heche to an event. The dresses are similar, but far from identical, and frankly the whole "colorful shape on a black background to make you look all skinny," which is all the dresses have in common, is a pretty generic idea. Also, Wu's pre-fall collection shows a number of skirts and dresses that alternate black fabric with colored panels, suggesting it's at least possible this dress arose organically. Stella McCartney also sold a dress earlier this year; it's a pretty old trick. [] Kate Moss is on the new cover of Marie Claire South Africa. It is her third January 2012 cover: she poses as David Bowie for Vogue Paris, and in a pool for Australia's Madison. []<p>Malibu, CA, June 4: Actress Ali Larter attends Chanel's benefit dinner for the Natural Resources Defense Council's Ocean Initiative. (Photo by David Livingston/Getty Images)</p><p>Many of Silicon Valley's most powerful women are standing out amongst the area's schlumpy braniacs by dressing in expensive couture: Chanel cocktail shifts, Jimmy Choo heels, the works.</p> <p>Of course, high-ranking men have donned fashion status symbols like cufflinks for ages, but it's a little different in Northern California, where most techies dress down à la hoodie-loving Mark Zuckerberg. But a number of notable women told the that "dressing well (and talking about it) could help erode the stereotypes that repel some women from the technology field."</p> <p>"It's possible to hold your femininity and love of fashion," said Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, a former Google executive who now runs a video shopping site. "Now I feel not at all at risk that people would say, ‘How can she care about dressing well and run a billion-dollar company or be smart?'"</p> <p>Marissa Mayer, who once paid $60,000 at an auction for lunch with Oscar de la Renta, said she didn't care what her employees thought of her proclivity for full skirts and bright colors. "My willingness to talk about it is because I believe the way we'll get more people into computer science and ultimately more women into computer science is by making it really clear that you can be yourself and don't need to give up parts of yourself to succeed," she said. "You can be into fashion and you don't have to be the pasty white programmer with a pocket protector staying up all night."</p> <p>This is the first Times Styles trend piece about women and tech (or maybe, actually, Silicon Valley in general) I've read in ages that didn't . It's awesome that these women are wearing whatever they want, and even more awesome that so many of them are talking about it unabashedly, too.</p> <p> [NYT]</p><p>American Apparel just missed another financial filing deadline, and for the last period for which the company has made results available, the numbers are not good: during the first nine months of 2010, American Apparel lost $67 million, and same-store sales fell a whopping 14%. (Same-store sales have now been falling at the troubled chain for over two years.) Dov Charney, naturally, still believes his company can be saved. "If we can increase top-line sales by 10 percent at our own stores, that will translate to over $20 million in EBITDA," he said, referring to earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. (Increasing EBITDA is a key provision of the heavily indebted company's loan covenants; every time American Apparel falls out of compliance, its interest rates get jacked up and its lenders get to call more shots.) See! A hypothetical 10% jump in sales would solve all Dov's problems! "Staff's job is to get some gelt into those stores." Oh, Dov. "In the words of that old Yiddish proverb: ‘Get me an order. Everything else will take care of itself.'" []<br> Right now, because of the latest missed filing deadline for its full-year 2010 results, American Apparel is again courting the risk that its stock will be de-listed. The company says it will have 2010 numbers by March 31, and revised 2009 numbers — yep, it still technically hasn't filed those, either — by April 10. But if its stock price sits below $1 for more than 30 days, that would also trigger de-listing. American Apparel is at 93 cents a share. []</p> Male model Andrej Pejic, whose long blond hair and delicate features have led many designers to cast him to model women's wear, says the attention his look has attracted "is nice because it's offering me a wide array of opportunities. But sometimes I do just have to stop and hit myself in the head with my diamond-encrusted vase." When asked about Lea T., the transsexual Givenchy campaign model, he replied: "I don't think my situation and Lea T's are completely different when it comes to our personal lives but that's personal, for me at least. And I really think people should stop trying to categorize me because of their need for labels. When it comes to our professional lives, well she only does women's wear and I think I cover more fields. Some people in the industry will use us in a very similar way to represent similar ideas and some will want me to be a bit different from her — more androgynous, more boyish or even sex-less rather than womanly. I think professionally I am capable of being very versatile." []<p>American Apparel may be facing bankruptcy at last. According to the company's latest financial report — filed late, as is Dov Charney's custom — American Apparel lost $86 million in 2010, and had just $5.3 million in cash as of the end of February. Sales fell by 4%. Lion Capital, the private investment firm that has bailed the troubled t-shirt-maker out on more than one occasion — it first lent American Apparel $83 million to avert a bankruptcy in 2009 — had two seats on the company board; both of those members have just resigned. Charney is now talking about "creative financing." </p> <p>Charney, who sank $1.3 million of his own money into the company last week, says he is seeking "creative financing." According to the Post, "insiders say the risk of a bankruptcy appears to be rising." [, ]<br> Related (?) news: American Apparel is giving away free clothes to everyone who spends $10 online today. []</p> Miu Miu is selling tiny versions of its handbags. They cost $115-$380. [] Here is your long-awaited Christian Siriano cleaning sponge. Handsome, isn't it! [] Karlie Kloss published a photo of her wearing her Jason Wu prom dress. [] Kate Moss and her teeny anchor tattoo star in the new campaign for Dior cosmetics. []<p>The investors that American Apparel from bankruptcy four months ago are selling their stock in the company. A consortium of investors bought $15 million worth of American Apparel shares at 90 cents a pop back in March is looking to sell those shares now that AA is trading at around 97 cents; the investors also have warrants to buy up to another $30 million worth of shares at the original 90 cent price over the next six months. Sounds like they're looking to make a quick buck, but are still not sure of the company's long-term prospects. []<br> Additionally, two private-equity firms are sniffing around American Apparel's copious debt. The company owes Lion Capital some $86 million, which it has defaulted on so frequently that it's now paying 18% interest. Leonard Green & Partners, which recently took J. Crew private and also has holdings in Neiman Marcus and David's Bridal, apparently offered American Apparel a $100 million loan. What did they want as security? American Apparel has no money — seriously, the company it had only $5 million cash on hand in March, which is less money than it had to pay in its settlement with Woody Allen for making him the star of a seasonal ad campaign without, you know, checking with him first — so Leonard Green asked for AA's intellectual property and brand name to secure the loan. And as has been reported previously, AA minority shareholder Ron "Air Fuck One" Burkle's company has also made overtures to acquire the troubled clothier's debt. Dov Charney, who was reached by Women's Wear Daily while sitting shiva for his grandmother in Montreal, had no comment on the stock sales or the debt deals. []</p> Jennifer Aniston, Demi Moore, and Alicia Keys are on the cover of the new Glamour. [] J. Brand is moving beyond jeans for the first time next spring. Expect t-shirts, sweaters, jackets, skirts, and some non-denim kinds of pants. And they'll be really fucking expensive: prices range from $200 and $1,500. [] Carine Roitfeld wonders sometimes if she's really all that interesting. "Sometimes I say, What is so interesting about me? I am just doing photo shoots. It's not something that extraordinary. I'm not a great artist, I'm not writing books, I'm not a painter, and people in the streets ask me for a picture or a note and I say why? But I think it's better to appreciate it, because maybe it's not forever." Irreverent, a book that looks back at some of Roitfeld's best shoots for Vogue Paris — including with Carolyn Murphy and André J — comes out this October. [, ] Thursday Friday, the makers of those canvas tote bags that are screen-printed with appropriated images of overpriced status bags, like Birkins and Chanel 2.55s, say they are confident they're on the right side of intellectual property law. (Even though a lawsuit from Hermès did force the company to agree not to sell the "Birkin" totes anymore.) Glamour seems skeptical of this notion, but didn't Richard Prince pretty much with Marlboro like 30 years ago? [] Paz de la Huerta will appear in some ads for Agent Provocateur. Falling drunk out of a black limousine while wearing expensive lingerie is totally the classy way to fall drunk out of a black limousine. []<p>Polo Ralph Lauren is under fire for its Olympic uniforms — which, like virtually all other Polo Ralph Lauren products, are made in China, not the U.S. Harry Reid even said, "they should take all the outfits, put them in a big pile and burn them and start all over."</p> <p>Nanette Lepore, a designer who manufactures around 85% of her goods in the Garment District in New York City, says, "Why shouldn't we have pride, not only in the American athletes, but in the American manufacturers and laborers who are the backbone of our country? What's wrong? Why was that not a consideration?"</p> <p>Though the controversy could easily be written off as political demagoguery and jingoism — anything that Nancy Pelosi and John Boehner agree on should be regarded with suspicion — the issue is a sensitive one with national unemployment still high at 8.2%, and with the domestic textile and apparel manufacturing industry in a protracted decline. According to a study completed this year by the City of New York, the industry is to continue shrinking at a rate of around 2% per year. Earlier this year, the official tourism marketing agency of New York City found itself when the press discovered that its New York promotional t-shirts were made in countries like El Salvador. New York Senator Kristen Gillibrand put the economic impact of making the uniforms in the U.S. at $1 billion, and said in a statement, "When America's best athletes are representing our country on the world stage, we should be representing the best of American-made goods. The pride of our Olympic athletics goes hand in hand with the pride of American innovation and manufacturing."</p> <p>The U.S. Olympic Committee released a statement saying it was "proud of" its sponsorship deal with Ralph Lauren, which it called "an iconic American company." (That's different from a company that actually makes shit in America!) [, , ]</p> Karen Elson dared refer on Twitter to comedian Daniel Tosh's telling an audience member that it "would be really funny" if she "got raped by, like, five guys." The supermodel Tweeted, "Daniel Tosh didn't get the memo that it [rape] never was and never will be funny." Immediately, Tosh's army of enraged fans started Tweeting threats at Elson (see the example given at left). Elson took down the Tweet, but added, "Until you have walked in a woman's shoes and have to walk in a world where being sexually harassed is common you may understand my point...The replies I received mostly from young men were vile and only proved my point that rape isn't funny. I also think Daniel Tosh wouldn't want his fans to react this way." [, @]<br> In unrelated Karen Elson news: she answered Rookie readers' pleas for advice about boys, healing after cheating, tattoos, and how to deal with street harassment. She advises against, by the way, getting a Harry Potter tattoo right now, because, "I loved the movie Labyrinth when I was younger, and I'm glad I don't have the words 'The Babe With the Power' on my back today." [] Mila Kunis is in a second set of Dior ads. Mario Sorrenti is the photographer. [] Dior edited together this video depicting the three-day undertaking that was covering the walls of its Paris salon with fresh flowers. The backdrop to the couture show — the first women's wear collection designed by new creative director Raf Simons — was widely admired. [] Lush is getting into makeup. The cosmetics will be available first in Chicago, then nationwide, and you can use the shades interchangeably on cheeks, lips, and eyelids. [] Naomi Campbell is on a very sparkly cover of Schön magazine. []<p>Victoria's Secret has quickly pulled an Asian-themed lingerie collection called "Go East" that traded in sexualized, generic pan-Asian ethnic stereotypes. The item people found most offensive? The $98 "Sexy Little Geisha" teddy. The teddy was part of the lingerie giant's "Sexy Little Things" product category — making it sort of like the outfit or the get-up VS also offers, only with overtones of Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's.</p> <p>The "Sexy Little Geisha" teddy boasted an obi-style belt and was accessorized with chopsticks for your hair and a paper fan. "Your ticket to an exotic adventure: a sexy mesh teddy with flirty cutouts and Eastern-inspired florals," read the VS Web copy. "Sexy little fantasies, there's one for every sexy you." Jeff Yang at the Wall Street Journal interviewed one of the most insightful voices on the topic of fashion's construction of race, Mimi Nguyen from , about the "Go East" collection:</p> <p>Mimi Nguyen, associate professor of women's and Asian American studies at the University of Illinois–Urbana Champaign and cofounder with Minh-Ha Pham of the Threadbared fashion blog, flags the collection as a set of "stereotypical images that use racist transgression to create an exotic edge," pointing out that all of the models wearing the Go East lingerie are non-Asian. "Asians can't wear things like the ‘sexy little geisha' outfit without looking ridiculous," she says. "But it's a way for white women to borrow a racially exotic edge for a moment's play." Or, as, Phil Yu, the inimitable voice behind the AngryAsianMan.com blog, puts it even more simply: "Hooray for exotic orientalist bullshit."</p> <p>Following this uproar, Victoria's Secret promptly yanked the Sexy Little Geisha outfit, and then obscured access to the whole Go East collection, with publicists now saying that the line has "sold out," an assertion belied by the fact that the items have been purged from the website's very database: Searches for "Geisha" or "Go East" now come up as errors. ()</p> <p>[, ]</p> This is Prada's fall campaign video and it is amazing. [] Karlie Kloss shot an editorial for the new Numéro. Notable things: 1. Kloss is fairly nude throughout. 2. She appears to be wearing a pair of boots from Kanye West's collection. 3. They didn't Photoshop out her ribs. [] The late Hélène Rochas' art collection is to be sold at auction. Rochas and her husband, the late couturier Marcel Rochas, accumulated hundreds of works of art and antiques, including paintings by Kandinsky and Balthus, and four Warhol portraits of Mme. Rochas herself. At left, the Kandinsky and on the right, one of the Warhols. [] Hilary Rhoda is on the cover of Vogue Mexico's October issue. [] Free People got Garance Doré to shoot Lou Doillon for its latest catalog. []Anna Wintour did something a little unusual last week at the White House state dinner: she reached deep into her no doubt capacious closet, and fished out a Chanel haute couture gown she last publicly wore three years ago. To another high-profile event — the Met Ball, which she organizes. That was far from the Vogue editor-in-chief's first incursion into the normal-person practice of outfit repeating. In fact, she's been doing it for years. Often she repeats an outfit several times in one season, but sometimes her repeats are a little more ambitious. Why, just last month, Wintour wore a five-year-old dress to an event for the Human Rights Campaign. Why would someone who receives a rumored annual clothing budget of $200,000 as part of her compensation package from Condé Nast bother outfit-repeating? Fucking Christ, people, she's Anna Wintour. She can wear whatever the hell she wants. If she never wants to take off her favorite Prada snakeskin coat ever, ever, ever again, she doesn't have to. Besides, I bet she really enjoys trolling us all.<p>Anna Wintour is apparently campaigning to get Kate Middleton on the cover of American Vogue. Duchess Shinyhair-Upon-Tyne is basically the ladymag world's biggest get right about now, so the "news" here is that Wintour is essentially behaving like any editor with a scintilla of news judgment, ever. Only better-connected: Wintour's been allegedly putting the screws on Mario Testino, who frequently shoots for Vogue (Testino does about 10, sometimes 11, of Vogue's 12 annual covers) and is also close with the royal family. (He shot Williams and Kate's engagement photos, remember?) []<br> In other news of Middlemania, Alice Temperley, a designer who had Pippa at her show a week ago is still talking about how wonderful it was. More interestingly, Temperley says her 2-year-old son "was obsessed with smacking the models' bottoms" backstage. []<br> And in other Wintour news: "In an interview published today in Italian daily newspaper la Repubblica, Ms. Wintour calls the Italian prime minister a dictator and urges the world of fashion to rebel against him during fashion week. In the interview, Ms. Wintour also speaks about the gap between Italy's flourishing artisanal industry and the country's tarnished image because of its leadership." []</p> If you read that Rebecca Mead of Daphne Guinness and thought, "Hmmm...little contrived" — well, here's a photo of Guinness in the 1980s, with her then-husband. And a photo of her in 2002. [] Did L'Oréal lighten Freida Pinto's skin in this ad? It wouldn't be . [] "Forget the ballet flat. Retailers claim that the hot trend in flat footwear for fall, from contemporary to designer, is the smoking slipper." Dolce Vita leopard-print smoking slipper at left; $159. Has anyone seen any evidence of this trend? Anyone? [] Women's Wear Daily thinks Tom Brady's "greasy long hair with a hint of a beehive suggests premature midlife crisis." [] Fashion figureheads, re-imagined as animals. []<p>The top international modeling agency Women has copped to an oopsie: its most promising new face of the season, a girl by the name of Valerija Sestic who has already walked for 16 of the biggest designers at New York fashion week, is underage. In a season when all modeling agencies made a pledge not to put girls under 16 forward for runway work, Women lied. Sestic is 15. And yet here she is, pictured walking in runway shows for Prabal Gurung, DKNY, and Marc by Marc Jacobs. This news will be an interesting test of the industry's resolve for change, and of the limits of its capacity for self-regulation. </p> <p>A few things first: as long as there has been a modeling industry, it has been the case that most models begin their careers in their early teens. Carmen Dell'Orefice was "discovered" at age 13; in 1947, at 15, she made the cover of Vogue. Brooke Shields was 14 in 1980 when she was the face of Calvin Klein denim. Kate Moss, Patti Hansen, Niki Taylor, Kimora Lee Simmons, Bridget Hall, Gisele Bündchen, Karolina Kurkova, Linda Evangelista, and Christy Turlington: these are just a few of the well-known models who started working at age 13, 14, or 15. More recently, Tanya Dziahileva, Chanel Iman, Karlie Kloss, Lindsey Wixson, Monika Jagaciak, Daphne Groeneveld, and Hailey Clauson have all found fame within the industry after starting young. (Of course, there are many more models who begin working in their early teens who never become well-known.)</p> <p>There are some problems that arise when you have a labor force that is overwhelmingly young, foreign, and female, especially one that is in the employ of an industry dominated by wealthy, established interests. These girls work for clients that report quarterly earnings in the hundreds of millions; there are board members at these companies who have served longer than these girls have been alive. New models know that they are just one face out of the hundreds represented by their agencies. Is it any wonder that the workforce is therefore vulnerable, at least potentially, to exploitation? And this is an industry where some scouts talk openly of "grooming" their new faces.</p> <p>I have long felt that the modeling industry's reliance on exceedingly young girls — children, frankly — breeds a certain lassitude. Put simply, it's system set up around the simple truth that girls — especially girls who don't know any differently, because they've never had another job — will put up with treatment that women won't. Model age isn't just an issue because a shoot for a magazine that wants to do topless or a runway changing area full of backstage photographers or any of the many, many places where someone working in fashion might encounter illegal drugs or a photo studio alone with Terry Richardson (or any of the men like him) is an inappropriate place for a young girl to be — although those are inappropriate places for a child to work. Model age is also an issue because the way that the modeling industry profits, to a certain extent, off of the relative youth and inexperience of its workforce is a systemic problem, and one that can only be addressed by having models who are adults. As Ashley Mears recently in the New York Times, "Decades of critiquing representations of bodies in fashion have not changed what we see on the catwalk; reforming the conditions backstage just might. Empowering models as workers could potentially help them stand up against other aspects of the industry, like unhealthy expectations about dieting."</p> <p>So. Valerija Sestic. She's from the Swiss town of Thun. Her parents are Croatian. She apparently speaks five languages. She was born, her mother Mirela says, on October 21, 1995. She modeled as a child. Her mother also models; Mirela Sestic a Croatian-language news source in March that she was "Currently negotiating with several agencies" on Valerija's behalf, "and soon we start with the first engagement." Mirela said she has put her career "on ice" and planned to travel with her daughter. As Google translates her response when asked about her daughter's relative youth, Mirela says, "If you do not try, later might be too late. I am willing to sacrifice much to achieve, and her wishes. It's like in professional sports, if the parents at some point, in some years, do not stand behind their children and give them maximum support, it can be difficult to develop a top athlete. I would not like to later blame myself." This industry makes parents and girls believe that if they don't start at 14, they'll never get anywhere. But it's entirely within the power of agencies and clients to change that reality, should they want to.</p> <p>Here's Sestic some traditional Croatian crafts at an event in Germany, also back in March. And here's Sestic in one of her test shoots for Women. Clauson, whom Sestic strongly resembles (I initially mistook her for Clauson on the DKNY runway), a photographer who allegedly sold a similar shot of her to be printed on Urban Outfitters t-shirts without authorization. That would be a strange coincidence, except I'm pretty sure that these days they issue crotch-shot-on-a-motorbike photos to all newbie models at signing.</p> <p>The Council of Fashion Designers of America, a trade association that represents the interests of U.S. designers, has long recommended that its members not hire girls under 16 for runway work. This season, it asked its members to card models at castings, and extracted a pledge from all the top New York agencies not to put anyone under 16 forward for shows or highlight any underage girls in their show packages.</p> <p>Now that we are at the end of New York fashion week, it is plain that the honor system has had some failures. 14-year-old Ondria Hardin, who is currently a face of Prada, was in Ford's show package, and was booked by Marc Jacobs for his runway show. And after Women lied about her age, Sestic walked in sixteen shows, including some of the biggest of fashion week: BCBG by Max Azria, Rag & Bone, Doo.Ri, Prabal Gurung, DKNY, Y-3, Carolina Herrera, Marc by Marc Jacobs, Tory Burch, Hervé Leger by Max Azria, Rodarte, Theyskens Theory, Oscar de la Renta, 3.1 Phillip Lim, Ports 1961, and Philosophy di Alberta Ferretti. (Despite her age, Ports 1961 styled Sestic in a dress with a translucent top. That kind of styling is not uncommon: three seasons ago, when Lindsey Wixson was 15, she that exposed her breasts. Wixson had recently given an interview in which she talked about how awkward it was to ask for a strapless bra on a W shoot where the magazine asked her to wear some sheer garments, although the magazine did oblige her request.) Sestic skipped London — where a firm ban on models under 16 is in effect — and went straight to Milan, where so far she's walked for D&G, Anteprima, Blumarine, and Moschino.</p> <p>And at least one of those clients is pissed. A spokesperson for Tory Burch said Sestic wouldn't have been booked had the company known her true age. "We are conscious not to use models under 16."</p> <p>"It is true. She is 15," says Dejan Markovic, the president of Women Management. "This is never going to happen again from our company. I take full responsibility." Forgive me if I remain unconvinced of Dejan Markovic's sincerity on this score; the new face he lied about to give a start just became a breakout star.</p> <p>Clearly, the honor system isn't keeping children off the runways, and even if it were effective to just ask agencies to pinkie-swear their girls are at least 16 — fashion week is just two weeks out of the year. There's a whole lot of modeling that goes on the rest of the time. What's needed is for the modeling industry to stop regarding 12-year-old girls as a natural resource. Ondria Hardin, who was 13 when she shot her Prada campaign with Steven Meisel, had already worked extensively in Asia, where clients and agencies are even more prepared to look the other way on age than they are in the West.</p> <p>What would be so wrong with agencies taking a pledge not to sign any model for the adult market until she turns 16? And what if clients were to test that by ID'ing the models they hire — not just for runway jobs, but for all gigs? What if 16 were a firm starting age for all modeling work? What if the media started taking notice of, and reporting on, models' ages? If instead of models starting at 13-14, and being allowed onto the runway at 16, models simply started their careers at 16? It sounds like a small change, but the longer these girls have to devote to their educations, to grow their support networks of family and friends, and to develop in maturity and life skills before embarking on a career that can pose distinct challenges to all of the above and more, the better.</p> <p> [WSJ]</p><p>Some large retailers believe we may be glimpsing the end of the "big box" store. RIP, big box store, 1980s-2010s: now the we can all find limitless selection online, the point of having a poorly organized 200,000 square foot warehouse of a shop populated by underpaid, overworked, constitutionally unhelpful polo-shirted drones is rather moot, and with more people living in urban centers (where real estate is more expensive), a denser pattern of development make more sense. J.C. Penney just opened a smaller store in Daly City, California, and is rolling out more stores in the 50,000-60,000 square foot range. Wal-Mart has started opening 15,000 square foot Wal-Mart Express stores, and Target has its smaller CityTargets. Sears and Best Buy are among the chains that are apparently considering subleasing parts of their existing enormous stores in order to reduce their own area. Most of these "smaller" stores are still comparatively quite large, but they're not three-football-fields, pallets-to-the-ceiling, hyperventilation-in-aisle-117b large. And, according to Women's Wear Daily and the retail analysts it interviewed for this piece, there's "a new kind of consumer animal" running rampant in the city: WOOFs, or well-off old folks. "They are empty nesters in their 50s and beyond who have moved out of the suburbs and taken to the bright lights of the city for their twilight years." []</p> Liv Tyler is in a Givenchy makeup ad. [] Candice Swanepoel — who's been known more for her Victoria's Secret contract than her high-fashion work as of late — booked the Tom Ford fall campaign. Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott shot it. [] Crystal Renn shows off vintage-inspired fashions in this Mark Seliger spread from the new Vogue Spain. [] This photo of Edita Vilkeviciute is included in a Mario Testino show currently open in Rome. [] Kinga Rajzak is almost unrecognizable, in a beautiful way, in this editorial from Björk's guest-edited issue of Dazed & Confused. [] Kate Spade and L.A. denim brand Current/Elliott are collaborating on a line of handbags. They will retail for $245-$1295. [] M.I.A.'s eldest sister is a jewelry designer whose latest collection is intended to resemble gunshot wounds, machete slashes, and machine-gun spray. The pieces are all done in gold and precious stones. [] Two words: Zombie bikinis. []When you think "Giorgio Armani," do you think high contrast black and white? Do you think giant flower corsages? Do you think 1920s cloches and boaters? No? Well that's what he presented in Milan yesterday as part of his spring 2012 collection. Theere was an absence of color, but the clothes were super crisp, very fresh and totally sharp.<p>If there was one thing that stood out on the Golden Globes red carpet — well, one thing besides Helena Bonham Carter's purposefully mismatched shoes — it was the number of actors who selected dresses to fulfill their contractual obligations.</p><p>And they often didn't look great doing it.</p> <p>Entertainment industry figures with endorsement deals are nothing new — but more and more these days, luxury brands are signing celebrities to exclusive, multi-year contracts that cover far more than the usual fragrance deal. Where once a famous lady or dude might have just been the seasonal face of an advertising campaign, now brands are locking in their services for all manner of high-profile public appearances for the duration of the contract. Magazine covers and awards shows are publicity opportunities not to be missed, and luxury companies want as much of that sweet lucre on lockdown as they can get.</p> <p>Which is why Armani paid Megan Fox to become a face of the brand in 2009; Fox has worn practically nothing but Armani since. Ditto January Jones, with Versace. Ditto Marion Cotillard, with Dior. Nicole Kidman wore Chanel pretty much exclusively during her as the house's spokesmodel. Anne Hathaway wears Armani in public and attends Armani fashion shows with such regularity that she might as well be on the payroll. And any starlet who turns up on a red carpet in Marchesa (as Olivia Wilde did last night and Kate Hudson did last year) is automatically suspect. Harvey Weinstein's wife, Georgina Chapman, co-runs the label. And Weinstein is an industry figure not to be trifled with.</p> <p>What this means in practice is that some of the more extraordinary dresses — the couture outliers, bound to polarize the peanut gallery — don't get worn. Brands and stars are united under the goal of never looking bad, but a red carpet without risk is a boring affair indeed. Where was the Dior couture? Why wasn't anyone willing to try and match the gorgeousness of, say, Cate Blanchett's periwinkle blue Jean-Paul Gaultier gown ? This selection bias that favors the neutral over the bright, the plain over the dramatic, the pretty over the beautiful is often blamed on gossip bloggers in particular and the level of discourse on teh internets in general, but I think it's more likely the natural consequence of overriding commercial considerations.</p><p>Former First Lady Barbara Bush made an appearance on Fox News yesterday, and when she was asked about what she thought about the Mother Of Five Ann Romney Has Not Worked A Day In Her Life kerfluffle, she had some game-changing knowledge bombs to drop.</p> <p>In a three sentence response to Megyn Kelly's question on the matter, Babs said it was good of CNN pundit Hilary Rosen to apologize for her Romney remarks, but that ultimately, this crap doesn't really matter. She said, "Forget it. Women who stay at home are wonderful. Women who go to work are wonderful. Whatever."</p> <p>Whatever indeed, Madam. Whatever indeed.</p> <p>Full disclosure: Even though she is half responsible for the production of my generation's least favorite President, I love Barbara Bush. That old broad is ice cold, and so over everything that she couldn't find a fuck to give if you told her where to look. She's like a caricature of a rich lady inside a Chanel suit inside a cocoon of protective air that vibrates with powerful yet-to-be deployed shame. She's a force of WASP-iness. I bet it would take her about a minute to make Ann Coulter cry.</p> <p>[]</p><p>Betsey Johnson has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Johnson's company was given a from bankruptcy in 2010 by Steve Madden, the shoe maker and convicted felon, after it defaulted on a nearly $50 million loan. Madden's company paid the debt, taking as collateral all of Betsey Johnson's intellectual property, and began the process of restructuring the company and pumping out more licensed goods — but the restructuring didn't really take, and retail sales are down by more than 20% since 2007. As a result of the bankruptcy filing, about 350 people will lose their jobs, and the majority of the chain's 63 stores will be shuttered. Johnson, who got her start as a costume designer on Andy Warhol's films (and who was once to John Cale), says that the company will reorganize and emerge from bankruptcy, she will remain the creative director, and that she will have a runway show in September. [, ]</p> Linda Evangelista stars in a dancing-themed cover editorial in the new Vogue Italia. The magazine uploaded to preview GIFs to its Web site. [] Elle has a history of the two-piece women's swimsuit up on its site, including Frenchmen Jacques Heim's 1946 "Atome" swimsuit and Louis Réard's 1947 "Bikini." The 1944 of four Mexican women bathing in a stream, one of whom is wearing something that looks very much like a two-piece swimsuit, which was unearthed last year by fashion history blog Of Another Fashion is not included; in fact, all of the bikini-wearing women in Elle's history appear to be white. [, ] This photo of two models posing as a gay couple in 1942 is part of a new Ray-Ban campaign intended to glorify "rebels" throughout history. [] Yeah, maybe it's not such a good idea to call one colorway of your stupid manicure-with-lumps-in-it nail polish set "Ghetto Fabulous." That's shading into "Juarez" territory. []<p>Tom Scocca wrote a glowing review of Bill Cunningham New York, the documentary about New York Times street style photographer, which was just released in the U.S.: "Cunningham's work falls in the territory where fashion becomes clothing, or vice versa. The fashion industry itself prefers to obfuscate how this works, how the decisions of designers, prepared seasons in advance, correspond somehow to the collective desires of the public to choose put on a particular style in the moment. Cunningham blows away the smoke and mist, asking only, what do I see people wearing now?...The theory of Bill Cunningham is democratic and objective; the practice is autocratic and subjective. That is: he's a journalist, a real one. He imposes his sensibility on the world with severe neutrality." []<br> The film is outstanding. Here is a clip to tide you over until you go see it. [] <br> James Franco gets a cover, a multi-page editorial spread, and 5,000 words devoted to his various excellences in the new issue of GQ Style, GQ UK's semiannual fashion supplement. []<br> Jean Baptiste Mondino shot Mia Wasikowska — one of the Kids who is All Right — in a white face mask for the cover of W. []<br> Karl Lagerfeld did some lovely fashion illustrations for a new edition of Justine Picardie's biography of Coco Chanel. []</p>Was there a dress code? Or do stars just hear "CHANEL Tribeca Film Festival Artists Dinner" and assume through long practice that it's an occasion for black and white?<p>Oh, the nauseating of the celebrity spokesmodel: "It's more than just a purse. It's a quilted case full of lipstick, , and the dreams and possibilities that I have always felt every time I see that beautiful 'CC.'"</p><p>Blake Lively — who was only just to us about how Chanel didn't just make a nice handbag, "It's a quilted case full of lipstick, love letters, and the dreams and possibilities that I have always felt every time I see that beautiful 'CC'" — has defected to a rival luxury brand. She's now going to be a face of a Gucci perfume. Presumably it smells like money. []</p> MAC just added 65 new nail polish colors. Look at them all. Purrrrrrrty. [] Prada is releasing some t-shirts with artist Vahram Muratyan. [] Candice Swanepoel stars in the fall Versace Jeans campaign. []<p>Bobby Brown seems to have some sort of chip inside him that is programmed to make him cause trouble at regular intervals. Today Brown, who obviously is no stranger to substance abuse, was arrested for driving under the influence in Los Angeles. Bobby, Bobby, Bobby, this shit is getting old. </p> <p>Apparently he was driving in Reseda, California at around noon when he was pulled over for talking on his phone. He was then arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence and was taken to the Van Nuys jail. It looks like he was drunk, and, according to TMZ, "his people" are bailing him out. This will surely not be the last we hear about this incident. Brown, of course, is no stranger to tangling with the law, and, in fact, he has been convicted of a DUI once before, in 1996. So he's probably got this whole thing down to a science. Ugh. []</p> <p>For a minute there, it looked like Taylor Swift and Dianna Agron were going to be sworn enemies waging an epic battle for the heart of Tim Tebow. But they've outfoxed us and showed that, in fact, they are friends. The two went to see Hunger Games together this weekend, and, at least from the photo that got , there's nary a hint of hatred between them. What's that old saying? "Hoes before Tebows" or something like that? []</p> <p>There's further drama today surrounding Whitney Houston's death. A person with the amazing name Raffles van Exel, a "confidant" of Whitney's, told Dutch newspaper The Telegraph that he was the one who cleaned out her hotel room after she died because, "Someone had to do it." OK, maybe, but if that's true, then why tell a Dutch newspaper about it and not one of the 1,000 U.S. tabloids that probably would have paid you handsomely for that info? Oh, right, because he's the incredibly who sold the photo of Whitney in the casket to the National Enquirer and who also sold a fake photo of "Whitney's body" being wheeled out of the hotel to TMZ. God, who can you even trust in this world anymore if you can't trust a celebrity hanger-on named Raffles van Exel? []</p> <p>If Twitter is good for anything, it's for spreading pictures of celebrities without their makeup on. The most recent instance is Lady Gaga tweeting out of herself sans makeup, and while she looks great, she doesn't look much like the Lady Gaga we're used to. She has more of a Stefani Germanotta vibe about her, which is actually quite refreshing. []</p> <p>She may be approaching her 800th trimester of pregnancy, but Jessica Simpson was still game to be a bridesmaid in her friend's wedding. She and sister Ashlee Simpson both donned flowered gowns and walked down the aisle. The bride must have been concerned that Jessica would go into labor during the "I do" moment, but that'd probably mean her wedding photos would instantly be worth a fortune, which isn't a bad trade for having your party rained on by a gush of amniotic fluid. []</p><p> Carine Roitfeld has this to say about makeup: "I don't like it when makeup looks very try-too-hard. I like it when makeup looks like you have more important things to do than to look at yourself. Like you have other things to do than your makeup!" Roitfeld's collection for M.A.C. just launched, but she says her number-one piece of beauty advice is simple: wear sunscreen. []<br> Roitfeld also says that her apartment is messy. Really messy:</p> <p>"One time, a burglar came to my apartment, so we called the police. My son was here, so I think they left before they tried to steal something. So the police come to the apartment and they say, 'Oh my god, did they steal everything?' I was like, 'No, it was like that!'"</p> <p>[]</p> Chanel released this behind-the-scenes shot from Brad Pitt's Chanel No. 5 commercial shoot. The actor was reportedly paid $7 million for his services, and the ad apparently "features Pitt speaking in a way that the viewer assumes he's speaking to a woman — and then it's revealed that the addressee is actually the scent." Clever twist, Chanel. Never would have seen that one coming. [] Jennifer Lawrence is on the new cover of British Vogue. [] This is a sketch of Anne Hathaway's Valentino wedding dress released by the brand. It was crafted in ivory silk point d'esprit tulle. [] Here are a handful of behind-the-scenes shots (all clothed) from the set of the 2013 Pirelli calendar shoot. Karlie Kloss and Hanaa Abdesslem are among the cast. The photographer is Steve McCurry, the photojournalist best known for his "Afghan Girl" portrait of Sharbat Gula. The models were reportedly cast for their ties to non-profit and humanitarian work. [] Refinery29 collaborated with DKNY on a line of bags. There's one for every city in which there's an edition of the site, and they cost $195-$395. [] The Cut unlocked the secret of Ann Romney's wardrobe, and that secret is a New York-based designer named Alfred Fiandaca. Fiandaca founded his label in 1960 and is responsible for some of the would-be FLOTUS's most remarked-upon outfits — including the pink suit she wore on the night of the first presidential debate and that black perforated-leather biker suit thing that was so racy it had the Mormon fashion community whether she was wearing her temple garments or not. Fiandaca, through a spokesperson, described himself as apolitical. "Everyone in the atelier just loves the Romney family," his P.R. said. "Mrs. Romney is just lovely." []In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.<p>Today in unsolicited uterus updates: Carla Bruni went out in public wearing sweat pants, and now there's gossip that she's pregnant. Bruni, who tends to favor luxury labels like Christian Dior, has been dressing more casually lately — maybe because she and Nicolas Sarkozy have an eight-month-old in the house? But French tabloid mag Closer says Bruni is definitely pregnant, and that her change in clothing style and "extra weight" are evidence:</p> <p>For several weeks people have been asking why she has not been able to lose the extra weight gained with her last pregnancy, to return to that allure that Bruni has always possessed. Everyone was a little dumbfounded by her baggy, shapeless clothes, and her newfound preference for appearing in public in sweatpants.</p> <p>But we can now reveal that Carla Bruni-Sarkozy is pregnant again...And with her stomach looking ever more round, she can no longer hide it. She clearly wants to nurture this pregnancy with the utmost care, because, like the last one, it is later in life so all the riskier. She has therefore been advised to take as much rest as possible. We wondered what the Sarkozys would do with themselves after leaving office, and now we know — play happy families!</p> <p>If she is pregnant, Bruni likely won't be making any official announcements anytime soon. With her baby daughter Giulia, she didn't comment on anything related to the pregnancy up to and including the birth.</p> <p>People claiming to be members of Bruni's "entourage" have already told Gala and Voici that the rumor is false. "Carla Bruni will not deny it officially, but I can tell you she is not pregnant," says one "friend." "She's breastfeeding her daughter, and she's starting to lose the weight. To write that she is pregnant? No."</p> <p>According to our sources, not only is the former First Lady not pregnant with her third child, she is furious and humiliated by the idea that such a rumor would take hold because of her difficulty in getting back into her pre-baby shape immediately. Unlike Victoria Beckham, Mariah Carey, Miranda Kerr and Beyoncé, who lost their kilos just weeks after giving birth, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy — like many women — is taking (a little) more time. But no, she is not pregnant.</p> <p>[, , ]</p> Supermodel Elle MacPherson will not be returning as the host of NBC's little-watched reality show Fashion Star when it comes back for a second season. Also leaving the show is sponsor H&M, one of the retailers where the season 1 contestants sold their clothes. Jessica Simpson, John Varvatos and Nicole Richie are remaining as judges. [] Lindsey Wixson, Kati Nescher, and new face Cora Emmanuel scored this fall's Chanel campaign. Unfortunately, it's really ugly. [] Salvatore Ferragamo's fall ads star Kate Moss and Karmen Pedaru. [] Natalia Vodianova is on the cover of Jalouse. [] Awww. Lourdes Ciccone Leon borrowed one of her mother's Jean Paul Gaultier corsets, put it on, and took a photo for Twitter. []Last night, Cartier previewed its "New York City in the '70s" exhibition and held an after party attended by European princesses and America's royal couple, Jay-Z and Beyoncé. For an event thrown by the infamous jewelers, there wasn't much bling.<p>The unregulated feline fashion model industry is booming, like a prospectin' town in the Ol' West or a shore town's lone custard stand over Fourth of July weekend. Cats owe their new popularity among fashion photographers largely to their conspicuous mix of fuzziness and haughtiness, and also to the fact that they dominate the internet and all magazines nowadays want to be because the internet is where all the super-cool people hang out, like you and me (but not any of these other dweebs, *elbow in the ribs, snicker snicker*).</p> <p>Amy Odell over at Buzzfeed the rise of fashion cats, which have been appearing more often in ads ever since Lanvin's fall 2009 campaign. Since that fateful season, cats have infiltrated Miuccia Prada, Chanel, Givenchy and even magazine editorials (as writers, I would assume, because cats seem like they'd make good writers). Even Karl Lagerfeld's cat Choupette — who has more employees than you have had or ever will have acquaintances — is starting to make her presence felt on the fashion scene, securing representation from IMG and a recent photo shoot with model Laetitia Casta.</p> <p>The problem, though, with the cat trend is that cats, according to Karen Hoeverman, cat whisperer, are really hard to train, probably as hard as they are to herd or teach how to samba on only their hind legs (it can be done). Even with regular training sessions, some cats can still be intransigent assholes and straight-up refuse to cooperate with anyone else's schedule. They earn comparatively less than human models ($20,000 a year is a really high cat model salary), and, surprise, the fashion industry is extremely choosy about which cats are most photogenic. If you think "smashed-in face" cats would be the most popular at fashion shoots because they are the most popular at fashion shows, it just proves how little you know about fashion — smash-face cats look too angry to help sell designer clothes, so designers prefer to use long-nose cats, ocelot-looking cats.</p> <p>If you have a cat and you're thinking, "Hey, my cat is adorable and well-behaved enough not to kick poop out of the litterbox — I should put it in Vogue or something, the better to supplement my own income," two things: congratulations on being a responsible pet owner, and nobody wants your ugly cat to be in their ad for handbags. Career cats dominate the fashion scene (they have their own agents and everything), and if those cats ever saw an normie cat try to worm its way onto a fashion shoot, they'd probably snark on its belly pouch, because cats can be really shallow and mean.</p> <p> [Buzzfeed]</p>The Veuve Clicquot held its Second Annual Polo Classic in Los Angeles on Sunday, which begs the question: What exactly is a Polo Classic? Is it like the more elitist, West Coast version of the Kentucky Derby? Are you supposed to wear breezy lawn dresses and hats? We're going to assume not, seeing as most of the attendees wore unimpressive clothes and carried Chanel purses that, unfortunately, looked like plastic under the October sun.In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.<p>Apparently, there have been "internal grumblings" at Chanel's U.S. division over the brand's choice to hire Blake Lively as a face. Certain people say that Lively's is an "off-brand look" — "the bitchy fashion industry's clinical way of saying that Lively's contemporary American beauty does not dovetail with Chanel USA's efforts to sell its fashions as the height of European sophistication," explains the Daily News. When Lively was named the new star of the brand's ads, she memorably told the press that Chanel handbags are special because they're "full of dreams." []</p> After studying Lara Stone's underwear very closely, a CBS affiliate is willing to advance the theory that this billboard has a hidden message that reads "F U c K." Once you see it, you can't un-see it. []<p><br> Hey there, moneybags! Were you standing in your bathroom this morning, staring at the priceless antique jar you fill with cotton balls, thinking to yourself, "These little wads of cotton just aren't soft enough for my fine face. If only there was something more luxurious I could invest in"? Well, it's your lucky day! Chanel has just the solution for you: Le Coton, "an exquisitely soft tri-layer pad developed in Japan."</p> <p>It may look like a regular cotton pad embossed with the Chanel logo, but it is actually so much more:</p> <p>It's outer lining, made from delicate, handpicked Egyptian cotton, and its inner filling, comprised of lightly entwined, elastic Australian fibers. Combined, this ultra-absorbent, lint-free composition increases the effectiveness of CHANEL Cleansers and Toners, treating even the most sensitive skin to unparalleled gentleness.</p> <p>For a mere twenty American dollars, you can own 100 of these "generously sized" Le Coton pads. For those of you who are too rich to be bothered with math, that breaks down to roughly 20 cents per pad. For reference, you can buy 80 lowbrow for roughly two dollars, or 2.5 cents per pad.</p> <p>Of course there is simply no luxury in that, and the truth is you will pay whatever you have to in order to have the Chanel Le Coton experience. You could never deny yourself the smooth caresses of Egyptian cotton floating majestically over your flawless face or the joy of watching the precious dirt and leftover foundation from your face build up in the tiny corners of the timeless Chanel logo.</p> <p>[Via ]</p><p> We're not entirely sure what this...is...but it looks like Karl had a fever dream after watching Mannequin (or maybe after watching the horror vehicle Dead Silence), woke up, and thought, "What a tremendous concept for zee new video!"</p><p>The Fashion Test Dummies Lagerfeld cast for this little flight of fancy are , , and Bapstiste Giabiconi. Giabiconi — whom you may remember from his recent, and completely mind-blowing, Western-themed debut music video, — actually looks remarkably convincing as a plaster mannequin. Dvorakova keeps twitching, which is irritating. What this has to do with fashion, we don't know, but we can't stop watching.</p> <p> Fashin</p> <p>Earlier: </p><p>Charlize Theron would rather not talk about John Galliano and the racist and anti-Semitic ("I love Hitler, you'd all be fucking dead," &c) that got him fired from Dior, where Theron remains a well-paid spokesmodel. "I think that he's going through a really difficult time right now, and I'm sure that he wants some privacy. He's got an important journey to go through right now. But I wish him nothing but well." Fellow Dior face Natalie Portman, you will recall, was in her condemnation of Galliano's statements. []<br> Theron says she has yet to get used to seeing her face on bus shelters, magazines, and billboards. "How is that normal? It's always very incredibly bizarre. It's like an out of body experience in many ways. I'm always so happy with the campaigns that I do with them… I'm very proud of it, but it's very awkward to kind of look at yourself like that. Very bizarre." []</p> Another of Kate Winslet's ads for St. John has dropped. [] Carmen Dell'Orefice will receive an honorary doctorate from the London College of Fashion this summer. [] We had no idea "Australian" model Catherine McNeil was the bearer of a New Zealand passport. That makes exactly one thing we have in common. Also, she cut her hair, as you can see. [] Marc Jacobs is launching a new fragrance. It's called Oh, Lola, and the campaign stars Dakota Fanning. [] Rick "Zombie Boy" Genest just nabbed his first magazine cover. He shot for Fashion magazine, alongside Polish model and Calvin Klein face Monika "Jac" Jagaciak. His interstitial inverted-commas nickname is the more bad-ass of the two. [] Duran Duran — who really pleasantly surprised us when we saw them live at a Paper party a while back, really, pleasantly, surprised — are filming a music video that stars Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, Eva Herzigova, and Helena Christensen, as well as Yasmin Le Bon (of course). Jonas Ackerlund, of "Paparazzi" fame, directs, and the event doubles as a cover shoot for British Harper's Bazaar. Here's a backstage TwitPic of Cindy Crawford; this sounds promising. []<p>Christina Hendricks has swimsuit season ish. She says, "It's really hard to find a bathing suit if you have breasts. You either get smooshed down or there's no support." The actress continues, "My husband and I have sketched out designs." Christina? We guarantee that if you paid someone to turn those sketches into samples, and showed those samples to stores, PEOPLE WOULD BUY THEM. Swimsuit designers generally have no clue what to do about a lady's funbags. []</p> Kelly Osbourne shot another season's worth of ads for Madonna's Macy's line, Material Girl. [] Here's Naomi Campbell, snarling away in the fall Givenchy campaign. [] YSL's fall campaign features Raquel Zimmerman posing in front of a full-length plate glass window, 31 floors up in a Manhattan skyscraper. [] Two more pictures from Hailee Steinfeld's Miu Miu campaign have been released. We continue to really enjoy the fact that this was not shot in another bloody studio! Great outdoors FTW. []<br> The ads were shot near Miami. [] Lily Donaldson graces the cover of August Vogue Japan Beauty. [] Soon-to-be divorcée Natalia Vodianova designed a lingerie collection for Etam, of which she is a face. [] This tiny minaudière, at $150 retail, is the cheapest bag from Nicole Richie's forthcoming accessories collection. The most expensive is a $625 "taupe and ivory pony burnout hobo." [] Refinery29's slideshow of well-dressed women in their 70s is absolutely amazing and wonderful. "A good pair of sunglasses is better than a facelift. It hides the ravages of time and lets you spy on people," says one. "To age is a privilege," says another. [] Today in Lagerfeldiana: Chanel quilted flat-screen televisions handbags. [@]<p>A new biography of Coco Chanel sheds more light on her wartime activities, and the house of Chanel seems to be bracing itself for backlash. What was ol' Gabrielle up to during World War II? Palling around with Nazis at the Ritz, basically — but the house of Chanel is denying that its founder and namesake spied for the German regime, and that she was actually anti-Semitic. Coco Chanel had an affair with Hans Gunther von Dincklage, a Nazi military intelligence officer and immediate subordinate of Joseph Goebbels, during World War II, and was close with Walter Schellenberg, the Nazi head of foreign intelligence; she also sought to wrest control of the Chanel company from her Jewish business partners, the Wertheimers, under the Nazi anti-Jewish ownership laws. (She failed because the Wertheimers had secretly transferred ownership of the company to a Christian prior to the Nazi invasion of France.) Coco Chanel lived in Switzerland for nine years after the war's end, in part to avoid prosecution as a collaborator; although her ties to various Nazi figures have long been well-known, the author of Sleeping with the Enemy: Coco Chanel's Secret War has added significant original research to our understanding of that period of her life. The book even makes the claim that Coco Chanel herself was a Nazi spy. Author Hal Vaughan , "I was looking for something else and I come across this document saying 'Chanel is a Nazi agent, her number is blah, blah, blah and her pseudonym is Westminster.' I look at this again and I say, 'What the hell is this?' I couldn't believe my eyes! Then I really started hunting through all of the archives, in the United States, in London, in Berlin and in Rome and I come across not one, but 20, 30, 40 absolutely solid archival materials on Chanel and her lover, Baron Hans Gunther von Dincklage, who was a professional Abwehr spy." Modern-day Chanel's response? "She would hardly have formed a relationship with the family of the owners or counted Jewish people among her close friends and professional partners such as the Rothschild family, the photographer Irving Penn or the well-known French writer Joseph Kessel had these really been her views." So, basically, she had Jewish friends. Chanel also denies that Coco Chanel spied for the Nazi regime, calls the timing of her relationship with Dincklage "unfortunate" but points out that his mother was English (as though that mattered), and asserts that she approached Winston Churchill about "acting as an intermediary between the Allies and the Germans for a peace settlement known as Operation Modelhut." That makes Operation Modelhut sound pretty benign, but the truth is a lot more complicated; the Times of London Operation Modelhut a "Nazi plot" that was to use Coco Chanel as "bait." []</p> The incredible photographer Deborah Turbeville is working on some kind of project with Donna Karan, to be unveiled during London Fashion Week. [] French actress Léa Seydoux, who plays Gabrielle the antiques dealer in Midnight in Paris, was once an American Apparel model. Link NSFW, because American Apparel, duh. [] Current Playboy cover model Daisy Lowe looks really cute in these promotional shots for her mother Pearl's latest (Stevie Nicks-inspired!) collection for Peacocks. [] Steven Meisel shot plus-size model Candice Huffine for the September issue of W. Huffine got two shots in an editorial that also featured Karen Elson, Carolyn Murphy, and Raquel Zimmerman. Link NSFW. [] Heidi Klum made the September cover of Harper's Bazaar's Russian edition. [] Esperanza Spalding is on the cover of the next issue of T. [] There are pictures of Anna Dello Russo's collection for Macy's INC brand. Unfortunately, there are no photos of the AMAZING SUNGLASSES that the models were wearing at the preview last night, so you'll have to take our word for their existence (and amazingness). []<br> Giambattista Valli has signed on to produce a collection for Macy's, too. [] In case you are or a man of your acquaintance is in need of a pair of pleated-front, elasticized-cuff khaki pants, Dockers is rolling out a series of designer collaborations over the coming season, including pieces from T by Alexander Wang, Michael Bastian, and Patrik Ervell. [] There's an article in this week's Times Style section on the excellent blog , which writer Jon Caramanica calls "now one of the foremost online repositories of black style." [] Thakoon is selling this lightweight wool plaid scarf for $250, and 100% of the proceeds will go to aid for the millions of people affected by Somalia's famine. The country is currently experiencing its worst drought in 50 years. []<p>Much has been taken from the French over the years, and now that includes their ability to be all snooty about staying thin. (who's on a roll this week) says:</p> <p>You almost have to feel bad for the French here. First they lost their standing as the preeminent power in the world to a bunch of people who think that British food is "good." Then they lost their empire to a war with a bunch of people who think that lederhosen are fashionable. Then, mon dieu, they had to start taking orders in world affairs from a bunch of people who they not only saved from the British earlier, but then later turned around and became bestest buddies with those Limey assholes.</p> <p>But they soldiered on, those industrious little frogs. A croisant in one hand, and a cigarette in the other, they let their disdain for the world and iron grip over Chanel drive them forward. Sure, their cars barely have a market in France itself, and nobody really knows what their economy exists for today, but goddammit, they soldiered on knowing that they were the skinniest and prettiest. And the food! They could eat their cheese and drink their wine and laugh at those uncultured Americains and eedeous English pigdogs.</p> <p>And now even that is gone.</p> <p>"Ye sons of France, awake to apnea,<br> Hark, hark! what McGriddles bid you rise!"</p> <p>Submit nominations to the . Just send the outstanding comment's URL and tag your nomination . (Replying to a comment with "" does not work.) </p> <p>Use to report comments that you feel the editors/mods should be aware of. Try not to respond to/approve/promote trollish comments in the threads — instead, just post the comment on the page, the same way you'd post a comment on or on the page, and the editors/mods will take care of it.</p> <p>For meetups, use the tag page!</p>The inimitable Pedro Almodovar was honored last night at New York's Museum of Modern Art. Instead of a red carpet, there was a wall of roses. The clothes were almost as lovely. But, as always, there were a few exceptions and near-misses.<p>With everything from birth control to equal pay under assault, it's never been more important that we, as women, tackle the issues that really matter to women today. Namely: are female politics reporters looking extra skanky nowadays, or what? How can we stop them before they rub their barely-hidden vaginas all over the news and make it smell all musky?</p> <p>Fishbowl DC takes on the hard issues and more with their in-depth piece, entitled (seriously) . Basically, the problem is this — and they swear, honey, that they're not trying to put you down in any way and they're only saying this because they care about you so much and are just trying to be a good friend and, like, they want other people to see how amazing you are — young, female reporters like The Times' and The Hill's are parading around on the internet in dresses that show off their shoulders and are putting pictures on Twitter wherein they look kind of pretty and, well, Fishbowl didn't say this, but other people have been saying this, it makes them look like, well, a piping hot pot of sex. And maybe if female reporters want people to respect them and stuff, they should stop looking like such sluts.</p> <p>Concerned, first and foremost, and not in a judgmental way at all, with the well being of these weapons-grade whores and their slutcareers, Fishbowl asked a marketing expert about what sort of damage their glistening, heaving breasts are doing to their images as serious reporters. The marketing expert said that the pictures used on Twitter weren't damaging per se, but that it was important for young reporters to remember that their user picture on social networking sites should reflect their "brand." (Which is why I'm totally not wearing pants in my Twitter picture.) So, according to the expert, their pictures weren't slutty at all.</p> <p>Undaunted by the fact that the theory that maybe other people might think these women were looking a little round in the heel (if you get my geriatric drift) was debunked by the marketing expert, Fishbowl presented, for its readers, examples of just how unprofessional and strippery young female reporters have gotten. Why aren't they dressed like Madeleine Albright? Where are the Chanel jackets and prim poses? Did none of these women debut at a respectable deb ball?!</p> <p>Not even Gawker's resident skank Maureen O'Connor was immune to the . She tweeted a sarcastic comment at FishbowlDC's account after they posted the story only to have whoever is running their feed basically call her another perfect example of the kind of harlot that's ruining the media. I'm not sure how it ended but now I think they have to fight to the death in a mudpit or something. And all over women who dare write while not looking hideous.</p> <p>So let this be a warning to you, ladies: If you're going to write things and expect people to listen to you, you better do it from inside a paper bag or turtleneck. Or else no one will take you seriously. No offense.</p> <p> [FishbowlDC]</p> <p>Image via Carlo Depino/Shutterstock</p><p>This is kind of a DUH but so great to see it confirmed: Multiethnic beauty consumers are on the rise. WWD reports that there are "a growing number of women in the U.S. who associate themselves with multiple ethnic backgrounds, thus making it difficult for them to find brands that speak to them - or work for them - completely." Global beauty industry analyst Karen Grant says:</p> <p>The world today is not a black-and-white one. [It is critical to] allow for women to embrace brands without thinking they are making an ethnic choice… Brands that have done well have recognized the potential in their portfolio. The ethnic complexion in the U.S. is constantly changing.</p> <p>Grant names some of the fastest-growing demographics in the U.S. as Indians, Pakistanis, Middle Easterners, Brazilians and Hispanics, both as residents and visiting beauty buyers alike, and says the new multiethnic consumer is typically under age 45, beauty-oriented and underserved when it comes to her beauty needs. Basically, beauty companies who don't recognize and tailor and market toward these customers will get left behind. [, sub req'd]</p> <p>Victoria Beckham is doing a Chanel Haute Couture shoot right now; she's been pix from the iconic staircase in the Paris Salon and rumor has it Karl Lagerfeld will be photographing Posh Spice for French Elle. []<br> By the by, Vicky Becks is exited about the Spice Girls reunion for the Olympics closing ceremony. I'm so respectful of my past and I love the other girls. We have some fantastic fans," she told RTE. "Who knows, maybe some day we'll do something else with the Spice Girls. I would love nothing more. I don't know about a comeback tour but I loved being back with the girls. There was a lot of fun, we did so much together and we'll see. If they're up for something then I certainly am. We are so proud to be English and we are very excited about the Olympics." []</p> <p>Here's the first image made public from Carine Roitfeld's CR Fashion book. Death. Life. Drama! []<br> And that's not all: Carine Roitfeld will be using animated gifs! []</p> <p>Ever heard of C Magazine? Well you have now, because they shot Katie Holmes for the September cover. Nicely timed. []</p> <p>Mario Lopez has a line of underwear (of course), and to promote the MaLo brand, he posed painted gold. Behold Skivvicus, god of boxer briefs! [, ]</p> <p>Have you seen Spain's Olympic uniform? Check out Spain's Olympic uniform. It looks like someone barfed on a McDonald's uniform. It looks like the pattern behind your eyelids when you're having a bad acid trip. It looks like stained glass in a cathedral in Hell. Quoth Erin: "I'd say someone should get fired over it, but Spain already has 18% unemployment." This is just the shirt, there's a hat and a hideous matching backpack at the link. []</p><p>The cover of January Cosmo is as sexed-up as ever — on newsstands at least. But we got a copy of the version the mag sends to advertisers, and it's significantly more chaste. What's going on here?</p><p>Note the miraculous disappearance of "60 Sex Tips" and "Orgasm Virgins" — suddenly, Cosmo's appropriate for your grandma! Or your grandma's favorite retailer — a tipster suggests that the cleaned-up cover is meant to be "more appropriate for conservative [advertising] clients, which the ad sales team is hoping to fool." If so, they're not doing a very good job — the table of contents in the ad-friendly version still lists both the sex tips and the orgasm piece as cover stories.</p> <p>A spokesperson for Cosmo offered this terse comment in response to our queries: "It is common for magazines to have different versions of the cover." We decided to see if this was indeed common at other publications. Caroline Nuckolls at Teen Vogue told us the magazine usually has just one version of the cover — but of course, Teen Vogue has a cleaner image to start out with, and less to hide. So we called Maxim, known for its lad-mag raunch — a source there told us they too produce just one cover, which goes out to newsstands, subscribers, and advertisers alike. This isn't to say that no magazine does what Cosmo's done, but it's not an industry-wide standard.</p> <p>Of course, it's not a surprise that a publication feels it needs to put its best foot forward to attract ad dollars — still, creating whole new cover lines is a pretty big step. Which coveted advertising account merited such a drastic cleanup? Some high-fashion brand? (Current Cosmo advertisers include Dior and Chanel.) Mainstream car or consumer products companies? (January's issue includes an ad for Chevrolet.) Maybe they're gunning for that account? Whatever the brand, Cosmo assumes the ad buyers don't read very carefully, and don't know that the mag's been providing sex advice and orgasm pointers to eager middle-schoolers for decades.</p><p>Dakota Fanning says she "really wasn't old enough" for the clothes she wore in her Spring-Summer 2007 Marc Jacobs campaign, pictured. "I was 12. I was always into fashion because my mom has always been interested in fashion. She majored in fashion merchandising in college, and it's always been something we have in common. When I did that first campaign for Marc Jacobs, I really wasn't old enough to wear the clothes. He made all the clothes from the runway in my size. I still have them." This is an interesting comment in light of the fact that fashion's use of (and celebrity faces) has been in the lately; Fanning's current Marc Jacobs perfume campaign has actually been banned in the U.K. for being too sexually suggestive (in the ad, the flower-shaped bottle is lodged between now-17-year-old Fanning's legs). And it's also interesting because even if Jacobs cut the clothes to fit her, the theme of Fanning's '07 campaign was still that she looked too small for the clothes, kind of like a kid playing dress-up. []</p> The December issue of Vogue features a wet-haired Charlize Theron emerging from the ocean. Why, don't you love going for a nice, refreshing dip off of Coney in December? We feel cold just looking at her. Inside, model Nyasha Matonhodze makes her American Vogue debut. [] Julia Restoin Roitfeld and her longtime boyfriend, male model Robert Konjic, are going to have a baby. [@] <p> <p> <p> <p> <p> Anderson Cooper ; Adriana Lima's pre-Victoria's Secret all-liquid diet is ridiculous and not to be admired. [] Hunger Games nail polish. Because everything can be turned into a nail polish, these days. [] A book of the late Chicago street photographer Vivian Maier's work is coming out on November 22. Read more about Maier — an amateur photographer who took more than 100,000 pictures in her lifetime, always on her day off from working as a nanny — and the rediscovery of her work . []<p>Look forward to seeing David Beckham's nude torso on a lot more billboards. He's launching his own branded company: his new cologne will hit stores in September, and his first men's wear collection is launching at some unspecified date later this year. "It's not my natural inclination to see myself as a brand, I'm just a person who has been fortunate to explore other interests and passions outside of the game I love," says Beckham, who says he was inspired to start his own clothing line after being the face of Emporio Armani. "They told me that their gross turnover in 2007 was €16 million [$22.7 million at current exchange] and after the campaign in 2008 it went up to €31 million [$43.9 million] in 2008. It proved to me that there is a real market for good-looking, well-made men's bodywear." Beckham's partner in the venture is Simon Fuller, the Spice Girls manager-turned-backer of Victoria Beckham and Roland Mouret. []</p> Here's one of Walter Pfeiffer's shots of Tilda Swinton for the new Pringle of Scotland campaign. Tilda's bowl cut is pretty boss, and also probably un-attemptable by anyone else on this planet. [] Louis Vuitton's fall campaign just hit the Internet, and as previously rumored, it features a bunch of models. Zuzanna Bijoch, Daphne Groeneveld, Gertrud Hegelund, Nyasha Matonhodze, Anaïs Pouliot and Fei Fei Sun, to be precise. As not previously rumored, it also has dogs! Cute little Japanese Chins. Awwwww. [] Prabal Gurung for J. Crew is pricey — there are some $400 and $450 pieces. This "exploding bow" top costs $295. [] Jeffrey Campbell knocked off Alejandro Ingelmo's wicked shoes for Chris Benz. []<p>This holiday season, Diane Keaton is going to be the face of Chico's. Although she has been a face of L'Oréal for years, this is — kind of astonishingly, given her image as for her role in Annie Hall — Keaton's first fashion campaign. "Chico's embraces being an individual, and I love individual style," says Keaton. "Love makes the world go 'round. And so do hats and gloves and a fabulous belt." Surely there's a "need the eggs" joke in here somewhere. []</p> Milla Jovovich says that when she a reporter that male models "are even worse than actors" and "I mean seriously: you're going to model for a living? It's embarrassing for a man to model" she was kidding. "[I]t didn't mention that I said it w a heavy e.European accent pretending 2 b my dads macho friends! Lol!" she Tweeted ([sic] for all of that). (In the story, Jovovich had discussed her parents' opinions of models and actors and how that had affected her own perceptions and cracked wise, so it's possible this was indeed a joke that didn't land.) [@] Here's a sketch of what Jason Wu's working on for Target. [] Jamie Hince kissed Kate Moss in one shot of her cover editorial for French Elle. Married love: so hot for fall. [] Architectural Digest shot Portia de Rossi and Ellen DeGeneres' home. This is their shoe closet. []<p>Natalie Portman and Benjamin Millepied got married this weekend! They did it under a chuppah in Big Sur, California. But on to the important details: Grazia, which claims to have seen "sneaky snaps" of the dress, reports:</p> <p>Picture this, if you will: a classic white frock in a '50s stylee, full-skirted with a nipped in waist and a midi hemline. Yep, no floor-sweepers for our Nat. The sleeves are long and sheer and the design is fuss-free. As for the veil, a waft of chiffon cascaded to her lower back from a floral headband worn over loose brunette waves. The look was topped off with a classic pair of nude heels.</p> <p>There is speculation that Portman may have worn Dior couture. She is a face of the house and several gowns from Raf Simons' recent collection seem to fit the above description — or could have been made to with the addition of sheer sleeves. UPDATE: In Touch is that the dress was Rodarte. Portman is friends with the designers Laura and Kate Mulleavy and wore Rodarte to the Academy Awards in 2011. You can see some rude (but now no doubt amply compensated) guest's bad cell-phone picture of the dress . []</p> Victoria Beckham, who is near-sighted, has launched an eyewear collection. She says she's always been "self-conscious" about her need to wear glasses, so she opted to design six styles herself. The frames will cost around $410. [] Lily Collins is in some Movado ads. [] i-D has some photos of Choupette, Karl Lagerfeld's kitten, for you to nomnomnomnomnomnom. [] Agent Provocateur has hired Monica Cruz, sister of Penelope, to be the face of its fall ads. [] Karlie Kloss is now the face of Juicy Couture. []<p>Dior insists that studio head Bill Gaytten, who oversaw that of a fall couture collection, is just a place-holder designer. The brand will "take all its time" to replace John Galliano, the longtime creative director it fired in March for habitual drunkenness/being an embarrassing racist. "You know when you ask young girls all the time when they are going to get married, they reply: When I find the right man," said C.E.O. Sidney Toledano. []</p> Balenciaga shot its fall campaign in "a church in Harlem" — anyone know which one? — and a studio made to look like a tiled bathroom. Models Julia Nobis and Liisa Winkler star, and Steven Meisel was the photographer. [] Here's Emma Watson's British Harper's Bazaar covers, newsstand and subscriber edition, side-by-side. [] Vogue asked designers to tell them which women embodied classic, American style: responses included Gisele Bündchen (who is "American" in the...larger sense, we guess), Cate Blanchett (who is, um, Australian), Willow Smith, and the eternal safe option, Michelle Obama. [] Gisele Bündchen is on the cover of the new Vogue Brazil. As Made in Brazil points out, the model is depicted "completely out of focus and with bad hair." [] The stars of Downton Abbey appear in a spread in the new British Vogue. [] Lindsay Lohan posed for Italian Vanity Fair. Wait, is that Pedo Bear? [] Fashion blogger BryanBoy is thrilled to have made Star magazine's worst-dressed list. [@]<br> BryanBoy was photographed while attending Prada's men's wear show — which has been widely praised, despite featuring a weird mixture of ugly 70s-inspired floral prints, polo collars, Boy Scout scarves, and tweed. But Fantastic Man editor-in-chief Gert Jonkers says he thinks the collection is for "fashion victims...There were lots of things that were very puzzling." []<p> has been fired by . Company C.E.O. Sidney Toledano, who is of Jewish heritage, called Galliano's behavior "odious" and said in a statement, "I unequivocally condemn the statements made by John Galliano, which are in total contradiction to the longstanding core values of Christian Dior." Notwithstanding its sudden lack of a creative director, Dior intends to go ahead with its fashion show this Friday. [] <br> And a spokesperson for John Galliano's namesake fashion brand, which is financially backed by Dior, says that Galliano's show on Sunday will go ahead. []<br> At the Oscars on Sunday night, Natalie Portman — who recently became the face of Miss Dior Chérie perfume, and about how nice Galliano was to make vegan Dior shoes for her — did not wear a Dior dress. But when a reporter asked her about that choice at the post-Academy Awards press conference, Portman's publicist interjected, and the exchange was even stricken from the official transcript of the event. (Some are this "censorship," which is a silly bit of hyperbole, but still.) After collecting herself, after watching , and no doubt after making a discreet phonecall to Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy HQ, Portman released a statement last night that read: "I am deeply shocked and disgusted by the video of John Galliano's comments that surfaced today. In light of this video, and as an individual who is proud to be Jewish, I will not be associated with Mr. Galliano in any way. I hope at the very least, these terrible comments remind us to reflect and act upon combating these still-existing prejudices that are the opposite of all that is beautiful." []<br> As for his ongoing legal fight, Galliano yesterday went to police headquarters in the neighborhood where he is alleged to have screamed racial and anti-Semitic epithets during three separate incidents. He arrived around 2 p.m., and waded through a crowd of photographers and reporters accompanied by his lawyer. Police had previously announced that Galliano was to be interviewed face-to-face with two of his accusers, Géraldine Bloch and Philippe Virgitti. The designer left the station around 7 p.m. He made no statements to the press, but his lawyer did say that Galliano "never made an anti-Semitic remark in more than ten years at Dior." []<br> Meanwhile, Vogue Italia editor Franca Sozzani questions the intentions of the people who recorded the video in which a very drunk Galliano says, "I love Hitler," and talks about all the people, "your mothers, your forefathers," who should be "gassed." Sozzani wrote on her blog that Galliano was "clearly provoked" and that the people who released the cell phone video were "just some parvenus of journalistic scandal who, in our opinion, were waiting to have three minutes of video to sell to someone for thirty pieces of silver." She has since edited the post heavily, removing some of the above language, and adding, "we condemn the extremely seriously racist content of what he said." []</p> T's cover story on Salma Hayek — which is ever so beautifully photographed by Cass Bird — contains one interesting tidbit: the actress is launching a skincare line called Nuance, to be sold at CVS. "I always wanted to do this," Hayek claims. Some products will be based on recipes used by her Mexican grandmother, "because my grandmother, who was a beauty, she died at 96 with no wrinkles. And you should see my mother! We have some family secrets." [] Victoria's Secret model Chanel Iman is pretty much nekkid in i-D. []<p>According to the latest version of the / wedding dress rumors, the princess-to-be consulted with British Vogue editor before Saying Yes To A Dress. Shulman told her to pick McQueen. The Telegraph reports that "a Vogue spokesman refused to comment, but sources admitted that private conversations with Buckingham Palace had taken place." This news has already "prompted bookmakers to cut the odds on a McQueen wedding dress from 14-1 to 1-20." []<br> Meanwhile, Middleton wore another British label — a $1,000 Burberry trench coat — to an event in Northern Ireland. []</p><p>Donatella Versace and Miuccia Prada like to get together and eat paninis. Versace says the two Italian designers met at an event years ago in Milan and became fast friends.</p> <p>"I made a joke and she started to laugh and she said let's go and get some paninis because we're starving… and off we went. We just talk, talk, talk. She's so inspiring. We make fun of each other and teach each other. She says, 'I could never make sexy clothes, but I love them.' And I say, 'Well, I love what you do.'"</p> <p>Prada — who was a leftist and second-wave feminist while studying for her PhD in International Relations in the '70s — is on record as saying that feminism is dead in Italy. Versace, asked about her friend's remark, said:</p> <p>"Feminism is dead in the world. It comes from another time. I'm a feminist. I want to fight, but I don't see many people with this desire to fight for something. Women don't help each other, especially in fashion. I know Miuccia… but that's it. Nobody else."</p> <p>[]</p> Schiaparelli may be a fashion house without a designer, but it is no longer a fashion house without a headquarters: this is what the soon-to-be-fully-revived brand's new Paris salon looks like. There's a chest of drawers shaped like a lobster and a Sphinx statue that adorned Elsa Schiaparelli's original offices. [] Here's Blake Lively's new Gucci perfume ad. [] This, starring male model Marton Dorfler, is Balenciaga's first men's wear ad campaign. [] In honor of couture week, Vogue has this slideshow of archival couture spreads. [] "Haute couture is supposed to die since 1925," says Didier Grumbach, president of the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture, when asked about the future of the business. "You'd be surprised to have extraordinary articles decrying the end of the artisanat, and as you see it's still existing and you are still interested. And wen you speak with some brands, they would never consider for one minute to stop the haute couture. So for me, haute couture will last forever." []<p>Critics are calling Donna Karan misguided and possibly racist for shooting her new spring ad campaign in Haiti, but using a white model as its star. In two ads, Victoria's Secret supermodel Adriana Lima appears alone, but in the third, pictured above, two Haitian teenagers pose in the background behind her. Unusually for a fashion campaign, the images all bear text identifying the location as Jacmel, Haiti, and directing viewers to the brand's web site, which has a whole on Haiti. Karan has raised a lot of money for Haiti, both through her own charity and along with the Clinton Foundation, and she frequently uses interviews and public appearances to talk about the country's development needs and earthquake-recovery efforts, even now, after Haiti has sort of ceased to be the "fashionable" cause on all the rich people's lips. She also credits by name the Haitian artist, Philippe Dodard, whose work inspired her spring collection. Nonetheless, the juxtaposition of luxury clothing — Donna Karan sells $2,000 dresses — and the poorest country in the Western hemisphere is troubling, and perhaps undercuts the message Karan thinks she's sending. Karan would have done better to highlight whatever local involvement there was in the production of the shoot. And, sigh, why do the black people always have to be in the background? []</p> Lily Cole covers the January issue of Russian Vogue. [] Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott shot Gisele Bündchen and Ryan Barrett for Versace's spring campaign. [] As part of New York's ongoing series of "cinemagraphs" — gifs made not by clipping a TV show, but on purpose, with a camera — by Jamie Beck and Kevin Burg features J. Crew creative director Jenna Lyons sketching a dress. [] Here's one image from the new Balenciaga campaign. Steven Meisel shot four new faces — Juliane Grüner, Rosie Tapner and Kirstin Liljegren, and Laura Kampman, pictured — for the ads. []<p>Growing up, I didn't yet know Elizabeth Taylor as the volatile, verbose dipsomaniac Martha from Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. Nor did I know her as the neglected wife Maggie in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, a character whose beauty, whose ripeness posing on that bed in that white satin slip, I would later understand, perfectly communicated the practical uselessness, to a woman, of being generally considered "sexy." I hadn't watched those movies yet, or read those plays (although it turns out Tennessee Williams has a more compelling explanation for Brick's lack of desire than MGM felt comfortable putting on the big screen in 1958). I mostly knew Elizabeth Taylor as the woman from those funny perfume ads that ran in my American mother's outdated copies of Good Housekeeping magazine.</p> <p>Elizabeth Taylor launched her first fragrance, "Passion," in 1988. Other perfumes — "Gardenias," "Black Pearls" — soon followed, but it is "White Diamonds," which will turn 20 this fall, that is still on shelves, and White Diamonds that still does around $200 million in annual sales today. Taylor was definitely celebrity to distill fame into a scent to be bottled and sold — Alain Delon released a whole series of perfumes in the 1980s, as did Catherine Deneuve, via a licensing agreement with Avon, and Sophia Loren, who signed a deal with the fragrance giant Coty — but Taylor was one of the first and the few to have any staying power at the perfume counter.</p> <p>Most perfumes, especially celebrity perfumes, quickly fall from view: this is for the very simple reason that most celebrity perfumes are lackluster scents hitched seemingly at random to a "star" for no other reason than to make a quick buck. (Who now , let alone wears, Mikhail Baryshnikov's "Misha" or Cher's "Uninhibited"?) And once the initial glow of hype fades, that lackluster celebrity scent is left in the tough position of having to compete with the Chanel No. 5s of this world. But when it's right, it's right. A well-formulated scent, cleverly marketed, which retails for the right price, is basically a license to print money with an almost indefinite shelf life. Best-selling perfumes, along with cosmetics, sunglasses, and other small accessories are where most fashion houses make the money that keeps them in the black. That's why some fashion brands persist as perfume brands long after they have ceased to even bother making clothes. (Thierry Mugler, with its best-sellers like "Angel," was in that position for over a decade, until Nicola Formichetti was hired last year to make Mugler into a clothing brand again.)</p> <p> Taylor's effort at parlaying all those well-earned decades of fame into cash money certainly . And my goodness, those ads! Those gauzy, Vaseline-lensed print campaigns, in which Liz inevitably looked as though she knew a secret you didn't (but could learn, maybe, for the cost of a $58 set of four mini-EDTs). And those television commercials with the horses galloping and the diamond jewelry and the rapid cuts! Taylor marketed little bottles of her own glamour, and she did marketed them earnestly, without condescending to her audience. How could she not move product?</p> <p> [NYTimes]<br> [Perfume Shrine]</p><p> In case you were wondering how Elizabeth Wurtzel felt about wealthy stay-at-home mothers, she just wrote called, "1 Percent Wives Are Helping to Kill Feminism and Make the War on Women Possible"</p> <p>Okay then!</p> <p>"Because here's what happens when women go shopping at Chanel and get facials at Tracy Martyn when they should be wage-earning mensches," Wurtzel explains: "the war on women happens." Hmmm, we'd say the war on women happens when politicians spew antichoice, anti-women rhetoric and try their damnedest to enact laws that ensure women aren't considered equals. But here are some more (troll-y) quotes from Wurtzel's piece:</p> <p>"Let's please be serious grown-ups: real feminists don't depend on men. Real feminists earn a living, have money and means of their own."</p> <p>"Hilary Rosen would not have been so quick to be so super sorry for saying that Ann Romney has never worked a day in her life if we weren't all made more than a wee bit nervous by our own biases, which is that being a mother isn't really work. Yes, of course, it's something — actually, it's something almost every woman at some time does, some brilliantly and some brutishly and most in the boring middle of making okay meals and decent kid conversation. But let's face it: It is not a selective position. A job that anyone can have is not a job, it's a part of life, no matter how important people insist it is (all the insisting is itself overcompensation)."</p> <p>"I do expect educated and able-bodied women to be holding their own in the world of work."</p> <p>Pretty much all of Wurtzel's valid points — that economic inequality is key, for example — are masked with overwrought hyperbole ("feminism is pretty much a nice girl who really, really wants so badly to be liked by everybody"), but if you're bored tonight you'll probably want to check out the comments section; it's bound to be a doozy.</p> <p> [The Atlantic]</p> <p>Image via wavebreakmedia ltd .</p><p>Worth noting: There are four actual models on four different covers of the October issue of Elle. This is the first time a model has been on the cover in eight years. The ladies are well-known names: Miranda Kerr, Chanel Ima, Adriana Lima and Doutzen Kroes. It's both intriguing and disorienting to see models on a mainstream woman's magazine again; the effect is both retro and somehow new and fresh. Ladymags had fallen into in a rut in the last few years; recycling and alternating the 15 Hollywood celebs, including Aniston, Kidman, Simpson, SJP and Johansson. But the we saw a couple of years ago have been set aside for women who make a living out of posing and shilling clothes. At least for a month! Whether this change can translate into great newsstand sales remains to be seen. But this former magazine junkie — who hasn't picked up a ladymag for personal perusing in months — is definitely buying one. I just have to decide: Will it be awesomely smiley Chanel Iman? Or frakking fierce Adriana?</p> <p> [Fashionologie]<br> [The Life Files]</p><p>Karl Lagerfeld was asked at a party whom he'd like to massage. (A celebrity massage had just been auctioned for charity at said party, so this wasn't a totally random question.) "I hate massage and I don't believe in massage. I hate to be touched," replied the Chanel designer. So, nobody then? "No. I'm not John Travolta." []</p> Victoria Beckham is reading E.M. Forster on the new cover of German Interview. Inside, she tells the magazine that while she is "a happy person," if all she saw of herself were her sourpuss paparazzi pictures, she'd think she was miserable, too. "I created this persona and I'm very different from that. I don't feel like I have to scream and shout about it — I know I am a happy person. So I don't get upset when people comment on the fact that I look quite miserable all the time. But people think I am. And you know, sometimes I think the same thing when I look at the pictures." [] French customs unveiled a new ad campaign targeting buyers of counterfeit goods — which are illegal to own in France. Will slogans like, "Buy a fake Cartier, get a genuine criminal record" work? [] A company called Rayfish Sneakers claims to have perfected the genetic modification of stingrays, creating unique patterns and colors in their skin. A pair of (hoax?) "bio-customized" stingray leather shoes will set you back $1,800. [] Designer Maayan Zilberman of the Lake & Stars lingerie brand decided to stop dying her hair black to cover the gray she's had since her early 20s. To those of us who may or may not have found our first grays in the harsh light of a Milwaukee motel bathroom, age 19, her makeover looks fantastic. [] Susie Bubble has a fascinating step-by-step look at shoe designer Noritaka Tatehana's process as he applies a leather sole to one of his trademark heel-less shoes. (Lady Gaga and Daphne Guinness are among Tatehana's fans, and these Swarovski-encrusted gray shoes are destined for the feet of the latter.) []<p> I was just "talking" with Dodai about what to do for a Rag Trade lede. "Dodai," I said. "Karl Lagerfeld some krazy shit again!"<br> "Hmm," said Dodai.<br> "I know we highlighted the Adele-is-fat bit," I said.<br> "Right."<br> "But there are so many other bons mots! 'People in magazines are 50% bimbo and 50% pregnant women.' 'If I was a woman in Russia I would be a lesbian, as the men are very ugly.'"<br> "Yeah," said Dodai. "The pregnant women bit was in Dirt Bag as well."<br> "'Nobody wants Greece to disappear, but they have really disgusting habits.'"<br> "What are your other options?" she asked<br> "The Model Alliance launch, haha?" I typed, hesitantly. "Doutzen Kroes, Coco Rocha, Crystal Renn, and a bunch of other models were there. Shalom Harlow came! Plus Robin Lawley and Sarah Stephens. It was amazing."<br> "I think that might be better," said Dodai.<br> "You think? But I helped organize it." I said.<br> "I know," she replied.<br> "I mean, it's a bit of a weird thing to do — make myself the lede."<br> "Nah, do that!" said Dodai.<br> Hmm, I thought. Let me check Getty to see if any of are available under our subscription. That photographer who I saw last night who remembered me from a Karen Walker show in, like, 2008 — was he shooting for Getty? I know someone was there for Getty. Either way, he was a really nice guy. Hmm. No subscription photos. Oh well. Hey, look, the Gloss posted a nice one! Let's go with that. Oh, and look what Ashley Cardiff about the Model Alliance:</p> <p>Models are still a work force and still deserve the same basic rights as any teacher, waiter, blogger, plumber… Unfortunately, models are often reluctant to speak out when confronted with inappropriate behavior or financial exploitation for a litany of reasons, not the least of which is a constant reminder of their own expendability. Why complain about sexual harassment if there's someone even younger and thinner waiting to take your place?</p> <p>Salient points. Couldn't agree more. A pretty good take on the Model Alliance, all told (which in case you haven't figured out by now, is a new nonprofit dedicated to giving models a voice in the American fashion industry, an organization on whose board I am proud to sit, and whose launch party last night at the Standard Hotel I helped to plan, and which I am now writing about because Karl Lagerfeld's latest kerrrrazy kuote was too kold for this news cycle). Ooh, there was also a piece on Luckymag.com. The Model Alliance "seeks to improve the conditions in which models work and live," wrote John Jannuzzi:</p> <p>From the outside, modeling looks like a glamorous, effortless and "cushy" job. But like anything in this business, it's not always that easy. A grueling schedule (from shoots to multiple fashion weeks), marginal labor rights (they're typically freelancers), mounting bills (yes, in many cases, models actually end up owing money to agencies) and countless cases of exploitation, suddenly the profession doesn't seem so easy as, "walking from one end of the platform to the other."</p> <p>Yep, also accurate. Looks like Reuters got our press release, too:</p> <p>"The idea of models organizing may seem frivolous or, worse, downright funny — models are certainly not the people you picture when you think of child labor or bad working conditions," said former model and fashion writer Jenna Sauers. "There's nothing funny about a work force that is overwhelmingly young, female and impoverished, working for some of fashion's wealthiest, most powerful brands."</p> <p>Oh yes. I remember when I wrote that. Fun times. Last night, Sara Ziff — the Model Alliance founder, and the co-director of the acclaimed documentary Picture Me — spoke eloquently about the need for the enforcement of existing child labor and contract laws, something the Model Alliance supports. "I have been very fortunate in my career," she said. But Sara — who started modeling when she was 14 — also described feeling unable to say no to work that conflicted with her educational obligations, being put on the spot to do shoot in the nude at castings from a young age, and having unauthorized charges levied against her earnings by her agency. I and the other board members, Susan Scafidi and Dorian Warren spoke, and so did our co-host for the evening, Coco Rocha. Coco read a long list of names of models who couldn't be there last night, including Karlie Kloss, Jessica White, and Behati Prinsloo, but who she said wanted to go on record as Model Alliance supporters. Oh, and Sara and Susan were Brian Lehrer this morning! That was awesome.<br> "Did you see ? because this could also be a lede maybe," typed Dodai.<br> "Yes I did see that," I wrote back. "Aw, now I'm writing a Model Alliance thing. Can this be the one time I do something weirdly self-referential?"<br> There was a pause.<br> "OK."<br> So there you have it. Watch our video, visit our , like us , follow us , why not talk about us IRL with your actual friends? The Model Alliance is now officially live. And the real work of changing fashion for the better begins today. /soapbox [, , , ]</p> Stella McCartney recorded an anti-leather video for PETA. [] The campaign for Kenzo's spring collection — the first designed by Opening Ceremony's Carol Lim and Humberto Leon — stars an all-black cast of models. [] Even if you're not going to New York fashion week, you can still appreciate the creativity that goes into some of the best invitations. 3.1 Phillip Lim's is a pop-up card of the New York skyline. [] Vogue Paris editor Emmanuelle Alt dances and lip-syncs to "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" in this video to announce the Web redesign of her magazine. We just spent about five very satisfying minutes imagining Anna Wintour doing this in honor of the new Vogue archive. [] Casting director Douglas Perrett shared some old Polaroids of famous models when they were just starting out. Here are Miranda Kerr, Chanel Iman, and the late Daul Kim. Perrett says of meeting Iman, "[I] realized how young these kids are. She needed a hug that day." Perrett's forthcoming book is called Wild Things. []<p>Brands often say that they rely on a cast of extremely young, acutely thin, and overwhelmingly white models because fashion is supposed to be "aspirational" — that if you can't envy the body and youth of a skinny Eastern European teenager in a glossy magazine, then you can't envy her dress either. Says who? </p> <p>Modeling agency founder and academic Ben Barry had some questions about the fashion industry and its advertising, but he could find no research into consumers' choices that actually demonstrated casting such models motivated them to buy clothing or accessories. So he decided to do some for his Ph.D.</p> <p>To conduct a study into the impacts models have on consumer choices, Barry first mocked up eight ads for the same Diane Von Furstenberg dress. The ads were identical in concept and art direction, but showcased models of different ages, body size, and race. Barry randomly selected two of the ads and showed them to women. He didn't tell them that he was studying their reactions to the models; he just asked them which ad made them want to buy the dress.</p> <p>These were his results:</p> <p>Barry then held focus groups with women across the U.S. and Canada where he asked them about the impact that model casting in ads had on their purchasing behavior. All told, he spoke to more than 2,500 women. His subjects told him that they preferred to buy clothing advertised by women who looked somewhat like them for simple reasons: they could see how it fit, they felt included in the brand's messaging, and they were more able to imagine themselves participating in the aesthetic fantasy of the ad. This is significant, writes Barry, because "While one side of the debate over model diversity argues that curvy models should replace thin ones — assuming that one model is universally more effective than another — I find that every model type can be effective. Their effectiveness depends on whether the model shares the consumers' traits."</p> <p>Solipsistic? Maybe. But public health advocates and feminists have spent decades agitating against advertisers' preference for a narrow beauty ideal on grounds that such images can hurt the self esteem of women and girls — to almost no avail. The models who fill the pages of the women's magazines and populate the billboards and pop up on retailers' Web sites are as skinny, young, and white as they ever were. Making a well-reasoned appeal for diversity on behalf of the bottom line, however, just might work.</p> <p>Barry also found that the women he interviewed, who ranged in age from 14-65, were very savvy at picking up on brands' cues about what "kind" of person is welcome in their clothing. Putting on the runway plus-size models — as Jean-Paul Gaultier, Mark Fast, and Chanel have each done, with varying levels of commitment — or models of different ages — as Calvin Klein did for Fall '10 — is nice, but not when it smacks of a stunt. "When two of 20 models on a runway are larger or older, consumers appreciate the gesture but believe it's tokenistic," reports Barry. "Similarly, when a brand showcases curvy or older models in clothes that don't quite fit or flatter them, it looks like they're trying to grab a quick headline." Diversity has to be an ongoing commitment to read as "authentic."</p> <p>And consumers don't like it when older models (or curvier models, or non-white models) are portrayed in ways that set them apart from their model peers. They want the same attention paid to the styling and art direction of all the kinds of models. Skimping on the aesthetics in fact</p> <p>reverses the positive effects of casting diverse models. The women in my research want models — regardless of size or age — to inspire them with glamour, artistry and creativity. One woman said it best: "What's the point of buying fashion if you're going to look unfashionable?" The underlying message is that fashion needs to sell aspiration, but it is not a standardized model's age, size or race that is aspirational; it is the clothes, styling and creative direction of the shoot.</p> <p>So women want fashion to give them more, and better, images of beauty and diversity. You don't say!</p> <p>Barry's research also casts doubt on the that people buy things because advertising stokes their insecurities, creating a need that can only be filled by the advertised product. It suggests that advertising can work by inducing in the consumer feelings of affinity for and identification with the people shown in the ad.</p> <p>When one mature woman saw an older model, she explained: "[The model] does more than make me feel beautiful; she inspires me to go out and get this dress and celebrate my beauty." While some women in my study felt insecure when they saw idealized models, their insecurity didn't translate to purchase intentions as the industry hopes; it actually turned them off the product. As one of the participants summarized: "Ads like this want us to be part of their world, but they have the opposite effect for me. I feel excluded."</p> <p>Contrary to long-held marketing wisdom, fashion ads don't need to lead women to aspire to an unattainable ideal to sell products. Instead, women will buy fashion when models convey a realistic, attainable image and make them feel confident; they will continue to demand the products to maintain the advertised look and their feelings of empowerment. To unleash this economic potential, brands should cast models who mirror the diversity of their target market: If a brand sells sizes 2 to 14 and the age of their target consumer is 18 to 35, the models should reflect the same size and age ranges.</p> <p>Of course, this is self-reported data — and we know from other studies of consumer behavior that people can be unreliable when it comes to accurately describing their own motivations. (Who would ever sit across a table and say to a researcher, in front of an audience of other women, "I buy skin cream because the ads make me worry that I need it," even if it is the truth?) And telling a researcher that Ad 1 makes you want to buy the dress more than Ad 2 is a very different activity than walking into a store and ringing up a purchase. But Barry's research does raise some interesting questions for the fashion and advertising industries — not the least of which is why have we coasted so long on the assumption that fashion needs to make women feel bad about themselves to buy shit.</p> <p> [Elle Canada]</p>Last night, the CFDA Fashion Awards honored the year's best designers, which attracted celebrities and socialites, looking to make statements of their own. With everyone trying to aesthetically express themselves, the only real crime of fashion at this event was to be boring.<p>After Dominique Strauss-Kahn embarked on a culminating in the alleged rape of a hotel maid in New York City, it was Christine LaGarde who picked up the reins at the IMF. She's the first woman to fill that role, a French woman with American ties. So what's she like? </p> <p>If her teeth are gritted, it's impossible to tell. What lovely teeth she has – straight and white, they gleam out of a permanently, almost alarmingly, tanned face. Tall -– she's 5ft 10in -– and slim, the 55-year-old Lagarde dresses with the casual élan of a Parisian, patriotically attired in Chanel suits and Hermès scarves, along with jazzy bracelets and fur-lined ponchos. Lagarde softens her rather severe black-and-white outfits with silk scarves, a string of pearls or a brooch. She has widely spaced green eyes framed by a silver bob. She still swims, but not in formation.</p> <p>Well thank goodness she's sexy. Actually, she might even be the World's Sexiest Woman! Hooray!</p> <p>An otherwise excellent portrait of LaGarde in The Guardian is marred by the stereotypical body pan down that so often accompanies profiles of women. The yellow journalism of celebrity reporting has seeped into profiles of powerful women. Rather than being shown her credentials, we're first provided a litany of physical descriptors- her hair color! Clothes! Jewlery! Teeth!</p> <p>When will a woman being conventionally attractive and accomplished cease to be news or comment worthy?</p> <p>Assumption that being physically attractive should be enough for a woman to coast on forever and continues to blow everyone's mind when anyone has decided to be attractive and-. An attractive woman who is also funny? comes every minutes , but single one does, it's almost embarrassing the type of hullabaloo she causes. A smart woman who is conventionally attractive? Stop the presses! A ? Excuse me while my eyeballs multiply themselves and my heart beats out of my chest before I involuntarily make an AAH-OOH-GAH sound. And everyone knows a woman described as having a "great personality" is actually probably "ugly" because if a woman were beautiful, some complimentary looks-related phrase would be the first thing that would be invoked in describing her.</p> <p>If you're beautiful enough, you shouldn't have to worry your pretty little head about working. Look at Kim Kardashian and Real Housewives from coast to coast. Why fill your head with useless knowledge when you could just find yourself a nice man and settle down?</p> <p>I'm not trying to make a case that it's so very hard for beautiful women nowadays, but it is a shame that beauty is so highly prized that there always seems to be accompanying befuddlement when a woman decides not to coast on it, to use faculties aside from those genetically (or surgically) bestowed upon her to achieve her kind of success.</p> <p>Imagine that the paragraph about LaGarde were written about newly-elected Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel-</p> <p>If his teeth are gritted, it's impossible to tell. What lovely teeth he has – straight and white, they gleam out of a permanently, almost alarmingly, tanned face. Not very tall, but well-built nonetheless – and musclebound, the 51-year-old Emanuel dresses with the casual élan of a Chicagoan, patriotically attired in Brooks Brothers suits and Hugo Boss ties, along with jazzy shoes and fur-lined ponchos. Emanuel softens his rather severe black-and-white outfits with silk pocket squares, pearl cufflinks, or a Rolex watch. He has widely spaced green eyes framed by a silver mane. He still dances, but not in ballet.</p> <p>The piece concludes on the same crappy note on which it started- revisiting LaGarde's looks.</p> <p>She's keen on the feminine virtues, then, without being po-faced. At the finance ministry she used to keep a collection of cartoons. Her favourite shows her in fishnet stockings, whipping a banker.</p> <p>Whether it's coming from a construction worker or a writer from The Guardian, if Christine LaGarde can't escape the male gaze, what hope do the rest of us have?</p> <p> [The Guardian]</p><p>With models like Crystal "Vogue Paris" Renn becoming true crossover stars, and agents like Gary Dakin of Ford+ reporting so much demand that he turns work down, it seems like the fashion industry is finally starting to recognize the beauty of bodies that aren't runway-sample-sized. Here are five we think are ripe for mainstream success. We'd love to see any one of them on the runway this fashion week.</p><p></p> <p>The 5'11" Ukraininan Alyona Osmanova came on to the international modeling scene in 2006, at the age of 18. Her agency, Supreme, listed her measurements as 33"-23"-33" — actually an inch smaller than the straight-size runway standard. Osmanova's first season was pretty much a blockbuster: she walked for designers including Marc Jacobs, Donna Karan, and Thakoon, and scored the coveted Prada exclusive. (Every season, and her casting director, , choose one girl out of the hundreds of hopeful new faces, and give that girl and her agency a pile of cash to walk in the Prada show and the Prada show only during Milan fashion week. Sometimes Prada also books the model exclusively for her show in Paris; Osmanova did both.) She went on to walk for Proenza Schouler, and Chanel and Givenchy haute couture, among many others. Over the next four years, Osmanova racked up editorial credits in the top magazines, including Vogue Italia, Teen Vogue, V, and Pop.</p> <p>But during winter last year, with New York fashion week approaching, she found could no longer keep her weight down. "I did part of Fashion Week, and I couldn't [finish] because I couldn't fit in any of the dresses," Osmanova New York's Amy Odell. "I pretty much didn't know what to do for three months or four months, and I was trying to work out and diet but I was stressing out." She heard about plus-size modeling, and signed with Ford.</p> <p>Since her switch, Osmanova has walked in the Elena Miro show in Milan, and modeled for Teen Vogue. (She told the magazine, "The body is such a unique gift, and we won't have it forever, so there's no time to hate anything about it.") Those are great bookings, but it's undeniable that Osmanova's career has slowed down significantly since her crossover to plus — which is a great shame on the industry. Osmanova is an experienced model who's worked with some of fashion's greatest talents. Why aren't more clients keen to capitalize on that? Where are all the designers and the magazines who were scrambling to book her two years ago? Where's Russell Marsh? With legs for miles and those cheekbones, if ever there were a girl destined for high fashion, Osmanova is it.</p> <p> <br> </p> <p>The striking, 6' tall bi-racial Swede Sabina Karlsson is, like Renn and Osmanova, yet another girl who struggled as a straight-size model with the industry's size restrictions, and emerged later and healthier as a plus-size model. Karlsson was first launched into the industry in 2005 at the age of 17 via the Ford Supermodel of the World competition, which the agency uses to scout for new faces. She also competed on Sweden's Next Top Model (Karlsson came second). During her first New York fashion week, Karlsson booked 12 shows, and she would go on to walk for designers including , Betsey Johnson, and Tracey Reese.</p> <p>At the time, her agency gave her hip measurement at 36", which is definitely on the larger side for a runway model, and there was some industry sniping about how Karlsson was "bottom-heavy." In 2007, she told a magazine, "It's sad that the model world requires models to be so skinny, just so they can fit the designer clothes. And, in a way, it's the designers who are pushing this problem forward — if they keep on making clothes in size zero, models will always need to be a size zero." (She claimed in the same interview to maintain her weight with healthy eating and exercise habits.) On the editorial side, Karlsson worked for American Elle (and we in Glamour), and she did ads for Madewell and American Eagle.</p> <p>Karlsson crossed over to plus-size modeling in 2010, and I her in the One Stop Plus show at New York fashion week. You can see her and Osmanova interviewed by fellow plus-size model (otherwise She Whose Cleavage Was Too Hot For Fox To Handle) . Karlsson has the kind of truly unique look that fashion ordinarily values — those freckles! that red hair! that gap! — and it would be a natural fit for her to continue doing now the kind of edgy jobs that she was booking as a teenager.</p> <p> <br> Ashley Graham</p> <p>Speaking of Ashley Graham: she's gorgeous, even if she's not so much a model to watch as a model we are already watching, and have been for a while. Ashley Graham is obviously highly photogenic, but she's also so beautiful in person that the first time I met her — at the flagship on 34th St., where I had gone to interview Crystal Renn — I was almost speechless. And I pretty much write about models and modeling for a living. Graham has lately been working up a storm: not only was her censored Lane Bryant ad a boon for her career, even before it had aired, she was already shooting for magazines including Glamour and American Vogue. (Well: American Vogue's annual "Shape" issue. Why not any of the other eleven issues, Vogue?) She is also the latest face of Levi's. Ashley Graham needs to be the face of more things, stat.</p> <p> <br> </p> <p>Marquita Pring hit my radar after her for Solve Sundsbo in V last year; she followed up last September with a trip down the catwalk for Jean-Paul Gaultier, and back-to-back Levi's campaigns. Pring is 20, and she's been modeling for several years. I think fashion needs to see more of her. Will she show up on the New York runways this season? If she does, you'll be the first to know.</p> <p> <br> </p> <p>I probably ought to disclose right off the bat that I've met Leah Kelley numerous times, and shared wine and conversation and at least one pretty terrific Mexican dinner with her. (Also she once lent me a copy of I Know This Much Is True, in the way that friends-of-friends sometimes loan one another books for extended periods, and I am afraid I have neglected so far to finish it.) But if there's one thing above all else that biases my opinion of Kelley's work — aside from her superlative trampolining — it's her beauty. And my attendant belief that this stunning blonde from Sacramento should be getting even more work than she already is. Kelley's modeled for designers including and Elena Miro, as well as clients like Nordstrom, Macy's, and . She this story of how she came to be "discovered":</p> <p>"I was 19 and in my second year of college, working for a tow truck company in Sacramento (yes, I can unlock your car or change your tire) when I was discovered. It began while I was browsing the internet, and I saw a link through MySpace for the Ford Models online submission. I did not really think very much of it, and it took about a month for a reply. I actually almost deleted the response, because I used to get a lot of emails from auction lots relating to the automotive industry, and I misread the sender as Model Fords. I ignored the email for about four days."</p> <p>Thank God she opened it. And now, will someone get this girl an editorial in Vogue Italia? Please?</p> <p>There are plenty of other great plus-size models I would love to see get more work. In addition to those mentioned above, there's Lizzie Miller, Inga Eiriksdottir, Candace Huffine, Tara Lynn, and Amy Lemons. Fashion is far from perfect — and what the industry needs to do away with, more than anything, is the notion that making room for one token plus-size model at a time is acceptable proof of "inclusivity" — but it seems that some change is happening, albeit slowly.</p><p>Gird yourselves for the arrival of the youngest installment of the Kardashian Klan: Kendall and Kylie Jenner seem to have scored the new cover of Teen Vogue. Representative line:</p> <p>Kendall and Kylie have 2.1 million and 1.3 million followers on Twitter, respectively, but they're not ones to flaunt their popularity.</p> <p>[]</p> It's a Monday and the Kardashians are ruining everything. Why not watch 30 seconds of David Beckham in his underwear? [] Does the new logo J.C. Penney is getting (as part of the chain's $800 million revamp) remind anyone else of the logo the Gap tried, and dumped? [] The awesome Jenny Slate is in the new Rachel Antonoff for Bass shoes lookbook. Look, everyone! It's Jenny Slate the comedian with shoes on. < / groan > [] Edina Monsoon and Patsy Stone appear in the new Alexis Bittar ads. []<br> The jewelry designer just signed a deal for major new backing from the private-equity group TSG, in exchange for a 50% equity stake. Terms were not disclosed. [] Vogue Russia has a whole editorial featuring Marni for H&M clothes. [] Yeah, Anjelica Huston looks pretty bad-ass on the new cover of WSJ. []<p>Last month, Urban Outfitters drew popular — and threats of legal action from the Navajo Nation — for advertising such products as the "Navajo Flask" and the "Navajo Hipster Panty." The tribe owns a variety of trademarks on the term "Navajo," including one covering clothing — meaning that legally speaking, calling a non-Navajo-made product "Navajo" is as as calling a non-Chanel-made product "Chanel." </p> <p>Presumably to avoid that potential liability, Urban Outfitters recently the names of all 21 of the products it had been calling "Navajo," including the panties, the flask, the "Navajo Feather Earrings" and the "Navajo Nations Crew Pullover." Those products are still available, they're just called the "Printed Flask" and the "Printed Hipster Panties." The problem, in the eyes of intellectual property law, wasn't the arguable appropriation of Native American patterns or designs, it was the unauthorized use of a registered trademark.</p> <p><br> <br> But fellow mass-market retailer Forever 21 doesn't seem to share Urban Outfitters' concern. While a search for "Navajo" on its website turns up no results, a little digging reveals at least a half-dozen items that have the Navajo trademark in the title. That includes the — that's right, not one but two international chains sold "Navajo" underwear for fall — the and the in the U.S. online store. (The tunic, along with a pair of "Navajo Drop Earrings," is currently out of stock, but you can see a Google cached page for now.)</p> <p>In Forever 21's U.K. online store, meanwhile, you can find such items as the and the The ad copy for the necklace begins:</p> <p>Complete your outfit with a little native flair!</p> <p>Forever 21, do we have to get Daniella Pineda to it to you?</p> <p>Although two of these items — the panties and the handbag — have product descriptions that call them "Navajo-inspired," they all have "Navajo" and not "Navajo-Inspired" in their names, and the rest of the descriptions use yet more specific language that arguably misuses the Navajo Nation's trademark. The necklace is said to be "Navajo beaded," and the tunic and the socks are said to have a "Navajo print." You'd obviously have to be fairly naïve — and unfamiliar with the retailer's reliance on California and foreign sweatshop labor — to believe that anything sold at Forever 21 was in fact made by Navajo people. And you'd have to be similarly naïve — and unfamiliar with the company's apparent distaste for paying licensing fees — to believe any of these "Navajo" products were authorized by the Navajo Nation under license to Forever 21. But the language used in the company's online catalogue is, at the very least, misleading. You can't call something "Navajo" when it's, well, just not. It's a trademark. And for Forever 21, that's a problem.</p> <p>Earlier:</p> <p><br> <br> <br> </p><p>Forever 21 is being sued for copyright infringement by an up-and-coming designer — again. The folks behind a line called Feral Childe allege that the California-based creepy-Christian sweatshop emporium copied one of their textile prints. This is noteworthy because while under current law garments themselves — as in patterns, "cut," construction elements, and everything else that makes a dress unique — are not copyrightable intellectual property, graphic elements that might be featured on garments — as in prints — are. Forever 21 has been sued for copying more than 50 times by designers including Anna Sui and Diane von Furstenberg; the company has always settled out of court. One trade dress infringement claim by the now-defunct label Trovata in a lengthy trial, during which the court was treated to the spectacle of Forever 21 co-founder and creative director Jin Sook Chang claiming ignorance of her company's ownership structure, of who her company's other executives are, and even of her company annual sales. Trovata later settled out of court. Feral Childe's textile design is shown at top; Forever 21's is below. []<br> Feral Childe's designers Alice Wu and Moriah Carlson say their textile design, called "Teepees," is registered with the U.S. Copyright Office. Wu says it took her and Carlson "several months" to develop the print, "starting from sketchbook drawings and then refined and edited in countless email exchanges between us until we perfected the image. This type of markmaking reflects the very particular philosophy of drawing taught at the New York Studio School, where both of us studied...We have made the image very personal and particular to Feral Childe. There are hidden pictures of teepees and crowns and pennants in the drawing that aren't necessarily apparent at first glance. How could anyone else come up with that combination?" She continues, "Whoever at Forever 21 discovered our print and decided to co-opt it wasn't looking closely and probably just assumed this was just an abstract 'scratch print' and didn't notice our hidden pictures." []<br> Meanwhile, this morning Lazaro Hernandez of Proenza Schouler, a Harvard law professor, and a spokesperson for the American Apparel & Footwear Association, an industry lobbying group, testified before Congress in support of the proposed Innovative Design Protection and Piracy Act. The IDPPA would extend limited copyright protection to clothing itself when a designer's work was deliberately copied by someone who had access to or was aware of the original, resulting in a copy that is "substantially identical" to the original. Council of Fashion Designers of America president Steven Kolb says the proposed law, which was developed with Senator Chuck Schumer, is necessary "because we see the vulnerability of designers, particularly young designers and small business owners and the consequences of their ideas, intellectual property and creativity being taken from them and how it impacts their ability to manufacture their collections and grow their businesses." Indeed, behemoths like Forever 21 have a preference for copying the work of younger and less-established designers, because they are less likely to be protected by a phalanx of scary litigators, like, say, Louis Vuitton and Chanel are. []<br> You can read Hernandez' congressional testimony along with all the witnesses' testimony here. []</p> Justin Bieber's perfume Someday has broken all sales records. In less than three weeks, it's rung up more than $3 million at Macy's. At this rate, it is on track to become the top-selling perfume of 2011. Previously, Beyoncé's Heat was considered the top-selling celebrity perfume at launch. Heat did $3 million in its first month. [] Taylor Swift Has Laryngitis, Also A Perfume. [] Jane Lynch and her wife are in a Vogue spread. [] Karen Elson and Raquel Zimmerman star in the fall Lanvin campaign, which was shot by Steven Meisel. [] Jefferey Campbell knocked off the Prada creeper-brogue hybrid. Point the first: this isn't even a very accurate copy. (Holly Shoes a version that included both that band of hemp and the treaded soles, neither of which Jeffery Campbell could apparently be bothered to get right.) Point the second: Still ugly. [] The Olsen twins' handbag line includes this backpack that costs $39,000. Barneys New York fashion director Amanda Brooks says the backpack is "super triple chic." She continued, "I think if you were every going to spend $39,000 on a bag, that's the bag you should buy because I think you'd wear it for a really long time." Simon Doonan, Barneys creative director, however says backpacks aren't for him. "I never was a backpack person. My gay sister was always working a backpack and it's a little too hearty for me." Two of the $39,000 backpacks have already been pre-ordered. [] Michele Lamy, the wife and muse of Rick Owens, has an unusual background. She studied law, worked as a stripper, protested in Paris in May 1968, and responds to questions about whether she has an interest in the occult by saying, "Belief is a way to express a memory of your genes." She has a couple gold-plated teeth and does her nails with a henna-like vegetable dye. (Women in Morocco and the Middle East do this, too, but with actual henna.) [] Here is a gallery of fashion photos of (mostly) models eating pasta. []<p>The top row of shirts is by Forever 21. The bottom row is by a small California-based label called Trovata. Welcome to a peek behind the curtain at secretive, cult-y, and very rapidly growing fast-fashion chain Forever 21.</p><p>It's always a bad sign when, on a store tour with a retailer's head of marketing, a reporter sees a pair of shoes on the shelf that look exactly like the pair she has on. Except the identi-shoes are a different brand, aren't real leather, and cost less than a quarter of what she paid for them. "You should buy another pair here," suggests the marketing exec when the reporter, BusinessWeek's Susan Berfield, points this out. (Marketing execs are so unflappable.)</p> <p>Although Forever 21 cooperated with BusinessWeek's story, the company wouldn't allow Berfield to even set foot in its design and merchandising headquarters, which are housed in a building of their own on Forever 21's corporate campus, a building with its own security. "The windows are covered with blinds," writes Berfield. Her requests to go inside "were met with laughs by Forever 21's representatives."</p> <p>"Their design is swathed in mystery," says Susan Scafidi, a professor of copyright law at Fordham University Law School and director of the Fashion Law Institute. "But it probably looks a bit like a crime scene, with the chalk outline of the garments they're copying."</p> <p>Forever 21 is a $3 billion chain that counts 477 stores in 19 countries and around 35,000 employees; it has been expanding aggressively during the recession, opening enormous new stores in spaces abandoned by retreating retailers like Saks, Circuit City, and Mervyns. Forever 21 expects to open another 75 stores in 2011.</p> <p>The company was founded and is still owned by Do Won and Jin Sook Chang, Korean immigrants to Los Angeles. Do Won Chang has said he got the idea when he was working at a gas station, and noticed that all the nice cars were owned by people in the rag trade; Jin Sook Chang says that she went to a mountain one morning to pray and God told her she should open a store and that she would be successful. Jin Sook is in charge of whatever it is goes on in that merchandise building. Her husband handles everything else. Their daughters, Linda and Esther Chang, both have high-powered positions within the company despite only being in their twenties, and are expected to take over eventually. Linda wears Forever 21, but mixes it with Chanel.</p> <p>A lot of weird things stand out about the company culture. For one, there's the whole Evangelical Christian thing:</p> <p>"Every decision that they made has been with thoughtful prayer," says Linda. Mr. and Mrs. Chang attend a daily 5:30 a.m. prayer meeting at the Ttokamsa Mission Church when they're in town; he also leads Bible study, and she's a deacon. "I think they get a lot of business ideas and insight during early morning prayer time," Pastor Ken Choe says in an e-mail. According to him, they've contributed millions of dollars to missions around the world and regularly go on missions themselves, including to Afghanistan, India, and Pakistan. They've told their daughters that when they retire, they want to devote themselves fully to the church. "Mr. Chang said he would have been a missionary if this hadn't worked out," says Linda. "This supports that. This is part of their missionary vision."</p> <p>Berfield reports that there are Bibles at the company's headquarters, and it's generally understood that in order to advance within the company, one should be "saved."</p> <p>And then there are the lawsuits. Turns out that having a brand new selection of $19.80 rayon blazers and $23.80 pleather shoes delivered by the ton daily is not easily achieved without ending up on the wrong side of labor laws. Forever 21 used to manufacture most of its clothing in Southern California, using a variety of local suppliers. The reasons were simple: Until 2005, an international textile trade agreement offered some measure of protection to the U.S. apparel industry and made outsourcing more expensive, and domestic manufacture also allowed for shorter lead times and a nimbler response to customer demand.</p> <p>But there are also labor laws in the U.S. And in 2001, Asian Pacific American Legal Center and the Garment Worker Center sued the company on behalf of 19 workers who alleged they had not been paid legally required minimum wages and overtime. The lawsuit spawned a three-year-long boycott of the company and was the subject of an Emmy-winning documentary, Made in LA. Forever 21 eventually settled the suit (the terms are confidential). "It was a difficult time for them," Esther Chang says of her parents' reaction to the lawsuit.</p> <p>Since then, the Changs have moved a lot of Forever 21's production to countries like China, India, Pakistan, and Vietnam. Still, Berfield finds one L.A. factory where workers earn 12 cents apiece to sew vests that retail for $13.80:</p> <p>The California Broadway Trade Center sits on the edge of the garment district, across from the derelict Rialto Theater and just down the street from new lofts built in the old Union Bank. It's a nine-story building that houses at least 80 of these factories. At the loading dock, scraps of paper are taped to the wall, listing in Spanish the jobs available that day. The building looks uncared for, but not decrepit.</p> <p>Some of the doors to these factories are open, making it possible to walk around unannounced. In one, on the top floor, with no company name on the door, about 30 people are sewing gray cotton vests for Forever 21 in a small, hot room. Many of them have stuffed scraps of fabric into their noses to block the particles of material floating in the air. They're just finishing up a one-week, 10,000-piece order for which the seamstresses earn about 12 cents apiece, according to Guadalupe Hernandez, a longtime garment worker in Los Angeles. If they sew 66 vests an hour, they'll earn minimum wage.</p> <p>Oh, and there's also the whole ripping off other people's intellectual property thing. Forever 21 has confidentially settled more than 50 Forever 21 lawsuits with designers who have accused it of stealing their intellectual property. The only suit to make it to an open trial was Trovata's, at which Jin Sook Chang variously claimed on the witness stand that she didn't know what percentage of the company she and her husband owned, if there were any other shareholders, or even what her company's annual sales were. Trovata's lawyers, meanwhile, turned up evidence that the Changs, through various holding companies and investment vehicles, in fact owned or part-owned some of their biggest "independent" suppliers — the same suppliers Forever 21 attempts to publicly distance itself from whenever labor rights violations or copyright violations emerge from the production supply chain. Diane Von Furstenberg, Anna Sui — who once guests at her fashion show t-shirts that read "Forever WANTED: Don Cassidy and The Sundance Jin" that quoted Exodus 20:15, "Thou shalt not steal" — and Anthropologie are among the other designers who have won settlements from the company.</p> <p>Forever 21 tends to avoid knocking off large and well-protected fashion companies, like Chanel or Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy, both of which are notorious for aggressively policing their copyrights. Forever 21 knocks off smaller, less established labels — like Trovata, Alexander Wang, and Foley + Corinna, whose printed maxi dress is shown here next to its Forever 21 copy — because those brands are less likely to be able to mount a vigorous legal defense. Berfield also talks to a designer, Virginia Johnson, who saw a knock-off of one of her skirts for sale at Forever 21; when her lawyer contacted the company, "he learned that the company had a policy in place for just such scenarios. They would pay Johnson 10 percent of the $40,000 worth of skirts they said they had sold. When Johnson rejected that as too low, they offered $9,000, which she accepted. 'I was surprised how matter-of-fact they were,' she says." Forever 21 denies it has any such policy.</p> <p>So: Forever 21's workers earn minimum wage — if they can sew an entire vest every 55 seconds. The Changs meanwhile buy their daughters Chanel and educated them at prep schools and Ivy League colleges. And if one of their dresses or tops turns out to have been someone else's idea first, well — the fat profits on all those vests make for lots of settlement money. Fast fashion, like a lot of things about the fashion industry, really isn't very pretty underneath.</p> <p>Trovata/Forever 21 image from Trovata's lawsuit; Foley + Corinna/Forever 21 image </p> <p> [BusinessWeek]<br> [Counterfeit Chic]</p><p>Analysts at MasterCard are projecting that this year, Americans will for the first time ever spend more than $20 billion on Black Friday — barring extreme weather or other acts of God. And while some retailers' plans to open on the holiday itself have drawn popular , customer feedback motivated at least one chain to cut its holiday hours this time around: Sears, which opened on Thanksgiving day in 2010, won't do so again this year. ("There was a sentiment from customers to keep Thanksgiving as a holiday," admitted a sheepish-sounding spokesperson.) But the overall trend is still for longer hours, hence why shopping on Thanksgiving, by the way, now has a name: Brown Thursday. Ewwwwwwwww. []<br> Black Friday and the holiday shopping season, by the numbers: total holiday retail sales are expected to top $873 billion this season. 195 million people will shop on Black Friday. Americans say they plan to spend, on average, $704 on holiday gifts this year. Doubtless they will all buy highly necessary things that their intended recipients will treasure forever. []</p> Shoe designer Camilla Skovgaard, known for her stark designs that suggest there are things more valuable than merely being considered "pretty," is profiled in the Wall Street Journal. "It's the easiest thing in the world to bring yet another delicate little patent peep-toe stiletto into the world," she says, "and I have to work consciously to not go there." Another place Camilla Skovgaard does not go? Kitten heels: "It just looks bloody wrong, in my opinion. And what's the point — if my heel is going to get stuck in the sidewalk anyway, it might as well get stuck properly. I don't like doing things half-way." Interestingly, after fashion school, Skovgaard applied for a job working as a designer in Dubai, serving some of the wealthiest families of the Middle East. She worked there for seven years. "I guess you could say I overdosed on it all — on lace and embroidery, flowery prints and Swarovski crystals, which came in the bucket-loads. I know that's when I developed my distaste for shiny things," she says. She returned to London and studied shoe-making for six years, earning another fashion degree and her master's. She started her own business in 2006; "I find doing business a quite creative process, and I've run a very tight ship. I started on a £35,000 business loan from a Danish bank — no investors, no cash sponsorships, none of that." Last year, her sales topped £3.2 million. [] O.G. socialite and confirmed snazzy dresser Iris Apfel is lending her name to a set of reading glasses. Eyebobs is coming out with the Iris, pictured, for January. Proceeds from the specs will go to the charity Lighthouse International. [] Meanwhile, Rihanna is already onto her second fragrance. It's called Rebelle, and she's not wearing any visible clothing in the ads, OMG. [] If you wanted to check out the Tom Ford collection that had some critics reeling — that is to say, the collection that Virginie Mouzat an "inventory for Kim Kardashian" and a re-tread of everything Ford did ten years ago at Yves Saint Laurent, mixed with a little Céline and Alaïa — photos of it are, at last, available online. []<p>After being targeted with criticism regarding its March issue and Beyoncé's African Queen photo shoot, L'Officiel has issued a statement:</p> <p>L'OFFICIEL is very proud to present its March issue featuring Beyoncé in African-inspired dresses and jewellery by top designers, including Gucci, Azzedine Alaia, Fendi, Pucci, Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Rodarte, Dolce & Gabbana, Cartier and Lanvin. Designer Tina Knowles, who is also Beyoncé's mother, created a one of a kind couture piece. The designs are all reflective of the African influence on fashion this season. Miss Knowles poses with royal allure. A queen, a goddess, Beyoncé is a bombshell beauty with a divine voice. We're thrilled she's opening a season of celebrating the 90th anniversary of L'Officiel de la Mode. The series was conceived as using art and fashion in paying homage to African queens.</p> <p>Beyoncé mentioned the artist Fela Kuti in the interview as one of her musical inspirations. It was later misquoted as the inspiration for the shoot. We would like to clarify that it is not the case.</p> <p>As for the artistic makeup, the inspiration came from several African rituals during which paint is used on the face. We find the images beautiful and inspiring.</p> <p>L'Officiel would like to thank Beyoncé for her outstanding contribution to this celebration of African influences in Fashion.</p> <p>Good to know. After writing about her dark makeup and wondering if she was using blackness as a fashion accessory, I received some pretty hateful messages. One brave, anonymous soul wrote:</p> <p>"I saw your comments on beyonces photos in the march issue of L'Officiel Paris and you could not sound any more arrogant and retarded. She is not 'using blackness as a fashion accessory.' It is a specific tribute to a specific inspirational person from history… Its no different from a while girl powdering her face to look like fucking marilyn monroe. You are starting a controversy for no reason at all… Shut the fuck up so racism can actually go away you dumb bitch."</p> <p>Since we now know that Beyoncé was not, in fact, doing the shoot inspired by "an actual person in history," this argument is moot. But thank you, dear reader, for your eloquent and reasoned thoughts.</p> <p>I still maintain that the dark face makeup is bothersome, and the explanation — that the inspiration came "from several African rituals during which paint is used on the face" — does not sit well with me. Here's why: No particular tribe or religion is mentioned. There are literally hundreds of ethnic groups on the continent of Africa, and face paint is used in many different ways. So if you're not specifically copying a particular people, religion or "ritual," then what you're really doing is just asserting that "face paint" is something "Africans" do. It's a very Western/Eurocentric way of thinking. Africa is a vast continent with many bustling cities. I've been to places like Tunis, Tangiers, Marrakesh, Gaborone and Johannesburg, and while I did see folks wearing jeans and t-shirts, I didn't see anyone wearing leopard skin and face paint. Of course some people, in some regions, on some occasions, do paint their faces. The use yellow and red; usually have white smears or a series of tiny white dots. It just seems as though Beyoncé and the folks behind the photo shoot painted her face to make her look more "African," using a narrow, uninformed definition of the word. It also seems probable that, as a fashion magazine, they most likely did it because it looks cool. And if that is the case, they should just say so. Beyoncé's gorgeous, talented and smart; she has the right to paint her face black and I have the right to think it's a terrible and offensive idea. And in the end, this misstep has given her — and the magazine — a heap of free publicity.</p> <p> [Just Jared]<br> [Rolling Stone]<br> [Fox]<br> [Pop Eater]<br> [OMG]</p> <p>Earlier: </p>One of the most uncomfortable truths about the fashion industry is that most models begin working when they are in their early teens or even tweens; they are children. In this editorial, Vogue Paris cuts right to the chase.<p>J. Crew creative director and president Jenna Lyons' much-photographed Brooklyn brownstone home — you've seen it in just about every shelter mag, ever — is now on the market for $3.75 million. Lyons and her husband separated this summer and are embroiled in a bitter divorce; meanwhile, Lyons has with another woman who works in fashion, jewelry executive Courtney Crangi. The house and custody of their son Beckett are said to be the two most contentious issues in Lyons' divorce. More glorious real estate porn at the link. []</p> Label Daryl K shot a model dressed in its clothes at Occupy Wall Street to advertise its sample sale. As New York puts it, "Nothing says 99 percent like a $325 camel wrap-coat." [] Donatella Versace is in New York, preparing for the fashion show that will launch the Versace for H&M collection. The show — Nicki Minaj and Prince are going to perform — is tonight, and the clothes hit stores on November 19. "Girls today love to dress up," says Versace. "They love the Medusa. You see it even if they just buy a belt or sunglasses. They want to look cool and sexy. They don't want to look ordinary." [] This year's Victoria's Secret show (also known as the reason Adriana Lima hasn't solid food in weeks) features 38 models — 15 of whom have never walked the show before — and 69 looks. It has a budget of $12 million. [] Angel Candice Swanepoel did a ski-bunny-themed spread for the new V. [] Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, as previously announced, won't be doing the VS show this year. She has more important things to do, like be on the cover of German Vogue. [] Swiss scientists have found a way to bond a nanometer-thin layer of gold to a polyester core. The resulting fiber can be woven into neckties. For the man who has everything, CHF 7,500, or $8,450. []In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.<p>Fashion insiders are expressing their shock at 's racist behavior. Despite an alleged three recent incidents in which the now ex-Dior designer hurled racist and anti-Semitic abuse at strangers, including one that was , all of which came to light without much digging and within 72 hours of his arrest last Thursday in Paris...you see, nobody knew there was this side to him. "I was so shocked when I heard the news that I didn't actually believe it until I watched that video online. Initially, I couldn't believe it because — and so many fashion people have said this — what he did is so contrary to everything we know about him," says one anonymous London fashion insider. A stylist offers, "I think everyone's known [Galliano's] been crazy forever, but to be honest, he's not the only one in the industry." Says a "veteran fashion writer," "The fashion industry can really create monsters — people live in these bubbles where they are fawned over and celebrated. Nobody ever says no. They get exactly what they want . . . They are completely out of touch with reality because they don't live in reality. I can see how [Galliano] has become this crazy, out-of-touch lunatic." []<br> Women's Wear Daily's Bridget Foley, who has been going to Galliano's shows since 1994, claims, "Never in all those years of seasonal check-ins has Galliano presented himself other than as a quiet, gentle soul. At times he seemed uncomfortable with the monotony of walking editors through his collections; at other times, agreeable and energized, possibly substance-enhanced. One sensed a bit of wickedness, but playful, never hateful or mean." []<br> Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the Paris police says that the inquiry into the two legal complaints made against Galliano is not yet finished, but said that she believes the legal process will be swift. Joan Burstein, the owner and founder of the London boutique Browns, who bought Galliano's entire graduate collection in 1984, says, "I am deeply saddened by the fact that John Galliano has been dismissed. I hope that I have the opportunity to see him face-to-face, as I have no comment to make until I am told the truth by him." And though most industry insiders are saying Galliano's racist rantings are out of character, Pat Field would seek to excuse them on the grounds that Galliano was "acting out a character." The stylist continues: "People in fashion don't recognize the farce in it. All of a sudden they don't know him. But it's OK when it's Mel Brooks' The Producers singing ‘Springtime for Hitler.'" Karl Lagerfeld takes a different tack. "I'm furious, if you want to know." Lagerfeld went on, "today, with the Internet, one has to be more careful than ever, especially if you are a publicly known person. You cannot go in the street and be drunk — there are things you cannot do. I'm furious with him because of the harm he did to LVMH and Bernard Arnault, who is a friend, and who supported him more than he supported any other designer in his group, because Dior is his favorite label. It's as if he had his child hurt." []<br> Yesterday, just hours after Dior announced it was , sources close to the designer confirmed to Suzy Menkes that he would be heading "immediately" to rehab. (There's nothing rehab won't fix, apparently.) And also that he had, to possibly fight his dismissal, retained the services of the same lawyer Kate Moss hired in the wake of her cocaine scandal, when several major brands temporarily dropped her as a face. []</p><p>The question of who will replace disgraced total-Nazi designer at has tongues wagging all over the industry. (But then again, when are fashion people ever not gossiping about something?) But two of the alleged front-runners are tight-lipped. Riccardo Tisci, when asked after his Givenchy show about the rumors that he is in line to become the next Dior creative director, would say only, "I felt this was a strong, positive season. And I'm happy at Givenchy." []<br> Haider Ackermann, another designer — one from outside the Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy fold — said to be in the running for the Dior gig, said cryptically when asked if he'd go to another house, "Yes, you have to find the right person and look in the same direction; it's like a love affair. It has to be a coup de foudre on both sides. You know, sometimes you have a repertoire of your own, and sometimes you have something else to express and the code of another house may help. I don't know. We'll see." Ackermann said that he turned down the opportunity to take over Maison Martin Margiela in 2009, because "Martin is my hero, so it's a soul and souls are not replaceable. But yes there are places I would like to go and that I might go." []<br> Then there's this, from Style.com's Twitter feed: "Not to add to the Dior rumor mill, but people in Paris are asking, why has the Lanvin team been in tears all day?" Lanvin's Alber Elbaz is another name that's been widely touted as a Galliano successor. [@]<br> Earlier: <br> Meanwhile, Sidney Toledano, the C.E.O. of Dior, confirmed that LVMH is still backing the John Galliano signature label — for now. LVMH owns 92% of the John Galliano brand. It's common for major luxury companies to back the namesake lines of the designers who toil as creative directors of their flagship brands (see: LVMH investing in Marc Jacobs when Jacobs signed on as the creative director of Louis Vuitton) as a reward for loyal service — whether or not those namesake lines, which are often lower in profile than the flagship brands, actually make money. (The John Galliano brand is said to "barely break even.") Toledano attended the Galliano show in Paris on Sunday, and he said, "For the moment, the [Galliano] business continues. This is a business which has licenses and tomorrow we will show the collection in the showrooms as usual . . . I am here to prove that business goes on . . . and to support the teams." Not a ringing endorsement, exactly, but then again, this is an industry where maybe money resounds even more loudly than saying "I love Hitler." []<br> One of the models at the Galliano show had a small Star of David tattoo on her arm. []</p> Remember when Keira Knightley rode a beige Ducati motorcycle around the streets of Paris, a beige leather motorcycle suit, like the mother-of-the-bride version of Beatrix Kiddo? Well, now the Chanel perfume ad she was shooting is out. You can't actually see the bike. [] An old Jennifer Aniston photo shoot was recycled for a new cover of French Glamour. []<p>Holy eyebrows: Emmanuelle Alt put George Michael and Kate Moss on the latest cover of French Vogue. The singer seems like kind of a random choice, but then again as we from the video she made to mark Vogue's Web redesign, Alt is a George Michael superfan.</p> <p> This being the awesome video in question. []</p> Tom Ford has taken the unprecedented step of publishing photographs of five of his spring show looks on the Internet. Where just anybody can see them! Someone . Ford's spring collection was described by the designer as embodying values of "chastity and perversity." Now flick through the slideshow and grade looks "Chaste!" or "Perverse!" to your little hearts' content. [] Diane Kruger had to get cut out of this Dior couture dress. "It was so big that it took me an hour to get into it and the only way for me to go to the bathroom was to take off the bodice," said the actress. "Once I finished dinner, I had to go to the bathroom and it became so tight that I couldn't breathe anymore. Josh had to come with me to the lady's room and cut me out of it." [] Here is a promo for the documentary that Albert Maysles is making about Iris Apfel. [] What, you'd expect a Cosmopolitan lingerie collection for J.C. Penney to look tasteful and restrained? [] This is Nicki Minaj's fragrance ad. [] And this is Jerry Hall's iconic 1995 fragrance ad for Thierry Mugler's Angel. Christophe de Latilade, Mugler's longtime creative director, recalls of the shoot: <p>"We shot this in White Sands, New Mexico. Apparently Jerry had been visiting her family in Texas at the time, so she told me, 'I will make my arrangements, just tell me where the hotel is.' The day of the shoot, a huge white stretch limo appeared with a chauffeur who looked like a pimp or something, all dressed in white with white crocodile boots. Jerry came out and had big Vuitton trunks filled with lingerie with her. She spent her evenings doing fittings with her own lingerie in an ugly little motel in Alamo Gordo. That was the sort of thing she did."</p> <p>[]</p> Beyoncé's red dress that she wore to meet the President at the little $40,000-a-plate fundraiser she hosted with her husband? Oscar de la Renta. []<p>Discount online retailer and investment-magnet Gilt Groupe says it is now worth $1 billion. That's a lot of designer flash sales! The company has 670 employees — and is looking to hire for 125 positions. Gilt intends to launch a full-price men's site this year. According to the C.E.O., "our online male sales are three to four times bigger than Saks and five times bigger than Bloomingdale's. The question is: Who should be worried?" Everyone in retail who is not Gilt Groupe should be worried, that's who. Or else they should be filling out an application. []<br> Other positive signs in the fashion job market? Recruiters are hitting up graduate fashion shows again. []</p> United Nude designed this carbon fiber and leather shoe to be worn in space. It comes flat-packed, like Ikea furniture, and you assemble it. []<p>The guy who makes the wings for the Victoria's Secret fashion show is working on a project with NASA, naturally. Designer Ted Southern has won a contract to make a better kind of astronaut glove. But more importantly, he says Gisele Bündchen is hell to work with. She is "really tough. She's always screaming, 'What the fuck is this?" "What the fuck is this" does not seem like a wholly inappropriate reaction to a Victoria's Secret get-up, actually. []</p> What's the thing to do when you're facing the possibility of bankruptcy on April 30, and lost $86.3 million in the last fiscal year? Why, start a denim line of $80 jeans! American Apparel, you never fail to surprise us. The jeans line — which is launching today with two styles for women, which the company intends to complement with men's in time for the back-to-school season, assuming American Apparel, you know, still exists then — has been in development for over a year. Why let a little thing like, oh, careening towards insolvency get in the way of a long-planned new product launch? [] Here is Freida Pinto's new L'Oréal lipstick ad. It's, like, in Russian. []<p>The backlash over Anna Wintour's political activities — the Vogue editor is a top-tier Obama "bundler," having raised more than $500,000 for his reelection campaign, and has personally donated over $96,000 to Democratic candidates since 2004 — is here. And it is very, very sexist. On his radio show, Glenn Beck attacked Wintour and the Web ad she recently filmed for the Obama campaign (the one where she invited supporters to donate for a chance to dine with the president at a fundraiser Wintour is co-hosting with Michelle Obama and Sarah Jessica Parker) by referring to everyone's favorite hit dramedy of 2006, The Devil Wears Prada. "She was the devil part," said the radio host. "She was the person who was actually in the movie treating her co-workers... like garbage, waiting on her every whim. She is what [Obama] says capitalists are like all the time. She is everything she says the Republicans are and she's an Obama supporter." He then put on an accent to mock Wintour's pronunciation of "Mee-chelle Obahhma," and her invitation from the video: "I'm saving the best seat for you. Actually, I'm lying. You're gonna get a crumbum seat because you're part of the people." For good measure, he added, "She's not from a foreign country, she's an American." Wintour is in fact "from a foreign country" — she was born and raised in the U.K. (though she is also a naturalized U.S. citizen).</p> <p>Meanwhile, paleoconservative-with-a-Post-column John Podhoretz devoted his entire weekly rant to Wintour and her fancy-schmancy, "ridiculous," nose-in-the-air high-fashion turpitude. Podhoretz posted a still from the video, and called Wintour a "horror show" in the image caption. "The head-scratching political event of the weekend was the Obama campaign's release of a video starring that peerless political thinker and ideological visionary, Vogue magazine editor Anna Wintour," he writes. (John Podhoretz's qualifications to opine on matters political include the fact that he won Jeopardy! like five times in the 90s.) Podhoretz calls out Wintour's "relative lack of fame" compared to her co-hosts, and swoops in low for a joke about how fashion people have food issues, asking whether "the menu will include a salad of three lettuce leaves without dressing with a Tic Tac for dessert?"</p> <p>The conservative Web site the Daily Caller put a photo of Parker on its homepage under the headline, "Horse Race." The subhed: "FROM THE STABLES: Horsing around with Sarah Jessica Parker."</p> <p>That politicians sometimes host fundraising events with celebrities and figures from the media is hardly news. Mitt Romney is currently a strikingly similar celebrity dinner sweepstakes with Donald Trump in New York. "Dine with the Donald!" promises Romney's Web site. For donating $3 or more, you too can be entered to win a chance to "Ride in the Trump vehicle while in New York," get a tour of Trump Tower, and "Dine with Donald Trump and Mitt Romney." Why is Obama's dinner fundraiser getting so much negative attention? Probably because it happens to be co-hosted by two women who can be painted as frivolous, for entirely sexist reasons, thanks to their involvement with fashion. [, , ]</p> Cass Bird was shooting Shalom Harlow for an Oyster cover story when a dude with a blue mohawk who calls himself Punk Kouture wandered onto the set from the Bowery Hotel restaurant. (We are hesitant to call anyone who dines at the Bowery Hotel restaurant a "punk," but Mr. Kouture certainly went to great lengths to embody the style.) Harlow flashed him, the moment was immortalized both by Bird and by behind-the-scenes photographer Christopher Peterson. And now it's in the magazine. [] Karl Lagerfeld's book of celebrities wearing black Chanel cardigan-style jackets is here. At right: Lauren Hutton, Yoko Ono, and Kanye West. []<p>Gwyneth Paltrow, dressed all in black and looking kinda 90s'd-out to us, graces the latest issue of Elle. Inside, she talks about how "Beyoncé and Jay" are just begging her to get in the studio and make an album already. And she has a message for anyone who GOOP: "Unsubscribe." But Gwyneth, if we did that, where would we learn which brand of $300 cashmere socks to buy? []</p> Demi Moore is the new face of Ann Taylor. [] Isabeli Fontana wears a beehive hairdo and a crop-top on the new cover of Vogue Brazil. [] Lane Crawford, the Asian department store chain, decided to use only Chinese models in its fall ad campaign. Featured are Fei Fei Sun, Liu Wen, Ming Xi, Shu Pei and Xiao Wen Ju. []<p>The bodies of most of the models H&M features on its website are computer-generated and "completely virtual," the company has admitted. H&M designs a body that can better display clothes made for humans than humans can, then "dresses" it by drawing on its clothes, and digitally pastes on the heads of real women in post-production. For now — in the future, even models' faces won't be considered perfect enough for online fast fashion, and we'll buy all of our clothing from cyborgs. (This news sort of explains .) But man, isn't looking at the four identical bodies with different heads so uncanny? Duly noted that H&M made one of the fake bodies black. You can't say that the fictional, Photoshopped, mismatched-head future of catalog modeling isn't racially diverse. []</p> In other speculative uses of digital imaging technology: Victoria's Secret models in FatBooth. Only from the Daily Mail. [] Dianna Agron from that show about teenagers who sing is on the cover of Nylon. [] Today in unusual pairings on fashion covers: large fluffy white kitty, Caroline Trentini, Brazilian Harper's Bazaar. []<br> Naked baby, Dree Hemingway, Spanish Vogue. [] In her other big new magazine cover, Numéro, Karlie Kloss is not naked. []<p>An objectively horrible and undeniably racist New York City hairstylist named Marina Vance called a no-show client and left her what must be one of the nastiest, most racist voicemails in the history of telecommunications. Vance said, in part:</p> <p>"I'm sure you're a fucking nigger, ah, who doesn't care for anybody's time, alright? I wish, you know what, please, that you don't show up for your appointment, ah, which is coming. Tifany with an 'F,' a fucking nigger, next time, or or a fucking Dominican bitch."</p> <p>The client, a woman named Tifany McIntosh who had been set to enlist Vance's services for her wedding day (she says she missed a preliminary appointment due to a family emergency, not that it matters because did you see that voicemail), took a racial discrimination case to the NYC Commission on Human Rights. Somewhat unsurprisingly, McIntosh won. (In fact, the hairstylist — who seemed to have such a problem with people who can't keep appointments — didn't even show up to the hearing.) The bigoted stylist, whose name again is Marina Vance, will likely have to pay a $22,500 fine. []</p> Johnny Weir wears a corset embellished with beads and rhinestones in his first MAC ads. The skater is the face of the holiday collection, "Glitter and Ice." [] Pictures of Nicki Minaj's OPI collection, due out early next year, have hit the Internet. [] This mesmerizing concealer ad featuring Rico "Zombie Boy" Genest having is probably the coolest thing you'll watch today. [] This is what the cover of Jimmy Choo XV looks like. It's a book celebrating the shoe brand's 15th anniversary this year, with pictures of 15 "iconic" designs. [] The new issue of V features a fashion spread where male models re-create snapshots from their youth, like Brad Kroenig here. [] Versace has reissued three of its printed silk shirts from the early '90s. Strangely, they are still hideous. [] Ali Lohan, in the guise of a model, is on the cover of a magazine called Fault. [] This is Nine West's first perfume, Love Fury. [] Fashionista points out that Mattel released a "Van Gogh Barbie" in June, which looks strongly reminiscent of one of Rodarte's looks from its spring Van Gogh-inspired show. Unrelated: When do we get a Claes Oldenburg Barbie? [] <br> Image via Lindsay Dean/<p>Harper's Bazaar shot Miranda Kerr for a fall fashion editorial showcasing boots. As should be obvious, the magazine really wanted the boots to be the focus of the spread. So Kerr is depicted naked. Having Kerr be nude to sell boots is far from "gratuitous" or "objectifying" or "tired and obvious"; it is an aesthetic choice completely justified — nay, demanded! — by the subject matter of the story. Exactly how else are you supposed to advertise boots, hm? (This is, incidentally, the we've seen Kerr's business.) So just look at those boots. Look long and hard at those boots. Do you think you'll be buying any boots this season? Boots. []</p> Here is Lady Gaga Photoshopped as RuPaul . Or maybe it's RuPaul Photoshopped as Lady Gaga on the cover of Vogue. Either way, you're welcome! [] This is Jennifer Lopez wearing some t-shirts from Teeology, the new crowd-sourced Internet t-shirt boutique she both invests in and fronts. [] In this ad for her Marks & Spencer lingerie line, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley describes the goods as "young and modern" but also "classic and sexy" and "buzzword and buzzword." [] Here are some hilarious pictures of Zac Efron modeling for some denim line nobody has ever heard of. [] For the first issue of cult boutique Opening Ceremony's new annual magazine thing, the folks behind art/fashion site DIS styled and shot a fashion spread featuring Carol Alt and Pat Cleveland racewalking. The sport/fashion thing (and heightening the unreality of fashion photography with Photoshop) is exactly up DIS's alley. [] Interview did a fashion shoot themed around the male hookup app Grindr. It features America's Next Top Model judge Rob Evans (right). [] Marchesa is launching a perfume. [] Reem Acra also has a fragrance that will go on sale in October. The ad features Crystal Renn, allegedly — she's so Photoshopped we didn't recognize her. It is believed to be Renn's first fragrance campaign. [] And in yet more news of smelly things, Chanel is launching a new scent called Coco Noir. []<p>Have you ever wanted to see the cacophonous and often contradictory body of contemporary dating advice distilled into a single, ridiculous document? If so, a group of Harvard students has now made your dreams come true.</p> <p>A Google titled "The How To Guide for (Romantic) Relationships at Harvard" has surfaced on — numerous references to Harvard residence halls and Harvard president Drew Gilpin Faust suggest it is indeed legitimate. Or at least, it is legitimately from Harvard — its advice is not necessarily the gold standard of healthy relationship-building. The document (which is now locked) initially had multiple editors — the result is, as Jennifer 8. Lee puts it, a "crowdsourced" guide to romance. Some highlights:</p> <p>Some of the advice, however, is quite wise. For instance:</p> <p>Other items reveal the dangers of crowdsourcing (bracketed statements are from students, not us):</p> <p>One editor of the document says it's a project "for psych of close relationships." Psychology of Close Relationships appears to be a new course offered this fall. Its description reads,</p> <p>This course is an in-depth exploration of close relationships. Examples of topics to be covered include the biological bases of attraction; relationship formation; the end of relationships through break-up, divorce, or death; relationship satisfaction; deception; gender roles; same-sex relationships; loneliness; relationships and well-being; and public perceptions about relationships. You will have an opportunity to explore these topics primarily through critical examination of the empirical literature as well as through popular press.</p> <p>We've contacted the Harvard psychology department for more information; in the meantime, it's unclear whether course instructor Holly Parker assigned students to create a crowdsourced relationship guide, or whether they came up with this idea on their own. Whatever the case, the guide is a good reminder of how confusing today's glut of romance tips can be. Be monogamous! Don't be monogamous! Be independent! Be committed! Do 69! Set a fire! They may not have intended to do so, but the Harvard students have provided a pretty decent snapshot of the world of relationship advice — and it's a scary, scary place.</p> <p>Update: Harvard student Rose Wang emailed me to explain her creation of the guide:</p> <p>For our final paper, Holly gave us 3 prompts— one of which is, "write a guidebook for relationship success. You may write the guide for success in friendships or romantic relationships. Please be clear about your intended audience and the focus of your guidebook (that is, is there a particular aspect of relationship success, such as communication, that is the focus of your book, or are you writing a more general guide). Although you will want to match your writing style to your intended audience, remember to reference the literature in your book." Since I am no expert on relationships myself, I started this googledoc and seeded it with the first 5 tips and sent it over a couple of email lists, allowing anyone to edit the doc. Within the first 10 seconds, 20 people had the doc open and then within 20 minutes, people couldn't even edit the doc because apparently googledocs has a 50-person edit limit. I had to shut down the edits after 2 hours, because people were trolling hardcore and I was getting tired of censoring inappropriate comments. (What you see now is much milder than some of things people were posting.) I had meant to send in an edited version of the document as an appendix to my paper, but it seems like it is out of my hands now, and I am about to email my professor to explain all this haha.</p> <p>For the brave and/or bored, here's the entire document:</p> <p>The How To Guide for (Romantic) Relationships at Harvard</p> <p>Sorry everyone— This was getting out of hand, so it's read only now.- Rose</p> <p>Although now it's more of a Social Psych project (sorry you'll need CUHS approval to use in research). Woops! Add a form but don't delete this!</p> <p>THIS IS AWESOME</p> <p>Perfect form of procrastination right before finals. :P</p> <p>We are helping a friend do work. This is real work!</p> <p>0. Be attractive. Duh. <- the "duh" makes this sound sarcastic but i actually meant it lol people who say looks dont matter are kidding themselves<br> 0a. Don't be unattractive. < good call<br> 0b. Don't remove bag from over face. Cut out eye-holes to see with.This is extremely misogynistic<br> 1. Go on dates...dhall meals do not count.<<<<<<< yes they do... no they don't. you should pay for a date and not have your friends possibly drop in on your "date"! 1. we're not bankers yet 2. don't u want to meet the buddies? ? (It's no fun unless the crew gets some) it's not a co-op its a relationship. ? it's college..rose!!!! i ruv you.<br> ^ dhall meals count as a bad date, if you wanna get technical<br> 2. Embark on "coupley" activities other than 2am hookups, such as 1 am hookups. Preferably not blackout drunk. But not mandatory.<br> 3. Prioritize spending time with the other person. (It's called studying together. And by studying, I mean not studying.) <3 or planning the "study" session with the next one<br> 4. Don't hook up with other people. (or entertain the idea of an openly non-monogamous relationship) [a nonmonogamous relationship is sort of an oxymoron] [these are all on a certain level moral judgments, that's what advice is] Ok. Advice: if you and your partner might be happier in a non-monagamous relationship, then be open to trying it out. My advice: experiment. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyamory<br> 5. Remember the little things— when they have finals/papers/etc. AND THE BIG THINGS. LIKE BIRTHDAYS. or what they might like but did not tell you (a theme you might see in their room, etc) ask favorite color! and animal?<br> 6. Although technology tempts us to deal with problems via texting and over the internet, remember that relationships are between people and try to deal with problems in person.[omg too real] Alternatively, sexting can solve everything.<br> 7. Remember that the other person (ideally) wants to make it work just as much as you do, and try to assume the best until actually assessing the situation.<br> 8. Never make it a game of pride. EVER. STRONGLY AGREE.[OMG TOO REAL] (Stick to Hunger Games!) ooooh I agree with dat.<br> 9. Do cute, small things to surprise them; small fires are a good place to start. what the hell? Small fires? Small fries.<br> 10. Don't transfer your misplaced frustrations from other sources - midterms, job interviews, etc, on them. Remember that they're going through hard times too.<br> 11. (Might not work for everyone) Try to keep focused on schoolwork during the week and make sure you prioritize work during the week so you can prioritize them on the weekends.<br> 12. Be willing to make time for each other despite of your busy schedules. but don't be pushy though.<br> 13. Threesomes. +1 (Only when your relationship is stable enough, otherwise you should stick to foursomes.) gender preferences/ratios?<br> 13.37 Don't be n00b<br> 14. Understand that a relationship is a two way exchange. There has to be just as much giving as there is receiving. [Impossible for this to go both ways ? FALSE!...]<br> 15. Have a sex life. No seriously. true that. [A sex life is great if you are comfortable with it, but don't feel like you HAVE to have a sex life. Do what feels most comfortable for you or you will be miserable in any relationship][ Clarification then: Make sure that both you and your partner are on the same page when it comes to sex: If not then honestly its something that needs to be figured out<br> 16. Don't be afraid to try new things together, both in terms of extracurriculars, new activities, and in bed. Sex toys aren't only for bored people! +2<br> 17. Pray together to the altar of Budweiser [if you are both comfortable with it, great idea.].<br> 18. Remember that being part of a pair is good, but don't make your relationship all you remember from your college experience - there's a lot out there to explore besides your better half's *ahem*<br> 19. Trust. Without trust there is no relationship.<br> 20. Go gay! Why not? Everybody else is doing it.<br> 21. Occupy the yard; freezing bums in winter is a proven relationship booster. Also, they have a sweet jungle gym.<br> 22. Involve Drew Faust in your … activities whenever possible. <3 <3 *Drew Gilpin Faust* <3 <3 23. Before you pick/continue a fight, ask yourself if it's worth it. 24. Be understanding of your partner. Girls like to assume men are always wrong and need to be some knight in shining armor and be everywhere and do everything, (this is coming from a girl by the way) Also, always assume heteronormative relationship models! Like making sandwiches and doing dishes? -Sorry for the example. Disregard if you so wish.- 25. Learn to listen to your partner. They might be seeing things from a perspective you haven't figured yet. 27. Love them. 29. To guys (this is coming from a guy). REMEMBER the day you asked her out -____- Take the time to do something a little special on days like your 100 day. Doesn't have to be big but it shows that you care. 30. Take Lit & Sex together! It will never be awkward for anyone. 32. ALWAYS make it clear from the start. Casual hookups do not turn into serious love. -You never know, although when in a casual hookup it's best not to complicate with your feelings unless it's mutual. One of my best relationships started as a hookup 33. If in long distance, try to make rituals to do together — send photos, postcards, or schedule Skype dates. ("Dates.") 34. Don't be in a relationship just for the sake of it! You can be strong and independent all on your own. You should never NEED someone — you're amazing just as you! 34b . ^Truth. The best relationship might be when neither of you are looking for it — if you're both whole on your own, then you won't be super needy with each other =) ¥/ to each his own. (Also FYI Rose, if you do use this bit, it's actually from Plato I think, where he goes on some rant about a red line connecting 2 people but I forgot where it's from.) 34c. I can't help but disagree a bit with above ^ I personally a think being in a relationship is more than two individuals. It's when two people give up enough for each other to be something different. ? Communism. ? False understanding of communism ? that's what the Communists want you to say. 35. Guys don't be jerks 37. Get out of the Harvard bubble. Unless that bubble is Mather Lather. When is that this year? ( Like :D ) 38. Don't compare the person you are dating with your ex. It'll make both parties really sad/feel like they can't live up to expectations or whatever. Every person is different (so treat them as individuals). Unless your ex is crap.(+9000. Flying spaghetti approves) 39. Don't just be completely cute and romantic in a pseudo-relationship without ever clearing the air about things. (Or... walk it out... http://www.boreme.com/posting.php?id=11971) 69. DERP HERP 40. 69 ? see what I did there? (#ISEEWHATYOUDIDTHARBRO)(ohsnap) 41. Just communicate in person on the regular. 42. Study for finals together. Like right now. (But you can look cutely at each other! Oh I guess so...) MEANING OF LIFE! 43. Don't study for finals together. Right now everyone is stressed out and its too easy to accidentally let it out at the worst time. let what out? Unless you two are helpful in relieving that stressTRUE.( (stress sex? does it exist?>> it's the best)no but angry sex is hot(at least for men stress = really really bad performance... usually) viagra? (viagra when you honestly don't need it is really bad for the health. Its makes it hard for a guy to perform normally without it later. So no) learn something every day.(as for angry sex. yes its hot :P)</p> <p>Learn from each other. If [s]he really likes something way different from you, try to experience it for yourself before rejecting it. It'll show that you care, even if you still hate it.+2<br> 45. You don't have to be on the phone with each other for hours a day. You also don't have to get in fights about every person of the opposite gender [s]he speaks to. It's OK — you like each other the most (hopefully). :) +1 [Straight] Guys and girls can have friends of the opposite gender. [Gay guys and girls cannot, evidently.]nope. only of the same. <br> 46.</p> <p>Make sure you both want the same thing out of the relationship (are u just in it to have fun? looking for something to last a while?)</p> <p>47. Start a rumor that your significant other has the clap! Then no one will want to hook up with them, so they can't cheat on you. :)*dislike* [oh god evil] (That sounds really reasonable! Good thinking. I'll have to try it! :D)[at least just say mono. gawd clap?]The Clap is at least 50 times as funny as mono. Don't even try to cross me. I will cut you. << whoever wrote dis shit is crazy ? whoever wrote DAT shit just got CUT<br> 48. Compliment each other sincerely from time to time =) Don't overdo it though. The rest of the time, compliment insincerely! Or better yet, passive aggressively. lulzwhat</p> <p>49. Whatever you do/say/moan, be cognizant of how thin your walls are... and whether your windows are open...I hate listening to sex on the other side of the wall!! Note for Leverites: cinder block isn't that thick. [aka this is why I got sound cancelation headphones. Also btw Kirklanders... recently learned that sometimes sounds echo sthrough the fire places D:<]! Yooo I know you can always hear people pee in lev towers. You can hear everything in lev towers. Or consider playing music. Loud music. 50. Don't cry. Bottle it up! Hmm but should we also be real with our feelings? No. CS50! 51. Post your partner's info on www.crimsoncocks.tumblr.com ? unless they're female? Strap-ons, obviously. Oh isn't there also a crimson boobs? http://crimsonboobs.tumblr.com/ what if i just want to show off my ti-89 51. I assume this is not just Kirkland editing this document...Hi everhttp://crimsonboobs.tumblr.com/yone! >.>Hello from Quincy! [I'm this far down the page and nobody has mentioned Incest, so I guess it's not Kirkland-only. Kirk-Kirk relationships are definitely the best.(Agreed!)] INCESTFEST!!!<br> 52. If your boy/girlfriend makes a big mistake or ticks you off, it's OK. Take a breath before you fight about it.<br> 53. (Not sure if this is everyone, but...) It sometimes is annoying if you only say "sure" or "OK" or "I don't care" — a definitive "yes" or "no" doesn't have the other party questioning your sincerity/willingness to do something.<br> 54. Don't go into arguments angry as hell. If you feel its necessary save an argument for the next day when both people are clear headed about it.<br> 55. Train yourself extensively so that you can defeat your partner in physical combat (or carry her up the stairs, super romantic!) should the occasion arise. (why only physical combat? Do a dance battle instead. :P But jousting always settles everything. (Or if you're emotionally superior, you can win at mind games?) Yes! Mind games are a good option. Rose don't use this part. no mind games are not a good idea because usually its one person Really? I thought mind games were a really helpful couples bonding strategy. That's the strategy I've used for my marriage over the last six years, and it's worked out just fine. in a couple that mins (either the girl or the guy) and it leads to resentment{person with 6 year marriage. The mind games work when the couple is completely comfortable with mental jousting and feel equal to one another. If that is not the case then it can cripple a relationship, and nobody wants a cripplationship.<br> We actually met as a part of an elaborate mind game. My spouse still does not know my real age, ethnic background, name, occupation, or gender. It's fun to try to keep him guessing!</p> <p>Wait, we have married people on here? Cool?[I feel this is trolling D:<] (agreed) (sounds reasonable to me) 56. Play Words with Friends together if you're in long distance. And by "Words with Friends," I mean be sure to close your windows and speak quietly when you're on the phone. (But actually playing games over iPhone is fun!) (Almost as fun as mind games! See #55) Or play never have I ever A better idea is to chat on Skype or Google video chat 57. HYGIENE! Be clean and smell clean. soooooaaaap = win. soap operas? 58. Prepare a dance routine for every TLC song, because you never know when you'll need to perform one. Start with "No Scrubs" and work your way from there. (Wait, what?) (http://lmgtfy.com/?q=No+Scrubs&l=1) 58. And, if it's reaaaaaaaaaaally not working out, and you've both tried to compromise, then maybe it's just time to move on : But, if you haven't tried compromise at all, then man up and grow up. Only a Sith deals in absolutes. + Whoever is being a jerk-off learn to grow the hell up -__- And please stop trollololololololololing >.<</p> <p>Instead, be mature. For example, call people "jerk-off"s.<br> 59. Play "I just had sex" by Lonely Island really loudly if you hear your neighbor getting it on, or Smell Your Dick, by Riskay. "My Neck, My Back" by Khia is great for subtler moments. "Put it in your mouth" by Akinyele helps keep it subtle and classy. "Play" by David Banner, or perhaps "Wait (The Whisper Song)" by the Ying-Yang Twins, always helps to gently set the mood.<br> 60. Don't be related to each other (Yeah...) (super awkward) ( *turtle* ) Unless you are a four-term president and his lesbian wife. Incestfest being the exception. KHAUS <3<br> 61. Don't follow Shakespeare, unless you're doing a skit for your date and [s]he really likes Shakespeare.<br> 62. We're so close to 69 SERIOUSLY!!!<br> 63. Be safe.But not too safe! A little danger never hurt anybody. Well, except for when it did.<br> 64. Massages make everyone happy in the end. Do it naked. (In the end... see what I did there?) oil...<br> 65. Do it like a dude.<br> 66. Go for a cute one. 69 foreplay.<br> 67. do it like your mom<br> 68. Love is hiding who you really are at all times, even when you're sleeping. Love is wearing make up to bed, and going downstairs to the Burger King to poop, and hiding alcohol in perfume bottles. That's love. <3</p> <p>Love is waking up next to a plate of bacon. feed each other bacon. Use bacon lube, such thing exists!</p> <p>What?Haha. I enjoy the <3 at the end</p> <p>the skeet after the <3 makes no sense, you should at least make it a d obviously<br> 69. 69 69.69. 69 69. Do 69. ? subtle<br> 69. 69 69.<br> 69. 69 69.<br> 69. 69 69.<br> 69. 69 69.<br> 69. 69 69.<br> 69. 69 69.<br> 69. 69 69.<br> 69. 69 69.<br> 69. 69 69.<br> 70. What phone has a less than sign? No one ever sends hearts on phones!<br> 71. Is your phone from the 80s?<br> 72. The 1880s?<br> 72a. They have less than signs in T9word if you look hard enough.<br> 73. Be nice in bed. If you want something, show them you'll give it to them first<br> 74. Cuddle. Bitches love cuddling... Ain't dat da troof. Cuddling's the best. <3 cuddling. true that. I agree!<br> 75. Anyone want to cuddle?Cuddle fest! Eliot House? Kirkland-wide sleepover? Can we organize one? [Kirkland seniors had a sleepover in the JCR last year. Ask Scott.] (Yeah it happened during senior week) Meet in pfoholibrary Alright guys, lets not turn this into Law and Order SVU<br> Lemon Law? oy vey<br> Who da heyul is going to go to the Quad to cuddle with some rando?<br> True Life: I go to the Quad to cuddle.<br> TL2: I go to the Quad to randomly say hi. Not even anything more.<br> TL3: I wouldn't go to the Quad if my life depended on it.<br> The Quad is too cool for you anyway<br> TL4: Nuclear war is occurring, the only shelter is in the Quad, and I have chosen to die rather than seek refuge in the Quad.<br> TL5: no more true life<br> TL6: ZOMBIES<br> penis<br> I literally (Not "like literally." Literally. I mean that if I had the option of going, I would not go. I mean literally in the literal sense. Literally.) would not go to the Quad for a personal appearance from Jesus Christ. So far away. Good lord.<br> A Quad is like a discrete shape with 4 sides. I don't want to live in a shape, I want to live in a House.<br> 76. Let's turn it into Craigslist! Who's down for a quick beej? You mean "Bored@Lamont"<br> 77. Fisting anyone? [pdses is that you?]</p> <p>Just kidding! Woops!<br> 78. Make sure they don't live in the Quad. Make sure they don't live in your house. Make sure they're not under the floorboards<br> 79. Drugs are always fun! Expensive! Only in Cambridge!<br> 80. People, animals, and inanimate objects don't just pass out after sex :P learn to cuddle <- This is physically challenging. Not unlike the monkey bars. Fact.<br> 81. Share your music-Mixtapes are totally outdated but every once in a while make for a<br> penis<br> brilliant gift = #82<br> 82. Why give a mixtape when you could give a copy of the hit *NSYNC album Celebrity?<br> 83. Dirty pop?<br> 84. Joey Fatone or Chris Kirkpatrick? The existential dilemmas.<br> 85. Do primal scream together! While engaging in sex acts. I met my girlfriend at primal scream! Primal scream being an avant-garde Canadian indie rock festival. +1<br> 86. Shower together in champagne.<br> 87. Anal sex? On the first date? Probably not a good idea. (Indeed, unless she's a ginger. No, even if she is) Save it for the second. He/she probably will not be prepared. POOP EVERYWHERE<—ew. Phantom pooper in Pfoho<br> 88. Best relationship advice I've ever heard: Quit playing games with my heart. Got me!!<br> 89. Ben Cohen, #89.<br> 90. But actually, Rose is the best! +29482109840129348 OVER 9000!<br> 91. Look like J-Biebz<br> 92. Meta edition: Look like a lesbian who looks like J-Biebz. +1<br> 92. Is this actually for a class? I'm curious what you're going to do with it. yeah it is...for psych of close relationships. haha Maybe it should be for psych of silliness and Drew Faust. Exhibit Penis<br> 92. . Never love. it only destroys! (WOW affirms your statement.)<br> 93. I like when she calls me big papa, +1 because I have a thing for chicks with Elektra complexes.<br> 94. Ice them. I'm looking at you Rose. And be polite. you've been warned.<br> 95. No rose!<br> 96. Walking down the street, something caught my eye. A growing epidemic, that really ain't right<br> 97. Love hates censorship!<br> 98. I try to say goodbye and i choke. try to walk away and i stumble. Then I try to hide it, it's clear. I see you rose. Yes you are. Do it! Dont you DAre<br> 99. Always talking about what you got. Girl you know that you need to stop.Boots with the fur, all the club is looking at her. She hit the floor, shit hit the floor, next thang you know, shawty got low, low, low, low.<br> 99 ? You're gonna get cavities, with all this chocolate in your mouth.<br> 99 ½. Lemme smang it gurllll Smash and bangggg<br> 99 ¾ Hey lil mama lemme whisper in your ear. Tell you something that you might like to hear.<br> 99.9 My lip gloss be kewl, my lip gloss be popping ~*~ Lil Mama n Avril lavigne ~*~in THE REMIX<br> 99%. Have sex with the 1%.<br> YOU'RE TEARING ME APART, LISA. JASON DERULO. Rutt? LEEROOOOY JENKINS.<br> ^Did he just go in there? DAMMIT LEROY!<br> 100. Go back to studying<br> 101. I'm done biatchhhhhh<br> 101. A rose by any other name... would be named something else<br> 102. I just had sexxxxxx, and it fellltt so good.<br> 103. AAAAALWAYS I WANT TO BEEEE WITH YOU. AND MAKE BELIEVE WITH YOU. AND LIVE IN HARMONY. HARMONY. OOOOHH LOOOOVE.<br> 104 (?°?°??? ???<br> 105. Does anyone want to go to 7-11 with me in 5 minutes? I'm wearing a blue hat.THIS IS NOT CRAIGSLIST GET OUT OF HERE So you're down? asl.45 CAMBRIDGE your mind.</p> <p>THIS IS CRAIGSLIST IN DISGUISE.</p> <p>what about missed connections? those are good. i'm looking for this guy i made eye contact with on the shuttle this morning. just seeing if you're out there. i'm pretty sure you were white.</p> <p>I'll meet you! Primal scream really just got me going offff ;) Oh hell yeah, let's go to 7-11 and buy some condoms.<br> 106. Be picky.If someone isn't treating you how you want to be treated from day 1, it's not likely to get much better if they don't change after 1 warning. End it quickly and move on.<br> 106.5 If it doesn't hurt try harder - That's what she said!<br> 107. Do not hook up with, fall in love with, date, or otherwise engage with your roommates. Especially if you have other roommates that don't want to get caught in it. I see you JYL posting this. [Exception: IncestFest.] (A couple of my blockmates do this. No problems yet. I live in Kirkland) (Blockmates != roommates. Kirkcest is a beautiful thing, awkward romantic/sexual tension that you have to live with for the rest of the year is NOT.) I see you. Double.<br> Oh god why. Oh nooooo. Kirkland is guilty of this. Greatly.<br> Truth. Same goes with blockmates. fml. secretblockcest never stays secret. It aint a secret. Save meeeeeeee. I'm surrounded.<br> 108. Kirkland incest! The way to go- what happens at incestfest doesn't have to stay at incestfest. I'm pretty sure it does, otherwise, that's just dumb. +1 for Incestfest</p> <p>109. Don't lose your virginity in the back of a car aboard the Titanic.or on a snowmobile, but I HAVE A CHILD!<br> Where to, miss?To draw me like one of your french girls.<br> 110. Don't have sex. Don't have sex in the missionary position. Go away TLR, nobody likes you. NOW EVERYBODY TAKE SOME RUBBERS. Safety First!<br> 111. Watch a romantic comedy. COPY WHAT THEY SAY. Seriously.<br> 112. Smell good!!! the guys around here neglect that soo much. Nice smelling guys are the best. +1 (Like!)<br> 113 Don't get together with the person who left their name and number on the bathroom stall.<br> Still down for 7-11....Anyone? I am mead<br> 114. Don't suck dick in a bathroom stall like Brenda Song in the Social Network.I've actualy done this. ?- How did this work out for you? He's my long-term boyfriend now. ?— Props. Brenda Song is so irrelevant. But I'm using her as a case study! Brenda Song is unworthy of your study. YOU ARE UNWORTHY OF BRENDA SONG'S MOUTH. Brenda Song is the only asian Disney Chanel star. Megan Lee is a disney channel artist, Megan Lee is not relevant enough though. Brenda Song is like the skinny asian Raven Simone.</p> <p>THAT'S SO RAVEN</p> <p>If she has the same last name and she looks like you, she's probably your sister. Don't do it! Or you could just both be Asian That's extremely insensitive, asswipe.<br> 115. Hugs from behinddddd TRUTH. Then you don't have to see her face! (Rude)wow way to ruin the moment.<br> 116. long distance is not for everyone.<br> 117. Spend all day in bed together at least once. YES. +1 Also take naps together!!</p> <p>118. People need to stop trying to make +1 happen. -1 FETCH IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. Is butter a carb? #mydadtheownertoasterstrudel #yougoglenncoco<br> 119. Actually make eye contact. it sounds silly but it rarely happens here.<br> 120. Join a circlejerk. Or read this googledoc. Virtual circle<br> -jerk<br> 121. Serenade her with Jonas Brothers m. Seranade hER wiTh jUstin BieBer. usic.Serenades period!! Boys who can sing and play instruments = HOTTIE. OH GGAWD OHOHOHOHOHOH<br> 122. Dress like Santa hohoho. Punch her in the nose and call her rudolph<br> 123. Care. aw <3<br> 124. Jerk or Dougie Dance (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcJScBLIEX4 KATE UPTON, ah) sessions. People need to stop using sesh as a word. Thank you. Cat Dadddyyyyyy, Call me Spongebob, stackin Krabby patties. I take it down Too true!<br> 125. learn how to dance, like for realz.<br> Finish the story below!<br> Once upon a time, there was a troll living in the quad...<br> NEVER THE QUAD<br> Hey<br> good calll rose<br> Good call. :)<br> swag, rose.<br> there's revision history<br> i think this paper is ready to turn in now<br> 126. Show her that you can move it like Bernie.<br> move it like bernieee. no arm movement. swing the chest head back<br> 127. Make a cs50 project that brings people from across campus onto a doc (like this one) to talk about relationships, but not anonymously. +dundermifflINFINITY<br> Just found Rose wang on fb—hottiee (ROSE WANG IS A HOT KOALA)<br> ^stalker, ewwwwwww<br> ^^cool story, bro<br> grrrrrrrrrr<br> Teeeeell meeeee.<br> 127. R-E-S-P-E-C-T.<br> its 1:43 am the night before finals HELPING ROSE!<br> ^This fuckin guyyyyy. Kid loves to get sauced<br> 128. Hold hands with your fingers interlaced. that's how you do it when you're in love.<br> 129. http://bluecentric.com/?p=26948 ?— SOOO CUTE<3 (+1) Hey, Crimson people, get FlyBy to do a post on this Sure Fuck flyby +5 (why the hate?) If you have to ask its too late—thats what i learn i lifeeee ^ Rude (agreed) Disagree 130) Find the mythical clitoris. Not real! (oh.... IT'S REAL) (hell yeah it's real lol) it has wings and is shaped like a unicorn. 131) Read "She Comes First". Look it up on HOLLIS. Seriously. This should be mandatory for straight males. ^TRUTH If your hand is as big as your face you have a rare face condition. Doh! Got me again! 132) Also, for straight females, there's "He Comes Next", but Harvard doesn't have a copy. (sad^) Check out the video below this one! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VePxbFQ-qfw summary of the doc: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZ5TajZYW6Y http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VePxbFQ-qfw 133) In regards to pursuing a relationship, DO NOT be a creep, try and avoid creepiness as much as possible. It ruins your case Dont follow people to locations and pretend to be friends to try and get in dere. Im looking at you SP. you know it. man. Samir Patel, you so creepppyyyy man. 134) Paint face blue, declare love in Latin, fight for FREEEEEEEEEEjEEEEDOM!m. 136. Ask a girl AYEAYEAEYEYAYAYAYYAYHOOOHOHOHO out on a date!! yes real dates! so important 137. buy the girl stuffed pandas. no wait fly in a panda from china for her RED PANDAS! YESSS TO THE PANDAS no tie dye colored pandas!!!!!! [red pandas are a species of panda, naturally red and are seriously cute] FLY IN A BRIDE FROM CHINA 138. Stop staring across the room and talk to her alreadyyyy (also if you've been doing that awkward eye contact/say hi deal forever, you should probably interact at some point beyond that) 139. all the girl really wants is PBJ Time. bananas in pajamas? PBJ and baseball bat. bats... Do you ever get the feeling that you're being watched, and it gives you an erection? how about the other way around. So true! Me in Lamont right now! wait wait me too! Third floor? to real. I always knew I wasn't alone! ;( ;) >;-)P<br> 140. sexcellence<br> 141. Put in some effort. A little work goes a long way in a relationship. +1<br> 142. tell the girl she's beautiful & mean it!<br> 143. seriously just ask the girl out to something goddamnititttttt. go on a non harvard date<br> 144. Seriously, just say when the guy asks you out goddamnittttttttt<br> 145. take med school and law school men and especially biz school guys with caution. they think they're the shit. cuz we are!! <—(just made the statement true)<br> ^ Damn those attractive biz school rugby men. (seriously though)<br> 169. 69 again</p> <p>Hi, this is President Drew Gilpin Faust. I hope you all are enjoying your evening.I am flattered you all find me attractive! This is part of a new capital campaign I have going, which I encourage you to take part in. I hope some of you are in the new I-lab right now, innovating. Making things (sexythangs). I think we can all agree that we should all occupy our minds here at Harvard. And that's what we do. Hopefully by 2020 we can get every Harvard student on this Google doc. That is my dream (a la Obama?_). If you would like to see me smile, then please go speak with our Allston neighbors. They really are rather friendly after a while! This is part of my social campaign. I hope by 2030 all Harvard students will have 3 friends outside their roommates. That is my dream. (LOL)</p> <p>YOU GO DREW. LIVE THE DREAM<br> Rose Wang, you should seriously ™ this thing. Campus-wide googledocs are pretty epic, although we need a troll blocker.....no font bigger than a certain size...an area where you can put in pictures without messing everyone up....also block footnotes..... (AND WE SHALL CALL IT SIMULDOC). <— ingenious... . I like the name.<br> cs50 project? i want to!!! Your children say hi. Iceeeee</p> <p>The plan for Simuldoc:<br> 1. troll blocker<br> 2. font limit, limited font capabilities<br> 3. pictures apear on the side of the document<br> 4. no footnotes<br> 5. no editing what someone else wrote, unless you are the troll blocker/</p> <p>I don't know that can be part of the fun, haha :) overseer/Rose Wang</p> <p>who gets to be the trol blocker?</p> <p>how is that decided and passed on?<br> Probably whoever is running the site. cs50 TFs. They deserve some power. Mark Zuckerberg.]<br> heres an idea so its a site where you create a doc (much like this was done) but you get to select what rules will be applied to the doc and you can choose to be the guardian/// But then there's the problem of getting people on the doc. If it's one per day, then everyone on campus would go on the same one, unless there were categories.<br> hmm...<br> ps i think this is more productive then hack harvard has ever been<br> they should have google doc meetings<br> ^ That might end in chaos. Making it not anonymous would help significantly.<br> yes. there is something nice to anonymity. people are</p> <p><br> ^i miss this</p> <p>6.<br> stop trying to make "simuldoc" happen.<br> ^ Rude</p> <p>HSA BOSSSSS<br> Darth Rosaaaaaa</p> <p>A poem/rap/magnum opus for Rose Wang: <— someone should do this<br> Rose,<br> I will avoid using flowers in this thing</p> <p>rose i see you trolling with your math</p> <p>Lil B was here</p> <p>^^love it<br> 200.) Take a gourd. Figure out the rest from there.<br> enn<br> tht was me</p> <p>Sketchy.<br> 200) Only do anal if you're in the shower. Always wear flip flops in the shower. Only steal street signs when you're really drunk and egged on by roommates.<br> 201) Vaginal sex is sometimes as good as normal sex. No comprendo... Sometimes. elaborate please....</p> <p>How many times is it okay to have sex with your girlfriend before she can look at you after?</p> <p> [Google Docs]</p><p>Heidi Klum is on the new cover of Allure. Inside, she poses nude and talks about plastic surgery — which she says she disapproves of. "I don't want to name names, but it's like, wow, I remember you five years ago, looking to me so beautiful, and now it's like…who is this person? And I know girls half my age who do it. What are they gonna do at 40 or 50, when the shit really hits the fan?" Naturally, the ladymag pressed her to address her pending divorce, after seven years of marriage, from Seal. "Sometimes life throws you a curveball, and then you just figure it out and deal with it," says the supermodel, "but my dream always was that — to have the perfect family and have lots of children and a beautiful garden and trampolines and swings and things. I had dreams of how I wanted things to be and planned for things and, as we all know today, they don't always turn out as you dreamt them in your head." []<br> Klum says she learned everything she needed to know about blow jobs (which Allure, for some reason, calls "blowies") from gay men:</p> <p>She explained the importance of gay men in her life: "They are like this kaleidoscope of interesting thoughts and opinions. They teach you so many things about men that are useful." "Like what?" our reporter asked. Klum paused, and then made the universal tounge-moving-rapidly-in-cheek motion that signifies blowies. She explained what she's learned (off the record, of course), and our reporter said she discovered two things: 1) Everything sounds authoritative when said in a German accent, and 2) Seal was a lucky guy.</p> <p>Far be it from Heidi Klum to suggest she's a blow job expert, but... []</p> Miranda Kerr is now in three dimensions on some Reebok billboards in Germany. [] For anyone who's ever wondered why Ralph Lauren polo shirts have horses the size of large rats embroidered on them, Ralph has a master plan. [] Oscar de la Renta live-Pinterest-ed its bridal show yesterday. Of course. [] Daphne Selfe is 83 years old and still modeling. We hope she's BFFs with Carmen Dell'Orefice and they meet regularly for afternoon tea. [] A show of Kate Moss, Erin O'Connor, Heidi Klum, and Helena Christensen photographs by Rankin, helpfully titled "Contains Nudity," is now open in Los Angeles. [] Karl Lagerfeld shot Linda Evangelista for the new Chanel eyewear campaign. []<p>There are many glad tidings of Heidi Klum this morning. First: the supermodel-slash-AOL-blogger shot a new Got Milk? ad. []<br> And Klum is said to be posing nude for sexy new promo shots for this season of Project Runway, since Lifetime is The Sexy Channel For Women and all. []<br> Klum's line for New Balance is expanding to include six models of footwear, priced at $60-$90. []<br> And in yet more news of the German One and, um, footwear, she also has a namesake shoe line called HK by Heidi Klum, which goes on sale at Amazon today. Styles will go for $89-$159. Perhaps we underestimate Klum's appeal, but $160 is an awful lot to spend on celebrity branded shoes. []</p> This roundup of Kate Moss pictures is intended to show how she looks bloody awful now, that harridan, how dare she enjoy a drink or a smoke or a sniff of cocaine, but instead it kind of shows that Kate is freakishly ageless. Total body-snark fail, Daily Mail! []<br> Speaking of Kate photos, here's a roundup of her wearing various white dresses over the years. []<br> And an old Burberry campaign, in which she posed as a bride. [] This week, Bluefly launched a fancy new online eye wear site called Eyefly where the glasses cost less than $100. It hired Tommy Ton to shoot a bunch of fashion celebrities for the homepage, and threw a (presumably) swell launch party last night. (We were invited but couldn't attend due to a conflict.) Last year, a site called Warby Parker was launched, and it too sells fashionable glasses for less than $100 (each pair sold equals one pair donated to charity, like Toms shoes). If you look at the shots of models wearing glasses on Eyefly, some of them are identical to those on Warby Parker. Did Eyefly really steal Warby Parker's photos? What, they couldn't spring for their own model and their own photographer? [] Beyoncé's on the new cover of Essence. [] Claudia Schiffer is dreamy-looking in Prada on the new cover of Harper's Bazaar UK. []<p>Emmanuelle Alt's first cover of Vogue Paris is out! It features Gisele Bündchen, as previously reported, wearing a white lace Dolce & Gabbana dress. The photographers are Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin. Overall this is kind of pretty but boring — but we are interested to see whatever Vogue Paris means by that curious Orhan Pamuk cover line. [@]</p> <p></p> <p>One of the two people John Galliano is accused of assaulting and berating with at a Paris bar now says he hopes the designer isn't "destroyed" by the incident. Philippe Virgitti, whom Galliano allegedly called a "fucking Asian bastard," among a very many other things, says everything started when Galliano came over to him and Géraldine Bloch: "Right away he started to attack us by saying to my friend, 'Your voice irritates me, you're talking too loud.' Then everything started happening. It went on for 45 minutes ... He wanted to humiliate us." Virgitti said Galliano certainly used racist and anti-Semitic language, but Virgitti thinks "his words overtook his mind. I do not believe he is racist or anti-Semitic." Although Virgitti says he and Bloch stand by their legal complaint, he nonetheless says: "For me, it was a simple dispute at a bar. John Galliano doesn't deserve this. I don't want him destroyed like that...Since all this happened, I've learned about his work, that he put diversity at the forefront and mixed cultures in his shows. I believe, above all, that he is very ill...I would like Mr. Galliano to benefit from this unhappy story by drinking a little less and getting back to making the dresses and shows that he did so well." Since the bar fight that ended in his arrest, John Galliano has been the subject of a second criminal inquiry for using racist hate speech, which is a crime in France. was published, apparently depicting yet another incident in which Galliano told two strangers at a bar, "I love Hitler. People like you would all be dead. Your mothers, your forefathers, would all be fucking gassed." Galliano has been lying low in rehab since being fired by Christian Dior, and has been talking for him in the press. Galliano is fighting the charges, and has sued Bloch and Virgitti for defamation. []<br> The French High Court will likely set a date for Galliano's trial on May 12. []</p> <p></p> <p>Constance Jablonski appears in brick-red eyeshadow and an Alexander McQueen monarch dress for the new cover of German Vogue. []</p> <p></p> <p>This is the magic tote bag that costs $1,000 and sold out worldwide after Michelle Obama carried it to a parent-teacher meeting. []</p> <p></p><p>H&M just announced it'll be selling a Dragon Tattoo movie tie-in limited-edition clothing collection, in case you hadn't already assembled all the items necessary for your Lisbeth Salander Halloween costume from your local Hot Topic. Designed by the American film adaptation's costume designer, Trish Summerville, it'll hit stores on December 14 — one week before the release of the movie. "It was really great that H&M is a strong company that can afford and wanted to do some sort of collaboration with us, because it is a very controversial book," said Summerville. "They were just like, ‘Yeah, she's Swedish, she's amazing, and we want to be a part of this.' And that was so great to hear, because America has a little bit of a harder time with those kinds of issues. I mean, Americans are fine with violence but they're like, ‘Oh — sex? Strong women? We're not so sure about that.'" The most expensive item from the collection will be a $199 leather jacket. []</p> Speaking of collaborations, Lindsay Wixson runs backwards on a life-sized hamster wheel in the ad for Versace's H&M collection. [] W published an American football-inspired editorial. Meh. Mikael Jansson did it a few years ago for Vogue Paris. [] In case you were wondering, yes — it did take a lot of work to cover up Rico "Zombie Boy" Genest's full-body tattoos for that concealer ad. [] Bottega Veneta, continuing its tradition of commissioning artists to do its seasonal campaigns, tapped Brazilian photographer Mona Kuhn to shoot its Resort ads. [] Léa Seydoux, the French actress and former American Apparel model, is the face of Prada's Resort campaign. [] The Huffington Post noticed that there have been a lot of magazine covers that feature armpits recently. We find this slideshow instructive in how it shows different titles' approaches to Photoshopping pits, though. [] This Valentino pump, according to 35,000 people on the Internet who voted in a poll, is the year's sexiest shoe. []<p>Natalie Portman is nude — again — in her latest ads for Dior. Or at least she's technically "nude": all you can really see on the left there is a tasteful glimpse of shoulder, but we suppose Dior knows that the chance to put "Natalie Portman Nude" in a headline virtually guarantees the world media will take an interest in an otherwise mundane ad for overpriced makeup. The actress has also gone tastefully topless in several ads for Miss Dior Cherie perfume.</p> <p>But there's also a fake Natalie Portman nude Dior ad going around that is not part of the new campaign: it's a photo of the actress lying naked on a rug (either an old picture or a Photoshop hackjob), with a Christian Dior logo kind of half-assedly superimposed on one corner. That's the fake ad on the right. Even though it is not really convincing as a Dior ad, the Daily Mail was apparently taken in by it and the fake. []</p> This is Nicki Minaj's perfume bottle. Well, that sure is...different. [] Alexa Chung is on the cover of Japanese Numéro. She tells the magazine that she's working on a clothing line: <p>"Yes, I'm definitely going to do that. I'm looking into it right now. I've got nothing to lose, it's a bit of fun. In this current era of celebrity no one believes you actually design the stuff anyway, even though I sketch everything myself. So if it sucks I can say I had nothing to do with it, and if it's really good I can say ‘Here are the drawings, it's all my own work!'"</p> <p>[]</p> Vogue got Justin Bieber to star in this ad for Fashion's Night out — but apparently it couldn't get him to learn the event name. The Bieberator flubs it, calling it "Fashion Night Out." And in a corner office on the 12th floor, Anna Wintour plots revenge. []<br> For good measure, there's also a Fashion's Night Out ad starring Karlie Kloss, Victoria Beckham, Francisco Costa, Darren Criss, Carolina Herrera, Chanel Iman, Marc Jacobs, Liya Kebede, Solange Knowles, Michael Kors, Doutzen Kroes, Arizona Muse, Jessica Paré, Coco Rocha, Hailee Steinfeld, Alexander Wang, Kristen Wiig, Olivia Wilde and Jason Wu. [] This is one of the pieces from Grace Coddington's collaboration with Balenciaga. The collection features prints based on Coddington's own drawings of cats, and is named for the editor's cat, Pumpkin. [] Here's a photo of Sarah Jessica Parker on the Glee set in character as Isabelle, the editor of Vogue.com. Anna Wintour styled the actress's costume. [] Whatever you say, Daphne Guinness. [@]<p>Design student Nancy Wu calls her project — appropriately titled "100% Beef Jerky" — a "lo-fi item," whatever that means. It certainly would've made Randy Savage proud.</p> <p></p> <p>[Via ]</p>The Hollywood Reporter hosted a "power breakfast" on Tuesday. The morning light gave everyone a glow and made even the most terrible dresses look a little bit angelic. Turns out celebrities dress far more sharply for a power breakfast than they do a power lunch.<p>Samples of Lady Gaga's perfume are being sent to beauty editors at top magazines as we speak, people. Gaga's people call the scent, named Fame, "a fantastic innovation of patent-pending fluid technology" in a press release. "Lady Gaga Fame is the first ever black eau de parfum that sprays clear and becomes invisible once airborne":</p> <p>The innovations in Lady Gaga Fame go beyond the black-to-clear fluid: The olfactory structure itself is also very rare for the fragrance industry. Traditionally, perfumes have a pyramidal structure - a hierarchy of sorts with top, middle and base notes. This fragrance, on the other hand, has a unique structure called the "push-pull" technology, where the ingredients interact together to highlight different olfactive aspects of each note at the same time, without any hierarchy. All of the notes were crated [sic] to work together harmoniously thanks to the complimentary properties of each ingredient, which allow for a true metamorphosis of the scent when worn on skin.</p> <p>The scent is built around three main accords: dark, sensual, and light. The dark accord was inspired by Belladonna, the deadly nightshade possessed by haunted beauties since the 18th century. From this darkness, the fragrance evolves to a sensual accord of opulence, a fusion of dripping honey, saffron, and apricot nectar. And lastly, the light accord whispers magnificence. The rich floral layer of crushed tiger orchid & jasmine sambac embodies timeless beauty. The accords work together to create a fragrance of floral and fruity elements, with the star ingredient inspired by Belladonna leveling out the whole fragrance and giving Lady Gaga Fame its signature as a scent.</p> <p>At long last: a geometric perfume. []</p> The editor of Flare magazine, Lisa Tant, was the person who leaked embargoed information about Lady Gaga's perfume and broke news by Tweeting this kind of crappy photo of the bottle, leading Gaga to officially release high-res images. [, @] Kim Kardashian's L'Uomo Vogue cover and spread is out. According to Franca Sozzani's story, Kim talked about her relationship with Kanye, in the context of explaining why she doesn't want to talk about her relationship with Kanye — a workaround that gets both of their names into a soundbite while ostensibly trying to play up their "privacy." She was asked what bothered her about being famous: <p>"Lack of privacy. Everyone is always watching me, I'm under constant observation, everywhere I go there's a camera following me, in the gym, when I do the shopping, and if I decide to go out without make-up it makes news throughout the world. This is why I don't want to reveal anything about my relationship with Kanye. In the past I suffered a lot because of my honesty, and when it didn't work I was criticized and treated badly: I can only say that now, with him, I'm happy."</p> <p>[]</p> Hermès makes expensive handbags, which is apparently news to the good people of The Life Files. [] Meanwhile, Kate Bosworth is designing handbags. They look like this. [] It sounds like Visionaire's special Rio de Janeiro issue is incredible: <p>Visionaire 62 Rio comes cased in a 3D lenticular box designed by the Campana Braothers, and features a series of 3D images that include the ultimate sambadrome by 3D video artist Marco Brambilla, Adriana Lima on the famed Copacabana sidewalk by painter Richard Phillips, Gisele nude by Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott, Lea T by artist Maurizio Cattelan with Pierpaolo Ferrari, and more images by Karl Lagerfeld, Marilyn Minter, Sølve Sundsbø, Vik Muniz, Adriana Varejão, Rimon Guimarães, Barrão, and Eli Sudbrack.</p> <p>[]</p> Dolce & Gabbana talked about their new collection of clothing for children up to age 10. "We interviewed all the mothers because the collection must be practical," explained Domenico Dolce, who like Stefano Gabbana has no children. "We learned a lot, plenty of details. For example, it's better to have sleeveless onesies and freedom of movement — kids don't want to feel too constricted," [] You can now buy a graphite sculpture of a hand giving the finger at select Marc Jacobs stores. It writes. []<p>Everything you never wanted to know about ex-Real Housewife Cindy Barshop's fox fur , but were too appalled to ask, is now revealed. Basically, Barshop's waxes a woman, shaves an appropriate quantity of fur off a piece of fox hide, and glues the blunt ends of the fur to the client's skin. "It's a special glue," says Barshop. The whole thing adds $140 to the cost of a wax, and lasts about three or four days. Barshop's salon can also stick some feathers down there for an additional $110. Festive! And you'd better believe she's personally tested every one of the elaborate topiary procedures that she sells to customers. We are left with just one remaining, and sadly unanswered question: how does one bathe? []</p> The dresses Angelina Jolie, Charlize Theron, and Jessica Alba — among others — wore to the Golden Globes five days ago have been (poorly) knocked off. [] This pissing mannequin window display was banned from a store in Britain on the grounds that it offends "public decency." [] Carey Mulligan — gasp — wore the same dress twice. Can you even imagine? And as you can see from these photos, she's worn those blue suede shoes before, too. WON'T SOMEONE STOP THE MADNESS. [] Karlie Kloss is once again the face of Oscar de la Renta for spring. []<br> Kloss says she always spends way too much money when she hangs out with her friend and fellow model, Jourdan Dunn. Her most recent splurge was on gifts. "For my younger twin sisters' birthday and my mom's birthday, I bought everybody Chanel bags. Now all the girls in my family have one. Karl gave me one last season, which is how I got my baby. I'm going to be buried with that bag." []<p>As soon as Karl Lagerfeld showed those ridiculous(ly sublime) hula-hoop bags on the Chanel runway for spring, my colleague Dodai and I knew we had to make one. "It's not up to me to say it is chic," the always-modest Chanel designer after the show. "I thought it was but I cannot say it myself." Well, Karl, we thought it was chic! So, we boned up: we studied runway photographs in high resolution, talked a lot about lambskin, watched videos of the bag in motion, and tried our best to channel the spirit of Karl himself. Then we poured some gin, put on some Kraftwerk, and began our craft work. </p> <br> <br> Okay, then we got bored and put on some Brandy. But eventually, we had a purse. Here's how we did it. All of these photos are by Dodai — some of them are a little grainy because we were working in low light conditions. And because gin.<br> <br> <br> For these first steps, you'll need some black duct tape, black spray paint (unless you have the good fortune to find black hula-hoops), and some quilted fabric for the bag body. Dodai had the bright idea to use those quilted mattress protectors they put in babies' cribs. Soft and waterproof — perfect considering that Karl Lagerfeld apparently intends this purse to serve as a beach bag. <br> First, Dodai sprayed the hoops black. <br> I sketched this very, very basic drawing of our pattern pieces: one semi-circular bag front, one semi-circular bag back with an attached flap, and one long, narrow bag bottom. <br> For this next part, you will need: white thread, black thread, pins, needles, sewing scissors, your black hoops, and your quilted fabric. <br> Hula hoops are way bigger than either of us had remembered, so our quilted fabric wasn't quite big enough to cover the whole front and back of the bag. We had to cheat it so that the quilted fabric would be on the front of the bag and the bag flap — we didn't care so much about the back. Our solution was to essentially make the bag out of cheap canvas and stitch the quilted fabric onto the canvas backing in the relevant places. First, put a hula hoop on top of your canvas (or, if you have enough quilted fabric, your quilted fabric) and trace around it. <br> Then cut. You now have a bag front. Repeat for the bag back. Measure the length of the rounded edge of your pattern pieces — ours were 53" — and then cut a bag bottom piece to that length. We made our bag bottom 9" wide in the center, narrowing to 3" wide at the edges. <br> Our quilted fabric was also a little bit too narrow to reach the whole way across the top of our bag — hula hoops are really big, you guys — so we had to stitch our two baby crib pads together. <br> I pinned the two pads very carefully so that the quilting lines would match across the seam. I couldn't help but feel that Karl would have approved. <br> And then I ran it up on the sewing machine. <br> Press the seam allowance open and give the entire quilted fabric piece a once-over with the iron to remove any creases from folding. <br> Cut out a bag flap. <br> And then cut out the bag front (if you haven't done so already). <br> Here are our quilted pieces sandwiched over the canvas pieces — see how we're using the canvas to cheat the quilted pieces to the front? Zig-zag around the edges of the quilted fabric to attach it to the canvas. <br> Then, pin and stitch the bag bottom. <br> Press the seam allowances open, and voilà: a fully functional bag awaiting its hula-hoop. Ignore the fact that the bag sort of looks like a deflated quesedilla. <br> Stretch the bag to meet the hula-hoop. <br> Using black thread, hand-stich the bag to the hula-hoop frame using long whip-stitches. Sew along the front and back bottom seams. This part is fiddly: if you have heavy-duty thread, use it. And tie strong knots. <br> First hoop is on and I'm so excited! <br> Once you have attached the bag to both hoops, all you have left to do is to join the hoops together at the top with the black duct tape. <br> And now you, friends, are ready for the beach. Or to dress as Karl Lagerfeld for Halloween. Or for your local hula-hoop purse convention. Whatever floats your boat. <br> Dodai reports that when she got the purse home: <p>My neighbor was like, WHAT IS THAT<br> I said, "It's a purse."</p> <p>It is. It is. Carry it with pride.</p> <p>If there's something you'd like to see as a DIY project, you . In the meantime, to past DIYs:</p> <p><br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> </p><p>Despite having alcoholism in my family history, I only found out that I had my own issues with addiction when I became a journalist. It never crossed my mind to drink before sunset when I was in university, but when I landed my first position as an editor, it suddenly became normal to drink champagne at 11am, and I liked it. A lot. </p> <p>I mean, if you're at a morning cocktail party for the opening of the latest Chanel store and everyone else is doing it, then why the hell not?</p> <p>I was a highly functional alcoholic, at least as far as work was concerned. I'd go to the office every day and somehow pump out reasonably good articles with a bottle of Gatorade mixed with vodka in my purse.</p> <p>At home, though, my sink was full of dishes, my floors were dirty, and I didn't really care about anything else besides just making it through the day and getting back to my apartment where I could chase my pills with a bottle of wine and pass out.</p> <p>I finally took a medical leave from work and checked myself into rehab last year. It worked for me, at least for seven months. It felt great to finally not rely on alcohol and benzos to calm my nerves. I went back to my old job as an editor at a media outlet whose name I won't mention, after being clean for three months.</p> <p>Before that, I hadn't gone more than a week without alcohol in about 10 years, and there I was going to the office every day without a hangover or alcohol in my purse and hitting the gym every morning or at lunch.</p> <p>I was even writing the kind of articles that I used to think required a great big glass, or sometimes bottle, of wine to get through and drinking Diet Coke and Perrier at press events instead of champagne.</p> <p>Unfortunately for me, there was a new girl at the office who took an immediate dislike to me. Maybe it was because I was so open about coming back from rehab. I don't see the point in keeping things like that a secret, since, if your story can help someone else who might be afraid to ask for help, then why not just be honest about it?</p> <p>Besides, what else could I have said: "Hey guys, sorry I've been gone so long, but I JUST got back from filming 'The Real World: Miami!'"</p> <p>Or maybe it was just the fact that I looked fucking awesome. When you stop drinking for a long period of time, your eyes get brighter, your complexion evens out and you lose the weird beer belly you used to think was just a part of getting older.</p> <p>"If Vicki loses another pound, we won't see her anymore," she once remarked aloud to the editorial department when I came back from pumping iron at the gym at lunch (and, by the way, I was actually gaining weight in muscle, so her remarks weren't even accurate).</p> <p>Given that, pre-rehab, I used my lunch breaks to meet friends for drinks or run home to my apartment to chug a couple beers down, I took this as an insult to my newfound healthy lifestyle. It felt like she was insinuating that I had just replaced my addiction to alcohol and pills with anorexia. Whether or not that was really what she meant to imply, it pissed me off, nonetheless.</p> <p>"You lose a lot of weight when you stop drinking a case of beer a night," I piped back, unashamed of the person I used to be, because I was so proud of the new person I had become.</p> <p>If she wasn't making comments about my weight, she was pointing out my typos, as if they were some giant misfortune that couldn't be fixed by the copy editor. She did this to all the editors, but I took it personally, and the constant antagonizing eventually broke me, even though I should have been able to just laugh it off, given how ridiculous a person she was.</p> <p>But despite how laughable it should have been to me, after seven months of sobriety and feeling good about myself, I started to feel sick on my subway ride to work each day, agonizing about how uncomfortable I knew I was going to feel for the 9-10 hours I spent in my cubicle across from her.</p> <p>One morning, after I had finished working out at the gym before heading to the office, I was gurgling Scope while getting ready for work. As the 30 seconds of having it in the back of my throat went by, I started feeling anxious about the day, wondering what flaw she might try to point out about me or my work that day.</p> <p>As I was about to spit it out, I swallowed it instead. It was gross. I mean, you'd never eat a toothpaste sandwich, so why would anyone ever drink Scope? The problem with addicts, though, is that it's not about the taste or the pain your addiction requires to take effect; it's about the high. Sometimes the pain is even part of the pleasure.</p> <p>That's why you can't even bring perfume or nail polish remover to rehab; they're afraid you'll get desperate and drink it. I didn't understand it at the time, but when I swallowed that first mouthful of Scope, I understood.</p> <p>Since I hadn't had a drink in seven months, it took only a few minutes before I had a buzz going. I took yet another swig.</p> <p>"Fuck today!" I thought. "If she's going to harass me, I'd at least rather be in a state of mind where I don't really give a damn."</p> <p>I convinced myself it wasn't a real drink. I mean, what's the alcohol content of mouthwash, anyway? Apparently enough.</p> <p>I went to work kind of dopey, but it wasn't obvious I was buzzed, since everyone knew I had been so proudly sober for so long. I just pretended that I didn't get a lot of sleep the night before, and that seemed to cover up my Scope binge. Besides, I didn't smell like alcohol, just overly minty, like I had come back from the dentist.</p> <p>I did it again the next morning, and then I started piling up on Scope at the drugstore, so I could have it at home too. I was too afraid to buy alcohol again, in part because I was worried that it would mean that I'd actually returned to the world of alcoholism, and also because I didn't want to accidentally run into anyone I knew while buying alcohol.</p> <p>Scope seemed like a "normal person" thing to buy, and while it was gross, I started swigging a lot of it.</p> <p>Eventually, having Scope in the morning before work and here and there at home in the evening wasn't enough for me. I wanted the option of having it all day, despite working in an open-concept office.</p> <p>I switched brands to a yellow-colored Listerine, which I put in one of those Kombucha bottles you read so much about on xoJane. No one could really tell the difference, at least when it came to looking at the bottle. When it came to my behavior, that was another story.</p> <p>One day I was so completely drunk at work, one of my coworkers sent me an email that said, "Dude, what's up? You're acting really strange."</p> <p>Instead of telling her the truth — because who would ever want to admit that she was drinking mouthwash, even though I'm telling all of you right now — I blamed it on not sleeping.</p> <p>She wrote an email to my boss, suggesting that she take me home, and she did.</p> <p>When I got home, instead of hitting the drugstore for more mouthwash, I made an emergency appointment with the psychiatrist who got me into rehab in the first place and decided to it was time to leave my job.</p> <p>I had no real savings, and no concrete plans for the future, except to deal with my relapse as soon as possible. After all the work I had done to sober up, I had gone back to having a puffy red face, as most alcoholics do, and the whites of my eyes looked almost transparent. In just a mere few weeks of binging on mouthwash, I was back to being a complete mess.</p> <p>In the mirror, I only saw the ghost of my past self, one that I thought I had exorcized from my body and mind, but apparently it was still lingering there waiting for me to get weak. I felt like a failure, even more so than ever before, because I knew what I was doing this time, and I felt like I chose to fail.</p> <p>Instead of harping on me for falling off track like I expected her to, my psychiatrist congratulated me on the seven months I managed to stay sober.</p> <p>"Relapsing is pretty normal," she explained. "You can get to a point where you think you can test yourself again. They just don't tell you that in rehab because they don't want you to feel destined to fail.</p> <p>I couldn't go back to my old rehab because, as government-funded things go, they had no room for me at the time. . Instead, my psychiatrist put me on Valium, a prescription that would lower in dose for three weeks until I finally got off of that too. She also insisted that I live with my parents for at least two weeks, and that I had to go to the pharmacy every day in person to pick up my daily Valium, in case I decided to overdose.</p> <p>It was hell at first — night sweats, a palpitating heart, no appetite, a lack of desire to do anything but just lie there with my brain awake but mostly blank and my body unwilling to shut down. I would stare at the clock and just wish that someone could put me into a deep sleep for a week while the coming down part worked itself out.</p> <p>But, having been through it before, I knew that after a week of lying on my parents' couch watching Dr. Oz, the withdrawal symptoms would be manageable.</p> <p>I also knew that this time was different. When I first went into rehab after about eight years of alcohol and prescription pill abuse, the self-reconstruction phase was a lot like renovating an entire house; this time it was more like cleaning up after a really wild house party.</p> <p>Today marks my 30th day re-sober. I may have relapsed in the most disgusting way imaginable (well, maybe nail polish remover would be grosser), but I put myself back together.</p> <p>I can't blame the new girl for my relapse; it's my own fault for letting her get to me. In some ways, maybe I should thank her, for pushing me to leave a job I hated and a person I hated being around.</p> <p>Sure, I wish I quit without the relapse as my justification, but I learned something from relapsing, too: It's OK to fall, as long as you are willing to get up and fight again.</p> This post on . Republished with permission.<br> <br> <p>Want to see your work here? !</p><p>Angelina Jolie's super-expensive jewelry collection includes one piece with a diamond that has a special, laser-engraved message on it, invisible to the naked eye. "It was a love letter to Brad," explains jeweler Robert Procop. Jolie's jewelry collection, too, might as well be invisible to the naked eye: it's only viewable at a Beverly Hills gallery, and to see it, you must first be invited. And when it goes under the hammer (proceeds to charity, natch), the auction, too, will be invitation-only. []</p> Tom Ford's latest campaign: about what you'd expect. [ Fashion illustrator Tanya Ling has strong opinions about photography. "Photography is sex whereas painting is love. Photography is fact whereas painting is feeling. Photography is dead whereas painting is alive. Long Live painting. Long live fashion illustration!" [] Irina Shayk appears nude on a Marc Jacobs t-shirt to raise awareness of skin cancer. [] Givenchy did a collaboration with Converse that resulted in black-on-black leopard-print (effective jaguar-print?) Chuck Taylors, but you have to go to Japan to buy them. [] First, they made jeggings, and you said nothing. Then, fashion produced Pajama Jeans. Now that there are trompe l'oeil denim boxer shorts that cost $61. When will the madness stop? []<p> The hourglass Simmons keeps in her wardrobe is filled with "over 5000 little diamonds. And they're real." ("Over 5000 cubic zirconias" doesn't have the same ring.) This, her "satellite closet," she warns is only "a smaller version of the Mothership."</p><p><p> <p> <p> The junior closet still counts at least eight or so Hermès Birkins (including an off-white one Simmons refers to as her "gardening bag"), an haut à courroies for good measure, a tiny, gold-plated Chanel purse, and a dozen or more handbags of varying sizes, including several done in metallicised leather that she introduces as a family. She likes to use Mommy Bag at the beach. <p>Diamonds seem to be a theme — Simmons has diamonds on her closet hooks, and her copious collection of merchandise includes a necklace where Kitty herself wears a diamond crown. Simmons explains her family situation thusly: "I have, like, one and a half husbands. Djimon's the one, and Russell is a half. So I say I have the ex, and the next." How open-minded.</p> <p> [Bluefly]</p> </p><p>Isabella Rossellini is one of about a dozen supermodels featured in the new HBO documentary About Face. In the film, she discusses aging, and wonders if plastic surgery is the "new foot binding" for women. Carmen Dell'Orefice, who admits to having a few judicious surgical procedures, disagrees. "If you had the ceiling falling down in your living room, wouldn't you go and have a repair?" she asks. Meanwhile, Paulina Porizkova says that when she started out in the industry, models were told to take sexual harassment as a compliment. "When a 16-year-old girl is flattered by a man pulling out his penis, that's noteworthy." []<br> Isabella Rossellini also stars in this new Bulgari campaign, shot by Annie Leibovitz. The supermodel has an accessories collection with the fashion brand. []</p> Here are LOVE magazine's covers with Downton Abbey stars Michelle Dockery and Jessica Brown Findlay, aka Lady Mary and Lady Sybil. [] The Cut points out that this fall's ads for the Alexander McQueen line McQ and Alexander Wang — both shot by David Sims — look an awful lot alike in concept and execution. [] Raf Simons talks about his first Christian Dior couture collection in this video produced by the house. [] Speaking of Raf Simons' Dior couture! Marion Cotillard just became the first person to wear a piece from that collection off the runway. She donned a look with a bustier and houndstooth checked midi skirt for the London premiere of the new Batman movie. Jeremy Scott's fall collection for Adidas features pants made out of teddy bears. If that's too much for you, there's a teddy bear jacket, too. [] A German artist who makes work influenced by pop culture — including a series of celebrities as My Little Ponies — made a My Little Pony Karl Lagerfeld. []<p>Chloe Sevigny is on the cover of the new Out. And she has some strong words for comedian Drew Droege, of "Good evening America, I'm Chloe Sevigny..." fame:</p> <p>"At first I thought, Oh, they're funny. They're not even really me, they're these weird art pieces. But I've turned a little. I'm slightly offended because he's calling me pretentious, and I'm not."</p> <p>Oh, Chloe "TO-AST" Sevigny, that is the most pretentious thing you could have possibly said. Not familiar with Droege's oeuvre? Take a gander:</p> <p> The actress also says that she's not a total borrowed-clothes-horse. In fact, she sometimes has trouble even calling in samples to wear to film premieres:</p> <p>For the British premiere of Hit & Miss she requested about 20 dresses for consideration, but only received two. "Aren't I one of the top searches on Style.com, for crying out loud?" she says with mock disgust. "How hard is it to get a fucking dress from Valentino?"</p> <p>[]</p> Four people fainted during Dolce & Gabbana's first couture show — which was a two-day affair that included a private opera performance, a firework show in front of Mt. Etna, and some 80 clients flown to Sicily via private jet. The Telegraph, along with Corriere Della Serra and Le Figaro were the only press organizations that agreed to attend under the following muzzle of conditions: no tweeting, filming or publication of any unauthorized photographs of the show or its guests. First, two clients fainted from the heat on Sunday. <p>Then, when the event began with a launch of Bellini's Bel Canto opera Norma in the ancient Roman amphitheatre, the fashion editor toppled, too. She fell (elegantly) to the floor just in front of the orchestra pit. First aid was provided by a doctor dressed as a druid who happened to be in that evening's chorus. He prescribed ice-cream, and she soon recovered. Later, on a terrace facing Mt Etna, guests picked at a 30ft long trestle table heaped with Sicilian sweetmeats, watched an outrageous firework display set to Verdi's Valzer Brillante, and danced.</p> <p>A fourth unlucky person fainted on Monday, at the beach. []</p> Marion Cotillard bagged the August cover of Vogue Paris. [] Here's the campaign video for Yayoi Kusama's collection for Louis Vuitton. Yesterday, the elderly artist rolled up to the New York Louis Vuitton flagship to fête the collection in a polka-dotted wheelchair. [] Archie Comics is launching a makeup line with M.A.C. next spring. The theme will be "Archie's Girls" — Betty and Veronica — and this will be the logo. [] Dior Homme designer Kris Van Assche is on the cover of Manifesto. []For the first time since its famous all-black of July, 2008, Italian Vogue has printed a magnificent 17-page editorial, featuring twelve black models. The story is definitely reaching for a languid, finger-curled, Harlem Renaissance feeling. Let's explore.<p>As you may have heard, recently wore a red evening gown to a state dinner held in honor of the Chinese president, . This apparently made a lot of people very unhappy.</p><p>, who previously that Obama's cardigan was the wrong thing to wear while meeting the Queen of England, said it was a shame that a First Lady wasn't supporting American designers — as if Obama had not already given huge boosts to the careers of such U.S. talents as , , , , , , , and de la Renta's own son, Moises. , in her official role as president of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, piped up in agreement with the idea that Obama should have worn something "American" to the dinner. editor joined the chorus, : "To wear something other than American at this particular trade-centric mega-fete embarrasses a major U.S. industry that continues to need all the help it can get." Vanity Fair's criticized Obama on dress-national-origins terms, but also the McQueen made her look "too big."</p> <p>Kate Betts wrote a riposte Obama's right to wear what she likes. similarly hit back on her New York Times blog by that the fashion industry is highly internationalized, and that many American designers — including Diane Von Furstenberg herself — manufacture their clothes overseas, especially in China. Fashion is and has always been a global soup; A garment might be designed in one country, manufactured in another, with fabrics sourced from a third, garment workers are often immigrants, and whatever the designer's nationality and headquarters, his or her brand may be owned or backed by a company based somewhere else entirely. ( manufactures in China. is owned by Permira, a private equity firm headquartered in London.) Et cetera. And for a First Lady to wear a foreign designer is hardly a new phenomenon: was known to wear Chanel from time to time.</p> <p>As women, our physical appearance and dress are constantly scrutinized and policed by cultural forces as specific as the bosses who oblige female employees to and as diffuse as Vogue and the sea of Photoshop-perfected advertising in which we are all awash. Women bear the brunt of a fusillade of superficial critiques — about how much we should weigh, how our skin is supposed to look as we age, how we must dress, for fuck's sake, we're even meant to divide our wardrobes , because God forbid a woman ever be thought of as fat — that is both disturbing (to most) and highly lucrative (to a select few). If the cultural message is that the most important thing about a woman is how she looks, then the consequence is that looking "bad" or wearing the wrong garment becomes the worst thing a woman can do.</p> <p>Michelle Obama is a Princeton and Harvard-educated lawyer and former executive at the University of Chicago Hospitals system who happens to dress pretty well and be married to the president of the United States of America. But what are the stories about her that have dominated the media? They're not about her skills, her experience, her mind, or even about her almost disgustingly uncontroversial pet issue, fighting childhood obesity. The Michelle Obama News is about whether her eyebrows are "angry." Whether her clothes mark her as a "new Marie Antoinette." Whether her clothes mark her as a "new Jackie Kennedy." (Even the positive press Obama has received as a "fashion icon" has always made me a little bit uncomfortable. It would be fine if that weren't the only angle of coverage, but it seems like her fashion sense is discussed to the exclusion of anything else.) And lately, the "story" is whether she was right to wear a dress designed by a British creative director under the auspices of a fashion brand owned by a multinational headquartered in France, a dress manufactured in Italy, and sold to her (most likely) by an American retailer.</p> <p>It's probably obvious where my sympathies lie in this "debate" — obviously, the only defensible position is that Michelle Obama should wear whatever the hell she wants — but more than anything, I just hate that here we all are, still taking a talented and hard-working woman with a formidable mind, and analyzing her for news cycle after agonizing news cycle on the basis of how she dresses herself. The is now in from , who takes the (to my mind respectable) position that a garment's notional national origins is an insufficient argument in its favor, and women like Michelle Obama and Kate Middleton should wear what they like; The Dress story is going international, with a side of royal wedding fever! The state dinner happened on January 19. When is this going to end? And is there any chance we might move on to discussing Michelle Obama's actual, you know, work anytime soon? (Maybe someday we'll even be allowed to have a First Lady who keeps her regular job after entering the White House.)</p> <p> [Guardian]</p><p>Derek Lam has sent a cease-and-desist letter to Ivanka Trump after discovering her footwear line is selling a $150 sandal that is virtually identical to one the designer made for $780. We haven't seen a knock-off this good in a long time: we're struggling to identify any noticeable differences in the stitching, the number of snakeskin straps on the heel, the arrangement of the leather straps over the toe, the shape of the wedge heel, or any other detail of the design. They even copied the "seam" in the wood-grain print. The company C.E.O. calls it a "perfect copy." It was discovered when a Derek Lam designer was shopping online, and stumbled upon the Ivanka Trump shoe. "It's such an investment to make a shoe," explained the C.E.O. "We had to protest this." Ivanka Trump and the footwear licensee, Marc Fisher, had no comment. []</p> DKNY is going to dress the New York Rangers — which is all the occasion someone at the Cut with a wicked sense of humor needed to make this mock-up of the new practice jerseys. [] Codie Young wears some extraordinary hats made out of cut paper in the new Vogue Italia beauty supplement. [] Here's the spring Chanel campaign. Styled by Carine Roitfeld, Saskia De Brauw and Joan Smalls pose as gymnasts. [] Dolce & Gabbana's spring campaign is themed around a big, unusually attractive, Italian family. [] Paris Hilton is on the cover of Vanity Fair Spain, where it is apparently still 2006. []<p>J. Crew creative director/architect of Jenna Lyons' new girlfriend has allegedly been identified. Although the Post names none of its sources, it claims Lyons is rebounding with Courtney Crangi, after breaking up this summer with her husband of nine years, the artist Vincent Mazeau. Crangi is the sister and business partner of the jeweler Philip Crangi. Crangi and Lyons have been photographed attending fashion events together in recent months; the Post says they "have been spotted sharing romantic dinners at restaurants around the West Village," too. A "source" says, "It's a difficult time for Jenna and Courtney. Jenna's divorce is really ugly but it's great she has someone who is there for her." We find it somewhat curious that the news that Lyons is pushing the gay agenda down America's throats by actually dating someone of the same sex is generating vastly less controversy and media attention than that time she pushed the gay agenda down America's throats by letting her son paint his toenails. Back then, all hell broke loose. []</p> British store Debenhams knocked off Pippa Middleton's Alexander McQueen bridesmaid dress — rather poorly, as you can see from the baggy fit. The chain hired a professional Kate Middleton impersonator named Josie Bredo to introduce the creation to the press. [] Dutch model Iris Egbers walked in 46 fashion shows in three cities this past season. Afterwards, she wanted to "Sleep like crazy. During the shows, there were times when I'd go to bed at 2 o'clock with a 5:30 a.m. call time. And my skin was the worst it's ever been just from the lack of sleep." [] Here are photos of Heidi Klum preparing her two Halloween costumes, for her two Halloween parties. In Vegas, she'll be a Bodies-esque cadaver. In New York City, where she's hosting a bash at the Dream Downtown's PH-D venue, she'll be a monkey. [] Forever 21 has been showing a hologram fashion show to people all over the world. At the Grove in L.A., they ran the thing 64 times, and apparently, 1600 folks watched. [] Online collections compendium Style.com is launching a printed collections compendium named Style.com/Print. The Times got a look, and reports: <p>Much of the content is similar to what's typically found online: a collection of Twitter messages, Tommy Ton street-style photos, top-10 lists of most-viewed shows (Chanel was No. 1 with 3.5 million page views), the favorites of its editors (Balenciaga came in first), the most ubiquitous party people, the best shoes and bags and models, and the best-dressed fashionista based on reader votes (Giovanna Battaglia pulled off a major upset). Ms. Wixson also features prominently in a photo essay by Theo Wenner. And, should you actually wish to read something, and do not need glasses to consume very small font sizes, there are articles about Proenza Schouler, Donatella Versace and a Q-and-A with Azzedine Alaïa.</p> <p>Lindsey Wixson's face, also shot by Wenner, is on the cover. There were rumors during the shows that the model and the son of Rolling Stone's Jann Wenner were dating. []</p><p>James Franco's naked, tramp-stamped ass is farting at you on one of the new covers of Flaunt. Full, uncensored, kinda-NSFW image after the jump.<br> Click to enlarge. In other news of Francophilia, he a short story in bed for The Paris Review. []</p> Meanwhile, Jared Leto's naked torso is in British Vogue. Between the two of them, we've got most of the important parts of one dude. [] Hey girl, Ryan Gosling and his piercing blue eyes is on the new cover ofRussian GQ, which we for our favorite magazine. [] And Gisele Bündchen is on the cover of British Vogue. Those pants. Can we talk about those pants? [] Kiernan Shipka — a.k.a. Sally Draper — is blogging her outfits for the week at Lucky. She takes inspiration from Tavi Gevinson's blog. [] In other news from the annals of precocity, 3-year-old Hudson Kroenig — son of the male model and longtime Chanel favorite Brad — sleeps with one of those Karl Lagerfeld Steiff teddy bears, and wears lots of Chanel. [] Crystal Renn did a street style slideshow and talked about her job and friends. She mentioned again that she wants to design a clothing line in the future. []<p>Jane Birkin says she doesn't mind that Hermès has made a mint off the luxury handbag that bears her name. "I got Hermès to fork out for my charities once I saw the fortune they were making," explains the singer and actor. "A certain amount of money every year goes straight to my charity and it will continue to after my death. This year I was able to [use some of that money] to go to Japan for a benefit concert after the earthquake. We use some of the money to feed the poor people who can't afford to eat in France. I sold one of my Birkin bags for $163,000 to help the Japanese Red Cross. So that rather trivial piece of heavy luggage has done a lot of good in the world." As we all know, Jane Birkin to use her Birkin as a pillow, a cat bed, and an occasional pet carrier. How cool is Jane Birkin? Still cooler than just about anyone else on earth, in case you were wondering. []</p> Karolina Kurkova is on the very bright new cover of French Elle. [] Karlie Kloss, on the photo Vogue Italia unpublished from its website: "To be honest, I don't know why they pulled it off. I thought it was a beautiful photo. We did a lot of photos that day, and working with Steven [Meisel], working with Pat [McGrath], working with Oribe and Carlyne [Cerf de Dudzeele] — we were creating art." [] The Cut points out that Chanel's recent pre-fall show — called "Paris-Bombay," even though Karl Lagerfeld has never been to India — featured 7 models of South Asian descent, including Ashika Pratt from New Zealand, the Australian Shanina Shaik, the Swede Kelly Gale, and Smita Lasrado, Lakshmi Menon, Jyothsna Chakravarthy, and Alyssah Ali of India. The Cut doesn't seem to have counted New Jersey-raised Liza Golden, who Models.com that she has Indian heritage. We just whipped up a quick analysis of the Style.com slideshow: turns out that of the 72 women's wear looks in the show, 11 were given to models of South Asian heritage. There was only one black model, Jasmine Tookes, and there were no non-white Latinas in the show, and there was only one model of other racial heritage: Yasmin Le Bon (née Yasmin Parvaneh), who is of Iranian heritage. Twelve out of 72 runway spots going to non-white girls is still just 17%, but it's great to see South Asian models getting more work. [] Fashionista analyzed the 2011 covers of all 18 international editions of Vogue and found that Mario Testino shot 15 covers (Steven Meisel shot 12 original covers and 3 reprints), Gucci as a brand got the most cover credits, the median age of all the Vogues' cover subjects was 26, and eight of the covers were of Gisele Bündchen. Just 22% of covers featured a non-white person, and, notes Fashionista, "about half of Vogue's 18 editions failed to feature any non-white cover subjects at all." That low level of racial diversity mirrors what we saw on the New York runways last . [] Speaking of Vogue covers, Anna Wintour and Hamish Bowles are going on CBS Sunday Morning to promote American Vogue's new online archive of all of its previously published content, articles, editorials, and covers. Wintour says that when she selected a shot of model Michaela Bercu wearing jeans for her first cover, "the printers called us up because they thought we'd made a mistake. Just wanting to check that that actually was the cover." []<p>Two actresses have nabbed major campaigns this morning. Piaget took to its to reveal Jessica Alba as its newest face. Rachel Zoe escapee Brad Goreski styled the campaign, which makes Alba look pretty thoroughly un-pregnant. Meanwhile, St. John made a big deal last season about replacing Angelina Jolie, a mere actress, with the model Karen Elson. The brand sniffed that it was "getting back to its roots" (we suspect it had simply tired of paying Angie's $10 million fee). Well, so much for that! Next season's face will be Kate Winslet. Sorry, models. []</p> One look from Gucci's spring collection looks very similar to something Marilyn Monroe wore in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. [] Johnny Weir's new dress collection features some looks with bustles and corsets. "I myself am a lady with quite an ample booty," explains Weir. "So I love bustles for that reason." He also says, "I'm hoping that some of RuPaul's drag queens will wear these dresses." [] Flatforms. Supposedly they're big this season. []<p>She hasn't even popped her baby out yet but Jessica Simpson is clearly in need of a fat intervention according to Weight Watchers – who have offered her $3 million if she promises to start dieting the second it crowns. The move ensuring that new moms around the country will learn how becoming an immediate MILF is far more important than, you know, dealing with a screeching, breakable infant. "The deal is in place, and after having her baby, she'll start with Weight Watchers to lose her baby weight," said a source. []</p> <p>While most non-drug lords tend to avoid carrying around passports and $10,000 in cash just in case, Lindsay Lohan is clearly not most people – losing a $5,000 Chanel purse containing said passport, important probation documents and the chunk of change on her way to a house party in Hawaii. Though she eventually got the bag and documents back sans the money, the of her sounding like Nancy Drew after 500 cigarettes and a bottle of Jack – not to mention pointing the finger at untrustworthy "locals" – adds a nice touch to her latest ridiculous scandal. []</p> <p>She got kind of weird when she was sprung working at a shoe store back in July, but Nikki Blonsky seems to be pretty happy tending to the ladies of Superstar Hairstylists in Great Neck, New York where she's now employed as a cosmetologist – seen here with her first customer, Rosa. Though she's not giving up acting for good, word on the salon floor is that she's sweeping hair while waiting for her second big break. "I asked her if she was still acting and she said that she is auditioning a lot," said customer Sally Miles. "But she needs a day job too." And that, my friends, is how you get through this story without a Hairspray joke. []</p> <p>We were frothing at the news of a Kristen Wiig/Fabrizio Moretti tryst when talk of their surfaced, but that was soon followed by the question: hasn't she been with some guy forever? Well, it may come as a surprise but relationships do end and word on the interwebs is that she split from boyfriend – who she first met 22-years ago – Brian Petsos due to one of those my-girlfriend-got-too-successful-and-I-couldn't-cope deals. []</p> <p>Rather than put out an immediate press release, Tyra Banks has acted like a normal person and gone underground after splitting from her boyfriend of three years, John Utendahl — well, jetting off to Bali is kind of the same as sticking to the couch and watching Sex And The City reruns. "Tyra has gone away with a female friend and has been island-hopping, visiting Bali and taking a spiritual retreat," said a source. []</p><p>St. Louis-raised supermodel Karlie Kloss was asked by a tabloid reporter if she and Joe Jonas are indeed the couple we decided should be known as J.K. Klonas: "No, we're really not," she replied. The two recently attended a polo match in Los Angeles, and posed together for some photo booth pictures, which sparked rumors they were dating. "Joe really is a great guy though and such a good friend...We're great friends, and I do love him as a person." []</p> Zara Phillips, equestrienne, wearer of excellent hats, and royal something-or-other, got married in a Stewart Parvin dress this weekend. The full skirt had concealed pockets, a feature we most whole-heartedly endorse. [] Freja Beha Erichsen, who last covered British Vogue in August, 2010, was promoted to the September cover this year. We wonder what lengths Vogue will go to to the Danish model's sexual orientation this time. (Erichsen has been dating fellow model Arizona Muse for about six months.) Interestingly, the issue also promises a profile of John Galliano. That would be Galliano's first profile since that whole "I love Hitler, oh wait I got fired" incident back in February. [] American Apparel is now selling a "conical Asian hat." It costs $15, which is kind of a lot of money to pay to look like that much of a stupid poseur. []<p>Hint is reporting that the show for 's namesake label, originally scheduled for this Sunday in Paris, is canceled. [@]<br> The video of John Galliano drunkenly declaring his love for Hitler and discussing people who should be "gassed" had been in circulation well prior to the designer's Thursday arrest for hurling anti-Semitic and racist slurs at another couple. The paparazzi agency that brokered the clip to the Sun had offered it for sale months ago, but there were no takers: Dior is a big advertiser. The unnamed person who took the video and cashed the check is "very happy." []<br> Michael Specter, who profiled Galliano for the New Yorker in 2003: "Galliano's act of self destruction was about as shocking as the widespread discovery, also this week, that Charlie Sheen is a vulgar fool. Galliano is a deeply talented man, and his early shows helped set fashion on a course it has followed for years, turning the business into a celebrity cult. But his career, and his life, were built on twin pillars of excess and exhibitionism. He was a slave to addiction; those addictions rotated through the years: drugs, sex, alcohol, exercise, and finally, and most damagingly, his own public image. But who could be shocked at his behavior? Who would have expected any other end? (If it is the end: the fashion world has a remarkable ability to shrug off the odd deeply flawed human being, as long as he or she can cut a dress like Galliano can or wear one like Kate Moss, who, despite behavior that sets a disastrous example for millions of girls, including issues with drugs, is forgiven because, well, she is really very pretty.)" []<br> Suzy Menkes reports that John Galliano will likely go to The Meadows rehab center, in Arizona. It has previously treated Elton John and Donatella Versace. She also writes that Galliano's namesake label, which is financially backed by Dior, "barely breaks even financially" and is produced under license. That any licensees will want to be associated with Galliano and his label now seems unlikely. []<br> Interesting facts about Dior's own profitability, from the Journal: "The label didn't begin to turn a profit until 2002, and since then it has struggled to improve its bottom line. Its sales of €826 million ($1.14 billion) and operating margin of 4.2% still lags far behind that of Louis Vuitton, with its estimated €5.5 billion in sales and 45% operating margin. Despite the lackluster performance, Mr. Arnault has continued to pour money into Dior, which insiders say has always been the businessman's pet project." [<br> Cathy Horyn reports that John Galliano did not contact Dior after his arrest, or during the weekend that preceded his firing from the house. Horyn notes "the lack of communication between the house and its star designer at such a crucial moment points to deeper strains." The Times fashion critic also says, "The only show I have ever stood to applaud was a Galliano show, six or seven years ago. He used a special casting of sideshow performers - twins, fat people, exceptionally tall people, freaks in most people's eyes — and he closed the show with a supermodel dangling a puppet in his likeness. The manipulated designer. But who was pulling whose strings?" []<br> More from Pat Field, who yesterday compared John Galliano's infamous "I love Hitler" video to the comedy of Mel Brooks: "I think Natalie Portman and others have been too quick to judge in this case without all the information being collected...Look, I'm not saying that anti-Semitism is acceptable in any way, because it is not. But I honestly believe that until the judicial process runs its course, any judgments should not be made so quickly. We live in a time where information gets out so quickly that things can get blurred without the full story being known. Nobody knows exactly what went on. John could have been being harassed and that's why he flew off the handle." []<br> Here is the inevitable drawing of John Galliano as a Nazi. []<br> There is a wild rumor that Riccardo Tisci, the creative director of Givenchy, will replace Galliano at Dior. Haider Ackermann will take over at Givenchy, and Stefano Pilati will be ousted in favor of Hedi Slimane at Yves Saint Laurent. []<br> One piece of good news for Galliano today? Never mind losing his job for being a racist dick: he's won back the rights to control the galliano.fr domain name, which had been taken over by a cyber-squatter. []</p><p>Top model Jourdan Dunn backstage from Paris fashion week that "some people need to learn how to do black hair/skin" — not exactly an uncommon complaint, or an unwarranted one. (Chanel Iman has in the past mentioned having to explain to hair stylists that they can't, say, just soak her hair and straighten it with a flat iron.) The shows Dunn walked yesterday were Emanuel Ungaro and Giambattista Valli. [, ]</p> Kate Winslet is on the cover of the new Harper's Bazaar UK. She talks about her divorce from Sam Mendes, which happened at the same time she was shooting Mildred Pierce (for which she won an Emmy). "There's no way that I'm going to allow my children to be fucked up because my marriages haven't worked out," says the actress. "I so wish that that wasn't the case, that that hadn't happened in my life, but it has. So I will make the best of it." [] Christian Siriano says the dress Taylor Swift wears in her perfume ads is selling out. "I have orders all day long on that dress. We can't make them fast enough." [] Dior is launching a handbag collection with the artist Anselm Reyle. The brand will operate a pop-up store at Art Basel Miami, of course. "Christian Dior, before becoming a visionary couturier, was a gallerist," says Delphine Arnault. Dior indeed founded a gallery in 1928, and ran it with his father's money until Dior père lost his fortune. Reyle says he would like to see someone carrying one of his handbags on the street, but he doubts that will happen in his Berlin neighborhood. [] In other news of art, fashion, and the shifting ground in between: Nan Goldin shot a Jimmy Choo ad. [] Terry Richardson photographed 17-year-old Lindsey Wixson eating French fries in New Jersey and posing in Armani next to a graffito that reads "CLASSWAR" for a new Purple editorial. This is the second time in just the past few months that Richardson has published pictures of Wixson eating diner food. Get a new trope, buddy. [] V has a massive couture spread featuring Emily Baker, Aymeline Valade, Valerija Kelava, Candice Swanepoel, and Kristina Salinovic. Each sports some seriously massive hair, too. [] Chinese new face Tian Yi, on her favorite article of clothing: "My favorite items of clothing are my socks with different animal faces on them. I have a bunch. They're so comfy and cute." [] Pantene made Arwen its newest face. Arwen! [] Refinery29 comes out and says it: American Apparel sells mom jeans. Also, dad jeans. []In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.<p>Bruno Mars, Rihanna, and Justin Bieber will perform at this year's Victoria's Secret fashion show. The show tapes in New York in November and airs nationally in December. Here, Bieber practices by wearing a pair of wings of his own at a concert. []</p> In this behind-the-scenes video from the shoot for her new Cosmopolitan cover, Kate Upton discusses first dates. "All pick-up lines are horrible," she says. And, "I always bring $20 and my cell phone and that's it. So that they have to pay for the first date but I have $20 in case I need to catch a cab." Oh God, she is the worst. [] Chanel showed pink-and-white French manicures on the runway this season. Ew. [] This season L'Wren Scott was all like, sure, we could have a fashion show...but fuck it, let's just put it on Instagram. []<p>Justin Bieber is launching his first perfume. "Let's be real, the way a girl smells is very important to a guy!" says the singer. Terry Richardson shot the campaign, and yes — the product line includes a hair mist. Bieber's perfume could realize retail sales of around $30 million in its first year. []<br> The top ten women's fragrances in the U.S. last year were all classic best-sellers — and, um, something by Juicy Couture. The list, in order: Chanel Coco Mademoiselle, Estée Lauder Beautiful, Dolce & Gabbana Light Blue, Chanel No.5, Donna Karan Cashmere Mist, Estée Lauder Pleasures, Thierry Mugler Angel, Juicy Couture Viva La Juicy, Calvin Klein Euphoria, and Clinique Happy. []</p> Here's Daria Werbowy, Arlenis Sosa, and Elettra Weidemann in a new Lancôme ad for neon eyeshadow. [] These rings are made of dried fruit, and are therefore edible. We thought we had a comprehensive edible-ring vocabulary, what with our undying love of Ring Pops and sticking Cheez Doodle O's on our fingers. But these are kind of cool, too. [] That white Dolce & Gabbana lace dress that's been on every cover this spring just scored another one: Constance Jablonski — who already wore The Dress for the cover of Spanish Vogue in February — wore it again for the new Greek Vogue. []<p>Justin Timberlake wishes he'd never worn that matching denim suit. He told Playboy about his fashion regrets: "God, I feel I've gone to therapy just to erase some of them. The cornrows I wore with 'N Sync. That was pretty bad. Britney and I wore matching denim outfits [to the 2001 American Music Awards]. Yeah, another bad choice. I'd probably pay good money to get some of those pictures off the internet." []<br> Speaking of which, Britney Spears' costumes for her latest tour include a black Swarovski crystal outfit. That lights up. With a matrix of LEDs. Which "animates fire and lightning." []</p> Here is a photo of Vanessa Hudgens chewing bubble-gum and ironing with no hands for the latest Candie's ads. [] This is Snooki's footwear license. Her pickle-print flip-flops will retail for $15-$50. []In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.<p>As soon as Karl Lagerfeld that he sleeps in "a long, full-length white shirt, in a material called poplin imperial, made for me by Hilditch & Key in Paris after a design of a 17th-century men's nightshirt I saw at the Victoria and Albert Museum," you get the sense that the Kaiser's daily routine is going to be pretty special.</p> <p>The Chanel designer/ice cream pitchman/probable robot details a day in his life for the new Harper's Bazaar. And I do mean details.</p> <p>Here are the things Karl Lagerfeld drinks: Diet Coke. Sugar-free protein shakes prepared for him by his doctor. And Diet Coke. "I drink Diet Coke from the minute I get up to the minute I go to bed. I can even drink it in the middle of the night, and I can sleep. I don't drink coffee, I don't drink tea, I drink nothing else." Karl Lagerfeld finds all hot drinks "very strange." He drinks ten cans per day.</p> <p>Here are the things Karl Lagerfeld sleeps in: White sheets trimmed with lace, white antique bedding, white pillow cases. He has everything laundered daily. "I like everything to be washable, myself included."</p> <p>Here are the things Karl Lagerfeld puts in his bath: "I used to have a product I loved, by Shu Uemura, but they don't make it anymore, so I found a French product that softens the water; it's a hundred years old. I put half a bottle in."</p> <p>Here is how Karl Lagerfeld keeps his hair white: Klorane dry shampoo.</p> <p>Here are the newspapers that Karl Lagerfeld reads: "I do most of my reading in the morning. I have a special canopy for that, near the window, where I can see the Louvre and the Seine. I only read, look at books, and sketch. And daydream — daydreaming's important too. At night there are the dreams too, but I don't have too many. I read the French, English, and some American papers, some German papers, Women's Wear."</p> <p>Here is Karl Lagerfeld's policy on exercise: "My doctor said it's not necessary. I did a lot when I was very young, and all you do when you're young stays."</p> <p>Here is how Karl Lagerfeld has lunch: "I never have lunch."</p> <p>Here is what Karl Lagerfeld does as he is driven to his office at Chanel: "On my way to the Chanel studio, I like to look around, I like to look at Paris. I never get tired of Paris. A lot of people are on the phone all the time; they don't see anything anymore."</p> <p>Here is what Karl Lagerfeld hates most: "What I hate most is when you have to look at your watch and get in a hurry to change for dinner, if you have an important dinner. Every dinner is important; you should never be without a dinner, but this I'm a little tired of. I did a lot of it in my life."</p> <p>Here is how Karl Lagerfeld regards his cat, Choupette: "The cat is like a very refined object; she doesn't go into the street, and she doesn't go to other places." When Karl Lagerfeld is out, Choupette is cared for by a maid.</p> <p>All told, Lagerfeld seems to have a pretty cushy schedule, albeit one that he pursues with a quasi-military sense of routine. He sleeps for seven hours, eats a breakfast of steamed apple and two of his protein shakes while reading. Then, still in his nightgown, he sketches. After bathing and dressing, he goes to Chanel headquarters around 5 p.m. and works there for three hours. "I'm not there in the studio draping — I don't do those things," says the designer. "My work is very conceptual."</p> <p>My List: Karl Lagerfeld []</p><p>Karl Lagerfeld is a horrid asshole. Let's not mince words, since he never does. In his latest round of published biting commentary, he opened fire on Pippa Middleton, saying, "I don't like [her] face. She should only show her back." The irony is that the fashion designer has only been showing his ass—metaphorically—in interviews for years. It's not a good look! It's unclear what motivates his seemingly compulsive need to make such declarative, personal, and hurtful statements aimed at females. But his history of doing so indicates that he obviously has a serious problem with women. </p><p>Prior to his , Lagerfeld kicked up some controversy in February when he gave Adele the world's most cliched backhanded compliment when he :</p> <p>"She is a little too fat, but she has a beautiful face."</p> <p>He's publicly gone after Newsweek editor after she ran a very balanced, well-researched piece about how . He . He needlessly , totally unprovoked, saying she was irrelevant in fashion and that her then-husband Seal had bad skin. He waged a 20-year with his former muse model Ines de la Fressange.</p> <p>But it's his broader, sweeping statements about women's bodies that is most troubling. He's taken issue with "," and he never shuts up about the fat thing. For someone who of the importance individuality, creativity and artistry, he really buys into the most boring and tired conventions of physical beauty when it comes to women, believing whole-heartedly in the-thinner-the-better. In 2009, he told magazine:</p> <p>"No one wants to see curvy women. You've got fat mothers with their bags of chips sitting in front of the television and saying thin models are ugly. Fashion is about dreams and illusion."</p> <p>Or maybe delusion. </p> <p>In France there are a large percentage of young girls who are overweight and less than one percent are skinny. So let's talk about the 25 percent who have a weight problem, or are overweight. We don't need to discuss the less than one percent. Anorexia is nothing to do with fashion. These Russian girls are so young. Chinese ones are skinny, too, and bony. I don't think it's a subject to discuss. And in today's world, many people take drugs, not only models, hmm? It's an unnecessary subject. Let's talk about the fat ones.</p> <p>It doesn't stop there.</p> <p>"Florals are for middle-aged women with weight problems."</p> <p>He told Harper's Bazaar once:</p> <p>The body has to be impeccable. If it's not, buy small sizes and eat less food.</p> <p>And his other advice for women? Well, there's this:</p> <p>Dress for yourself and the man you love (if there is one). Women dressing to impress other women––forget about that. Forget about that. It's a very bad way of thinking.</p> <p>He also thinks that because she "wasn't ugly enough for that."</p> <p>The thing is, it's easy for some of us to write off Lagerfeld's statements as the ramblings of a madman. Seriously, he is borderline psychotic. He . He after he was accused of raping a woman. And perhaps most telling: He —and nothing else. His brain is carbonated.</p> <p>But unbelievably, so many people treat him as though he's some kind of prophet of the fashion industry, the arbiter of taste and beauty, the expert on women's bodies—when really he's just a .</p> <p> [The Sun]</p><p>Internationally recognized weight-management expert/robot Karl Lagerfeld is walking back his comments to Metro that singer Adele is "a little too fat." The Chanel designer, who guest-edited an edition of the free daily paper (how's that for a high/low collaboration?) was quoted as saying:</p> <p>The thing at the moment is Adele. She is a little too fat, but she has a beautiful face and a divine voice.</p> <p>He now says:</p> <p>I'd like to say to Adele that I am your biggest admirer. Sometimes when you take a sentence out of the article it changes the meaning of the thought. What I said was in relation to Lana Del Rey and the sentence has since been taken out of context from how it was originally published. I actually prefer Adele, she is my favorite singer and I am a great admirer of her. I lost over 30 kilos over 10 years ago and have kept it off. I know how it feels when the press is mean to you in regards to your appearance. Adele is a beautiful girl. She is the best. And I can't wait for her next CD.</p> <p>Karl could probably make it up to her by making some clothes that would fit women of Adele's size. Or, you know, casting her in a Chanel campaign.</p> <p> [Metro]</p><p> Karl Lagerfeld, finding himself insufficiently occupied by running Chanel, designing for Fendi, and bringing the to America, is relaunching the namesake clothing brand he suspended a few seasons back. Karl Lagerfeld's new Karl collection will be sold exclusively online. Here's a brief ad to give you an idea of what we're in for. Naturally, there are detachable leather collars, each printed with the message, "I only wear the latest thing, it's my job." The press materials make extensive use of the replace-a-C-with-a-K trope, touting the clothes as "ironiK, artistiK, aKcessible," which has us a little worried that Kris Kardashian's krack legal team is preparing even as we speak to descend on old Karl with a cease-and-desist. []</p> On the topic of H&M's , a brand strategist thinks they're bad for business. "To put unrelatable, uncanny, or cringe-worthy women (real or fake) in those clothes only distances women from the shopping experience and from the clothes themselves," explains Farrah Bostic. "These uncanny valley thinspiration models are clearly a distraction from the clothes, and make it harder — not easier — to imagine yourself in them. And that, quite simply, doesn't sell." We would also add that H&M is doing women no favors by showing them a computer illustration of a woman's body with drawn-on clothes: that's about as useful an experience on which to base shopping as a paper doll. [] Mario "A.C. Slater" Lopez is launching an underwear collection. [] Suno just unveiled these $65 printed sneakers. They're made in Kenya, and a portion of the proceeds goes to orphaned baby elephants and rhinos. [] For Chanel's recent pre-fall show, the audience was seated at a long table. Around the table zoomed a tiny Chanel model train. [@] Former Vogue Paris editor Joan Juliet Buck models diamond jewelry in the new issue of WSJ. Also in the spread are gallerist Clarissa Dalrymple, architect Gisue Hariri, and Dale Larocca, a tutor for students with disabilities. [] Women's Wear Daily's Man Of The Week is Newt Gingrich. And he gets a C- for, among other things, wearing a short-sleeved dress shirt. [] This is a bicycle Gucci is selling for $14,000. [] In this video, André Leon Talley and Oscar De La Renta tour the new exhibition they curated at the Queen Sofia Spanish Institute Museum in New York, "Joaquín Sorolla And The Glory Of Spanish Dress." Sorolla acquired many of the garments that his subjects wore in his paintings, and Talley and De La Renta managed to track them down for the show. If you like Sorolla and live in New York, you must also visit the Hispanic Society of America museum, which has on display his extraordinary cycle inspired by Spanish regional culture, Vision of Spain. The 14 enormous paintings are mounted in one big room. Also, the HSOA has Goya's Portrait of the Duchess of Alba, the one where she's written "Solo Goya" in the dust with her toe, in the hallway. And best of all, entry is free. []<p>Do not let Karl Lagerfeld cat-sit. That's the message I'm taking from this new interview with the Chanel designer, in which he admits without even a hint of sheepishness that he flat-out stole - kitten, Choupette, from his male-model buddy (slash Katy Perry , slash star of the most wonderful of our time, slash who serves at the Kaiser's pleasure) Baptiste Giabiconi. Here's how Lagerfeld says that the white Siamese kitten came to be in his possession:</p> <p>"She is a famous beauty. She is nine months old. [Model] Baptiste [Giaconi] gave her to me for Christmas to watch for two weeks when he was away but then I refused to give her back. I thought she was too cute. She is like a kept woman. She has a strong personality. She has lunch and dinner with me on the table, with her own food. She doesn't touch my food. She doesn't want to eat on the floor. She sleeps under a pillow and she even knows how to use an iPad. She has two personal maids, for both night and day."</p> <p>"She is beyond spoiled," added the Kaiser, unnecessarily. Choupette, in case you were wondering, also is the subject of an unusually detailed diary, a sort of Kitten's Log. "We do keep a diary. When I am not there, the maids take down, in little books, everything she did, from what she ate, to how she behaved, if she was tired, and if she wasn't sleeping. In the nine months, we already have almost 600 pages. Colette had written a lot about cats. I am not Colette, but I think it could be funny to make a little book of Choupette's diary."</p> <p>On other matters, Lagerfeld seems surprisingly sensitive to the rock/hard place position that most female politicians find themselves in when it comes to matters of appearance — whether it's Hillary Clinton (oh no she didn't wear ?! wait, what's up with her !? isn't she too frivolous ?!) or Angela Merkel. Women's Wear Daily asked Lagerfeld to comment on the German chancellor's "style," and he gracefully declined:</p> <p>"She is not a fashion person, so I don't criticize her [style]. Sometimes she could get a person who cuts the jackets and the pants a little better, but she has more serious things to do. She would be criticized that she would be too trendy."</p> <p>Sounds reasonable. But he's still not the kind of guy you'd want to lend your favorite shirt.</p> <p>UPDATE: Inevitably, Choupette now has a .</p> <p> [WWD]</p><p>Karl Lagerfeld, perhaps unique among old people, does not like Newsweek. The Chanel designer hasn't yet forgiven the magazine for Robin Givhan's of three months ago, in which the longtime fashion writer argued that the designer was "spread too thin" among his various creative directorships, projects, and collaborations. Givhan was duly punished with a bad seat at the last Chanel show and Lagerfeld told the press he'd never heard of Robin Givhan (which is ridiculously implausible, but whatever). Now, asked about the story — which ran as Newsweek's cover story in the international edition — the designer hit back at the magazine itself:</p> <p>"First of all, Tina Brown's magazine is not doing well at all. She is dying. I'm sorry for Tina Brown, who was such a success at Vanity Fair to go down with a shitty little paper like this. I'm sorry."</p> <p>You know what? Something gives us the impression that Karl isn't really very sorry. []<br> Newsweek, for the record, which famously for a buck in 2010, says it's doing fine and that newsstand sales and ad pages are both up since Brown took over. []</p> Stella McCartney and Adidas unveiled the Olympic uniforms for Team Great Britain. A host of critics say the color palette doesn't have enough red, and that the heavy reliance on blue and white makes it look more Scottish: McCartney Tweeted that the uniform "actually uses more red & shows more flag than any Team GB kit since '84." [, @] Mischa Barton has a new clothing line. A new and strangely expensive clothing line! Like, $175 for this weird mesh polester expensive. [] Lancôme is launching this new face cream "powered" by "rose stem cells." A scientist who works for the company says that with around 2 million rose stem cells in each jar, "you can really rejuvenate your skin down and up, at 360 degrees." 360-degree skin. At $350 for 50mL, that's less than a buck per degree, ladies. [] Lara Stone is on the cover of Vogue Turkey. []<p>Karlie Kloss, the supermodel from St. Louis, has been working since she was 14. She's now 19, and recently, her work has become a little more, well, grown-up. And in modeling, that means one thing: Nudity. First, she showed under-boob, that gateway to further nekkidness, in a magazine . She did the Victoria's Secret . She shot a beauty story for Allure that included some implied topless photos. She did the Christian Dior show — she's the face of the brand — and wore a mesh dress that fully exposed her . And now, well: the new issue of Vogue Italia features a 14-page editorial by Steven Meisel, in which for one shot Kloss poses completely nude, but for a pair of stilettos and a sombrero (yeah, there's a hat theme). It's called, naturally, "Body By Kloss." []<br> Here are two of the NSFW pictures. If you've gotta go nude, we suppose, going nude for Steven Meisel in a Vogue Italia cover story is pretty cool.</p> Here are some images from Terry Richardson's new book on Lady Gaga. For those of you who appreciate NSFW warnings, we repeat: Terry Richardson. [] Women's Wear Daily accidentally printed a 13-year-old Twihard's crush note gave Robert Pattinson an A- for the look he wore at the Twilight: Breaking Hymen premiere. [] Ali Lohan will now be referred to as "Aliana" Lohan. Is that clear? She tells Page Six that rumors she's had plastic surgery are unfounded. "I'm 17 years old. That's not legal! I would need my mother's signature, and do you think my mom would sign off on that?" — Uh, well, actually, given that it's Dina, um — "No!" [] Trans model Lea T. is on the cover of the new Brazilian Elle. []<br> Andrej Pejic, meanwhile, doesn't like being compared to Lea. "There are similarities between myself and Lea T., and we're placed in the same category, but our look is very different. Lea has been extremely brave in being very honest about her journey — but I don't really see myself as being here to challenge transgender stereotypes. I'm just myself." [] Luxury watchmaker Cartier has won an injunction against luxury watchmaker Raymond Weil that will prevent the latter from making a watch, right, that a German court found was too similar to Cartier's, left. Blue hands and Roman numerals make a knock-off now? [] Who are these people who are buying $200 bedazzled tweezers? No, really. Who? [] Speaking of expensive things, here is a vintage Roger Vivier shoe. It just fetched more than $26,000 at auction. [] This Marks & Spencer bus ad was banned by the British Advertising Standards Authority after public complaints, on the grounds that it objectifies women. After breaking for lunch, the British ASA thought it over, and decided the only consistent thing to do was to therefore ban every ad, ever. []<p>Problem: You're a ladymag editor and you really, really want Kate Middleton for a cover. But the Duchess of Cambridge hasn't been returning your calls. Solution: Photoshop? South African Marie Claire thinks so. The magazine calls its uncanny-looking, technologically aided new cover a "fan art tribute" to the newest member of the British royal family. "Kate Middleton is, without a doubt, the world's new style icon," explains editor Aspasia Karras. Shame you couldn't actually get her for a cover, then. Previously in Kate Middleton Photochops, British Tatler heavily retouched a news photo of Middleton ( that looked weirdly like one of those Jesus plates your grandma puts on the mantel), British Grazia (then angrily denied Photoshopping her, then admitted and fauxpologized for it), Newsweek an undead Princess Di, and The New Republic . []</p> Here's a pretty mesmerizing Chanel lipstick add. [ Doutzen Kroes was not happy about in the pages of Vogue China in that Photoshop hack-job. "I was like, ‘Oh my God,'" said the supermodel. "I think Photoshopping is OK until something like that happens. You don't want to lose one of your limbs." Erin Heatherton, for her part, regularly loses her freckles in digital post-production: "I feel like it looks like someone else." Of Photoshop in general, Heatherton says, "I guess it's not fair. It's a bittersweet story. You look better, but it's a lie."<br> [] Kate Moss flips a coin in this 24-second "trailer" for the new George Michael music video in which she stars. []<p>Kate Middleton topped Vanity Fair's annual best-dressed list. The magazine did not get an interview with the Duchess, so the cover story is a round-up of thinly sourced information concerning H.R.H's alleged thoughts on interior decorating. In second place is Jessica Chastain, followed by Bill Cunningham, Léa Seydoux, Jay-Z (but not Beyoncé), Colin and Livia Firth, Tom Brady (but not Gisele), Alicia Keys, Fan Bingbing, and Morley Safer. Coming it at number 11 is socialite and favorite of the fashion crowd, Michelle Harper. []</p> This is the gold-toned, M83 soundtrack'd Gucci perfume ad that Blake Lively jeopardized her Chanel contract to make. (Chanel says it's sticking with her anyway.) [] Speaking of Gucci, here are two new ads featuring Charlotte Casiraghi. The Monaco royal — who the press via a surrogate last year that she is "too intelligent" to be a model and only deigns to do it so that her show horses can be kept in the manner to which they have grown accustomed — should be able to pay for a lot more hay now. [] Issey Miyake's "Pleats Please" collection is now the subject of a book from Taschen. [] Fashionista points out that this 2007 Marc by Marc Jacobs dress used an apparently identical print to a 1992 Anna Sui creation. [] For the new issue of LOVE, Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott stretched nylon threads across Kristen McMenamy's face and had her wear a lot of chicken cutlets. []<p>Kate Middleton wore a red Alexander McQueen dress to the Queen's Jubilee celebrations this weekend that was — gasp — previously worn by Kim Kardashian. (Kim's version lacked sleeves.) It was additionally worn last summer by Tulisa (above right), which must be some British thing we don't have here. []</p> Meanwhile, Karl Lagerfeld live-Tweeted the Diamond Jubilee and offered his commentary on French television. Among his thoughts: "I asked my parents to buy me my first TV set so that I could watch Queen Elizabeth's coronation," the Chanel designer. Of Middleton's red dress, Lagerfeld said, "She's showing us that the small of her back is just as lovely as her sister's." (That is such a delicate way to refer to the shapeliness of the Royal ass.) "It is surprising in the 21st Century, in a modern city such as London, to find oneself inside a Canaletto painting," he then of the scene. "The Queen is mysterious but human. Without mystery, it wouldn't work." More : "The rain gives the scene a sort of poetry that a sunny day wouldn't. This weather makes the ceremony more surreal." [@]<p>Who has a lot of opinions about what Kate Middleton should wear the day she becomes a princess? Designers, that's who! From Karl Lagerfeld, who favors "high boots," to Christian Lacroix, who designed an Elizabethan bodice, everyone has a fantasy.</p><p>Alberta Ferretti, whose dress is shown here on the left, likes the idea of Middleton in "an embroidered, fluid-silhouette dress in precious fabrics that will help her make an everlasting impression." The results sort of look like moss growing between flagstones. Badgley Mishka, right, say, "We see Kate going completely classic." Apparently, to Badgley Mishka, "Classic" equals a bedazzled off-the-shoulder get-up worthy of Dynasty.</p><p></p><p>Solange Knowles called Kate Moss her "role model" because she effectively handles having a successful career and being a mother. To be fair, this was at an event celebrating Kate Moss's line for Rimmel, where it would have probably been weird to say anything actually less-than-glowing (coughcocaineisahellofadrugcough) about Kate Moss. []</p> Telegraph fashion critic Hilary Alexander Tweeted that Kanye West told her he was "a bit nervous" about his upcoming Paris show — thereby confirming that the rapper is indeed launching a fashion line with a Paris show. Meanwhile, Fashionista claims to have seen an invitation to said show. [@, ] Here is a woman in Manhattan wearing head-to-toe Missoni for Target. []<br> In other (bad) news of the massively popular Target/Missoni collaboration, which repeatedly crashed the retailer's web site on its launch day, some customers who did manage to place orders have been sent emails informing them that Target won't be able to ship the items they bought by the date originally estimated, and may have to retroactively cancel their orders entirely. Ouch. Just putting this out there: Filene's Basement has a massive sale on Missoni (like, Missoni-Missoni) right now. And overstock from the Barneys Warehouse Sale. Hearing of , we ventured forth this weekend and snagged green suede $800 sandals for less than a Benjamin. [] If you're looking for jeans so neon they're practically radioactive, Christopher Kane and J Brand have you covered. []In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.<p>The Vogue cover story about Kate Moss's wedding is here, and it is a doozy. The supermodel decided to tie the knot after watching Big Fat Gypsy Weddings. Moss explains:</p> <p>I am so romantic about Gypsies. They're not allowed to do anything until they get married. So they all get married really young, at sixteen. You can't believe the dresses. They're like blinging butterflies times ten; they can't move down the aisle! It's so genius. I was just watching Jamie, so cute, and I was like, these girls, they just spend their whole life waiting for that day — let's do it!</p> <p>Vogue continues its pattern of not saying peep about John Galliano and the that cost him his job at Christian Dior (Galliano has long been a protégé of Anna Wintour). In this story, the designer is referred to as Moss's "beleaguered friend," which is as close as Vogue will get to writing "-saying jobless designer," apparently. Galliano whispered in Moss's ear just before she walked down the aisle, like he would before she headed out onto the catwalk in a runway show. "I told her, ‘You have a secret — you are the last of the English roses — and when he lifts your veil he's going to see your wanton past!'" he says. Naomi Campbell, who Vogue notes wore yellow Givenchy, was the last guest to arrive. Moss said to her, "Trying to upstage me, bitch?" and laughed. We can no longer resist. Kate Moss is boss. []</p> Forever 21, the run by creepy Christians, is selling an unusually high number of shirts with Christian exhortations on them right now. [] A Mad Men-inspired Banana Republic collection goes on sale today. If you start noticing inordinately positive coverage of same in your favorite blogs and magazines it may be because they gave away bottles of Scotch at the press preview yesterday. (Or so we hear.) [] "Sometime around 1992, designer Christian Louboutin had a bright idea," writes Judge Victor Marrero in a preliminary ruling on the Louboutin/Yves Saint Laurent copyright case. Marrero denied Louboutin's request for a permanent injunction against sales of the all-red shoes from YSL's 2011 cruise collection, meaning that for a few months this year, two luxury brands will sell red-soled shoes for hundreds and hundreds of dollars in boutiques and better department stores. The judge displays an admirable grasp of fashion in his ruling, writing that "in the fashion industry color serves ornamental and aesthetic functions vital to robust competition." Because of this, however, Marrero finds that Louboutin "is unlikely to be able to prove that its red outsole brand is entitled to trademark protection." This doesn't bode well for Louboutin. Louboutin may end up regretting suing YSL: if the company's existing trademark protection is overturned, there'll be Louboutin knockoffs at Payless in no time. [] Voice of Kreayshawn landed the cover of i-D. [] These hand-painted flip-flops by artist Daniel Palmer are on sale for $18,000. Back in 2004, the Times wrote a trend about the lengths our plutocrats were going to in order to display their wealth to us poors, and it included a pair of $17,000 flip-flops. So really, there's been surprisingly little inflation in the price of stupidly expensive flip-flops in the past seven years. [] Hello Kitty for Liberty London: yes, please. [] Last Day Menstrual Blood is now not just a thing that gets in your underwear just when you think your period is over and after you've already switched back to your undies A-game — it's a nailpolish. [] ANTM alumna Fatima Siad is in a beauty editorial in the new Arise. [] Rick "Zombie Boy" Genest strolls a beach in Brazil in this new editorial. [] Pants. Made of Chanel bags. Paper Chanel bags. Why not? []<p>Kate Upton is on the cover of GQ, shot — obviously — by Terry Richardson. She explains to the magazine that the Dougie that the attention of a nation, which she performed with fellow model Damaris Lewis at a Clippers game, was her first Dougie. Knowing her audience, Upton shares this anecdote with the readers of GQ:</p> <p>"For the GQ photo shoot, we were on that ride where the seat spins while the actual ride is spinning, and I'm wearing a one-piece. And all of a sudden the whole entire top falls off! I'm holding myself, laughing, turning bright red, but a lot of people are watching, so they kicked us out of the Santa Monica Pier — it was so embarrassing."</p> <p>Of modeling, Upton says, "It's like any job. You find your strengths and play them up...I understand why my male followers like me." []</p> Vogue's of Asma Al-Assad has had one additional casualty: journalist Joan Juliet Buck. Buck, the former editor of Vogue Paris and a contributor to various Condé Nast publications since 1968, is as of this February no longer listed on the Vogue masthead. Apparently, the wife of the Syrian dictator a "thin, long-limbed beauty" in the month that Bashar al-Assad just happened to start publicly killing hundreds and then thousands of his own people was enough not to get her contract renewed. Question: has acclaimed photojournalist and war photographer James Nachtwey, who snapped those Norman Rockwell-ian Assad family portraits for Vogue, seen any career repercussions? Women's Wear Daily's Erik Maza takes an unusually gleeful tone in bringing news of Buck's departure, dismissing her as "a reliable source of friendly, if forgettable copy on tasteful ladies." (Buck has written for the New Yorker and the New York Times Magazine, and the only American to have ever edited a French magazine. Moreover, WWD is hardly a stranger to the celebrity puff piece: c.f. the tedious 2000 words the august trade published just today on Jennifer Hudson and her QVC line.) Journalist and editor Prosper Keating added this rejoinder to WWD's piece in the comments: <p>Maza is entitled to his opinions and to express them in the trade paper to which he descended from the Baltimore Sun but I think I am fairly well-qualified to tell him that he has probably done himself serious damage in ways of which he is not aware by writing this hatchet job. Joan was doing the job her contract required of her. Anyone who has worked for Condé Nast knows that it's not all endless Vanity Fair-style exposés of the machinations of Disney executives, murders in New England and so on. Celebrity blow jobs are the cement that fills the spaces between the pictures, as he ought to know, given that CN own WWD, or perhaps he wasn't aware of this. One can't please all of the people all of the time: when I was features editor of Vogue Hommes International, I was tarred as a Nazi apologist by Claude Lanzmann and his cronies over an interview-based profile of Leni Riefenstahl. And then I was doorstepped by some French spooks over a piece on Toni Negri, the so-called philosopher of the Red Brigades. And when we did the puff pieces, up popped people like Maza, accusing us of harebrained superficiality, although most of them used words with fewer syllables. So Joan was paying the rent or the mortgage by writing about the editors and publishers wanted in the magazine. Money for old rope. Maza should be aiming his vitriol at the Editor-in-Chief but, of course, he probably hasn't the balls for that.</p> <p>Hate the game, not the player. []</p> Rosie Huntington-Whiteley's younger sister Florence is trying her hand at modeling. [] Justin Bieber already has a second perfume. This one's called Girlfriend. His first, Someday, sold a bajillion trillion gajillion bottles in its first 0.07 seconds on shelves. []<p>Yesterday, Katie Holmes left her Scientologist-besieged home for the first time since filing for divorce from Tom Cruise. What urgent task demanded her presence? Why, she had to go tape an episode of Project Runway: All Stars, where she guest-judged the contestants' creations without her wedding ring. []<br> "She did great," fellow judge Isaac Mizrahi told People. []</p> According to Cathy Horyn, Karl Lagerfeld is naming a handbag after his cat, Choupette. [@] Raf Simons' first women's wear for Christian Dior — the couture collection he presented yesterday — is earning plenty of plaudits in the press. Perhaps most notably, Women's Wear Daily called it a "dream come true": <p>In one of the most highly anticipated designer debuts ever, Simons catapulted the house of Dior into a new, vibrant era just as John Galliano did before him. Two-thousand-twelve seems a different world than 1997, today's world one in which serious couture-hungry markets have exploded in far-off places, flush with customers interested not only in statement eveningwear but clothes for less demonstrative moments. Simons covered both exquisitely, with confidence, high chic and, most importantly, the sharp modernity essential if Dior is to regain its position among the houses that drive fashion — as well as in its rivalry with Chanel for megaluxury-brand superiority. After the show, Arnault called his yearlong designer search worth the wait. "I didn't want to rush," he said. "It was really a question of choosing the best person for the job, and he stood head and shoulders above the rest: the greatest talent of the moment for Dior, the greatest house in the world."</p> <p>[]</p> Vanessa Axente and Mackenzie Drazan ride a broken-down penny farthing and play on a swing set for the new cover of Vogue Italia. Neither is under 16, which means Vogue Italia is in compliance with the new Vogue Health Initiative rules regarding underaged models, but both started working internationally at age 14 — Axente in Singapore and Hong Kong, and Drazan in Paris. [] Georgia May Jagger shot the new ads for Madonna and Lourdes' clothing line, Material Girl, backstage during rehearsals for Madonna's current world tour. "I spent a lot of my childhood backstage hanging out around amps," said Jagger in a press release. "That was where we chilled when we were younger. So this photo shoot brought back a lot of memories." Material Girl seems to be developing a daughters-of-rock-stars theme: every "face" of the brand barring the first, Taylor Momsen, has been the offspring some famous musician. [] Victoria Beckham seems to be enjoying her new Muscle Man Marc doll — the action figure based on the South Park character based on Marc Jacobs. [@]<p>You may have mistaken male model Baptiste Giabiconi for Karl Lagerfeld's hot piece back when the designer used to drag his "muse" around town like a , but Baptiste's penis is into ladies – specifically Katy Perry. Leaving a hotel in Paris with a group of friends, star stalkers say that Katy and the chiselled Chanel coat hanger were clearly canoodling. "They were with a group of people, but they looked very much like a couple in love," said the source. "He was never more than a foot away from her and they were very flirty. There was a lot of whispering, shared jokes and they were really flirting. They made a very good-looking couple." The final nail in the gossip coffin? Baptiste said that he would have loved to be the other man back when Katy was with Russell Brand: "If I could make her divorce her husband, I'd marry her." In unsubstantiated tabloid terms that's as good as a certificate from City Hall. []</p> <p>Scout Willis has been caught Tweeting about such wild, edgy things as cigarettes, sex and drugs and hating her parents. But it was all just part of a Brown University class project, according to her rep, who released this truthful response/unnecessarily involved lie: "In connection with a class assignment, in which students were asked to create a 'culture jam' or 'hoax,' three students created a satirical and fabricated Twitter account in which everything tweeted was fictional. This was done to illustrate how social media is utilized and that in today's social media culture, you can create a significant twitter following based entirely on fabricated lies, and that the more outrageous and controversial the fabricated statement, the more followers you will get." The whole celebrity offspring thing might have contributed somewhat. []</p> <p>They were acting all amicable-like when they first announced their divorce but things are clearly starting to turn, with Heidi Klum not-so-secretly wishing Seal would shut the fuck up and stop talking to the press about their relationship. "He's going to be 50 next year. He's a grown man. I can't tell him what to do and what not to do. It's hard," she said. "I feel like already so many things [are] being said about us — about him, about me." []</p> <p>Josh Hartnett's with Amanda Seyfriend has just been downgraded to secret one-night stands now that Josh has been seen out and about with his ex, Sophia Lie.The two were spotted hanging out together at Brinkley's in SoHo, which means they're for sure back together because exes can't ever be friends. []</p> <p>If Lindsay Lohan's career history is anything to go by then switching her hair back to red is surely a good thing. Think about it. Red hair: Mean Girls, Herbie Fully Loaded. Blonde hair: busty photo shoots with Terry Richardson, all of her five mug shots. I rest my case. []</p> <p>The extracurricular antics of David Duchovny's cock have hit the news yet again, with the actor pissed that the author of The Myth Of Sex Addiction, David J. Ley, keeps bringing him up during interviews. "We understand that your book characterizes sex addiction as a ‘fictitious disease' ... used as an excuse for irresponsible behavior," said slutty David's lawyer. "Mr. Duchovny objects to being associated with your book in any way." []</p><p>Jewelry designer Alexis Bittar says Kim Kardashian has been knocking off his designs for her jewelry line, and he's no longer going to lend her his pieces to wear. "In the reality TV world, there are so many people coming out with lines to capitalize on their TV shows. They are not designers and they are just stealing," says Bittar. "I passed the Dash pop-up store on Broadway, and I saw that Kim's pieces were very similar to mine, and she definitely has been taking note. The tricky thing is that we have sent pieces to Kim in the past to wear, so now I have told my staff we cannot send anything to her. She was definitely influenced by my designs without a doubt." To this we ask only: but does Alexis Bittar sell a with dangly chain bits that looks like a grown-up version of when you used to play princess by putting your mom's necklaces on your head as a kid? Well, does he? Kardashian's rep calls any similarities between Bittar's work and Kardashian's Belle Noel jewelry line "coincidental," which surely explains the eery likeness between those earrings by Bittar (left) and these ones by Kim Kardashian (right). The Kardashians recently knocked off a well-known Botkier handbag for their Sears line. [, , ]</p> Australian plus-size model Robyn Lawley nabbed one of the covers of the new French Revue des Modes. Featured on other covers are Ajak Deng (also pictured), Alyssa Miller, Charlotte Free, Hana Jirickova, Lisanne de Jong, Jasmine Tookes, Marloes Horst, Nicole Trunfio, Sabrina Nait, Xiao Wen Ju, and Cris Urena. [] Women's Wear Daily gives New Jersey governor Chris Christie a C at wearing suits. "The lack of upper-body definition makes the shoulders slope down and projects an image of weakness," writes the esteemed fashion trade. That's actually a higher grade than most New Jersey voters Christie at, well, governing; his approval rating is around 50%, and in key policy areas many voters think he merits only a D or an F. [] Speaking of men's wear, here's the lookbook for the tuxedo line the Situation is endorsing. "They approached me because I'm a trendsetter. DTF has a new meaning: Down to Formal!" says the Sitch. [] This is Karl Lagerfeld's new collection of stemware. He says Chanel is fine with him pursuing projects on the side — just this year, he's designed a pen and done ads for Diet Coke and Magnum ice cream. "I can do whatever I want. Exclusivité is very démodé," says the Kaiser. Also, he seems to be laboring under the impression that he invented the glass coaster. Shhhh. Let's not tell him. []<p>"Kim Kardashian," writes Benjamin Wallace for the New York magazine fashion issue, "may be the world's first human avatar in a massively multiplayer online role-playing game." What, exactly, is a Californian reality T.V. star famous for her sex tape and her televised wedding and her tireless ability to shill to her fans doing on the cover of this magazine? Well, "she's the ninth most-followed person on Twitter," for one (she has 15.7 million followers):</p> <p>[W]hy, according to one branding expert, she was recently tied with Snooki at the pinnacle of the celebrity-loyalty index; and why she was the second highest-earning TV actress in the year ending this past May.</p> <p>Recently tied with Snooki. The chain she and her sisters own, Dash, opened a boutique in New York last year, she has a fragrance, and a line of licensed apparel. Oh, and she's dating Kanye West. But Kardashian has hardly been embraced by the fashion establishment. Anna Wintour reportedly banned her from the Met Ball, and her embrace of the industry is seen as even more suspect than West's. The magazine puts this down in part to her body:</p> <p>While the attacks may derive partly from a good-faith aesthetic response to some of the clothing she wears, at least as much of it seems to stem from an aversion to non-eating-disorder body types and a broader snobbery and classism. Fashion likes to celebrate and appropriate street culture and even trash culture, except when it doesn't. [...] Kim and Kanye brightly stand on opposite sides of the line between fashion's dos and don'ts. With Kim, says a fashion executive, "I think she sees fashion as another means for making money. I don't think she's ever going to want to go to a fashion show for her love of clothes. She's going to want to get paid for going to that show."</p> <p>What does Kim have to say for herself? Nice, inoffensive things about liking people, liking fashion, liking Kanye, and hoping to be with him "sitting somewhere when we're 80." The piece closes with Kardashian's side of a conversation with the rapper:</p> <p>"Hello? Hey. Just leaving the zoo. I'm finished with my shoot and I'm just finishing up. I'm heading actually to your place right now. Where are you? Okay. So maybe I'll go in and change and then I'll eat … What time is that at? Seven? Will you be done? … Okay, so, that's an hour. So I'll just wait at the place. Will you come get me? Okay, well, I don't have a car. Do you want me to just take a cab? Or can your car come get me first? … Where is ‘up here'? Is it far? Okay, well, um, maybe-" etc., etc. Kim signs off: "Okay, bye. Love you, too. Bye."</p> <p>[]<br> In other Kim Kardashian news, the aforementioned licensed clothing line, the Kardashian Kollection, is expanding to 13 countries (kountries?) this fall. The family is working with the Australian Jupi Corporation, the licensee, and Topshop founder Philip Green's Arcadia Group. []</p> Michael Phelps appears in a Louis Vuitton ad — part of the brand's "Core Values" campaign (those are the ads for the less trendy bags and duffels that have featured everyone from Keith Richards to Mikhail Gorbachev over the years). In one image, Phelps is seen chatting with gymnast Larisa Latynina, who won 18 Olympic medals in the 1950s and '60s. She held the world record for the Olympic athlete with the most medals until Phelps beat her last month. (Latynina still holds the record for Olympic medals in individual events with 14 to Phelps' 13.) In another, he's wearing a Speedo in the bath. Fashionista thinks it can see a fart bubble in that one. [, ] With its September issue, Vogue Paris got a redesign. Garance Doré has a column (yay!), the editor's letter is now called "Le Point de vue de Vogue," and the typography is different. On the cover this month are Lara Stone, Kate Moss, and Daria Werbowy, each wearing the same black Dolce & Gabbana dress. In fact, the theme of the entire issue is the color black. How chic. [] Gap is trying this thing where they put "up-and-coming" musicians and so forth in their ads. But these people are so up-and-coming we don't actually know who they are. Karmin? Gap will try just about anything these days, it seems. [] Prada has a new men's fragrance, called Luna Rossa after the company's professional sailing team and athletic wear line. The ads feature sailor Nick Hutton. [] Here is Chloë Sevigny wearing a bear claw hat on the cover of Dazed & Confused. Because it's Monday. []<p>October's British Vogue has a cover story on Kristen Stewart — reported prior to the cheating scandal, but fated to be pored over by tabloid reporters seeking signs of the trouble to come like so many messages in the tea leaves. The actor told the magazine that she is — shockingly — uncomfortable at times with her fame:</p> <p>"People expect it to be easy because there you are, out there, doing the thing that you want and making lots of money out of it. But, you know, I'm not that smooth. I can get clumsy around certain people. Like if I were to sit down and think, 'OK, I'm really famous, how am I going to conduct myself in public?' I wouldn't know who that person would be!"</p> <p>[]</p> Michelle Obama wore a Tracy Reese dress and J. Crew heels to deliver her speech at the Democratic National Convention last night. And Tracy Reese is obviously thrilled. [@] A good-news coda to last season's Marc Jacobs' historic to pay his models, including a minor who worked for the company for over 30 unpaid hours: buried at the end of this Observer piece is mention of the fact that this season, all Marc Jacobs models will be given the choice of monetary compensation for their work or payment in "trade" (designer clothing). Jacobs should be commended for taking this step. Perhaps his influence will extend to other New York designers who don't pay their models? [] Carine Roitfeld's new magazine, CR Fashion Book, launched its Web site! It's pretty, like this picture of Roitfeld's daughter, Julia Restoin-Roitfeld, when she was pregnant. Roitfeld explains in her editor's letter that the theme of the first issue is birth: <p>When something is consuming your thoughts, you suddenly notice it everywhere. When I learned that my daughter, Julia, was expecting, I immediately began seeing babies and new mothers on planes, at fashion shows, in New York and in Paris. Birth and rebirth all around. I became obsessed. At the same time, I was thinking and dreaming about the first issue of this magazine, which you are reading now. This issue takes rebirth as its theme and is filled with both images and ideas about birth, pregnancy, and family. The promise of youth, the force of age, and the rush of all things new. It's an escape, a fashion fairy tale. It's a dream of a better life-because fashion is meant to make us dream.</p> <p>[]</p> Nick Knight photographed Lindsey Wixson for Garage in a Roy Lichtenstein-inspired shoot. Perez Hilton did the captioning. [] Here's an image from Barneys fall campaign, featuring models Arizona Muse and Magda Laguinge playing lovers in Paris. Paolo Roversi shot it. [] Sanya Richards Ross, the Olympic champion sprinter, says she knows her hair slows her down, but she likes to wear it long, anyway: "I do shave my legs, but I don't think it's that big of a deal in terms of wind resistance. With my hair, most of the time I'll pull it back, and have it half up, half down. People always say it slows me down some, but I just like looking fabulous, so I don't care. [Laughs] It wouldn't be that dramatic of a difference, anyway. They actually did research on it after my race in London and figured out how much it slowed me down, and they said probably like 1/10 of a second. I think it's worth it. I'll work harder in my workouts, so I can get a little bit faster, rather than lose this hair." Richards Ross, who wore Chanel earrings to win gold in the 400m in London, adds, "My entire family is really into fashion. If you saw my grandmother, you'd understand. She'll get totally decked out to go to the grocery store — I'm talking about a statement necklace, the whole thing. We all love to look nice, we all pay attention to trends, so I just bring that with me to the track because it's part of who I am." []<p></p> <p>The full quote is: "As an adult working in the fashion industry, I struggle with materialism. And I'm one of the least materialistic people that exist, because material possessions don't mean much to me. They're beautiful, I enjoy them, they can enhance your life to a certain degree, but they're ultimately not important." Ford is never one to shirk his responsibilities to provide the press with "controversial" soundbites. On women: "I lust after beautiful women. First of all, I love women. But I lust after beautiful women in the way that I lust after a beautiful piece of sculpture — this will probably get me in trouble — or a beautiful car. I believe everyone's on a sliding scale of sexuality. There are moments where I am sexually attracted to women. But it doesn't overpower my first impulse; my lust for them is the same as my lust for beauty in all things. It's not like I ever think, 'Oh, my god, I've got to spread her legs and fuck her.'" And: "I think gay men make better designers." And: "In our culture, we use female nudity to sell everything. We're very comfortable objectifying women. Women go out and they are basically wearing nothing. Their feet and toes are exposed, their legs are exposed, their breasts are exposed. Everything is exposed — the neck, the arms. You have to be really physically perfect, as a woman, in our culture to be considered beautiful. But full frontal male nudity challenges us. It makes men nervous. It makes women nervous." []</p><p>Lady Gaga used her latest V column to praise 15-year-old blogger/freelance writer/high school student Tavi Gevinson, and shit-talk New York Times fashion critic Cathy Horyn. (Horyn once wrote a blog post expressing of a Versace dress the Lady wore.) "Why have we decided that one person's opinion matters more than anyone else's?" asks Gaga, who lives in a magical world where the relativity fairy makes all opinions equally valid. We agree that Gevinson is a talented young writer, but to argue that what makes her great is due to the "democratic" nature of the Internet is to totally miss the point; Tavi would be a promising writer in any medium. And Horyn has a master's degree in journalism from Northwestern and over 25 years of experience reporting on pretty much every aspect of the fashion industry; those things alone separate her categorically from the barely literate Tumbling masses (who not-coincidentally probably totally love Lady Gaga's Versace dress!). Horyn is also one of the few fashion critics left who actually criticizes anything, ever; in a business that's basically one giant conflict-of-interest where few seem to care about aesthetic or even ethical standards when personal and financial relationships are at stake, Horyn takes the fact that designers as a badge of honor. Which she should. That Gaga CC'd her column to "Intellectuals" while making such a grossly anti-expert, anti-intellectual argument is maybe the most ridiculous thing about this. [, ]<br> Speaking of Tavi, get ready: Gevinson's new online project, , launches on Monday. The site will publish content that follows a monthly theme, and to suit its targeted audience of teenagers it will post three new items daily — after school, at dinner, and just before bed. Contributors you may have heard of include Zooey Deschanel, Miranda July, Winnie Holzman, Joss Whedon, Jack Black, Dan Savage, and Fred Armisen. []</p> For some reason, this ad campaign with Ryan Reynolds and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley is really amusing to us today. Is it his wrinkly "I'm a tough guy — in a fashion ad!" face? Her "I'm totally not pushing you away, darling!" pose? (Body Language Expert Tiara Dew Dots would have a .) Or is it just the fact that we're really hungover, and sometimes when we're hungover we find things that are actually not funny to be really funny? (We've always assumed this is because our brains are just trying to jump-start the ol' endorphin flow by any means necessary, standards be damned, but the temporary inability to not crack up at like mildly funny YouTube videos and Jimmy Kimmel bits has always struck us as a sad kind of bodily betrayal.) [] Yep, also giggling at this list of gag monograms from Lucky's John Jannuzzi. We want "TMI" on all our shirts and towels now. [] Speaking of acronyms: the friendly oompa-loompa known as Snooki says her perfume will smell "like DTF." Ew. [] Corinne Day's manager, Susie Babchick, remembers the late photographer on the anniversary of her death: "Having been a model herself — and not a very tall one — she really understood models, and knew how to bring out their confidence. When Corinne did a shoot, she would be shooting throughout the day and not just when she was officially shooting. There's a picture she took of Kate Moss on a British Vogue shoot, having a sandwich dressed in this beautiful lingerie. I think that's one of the nicest photos of Kate I've ever seen." Can anyone find a copy of that photo? [] Coco Rocha is on the new cover of Korean Dazed & Confused wearing a headband with horse's ears. [] And Alexa Chung sports '60s-inspired eye makeup on the cover of the latest Harper's Bazaar UK. []<p>Lady Gaga is on the cover of the new issue of V, shot by Inez von Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin. This is her third appearance on the magazine's cover. Gaga's cover is timed to coincide with the start of her new sideline gig as a V columnist. []</p> This is styled as V magazine's "Asia" issue — and aside from the cover, which seems random — it looks like it's not just an excuse to run a bunch of fashion spreads that are heavy on the Orientalist references, it appears to actually be about Asia! It includes an interview with actress Nancy Kwan ("Minorities still have a hard and very difficult time getting work here. Especially Asians. Asian women over 40? Forget it"), and a story about Diane von Furstenberg in China. This is a portrait of Chinese agency Longteng's top 14 new faces for the Paris shows. [] Emma Watson's Lancôme campaign was launched in Paris. Mario Testino shot it. ] The two-year-old calfskin Launer London handbag the Queen carried to her grandson's wedding has sparked a 60% increase in sales for the brand. [] The current issue of Vogue Girl Japan is available (in English) for free on iTunes. []<p> In the for Lady Gaga's "Judas," Jesus has cornrows. The disciples are a leather-clad motorcycle gang. Gaga wears a bikini top featuring nipple-hiding crosses, and folks are anointed with holy water and beer. But as Gaga tells E!:</p> <p>"In my opinion, the only controversial thing about this video is that I'm wearing Christian Lacroix and Chanel in the same frame."</p> <p>Lacroix, sweetie darling. Lacroix. The rococo maximalist fashion designer known for experimentation and opulence, in the same shot as Chanel, the brand known for simple elegance. Cue the clutching of pearls!</p> <p>Gaga also says: "This video is not meant to be an attack on religion. It's not meant to be an attack on anyone's beliefs. I respect and love everybody's beliefs. My fans know that about me. I consider myself a strong and devoted Catholic, and a religious and spiritual person who's obsessed with religious art."</p> <p> Her statement seems to be fairly genuine, and unless you are very conservative and very easily offended, there's little blasphemy in the clip. Twenty years ago, when Madonna kissed a black saint in "Like A Prayer," Pepsi a multimillion dollar promotional contract with the singer and the Vatican condemned the song. But Gaga's clip — which hit YouTube yesterday and already boasts more than 2 million views — is fairly reverent of the New Testament. Jesus is a nice, well-liked, handsome guy; Judas sexy, but a jerk. The real shocker is that "Judas" is not shocking. Pop music may be known for pushing boundaries and flirting with shocking concepts, but if you're looking for some unholy hellfire type shit, you're going to have to haul out your old Slayer cassettes. Gaga really is just a nice Catholic girl who likes shoes. The clip is beautifully shot, visually arresting and fun, however, and if you have a Biblical Boogie playlist on iTunes, this song can go after Hammer's and before Army Of Lovers's </p> <p>Earlier: </p><p>Lena Dunham modeled for ASOS and looked pretty great doing it. In other Lena Dunham news, her first book of essays is the subject of a bidding war and will net her at least a $1 million advance. []</p> Kristen Bell and Nia Long star in an interminable Target ad a "shoppable film" to be released on YouTube in three installments. Everything on the screen from the homewares to the characters' clothing is for sale at Target. [] Meghan Collison is on the October cover of Vogue Italia. [] Coco Rocha and Zac Posen chat about friendship and fashion in this behind-the-scenes video from the designer's spring lookbook shoot. Then they clear the set and dance to "New York, New York." [] Karl Lagerfeld hung a sign reading "No Smoking Here" on the wall during his showroom appointments with editors interested in the spring Chanel collection — a punny way to point out that the Kaiser left the tuxedos to Hedi Slimane this season. [] Special snowflake Tom Ford seems at last to be adjusting to the realities of the fashion media cycle: not only did he release images of a half-dozen looks from his spring show at roughly the same time every other designer does — rather than waiting six months to be contrarian — he just put out this video revealing all of the collection's looks. [] Rob Pruitt's full collection for Jimmy Choo sure is...different. And expensive: $895 leopard-print boudoir mules, anyone? [] Sam Taylor-Wood shot the campaign for the upcoming H&M/Maison Martin Margiela collaboration. That oversized jacket definitely is interesting. [] Man, Kanye West's shoes (co-produced with Giuseppe Zanotti and inspired by the album art for Cruel Summer) are heaps better this season than last. []<p>Blake Lively's been dumped, you guys. After they were seen yacht-hopping and jet-setting and canoodling all over Europe, Leonardo di Caprio has given Blake the heave-ho. Apparently Leo's mom didn't like Blake. When they met, Blake was nervous, so she talked a lot, and Leo's German-born mother Irmelin did not like that one bit. She told Leo that the girl was full of herself and all she had to contribute to the discussion was stuff about Gossip Girl and being a Chanel model. So Leo bid Blake auf Wiedersehen and Blake is now "a total mess," according to unnamed sources and a UK celeb rag we know nothing about. []</p> <p></p> <p>Justin Bieber is taking a month off "to grow up." It only takes 30 days! No, seriously though. He's been working so hard. We know this because he says: "I've been working so hard, I'm taking a month off. It's been great to just think and enjoy hanging out with my friends. I'm still growing up, and when you're working every day, you don't really get a chance to figure out who you are. So with the time off, I'm able to think, pray and just kind of grow up." Uh-oh. Teen existential crisis! Someone send him a copy of Catcher In The Rye and a pack of herbal cigarettes. []</p> <p></p> <p>Wow. British Airways must be soooo embarrassed. When Prince William and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge flew from Los Angeles to London, the in-flight entertainment system was broken. The royals were presented with — wait for it — a $300 voucher for duty-free stuff. Go for the booze and perfume! []</p> <p></p> <p>Is Justin Timberlake secretly working on new music? Why does he have concert dates in 2012? I thought he was going to join the cast of Saturday Night Live, or maybe that was a dream I had. []</p> <p></p> <p>Katy Perry is super psyched about getting nine MTV Video Music Award nominations. Also, and this is more important, she is basically blonde now. []</p> <p></p> <p> Remember Sergeant Ray Lewis, who Betty White to be his date for the Marine ball? And Betty said she had to work? Class act Linda Hamilton has made a video in which she asks Sgt. Lewis to the party. "I know that I am no Betty White, but I would be really, really thrilled if you can't find anyone else to go to the ball with you, I could go. I'm only half as mature as she is, wink wink, but I am twice as funny, so I think that works out!" []<br> Now Miley Cyrus has been invited to the Marine Corps Ball. These marines sure have a lot of downtime to make videos. []</p> <p></p><p>Linda Evangelista is on the cover of the new LOVE — and inside, the supermodel talks about that she filed against luxury chief (and husband of Salma Hayek) François-Henri Pinault. Evangelista had never previously revealed the identity of her 4-year-old son's father, but says that Pinault's total refusal to pay her any child support forced her to sue him, and therefore publicly reveal his identity. She says she otherwise never would have brought her son into it. "I need to protect him," she says. "I never, ever used my son for publicity. He'll have his say one day if he wants it. He'll have the last word. He has time to defend himself." Pinault, who conceived a child with his then-girlfriend Hayek around the same time Evangelista's son was born, People that he "recognized" the child. Evangelista is $46,000 a month in child support; François-Henri Pinault, the head of PPR, reportedly has a personal fortune of $11.5 billion. []</p> Jennifer Connelly is now a face of Shiseido — again. The actress was a face of something called Shiseido Perky Jeans (which was not in fact a line of jeans, but cosmetics) in the 1980s. "It's nice to reconnect with them after so many years," says Connelly. [, ] L'Oréal has made a somewhat surprising move: it's signed 18-year-old runway model Barbara Palvin as its newest face. Having walked for designers including Louis Vuitton, Prada, and Chanel, Palvin is well-known within fashion, but might not be so familiar to the mass market; certainly not compared to the likes of Gwen Stefani or Claudia Schiffer. Palvin's first ads will be for lipstick. [] Sofia Coppola claims she took a job directing a commercial advertising Marni's upcoming collection for H&M because she's "never really done anything around fashion, and when they told me it was Marni it sounded like an interesting project." Oh, you know, Sofia Coppola has never really done anything around fashion. Other than direct Dior advertisements, be in Louis Vuitton campaigns, a line of Louis Vuitton bags, be the face of a Marc Jacobs perfume, grace the front rows every damn season, oh, and a fashion line of her own, Milkfed. "Never done anything around fashion." Please. Girl interned at Chanel at 15 and had her "style" chronicled endlessly by Seventeen while she was still in high school. Why downplay it? [] Here's a first look at Jun Takahashi's line for Uniqlo, which will be known as Undercover Uniqlo, or UU. In stores March 16. [] Rihanna dyed her hair blonde for an upcoming cover of American Elle. [] Banana Republic is doing a second Mad Men collection. It'll be in stores on March 1, just ahead of the new season premiere, March 25. [] Women's Wear Daily asked designers to imagine an outfit for Rooney Mara to watch the superbowl in. Because she comes from a football family. Logical. []<p>Steel your inner '90s middle-school-aged girl who likes rainbows and unicorns and cuddly dolphins and pink: Lisa Frank has a clothing line. And yes, plenty of styles are available in adult sizes. []</p> Harvey Nichols would like you to avoid the walk of shame this holiday season. Not by not going out and getting drunk and sleeping with arguably inappropriate people, silly — by wearing a nice enough dress that you'll be able to walk home with your head held high, secure in the knowledge that you ain't ashamed of nuttin'! [] Is anyone surprised that Karlie Kloss's Vogue Italia editorial is making the rounds on pro-ana sites? Fashion is where those "communities" source most of their thinspo. What makes this interesting is that Vogue Italia editor Franca Sozzani has frequently spoken out against pro-ana sites, and started a petition to get them taken down. As Fashionista notes, "it's pretty ironic, then, that the very same magazine dedicating to 'battling' anorexia, would wind up producing a shoot that, to some, seemed to promote the disease." [] Meanwhile, here's Kloss in a new Dior Beauty campaign. Photoshop or eye-tape? Discuss. [] Crystal Renn, Lakshmi Menon, and Diana Dondoe walked in yesterday's Chanel pre-fall show in Paris. Some of the models had their hair styled into soft-looking faux dreadlocks. Must have taken forever to undo. [] Longchamp hired a choreographer to direct the models in its spring campaign, which included Coco Rocha (pictured) and Liisa Winkler. [] Miranda Kerr is naked in the new issue of Industrie, which includes one writer's hilariously poorly copy-edited account of interviewing her. [] If you want to get your hands on a copy of the limited-edition, not-for-sale 2012 Pirelli calendar, yesterday in New York City, a couple have already been listed on eBay. Bidding on the cheapest one currently starts at $700. You could also ask us very nicely for ours. []<p>The University of Pennsylvania Law School became the focus of Louis Vuitton's lawyerly ire after a student group parodied the company's famous monogram print on poster art to advertise a symposium on trademark law. Instead of LVs and quatrefoils, those are little TMs and ©s. Clever right? And an obvious example of protected parody for non-commercial or educational purposes, given that nobody is likely to confuse an Ivy League college for a handbag store. Louis Vuitton didn't think so, and its lawyer Michael Pantalony (real name) sent the university an apoplectic cease-and-desist. Penn's response was pitch-perfect: it explains that parodies of material that would ordinarily be trademarked or copyrighted are protected under the law, cites a trademark-parody case that Louis Vuitton lost (those "Chewy Vuitton" doggie toys are ), and follows up by inviting Pantalony to the symposium so that he might learn a little bit more about IP law. And that is how you say "Fuck off" in legalese. [, ]</p> Princess Charlotte Casiraghi is now a face of Gucci. [] Agyness Deyn's hideous Williamsburg apartment — that round doorway in a mirrored wall looks like a portal to another, much uglier, dimension — sold for $2.175 million, a little under the $2.5 million it was originally listed for. Hopefully whoever bought it has money left over to hire a good interior designer. [] Taking a sip from Karl Lagerfeld's cup o' collabs, Jean Paul Gaultier is the new "creative director" of Diet Coke in Europe. In this strange short ad, he gives a makeover to an annoying puppet. [] Sienna Miller dares you to call her "toothy" on the cover of British Vogue. [] Adeen, a small New York accessories company, booked Andrej Pejic for its ads and had him wear a hat that says "CUNT." The brand says it is intended as an homage to Ru Paul, who always says you need Charisma, Uniqueness Nerve and Talent. [] Speaking of perplexing hats, people are actually wearing that weird Balenciaga visor-cape. In public. It retails for $3250. []<p>Macy's is suing Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia for breach of contract, following the announcement that the Martha Stewart brand of homewares would be sold exclusively at J.C. Penney following the expiration of her current exclusive Macy's contract. The Macy's deal was set to expire this year, freeing Martha to shill muffin tins and bath mats at Penney's starting in 2013, but Macy's claims its contract allows them the option to renew for another five years. Macy's sure seems sad it lost its shiny toy, but we're team Martha on this one. Stewart may be 70, but we're in no doubt she could still cut a bitch. And smilingly dispose of the body in four handsome, home-y, and ecologically aware ways, if necessary. []</p> The Etam show in Paris sounds un-missable: Grace Jones, Gloria Gaynor, The Pointer Sisters, Sister Sledge, and Chaka Khan performed their hits live while the models walked. Grace Jones kicked things off, after briefly disappearing backstage — "She did the same thing at a Louis Vuitton show in Tokyo five years ago: she disappeared and then reappeared. What counts is that she reappears," joked brand owner and Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy scion Antoine Arnault. And for a grand finale, all the singers got onstage to do "We Are Family." The show was also notable for being Arnault and Natalia Vodianova's first planned public appearance. Vodianova is a face of the lingerie brand, and she and Arnault have been dating for months (Vodianova confirmed last year she'd split from her husband, Justin Portman) but had avoided being photographed together. []<br> Arnault also shared his impressions of the luxury sector with the Telegraph. "We are going to enter an era in which logo and ostentation is going to be less successful," he says. "People are going to want more quality, and less ostentation. Especially in a world in economic crisis: you don't want to be seen with evidently expensive products. Just something that is beautiful." When are these guys ever not selling "real luxury" over "mere logos"? Jesus. That's like the oldest trick in the luxury book. Arnault also says Christian Dior is in no hurry to name a creative director, even though nearly a year has passed since the firing of John Galliano (for being ). "People say 'What's going on?' but inside [Dior] people are absolutely Zen about it. There is no urgency at all." Just picture the entire Dior atelier in lotus pose, saying "Om. We are not racist. Om." [] Chanel's couture show was held on a set that looked like an airplane. Karl Lagerfeld loves to fly, you see; he finds it terribly relaxing. There was a beverage cart, and guests entered via a long, metal-paneled hallway that looked like an airport skyway. The whole thing took five days to build. We have a full review and photos coming soon. [, ] Here's a first look at the ad for Jason Wu's Target collection, featuring the mas-cat, Milu. [] Missoni has an unusual model fronting its spring campaign: Pedro Almodóvar. Juergen Teller shot the director, Angela, Teresa, and Margherita Missoni, and actresses Rossy de Palma and Blanca Suarez. The only model in the ads is Mariacarla Boscono. The campaign was shot at a Madrid restaurant called Villa Rosa, which will be familiar to fans of Almodóvar's film High Heels. [] Model Maria Bradley hails from Wichita, Kansas. Her first fashion show in New York City was for Alexander Wang, which she opened. "I had done local shows in Kansas, but in a mall, and there's a curtain we're all behind. This was nothing like anything I had ever done before. When I got there, I walked into that giant warehouse on the pier, and I was like, 'Oh…my…god,'" she says. "It was like a stadium setup back there, with like 100 people running around." Bradley, who is 17, has since traveled internationally for the first time thanks to her new job. "I had no idea the fashion world was like this. I mean, when I shot in Kansas, it was like at a Humane Society, holding puppies, and now I was thrown into this." [] There is speculation that Freja Beha Erichsen and Arizona Muse were dropped from the Chloé campaign after paparazzi photographs of them on the set emerged. To be fair, they were shooting at the Chateau Marmont, which is like the Mecca of paparazzi (in this cosmology we just made up right now, the Ivy would be their Dome of the Rock, and let's say the Grove is the paparazzi Vatican). Now, the final campaign has emerged, and it stars not Erichsen and Muse but Karmen Pedaru and Kate King. Maybe modeling's favorite lesbian couple were dropped. Or maybe they were shooting something else entirely — a campaign video, say. [] Speaking of campaigns, Kate Moss was shot by Terry Richardson for Mango's spring ads. Women's Wear Daily posted the images this morning, but has since pulled them. Not before we grabbed them, though. []<p>If you're Madonna, donating to your daughter's school fundraiser doesn't mean whipping up a batch of Betty Crocker brownies. Madonna is off a pair of signed thigh-high Chanel boots to benefit Lourdes' school, the LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts in New York. The current bid is $2,860, which should buy quite a few reams of printer paper.</p><p>Madonna has plans to someday "do" a men's fragrance, at the urging of her daughter Lourdes. "She likes to wear cologne — don't ask me why," the star explained at the New York launch of her first perfume. "I love musk and amber and woody kind of fragrances on men. I love the smell of whiskey — we should make a men's cologne that smells like whiskey. I can't drink it, it's too strong, but it smells amazing — a really good old whiskey." Madonna says she "worships and adores" Jean Paul Gaultier. "He's creating one of my costumes, and kind of godfathering the costumes for a section of my show, with all my dancers. I'm really happy he's doing it, because he's such a genius." She says the rest of the costumes for her upcoming tour will be by Arianne Phillips, her longtime costume designer, plus some pieces from Riccardo Tisci at Givenchy (who costumed Madge's Superbowl performance). Speaking of which, Madonna says next time she does an extravaganza like that, she may wear — gasp — sneakers: "The dance that LMFAO does, the shuffle, was really hard to do in heels. I have to say, I would prefer to do the shuffle in sneakers. If you want to drop it like it's hot, it's good to wear flats, because then your booty gets really close to the floor." []</p> Legendary New York Times street-style photographer and documentary subject Bill Cunningham started out as a millinery designer — and on Wednesday, 23 of the hats he made in the '50s and '60s under the label William J will go on sale at 1stdibs.com. Cunningham some archival photos of his hats to Times readers last year. [] Seminal fashion photographer of the '40s, '50s, and '60s — and a woman in the field — Lillian Bassman is the subject of a solo gallery show on now in New York City. According to her daughter, Bassman led something of a charmed life: "Quirky things used to happen to her. She would land in Paris and for some reason there would always be a duke or a count who would want to show her around town. She would always say ‘Why are they giving me so many flowers and so much Champagne?' I remember she did the lead show of a Spanish photo fest at The Prado in 2002, and Queen Sofia of Spain, who always wore gloves so she wouldn't have to touch anyone's skin, suddenly appeared and then her staff disappeared. The Queen walked next to my mother discussing the photos as if they were old friends." Bassman at age 94 in February. [] In these new Yves Saint Laurent beauty ads, Anais Pouliot sure is wearing a lot of makeup for a swimming pool. [] Fashionista tracks the progress of seven of spring's most-photographed runway looks. If the Vogues and Harper's Bazaars of this world have their way, we'll all be wearing bedazzled bodysuits (preferably either by Prada or Dolce & Gabbana) this season. []<p> ABC executives demanded that this 30-second ad for Madonna's soon-to-be-released perfume be digitally edited to cover more of her boobies. The suits didn't like Madge's cleavage, and told the singer's people that even after the Photoshop modesty girdle had been added, the ad could be broadcast only after 9 p.m. — or, curiously, during The View. []</p> A Ugandan newspaper published a story referring to Franca Sozzani as the wife of Ugandan oil millionaire Charles Mbire. The paper also ran photographs of Mbire's lavish birthday party for the editor and spelled her name "Suzani." Sozzani laughed off the coverage, saying she is single. [] Vogue Italia's April cover is out, and it has a prom theme. With masks, as previously. [] In the age-old quest of school administrators to kill any incipient student joy, slutty prom dresses are a flash point. As . [] Prabal Gurung released two nail wrap designs with Sally Hansen. Both are based on the digital prints used in his spring collection. []Lindsay Lohan has avoided jail time once again. Today Judge Stephanie Sautner ruled that while Linday did test positive for alcohol, she was only subject to controlled substances testing from January 3 to February 23. The judge said she was only guilty of "extremely poor judgment." []<br> The judge also told Lindsay she's not allowed to have parties during house arrest. Experts say the ruling is kind of illegal, but note that a non-celebrity in Lindsay's position would usually still be required to undergo drug testing. []<br> TMZ counters Lindsay's assertion that her home is booze-free with a blurry photo of an open wine bottle. []<br> Because you're dying to know, "Lohan wore a striped Steve Alan button-up, Sass & Bide pants and Chanel heels, which she topped off with a Rosemark necklace and a Balenciaga bag." []<br> Certainly Wilmer Valderrama, whose relationship with Lindsay ended six years ago, has a lot of relevant insights. "I'm not worried about her at all," he said. "I think she's going to get through this because she is ridiculously talented." []<br> Michael Lohan says, "Regardless of whether she gets tested or not under home arrest any drinking at all is not good for Lindsay." Stop saying things that make sense! It's too confusing. []<br> Ah, that's better: Michael claims the judge only knows about Lindsay's rooftop parties because Samantha Ronson made a noise complaint. Or perhaps the judge just saw the paparazzi photos posted all over the internet? []<br> Supposedly Lindsay is "beyond jealous" because Samantha is now dating a young lady with red hair. []<p>Marc Jacobs is profiled by Jonathan Van Meter in the new Vogue. The designer says he hasn't spoken to his mother, Judy, or his two siblings, for more than two decades. The reason? They "don't get along very well." He also doesn't speak to his father — who used to be Joan Rivers' agent, isn't that interesting? — for the more prosaic reason that his father died when Marc was 6 years old. Jacobs tells Van Meter:</p> <p>"I hate this idea that you have to love somebody because they are your family. Nobody can tell me what I'm supposed to feel and who I am supposed to feel it for. I don't blame them, I don't hate them, I just know that I don't feel love for them. That's all. And I am not going to make the call or try to stay in touch because society says, But it's your mother. Oedipus, Schmoedipus."</p> <p>On the topic of his rumored move to Christian Dior — which now seems not to be happening — Jacobs says he never had ambitions to be a couturier.</p> <p>"The idea of couture doesn't hold that thing for me. It's archaic — in my opinion. I mean, I am really interested in the craftsmanship behind couture. But I can explore all that in ready-to-wear. With couture, one dress each season is photographed by a couple of magazines; there's no advertising; it reaches 20 customers. I don't feel there is anything lacking in what we do. I get to work with these amazing craftsmen. Maybe not the same ateliers that would make a couture dress, but, again, we are not in a deficit for working with people who create beautiful things. I am not sure I ever looked at couture as this great opportunity."</p> <p>[]</p> Meanwhile, there's a rumor that Jacobs is dating a Brazilian porn star named Harry Louis. The two are pictured at left. [] Kate Moss was in a David Yurman campaign last year, in which she posed with tousled hair and "natural"-looking makeup and threw her head back a lot, and now she's in a campaign for some jewelry brand called Fred in which she poses with tousled hair and "natural"-looking makeup and throws her head back, and so David Yurman put out a press release alerting everyone to the "embarrassingly similar" campaigns. David Yurman is confident that its discerning and sophisticated customers can tell the differences between it and some brand called Fred, of course, but seriously, says David Yurman, OMGLOL@K8. In other news, David Yurman is that 8th grade queen bee who thought she invented, like, "eating a jelly donut" or "wearing a webbing belt" and passive-aggressively policed the donut-eating/belt-wearing of others, only David Yurman thinks it invented "taking pictures of supermodels wearing jewelry." LOL@DavidYurman. [] Donna Karan issued a statement via a spokesperson about her spring ad campaign, which has proven for its depiction of two Haitian men in the background, like props. "It is well known that Donna has been deeply involved in supporting and bringing awareness to Haiti since the earthquake," reads the statement. "Through her personal experiences there, Haiti was a natural inspiration for the Spring 2012 collection. The intent of the ad campaign is to celebrate the culture and creativity of the people of Haiti." Does the intention matter, or the execution? Are Donna Karan's charitable efforts relevant to her depiction of Haiti in these ads? Given that we live in a world in which Haitian poverty and $2,000 dresses both exist, is it somehow wrong to place them side-by-side in a photograph? So many questions here. [] This gold gown is one of ten that Rodarte made specially for a Fra Angelico show at LACMA. [] Givenchy's spring campaign is "the expression of a love story between a surfer and a mermaid," with Gisele Bündchen, Mariacarla Boscono, and big, black surfboards. [] Here is an ad for Iris Apfel's upcoming M.A.C. collection. It's really striking to see a woman in a cosmetics campaign who isn't 19 years old. [] Balmainia still Reigns in Spain, Claims Harper's Bazaar. []<p>Marc Jacobs told a reporter "it would be an honor" to design for Dior. "There's no question that the two great couture houses in Paris are Chanel and Dior…. I think it would be a very hard thing to turn down." This is the first time that the designer has directly addressed the rumor that he is in talks to succeed the fired John Galliano at Christian Dior. The latest rumor is that Dior parent company Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy is at Jacobs' and business partner Robert Duffy's demand of $10+ million-dollar salaries apiece. []<br> Meanwhile, Carolina Herrera thinks convicted racist and anti-Semite John Galliano has a future in fashion. "I'm positive — he's too talented. You have to realize that he wasn't himself. He was totally drunk. He couldn't remember what he said. How can you judge somebody like that? It's very sad. I don't think he was very well protected." []<br> So does Vogue Italia editor Franca Sozzani. "Look, I understand their point of view. I understand they couldn't just say, ‘Bad boy! We forgive you! Come back!' But it's really a pity. And I will never believe he believed what he said. I think he was drunk and alone in a bar. When people go crazy, they go crazy. It's a human case, it's not political or religious. He didn't kill anyone!" []</p> Laughing Anna Wintour: now a meme. Yes. []<p>Robert Duffy, Marc Jacobs' business partner of more than 25 years, has by a former executive at the company who says that Duffy created a hostile and discriminatory work environment by directing subordinates to join him in watching porn on company time and "produc[ing] and disseminat[ing] a book that included photos of Marc Jacobs International staff in sexual positions or nude." The former executive, Patrice Lataillade, joined the company in 1996, rose to the position of Chief Operating Officer, and was fired in September of 2010. The lawsuit also alleges that Duffy "uses company funds for personal expenses and does not censor what he does or says." Lataillade also says that Duffy forced a Marc Jacobs perform a pole dance. Marc Jacobs International and its parent company Louis Vuitton Moêt Hennessy are also named in the suit; they say the allegations are false, and that Lataillade was fired for unrelated misconduct. In February, Duffy — then a prolific Tweeter — pics of a nude man at the company's employees-only fashion week after-party. The suit says other employees occasionally complained about Duffy's conduct but the company's response was lacking: a woman was told she needed a "thicker skin" and a man was told by Duffy to "go home early and have a drink." (Are we remiss in wishing our boss would — skipping the [alleged] creepy-sexy part, of course — occasionally tell us to go home and have a drink? Jessica? Hmm? Whaddaya say?) [, , ]</p> In case you missed it: Rachel Zoe has published a picture of her new baby, Skyler. [] What if the Sartorialist wrote about all his subjects the way he wrote about Angelica Ardasheva, the blogger he called "sturdy but beautiful"? The Gloss takes a crack: "This older but distinguished gentleman has a great manner of hiding the features that have so elegantly accompanied his age. He makes excellent use of the hat's wide brim to gently obscure the deeply embedded creases beneath his eyes." [] Pat Field knocked off Alexander McQueen's knuckle-duster clutch purse. [] Kate Moss wears Alexander McQueen on both the newsstand and the subscriber cover of the new British Harper's Bazaar. [] Marion Cotillard's latest Dior handbag ad is Russian-themed. []<p>For more than five years, Marc Jacobs International says it was the victim of a $20 million fraud. More details are emerging in the lawsuit and countersuit between Marc Jacobs, his business partner of more than 25 years Robert Duffy, and their former chief operating officer Patrice Lataillade. Lataillade that Duffy created a hostile work environment by talking about and watching porn on company time (Lataillade specified, for some reason, that it was gay porn), using company funds for personal expenses, and forcing one employee to do a pole-dance for him. Well: Marc Jacobs International has responded with a countersuit alleging that Lataillade was embezzling the company to the tune of $20 million. MJI says Lataillade inflated the company sales figures and hid the true costs of expenses so that he could collect huge bonuses from MJI's parent company, Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy. The suit says Lataillade perpetrated this fraud by "overstating royalty receivables, understating selling, marketing and administrative expenses, overstating raw materials inventories and failing to write off bad debts." The company also points out that Lataillade was given a salary of $1 million, free private school tuition for his children, an annual family vacation in Paris, and a $10,000 annual car allowance. MJI also allegedly lent Lataillade $60,000 in 2008, which he has yet to repay. The alleged fraud was uncovered after a new director of finance came onboard, and Lataillade was fired. Lataillade's lawyers deny the charges, and point out that the company was audited several times during the period in which he is alleged to have been cooking the books. Even if Marc Jacobs International's allegations against Lataillade are true, one still wonders what kind of financial condition a company must be in for an executive to get away with fraud on that scale for over five years. [, ]</p> Beyoncé says she was going for "iconic James Dean" in her wardrobe choices for the "Crazy in Love" video. And she's worn heels since she turned 13: "I'm wearing red pumps in the video. As a child I trained myself to dance in very high heels. At 13, in Destiny's Child, we were told to wear heels, but at first we couldn't walk in them. We couldn't keep our knees straight. But we learned, and that became the image of Destiny's Child: so young and so glamorous. Now I have a rule that my dancers have to wear their heels when I'm wearing my heels. They say, ‘Please take your shoes off, Beyoncé.' At home, I'm always barefoot. And I have a heavy walk without heels. When they hear me thumping through the house, they say, ‘Oh-Beyoncé's up!'" [] Versace will be H&M's next guest designer, and the collection will go on sale in H&M stores on November 17. []<br> In 2008, Donatella Versace of diffusion lines, "I respect everyone who does it. But the reason I didn't do it is because I work very hard to put the Versace line in the luxury section. I think to put the Versace line in H&M would confuse the brand." Bygones. Karlie Kloss shot for Victoria's Secret Pink. It is the first time the 18-year-old model, currently the face of Dior, has worked with VS. [] Photographer Grégoire Eloy shot backstage at fired Dior designer John Galliano's runway shows fir six years, but he waited until the week of Galliano's to two strangers in a café to put the resulting photographs on public show in Paris. Of Galliano, Eloy says, "I think that he had been having trouble psychologically, that he was exhausted, for several years, it was obvious, but no one talked about it." []<br> Meanwhile, Azzedine Alaïa says he was offered the job of head designer at Dior. He didn't take it. Alaïa, in the words of reporter Vanessa Friedman, was "flattered, but not about to pursue. The story of what happened with John was a sad story, he said when I asked him, and he didn't want to be part of the next chapter." This would have been, to put it mildly, a surprising choice. Writes Friedman, "here's the thing: Mr Alaia has been perhaps the most vocal advocate of all living designers about the need to change the fashion system, to slow it down, to stop the relentless demand for more collections and more store openings. Years ago he stopped having official fashion shows, and started showing, and delivering to stores, only when he was ready as opposed to when the schedule dictates. And one of the houses that most embodies that continuous pressure is Dior; indeed, when former designer John Galliano imploded, the pressures of the system were cited as major contributing factors...Since I would never under-estimate Bernard Arnault, chairman of Dior (which actually owns LVMH), nor CEO Sidney Toledano, however, this makes me wonder if perhaps the group has some interesting plans to change the way it does business up its sleeve, and will use the new designer as an excuse to do so." [] Carine Roitfeld styled Kristen McMenamy for Jean-Paul Gaultier's fall campaign. The former editor of Vogue Paris also styled Chanel's fall ads. []<br> Gaultier says of his 1988 single, "How To Do That," of which , "I sold around 30,000 records — almost made it to the Top 50, but I think that was my last foray into the music business as a musician. I prefer to dress the stars." []<p>Marc Jacobs says he's planning to expand into cosmetics and is working with Sephora on a line.</p> <p>"I see makeup, fragrance — everything, really — as an opportunity. The idea of choosing a color for your lip, or an eyeliner — it's just such a delight. The ritual of waking up and making those choices is something people really enjoy. We currently are working on defining what Marc Jacobs cosmetics will be, what they'll say, what makes them distinctive. I think that will take some time, but the first meeting was good."</p> <p>No launch date has yet been set. []</p> Here is one minute of Bar Refaeli playing tennis in her underwear, in promotion of her new underwear line. She picks a wedgie at approximately 0:06. Cool ad, bro. [] Crystal Renn has blonde hair now. And when it's not wet from swimming with dolphins (!), she looks kind of like Lara Stone. [] Lauren Conrad is topless on the cover of Glamour. [] Emily Blunt made the cover of British Elle. [] Charlotte Gainsbourg is on the cover of the new Oyster. [] Anthropologie is launching 11 new limited-edition designer collaborations — including one with Karen Walker — on April 5. The wares will retail for $120-$300. []<p>You should hide behind that fan Karl Lagerfeld, shame on you, for calling Adele "a little bit fat." Who are you? What is the point of saying that? What are you trying to prove? Why are you trying to cut a bitch down? Shame shame shame. </p> <p>Don't read people as that only leads to being read to and you don't want to hear that story. You have talked about being bullied, and I am sure you were. I see it, as I was bullied too, and I am disappointed in you, for here you have proven yourself to be quite good at it, and you are the very worst kind — a condescending one.</p> <p>Adele is nothing less than amazing. She is a true, courageous and rare talent and someone who has captured the attention and the admiration of the world in a seriously short time. She is ALSO a great beauty and tremendously meaningful incandescent wonder. She looks so awesome, her loveliness radiates from her strong and fast spinning interior klieg lights and brightens everything to the degree that it makes even dark, overcast me feel luminous and fierce and worthy.  That's what a light like her does. She lights up our life. She is beaming through the clouds and bringing you the sun. Fuck you if you can't realize that. Fuck you and your fucking glasses. Take them off for a second and see the goddamn light. Self tanner doesn't give you no vitamin D. You need sun.</p> <p>Adele sings and I wish I could sing like that, and I do, in the shower. I wonder if i could look like her. Maybe 20 years ago that could have been me. Maybe I am beautiful after all. Maybe everyone was wrong about me. Maybe I am going to be loved. Maybe I'll be happy someday. Maybe, yes. Maybe.</p> <p>It sounds complex because it is terribly complex, but curiously simple and plain. When you see someone you identify with, who has a body that could be your body, and you recognize it on the screen because you remember it from the mirror and you watch them shine and conquer and overcome and overwhelm and startle and take over the world, you think you can do the same. It gives you strength. It's powerful, indescribably so. A star like her — we haven't had someone like that for a while. She's been desperately needed. Where you been all our lives Adele? I am just glad you're here.</p> <p>Adele changes the game and all the rules. She makes a generation of women, young and old, want to play. She makes us feel like we could win, we could actually win this time. Finally, we have our eyes on the prize. When she's on the cover of a magazine, I buy it right then and there. She doesn't look like the girls who are always on the cover of a magazine. She looks better, and all the more so because she really fucking deserves to be there.</p> <p>Why are you trying to tarnish that? why are you trying to spit on her success and fame? Its ugly. It's uncouth and unfair. And I know that you, as you have the kind of face and frame easily run to fat — its familiar as I have the same — I know you've struggled. I have felt for you. You know what it feels like to be judged. Why do it? Because you've made it to the other side? Is it better there? Aren't you hungry? I am, just looking at you. I know to be as thin as you are now, you need to control everything that goes into your mouth every second of every minute of every hour of every day. I wish you were as ardent in controlling what came out of it.</p> <p>I don't know why we care what you have to say. We don't have the luxury to starve for fashion. We have to work for a living. We have double shifts. We carry groceries we can barely buy with our meager salaries up many flights of stairs and feed our children and deal with our children being molested and woefully sometimes bury our children and find a way to live through this, being merely children ourselves. We worry through vocal surgery and survive the silence and still go to gigs and keep from getting hit and if we do, successfully cover the bruises with concealer so we can go to school and to the DMV and SXSW and keep our heads up high while being unloved or loved by the wrong ones and hang in the friend zone as we hang our laundry out to dry and run for the bus and fight for the right to marriage while finalizing painful divorces and try amidst all this to keep going and get by.</p> <p>When you say we are fat, you murder our grace, and we've already lost so much to begin with. We've already lost everything, except weight. That we gain steadily, along with self hatred, and all you are doing is adding to our burden, pressing down on the scale with the long toe of your fine, elegantly tassled loafer.</p> <p>We don't have millions of dollars to perforate our fat with expensive, experimental injections. We don't have time to be lightheaded and sick with hunger. We can't afford fasting clinics in the Swiss Alps or a messianic nutritionist or portion controlled meals wrapped up in white linen and enshrouded in Chanel camellias. We have to pay the rent and pay for gas and if eating is some comfort to us in our difficult lives, let it be so. Just let us be. Let us listen to Adele, who is triumphantly one of us and let us enjoy her and feel like her and think we are her for a moment and be safe in her music and in our heads.</p> <p>To someone like you or me or Adele or anyone really, to be called fat is the gravest insult, and the injury in yours is that you say she has a beautiful face. How many of us have heard the same thing and suffered more for it? Its not a compliment. It's like saying ‘my, what a fabulous turd.' Keep your compliments and condescension to yourself. It doesn't soften what you know in your heart to be a mighty blow.</p> <p>You consider yourself to be the authority on style, as you are supposedly style personified but what good is style when you have no class? What good is style when you have no humanity? What good is style when you make us want to kill ourselves? We are dying, Karl. Lots of us are already dead.</p> <p>Don't bother apologizing, as I am sure your people, your ‘Team Lagerfeld' is advising you to do. There is no ‘I' in team, but if there were, there would be a Tim and a Tam and have you had a Tim Tam? You should. They are real good. What you could do instead of offering an empty apology is design for us, all the regular folks in the world, and really go for it. Make clothes that flatter us, make us feel good about ourselves. Make beautiful things that glorify us but won't bankrupt our bank accounts or our spirit. Do your job, dummy. Be the sartorial equivalent to Adele's music. I know you have it in you. There is immeasurable genius behind all your idiocy, behind the ridiculous glasses, within the high perimeter of that starched collar.</p> <p>If you say it isn't possible, then you are useless. If you say you can't do it and that it is our own fault that we can't be thin enough for your vision, then you are a dismal failure, and you've always been one and you always will be.</p> <p>We are sick of only being able to wear your fragrance. It stinks of selfishness and stupidity and lack of effort and frankly, that is beneath you, because honestly, I know you try, just like we try. We are all trying Karl, but I am asking you to try harder. With your prodigious means and power, you could change things for the better, for generations to come. But if you don't want to now, then you probably won't ever, which is sad and wasteful of your lavish gifts and a precious opportunity lost. If you want to be that way then flap that fan until you take flight and fill the thin air with your antique birdsong – out of earshot, so we can listen to Adele in peace.</p> <p>PS: I know he apologized but I still think this is a good piece of writing and truly worth reading. I was a little late responding because I was so angry!! As I wrote, I was crying and clenching and unclenching my jaw and my asshole at the same time. It would have been nice for someone else I guess but unfortunately I was alone. Fashion just hurts my feelings all the time. I love his work, even though it never fits me and I can't even get my arms in a beautiful white silk sequin pantsuit I have of his I bought on ebay. I keep it and I look at it and I am enraged but I can't fucking throw it out because it is so nice. I have a bunch of clothes of his like that. It is sick. Ok, I am considering his apology. But he needs to make shit we can actually fucking wear.</p> This post originally appeared on Margaret Cho's . Republished with permission.<br> <br> <p>, her sixth live concert film, is in stores now. Maybe you'd like to buy it? , please do.</p>In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.<p>Michael Kors says his husband, Lance LePere "always says that because I have a sense of humor on television, no one is afraid to approach me. This has happened twice already, but about a month ago, we were walking near our apartment and these kids, who were maybe 18 or 19, walked behind us. The girl says to me, ‘I know who you are,' and the guy goes, ‘Oh my god, oh my god.' The girl says, ‘Marc, I love you.'" Because all gay fashion designers look alike... []</p> Tom Ford says if Isabella Blow had worn Princess Beatrice's hat, everything would have been different. [] What, you would expect a Betsey Johnson perfume called "Too Too" to look any different? [] Here is the Kate Moss branded lipstick line for Rimmel. [] The Blonds, who make the craziest corsets you've ever seen and do things at their shows like have models walk in gorilla suits down the runway while Alan Cumming watches, say that this season their collection is inspired by vintage Playboy. "There's so much history to this magazine and Hugh Hefner, and he's done so much for civil rights and for the women's movement," says designer David Blond. []<p>Last night at the White House state dinner honoring British prime minister David Cameron, Michelle Obama wore Marchesa — a fashion line designed by two Brits, headquartered in New York, and boosted into the consciousness by Hollywood. Samantha Cameron wore the British designer Alessandra Rich. Anna Wintour dusted off a perfectly good black-and-white Chanel haute couture gown she was last spotted wearing to the Met Ball in 2009. []</p> Model Chrissy Teigen was invited, and she live-Tweeted the whole thing. Including what the guests for dinner, how quickly her fiancé John Legend his shirt, and the time she accidentally an extension out of her head in Michelle Obama's office. [@] Here are five more of the shoes Madonna thinks you'll pay up to $349 for, in addition to the three we earlier. [] Here is a Chanel ad directed by Kathryn Bigelow, the first woman to win a Best Director Oscar. The brand hired pro surfer Danny Fuller to be the face of its latest men's fragrance. Fuller managed to wear RVCA board shorts and ride a non-Chanel board. For his efforts he was paid "a lot more than $40,000. My kids are going to private school now." [] Karl Lagerfeld listed his Gramercy Park apartment — again — for $5.2 million this time. Though the designer has owned it since 2006, it is not clear from the listing description and pictures whether he ever moved in. [] Time's Style & Design supplement is back after being suspended in 2009. And its first new cover features Emily Blunt wearing the Balenciaga Darth Vader visor. An interesting choice. [] Snooki knocked off the famous Alexander McQueen "Knucklebox" clutch. Also, Snooki has a handbag line now! Previously in Alexander McQueen knucklebox knock-offs: . [] The Kardashians are still advertising their Sears lingerie line. []<p>Well, this is unexpected and refreshing! Miley Cyrus got all het up on the Twitter about...Urban Outfitters. "Not only do they steal from artists," she in an update tagged , "but every time you give them money you help finance a campaign against gay equality." Could the singer have been referring to specific instance, or to Urban Outfitters' long history of shady dealings with other people's intellectual property? she wrote: "'IF WE ALLOW GAY MARRIAGE THEN NEXT THING U KNOW PEOPLE WILL BE MARRYING GOLD FISH' - Rick Santorum UO contributed $13,000 to this mans [sic] campaign." Actually, it $13,150. More recently, Urban Outfitters company president and founder Richard Hayne and his wife have $2,250 to Texas senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, who from NARAL Pro-Choice American and voted against financial reform , "The problem was not mainstream banks. We need to make sure that we don't over-regulate the mainstream banks so they can't loan to small business." again: "Love that everyone is hating on Urban Outfitters." [@]</p> Every year the Council of Fashion Designers of America commissions portraits of the designers it nominates for its awards. This year, Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin did the honors. They wanted to shoot all the nominees naked, but that idea was (unfortunately?) nixed. [] Gisele Bündchen made the new covers of Swedish Cosmopolitan and Spanish V. [] Chanel is launching a new line of handbags called "Boy." They look like leather-bound books. [] Meanwhile, someone made a Chanel 2.55 bag out of beef jerky. [] What is it with Uncle Terry and ? []<p>Further evidence that Mindy Kaling is thoroughly and completely awesome: she shops at Loehmann's, you guys. (And she reads this very blog!) Refinery29 interviewed Kaling about her style. She calls her style "a very ethnic/New Money aesthetic" and says she wishes she could be one of those cool girls who wears Helmut Lang leggings and monochromatic, asymmetrical tops and whatnot, but she always ends up drawn to the bright and the colorful. "I am all about statement necklaces over gray T-shirts this fall. I'll so be the woman at the ArcLight wearing the 30lb ethnic African necklace and people don't know if English is my first language." []</p> When asked his opinion of various movies about fashion, Jean Paul Gaultier — who costumed the new Almodovar film — isn't shy. He finds Prêt-A-Porter not sarcastic enough. And The Devil Wears Prada fails because "Anna Wintour is a lot more monstrous than she is described!" he laughs. You won't be laughing when none of your clothes are ever photographed for Vogue again, buddy! Given the opportunity to make amends by the reporter, who asked if he thought Wintour was "a positive figure," Gaultier said only, "She is a figure." [] Solve Sundsbo shot the new cover of Vogue Italia Beauty. It's wet. [] Crystal Renn, Andrej Pejic, Lea T., Hanne Gaby Odiele, Jeneil Williams, Jenny Shimizu, and Hannelore Knuts, among others, star in this gender-bending promotional clip for the Gay Men's Health Crisis' upcoming AIDS benefit. [] Models damage their hair and feet for a living, basically. [] We truly respect Coco Rocha's devotion to makeup. Lip glosses arranged in order of color! Shadows laid out with military precision! "I like my makeup," she says. "I like anything and everything, the more the better. That's why I have it all. It's funny when I see other models that I've worked with on the street and they say, surprised, ‘Were you working? Why do you have makeup on?' almost like, ‘Why would a girl ever wear makeup?' And I don't understand, because every other girl does, at least something, but models don't wear anything. I mean, they will not even wear cover-up. I just don't understand because you learn everything…you learn all the tricks of the trade, why not use it on yourself?" [] Chloë Moretz may be too young to see Taxi Driver — "My mom won't let me watch it," she says — but she apparently isn't too young to re-enact it for a Harper's Bazaar spread with Keanu Reeves. []<p>"Come on, guys, it's better to be skinny than to be fat!" So said 30-year-old model Natalia Vodianova as part of a panel discussion at the British Vogue Festival over the weekend. (This was after she was asked, "It's undeniable that models are very thin, expected to be very thin, and thinner than 99.9 percent of the population. What message should you be sending out?") Vodianova, who started her career at 15, and has worked for Guerlain, Givenchy, Calvin Klein, Louis Vuitton, Yves Saint Laurent, L'Oréal, David Yurman, Marc Jacobs, Stella McCartney, Versace, Diane von Fürstenberg and Chanel, continued: "We eat well, we exercise — please, do the same and you will look like this." (Wait, if I eat well and exercise I will look like a 5'9" Russian?) She went on: "I'm sorry, but today the NHS [Britain's National Health Service] are fighting against obesity, children are taken away from their parents because they're too fat … And here we are, defending that we are healthy and skinny." She also said: "I respect my body — my body is my temple. If I eat like a pig, I feel like a pig." And: "I must say I actually came to [an event at] the V&A after giving birth to [my son] Victor, three days later, and I was wearing Givenchy Couture." And!</p> <p>I don't want to offend people who are trying to lose weight — if you want my tip, everyone should look into the only diet I've ever done. When I was little I had ulcers in my stomach from not eating very properly. I had really bad digestion and suffered from it for a long time. Then somebody recommended the . Ever since, I have more energy and I've been doing it for five years now. It really works for me. It's not about eating more protein or more carbohydrates — it's which protein you eat, and which carbohydrates.</p> <p>Don't you feel more enlightened now? []</p> <p> This video of pretty people kissing is part of the Fashion Against AIDS campaign. H&M is asking couples to submit pictures of themselves kissing, and planning on donating $1 to AIDS prevention for each snap. So far there are are more than 10,000 images on the . []</p> <p>Roberto Cavalli has been tweeting up a storm and talking crap about Anna Wintour while he's at it: "I confide you a secret," he tweeted on Saturday, April 21st, "Anna Wintur das nt come to see my show in Milano ……. Why ?? becouse I dont do publicity in American Vogue ??" Meaning, she doesn't show up because he doesn't buy ads. Hmm. He continued: "Fashion…is a big machine of money !! no creativity anymore ! In 50 years the books of fashion … THEY DONT HAVE NATHING TO SAY ABOUT US" You tell 'em. []</p> <p>If you have $128,758 to spare, why not spend it on the limited editon Range Rover "designed" by Victoria Beckham? She created mood boards, which involved " yachts, luxury jets, and classic cars." []</p><p>Bulgarian model Marina Asenova is suing her New York agency, MC2 (that would be the agency run by ), for allegedly pocketing the money from a job that came through after she'd left town. A rather big job, actually: face of Sally Hansen cosmetics. Asenova left New York to work in European markets in 2006, and only noticed that shots of her had been used for Sally Hansen ads and packaging when she came back to the city and happened to see her own face looking back at her from a shelf in a local pharmacy. MC2 allegedly never told her that the shots were put to such a use, and has not responded to Asenova's inquiries seeking payment. These kinds of financial shenanigans are not uncommon in modeling, but they are becoming harder to pull off now that the Internet makes it a lot easier to find photos that have gone on to have other lives endorsing other products. Model Hailey Clauson is currently suing Urban Outfitters on similar grounds — the retailer allegedly used a photo of Clauson from a small German fashion magazine on t-shirts without paying her for the rights — and last year, model Caroline Forsling Estée Lauder for buying a snapshot of her from a photographer with whom she'd done a hair job, Photoshopping it, and running it as a cosmetics ad. "I guess they figured she'd never find out about it," says Asenova's lawyer. []</p> Prabal Gurung Tweeted that he was "beyond speechless" at the sight of Jennifer Lawrence wearing a gold dress from his fall collection to the Hunger Games premiere. Then he screamed with excitement. [@, @] Jewelry designer Eddie Borgo's infrastructure-inspired new collection looks pretty damn cool. [] Nicki Minaj is on the cover of Allure. [] It appears that Chanel knocked off a crystal cuff made by New York designer Pamela Love. UPDATE: Chanel has not to produce the bracelets in question "out of respect for the concerns raised and for the artistic process," without admitting any wrongdoing. [, ]In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.<p>Vice sent someone named Elektra to the Topshop Unique fashion show. On acid. The story is narrated by her editor: "I swear I'm not making this up, but when Elektra asked: 'Do you mind if I get a picture with you?' Naomi turned to her and said, 'I'm sorry, but I'm not speaking.' Which was weird, because she had to speak in order to say that." So there are drugs, queues, non-sequiturs, and people acting standoffish. Sounds like fashion week, all right. []</p> Here is a look from a new South African clothing line called 46664. That was Nelson Mandela's prison ID number on Robben Island, and the line is inspired by him (and overseen by the Nelson Mandela Foundation). 46664 wants to become South Africa's first international sportswear brand. [] Meanwhile, supermodel Patti Hansen has launched a line of triangular cross-body bags called Hung On U. They range in price from $260 "for a small metal mesh style" to $8,500 "for a large alligator version." [] Fashionista snapped beautiful Filipina model Charlene Almarvez for its street style column. [] Frida Gustavsson was shot by Paolo Roversi for the cover of the new Vogue Italia couture supplement. []<p>The Navajo Nation has filed a lawsuit against Urban Outfitters alleging breach of trademark and violations of the federal Indian Arts and Crafts Act. And so the "Navajo Hipster Panty" and "Navajo Flask" will have their day in court. The Navajo Nation holds numerous trademarks on the use of its name, including trademarks governing clothing and accessories; it views the Urban Outfitters' products as offensive in nature, but also as a threat to the established Navajo brand, which the Nation says stands for quality, Navajo-made jewelry, clothing, and accessories — not imported Urban Outfitters tat. For more legal analysis of the dispute when it broke in October, we spoke to fashion law and intellectual property expert professor Susan Scafidi . She said at the time:</p> <p>"From my personal perspective — Navajo is a people, not a pattern," says Scafidi. Trademark protection is strong, and the Navajo Nation's trademarks are detailed. "But legally, Urban Outfitters does have a couple of defenses. In the case of the Indian Arts And Crafts Act, they might very well say, 'Look, this is not an art or a craft.' And in the case of the trademark, they might say, 'Well, on those particular products there are other trademarks that indicate the source of the good, and that we believe nobody would be confused by the word Navajo.'" Urban Outfitters could argue that it is not using "Navajo" as a name or a trademark, but as a descriptor (although that might be difficult given that the chain offers 21 items for sale with "Navajo" in the name). "It's not a clear-cut issue," says Scafidi.</p> <p>[]</p> Meanwhile, Urban Outfitters can add another ethnic group to its list of people it has pissed off with its products: the Irish. Some of whom object to the retailer's St. Patrick's Day merch. "There are those few who use this day as an excuse to over celebrate," says the (awesomely named) Seamus Boyle of the (awesomely named) Ancient Order of Hibernians in America, "but that does not give you or anyone else the right to defame and debase a whole race of people by selling the garbage that you display in your stores." [] Philippines FHM has pulled its March cover after a public outcry over what it depicted — a light-skinned Filipina actor surrounded by dark-skinned models in bikinis, some of whom were made up to look black. In case you didn't grasp the whole black-people-as-anonymous-objectified-exotic-background thing, the cover line was, "Stepping out of the shadows." [] Kanye West's weird, beaded Michelin-man shoes found one retail buyer: Colette in Paris. Price upon application, natch. [@] V's new issue — the "Sports" issue — features Jennifer Lopez on the cover, wearing a boxing cup. []<p> Fashionista , "Is the model in this new (and awesome) Chanel lipstick film saying ‘Men hate women who read'?" Well, no, she's not. She is saying:</p> <p>"If you're sad or heartbroken, make yourself up, dress up, add more lipstick and attack. Men hate women who weep."</p> <p>It's a quote from Coco Chanel.</p><p>Today in horrible, depressing news of how terrible people can be: Australia's Next Top Model judge, anti-bullying campaigner, television presenter, and former model Charlotte Dawson has been hospitalized in Sydney following an apparent suicide attempt that came after weeks of vicious bullying on Twitter. Speaking out against cyber-bullying in the media ironically made Dawson the target of an organized campaign of online harassment. Think hundreds of daily Twitter @ replies like:</p> And that is just a selection from the past 24 hours. Trolls sent Dawson grotesque photographs of dead bodies and mocked her for her for not having children. The numerous references to 9gag — a meme-sharing Web site that 4chan users have in the past to blame for their own trolling — suggests this campaign may have originated on 4chan. (That's the same site that once the parents of a 14-year-old boy who committed suicide with prank phone calls for a year and a half and turned a photo of his headstone into a meme.) <p> The abuse reached a peak after Dawson used publicly available information to contact one of her most persistent trolls, who turned out to be an employee of Melbourne's Monash University named Tanya Heti. Heti wrote a series of abusive Tweets directed at Dawson and any follower who defended her, repeatedly telling Dawson to "go hang yourself." Heti even identified a Dawson defender whose fiancé had committed suicide and Tweeted at her, "If I was your fiance I'd hang myself too #gohangyourself." Heti had made her work contact information available online, and Monash has reportedly suspended her with pay pending an investigation.</p> <p>In the wake of the Heti incident the abuse only got uglier. Late last night in Sydney, Dawson Tweeted, "Hope this ends the misery .." and "You win."</p> <p>Emergency services were called to her home and Dawson was admitted to hospital for observation. Her condition is unknown.</p> <p>The minister of police for the state of New South Wales says he thinks that the kind of bullying Dawson faced may be legally actionable, if any of the senders were, like Heti, located in Australia:</p> <p>[P]olice minister Mike Gallacher said he wanted the trolls "dragged out of their mother's basement and put before a court" following the Twitter attacks on the Australia's Next Top Model host.</p> <p>"These are sick minds we're dealing with," he said yesterday. "I'd be interested to see if they're still tough guys when they're in handcuffs." [...]</p> <p>Mr Gallacher said that "even a cursory examination of the comments made to Ms Dawson overnight reveals they are clearly offensive to a reasonable person, which is the test for any prosecution under Section 474.17 of the Commonwealth Criminal Code Act".</p> <p>That section refers to use of a "carriage service" to menace, harass or offend, with a maximum three-year jail term.</p> <p>University of Technology Sydney communications law expert Michael Fraser said those who attacked Dawson had committed criminal acts.</p> <p>"The online world is not above the law," Professor Fraser said.</p> <p>[]</p> Kim Kardashian and Old Navy have settled the lawsuit over the retailer's use of Kardashian lookalike Melissa Molinaro in an ad. Kardashian had that Molinaro's casting was intended to confuse customers into thinking she endorsed the chain; Old Navy by arguing that Kardashian's endorsement would have been worthless, anyway. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed. [] Yoko Ono may have collaborated with Swarovski on a line of key-themed jewelry — keys have been a motif in her art work since the 1960s — but that doesn't mean she approves of the fashion industry's materialism. "Consumerism is promoted by the industry," says Ono. "But creative young people don't neccesarily buy things off the rack." [] If you're half as into leatherwork , you'll probably find this video of someone making a Mulberry bag mesmerizing (even despite the Lana Del Ray soundtrack). [] Designer Scott Sternberg shot Josh Brolin (on Polaroid, like always) for the latest Band of Outsiders campaign. [] The new issue of Garage magazine has one cover by Juergen Teller featuring Rosse de Palma and the oldest tree in the world, a second by Nick Knight featuring Lindsey Wixson in a Roy Lichtenstein-inspired setting with text captions by Perez Hilton, a third featuring a new work by John Currin, and a fourth by Elmgreen and Dragset (not pictured). [Jezebel Inbox] Terry Richardson took some photos of Lady Gaga wearing a black feathered cloak outside a Chanel store in Finland yesterday, as you do. [] Alice Temperley tapped Lily Donaldson and her real-life sister Aurelia for this video for the brand's John Lewis line, Somerset. [] Suno launched a sneaker collection. The shoes are manufactured in Kenya, where co-creative director Max Osterweis grew up, and the soles are made from recycled rubber. Some of the proceeds will go to a Kenyan rhino and elephant sanctuary. [] You tell 'em, André Leon Talley. The Vogue editor and keen didn't like the Twitter that greeted Condoleezza Rice last night when she had the temerity to take the floor at the Republican National Convention with...lipstick on her teeth. Then Talley resumed Tweeting about the in Paul Ryan's speech. [@] To give you an idea just how calculated campaign clothing decisions are, Ann Romney's R.N.C. Oscar de la Renta dress was chosen in consultation with both Mitt Romney and senior campaign strategist Stuart Stevens. []<br> From de la Renta's pre-fall 2012 collection, the exact retail price of the dress is unknown. But the Financial Times notes that similar dresses from the designer cost between $2,090 and $2,490. []In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.<p>This is not good: über-cool hipster-y fashion chain Opening Ceremony's online boutique was hacked on February 16th, and the company didn't notice the malicious code until more than a month later, on March 21st. And even though it seems that the hackers "may have accessed the names, addresses, and credit card information of customers who purchased an item on our website during this period," according to the store, it chose not to alert customers to this fact until on May 4. Seriously? Three months after the fact, you see fit to let your customers know their credit-card data was compromised? What the fuck, Opening Ceremony? []</p> If you haven't gotten enough of Met Ball , here are some TwitPics from the event and its assorted after-parties. Coco Rocha and Alexander Wang proved especially diligent Tweeters, with Rocha sharing photos of the , Zac Posen and Amber Heard , and her , and Wang Tweeting shots of the , , , and . Fashionista has a round-up of those and other Tweets. [, @, @] Rihanna, for example, Twitpic'd this photo of Lala Anthony's cleavage. To be fair, Lala Anthony's cleavage is very impressive. [@] Are you interested in a rare chance to see some Steven Meisel prints up close? Are you really, really rich? Potential collectors are invited to make an appointment at the photographer's studio to view a selection of prints currently offered for sale. [] An Australian graffiti artist named R.J. Williams (no relation to the child actor, presumably) is threatening to sue Madonna for infringing upon his trademarked logo. Williams alleges that the logo used by Madonna's upcoming perfume and clothing line is too close to the logo for his company, The Massive Corporation, which he registered in Australia last year. [, ] Gisele Bündchen is the newest face of David Yurman. [] Trina Turk is doing a summery capsule collection for Banana Republic. Coco Rocha is the face of the line. "The Slim Aarons photo of ladies having drinks at the pool has been an inspiration for our brand," says Turk. []In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.This week, editors, socialites, celebrities and the daughters of celebrities helped define the style of the most fashionable city in the world at Paris Fashion Week.<p>For years Spanish pastry chef Jordi Roca has been creating desserts based on famous perfumes, and now he's released a meant to smell like one of his creations. Núvol de Llimona smells like a mix of milk cream, brown butter, and lemon sponge cake, the ingredients that go into his recipe for Lemon Distillation. He' been selling the $70 bottles at his restaurant, where he serves baked goods based on Lancôme's Miracle, Terre by Hermes, and Calvin Klein's Eternity (which consists of mandarin orange granita with orange flower gelée, basil, and a vanilla cream). Yet, there's still one fragrant dish that eludes him. "We've never been able to get Chanel No. 5 to taste good. Too many aldehydes," he says.</p> <p>Image via Dmitry Lobanov/.</p><p></p> <p></p> <p></p> • Brad Pitt's parents are moving in with him and Angelina Jolie over at Chateau Miraval, and will help raise the heaping mess of adorable kids. []<br> • Yay! Lady Gaga surprised 10-year-old Maria Aragon (who "Born This Way") during a radio interview! []<br> • Here is Kim Kardashian doing a keg stand. []<br> • New couple alert: Olivia Munn and Matthew Morrison. Does this mean she's stopped schtupping Justin Timberlake? []<br> • Unsolicited Uterus Update: Zoe Saldana is not pregnant. []<br> • Breaking: Joe Jonas gave Ashley Greene a vintage Chanel bracelet. []<br> • Paris Hilton and her boyfriend were seen shopping for engagement rings. []<br> • David and Victoria Beckham were invited to Prince William's wedding to Kate Middleton. The Obamas were not. []<br> • Dianna Agron and her boyfriend Alex Pettyfer have broken up, conveniently after their movie I Am Number Four hit theaters. []<br> • Did a steamy photo shoot contribute to Dianna Agron and Alex Pettyfer's breakup? []<br> • Do not read the comments on this post about Gabourey Sidibe's boyfriend unless you want spend the rest of the day fantasizing about punching a stranger in the face. []<br> • Shocker: When Angelina Pivarnick from Jersey Shore got engaged on the red carpet at an event recently, it was just a "publicity stunt." []<br> • Richie Sambora is searching for his future ex-wife. Any takers? []<br> • "Her second album, 21, remains at number one in the albums rundown, and thanks to the ongoing success of her debut, 19, and hit single "Rolling in The Deep," Adele becomes the first artist since the Beatles in 1964 to score two albums and two singles in the top fives of both album and singles charts in the same week." []<p>Queen Latifah says plus-size "is a word we need to bury at this point." Promoting her just-announced line for HSN, Queen Latifah said her collection will feature plus-size clothes but is not a plus-size line because "it's for all sizes." The line, to be called Queen, will launch in August and will include sweaters, jeans, leggings, T-shirts, handbags, and clip-in hair extensions. "The truth is," she says, "we all would like to wear the same clothes. We all want to wear beautiful, fly clothes no matter what size you are, and so for me it was important to match with a company that understood and respected that ideal." In fact, this is part of why the actress — who prefers to wear Prada, Louis Vuitton, Donna Karan, Ralph Lauren, Carmen Marc Valvo, and Gucci in her own life — hasn't ventured into fashion until now. "I felt like larger girls were not respected, even though we are huge consumers. I felt the marketplace didn't respect us in the way it should. I was not going to step out with a clothing line that didn't respect a fuller-figured woman or a curvaceous woman, and really all women." []</p> Meanwhile, HSN is pulling the toucan brooch from the Iris Apfel jewelry collection that was last week to be a copy of a brooch by the designer Hanna Bernhard. HSN admitted that the Apfel collection was never intended to be anything other than knock-offs of Apfel's own favorite pieces. "Iris Apfel's collection for HSN is intended to share her interpretations of some of her vintage jewelry pieces. Mrs. Apfel explained to HSN that, like many of her pieces, she purchased her toucan brooch from a flea market and believed it was a vintage piece. As we have discovered that this is not a vintage piece, the brooch will be removed from the collection." [] We admit we do not entirely understand Giovanna Battaglia's Cannes dress. [] On the left, a Rodarte for Target dress, designed in 2009 and currently on sale for $15.74. On the right, a Guess by Marciano dress, new in stores and priced at $168. Isn't the point of a knock-off that it's cheaper than the original? [] Chanel Iman and Fei Fei Sun are the latest faces of DKNY Be Delicious perfume. A fragrance campaign without a white girl in it — there's something you don't see every day. []<p>Polo Ralph Lauren's long run of record-breaking profits may have ended. For the first quarter, the company's profits fell by 36%, year-on-year, to $73 million. (For basis of comparison, from the first quarter of '09 to the first quarter of '10, Polo Ralph Lauren's profits by a whopping 153%.) In fact, the company had such an incredible run of good numbers last year that although Ralph Lauren made just under $1 billion by selling a chunk of his stock in July, if he'd till just November, he could have made $1.25 billion. That's how quickly the company's value was rising. So, what were the main culprits? The cost of cotton is high — although it has been nearing historic highs for about a year now — and the earthquake in Japan disrupted retail sales in that country. Operating expenses rose 12% overall. Also, and just because we can, let's blame excessively Photoshopped ads. [, ]</p> Abbey Lee Kershaw rocks a combination bright green and smoky eye on the new cover of Vogue Japan. [] And Isabeli Fontana is looking pretty smoking — and not a little like Linda Evangelista — on the cover of Vogue Paris. [] Something called Dorian magazine exists, and it put Baptiste Giabiconi on its cover. Check out that Situation-worthy pouf, and the feather boa. [] The new issue of Richardson magazine features Stoya (shot by Steven Klein) and her extremely impressive abs on the cover. Inside is an essay by photojournalist Tim Hetherington about sex, death, and the sexualization of war. (Hetherington was recently killed in Libya.) Editor Andrew Richardson has this theory on why fashion magazines have been getting, to use Style.com's phrase, "more porny": "I think part of the reason for all of that, too, was that magazines have, in the last decade or so, become more and more the creatures of their advertisers. You'd sign up for a shoot, and find out that 90 percent of it was going to be dictated to you. 'Credits.' I think people began leaning on sexuality as a way to make the images exciting, in an environment where there wasn't as much room to be creative with the fashion." [] Anthropologie knocked off those orthopedic slide sandals (popular among hipsters) made by Worishofer. []<p>Today's best comments are just happy to see you.</p><p>• Best Comment Of The Day in response to :</p> <p>You wouldn't scoff at this ban if you had seen whole communities destroyed by Chanel No5.</p> <p>• Best Comment Of The Day in response to :</p> <p>I suppose on one level these seminars and their proponents are entirely correct: their techniques will help you meet women.</p> <p>But what happens to you after that is, legally and medically speaking, entirely your own fault.</p> <p>• Best Comment Of The Day in response to :</p> <p>You may take her money, but you'll never take her dignity.</p> <p>Because she has none.</p> <p>• Best Comment Of The Day in response to :</p> <p>It's always illuminating to me when the debate goes something like this:</p> <p>Dr. Qualified to Comment on Medical Procedures: "This is a good idea, because of facts. This will reduce the number of Bads by this much, and increase the Goods by this much. This is based in science knowledge which I am ready to discuss."</p> <p>Morality League Representative: "This is a sin! To members of my league! We think it is wrong based on our feelings about lady parts!"</p> <p>Dr. Qualified: "This is a major problem within the field of Science Medicine. This new solution will save money, while it is reducing harm. Here are charts, with percentages."</p> <p>Morality League: "LADYPART SIN FEELINGS!"</p> <p>Rinse, repeat, bang your head against the desk as necessary.</p> <p>• Best Comment Of The Day in response to :</p> <p>Luckily, private insurance AND medicare cover penis pumps, implants, and hard on pills. Men don't seem to have to accept impotence as God's plan for them.</p> <p>• Best Comment Of The Day, also in response to :</p> <p>The GOP seems to treat all women like the The Girl Who Wouldn't Talk To Them In High School, lumping every single American female into the sad memory of the young woman who wanted nothing to do with them in when they were 17.</p> <p>Just thinking about TGWWTTTIHS makes the GOP so angry, so bitterly hurt even after all these years, that they do anything they can to get her attention. They propose bills that they hope will hurt her, or make her life so terrible that when she hears they passed it, she'll be forced to remember their pudgy young faces and recall how cold, how unjustly, awfully mean she was to them. She turned them down for prom! The PROM! She DEBATED them in government class, offering up her stupid, foul liberal opinions, even when no one asked for them! She laughed all the time with her girlfriends and traveled to the city on the weekend, and never once invited the GOP. Not once. She read books from weird, foreign authors and went to Sarah Lawrence and, ugh! Just thinking about that place makes the GOP burn with alkaline anger!</p> <p>She wouldn't even look at me in the halls, the GOP still screams sometimes, late at night in their office. She wouldn't even look at me!</p> <p>They remember the time she came to school crying because Jimmy Smith tried to go to far with her on a date, and their lips twist into a mean smile, because if they couldn't have her, then any man should be able to forcibly take her, after all she was nothing more than a terrible slut who deserved all bad things that came to her.</p> <p>They redefine rape, hoping that this will finally teach her the lesson that she never was able to learn—that the things that happen to her are her fault! They're her fault because she insisted on being different, on doing whatever she wanted; she insisted on not listening to the GOP!</p> <p>They restrict birth control because they bet that she's been on it for years, they vote down the Lilly Ledbetter act because they heard from an old classmate that TGWWTTTIHS works at a bank, and they want her to collect a lesser paycheck every week, just to remind her that her real place is in the home, with them.</p> <p>They take every chance they get to go on Fox News or CNN, hoping that it plays in the background at her bank, hoping that she sees them and feels the regret that she should, hoping that she notices. They smirk and scowl, hoping she sees their disapproval of her life.</p> <p>Sometimes, when its late at night and everyone is asleep,the GOP sneaks into their office and pulls open the drawer that hides their High School yearbook, and they stare at the picture of TGWWTTTIHS, and sometimes, just sometimes, they feel a weird, tight pull in their chests and they feel......sad. But every time they slam the book shut, and think about all the power they have, all the ways they can continue to hurt her, they smile.</p> <p> <br> Reminder: Rather than emailing us your daily comment nominations, we'd like you to submit them in the tips box at the top of the page. So send us your nominations via that box — complete with the outstanding comment's URL — and tag your nomination . (Replying to a comment with "" does not work.) From here on out, we'll mine through the brilliance via the .</p> <p>Use to report comments that you feel the editors/mods should be aware of. Try not to respond to/approve/promote trollish comments in the threads — instead, just post the comment on the page, the same way you'd post a comment on or on the page, and the editors/mods will take care of it.</p> <p>For meetups, use the tag page!</p> <p>[Image via ]</p><p>Today's best comments are in the bag.</p><p>• Best Comment Of The Day in response to :</p> <p>It is most than just a purse ... it's my food budget for a year.</p> <p>• Best Comment Of The Day in response to :</p> <p>Script for Ouija</p> <p>Setting: A 13 year old's slumber party.</p> <p>Jennifer: You're moving it!<br> Jessica: I am not moving it!<br> Katie: Guys! Shh! Listen to the spirits.<br> Becky: *sitting on the sidelines* You guys! We shouldn't be doing this!<br> Katie: Shut up, Becky.<br> Jessica: Okay, okay, okay. Ouji Board: will I marry Robert Pattinson?<br> Jennifer: You can't! He's dating Kristen Stewart!<br> Jessica: I'm asking the board.<br> Becky: *getting weepy* You guys! I'm scared! Can't we play something else or watch a movie?<br> Katie: Oh my God, shut up Becky!</p> <p>Repeat for and additional 89 minutes, 45 seconds.</p> <p>• Best Comment Of The Day in response to :</p> <p>Ok people, once again, repeat after me:</p> <p>If I have to pressure/force/convince/cajole/issue an ultimatum/fake a pregnancy/call 911 to get someone to marry me, I do not want to by married to that person.</p> <p>Repeat as many times as necessary.</p> <p>• Best Comment Of The Day, also in response to :</p> <p>"911, what is your emergency?"</p> <p>"Yes, hello? Yes, my boyfriend will not propose to me?"</p> <p>"Excuse me?"</p> <p>"Well you see, we've been together 5 years now and he's never proposed!"</p> <p>"I see m'am. Can you put him on the phone?"</p> <p>....</p> <p>"Hello?"</p> <p>"Yes, Sir? Are you this woman's boyfriend?"</p> <p>"Yes."</p> <p>"Sir, I have one thing to say to you... Run. Run and don't look back."</p> <p>"Thank you for the advice."</p> <p>"To serve and protect Sir."</p> <p>Click.</p> <p> <br> Reminder: Rather than emailing us your daily comment nominations, we'd like you to submit them in the tips box at the top of the page. So send us your nominations via that box — complete with the outstanding comment's URL — and tag your nomination . (Replying to a comment with "" does not work.) From here on out, we'll mine through the brilliance via the .</p> <p>Use to report comments that you feel the editors/mods should be aware of. Try not to respond to/approve/promote trollish comments in the threads — instead, just post the comment on the page, the same way you'd post a comment on or on the page, and the editors/mods will take care of it.</p> <p>For meetups, use the tag page!</p> <p>[Image via ]</p>In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.<p>Economists in Europe studied anorexia and body image. You will be shocked, shocked that they concluded in part that the "social and cultural environment" influences how women feel about their bodies, our understanding of what comprises an "ideal" body, and our behaviors:</p> <p>The first-ever economic analysis of anorexia, studying nearly 3,000 young women in the UK and the rest of Europe, found that the social and cultural environment influences decisions by young women to starve themselves in search of what they perceive to be an ideal body shape.</p> <p>The researchers from the London School of Economics and City University London say that anorexia appears to be a socially transmitted disease, and they therefore argue that greater regulation of fashion and advertising imagery would have a public health benefit, because it would ease some of the social pressure to be skinny and "perfect": </p> <p>"Government intervention to adjust individual biases in self-image would be justified to curb the spread of a potential epidemic of food disorders," they write in their paper, to be published in the academic journal Economica later this year.</p> <p>"The distorted self-perception of women with food disorders and the importance of the peer effects may prompt governments to take action to influence role models and compensate for social pressure on women driving the trade-off between ideal weight and health."</p> <p>The etiology of anorexia (and all eating disorders) has been a focus of research and debate; but for whatever portion of the illness is socio-culturally linked, greater body diversity in fashion and ads can hardly be a bad thing. []</p> In 1972 for its U.K. launch, Cosmopolitan put together this nifty and totally not-cringe-inducingly-sexist ad. It billed itself as "A sensational new magazine for women who are interested in men, love, fashion, food, men, travel, films, beauty and themselves … and men." [] Hussein Chalayan is incorporating palladium into some of his new collection because of a partnership with the International Palladium Board. As the sages of 20th Century Steel Band once put it, everyone's got to make a living. [] Best Coast's Bethany Cosentino (apparently this is some kind of a musical band) is "designing" a clothing line for Urban Outfitters. This apparently explains the high-waisted romper with tummy windshield wipers at left. [@] Leandra Medine, who recently announced her engagement (and spurred a commenter among weird, angry people who apparently felt betrayed by her decision to have a romantic life instead of just being repellent forever), is on the cover of society digest Avenue magazine. Inside, she doesn't name her fiancé, but says he is her long-time, on-again-off-again boyfriend who works in finance. She says she's been talking with Prabal Gurung about a wedding dress. [] These photos of a Chanel Classic Flap bag being made are pretty cool, if you're a bag-making nerd (which we ). What's vomitous is reading all the fawning quotes from editors who probably got their $3k bags for free, talking about how "timeless" and "must-have" and, er, "infamous" (Louise Roe of Glamour, that word does not mean what you think it means) they are. "To own a Chanel classic flap makes you feel that you are a part of something bigger than just a handbag." Eyeroll. []In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.<p>Just as you were getting up this morning Rihanna was on the princess phone telling her bestie Katy Perry about the non-stop fuckathon she'd just enjoyed at Ashton Kutcher's place. We're guessing. Photographed pulling into the driveway of his LA home late last night, complete with security detail, the singer had a half-assed sleepover and was spotted creeping back out circa 4am. Sure, this doesn't mean that they were hanging out of each other all night but they've never seemed to be extremely close friends and how often do randoms get together for chaste first dates or deep conversations over chardonnay and Brie post-midnight? Exactly. Though Ashton is said to be dating Lorene Scafaria I'm calling booty call on this one. If I had a gavel I'd be using it right about now. []</p> <p>Gene Simmons is getting on the pointless, yet mildly entertaining, musician feud bandwagon by saying that Rihanna's a total show pony and little more. "We're sick and tired of girls getting up there with dancers and karaoke tapes in back of them," he said. "No fake bullshit. Leave that to the Rihanna, Shmianna and anyone who ends their name with an A." Damn those girls, amirite ladies? Pretty rich coming from the grown-ass man who still gets around in capes and kabuki drag. []</p> <p>It seems that Chris Brown's revived career is officially a thing, because he's teamed up with Nicki Minaj on the third track to be released from her sophomore album, "Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded" – co-dependent anthem "Right By My Side." Le sigh. []</p> <p>Rehab, schmehab, The Situation is totally dedicated to turning his life around — so long as it doesn't impact on any other aspect of his party-hard lifestyle. "Mike doesn't want to give up his paid club promotional appearances: he loves the attention that he gets from the ladies and the money is great," says an enabler. "Mike leads a very expensive life and he doesn't want his lifestyle to suffer because of his decision to go to rehab. He is very upset that stint in rehab has become public knowledge, because he doesn't want it to affect his bottom line. Mike's brother handles his club appearances and he has been telling club managers that Mike has no plans on giving up the nightlife." []</p> <p>Madonna has set the bar high, and a little creepy, when it comes to any potential suitors. "It's about finding a man you can look up to, and comparing them to archetypes that I obviously adore — John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever, Bruce Lee, Abraham Lincoln," she said. "I name people who I look up to and admire. I compare the object of my affection to all these people." Her current boyfriend, Brahim Zaibat, must be quite the disco dancing, presidential martial arts enthusiast. That, or he's just great in bed. []</p> <p>Susan Sarandon says that woman in Hollywood can still be desirable at the age of 65, as long as they can manage to sidestep the near-inevitable drug and alcohol addictions. "I'm happy to be considered desirable. I love it!" she said. "It's true there aren't that many good parts. I've had my disappointments. It's hard to be in this business and not be an alcoholic or a drug addict or bitter as an older woman." []</p>It's — Vogue's annual "Shape" issue, and the cover Rihanna Tweeted about January. First reaction? Annie Leibovitz clearly mixed up her mood boards, because this looks like an outtake from — Riri is looking very Ariel the Little Mermaid. Only in skintight Chanel, natch.<p>Rihanna Tweeted, and has since deleted, that she was shooting her second cover of American Vogue with Annie Leibovitz. Just like she did last time! Timing would suggest this is a December cover. [@]</p> Grace Jones says she enjoyed Phillip Treacy's show at London Fashion Week because what the milliner makes is so much more than hats. "They're not even hats really — they're art head pieces. You don't even have to put them on your head!" [] Here's a look at Valentino's costumes for the New York City Ballet. []<p> is denying the reports that it has been approached to make 's wedding dress — but if McQueen were the chosen brand, it's unlikely the house would be permitted to confirm it to the press. The Daily Mail writes that Middleton "is thought to have picked the designer after being impressed by a modern silk strapless gown made for the 2005 wedding of Sara Buys to Prince William's step-brother, Tom Parker Bowles." <br> And, as Cathy Horyn points out, why shouldn't it be Alexander McQueen? The house is thoroughly British, and McQueen was probably the best British designer of his generation. He regularly took inspiration from British history and tailoring in creating his collections — a tendency his successor, Sarah Burton, shares. Middleton, who used to work as a buyer for a retail chain, also knows her industry, and while the McQueen brand is popularly seen as "edgy," among fashion folk it's pretty much universally loved. [, ]</p> Here's a first look at Blake Lively's Chanel campaign. Quoth the girl who gossips: "I've just always believed you should put a lot of positive out there. When I have bad days, I just eat lots of chocolate ice cream and dance to the ‘Lion King' soundtrack. It's really odd, but it's true." Hakuna matata, friends. [] Kate Winslet is on the April cover of British Vogue's April issue. []<p>C'est un SCANDALE: the identity of the man who fathered Linda Evangelista's four-year-old son has now, via court filings, been revealed. It is not, as the O.G. supermodel had claimed vaguely in interviews, "a New York architect." The father is in fact François-Henri Pinault, the French businessman and longtime rival of LVMH's Bernard Arnault. Pinault heads up the $28 billion luxury conglomerate PPR. You know — he's the guy who owns Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, Bottega Veneta, Stella McCartney, Alexander McQueen. And he's the guy who is married to Salma Hayek, with whom he has a four-year-old daughter. The name finally came out when Evangelista made a court filing to seek some kind of support agreement with Pinault. He has so far been unresponsive, and was a no-show at their court date. Have to say, Evangelista — who still isn't commenting — was pretty damn discreet about the whole thing for a long time. []</p> Emma Watson is on the August cover of British Harper's Bazaar. [] Hussein Chalayan's first major museum retrospective opens this week at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. The Cyprus-born, London-based avant-garde designer's universe is "a really strong universe. But it doesn't impose, it proposes," said chief curator Pamela Golbin. [] Two new images from Chanel's partially-leaked fall campaign have now hit the Internet: in both, Freja Beha Erichsen poses in a photo booth, but in one she's disguised as a cat, and in the other, she has "Il n'ya pas de mode si elle ne descend pas dans la rue" written on her forehead with a marker. ("There is no such thing as fashion if fashion doesn't hit the streets.") Carine Roitfeld, the recently (allegedly!) fired editor-in-chief of Vogue Paris styled. [] Calvin Klein is launching a new CK One fragrance: CK One Shock. It hits stores in September, and rather than being unisex like its parent, it comes in men's and women's formulations. [] Sometimes people spend so much money on good-looking fake handbags — think $300 — that they convince themselves they must actually be real. The Wall Street Journal has an interesting side-by-side interactive graphic comparison of real and counterfeit Hermès and Chanel bags. (The funniest part is where Hermès claims that the company uses a "specific number of stitches on the clochette," which is the little leather flap that hides the keys to the bag's lock. "The manufacturer will not disclose this number," notes the Journal, but if you have eyes, you can clearly see that that totally special, mysterious, top-secret proprietary number of stitches is...eight.) [] Here are Chanel's very puuuuuuuur-ty nail polishes for fall. []<br> And if you feel like you've been seeing wilder and wilder nail colors lately, the Times asked seven folks to weigh in on why this might be so. (We happen to be among them; we it's all about the falling price of a manicure and the ever-expanding idea of what counts as "basic" grooming for women. If you're a fly gal, get your nails did — and by the way here's a place where a Vietnamese lady will do them in ten minutes for for $10 including tip.) Of course, brightly colored nails are hardly new — Sally Bowles paints her nails green in Isherwood's The Berlin Stories. The most interesting is probably the art history professor Angus Trimble, who , "[U]nusual fingernail décor is certainly not confined to the present time. Nor did rich reds and hot pinks ever dominate, except in American cinema through the 1950s and 1960s. In fact, several of Picasso's portraits of Dora Maar explicitly refer to the first Parisian fad for bright green, as well as the shaping of long nails into slightly sinister, surprisingly sharp points." []<p>Dolce & Gabbana is discontinuing its lower-priced D&G line. The , just shown in Milan, will be the brand's last. Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana say that they have long looked to Chanel, with its one brand, as an example for business. D&G's many licenses, including perfumes and eyewear, will gradually be phased out. The closure of D&G had been rumored as far back as this March. At the time, retailers expressed surprise. One , "I don't understand, because D&G is a line that makes €400 million [$531 million], it's young and flexible and it's doing really well. It's a lot to ask retailers. In my case, for example, I don't carry the signature line, but I've never missed a season with D&G." []<br> In contrast: for the first time in years, Versace will hold a fashion show for its diffusion brand Versus, which is designed by Donatella Versace and Christopher Kane. Versace relaunched the line five seasons ago, and has recently taken Versus production in-house. []</p> Nars held a contest on its website where people could upload photos of themselves replicating makeup looks by François Nars. Users then voted for their favorites, and would you guess who won? A gay boy from Amarillo, Texas, named Kale Teter. That's him in one of his winning looks on the right. Teter wins makeup, and a position on the Nars team at next February's New York fashion week. Congratulations! [] $230 Kermit sweaters for hipsters are a thing that now exists. [] Designer couple Jeffrey Costello and Robert Tagliapietra show off their workroom and closet in this piece (there's video!). "The East Village of the '80s provided the perfect space for their 'gay prep tribe identities' to emerge. 'I love the early '80s,' Jeffrey says. 'That, to me, is when I came of age.' For him, there is something 'elegant and beautiful about the seediness of the time,' when they were living out of Keith Haring's old apartment, passing Anne Bass in the middle of the night with armfuls of leather jackets as she left Ramrod picking things out of garbage cans. Characters lined up outside club doors had monumental style; once, Jeffrey recalls, he saw '80s fixture Sally Randall working the door at Palladium — and refusing to let Andy Warhol in, he says, 'because he was wearing beige.'" []<p> Those of you who are not already in possession of the November, 2005, issue of Threads magazine, which had for a cover a step-by-step exploration of the inner workings of the Paris-based brand's famed unstructured, quilted, cardigan-style jackets might find this video useful. It pretty much covers the basics.</p><p>Puerto Rican model Joan Smalls made the cover of Vogue Italia, which she called evidence that "dreams do come true" on Twitter. Smalls was the at New York fashion week this season, and is the current face of Chanel. The cover editorial, which the magazine has been hyping with animated GIFs, looks like a typical Steven Meisel OTT-extravaganza — peep those green and tiger-stripe acrylic nails. Smalls is the first black model to grace the cover of Vogue Italia since the magazine's famous of July, 2008. [@]</p> Stefano Pilati is out at Yves Saint Laurent. Rumors of the designer having fallen from favor at the house have been circulating for several seasons; accessories were said to be selling better than Pilati's actual clothes, which were sometimes received with rave reviews (and other times...not so much; Anna Wintour was giving Pilati withering assessments for his reliance on the color black as far back as the filming of The September Issue documentary). Executives at PPR, YSL's parent company, say they wish Pilati well. Earlier this month, Pilati frankly to Vice magazine about the difficulties he'd faced "putting all the bullshit aside" in taking over the creative direction of such an esteemed brand: <p>"YSL — unfortunately for me — is already strongly defined in people's imaginations. Pretty much everyone has an opinion about it. You make flounced skirts, they ask for capes; you do capes, they ask for tuxedos; you do the tuxedo, they want it more 1970s; if you go 1960s, no, you should have gone to the 1980s."</p> <p>Hedi Slimane, the erstwhile Dior Homme designer who threw fashion over for photography in the early 2000s, is said to be a frontrunner to replace Pilati. []</p> Jil Sander is officially coming back to lead the company she founded in 1968 — for a third time. Sander sold a controlling stake in her namesake label to Prada, then infamously clashed with company C.E.O. Patrizio Bertelli, who fired her, asked her back, then fired her once again. Now that Prada no longer owns the label, and now that Raf Simons is leaving, Sander is free to return. []<br> The industry reaction to the move seems mostly positive. Speaking of Sander's recently ended Uniqlo collaboration, the editor of Vogue Germany says, "I think the lines of people waiting outside Uniqlo showed there's still a fascination for fashion from Jil Sander." [] Marcel Nars, François Nars' pet bulldog and occasional makeup model/mascot, has died. [] This is (a grainy cell-phone photo of) one of Carla Bruni's old modeling comp cards. []Karl Lagerfeld staged his Spring 2013 collection in Paris this morning and OMFG WTF IS THAT A PURSE? Yes. That is a Chanel bag. It screams, I AM A CHANEL BAG GUYS LOOK AT ME. Like, where is she going? To a pool inside of Cirque du Soleil? To a beach in the future? Is this real life? It is. It is real life, and Karl Lagerfeld has a purse for you. Question: Who will be the first to rock this ridiculousness? Bryan Boy? Gaga? Place your bets, folks. Meanwhile, there were some other things in the show…<p>Seventeen has at last, in an oblique kind of way, responded to the controversy sparked in April when a 14-year-old from Maine started an online petition calling out the magazine's over-use of Photoshop. That petition, started by a middle school student named Julia Bluhm, quickly went viral and was by over 84,000 people. When Bluhm and some other feminist activists went to the Hearst building to the petition personally, Seventeen and its editor, Ann Shoket, would give only a boilerplate via a spokesperson. (It began, "We're proud of Julia for being so passionate about an issue.") The demonstration, though it attracted only five teenaged protesters, was covered by Nightline, the New York Times, and numerous other national news outlets.</p> <p>Bluhm and the other signatories were seeking a commitment from Seventeen to no longer alter its photographic subjects' appearance with Photoshop, and to publish one unretouched photo spread per issue. Despite the unusual level of media attention, the magazine was slow to react, and when it did, came off as defensive and somewhat miffed. Shoket and other Seventeen staffers were said to feel "aggrieved" by the way the issue had been raised, and when asked directly about her magazine's airbrushing policies, the editor to the Times, "I don't want to get into the specifics of what we do and don't do."</p> <p>Now, Shoket has used her August editor's letter to — well, not to actually act on anything mentioned in Julia Bluhm's petition, but to more warmly acknowledge its existence. Shoket, rejecting the charge that Seventeen has some issues when it comes to unrealistic retouching, claims that while the magazine does retouch its photos, "we never alter the way the girls on our pages really look." In a "Body Peace Treaty" handily enumerated in bullet points, Shoket says that Seventeen will "Never change girls' body shapes or faces. (Never have, never will.)" The "treaty" is basically an eight-point plan to maintain the retouching status quo. Shoket further claims that Seventeen's retouching has never in the past exceeded removing stray hairs or fixing errant folds in fabric — a claim that 84,000 people have already publicly questioned.</p> <p>So, a quick list of what Seventeen is not doing under the terms of this "treaty": it is not going to stop Photoshopping its models and celebrity subjects. It is not going to acknowledge that its reliance on Photoshop has ever been in any way problematic. It is not going to commit to publishing any unretouched photo spreads. Lame. []</p> Bar Refaeli stars in this new ad for her underwear line, Under.Me. The supermodel is lounging poolside in a long-sleeved t-shirt and a black thong, as you do, reading poetry and wearing thick, black-framed glasses when an urge to jump into the pool, book and all, suddenly overcomes her. The glasses, amazingly, stay on underwater. [] Rihanna talks about her ass in Harper's Bazaar. "I don't know if there's something going on with my body right now, but I'm eating everything in life!" she says. "I miss my ass. It just went away! I need a butt. I have an idea of one, but it's not living up to its full potential right now." [] Terry Richardson shot Querelle Jansen and Jonas Kessler as '60s rock stars stepping out of a Rolls Royce and greeting the paparazzi for Jimmy Choo's fall ads. [] Chanel endorsed NAIL ART for the first time ever at its couture show — by which we mean the Chanel models had two different colors of nail polish on their fingernails at the same time, not that they had some crazy Nicki Minaj 3-D shiznat. Nail polish maestro Peter Philips explains to Style.com: <p>Philips took the idea of the classic French manicure and gave it a touch of now, thus ushering in Chanel's first foray into fashion's continued embrace of the nail art revival. "When we were playing around with the idea of doing a nail polish, we evoked the idea of using two shades on one nail," Philips explained, employing a discontinued chrome color that launched in 2007 to outline the entire nail bed, rather than just the tip, which had been lacquered with two coats of May, a melon varnish from the Spring 2012 show.</p> <p>Dude, you did a version of . Just admit it. []</p> Suzy Menkes at the International Herald Tribune didn't really like the Chanel collection, saying it had "not enough energy for now": <p>the problem with this collection, for all its genteel and fragile beauty, is that it seemed dull — although there were lovely pieces, like a black velvet dress with a frilled pocket in the skirt, and pants in a patchwork of lace.</p> <p>The root problem was that this is not a moment to look back. It is time to clear the closet, strip everything down to clean lines and make decoration sparse.</p> <p>More than anything, however, we can't get past the misspelling of the name of Karl Lagerfeld's cat, Choupette, name in the very first graf. "Chupette" — come on, Suze. []</p> Poppy Delevigne, Eugenia Silva, and designer Matthew Williamson share the cover of Elle Mexico. [] U.K. drugstore brand Boots No. 7 is offering a Great Gatsby tie-in makeup collection. [] The New York Times Magazine has a photo essay featuring unworn dresses prepared for the late singer Amy Winehouse's abortive final tour. []<p>A Belgian senator is calling on the partners of government officials to quit having sex with them until they can compromise on a governing coalition. Another extremely serious protest idea: all Belgian men should grow beards.</p><p>Belgium held elections in June 2010, but after 241 days, the country still hasn't been able to form a government (that's its sad, lonely parliament chamber with nobody inside it, above) — only Iraq and Somalia have taken longer. According to the , a desperate country is now resorting to desperate measures — the beard protest was proposed in January, when actor Benoit Poelvoorde (who played the libertine Étienne Balsan in Coco Avant Chanel) issued the following rallying cry: "We have decided to stop shaving for as long as Belgium has no government. Let's keep our beards until Belgium rises again." It's not clear why Poelvoorde et al thought this would work (are Belgian elected officials afraid of facial hair?), but obviously it hasn't, because senator has a : "I call on the spouses of all negotiators to withold sex until a deal is reached. Have no more sex until the new administration is posing on the steps of the Palace."</p> <p>Sex strikes are an ancient idea — as the BBC points out, one is depicted in , a play from the fifth century BC which also taught me the ancient Greek word for "eight-sided dildo." The play is a comedy, and Temmerman says her suggestion is also a joke. Of Belgians' reaction to her recommendation, she says, "Ten to 20% who don't have a sense of humour were upset, saying 'This is really a disgrace, how can someone who is such a serious lady launch such a stupid idea?' It's hilarious that people take it so seriously." Okay, but female activists apparently staged a real sex ban in Kenya , and it had some effect — though maybe more as a PR move than an actual boycott. We could debate whether the idea of a is inherently sexist (painting men as sex-crazed and reducing women's political activism to their bedroom activities) or sort of proto-feminist (the women in Lysistrata actually hate going without sex just as much as the men do), but instead we'll leave you with the reaction of Belgian senator Catherine Fonck: "I do not want to take part in a sex strike. Politicians are not there to strike. On the contrary, politicians are there to arouse the country." Heh, she said arouse.</p> <p> [BBC]<br> [BBC]</p><p>Here is Lara Stone's latest Calvin Klein ad, sure to inspire pearl-clutch-y local news stories across the nation once it hits billboards and bus shelters. Can you imagine! Calvin Klein is clearly using sex to sell its jeans and underwear. At least there are no this time — that we can tell. []</p> In this behind-the-scenes video from the Chanel campaign, Saskia de Brauw and Joan Smalls climb rope ladders, pose on a pommel horse, and jump into and out of a pool wearing head-to-toe Chanel. [] Yeah, it is pretty weird that Natasha Poly is kneading her own boob in this DSquared2 ad, now that you mention it. [] The Daily brings our attention to this 1985 news clip featuring Azzedine Alaïa — and a View To Kill-era Grace Jones. The combination of those two, plus the voice of the preternaturally perky newscaster, is pretty awesome. [] Fashion illustrator Alexsandro Palombo of the blog envisioned some prominent figures in the fashion industry as "Simpsons" characters. [, ]<p>This sounds like pure fiction but, as we're not a court of law, let's run with it — Sharon Stone is being sued by her former nanny amid allegations of racism, religious persecution and first-degree bitchery. Which, if you image the actress to live life as Ginger, her character in Casino, like I do then it starts to sound downright plausible. Erlinda Elemen claims that Stone said Filipinos were stupid, yelled at her for being religious and banned her from reading the bible in the house. It gets better: She adds that Stone made fun of Filipino food, tried to take back overtime she had already paid her and ordered the nanny not to actually speak to the children lest they begin "to talk like you." Stone's attorney is calling it a piece of riveting not-such-a-fan-fiction: "This is an absurd lawsuit that has been filed by a disgruntled ex-employee who is obviously looking to get money any way she can." []</p> <p> As we know, Anderson Cooper is at his best when giggling about The Real Housewives and not delivering straight news reports. That's why his new show is kind of awesome. In the latest instalment, he kicked "human Barbie" Sarah Burge off stage after she tried to defend allowing her teenage daughter to get Botox. "I honestly have nothing more to talk to you about," he said. "I gotta be honest, I gotta just stop. I'm sorry." Snap! []</p> <p>If you want to know why Jenny McCarthy is posing for Playboy once more, the 39-year-old actress counters with a more valid question: Why the fuck not? Taking to Twitter, she thinks that MILFs are highly underrated and the world could use more middle-aged boob visibility. "Why should only 20 yr olds be considered sexy?" she wrote. "Let's (hear) it for the MILFs." Indeed. []</p> <p>Being so beautiful that you get paid for people to look at you may be a pretty sweet gig but it can put a bullet in your love life, according to Bar Refaeli. "Let's put it out there: No one hits on me. No one flirts with me. It's very sad, actually," she said. "A guy who comes up to me works. I hope that will happen every now and again." []</p> <p>It's hard as shit to secretly elope when you're famous, just ask Alec Baldwin. Staying on in Europe after shooting his Cannes documentary, people say ol' baby blue eyes will be marrying Hilaria Thomas. "They've been telling people they'll be spending time in Europe, and there's speculation they're going to get married," said someone. []</p><p>Says Britney Spears to Elle in the brand-new October issue:</p> <p>"I love my jeans and my sweats-I'm really just a tomboy at heart. So it's really hard for me to be like Kim Kardashian and be makeup-and hair-ready every time I go out of my house. I'm not a believer in that, you know? On the other hand, when you do wear those sweats, you're like, Oh God, I should step it up a notch."</p> <p>On Elle's Web site, this quote runs alongside a photo in which the magazine styled the singer in a pair of sparkly hot pants, a $3,795 leather jacket, and a gauzy layer of irony. []</p> Keira Knightley wears Chanel couture and one silver gauntlet on the cover of Vogue's October issue. [] Last night, the Blonds showed a typically and gloriously over-the-top collection of elaborate corsets to an audience that included everyone from Paris Hilton to Rico "Zombie Boy" Genest to the '90s trans porn star Allanah Starr. It was, in a word, fun. We noticed Grace Coddington carrying an advance copy of her memoir to the shows the other day. Turns out Coddington was even paging through it in the front row during Rag & Bone. [] Chris Benz announced at his spring presentation that he's moving to a slightly lower pricepoint — the "contemporary" section of the apparel market — for spring. That still means dresses in the $400 range at retail, but lower prices are always welcome. "We have such a great fan base," says Benz, "and there's so many people that love what we do, we really just want to give people that same lovin' back." []<p>what is the turning point when two famous people who are dating throw in the towel? do they run out of conversation & stare into the mirror? via web<br> SandraBernhard</p><p>Move over, paparazzi: street-style chroniclers can now command up to $1,000 for choice shots. But don't get too excited: we're talking the "Bloggers Walk" at Paris Fashion Week — and apparently these require pap-level aggression and commitment. In other words, more than a casual interest and a digital cam. []</p><p>In Manhattan, students at Stuyvesant High School — a prestigious public school — protested a new dress code by going to class in clothing the school would ban, including spaghetti-strap tank tops and short shorts.</p> <p>The rules have been prompting waves of objections by students, particularly now that summerlike weather has arrived and, many noted, the school's air-conditioning has proved to be less than reliable.</p> <p>Even before the protest on Wednesday, students had been listing their grievances in online forums and in The Spectator, the student newspaper, with many girls arguing that the rules, and the enforcement of them, were disproportionately aimed at them. They also complained about one solution that administrators had developed for offenders: making them wear oversize gray T-shirts.</p> <p>"We're going to overpower the gray T-shirts," said Madeline Rivera, 18, a senior, before walking into the school. "We're outnumbering them now."</p> <p>She said the rules seemed arbitrary, that staff members seemed to go after certain "body shapes," singling out girls whose bodies are "more curvy."</p> <p>They called the protest "Slutty Wednesday," ironically. The Times reports that some students carried "their own illustrated version of the dress code, complete with a red 'X' to reflect their opinion of the rules." So that's what those red X's we've been seeing everywhere mean! Signs make so much sense now. []</p> Karl Lagerfeld is collaborating on a holiday collection of makeup for Shu Uemura. The Chanel designer has long used the company's products to color in his fashion sketches. Graphic designers, tell us what the fuck is up with that horrendous logo in the comments. [] Today in Celebrities Getting Paid Money For Things: Alexander Skarsgard is now a face of Calvin Klein. [] And Jessica Chastain has been named the face of a new Yves Saint Laurent perfume called Manifesto. [] Liu Wen and Monika "Jac" Jagaciak share the July cover of Chinese Vogue. It is, somewhat astonishingly given the heights her career has attained in the five years since she began working internationally at age 13, Jagaciak's first Vogue cover. [] Harvey Nichols — the department store that brought you those walk-of-shame-themed TV ads — imagines you might pee your designer pants with excitement over its sale. [] Do you want to peruse the catalog for the Christie's auction of Daphne Guinness's clothes? Of course you do. So many gorgeous dresses, and so many size 37 shoes. []<p> The night mostly belongs to Coco Chanel, but also a little bit to Bill Clinton, since it's his birthday, too. In other words, if this night were a pie, Coco Chanel would get pretty much all of it and Bill Clinton would get that first "test piece" whose crust gets left behind in the pan.</p><p>Isabeli Fontana and Rohan Marley are planning a wedding in Ethiopia, where Rastafarianism — or at least Haile Selassie — was born. "Rohan told me we have to return to the roots so the marriage will last forever," says the model. Fontana and Marley have been dating since October; the former football player, coffee entrepreneur, and son-of-Bob-Marley's personal life is, to say the least, complicated. It's not clear whether he ever divorced his first wife, Geraldine Khawly, but during his 15-year relationship with Lauryn Hill, Hill referred to Marley as her husband. (Maybe not in the legal sense?) Hill and Marley have five children together, and last year just before Hill bore a sixth by another man. Fontana and Marley started Tweeting about their relationship during the last days of Hill's pregnancy. Fontana, meanwhile, who after H&M darkened her skin for its swimwear ads, has been married twice and has one child from each marriage. Interestingly, both Rohan and Fontana have sons named Zion. The couple has not set a date. Fontana's mother told the Brazilian magazine Veja, "I think everything is happening too fast but everything has a different rhythm with Isabeli." Suggested nicknames for the impulsive couple: Martana, Isahan, Robeli, Fontarley, Marsabel. []</p> Gisele Bündchen's sand-spackled ass stars on the cover of the new Vogue Paris. [@] Ban Ki-Moon is on the cover of L'Uomo Vogue. The issue is dedicated to African development. "All the pictures are made in a glamorous way — there is nothing sad, trashy or poor," says editor Franca Sozzani. "People may say that Vogue does not want to talk about sickness and poverty, but if we can give an uplifting image, it is helping people who would not have considered Africa at all." [] Here is Daphne Guinness singing Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit" at Arlene's Grocery with the band Element 4. []<br> She also did "Because The Night." []<br> "I wish I had practiced more than once!" Tweeted the heiress, who has classical training as a singer but never pursued the career. [@] Think your cat has the potential to be a model? Or at least the ability to sit still while wearing clothes? United Bamboo is doing another kitty fashion calendar, and is holding a cat-model casting in New York. [] Like this Peter Lindbergh photo of Christy Turlington, Naomi Campbell, and Linda Evangelista posing as Brooklyn gangsters in 1990? It's up for auction in London this week and could be yours for an estimated £15,000-20,000. [] Alber Elbaz, on the forthcoming Lanvin coffee-table book: "I thought that at a time like now, when the whole industry is about the six minutes of the show and a review that is being written in a taxi because then there is the next one, I thought, I'm going to show everyone how much effort goes into making a single dress. I wanted to show how many threads you have to put together to make one rose; how much thought goes into a button. I wanted to show a shoe in the factory in Italy being held like a baby by an old man and then attached to a machine as if it was going to the dentist. I wanted to show the jewellery. And I wanted to show the people. All the people. We had 3,000 pictures in total and we picked the ones we liked, of course, and then we went back to make sure that every single person involved is in the book, that nobody had been missed out." [] Fashionista noticed that Kim Kardashian has been dressing much more soberly since she and Kanye started dating. [] Chanel's cruise collection included models strolling through the gardens of Versailles in mini-crinis, pantaloons, and other Marie Antoinette-inspired get-ups, along with creeper shoes and candy-colored wigs. Karl Lagerfeld calls it, "Coco rock, not rococo." M.I.A.'s "Bad Girls" was the soundtrack. []<p>Awesome Chicago resident Tavi Gevinson talked to awesome Chicago exile Ira Glass about one of her upcoming publishing projects. No, not the book, not the freelance contributions to various publications, not the other book, not the website she's apparently launching with Jane Pratt: Gevinson revealed more details of her other forthcoming website "and occasional print magazine." It has a name! Rookie, and the site will be like a magazine in that the content will follow a different theme each month. Though she said she's not necessarily seeking what Glass called "alternative" girls, Gevinson said, "it will be subversive just in its honesty and the tone." And Miranda July is writing something for it. []</p> Lady Gaga did a sketch on Jimmy Kimmel Live about launching a children's line called "Gaga Googoo." Jimmy Kimmel: reaching for humor's low-hanging fruit since 2003. [] Karlie Kloss (who may or may not be one half of the hot new couple known as J.K. JoeKlo) is on the cover of the new Harper's Bazaar Australia. Patrick Demarchelier shot the photo. Back in February of 2008, Demarchelier shot the St. Louis-raised supermodel for her first major magazine cover: Teen Vogue, which she graced alongside Chanel Iman and Ali Michael. [] Constance Jablonski is the new face of Sonia Rykiel. [] Chloe Moretz and Hailee Steinfeld — just like Elle Fanning — are also crying on the new cover(s) of LOVE. [] Vogue Turkey's August cover is a vision in orange, with Milly Simmonds, Egle Jezepcikaite and Yana Sotnikova. []<p>Taylor Swift's February Vogue cover profile is online. Interesting tidbits include the fact that she knows the entire "Honey Badger" viral video off by heart. But there is sadly no record of this, because Swift asked writer Jonathan Van Meter if "her cursing could be off the record," and he obliged. Unlike honey badger, Taylor Swift do give a shit. Elsewhere in the piece, Swift says that the people she "really trusts" all have one thing in common: they were not cool when they were growing up. "If you know how to be cool in middle school, maybe you have skills you shouldn't," she says. "Maybe you know how to be conniving, like, naturally." And she shares her four rules for dating — one is that dudes can't be "too obsessed" with privacy (she invokes paparazzi specifically, but presumably dudes Swift dates also need to be un-privacy-obsessed enough to be resigned to the fact that she will eventually write a song and/or songs about them), and another is that they can't make her feel "like a princessy diva" for having security or other trappings of fame. "I don't have security to make myself look cool, or like I have an entourage. I have security because there's a file of stalkers who want to take me home and chain me to a pipe in their basement." []</p> Rihanna is in some more Emporio Armani underwear ads. [] Shaven-headed Alice Dellal is a face of Chanel and of Marc by Marc Jacobs this season. [] Chanel Iman is looking gorgeous on the new cover of L'Officiel Paris. [] The upcoming Yves Saint Laurent retrospective at the Denver Art Museum looks fantastic. [] OMG EVERYBODY KARL LAGERFELD HAS A NEW KITTEN IT IS NAMED CHOUPETTE AND ISN'T IT SOOOOOOOO CUTE KITTEH KITTEH FASHUN AWWWWWWW!!!1!!1! [@]<p>Hailey Clauson's lawsuit against Urban Outfitters for allegedly printing her image on t-shirts without authorization will proceed. Clauson's lawsuit against photographer Jason Lee Parry was dismissed on procedural grounds, but where Urban Outfitters is concerned the judge found that there is a case to answer for the unauthorized use of her image. Clauson and her parents the retailer for $28 million after taken for an obscure German fashion magazine called Qvest somehow came to adorn t-shirts that were sold at Urban Outfitters stores and online. Clauson turned 15 the month the highly sexualized photos were taken. Clauson, who celebrated her 17th birthday a few days ago, was most recently seen in the pages of Pop, being [NSFW]. []</p> A second employee has added her name to the $50 million lawsuit filed against Alexander Wang for alleged labor violations. Garment worker Flor Duarte alleges that she was forced to work 90-hour weeks in Wang's studio without required breaks or overtime pay, and that when she complained of the illegal treatment and filed a worker's compensation claim, she was fired in retaliation. Wenyu Lu, another garment worker, made similar allegations last week. [] J. Lo is on the cover of Vogue's annual "Shape" issue. The cover reminds us just a little of Rihanna's "Shape" issue cover from last year — ocean in the background, bright red in the foreground. [] Heidi Klum is on the other, non-Jessica Simpson, cover of Elle this month. She tells the magazine that she doesn't see the point in talking to the press about her separation from Seal. "People don't need to know who did what. I don't want to talk positively or negatively about the ups and downs that we had. Every couple goes through things. Unfortunately, we're in the public, so the highs are out there. But I don't think it's necessary — especially for our children — to have the lows being printed in magazines and talked about." [] Cameron Diaz's first Tag Heuer ad is out. []<p>16-year-old fashion model Hailey Clauson's parents are suing photographer Jason Lee Parry and chain retailer Urban Outfitters. Clauson's parents are unhappy with how Clauson, who turned 15 the month the pictures were taken, is depicted — and they're unhappy that photos taken for a magazine editorial have turned up on t-shirts for sale at Urban Outfitters.</p> <p>"She is posed in a blatantly salacious manner with her legs spread, without a bra, revealing portions of her breasts," the lawsuit . "The image of Teen in a spread eagle position making her crotch area the focal point of the image may portray a child in a sexually suggestive manner and may be in violation of one or more federal and/or state laws."</p> <p>In March of 2010, when the photos were taken for an editorial spread in an unnamed magazine, Hailey Clauson (who is not named in the suit, but who is without question the girl featured in the Parry that somehow made their to the Urban Outfitters t-shirt rack) was a promising young model with a few editorial credits (and some Forever 21 catalog work) to her name. But since then, she's become a breakout star. In September of 2010, Clauson walked for Calvin Klein, Gucci, Versace, Christian Dior, Lanvin, Hermès, Miu Miu, and Louis Vuitton. In October of 2010, she appeared in an editorial in Vogue Italia. Then she became a face of Gucci. That was all before she celebrated her 16th birthday. Now, Clauson appears regularly in various international edition of Vogue. As a model, Hailey Clauson sells the rights to her image for a living. And between March, 2010, and August, 2011, her image became a lot more valuable.</p> <p>If Parry thought he might monetize some old photos he had of a rising star before her big break, well, it wouldn't be the first time. Supermodel Lara Stone, who worked for years in relative anonymity before becoming a face of Chanel and an editorial star, a photographer who tried to cash in on her rising fame by selling old shots of her to French Playboy. Stone , and donated her "significant" damages to charity.</p> <p>The sexy-underaged-girl angle to the lawsuit is no doubt why this story is being covered in the tabloids, but — the appropriateness of taking a crotch shot of a 15-year-old and calling it "fashion" aside — the nature of the pictures really has little to do with it. This is a dispute over photo licensing. Clauson was willing to participate in an editorial shoot for a fashion magazine. That specific usage consent doesn't mean the photographer has the right to sell those same photos for commercial uses, like an Urban Outfitters t-shirt.</p><p>Now that Seventeen Magazine has listened to its readers and promised not to alter the faces or bodies of their models and "celebrate diverse beauty," teenage activists are setting their sights on Teen Vogue. But the second most popular teen magazine has made it clear that it doesn't care about being accessible. It's never been about that, anyhow. </p> <p>When 14-year-old Julia Bluhm met with Seventeen editors to discuss her , she was greeted with friendly smiles, cupcakes and, eventually, pretty solid success: EIC Ann Shoket included a "body peace treaty" in the magazine's August issue that vowed to "never change girls' body or face shapes," "celebrate every kind of beauty in our pages," "always feature real girls and models who are healthy" and "be totally up-front about what goes into our photo shoots" by showing behind-the-scenes photos on their .</p> <p>As we , Seventeen's response was delayed and somewhat oblique; the magazine didn't commit to publishing any unretouched photo spreads and pretty much just reconfirmed its current status quo. But the way Shoket acknowledged the desires of Seventeen readers was meaningful enough to encourage 17-year-old Emma Stydahar and 16-year-old Carina Cruz to ask Teen Vogue, the country's second largest teen magazine after Seventeen, to make the same public promise. From their :</p> <p>We're really excited, because Seventeen didn't just promise one un-photoshopped spread a month, they went even further by promising not to change the faces or body size of their models, to listen to readers' feedback and to celebrate beauty in all of its diverse shapes, sizes and colors.</p> <p>This is huge; the beginning of a revolution in the way girls see themselves across the girls' magazine industry. That's why we're now asking Teen Vogue to do the same.</p> <p>...</p> <p>Teen Vogue: Follow Seventeen's example and pledge not to alter any model's body or face and to celebrate beauty in all its forms.</p> <p>But, unlike Bluhm, the girls didn't feel welcome at the Teen Vogue offices — they said they were , who told them that they were clearly unfamiliar with the magazine and that they should "do their homework." Change.org's Shelby Knox, who is working with Stydahar and Cruz on the petition, told us that it was bizarre to see the girls walk out of the meeting with shocked looks on their faces. "It was like something out of a movie," she said. "But they're even more fired up now. They're going to keep pushing."</p> <p>Stydahar said that she used to read Teen Vogue when she was younger but stopped because it made her feel bad about herself. "I would think, 'I wish I had her waist, her legs, her hair,' but never, 'wow, beauty comes in all different shapes and sizes, and I'm so excited that fashion is available to everyone,'" she told us. But that's what makes Teen Vogue different from other teen magazines like Seventeen; it has never claimed that it wants to make fashion available to everyone or that it strives to be accessible. Teen Vogue's is a $300 Marc Jacobs backpack. The magazine's sports coverage involves they won't even disclose the price. And when's the last time you noticed a "real girl" in Teen Vogue that wasn't a celebrity, the daughter of a celebrity or just really stinking rich?</p> <p>"We feature dozens of non-models and readers every year and do not retouch them to alter their body size. We will continue to show real girls on the pages of our magazine," Erin Kaplan, Teen Vogue's Director of Publicity, wrote to us in an email, adding that the magazine does not retouch models to alter their body size either. But why would they have to? Let's check out the real girls featured in Teen Vogue's August issue. There's Franny Keller, the 14-year-old daughter of a Vogue stylist, Georgia Jagger — yep, Mick's daughter — and "classically trained ballet dancer, rising model, and budding actress" Margaret Qualley who is — shocker! — Andie Macdowell's daughter.</p> <p></p> <p>The profile on Qualley starts like this: "Jetting to Europe to hit the catwalk for major labels like Chanel and Valentino isn't exactly a day in the life of a typical teenager..." Exactly — and Teen Vogue is clearly disinterested in featuring real teenagers. I stopped reading Teen Vogue as a teenager when I realized that the magazine literally never featured anyone I could relate to — and when I realized how inadequate it never failed to make me feel. (Does anyone remember the magazine's "Room of My Own" feature? It makes me slightly green with envy just thinking about it right now, even though it no longer exists.) There's nothing wrong with profiling extraordinary role models, of course, but consider the young women features: the girls in the running to be the magazine's "real girl" cover star include a LGBTQ spirit crusader, teen pilot and soccer player. The real girls in Teen Vogue are always really, reeeeally privileged.</p> <p>The magazine's insistence on pretending that all teenage girls can afford $331 "Ashish maroon jackets" and enjoy sifting through the closets of their famous mother's closets is obnoxious but, in my opinion, not a huge deal in the scope of all of the various issues that make girls feel shitty. I guess I never expected Vogue's teenaged daughter to be all that different from her more mature but no less aspirational and impractical namesake. Plus, I know there are actually girls out there who care more about the Met Costume Institute Gala than $20 jeans that fit girls whose legs don't have the same circumference as their arms. Let them read Teen Vogue and the rest of us read Seventeen or .</p> <p>But it'll be interesting to see how Teen Vogue handles Stydahar and Cruz if — as Knox promised — they don't back down. Because even though Teen Vogue has "Vogue" in its title, it's marketed towards impressionable young women, not adults; it would be a PR disaster if the magazine straight-out admitted its lack of interest in, as the petition calls for, "celebrating beauty in all its forms." So my bet is that — unfortunately — it won't, no matter how much media attention the campaign receives.</p> <p>Stydahar and Cruz clearly aren't just looking for more super-thin and perfect African-American and Asian girls modeling clothes that cost more than a year's allowance; they're asking for the magazine to completely change its mindset. Most of all, they want to see Teen Vogue publicly promise that they actually care how the majority of their non-socialite readers feel when they read the magazine. We just really don't see that happening anytime soon.</p>In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.Zoe Saldana's Calvin Klein is (as one would expect from CK) simplicity incarnate. And yet, I kept coming back to this image. Would it have been stunning on anyone? Probably not — but this is.<br>Last night's Met Ball — aka the Oscars of the East Coast, aka Anna Wintour's baby, aka the fanciest red carpet in all of New York — brought out the models, the editors, and the actors to celebrate the opening of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's new Alexander McQueen show.Today we guide you through the magic that is Paris Fashion Week. As usual, some people looked like tools (cough, Jared Leto, cough), some looked like fools, and others came looking like pure fashion magic.<p> ran around Paris to get a fresh look at couture. Not the runway-shot, brand-manicured take we always get. The street-skulking, exhilarating flash-and-grab honesty of the perennial non-ticket-holder! (It's not our fault we don't know any PRs in Paris.)</p><p>So, like, being on the guest list is so over-rated anyway when you can still get shots like this, of Polish model Monika "Jac" Jagaciak and Swede Frida Gustavsson outside the Gaultier show.</p>Yesterday in Cap d'Antibes at sunset, Karl Lagerfeld presented Chanel's cruise collection — a bunch of clothes for ladies of sufficient means to spend their northern-hemisphere winters vacationing in warmer climes. Each look was accessorized with several million dollars in jewelry. "This is about the women of Cannes, women who mix bathing suits with real pearls and diamonds," Karl Lagerfeld. "After all, you can't wear fakes into the water." After all.<p>Beneath Jennifer Aniston's picture perfect/perennially single facade brews a terrible secret, one that is almost too horrible to imagine — she has a half-brother. Though she hasn't acknowledged his presence by rattling off everyone in her family tree every time someone puts a microphone in front of her, her dad John is said to have fathered some guy called Alex — or "AJ" — a 22-year-old "scruffy punk" who lives between Santa Cruz and northern Alaska. "He had a mattress in the back of his van, always had the same pair of pants with 20 patches on it and only had three shirts. He just hung out in his van on the beach, and would come in all sandy," said body piercer Samantha Robles of the "boho surfer." While their famous kin was off being all kinds of glamorous in LA, AJ's former neighbour Rich Koslowski said that Jen's brother and father enjoyed spending some quality time together playing Oscar the Grouch. "I figured out who he was when one day I saw the dad turn up. I had friends out back and AJ and John were going through the garbage can." Though the tabloids this week will no doubt pile on Jennifer for not performing her very own rags-to-riches style makeover, everyone says that AJ is perfectly happy with the way things are. "I think he's very happy being off the radar," said Samantha's boyfriend, Mateo. the cover of Australian tabloid New Idea for photos of "The Boy Jen Tried To Hide." []</p> <p>Whoever ends up playing the title role in any of the countless Whitney Houston biopics surely headed our way is in for a world of scrutiny – and Rihanna thinks she might have what it takes to stomach it. "My first song that I remember falling love with was a Whitney Houston song, 'I Will Always Love You.' It was really inspiring and it made me develop a passion for music, so really, she's partly responsible for me being here in this industry," she said. "That would be something that I would have to give my entire life to do, because I would really want to pull it off. That's a huge, huge role and whoever does it has to do a good job." []</p> <p>He's made a name for himself outside the fashion world by acting like a fucking tool at almost every opportunity, but the tide turned for Karl Lagerfeld after Adele fat and now he wants to make it up to her by sending her a whole bunch of Chanel bags. "He told his team to send Adele the best the fashion house have to offer after hearing she collected bags. He said he really wanted to make it up to her so they could maybe work together in the future. He could see her fronting a campaign for Chanel Mademoiselle bags when the contract with Blake Lively ends," said a source. "He's annoyed with himself because he ended up insulting her when he meant to compliment her. He thinks she's beautiful and calls her divine." Calling someone fat when you mean to compliment them — I hate when that happens! []</p> <p>After Zooey Deschanel Tweeted this old picture of her mom Mary Jo Deschanel it's immediately clear where the youngest actress of the family gets her everything. []</p> <p>Keen to get her post-probation career off the ground, Lindsay Lohan is pushing a boulder in front of the ol' love cave and saying no to dating and all of its partying and DUI possibilities while she prepares for her role in the Elizabeth Taylor biopic, Liz And Dick. The title clearly lends itself to a bit of wordplay, but after mentioning her love cave – © – I'm leaving it well enough alone. []</p> <p>Obvious product placement is the worst and ad execs are taking it to new sacrilegious heights by changing James Bond's tipple of choice from martinis to Heineken. That's right, not only is Daniel Craig contractually obliged to front for the ale in a new ad campaign, his iconic character will now be drinking it in place of shaken, not stirred spirits in the latest installment, Skyfall. "[Bond] is a perfect fit for us," said Lesya Lysyj, chief marketing officer of Heineken USA. "[He's the] epitome of the man of the world." Worst. []<br> Though Daniel Craig will still be totally hard-ass by parachuting into the London Olympics opening ceremony. []</p>In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.<p>In 2007, Gawker Media launched Jezebel.com; five years and over three million readers later, we figure it's time to celebrate. But rather than toot our own horn, we decided to honor 25 game-changing women who we think embody what we're all about: names you may know, names you should know, and names you'll be hearing much more about in the future. All are ladies who caught our attention, and we think they deserve yours. We rounded them up this week in New York where they were photographed by . </p><p>Today we're sharing their profiles and portraits; on Monday, you can check out the fancy Sears Portrait Studio-style group shots. In the meantime, click through and get to know 25 very inspiring ladies.</p><p>It's Met Ball day! That means tonight's the night all the top models, designers, celebrities, and assorted rich people in New York head to the Upper East Side to listen to Azealia Banks and drink prosecco in the Temple of Dendur. The event has raises millions for the museum every year, and fêtes the annual Costume Institute show — "Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations" opens Thursday, friends. Only the guest of honor and the only surviving member of this year's headlining duo may not be able to attend. Miuccia Prada reportedly fell off her "high-rise platform shoes" this weekend; when journalist Suzy Menkes met her at her hotel for an interview, Prada was "resting" and unsure if she would be able to make it to the ball. . []<br> Not entirely coincidentally, the house of Schiaparelli — which closed its doors in 1954 — is being prepared for a relaunch. Tod's owner Diego Della Valle acquired the Schiaparelli name and archives in 2006. He has hired model Farida Khelfa to serve as a brand ambassador (kind of like he hired Inès de la Fressange to lend a little glamour to the relaunch of Roger Vivier shoes in 2002); Khelfa will be wearing vintage Schiaparelli at the ball tonight. The company is still searching for a creative director, and says the first new Schiaparelli goods will hit stores next February. []<br> Sarah Burton of Alexander McQueen says, "I often look to Schiaparelli. I think she was an incredibly inspiring designer. We've had her on our research boards many times." []<br> Some of the pieces for this year's show were loaned to the Met by a 70-something rich lady in Michigan who has spent her life collecting rare, old couture. And, through some feat of (enviable?) self-repression, never wearing any of it. []<br> Here's a list of which designers are taking which models and celebrities. Azealia Banks is being dressed by Alexander Wang, and Proenza Schouler is taking Isabel Lucas. Poor Joan Smalls has to wear Balmain. []<br> "Sources" say that no less an authority than Anna Wintour has asked all of the Vogue editors to wear pink to the ball tonight. Shocking pink was Schiaparelli's favorite color. Reports Women's Wear Daily: "Wintour is said to have asked the magazine's editors to take pictures of themselves in their dresses, with a few different hairstyle options, and send them to the Vogue editor in chief." []</p> Coco Rocha is wearing a vintage yellow and hot-pink Givenchy couture jumpsuit that once belonged to Elizabeth Taylor. The model bought it at the auction of the late actor's things last December for $3250. It's not quite pristine, says Rocha. "If you look carefully, you can see the suit has this very faint red wine stain on it. After I had it cleaned I took it to show the editors at Vogue and we could still see the stain. We all agreed that since it was Liz Taylor's wine stain, it's OK to wear as is." [] As for the small matter of the actual show? Apparently, it involves a film directed by potential imminent Gatsby-ruiner Baz Luhrmann, in which the Australian actress Judy Davis — playing Schiaparelli — has a conversation with Prada. [] Meanwhile in London, the Victoria & Albert Museum is readying for opening an exhibition called "Ballgowns." These are some of the gowns featured. [] Natalia Vodianova designed a girl's dress with the label Caramel Baby and Child and had her six-year-old daughter Neva model it. Half the proceeds go to support Vodianova's charity, the Naked Heart Foundation. [] In other mother-daughter news, Nicole Kidman and her daughter Faith Margaret are on the cover of Australian Harper's Bazaar. Only the kid is looking away from the camera. [] Charlotte Gainsbourg is le nouveau sexy, according to Elle France. [] Want to participate in the "Navajo" "trend"? Don't want to give money to Forever 21 or Urban Outfitters? The Native American fashion blog Beyond Buckskin has just launched an online boutique showcasing the work of 11 Native American clothing, jewelry, and leather goods designers. T-shirts start at $30, and right now silk scarves . [] Kanye West hates everything you own. Look at your life. Look at your choices. []<p>Women's Wear Daily has a story today about the trend for "extreme" lingerie, which seems to mainly mean "extremely expensive." (Hello Swarovski crystal bodysuits, gold star pasties, and $4,000 pricetags.) References to bondage in fashion are hardly new — Claude Montana, anyone? — but the ability to charge more money for crotchless panties is something brands welcome. Apparently, when Kirsty Hume became the face of Agent Provocateur in 2010, this bondage-inspired cut-out bra and panty outfit she wore in the campaign sold out "instantly," says the company, which led it to start pushing the trend. []</p> Victoria Beckham looks virtually unrecognizable on the cover of Numéro Tokyo. It must have been very hard to leave her customary Louboutins and permanent fake tan out of the frame. [] Men's wear designer Bernhard Willhelm had his models walk the runway wearing headbands that read, "I <3 Black Cock." Last season, it was temporary tattoos that said, "Born to fist." [] As you have no doubt heard by now, Heidi Klum and Seal are splitting up. They say it is "an amicable process," or in other words, love is dead. [] Alessandra Ambrosio, who is now five months pregnant, walked in the Colcci show in Sao Paulo Fashion Week. Ashton Kutcher, who is also a face of the brand, sat front-row but did not walk. [@, @]<p>Kate and Laura Mulleavy of Rodarte have listed their favorite episodes of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, whom they call "one of the most powerful female characters ever developed." Included are Season 2's "Passion," and "Becoming" (the one where she kills Angel), Season 3's "Consequences" and "Prom," Season 4's silent episode "Hush," Season 6's sing-along "Once More, With Feeling," and Season 7's "Conversations With Dead People." The Mulleavy sisters write that, "Before she was 'chosen' to be a slayer, Buffy Summers was a typical teenage girl with average ambitions. She seemed like the ditzy blonde that is usually murdered alone in the alleyway." That difference between her appearance and her abilities is, they say, one of the greatest things about the cult show. "She was asked to save the world in every episode. She lost her mother, her life (a few times), and those nearest to her. She was almost always selfless, and always fast with a quip. She was always the person to root for." What's your favorite episode? []</p> Costume designer Eiko Ishioka, who won an Oscar for her work on the film Bram Stoker's Dracula (Gary Oldman's performance in that still kinda creeps us out — pity about Keanu), and also worked on such movies as The Cell and The Fall and for stage productions of M. Butterfly and Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark, has died. Ishioka once refused a request from Jennifer Lopez, the star of The Cell, to make a metal headpiece more comfortable, because as the designer explained her character wasn't supposed to be comfortable. The cause of her death was pancreatic cancer. [] Stylist Kate Young says she can relax a bit before the SAG awards because "that one people don't care so much about," but that when she's dressing clients (including Michelle Williams, Natalie Portman, and Rachel Weisz) for the Golden Globes she sleeps five hours a night or less, and gets no sleep in the days leading up to the Oscars. She says of her clients, "I think the idea of pushing that, of not just being a Barbie doll, is very appealing to them, so I think that the three of them are much more open than a lot of other women to the idea of being…a little bit more abstract of a beauty. And I think they do all take risks, more than some people do. I mean I get it; people want to look pretty. There's nothing wrong with that.I think it's hard to take a risk. Can you imagine putting on a dress and the next day turning on Good Morning America and seeing somebody talk about how ugly you looked, like I can't even fathom how horrible that would be. I really am thankful that the people I work with trust me and are willing to push it a little bit." Young's new collection for Macy's INC is at right. [] Here's a first look at the upcoming Marni for H&M campaign — it appears to star British actress Imogen Poots. [] Prabal Gurung unveiled the new uniforms he designed for Sephora, here modeled by actual Sephora employees. [] This is Alice Dellal. She is a face of a new Chanel bag, even though she admitted to a reporter that she doesn't usually carry a bag. And...this is how she dresses. Again: face of Chanel. So we guess there's hope for us all! [] Bad joke of 2011 Kreayshawn went to Terry Richardson's studio. [] French Courtney Stodden Zahia Dehar, "who was thrust into the limelight by a tabloid scandal involving top French footballers," (which is Women's Wear Daily's delicate phrase for, "who became famous following her arrest in a brothel raid for boinking rilly famous French dudes while underaged"), has a "couture" lingerie line. (Prostitution in France is legal, but only for those over 18; Dehar had willingly engaged in it, but was 17 at the time.) The evident distaste for Dehar that all the fashion folks who came to her launch party display in this story is kind of depressing. But what's weird is that Dehar had a metal cast made of her "infamous Z-shaped torso," which apparently just means she arches her spine into the shape of a swanbill corset on command. []I synthesized 2,061 Getty red-carpet photos from last night's Met Ball fêting the opening of the Met's "Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations" show into an all-time ultimate Top Three. Let's break it down.<p>Its reason and purpose is unclear, but Victoria's Secret has created a list. The awards distinctions like Sexiest Summer Style, Sexiest Summer Glow, and Sexiest Tweeter. You know, the stuff legends are made of. It's silly, sure, but it's also very telling. The company, whose customer is primarily young women, lists 18 categories. One grouping, Sexiest TV Cast, features brunettes: The cast of Pretty Little Liars. Everyone else on the list is blond. Well, Jessica Chastain and Emma Stone have been redheads. But still.</p> <p>In 1997, Tyra Banks the first-ever African-American model chosen for the cover of the Victoria's Secret catalog. Historically, Victoria's Secret has employed many models of color, from Karen Alexander and Naomi Campbell to Jourdan Dunn and "angels" Chanel Iman and Selita Ebanks. For the most part, although the "look" is generally the same (thin, leggy, busty, with long hair), the hair colors and skin tones do vary in the catalogs and on the runway in the infamous Victoria's Secret Fashion Show. But this list — possibly just a throw-away assignment for a copywriter to fill some void on the website — is mind-bogglingly narrow in scope. If not for Pretty Little Liars, there would be no brunettes named; if not for Beyoncé ("Sexiest Mom"), there would be no black people. Even the one "real" person on the list, "Sexiest Cyber Star" is golden-locked Elin Kling.</p> <p>The Victoria's Secret customer — young women, skewing even younger ever since sub-brand Pink launched in 2004 — might not take a dumb What Is Sexy? list seriously. But there's no subtext, the message is crystal clear, extremely overt and reinforced by mainstream media: Being a thin white blonde woman is the best thing you can be. It's desirable to others and therefore you, yourself should desire it. Remember the statistics culled by the Dove Self Esteem Fund? They that 71% of girls with low self-esteem feel that their appearance "doesn't measure up;" these girls feel not pretty enough, thin enough or stylish enough. And recall that there was once a in which 80% of adult women polled said images of women on TV and in movies, magazines, and ads make them feel insecure about their own appearance. This is but one list, but it adds to the flood of images and messages women receive on a daily basis.</p> <p>Of course, it's no coincidence that the blonde celebrities named are the most popular actresses right now, the ones getting work, starring in fragrance and makeup ads, modeling clothes for brands and magazines. It's a circle, a self-fulfilling prophesy: We're told blond is the most beautiful, so we believe blond is the most beautiful, so we want to see blondes, so women dye their hair blond, so studios and networks hire blondes. What's sexier than a dominant homogeneous aesthetic ideal?</p> <p> [VS All Access]<br> [Sociological Images]</p>In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.A major of Yves Saint Laurent's work opened this week in Denver. It covers everything from the designer's early years at Christian Dior, to his appropriation of elements of men's wear and fascination with androgyny, to his long-standing relationships with muses like Betty Catroux, Catherine Deneuve, and Iman. But if you, like me, can't make it to the Denver Art Museum — which is the only U.S. museum to host the exhibit, which originated at the Petit Palais in Paris — well, the photos are nearly as good.<p>Details — including the first review — of tonight's Met Ball are trickling out. Anna Wintour, surrounded by curators and assistants, striding through the Met yesterday afternoon, and minutes later spotted Suzy Menkes lingering near coat check — presumably just after reporting . The late designer Lee Alexander McQueen, whose longtime assistant Sarah Burton took over the creative direction of the house he founded after his suicide last year, is the Costume Institute's sole focus this year. Tonight's opening gala promises to feature a passel of celebrities — Sarah Jessica Parker, Salma Hayek, Daphne Guinness — wearing McQueen. Dinner will be served in the Temple of Dendur. (It's Scottish-themed, to reflect McQueen's heritage, but haggis is not on the menu.) Sarah Burton and Stella McCartney will speak. Beforehand, you can even head down to Barneys New York to watch Guinness get dressed for the event in a store window; somewhat more prosaically, blogger BryanBoy (who is not attending the gala, but is covering the red carpet arrivals) will be his ball prep from 2:30 p.m. EST. As for the show, Menkes says that the Met has some pretty full-on bells and whistles: audio-visual elements, including clips of old McQueen shows, a cabinet of curiosities for a centerpiece, and elaborate backdrops featuring antiqued mirrors and broken wood. One cape is even shown in a wind tunnel. She writes: "Was Mr. McQueen really an artist who just happened to work in cloth? [Curator Andrew] Bolton might have discussed the designer's place in the Brit Art scene, alongside the Chapman brothers, or compared his fascination with nature's decadence with that of Damien Hirst. Instead, we get Sarah Jessica Parker's breathless and witless take on the McQueen style." If they really have fucked this one up, our advice would be to head to the Richard Serra drawings instead — it's excellent. "McQueen: Savage Beauty" opens May 4 in New York City. []<br> Coco Rocha says she had a hard time finding something to wear for the gala because all the more "extreme" Alexander McQueen looks were already in the museum show. "All they have available are these nice dainty dresses," she says. She has nonetheless picked one out. [Modelinia, via ]<br> Ball organizer Sylvana Soto-Ward says her job has taught her "simple things, like which gallery in the Met has cell service. Like if you really need to reach someone and you have no bars because you're in the Egyptian wing, but if you move five feet to the right you have two bars." []<br> Celebrities and socialites are stuck choosing between two high-profile competing events tonight: the Film Society of Lincoln Center's gala for Sidney Poitier, and the Met ball. What to do?! []</p> This is what Rick "Zombie Boy" Genest looked like before his head-to-toe trompe l'oeil tattoo transformation. [] Cindy Crawford is also on the May cover of Elle China. [] The new issue of Visionaire, guest-edited by Givenchy's Riccardo Tisci, features this photo of Carine Roitfeld gagged by lace and a portrait of Tisci suckling at Marina Abramovic's breast. It costs $495. []<p> Finally, the Rachel Zoe Project has given us the birth of the most fashionable baby in America, Skyler. It didn't disappoint.</p> <p>It was clear that a baby wouldn't stand in the way of Rachel Zoe being Rachel Zoe — she insisted on packing Chanel sweaters and thigh-high boots with heels for the hospital, saying, "If I'm going to be a mess, I'm gonna be a glamorous mess." Or, minutes after her water broke, the woman is brushing and spraying her hair — visibly in pain — while her husband Rodger stands there, shocked, filming it for future home videos. Never change, girlfriend.</p> <p> When it all started to set in, Zoe pontificates, "I'm actually pushing a human out of my body and becoming a mother. Ohmygod." Ohmygod, indeed: after sixteen hours of labor, Skyler was born and suddenly, all is calm, happy, and adorable. Of course, there was still some drama among her disgruntled employees who were tasked with setting up the new baby's closet. As , it's chock-full of designer goods that would make anyone jealous. As the recently-fired-then-hired-again Jeremiah put it, "He has a better wardrobe than I do — and he's not even out of the vagina yet." Life is so unfair.</p> <p>Earlier:<br> </p><p>Welcome back to Midweek Madness, in which we "read" the celebrity tabloids so you don't "have" to. Today, we get a good look at the newborn babies of Kim Zolciak and Alicia Silverstone. We spot Suri Cruise shopping for a $6,000 leopard skirt. We hear that both Jennifer Aniston and Lady Gaga might be pregnant, and we learn which celebrities have "outtie" belly buttons. </p> <p></p> <p>Ok!<br> "Reality TV Shockers!"<br> Not sure how this is a "shocker," but Amber from Teen Mom is worried that she'll lose her daughter. The "shocker" for Teresa from RHONJ is that if her husband Joe goes to jail, she will probably file for divorce. Intern Ramona thinks this won't happen as "they really love each other." Ashley from The Bachelorette's "shocker" is that she has already been dumped by the guy she chose to propose to her. JP Rosenbaum did indeed ask her to marry him — he was contractually obligated, we think — but he "did a 180." Ashley and JP had formed something called "Team Cupcake," but it seems he was just using her to be famous. Let's move on. Britney Spears is "acting weird again," in that she's been "bingeing on candy." We're not convinced, but the story claims she is "hurtling toward another major meltdown." Brad Pitt is "hurting" Jennifer Aniston AGAIN by taking Angelina Jolie to a restaurant in Malta — called de Mondion — which he'd taken Jen to in 2003. Yawn. "Kim Will Be A Size 2 Bride — No Matter What!" reveals that Ms. Kardashian is training with the notorious Tracy Anderson — resistance training and another hour of cardio, six times a week. And! She's eating a low-carb diet with green juices, veggie-filled broths and protein bars. If we were working out two hours a day and all we could eat was BROTH we would fucking kill someone. Probably Tracy Anderson. No wonder Kim's a bridezilla: She's STARVING.<br> Grade: F (called pregnant when you're just fat)</p> <p></p> <p>Life & Style<br> "Betrayed Again!"<br> Bachelorette Ashley is really into this one guy Ames, but the mag reports that he has a secret girlfriend, Jackie Gordon, who was on The Bachelor. Our exclusive in-office source thinks Ames and Jackie MUST have met on Bachelor Pad, because there's one "surprise contestant" coming soon. Ames? Anywhoozle. Ames and Jackie were seen on vacation in Napa, California, and he wore a hat, trying to hide. Ames would like to become an actor, and isn't really even into Ashley. Ashley is super into JP, because his kisses are "magical," but "that's only because he's had tons of practice. He's had dozens and dozens of girlfriends," according to the mag. Gah. Moving on: Suri Cruise was seen shopping for a $6300 leopard print Celine ensemble. (See Fig. 1) Kim Kardashian wants to have a baby "nine months to the day" after getting married. Jessica Simpson will get married in Hawaii in 2012. Last, but certainly not least, Kim Zolciak landed two spreads featuring herself and her new baby, K.J. (See Fig. 2) Although her husband is named Kroy, the baby is NOT Kroy Junior. He is Kroy Jagger. Kim says he has the "most kissable lips." Her daughters played "Tardy For The Party" and "Google Me" for the poor kid, and Kim says: "It calmed him down when he was fussy." Those tracks have the same effect on us!<br> Grade: D- (called pregnant when you have gas)</p> <p></p> <p>In Touch<br> "A Baby For For Teresa!"<br> Teresa is "prepared" to give her jailbird husband what he's always longed for: A son. The baby's name would be Franco IF she gets pregnant and IF it is a boy. But she's not sure she wants to get knocked up, yadda yadda. Lady Gaga is "ready to be a mama" because she has been "sporting a fuller midriff." There's an actual arrow pointing to her abdomen, where her internal organs live, with the words "a tell-tale bump?" (See Fig. 3) Presented without comment: "Outtie Of The Closet!" Okay, no here is a comment: The fruit comparisons were a nice touch. (See Fig. 4) In other news, Tori Spelling's kids are terrifying. (See Fig. 5) Jennifer Aniston's friends are concerned, because she is "changing everything" for her man. She cut her hair! She got a tattoo! She wore red! She ditched Courteney Cox to hang with (gasp!) Terry Richardson! Bachelorette Ashley is having a bad year, guys: Bentley is already dating another woman. Suri is having a "lonely summer," because she always plays by herself and doesn't have any friends her age. She learned to swim at a condo spa, "surrounded by stone-faced bodyguards," and was the only one in the pool, sniffle. Sounds like the perfect life, right? A source says: "It's the perfect life for an adult, not a kid." Bruce Jenner is worried about Kylie and Kendall, since he just found out that 15-year-old Kendall is already on birth control. Also: Both Kendall and 13-year-old Kylie "cozied up to older men" while on vacay recently. Leo is upset that Blake has been spending so much time with Ryan, but she has to, because they're promoting the shitty-ass Green Lantern movie. TMI Alert: Eddie and LeAnn like to walk around naked and have sex in every room of their house. Owen Wilson's friends are worried he will have another mental breakdown following his split from his baby mama. Justin Bieber bought Selena Gomez a $30,000 Chanel watch after she was rushed to the hospital, because Chanel cures all ills. Now that Ashton has that job on Two And A Half Men, Demi Moore is worried that he won't have enough time for her. When you marry a younger man, you expect him to be unemployed and walking around naked with just an apron on all day, right? House husbands should stay in the house! The best thing in this issue is the article called "Stars Love The Fat Whisperer." Mary Ascension Saulnier does cellulite techniques that involve saying "I command you to get out" to the fat. "I look into the body and the body talks to me," she says. "The after I see what the real story is, I tell the fat which way to move out of the body." Mary also reveals that women get cellulite on the backs of their legs because "fear is holding them back in life." Her clients include Renée Zellweger, Anna Paquin and Kim Kardashian.<br> Grade: D- (called pregnant when you're just constipated)</p> <p></p> <p>Us<br> "Lauren's Broken Heart."<br> Lauren Conrad and Kyle Howard have broken up after 3 years, because he could not get past her "reality show roots" and he didn't want to be distracted from his goal of being the next Robert De Niro. He hated The Hills so much, he would never hang out with any of her friends. Jerk. Re: Lauren? "She thought he was the one." It just wasn't working out: She always had to drive to Malibu to see him, but he would never drive to Westwood to see her. In other split news, George Clooney was spotted flirting with women in Mexico in November, so his breakup from Elisabetta Canalis might have actually happened a while ago. Katy Perry flies her cats to visit her while she's on tour. Teen Mom's Leah is back with her ex, the one she was with before the guy she had kids with. Ashlee Simpson is only hanging out with the dude from Boardwalk Empire to make Pete Wentz "insane with jealousy." Prince Harry hung out with Chace Crawford and Matthew Morrison in London. The chaps did shots of Patron and watched The Killers. Leighton Meester was spotted making out with Garrett Hedlund at a pool in West Hollywood, but then the very next evening she was gushing about her recent dates with Justin Long. There are six pages here about how in love Blake Shelton is with Miranda Lambert, and how he used to be a partier, hooking up with ladies after every show, and she's calmed him down. Now if he sees someone pretty he doesn't even fuck them on the spot! Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz's secret wedding on June 22 happened six months after "friendship turned to romance" on the set of their movie, Dream House. When they met, they were both in five-year-long engagements. He ended his relationship with producer Satsuki Mitchell last summer, and Weisz ended her engagement to Darren Arronofsky — with whom she had been for nine years and with whom she has a son — in November. The whole thing is a little happysad, with all the exes by the wayside, but whatever. Finally: Noted neo-hippie Alicia Silverstone did a photo shoot with her kid! The vegan animal rights activist poses here with her newborn baby — Bear Blu — her head wreathed in flowers, and her husband, musician and hipster hottie Christopher Jarecki. Sample quote: "We all take baths together sometimes." Alicia says her baby is "part squirrel, part monkey and part peanut." (See Fig. 6)<br> Grade: D (called pregnant when you've just eaten lunch)</p> <p></p> <p>Star<br> "70 Best & Worst Summer Beach Bodies."<br> Beach bodies are not to be confused with bikini bodies, or . Or dead bodies. In addition to declaring some womens' bodies good, the mag also calls out which celebs have fake boobs (Heidi Montag, J-Woww, Vienna Girardi) and arranges a Real Housewives Bikini Battle, pitting East Coast against West Coast. No winner is declared, however. There's also a page of "hot mamas" in bikinis — Jen Garner, Padma Lakshmi — and "dangerous curves" in bikinis — Coco, Amber Rose. The guys have their own spread, "Hunks & Chunks." Then there are "beach bombs," like Ke$ha and Stephanie Seymour. Also inside: Avril Lavigne met up with her ex, Deryck Whibley in St. Tropez. Justin Theroux's ex, Heidi Bivens, spoke to Star on June 22. When asked about the end of their relationship, she said, "It's unfortunate. I'm not going to comment unless they comment first." Classy. Meanwhile: The magazine draws a yellow circle around Jennifer Aniston's perfectly flat tummy and asks, "Is that a bump?" (See Fig. 7) Prince William is worried about Kate Middleton's weight. She is "pin thin" and determined to lose seven more pounds off of her already 114 lb.-body, so she can fit into sample sizes. Will was afraid to talk to her about it, because he didn't want her to feel self-conscious, so HARRY had a little chat with her. If your husband's little brother came up to you and said, "You're looking really skinny," how would you react? There's a feud between the Real Housewives of New York and the Mob Wives, and Jill Zarin is "protected and connected." Jill is "made." But the other housewives had better cool it, otherwise the Mob ladies will cross the bridge and make trouble. Rosie Huntington-Whiteley is a "wild child" who likes to party like a rock star. Amanda Seyfried has maybe reunited with her ex, Dominic Cooper. Nikki Reed might be pregnant with American Idol spawn, since she's gained about 10 lbs. and is refusing alcohol. Michael Sheen has moved into Rachel McAdams' house in Toronto. A "high-placed female producer" was fired from Bachelor Pad after one of the contestants accused her of sexual harassment. She "aggressively pursued" him, sending him "racy text messages" and pictures of herself in a dominatrix ensemble. He refused her advances… But did make out with her, worried he would not get on the show if he didn't. And guess what? When he didn't sleep with her, he was booted from the show. Christina Aguilera's won't let her boyfriend work. She wants him to be available so he can do tasks for her, and she wants to come home to a nice meal and a glass of wine, is that too much to ask? The guy gets an allowance of $1500 a week. House husbands should stay in the house! The piece called "Single, Stoned & Starving" is about Lady Gaga. She barely eats, so she can fit into her costumes; she's into drugs; and she's lost the love of her life, Luc Carl. Sob. If you're into that Hollywood poker ring story, there's an interesting article here, in which the Russian mob and Shannon Elizabeth are mentioned. Absolute final note: Amy Winehouse has three months to live.<br> Grade: D+ (called pregnant when you're just retaining water)</p> <p></p> Addendum <p>Fig. 1, from Life & Style</p> <p>Fig. 2, from Life & Style</p> <p>Fig. 3, from In Touch</p> <p>Fig. 4, from In Touch</p> <p>Fig. 5, from In Touch</p> <p>Fig. 6, from Us</p> <p>Fig. 7, from Star</p><p>Tim Gunn opened up about his personal life on the new show he's co-hosting, The Revolution. He says that he's celibate — and happy. "I haven't had sex in 29 years," said the designer mentor and former Parsons dean. "Do I feel like less of a person because of it? No." Gunn says that an "intense" relationship that ended abruptly led him to give up sex. With tears in his eyes, Gunn said of his former partner, "He was impatient with my sexual performance." He characterized his celibate life as "perfectly fulfilled," and said, "I'm happy to be healthy and alive, frankly." Gunn has written and spoken about his personal life before, though never in such detail. In a touching 2011 for the Daily Beast, Gunn described the end of a nine-year relationship — "The only real relationship I've ever had" — and how he felt no twinges of love or infatuation for a whole decade after the breakup. Then, in 1992, he met someone he calls Daniel. For work, Gunn was traveling frequently to Asia at the time.</p> <p>I met a flight attendant named Daniel, and I became very fond of him. On one of the flights, there was a baby broker coming back from Korea, bringing back babies who had been adopted in the United States. He didn't have enough handlers, and I was sitting in an exit row, and I thought, I'll hold a baby. This was a bonding experience for me and Daniel. When I left the plane, he asked if he could call me. I said yes.</p> <p>They dated for a month, and Gunn says he felt the beginnings of a genuine connection — but a so-called friend talked him out of pursuing the relationship:</p> <p>He went into a diatribe about what kind of cliché this was for a designer to date a flight attendant. He thought it was such a gay stereotype.</p> <p>Gunn and Daniel stopped seeing each other, and as of last year, he was not over it. "This is still something I think about with a good deal of frequency," he wrote. "The irony is I ended up with no one." []</p> Another lingerie brand is going super high-end: Victoria's Secret is launching a new line called Designer Collection. Women's Wear Daily reports that the goods are "rendered in shimmery see-through chiffons and trimmed with European lace, ribbons and embroideries, features playful baby dolls, barely there unlined bras, deep-plunge push-up bras, string bikinis, low-cut teddies, garter belts, a kimono and a merry widow corset." The cost of all this? Bras will start at $98. [] Here's the lookbook for KARL, Karl Lagerfeld's new lower-priced line. [] Shit Oscar PR Girl Says is funny, especially if you follow John Jannuzzi, Andrew Mukamal, Erica Domesek, or Oscar PR Girl Erika Bearman herself, on Twitter. [] There are photos of Doo-Ri Chung's line for Macy's Impulse, which goes on sale February 15. [] Victoria Beckham released this short video to advertise her upcoming lower-priced line. (We're not getting our hopes up: dresses will still be £500-£800.) [] Miranda Kerr appears somewhat randomly as Wonder Woman on the cover of Grazia Australia. [] '80s supermodel Inès de la Fressange is moonlighting as a photographer for Madame Figaro at the couture shows. [] Those copyright scofflaws at PBS got themselves in trouble for shilling unauthorized, unlicensed Downton Abbey jewelry. The network had to pull such items as the "Lady Mary knotted pearl necklace and earring set," $159.99, after complaints from the production company and the show creator, Julian Fellowes. []<p>Reading this transcript of Tom Ford answering frankly posed questions about race is an awkward experience. The designer careens from defensiveness, to dismissiveness, to insecurity, to something perhaps approaching how he actually feels, to downright tone-deaf distastefulness. Ford, who has always favored ethnically diverse runway casting — he's often credited with launching the career of Liya Kebede when he was at Gucci — tells Time Out Hong Kong that choosing racially diverse models is a responsibility of designers: "When you do a fashion show it's very important and it's a responsibility to represent a multicultural cast." But he also says, "When you grow up in America, contrary to popular belief, we are racially blind because we've had Japanese and Chinese families, five generations, living in America. So we grow up with Asian-Americans, African-Americans, European-Americans." Ford describes himself as "colorblind" when it comes to race. When the reporter tells the designer that she tried on some of his clothes, Ford, apparently anticipating a criticism, interrupts with "Did they not fit?" And then launches into this lengthy defense:</p> <p>First of all, we did have some fitting problems with this collection and you know this is my first collection and I did it in three months because I was working on the Oscars until March and then I had to hire my team, find manufacturers, find my studio, set it all up, and finish [the collection] from April to July because that has to be ready for New York. So it's a tiny collection. And to be quite honest, there were some fit discrepancies between things. [Thinking aloud] Umm, but no, it would be fine.</p> <p>"But will it fit everybody?" asked the reporter, who wanted to know about the differences in designing for Asian people versus for Westerners. It's a good question; bodies are different (though of course they differ far more among racial categories than they do between them) and fashion design is, on a fundamental level, a matter of choosing who will be able to wear your clothes. The body of the eventual wearer is encoded in the garment. Ford replied, "If we have to talk about things like this, Americans are too fat. And in London they are starting to get fat too. So I have to say that if we have to talk about race system and nationalism, I find it refreshing that everyone Chinese is slim." []</p> Rachel Weisz and a lion pose together for Bulgari's new perfume campaign. They've used this trick . [] Karl Lagerfeld, who we all know doesn't use computers (he has "people" to do that for him) sure loves his pens. So he now has a namesake line of pens. "I wanted a fountain pen in a certain way," he explained. []<br> Karl Lagerfeld's pen is apparently so impressive it merited not one but two items in today's Women's Wear Daily. []<br> Karl Lagerfeld read Buddenbrooks when he was eight years old. What did you do when you were eight, hmm? Read a Little Golden Book? You amateur. [] Heidi Klum is looking very Photoshop-fabulous on the cover of Russian GQ. [] Bob Mackie is auctioning off 46 of his "thousands" of fashion sketches at his website, Bobmackie.com. [] Here's a picture of Coco Rocha, Arizona Muse, and Karlie Kloss in Paris. [@]<br> Elle finally published something about the rumor that Arizona Muse and Freja Beha Erichsen are an item. Online mutterings about same have been going around since October of last year; back in February, a reliable source who lives in Erichsen's building told us she'd seen Muse making evening visits. Erichsen, one of the only out female top models working today, has dated Catherine McNeil (openly) and (allegedly) Irina Lazareanu in the past. Erichsen and Muse covered Vogue Italia together earlier this year. []  The Council of Fashion Designers of America is selling $35 tote bags decorated by designers including Diane von Furstenberg, Reed Krakoff, Marchesa, and Jason Wu. The totes come emblazoned with the anti-counterfeiting slogan You Can't Fake Fashion, and will be sold on eBay. [] Here's fall's Juicy Couture campaign. Raquel Zimmerman looks like she's trying really hard to make that Hot Topic-ish plaid suit look interesting. [] Prada's stripe-tastic collection scored 77 spring fashion magazine covers. Gucci took 69, while Dolce & Gabbana nabbed 63. []<p>Tom Ford has some important advice for Gisele Bündchen. You know, the supermodel. Ford is very concerned about the imminent loss of her physical beauty:</p> <p>"This sounds negative, but when you're considered one of the most beautiful women in the world, it's very, very hard when that starts to slip away. It's hard to feel good about yourself when people react to you differently. And, Gisele, I hope you're not reading this, because it's going to sound so negative but I know through some of my best friends who are really famous actresses — I'm not going to mention their names — who were at one point considered to be among the most beautiful women in the world at different periods of time, and how hard it is for them emotionally. So I hope Gisele is prepared for that, because it's so difficult."</p> <p>Tom Ford just hopes Gisele is prepared for that. For when she's old and decrepit and washed-up and ugly and nobody remembers her name — which, given Gisele just turned 32, will probably happen any minute now. Because Tom Ford, king of Restylane and crown prince of Botox, has such a healthy relationship with aging. Weirdly, the designer shared this advice with Tom Brady. (What do you even say to that? 'Um, thanks Tom, I'll sure tell my wife to worry a little more about losing her looks'?) No joke, aging is kind of hard when you're in an industry that fetishizes youth and discards people seemingly at whim, but the outcomes are hardly as grim as Ford makes out. We imagine Isabella Rossellini of her time thinking about how she looked when she was younger, for example. [VMan via ]</p> Michael Phelps posed for a Louis Vuitton ad, which could lead to him being stripped of his gold medals. There's an Olympic rule against athletes endorsing any brand which is not an Olympic sponsor within one month of the games — and Phelps' ads appeared online on the the London games officially ended. Louis Vuitton and Phelps say that the two ads were leaked by a party or parties unknown. To protect sponsors like Visa that pay up to $100 million to endorse the Olympic games, athletes who promote non-sponsor brands can be stripped of their medals. Phelps' people say that's unlikely to happen in this case because the release of the photos was not the swimmer's fault. [] Sales and net income at Urban Outfitters both rose during the second quarter under newish C.E.O. Richard Hayne, who replaced Glen Senk in January. Quarterly net income rose year-on-year by 8.1%, to $61.3 million. Investors sent the stock up on the news, which beat estimates. Sales for the same three-month period grew by 11%, to $676.3 million. Same-store sales were up 12% at Free People, 6% at Urban Outfitters, were flat at Anthropologie, and fell 1% at BHLDN and Terrain. []<br> Urban Outfitters is, if nothing else, the official retailer of Stephen Colbert, John Stewart, and Indecision 2012. Here's the merch. [] Better know your Lanvin fall campaign faces — a of non-models diverse in age and ethnicity — in this charming behind-the-scenes video. [] Cindy Crawford is launching a clothing line with the German mass-market chain C&A. [] Coco Rocha is on another two September covers — Elle Spain and Elle Korea. [@] It seems a September W spread by Steven Meisel took inspiration from a video game called The Path. [] Model Hannah Holman grew up on a ranch in Utah riding horses and hunting. In fact, when she was 13, she was one of very few people to get a permit to hunt a cougar: <p>"It's a lottery system and my name was drawn by chance. So we went out with a friend who is a hunting guide and knows exactly which peaks and little valleys they hang out in. Mountain lions often hang out up in trees but this one went into a cave. I was scared it was going to attack us and took a few shots with a .30-30 rifle but ran out of bullets, so my dad handed me his pistol and that was the lucky shot."</p> <p>[]</p><p>Tyra Banks Tweeted this photo of what she described as her "juicy muffintop." And thanks to Tyra Banks' selfless action, millions of women and girls around the world now feel better about their bodies. For good measure, the supermodel mogul included the hashtags #assmaintenance and #perfectisboring. (What is she, trying to shame perfect people now? Perfect-shaming? How are perfect Americans supposed to feel about that?) [@]</p> Karl Lagerfeld explains the Chanel hula-hoop bag in this video. It's big because "You need space for the beach towel. And then you can put it into the sand and hang things on it." So it's a portable towel rack. Awesome. Then Lagerfeld added, "It's not up to me to say it is chic. I thought it was but I cannot say it myself." [] Jennifer Lopez's 4-year-old daughter, Emme, wore $2,410 worth of Chanel accessories to the Chanel show. Emme nonetheless looked kind of sad to be there. [] Raf Simons talks about his first Dior women's ready-to-wear collection in this video. "The main idea was about freedom," he pronounces in his stern, Belgian fashion. "But also sensuality, sexuality, the future, the modern, movement." Then he goes on to consider the coat-dress — "it's kind of like a new jacket, one could say, or it's kind of like a jacket-dress, or is it a dress, or is it a jacket coat? One cannot really say it" — for several minutes. [] Sarah Jessica Parker is on the new cover of Elle. [] This Wonderbra ad demonstrating the company's new iPhone app that allows you to scan a QR code to reveal the bra a model is wearing under her clothes is painfully awkward. []<p>Tyra Banks says it took five years to write her New York Times best-selling sci-fi Young Adult novel, Modelland. Characters like Tookie de la Creme don't name themselves, ladies! (Seriously though: her poor, ignored ghost-writer.) Ty-Ty got the idea while in the back of a car, wrote it down on a piece of paper, and promptly lost the piece of paper until she cleaned out her purse. Once she got serious, it sounds like she really got into the research. "I love Roald Dahl. On my nightstand right now is James and the Giant Peach, which I'm reading for the second time. I just finished Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I read three Twilights." Now we're picturing Tyra Banks in bed with her banker boyfriend, furiously reading all the YA she missed out on as a kid. She worked on the book while shooting Top Model and initially produced a draft of over 1000 pages. She says the stress made her hair fall out. []</p> Everybody! Jeffrey Costello and Robert Tagliapietra, who together make beautiful clothing under the name Costello Tagliapietra, got married yesterday, on their 17th anniversary as a couple. []<br> None other than Alan Cumming sent his regards on the Twitter. [@] Rosie Huntington-Whiteley is on the cover of November's German Vogue. [] Shena Moulton is a 17-year-old high school graduate, and a model who has just finished her sixth show season. The Jamaican has been working since she was 13. "Before I was a model, I always wore bright colors and patterns but as a model, you're encouraged to wear more classic stuff. My closet now is all black and gray. I wish I could dress like Rihanna. She doesn't care. She dresses how she wants. That's her style. No one can say, 'Rihanna you must dress like this today, you must dress like that tomorrow.' In this industry, you always have to look the part. You never know when your agency will call you and say, hey, you have a shoot or hey, you have a casting." [] Meanwhile, Miss Piggy was featured in a shoot for InStyle. [] And Marie Claire editor and frequent street-style subject Taylor Tomasi-Hill makes her modeling debut in a spread for Block magazine. [] For its 15th anniversary, Russian Harper's Bazaar asked 15 designers to do limited-edition covers for the magazine. Among the results is this portrait of Emma Watson Natasha Poly by Karl Lagerfeld, and this piece of ersatz Soviet kitsch by Jean Paul Gaultier. [] The Associated Press picked up the Urban Outfitters/Navajo Nation trademark story (click here for , a history of the and some ). And the New York Post ran the AP's story with this truly stupendous headline. We're just surprised they passed up an opportunity to use "panties" in a hed. []<p>Sasha Houston Brown's open letter to Urban Outfitters regarding its use of the word "Navajo" in its product names have inspired company C.E.O. Glen Senk to fauxpologize in the comments — the company still won't confirm or deny whether it was really Senk or someone impersonating him — but it's certainly kicked up quite the media storm.</p> <p>Brown wrote, in part:</p> <p>[A]s a Native American woman, I am deeply distressed by your company's mass marketed collection of distasteful and racially demeaning apparel and décor. I take personal offense to the blatant racism and perverted cultural appropriation your store features this season as "fashion."</p> <p>All too often industries, sports teams and ignorant individuals legitimize racism under the guise of cultural "appreciation". There is nothing honorable or historically appreciative in selling items such as the Navajo Print Fabric Wrapped Flask, Peace Treaty Feather Necklace, Staring at Stars Skull Native Headdress T-shirt or the Navajo Hipster Panty. These and the dozens of other tacky products you are currently selling referencing Native America make a mockery of our identity and unique cultures.</p> <p>Brown says she called the number that "Glen T. Senk" left in the comment thread after she posted her letter, and left a message with his assistant. She hasn't heard back. "Not that I'm really surprised," she says.</p> <p>Meanwhile, I called Fordham University School of Law professor Susan Scafidi. Scafidi founded the Fashion Law Institute, and is an expert on intellectual-property law as it applies to the rag trade. "It's surprising that there aren't more protests," over cultural appropriation such as this, she says. "I think part of the story in this case was that the merchandise is hideously unflattering."</p> <p>"It's a long-standing issue, you know, and it's not just in the fashion world. It's the Jeep Cherokee. It's the Washington Redskins. And there was enormous litigation over that trademark," says Scafidi. "It's an issue when you have indigenous peoples in general or Native Americans in particular who have been subject to actual genocide, and then you come back around with what some people characterize as cultural genocide. The pillaging of land, the pillaging of personal property, followed by the pillaging of what could be considered intellectual property. It's something that occurs against a background of a lot of other offensive actions."</p> <p>Scafidi says Australia is among the countries that has done a better job of extending intellectual-property protections to indigenous peoples — in its case, Aboriginal tribes. "The United States has actually lagged behind a bit in the application of this kind of protection." The Federal Indian Arts And Crafts Act dates from just 1990. "I think with so many other injustices over the centuries — the loss of land, the taking away of children to 'Westernize' them, things that are truly appalling — the loss of culture wasn't recognized as quite as significant until more recently."</p> <p>The Indian Arts And Crafts Act makes it illegal "to offer or display for sale, or sell any art or craft product in a manner that falsely suggests it is Indian produced, an Indian product, or the product of a particular Indian or Indian Tribe or Indian arts and crafts organization." Using the name of a given tribe to claim or even imply that a product has anything to do with that tribe is punishable by fines of up to $1 million. That sounds like it should offer a pretty large measure of protection to Native American goods, right? Well, not exactly.</p> <p>"The story with the Indian Arts And Crafts Act, though, is that it only protects, as you would expect from the title, 'arts' and 'crafts,'" says Scafidi. "So while there is general language [in the Act] about putting the term 'Indian' or 'Native American' or the name of a particular nation on any goods in a misleading fashion, that generalized language about 'any good' is narrowed by the description of 'arts and crafts' items in particular. Which is why things like the Jeep Grand Cherokee are not barred by the Indian Arts and Crafts Act, even though Cherokee is obviously a nation as well." A car isn't a piece of art, or a craft product.</p> <p>And neither is a piece of clothing. Fashion is not considered an "art" (nor is a clothing design, under current law, copyrightable in the U.S.). And mass-produced items such as those Urban Outfitters sells are not really "crafts" either. In Scafidi's view, the fact that the Navajo Nation took the step of trademarking the name "Navajo" offers the tribe a much higher level of protection. That puts "Navajo" on the same footing as trademarks like "Chanel" or "Burberry." And the Navajo Nation has already warned Urban Outfitters to cease an desist from using the tribe's trademarks on its goods.</p> <p>"There is a trademark on 'Navajo' for clothing," says Scafidi. "It mentions specifically jeans, and tops, and shirts, and sweatshirts," along with more general categories like "sportswear." Not all of the products that Urban Outfitters is selling under the name "Navajo" are enumerated in the trademark, "but you could imagine that other similar items could fall into the category," meaning that they would also be protected from infringement. Of course, in court, "Urban Outfitters could come back and say, 'Well, if you wanted that trademark to cover panties, then you should have listed panties.'" Ultimately, it could be up to a judge to determine the fate of the Navajo Hipster Panty.</p> <p>As it turns out, the company has a slightly different strategy: pretending it never got the Navajo Nation cease-and-desist letter in the first place. ' PR director Ed Looram emailed me the following statement:</p> <p>Urban Outfitters is a trend-led lifestyle retailer dedicated to inspiring our customer with engaging product. Like many other fashion brands, we interpret trends and will continue to do so for years to come. The Native American-inspired trend and specifically the term "Navajo" have been cycling thru [sic] fashion, fine art and design for the last few years. We currently have no plans to modify or discontinue any of these products. As of this writing the Urban Outfitters brand has not been contacted by any representatives of the Navajo Nation.</p> <p>According to Brown, the Navajo Nation Department of Justice sent its cease-and-desist letter to Senk's office on June 30th, 2011. The letter was sent via certified mail, and proof of delivery was obtained. The existence of the cease-and-desist was first revealed on Native Appropriations, which several excerpts.</p> <p>Brian Lewis, an attorney for the Navajo Nation, said tonight that "the Nation is cautiously optimistic that it can discuss this issue with the Urban Outfitters Corporation and convince it to adopt another name and trademark for its products."</p> <p>It will be interesting to see whether the Navajo Nation decides to sue Urban Outfitters for trademark infringement. A cease-and-desist is sometimes, but not always, the prelude to a lawsuit. In a prepared statement, Lewis wrote that although the tribe "does not regard this as benign or trivial," it understands that perhaps Urban Outfitters has not yet had the opportunity to respond to its letter. "The Navajo Nation prefers the most beneficial resolution of this matter, and believes this can be achieved here with communication and appropriate actions."</p> <p>Any legal battle would be complex. "From my personal perspective — Navajo is a people, not a pattern," says Scafidi. Trademark protection is strong, and the Navajo Nation's trademarks are detailed. "But legally, Urban Outfitters does have a couple of defenses," says Scafidi. "In the case of the Indian Arts And Crafts Act, they might very well say, 'Look, this is not an art or a craft.' And in the case of the trademark, they might say, 'Well, on those particular products there are other trademarks that indicate the source of the good, and that we believe nobody would be confused by the word Navajo.'" Urban Outfitters could argue that it is not using "Navajo" as a name or a trademark, but as a descriptor (although that might be difficult given that the chain offers with "Navajo" in the name). "It's not a clear-cut issue," says Scafidi.</p> <p>Of course, Urban Outfitters could always just ditch the dubious language altogether. "Simply changing the name from 'Navajo' to 'Southwestern' would go a long way towards not trivializing an entire people," says Scafidi. And it would put the company on surer legal ground. Changing its product names would probably be a savvy move, but, for whatever reason, it is not one that Urban Outfitters seems interested in making.</p> <p>Earlier: <br> </p><p>Urban Outfitters is denying that it Truche designer Stevie Koerner's state-with-a-heart-in-it necklace. The company, which is owned by prominent Republican donor Dick Hayne, points out that many designers have made jewelry that includes a heart and a representation of a geographical place, and that the combination of the two elements is essentially generic. (Which it probably is — no matter who came up with the design first, it is probably not copyrightable under U.S. law.) "We are not implying that Koerner stole her necklace idea from one of these other designers, we are simply stating the obvious — that the idea is not unique to Koerner and she can in no way claim to be its originator." Urban Outfitters, which has a long and well-documented history of pilfering designs from less well-known artists, also mentions that it wouldn't ordinarily stoop to publicly discussing this kind of thing, except that "the media response to her campaign is threatening to impact the dozens of independent designers we work with on a daily basis. For many of them, having their work sold at Urban Outfitters is a very positive turning point in their careers, and we will not allow their hard work and commitment, or ours, to be undermined by these false allegations." We reckon they're just . For a catalog of other, similar jewelry designs sold on Etsy and elsewhere prior to both Koerner's and Urban Outfitters' versions, check out on Regretsy. []</p> The Chanel campaign that Carine Roitfeld styled with her typical sultry sexy sexiness features Freja Beha Erichsen in a Chanel facemask. And, in another shot, some sexy black lace. []<br> Carine Roitfeld says Kate Winslet will be on the super sexy cover of the next V, which Roitfeld is styling. [] Paparazzi snapped photos of Margherita Missoni and some models shooting the campaign for her company's forthcoming Target collection — which the retailer has been unusually protective of, requiring editors and bloggers to promise not to describe items in any detail, and confiscating their cameras before the press preview. Well, from these photos, the stuff looks an awful lot like Missoni. Surprise. The campaign also seems to involve a turquoise blue Fiat. [ Here is a watch made of diamonds that costs $3 million.[] Old Navy is selling gay pride t-shirts now. []<p>Thanks to photos taken at the Victoria's Secret show rehearsal by the New York Post, we now know what Miranda Kerr looks like wearing a be-tasseled bra encrusted with $2.5 million worth of diamonds. Turns out the squiggly lines on the bra, which was revealed on a mannequin last month, foretold a general Venus-on-the-half-shell theme, and Kerr will walk the show wearing not wings, but a big clamshell contraption made of silver gauze. The supermodel says that if her boobs are looking better than usual, it's thanks to breast milk. "It's milking time," jokes. "I'm still breast-feeding. I'm pumping, and it's going well." It's funny to think that Victoria's Secret is this highly artificial runway show celebrating spray tans and styrofoam wings and boobies and yet a breast-feeding woman is the highlight. Image at the link. []</p> This is a picture of Iggy Pop holding a bottle of men's perfume. Paco Rabanne would have you believe that Iggy wants you to buy the men's perfume, but those eyes tell another story. [] Some rare and never-before-seen photographs of Marilyn Monroe are going on display at Milk gallery in New York City. Included are several from the so-called Last Sitting (a photo shoot with Bert Stern that occurred six weeks before the actress's death, and from whose contact sheets — or is it just us? — Stern seems to unearth never-before-seen shots with regularity). []<p>Franca Sozzani has finally spoken out about Vogue Italia's decision to pull one picture of Karlie Kloss in a twisty-pretzel pose from its web site. She says that she was wrong to un-publish the photo. "I believed I could avoid a pointless debate. I made a mistake," she admits. Sozzani now believes she it would have been better to "leave the picture and let everybody express their opinion freely. The picture is beautiful and that's all." She says the image, which was widely for portraying Kloss as very thin-looking — many people assumed she'd been Photoshopped into the odd pose — was not "heavily Photoshopped." Sozzani also says that Kloss isn't anorexic, and her muscles and work for Victoria's Secret, "the underwear line that loves real women par excellence," proves that — apparently, once you're a model and you book VS, any eating issues you may have had are magicked away! It is literally impossible to model for VS and be anorexic. Sozzani further says that she wishes there were "photography courses to educate many people who work in this field who don't know anything about the history of photography." We're greater photographic and body literacy — and no, we never that Vogue Italia had 'Shopped Kloss into that position — but what's missing from Sozzani's explanation is an understanding of the broader social context. Why is it that the "experimental" photography high fashion values always happens to highlight and glorify extraordinary thinness? []</p> Fergie wore a dress that didn't zip up the whole way to an event. Runway samples are often pinned (if they are too big) or sewn (if they are too small) onto actors for magazine shoots, but rarely do we see one worn that way in public. It doesn't look too bad — in a way, the zipper even distracts from the ugly-Christmas-wrapping-paper look (that bow!) of the Jean-Charles de Castelbajac minidress. [] You may have heard that Meryl Streep just got her first cover of American Vogue. Streep previously appeared on Vogue Paris's cover twice: once in 1989, and once with Penelope Cruz in 2010. [] And here's Carey Mulligan on the January issue of W. [] Fashion intern horror stories! Cleaning a white suit soaked in the pee of "the most famous supermodel," after a campaign shoot in St. Barth for a female British designer. Not being allowed to drink from the office water cooler. And this one: <p>A friend of mine interned for a socialite who was involved with a lot of charities. She was in a town car on her way to a charity event with her intern. The socialite thought that her intern had a better top than she did. She forced her intern to switch tops in the town car or else she would have been fired, seriously. She never returned the top and insists to this day it is actually hers when she wears it in her office in front of the intern.</p> <p>Sociopaths: they walk among us. And in fashion they kind of run things. UPDATE: We're just going to leave this photo here. It's of a most famous supermodel, Kate Moss, wearing a white suit in the Spring-Summer, 2006, Stella McCartney campaign. Which was in St. Barth. []</p><p>You can't help but be a little underwhelmed with Vogue's forty-item gift guide, which, with a total price of more than $900,000 (that's probably a little higher than Somalia's non-pirate-booty GDP), doesn't even include the limited-edition polar bear skin bedspread that the World Wildlife Fund is selling this Christmas to raise awareness about the bears' eroding Arctic habitat. Still, even without the endangered animal pelts or vouchers for the terminally-postponed mission to Mars, the guide is impressively pricey, offering everything from wave runners to eight-dollar Bulgari-branded bottled water, presumably distilled from the bittersweet tears of Olympic silver-medalists. "Order it by the case!" commands Vogue, to taste the subtle undertones of dissipated dreams. </p> <p>Some of the more outrageous items on include the $1,525 Chanel beach bag that's weighted at the bottom to keep the valet mindful of the impermeable boundary between master and servant. (Comes with one Chanel beach towel!) There are also the $700 Dior Homme leather and canvas high-top sneakers, the $2,400 Cartier clock, and the "James de Givenchy for Taffin diamond, baroque spinel, white-meerschaum- and black-rhodium-plated 18k white-gold deer-head brooch," which can be yours for $145,000. Though you might think that this guide proves that the rift between rich and poor in America is growing, it actually offers a way to relate to the super rich whose basements we now know are filled with just as much useless and impractical crap as your basement is, only where they have rusted Sea-Doo wave runners ($54,495 ), gold-leaf encrusted sunglasses ($500), and seldom-worn diamond filigree chains ($19,500), you have special-edition Monopoly games, empty CD jewel cases, and an army of vaguely menacing nutcrackers.</p> <p>Vogue's list includes the (exorbitant) prices for most of its designer treasures, however, prices of the absolute fanciest items have been discreetly excluded. Fashionista the true cost of some of the items Vogue calls Price On Application, but I thought I could contribute some additional research. Pro-tip: if you want to know how much that gilt bronze bronze Riemann chair from Craig Van Den Bruelle costs, you have to call and listen to a guardedly optimistic salesman tell you, "That would be one-ten," as in, I found out after I preemptively blurted, "Dollars?", one-hundred and ten thousand dollars.</p> <p>The bronze chair was my first inquiry, and I quickly learned that if I was going to call about the price of things like the David Webb Juno 18k gold, platinum, diamond, and kryptonite bracelet, I had to sound like I had $98,000 to spend. By the time I called Neiman Marcus about the 18-karat yellow gold ring ($30,000), I'd perfected the aggressively imperious tone of the nouveaux riche. When I called Louis Vuitton about their diamond watch, I was more delighted to learn that it was the only one left in Manhattan than I was dismayed at its $17,200 price tag. I gave the salesperson at Bergdorf's a stern talking-to for keeping me on hold for fifteen seconds before I could learn that the Pomellato's Tango Cuff bracelet in 18k rose gold had a $29,500 price tag. Bit by bit I became inured to the astounding prices until, by the time I called Chrome Hearts claiming to be a whimsical plastic surgeon interested in a sterling silver stethoscope, I was genuinely surprised by how reasonable $3,795 sounded, which is really what Christmas in America is all about — warping your rudimentary sense of economics. Good work, Vogue — you've truly capture the holiday spirit.</p> <p>The full price tag of Vogue's gift guide? A whopping $940,715.</p> <p>And that's not even accounting for the one item I was unable to find out the price of — the "gold meenakari necklace set with large rose-cut diamonds," which is sold by something called The Gem Palace. The necklace is in India, see, and the sales assistant who (rather eagerly) took my call told me she couldn't give me a price for at least a week. It'll surely make a nice gift for someone. As Vogue pointed out, it's got "A diamond drop for every day of the week." Say it with me now, members of the 0.00000001%: "Darling, you shouldn't have."</p> <p> [Vogue]<br> [Fashionista]</p><p>Days after commercial photographer Tyler Shields and his reality-TV-star girlfriend Francesca Eastwood hit headlines for lighting a $100,000 Hermès Birkin on fire for a photo shoot — and, , facing subsequent criticism on the grounds of , tackiness, and making bad photos — tongues are a-wagging and fingers are a-typing with what may be the most damning allegation to yet come out of BirkinBurnin'-Gate 2012: that the incinerated purse was not real Hermès.</p> <p>At least, that's the consensus among the obsessives who frequent the many Internet discussion boards dedicated to iconic luxury handbags, such as .</p> <p>"Looks fake," comments one user. "That is not a genuine Hermès bag," writes another. "[B]ut guess it's getting her attention so serves her purpose." People who spend a lot of their spare time studying Birkins and photos of Birkins are looking at Francesca Eastwood's Instagram account, her sister Morgan Eastwood's Instagram account, and studying stills from their reality show — and they are saying that the texture of the bag's crocodile leather is wrong. It looks "too shiny," and more like croc-embossed leather or pleather. They also question whether a bag made of tanned crocodile hide would sag, warp, and seem to melt under the heat of flames, as the bag shown in Shields' photographs did. And say that $100,000 an unrealistically high price for a Birkin, anyway. PurseBlog, "If the bag in these pictures is real, I'll eat my hat."</p> <p></p> <p>Tyler Shields is vague about the bag's provenance. The photographer claims he bought the bag secondhand from a contact in London. This is what he has to about how it came to be in his possession:</p> <p>[W]henever I asked anybody, "What's the best brand? What's the biggest thing?" Everyone said, "the Birkin," and then I looked it up, and the cheapest one is like $30,000. There's a waiting list to get them — these things are amazing. And when I was in London doing my last gallery [exhibition] I ended up getting the opportunity to get one, and I did.</p> <p>Where did you get the bag?<br><br> I got it from — basically one of my very good friends over there has a bunch of them, and they set me up with the person who they get them from, and somebody brought me one in the trunk of a Bentley.</p> <p>How much did you pay for it?<br><br> $100,000.</p> <p>From your own pocket?<br><br> Yeah.</p> <p>To understand this story, you need to first understand the weird and warped Birkin marketplace. Birkins are fancy handbags made by Hermès, one of the world's oldest luxury-goods companies. Because Hermès likes to maintain the exclusivity of its brand and of its most-recognized signature products, Hermès controls the Birkin market by not making very many of the bags, and by making it difficult for people to buy the bags. Hermès, ostensibly a bag-selling company, maintains an appearance of studied indifference to selling bags. Because the brand believes that it has a captive audience for the Birkin — that a customer who wants, and is prepared to pay tens of thousands of dollars for, a Birkin will not, upon being rebuffed, buy a Chanel bag or a Louis Vuitton bag or a Proenza Schouler bag instead — Hermès manufactures and releases an extremely limited (and secret) number of Birkins annually. New Birkins are not sold online. They are not sold in department stores. They are not sold (or even discussed, per company policy) over the phone. Nor are they normally sold, at least by the common definition of the word, in its own stores. If you present yourself in person at an Hermès boutique, credit card in hand, and simply ask to buy a Birkin, you won't get one. But your name may be added to a waiting list. Depending on the style of bag you want and what Hermès perceives to be your clout, the list might be years long.</p> <p> The exact nature of this infamous list is, like Hermès' exact pricing structure and other seemingly pertinent details of the trade, left deliberately opaque: as anyone who's watched the Sex and the City episode with Lucy Liu and the Birkin knows, "the list" is malleable, more device than fact. Hermès likes to make people wait 2-3 years to buy a Birkin — the bag's starting price of around $8,000 is, apparently, insufficient on its own to maintain the exclusivity of the brand. The company claims that tanned leather and exotic hides that meet its exacting specifications and talented leatherworkers trained in the making of their bags are in short supply; ergo shortages, ergo the list. (There are, however, ways around the waiting list that don't depend on being a celebrity: after numerous fruitless inquiries at Hermès stores in Spain and the South of France, makeup-artist-turned-eBay-reseller-turned- Michael Tonello cracked the code when he went to the Hermès boutique in Madrid, piled up ten scarves, and casually asked, "Oh ... and one more thing. ... Do you have a Birkin?" $18,000 changed hands, and the bag left the store on his arm.) Hermès controls its distribution network very carefully, but its vigilance can't be perfect. You might, if you're lucky, even Hermès bags on the shelves of a discounter like Loehmann's. But you won't ever find a Birkin there.</p> <p>All this artificial scarcity means that there is a robust secondary market for Hermès leather goods, particularly the Birkin (and its smaller cousin, the Kelly). It's pretty simple: people often pay more for Hermès bags acquired from resellers than they would had they bought those same items new from an Hermès store. The premium is for not having to wait on a list.</p> <p>So "used" Birkins can, confusingly enough, cost more than new ones. A 35cm Hermès crocodile Birkin currently retails for €31,200, or around $38,000. But on the secondary market, crocodile Birkins can change hands for prices in the $50,000-$60,000 range. Gilt Groupe it sold one for $56,000. At where would-be sellers and buyers of Birkins meet, you can see crocodile Birkins listed for $62,000, $63,000, $72,000, $77,000.</p> <p>Is a $100,000 secondhand Birkin inconceivable? It's a high price, but not, apparently, an implausible one. Tina Craig, the founder of , says, "I know women who have paid $100,000 online for a crocodile bag. The market can take these prices."</p> <p>On the other hand, the bag might be a fake. The counterfeit Hermès market is almost as strange and contradictory as the primary and secondary markets for real Hermès. A "cheap" counterfeit 35cm Birkin made of red croc-embossed vinyl, with gold-toned hardware, will set you back . A significantly better-looking counterfeit 35cm Birkin made of what the seller claims is real crocodile leather from Hermès' own supplier, with palladium hardware, costs — or more than a real, and brand-new, leather Birkin in an Hermès store. It comes with its own "authernticity card."</p> <p>I work a fair amount with leather in my spare time, making and repairing bags, wallets, and other small goods. And while I don't regularly use crocodile hides for projects (they are too expensive), I can say that tanned crocodile hides such as those used by Hermès tend to be very glossy. (The bag Shields and Eastwood destroyed doesn't look "too shiny" to my eye — and at any rate, Shields' flash-heavy lighting design could make it look shinier than it really was.) I've never lit a piece of crocodile on fire, but if under high heat it behaves anything like snakeskin, a crocodile bag would distort and shrink as it burned. Likely, the skin of the hide would shrink first, leading the comparatively rigid scales to pucker and buckle until they raised themselves and overlapped, like roof tiles. That's not really what you see happening in Shields' photographs — but then there are other variables to consider, such as the fact he and Eastwood were using an accelerant (gasoline), and had also cut the bag with a chainsaw. (They really had it in for that purse.) Ultimately, nobody except Eastwood and Shields is in a position to know whether the burning of this Birkin was a hoax or not.</p> <p>Whether or not the bag was "real" hardly changes the message of Shields and Eastwood's profoundly meaningless, wasteful gesture — a gesture which was calculated to generate headlines for Eastwood's new E! reality show, and did. Whether they burned an actual Birkin or a counterfeit, or a cheap counterfeit or an expensive one, doesn't really matter. Destroying any bag for such shallow reasons is stupid. Destroying a fake bag and telling everyone it's real, however, is pretty damn tacky.</p> <p>Earlier: </p><p> Welcome to how your celebrity fragrance sausage is made: In a boring conference room in Newcastle, surrounded by corporate types, flacks, and real noses. "It might be too much like fruit," offers Beyoncé, taking a sniff. "But I like it."</p><p>Beyoncé and , faced with a panoply of prepared samples with formulaic-sounding names, are going about the serious business of choosing which scent will be anointed Rush, and which will return to the laboratory shelves to gather dust, living out their days as also-rans in the winner-take-all sport of celebrity fragrance marketing. Just kidding! There's no harm in seeing if Faith Hill, Jennifer Lopez, Victoria Beckham, Kate Moss, Sarah Jessica Parker — or any of the dozens of other stars who've cast in their licensed lot with fragrance giant Coty, Inc. — will take it.</p> <p>Beyoncé launched her first perfume, Heat, in the U.S. last February. It sold $60,000 in one day, and was immediately ranked in the top ten women's perfumes by sales. Later in the year, however, Heat , and by June it was number 21 in women's. That pattern is said to be typical of celebrity perfumes that start off strongly, with a big marketing push and lots of hype, and then end up two months later stocked next to indelible classics like Chanel No. 5. Now that the Heat is cooling, B. needs a new fragrance to stay on top, or else she and Coty might not make absolute piles of money. Heat Rush, apparently known going into this meeting as "Sunset Cocktail Mod 5," fits the bill. Congratulations, Sunset Cocktail Mod 5! Beyoncé's perfume line is projected to do around $150 million at retail in 2011.</p> <p> [YouTube]<br> [WWD]<br> [WWD]</p><p> Oooh boy: Karl Lagerfeld directed another one of his insane, model-filled Chanel short films. The ones he keeps on making because apparently the Kaiser has nobody in his life to tell him that his films are terrible. Let me be that person, Karl, because this needs saying: you have Michael Bay's sense of pace and structure, Jean-Luc Godard's mundanity, and, um, Jean-Luc Godard's . But without any explosions or Anna Karina. You are a very talented designer and you say entertaining things in interviews and you made a good documentary subject in Lagerfeld Confidential and I even believe that you have read most of the 10,000 million books that line your home, Karl Lagerfeld, but not everybody gets to be good at everything they try, sorry. This trailer for your latest is interesting only because Freja Beha Erichsen makes out with Anna Mouglalis in it, and even that is kind of a cheap trick. With Kristen McMenamy as an heiress whose batteries badly need replacing.</p><p> A grumpy-looking Gisele Bündchen endured heckling from Giants fans as she left the VIP area at the Super Bowl stadium last night, following her husband Tom Brady's team's loss. Bündchen did not respond as men shouted "Eli rules!" and "Eli owns your husband!" But when the supermodel reached the elevator bank, she was caught on video saying, "You have to catch the ball when you're supposed to catch the ball. My husband cannot fucking throw the ball and catch the ball at the same time. I can't believe they dropped the ball so many times." []</p> Meanwhile, in case you were wondering what Madonna's futuristic gilded centurion/robot queen halftime show look was all about, it was Givenchy, darling. Givenchy. [] Susan Sarandon and her daughter Eva Amurri star in new Neiman Marcus ads. [] Gap is launching a new line of basic t-shirts and tank tops called GapPure. It's a companion to the underwear line, GapBody. [] 21-year-old Argentinean model Naomi Preizler, like Sasha Pivovarova before her, likes to sketch backstage at fashion shows. []In Ladymag Land, the biggest issues of the year are the September issues. And this year, Vogue, Queen of the Ladymags, had its biggest issue ever. Nine hundred sixteen pages: Absolutely GIGANTIC. But all of the Ladymags celebrated the fall season in a huge way, and we could not let this momentous occasion pass without critiquing their efforts. With ten titles to choose from, thousands of pages to flip through and epicly large headlines screaming from the newsstands, it's tough to know which editors, if any, actually produced something worthwhile. And so, in the spirit of Midweek Madness, this is Ladymag Lunacy: The September issues, rated and graded. Grab yourself a diet soda and get comfortable: The show's about to begin.<p>Ryan has what some folks call an "all-American" look: Blond hair, blue eyes, creamy skin. He also has Down Syndrome. And he's in a Target ad this week — after appearing in a Nordstrom catalog last year.</p> <p>AdWeek to a blog called Noah's Dad, written by the father of a boy with Down syndrome, who is excited about the Target ad, noting that the retailer has made a some big statements by casting Ryan in the circular:</p> <p>They said that people born with Down syndrome deserve to be treated the same as every other other person on this planet.</p> <p>They said that it's time for organizations to be intentional about seeking creative ways to help promote inclusion, not exclusion.  (It's no accident that Target used a model with Down syndrome in this ad; it was an intentional decision.  If want the world to be a place where everyone is treated equal we can't just sit around and watch the days tick away.  We have to be intentional.  We have to do something.)</p> <p>They said that companies don't have to call attention to the fact that they choose to be inclusive in order for people to notice their support for people with disabilities.  In fact, by not making a big deal out of it they are doing a better job of showing their support for the special needs community.</p> <p>They said it's important for the world to see people born with disabilities with a fresh set of eyes.  That it's time for us to lay down all the inaccurate stereotypes from the past and move forward embracing the future with true and accurate ones.</p> <p>Last year, Taya, a little girl with Down syndrome, to a modeling agency in the UK. And actress , born with Down syndrome, has been in 22 episodes of Glee. We often discuss underrepresented groups in terms of women and racial minorities; those with special needs? Not as often.</p> <p>While high-end retailers tend to aim for exclusivity and "aspirational" ad campaigns — impossibly pretty people in multi-million-dollar and in — mass-market companies thrive on a democratic, "something for everyone!" vibe. So what happens when a kid with Down syndrome is cast in promotional material for a nation-wide store? People take note, and applaud. Of course, the retailers are fully aware that their target market — middle-class parents — are accepting of this choice. It's not pandering, but it's also not risky. Do you think a luxury brand — Calvin Klein, Dolce & Gabbana, Chanel — would ever cast a model born with Down syndrome?</p> <p>In any case, when it comes to Ryan, the entire experience has been a positive one. Ryan's mom on the Noah's Dad blog, writing:</p> <p>We are very pleased that Nordstrom placed Ryan in their catalog. The whole process of modeling is an extreme confidence booster for him. He received so much warmth and caring from the Nordstrom crew that he thought they were there just for him!</p> <p>Win/win.</p> <p> [AdFreak]<br> [Noah's Dad]<br> [Noah's Dad]</p><p>Bloomberg Markets went to Burkina Faso, where Victoria's Secret usually buys up the entire fair trade and organic-certified cotton crop to make the lingerie it sells in the West. There, the magazine found children of 12 and 13, laboring in the fields on pain of being whipped with switches by their bosses the cotton farmers. Burkina Faso-grown cotton is shipped to India and Sri Lanka, where it is milled into cloth, cut, sewn and finished ( and , it is worth pointing out, also have their issues with child labor in the garment industry). From there, finished underwear made of the fair trade organic cotton is shipped to the U.S., where it used to be sold by Victoria's Secret with hang-tags that read, "Pesticide-free, 100% rain-fed cotton. Good for women. Good for the children that depend on them." (The company has since dropped the "good for children" part.) Bloomberg, which spent six weeks in the country, reports:</p> <p>In Burkina Faso, where child labor is endemic to the production of its chief crop export, paying lucrative premiums for organic and fair-trade cotton has — perversely — created fresh incentives for exploitation. The program has attracted subsistence farmers who say they don't have the resources to grow fair-trade cotton without violating a central principle of the movement: forcing other people's children into their fields.</p> <p>Victoria's Secret's partners in cotton-sourcing, including the Swiss organization responsible for certifying the cotton and auditing producers, say they have raised concerns about child labor since 2008. Victoria's Secret says it never saw the relevant report. Cotton is produced thanks to forced and child labor in more countries than any commodity except for gold; the fair trade program is supposed to ensure fair labor standards are met. But this is hardly the first time that certification standards for organic and fair-trade cotton have been thrown into doubt: last year, the German Financial Times fraud "on a gigantic scale" in the production of "organic" cotton originating from India. One of the children Bloomberg interviewed, a 13-year-old girl named Clarisse, took a reporter into the field where she works and demonstrated how she turns the soil with a hoe:</p> <p>Bending at the waist, Clarisse buries the edge of the blade and starts scraping a deep row into the earth, taking small steps backward with each cut. "It's very, very hard," she says, "and he forces me to do it." Before long, her arms and hips ache. "It's painful," she says. When she strikes rocks beneath the soil, it sends the blade cutting into her bare toes. If she slows down from exhaustion, "he comes to beat me," she says. He whips her across the back with the tree branch and shouts at her. "I cry," she says, looking down as she speaks and rubbing the calluses on her hands.</p> <p>As always, those $8.50 panties carry a high price. []</p> Here are some more pictures of Karl Lagerfeld's relaunched namesake line, which goes on sale in the new year on Net-A-Porter. [] Yeah, it's December, but here's another spring campaign for your consideration. Louis Vuitton, Steven Meisel, starring 27-year-old new face Kati Nescher and Daria Strokous. Marc Jacobs calls it "very soft and sweet, yet at the same time very bold and graphic." Very. [] Jaime Beck and Kevin Burg captured this "cinemagraph" — a gif, but shot with the intentionality of a photograph — of Crystal Renn dancing on an F train. [] This is Lanvin's iPhone 4 case. It only costs $75. [] "Modeling doesn't have anything to do with self-confidence. Working off your looks makes you pretty much the opposite of self-confident," says Paulina Porizkova in the trailer for About Face, a new documentary about models and aging, set to debut at Sundance. "So maybe I became beautiful once I stopped modeling." []<p>There were almost two tragedies in the family over the weekend, with sources revealing that Whitney Houston's daughter was found unconscious in a bath at the Beverly Hilton Hotel the day before her mother died in similar circumstances. Checked in under her mom's name and in a room on the same floor, friends grew concerned when she wasn't responding through the locked door and had to get security to let them into the bathroom -– where they found her asleep in the bath –- and help Bobbi out of the tub. </p> <p>There is nothing to suggest that she was under the influence of any drugs or medication, just as there is no confirmation that she wasn't. Rough. []<br> And the sad just keeps getting sadder, it's known that Bobbi was hospitalized on Sunday morning after learning of her mother's death but it turns out she was rushed there a second time that day after mixing booze and pills. "She tried to ease the pain of losing her mother by having a few alcoholic drinks," said a source. "She was distraught, on the verge of a complete breakdown. Not knowing what to do, members of her mother's entourage tried to calm her down with a sedative. The two were an unfortunate mix and she ended up passing out." Um, someone needs to get her mother's entourage far away from Bobbi. []<br> Understandably there are now suicide fears for Bobbi. []<br> Not the best husband, let's hope he's a good father – because Bobbi Brown is now in LA to support his daughter. []</p> <p>When a noted figure dies the jokes follow almost immediately, but it's going to be "Too soon!" forever when it comes to making fun of Whitney Houston, according to Kathy Griffin – who frequently used her for material in the past. "I saw her here at this event last year and the thing is, when you saw Whitney Houston, you know you were looking at a superstar," she said. "You know, I'm also a fan. I am a fan of so many people that I tease and bring up in my act. Whitney was certainly someone that I knew. I hosted awards shows that she was in. I went to her concerts. She didn't lip sync. She was just so awesome." []<br> It's also too soon to be releasing Whitney's autopsy results, with police saying they are on a security hold. This is to stop magazines going nuts until the officials have time to investigate any shady goings-on. []</p> <p>Together they died from a mixture of alcohol and prescription drugs, but Tony Bennett is using the deaths of Whitney Houston, Amy Winehouse and Michael Jackson to champion the legalization of street drugs. "First it was Michael Jackson, then Amy Winehouse, now the magnificent Whitney Houston," he said. "Let's legalize drugs, like Amsterdam, it's a very sane city now." []<br> On a similar note, here is a classy article about all the stars, including Heath Ledger and Anna Nicole Smith, who have died of overdoses. []<br> And why not celebrities who have died in hotels? Though they're going pretty old-school with Coco Chanel and Oscar Wilde. []<br> It may have been Whitney's night – well, and Adele's – but Amy Winehouse was also honored at the Grammys. Her dad Mitch saying: "We shouldn't be here. Our darling daughter should be here. []</p> <p>Today in over-sharing, Susan Sarandon has some advice for those of you experiencing fertility issues – go to Italy and fuck everywhere. "Don't worry about it, eat, drink and fuck and you'll probably get pregnant," she said, adding that it's how she conceived her daughter, Eva Amurri. "And that's what happened with Eva on the Spanish Steps." Outdoor cleaners responsible for the upkeep of the famed tourist spot are no doubt thrilled at the suggestion. []</p> <p>A ridiculous scandal has broken out among the residents of Brooklyn's Park Slope, with shoppers at the neighbourhood's food co-op up in arms that their famous fellow co-oppers aren't pulling their weight. You see, to get access to the organic quinoa and kale you need to pull a 45-minute shift each month – but local rich folk including celebrities like Maggie Gyllenhaal have been accused of sending nannies, PAs and cleaning staff down on their behalf. Though Gyllenhaal's rep is telling wowsers to suck a bag of dicks because the actress has done shifts and generally works in the backroom to avoid stargazing chaos. "Who would go [on her behalf]?" she says. "She doesn't have anyone in her employ except me, and I don't do it." []</p><p> may have lawyered up and non-apology-apologized for his infamous "I love Hitler" rant — preserved forever by a cell phone video — but if he thinks he's going to somehow be welcomed back at Dior, he's dreaming. Galliano is a great designer who thinks Nazism is awesome, and no matter what Franca Sozzani says, that is not something anyone's career can survive. So who's going to replace him? Here are the names being mentioned. </p> <p>The Candidates<br> Riccardo Tisci, 36, is the head designer at Givenchy. Givenchy is owned by Bernard Arnault's Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy, the same parent company that owns , and the creative directorship of Givenchy is considered a traditional proving ground/practice mat for the top job at Dior. Galliano came from Givenchy; Alexander McQueen, less successfully, also held the position prior to launching his own label. Post-Galliano, Givenchy went through a bit of a wilderness period. Designer turnover was high (even Julien MacDonald had a go) and collections were...not good. Tisci's arrival in 2005 changed that: Critics love his consistently gothic-inspired aesthetic, and celebrities known for their unusual fashion choices, like Cate Blanchett and Tilda Swinton, love his clothes, too. Tisci is known for his long-lasting relationships with his muses, including the transsexual model Lea T. and fellow Italian Mariacarla Boscono, as well as his friendship with Marina Abramovic. Abramovic has incorporated Tisci's couture into her performance art. (She once even publicly floated the idea of creative directing a Givenchy show, and "teaching the models to walk in a different way.") Tisci has couture experience, which is highly relevant to the Dior gig, and although Givenchy recently stopped producing couture shows every season, its couture collection is (unlike Dior's) said by LVMH to be profitable. Accessories also perform well for Givenchy — the house had quite a hit with its "Nightingale" purse, and everyone knows bags and shoes (along with fragrances and cosmetics) are where most fashion houses make most of their money. There are rumors — all unsourced, unverified, and unverifiable — that Tisci is favored for the job at Dior. Odds: 1 in 4. (Skinny jeans)</p> Alber Elbaz, 49, designs Lanvin. His is a dream position, basically: a generous financial backer, Taiwanese media baron Shaw-Lan Wang, acquired the world's oldest surviving fashion house from L'Oréal in 2001, and hired Elbaz. Her only instructions to him were to "please wake the sleeping giant." Wang waited patiently for the house to become profitable, which it did in 2007. Elbaz has a wide degree of creative freedom, and his clothes — a touch girly, with a focus on draping, raw edges, and bright colors — are generallly beloved by women and critics. Elbaz, who was by the New Yorker's Ariel Levy in 2009, is known for being the chosen successor of Yves Saint Laurent himself (Tom Ford beat him out after Gucci Group acquired the brand). He's also known for his food issues, his shyness, and his kindness: here's a designer who, when he noticed that the models in his show couldn't walk in the six-inch titanium heels he'd designed, delayed his show to get them in flats. (Miuccia Prada, by contrast, said she thought it was "funny" when three models fell in one of her shows.) Would Elbaz leave Lanvin? It's unclear; he certainly seems very happy there, but Dior is on the very short list of houses (Chanel is another) that could theoretically tempt even a designer in that rare position of contentment and security. (Also, Bernard Arnault has a lot of money.) Elbaz's warm, feminine aesthetic could even be a more natural fit at Dior than Tisci's severity. Odds: 1 in 5. (Leopard-print flats) Olivier Theyskens, 34, has held a lot of jobs in fashion — lately, after a period of unemployment, he's been designing a collection for Theory called Theyskens Theory. Previously, the Belgian fashion school drop-out designed his own label (which closed, although Madonna did wear one of his dresses to the Academy Awards in 1998), designed for Rochas (which also shut down, in 2006 — though it has since relaunched under designer Macro Zanini), and Nina Ricci (which fired him, in 2009). Anna Wintour and many critics loved Theyskens' gothic-influenced dresses. And any major luxury house, finding itself with a job vacancy, always places a call to Anna. But Theyskens has a reputation as a financial backer's nightmare: at Rochas, he insisted on designing what was technically ready-to-wear as though it were couture, creating fashions that could not be mass-produced, and required extensive work by hand. Some of his pieces retailed for over $20,000. His profligacy — and his distaste for high-grossing accessories — are among the reasons why Rochas closed down, and why Nina Ricci fired him. Theyskens is extremely talented, and until Andrew Rosen brought him in at Theory, he was one of the most high-profile out-of-work designers around. Dior is also the kind of place where Theyskens' maniacal attention to detail without regard for cost could be an asset, since the house has an actual couture division. But Dior is also a global mega-brand which licenses its name to everything from cosmetics to neckties, and would Theyskens be right for that? Odds: 1 in 15. (A fucking $20,000 dress) Christian Lacroix, 59 — speaking of unemployed couturiers, hello? Why go to the bother of poaching a designer from a perfectly comfy position when one of the 20th Century masters of couture is, as far as I can tell, totally available? Realistically, Lacroix used up all his LVMH second chances long ago; in 2005, Bernard Arnault finally sold Lacroix's label to a company that makes most of its money running an airport duty-free chain. It turned out that, after 18 years in operation under the auspices of LVMH, Lacroix had once turned a profit. (The duty-free chain people didn't do much better, and in 2009, Lacroix's fashion division was closed, its founder and staff were fired, and the company was turned into a licensing operation.) But Lacroix knows couture, his bombastic aesthetic is right for Dior, he'd be perfect. Odds: 1 in 10,000. (Peep-toe boots in the snow) Alexander Wang, 26, was on Twitter as a potential Galliano replacement by none other than Paper magazine's Mickey Boardman. Random? Completely: Wang's famed slouchy-t-shirt-and-skinny-jeans, "model off-duty" aesthetic, relatively low prices (only relatively: we're talking $160 for a sweatshirt, instead of $1,600), and reliance on China for production is light years away from what we think of as Dior. But a young designer is not entirely out of the question; Dior may in fact prefer a creative director who is fresher and less established, provided of course that individual has the vision necessary to carry a major brand. (Yves Saint Laurent, after all, succeeded Christian Dior at the tender age of 21.) Could that person be Alexander Wang? Probably not — but that doesn't mean Joseph Altuzarra and Kate and Laura Mulleavy of Rodarte (who were last year to be in talks to sell a stake in their brand to LVMH) haven't taken any calls. Odds: 1 in 100,000. (A pocket too small to put anything in)In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.<p>According to reports, Anna Wintour's team has been calling in some samples in U.S. sizes 14 and 16 — an event so unusual in our age of miniature celebrities that it merits a mention in today's Women's Wear Daily. Certain (unnamed) designers have been asked to create special outfits so Vogue will have plenty of cover options — and the word is that all the effort is for a cover that will feature Adele. This would be for Vogue's March issue, the spring fashion issue. This is newsworthy for a couple of reasons: one, it's been four years since Vogue featured a plus-size woman on its cover (Jennifer Hudson in 2007) and two, Vogue isn't even putting Adele on the Shape issue cover, it's apparently giving her a "real" cover. (Conventional ladymag wisdom is that March is the second most important issue of the year after September — which is a huge vote of confidence on the part of Vogue in Adele's salability.) It's been a good year for Adele, vocal cord issues aside: 21 is the top-selling album of the year, and she's nabbed six Grammy nominations, in addition to covers of U.S. Cosmopolitan, British Vogue, and The Gentlewoman. []</p> These Chanel running shoes are so hideous. And yet they cost $795-$950. [] Model Anna Speckhart hails from Pittsfield, Illinois. She says she doesn't talk much about her career with her friends when she visits. "I don't really talk about it at home. I avoid questions about it. They're really proud of me but it's awkward for me. I feel totally unrelated to my pictures sometimes," she says. Even though as a model she's under a certain amount of pressure to look stylish at castings, "I'm not going to spend $1,200 on designer gear," says Speckhart. "I'd rather work for money than trade...I'm really frugal — J.Crew is a real stretch for me." [] From the man who : there's a new Baptiste Giabiconi song trailer, y'all. (Songs have trailers now?) [] The new Prada campaign is here! As promised, it features Elise Crombez. Damn, have we missed Elise Crombez. [] H.R.H. Princess Shinyhair-upon-Tyne wore a black velvet Alexander McQueen dress to a black-tie event. [] Here's the official ad for the Hunger Games nail polish collection, Capitol Colours. It stars Elizabeth Banks in character as Effie Trinket. [] Arizona Muse, Raquel Zimmerman, Karlie Kloss, Anja Rubik, and Lara Stone were the five models who worked the most for Vogue (and all of its international editions) during 2011. Muse shot some 220 editorial pages, enough for a magazine of her own. [] Vogue's roundup of designer holiday cards is pretty cute. []<p>A New York woman is suing Chanel after trying on a $10,000 ring at the 57th St. boutique — a ring which she was unable to get off her finger. Three hours in the emergency room eventually resulted in a successful removal that left digit and bauble intact. []</p> There are rumors that Kate Moss is having John Galliano design her wedding dress — something fiancé Jamie Hince has already denied, but whatevs. Since Galliano's court date is just before the wedding, his boyfriend, the stylist Alexis Roche, will take care of the last-minute adjustments. []<br> Whatever Kate Moss wears on her wedding day, it probably won't be any of the dresses she modeled for Brides magazine in 1991, when she was 17. [] Christian Dior, meanwhile, presented its first full seasonal collection — Resort — created without Galliano's involvement. During the first quarter, Dior's revenues were up 22%, to $301.7 million. [] Terry Richardson shot Georgia May Jagger in Rio for a Brazilian campaign. Richardson's been shooting a lot of foreign ad campaigns lately, including a couple in Brazil. [] Megan Fox is almost unrecognizable in a Louise Brooks wig in her latest Armani ad. [] Would you pay $174-$216 for a pair of reversible jeans? []<p>Much unlike many a magazine editor who recommends you buy all sorts of crap that they most likely got for free, your Jezebel staff doesn't get jack shit (other than books, unsolicited). And that's how it should be. But on our own time, in our personal lives, we still buy stuff. So this is Worth It, our daily recommendation of random things that we've actually spent our own money on. These are the things we buy regularly or really like, things we'd actually tell our friends about. And now we're telling you.</p> <p>I have a weird relationship with perfume. There are times when I avoid it, and there are times when I wear it every day. When other folks are doused in it, I feel offended, but when I am dressing up or just want to feel "finished" and confident, I can't leave the house without it. But I don't like anything heavy, or strong — just a lightly sweet, fresh scent, like maybe I was lolling around naked in a field of jasmine before getting on the subway.</p> <p>I think I first got into fragrance in junior high school, when my preppy friends were into Giorgio Of Beverly Hills, an aggressively floral fragrance I associate with the '80s and Dynasty. Later, in high school, I experimented with unisex or men's scents: Egoiste, CK One. I also had that teen-friendly one, Exclamation! I don't know much about the formulas — woodsy, floral, citrusy, whatever — I only know my tastes vary. I have, in the past, been obsessed with Acqua Di Gio, L'Eau d'Issey, J'Adore Dior and Tommy Girl, but I never quite got into some of the more popular scents, like Obsession (there was a time in the '90s when everyone in New York smelled like Obsession — you could not get away from it) or Chanel No. 5, which smells like old people.</p> <p>All of this is to say that the "notes" and the formula may change — many of the scents I prefer have nothing in common — but I know what I like, and I like what smells good on me. Not heavy, not pungent, just me, but sweeter, fresher (sometimes boozier? Like I've had a cocktail?). Right now, I love Very Hollywood by Michael Kors. It smells like the boudoir of an actress from the '50s, or a classy hotel bathroom. Something good, clean, sweetly sexy, not cheap. Yes, part of this is the great packaging: Retro and pink and girly without being twee or cloying, the bottle — inspired by olde-tymey flashbulbs — is the kind that you want to display. People who call it "bright, fruity, sparkly and pink," which pretty much describes what I'd be looking for in a fragrance, anyway. It also has hints of pink champagne and berries, aka what I would like to order from room service at this imaginary classy hotel in which I am staying (in my mind).</p> <p>This fragrance has its critics — some call it , but I think that fits with my current feelings about wearing perfume — you don't want it to be overpowering. You don't want it to be that noticeable, even. It's just supposed to be like you slept on a bed of gardenia petals, bathed in Perrier-Jouët and rubbed mandarin orange peels under your arms before you got dressed. And Very Hollywood delivers that feeling, therefore I think it's worth it.</p> <p>Very Hollywood by Michael Kors, $45 for 1 oz., .</p> <p>Worth It only features things we paid for ourselves and actually like. Don't send us stuff.</p><p>A bunch of teen stars like and are being hailed as fashion muses. And it's true, they look lovely. But nice as it is to see such good sartorial role-models for the tween set, maybe we should take the focus off them...and let them screw up. </p> <p>Writes ,</p> <p>The fashion industry and child stars are having a moment. Fourteen-year-old Chloë Moretz, the profanity-spewing little girl from Kick-Ass, has paraded down red carpets decked out in Stella McCartney and Dior, while , the 11-year-old Mad Men star, has appeared, pouty-faced, in fashion spreads in Interview and Elle (and this magazine) wearing couture YSL and Chanel and supersize Kenneth Jay Lane cocktail rings. Rodarte's Kate and Laura Mulleavy, famously choosy when it comes to muses, have adopted Elle Fanning, dressing her for events and enlisting her for their short film The Curve of Forgotten Things, a showcase of the brand's spring 2011 collection. "She's not oversexed but she can wear clothing well," Interview entertainment director Lauren Tabach-Bank said of Fanning, 12, after the magazine ran an eight-page story featuring the tween modeling the likes of 3.1 Phillip Lim, Alberta Ferretti, and Dolce & Gabbana. Vogue, meanwhile, reportedly has a Fanning-Steinfeld-Moretz portfolio in the works for an upcoming issue. It's all a far cry from poor little Anna Paquin, who accepted her 1994 Oscar in a vaguely nerdy royal-blue beanie and matching vest.</p> <p>Philosophical problems aside — fashion's thirst for novelty; should we really be looking to barely pubescent girls as sartorial beacons? Why is that "wearing clothing well?" — I get why these young women are celebrated. In a world of Noah Cyrsues, it's nice to see Elles, Kiernans and Hailees. Simply put, they look elegant, tasteful, lovely. I've often praised their acumen, myself, in the confines of GBU. I'm sure anyone with kids breathes a sigh of relief whenever they see the decorous necklines and fashionable — but still age-appropriate — threads on the red carpet.</p> <p>But that's the point: teens and tweens shouldn't always please their parents, and inevitably, don't. Your middle-school and high school years (or the on-set tutorial equivalent) are a time for experimenting and finding yourself. Sometimes that means Marsha Brady. But other times, it's that sack Molly Ringwald wears in Pretty in Pink. We're alarmed by a Noah Cyrus because she's embracing an adult ethos that seems inappropriate and contrived in a child of her age. But is dressing a kid her age in Chanel all that different? Sure, it may lack the inappropriate sexual overtones, but it's still an adult aesthetic, imposed on a kid.</p> <p>At 12, would I have taken these designers up on free wardrobes? Heck, yes — not that they'd particularly have wanted to dress me for propping up the wall at middle-school dances. And I'd have looked a lot better than I did, too. But that's the point: those unfortunate, oversized 40s housedresses and matted hair were a part of my development. (I am not, by the way, advocating for Cyrus-esque garb here; that may be what a kid wants, but part of being a kid is also parental veto.) And the truth is, there's something kind of heartwarming about seeing a kid on the red-carpet who's clearly chosen her own outfit. And yes, maybe they'll be embarrassed in a few years and won't be hailed as a muse. But there's plenty of time for that. Even if you don't "wear the clothes" quite as well.</p> <p> [New York]</p><p>It's time to talk about one of the overlooked banes of the internet: The Curse of the Zombie MySpace Profile. Many former MySpace users are stuck forever with old profiles stamped across their Google results like a bad butterfly tattoo, reminding everyone of how lame they once were. Including me. </p> <p>The Curse struck again this week, though nobody feels bad for the victim: Trayvon Martin's shooter, George Zimmerman. Mediatakeout unearthed Zimmerman's old MySpace , which the guy is pretty racist against Mexicans. "Workin 96 hours to get a decent pay check, gettin knifes pulled on you by every mexican you run into!" he wrote. According to his lawyer, who idiotically confirmed it was legit, Zimmerman hasn't used his profile since 2005.</p> <p>This happens and : Someone becomes suddenly notorious, and their old embarassing MySpace profile soon surfaces in a seizure of flashing .gifs, the "last logged in" notifier usually displaying some date during George W. Bush's second term. (Actually, a recent redesign of MySpace seems to have eliminated the "last logged in" field to avoid showing what a ghost town it is.)</p> <p>Of course, people are routinely by stuff they . But there's something particularly insidious about an old MySpace profile: You may have completely forgotten it, but if you haven't deleted your MySpace profile by now, it's very possible that you will never be able to. Ever.</p> <p>If you're like me, you can't sign into your profile any more because you don't remember your password. MySpace's halcyon days were more innocent times for the internet, before everyone completely freaked out about hackers. Back in the early 2000s passwords were, maybe, the name of your dog or a tree or a Moby album. But today we are warned to use a 58-character string of randomly generated alphanumeric symbols, or we may as well order a dozen Chanel bags and ship them to Belorussian cybercriminals ourselves. Most of us only have room in our brains for one generation of passwords.</p> <p>The password reset feature has been thwarted by the passage of time, too. I signed up for MySpace with my college email address, which disappeared when I graduated. So the emails that would let me chose a new password are being blasted into empty space.</p> <p>This picture of me, then an , sitting on the lap of the late Oregon State Treasurer Ben Westlund in 2005, should show why this is distressing.</p> <p>A quick poll of Twitter followers and Facebook friends finds that I'm far from the only person haunted by an indestructible MySpace profile.</p> <p>"I tried to do an art project like four or five years ago in which I ceremonially deleted my MySpace in the spirit of a Heaven's Gate cult suicide/spiritual ascension," said , an artist and one half of the electronica duo YACHT, "but I couldn't complete it because I signed up for MySpace with an old college address that was deleted when I graduated."</p> <p>As far as I can tell, this means our MySpace profiles will exist until MySpace finally dies. Which was supposed to be years ago, but then it got a last-minute from Justin Timberlake and continues to stagger along with the sole purpose, it seems, of serving as an anthropological collection of the ways young people embarrassed themselves online in the early-to-mid-2000s.</p> <p>Which leads to the second reason the MySpace profile problem is a unique threat to our online reputation. MySpace profiles were abandoned when Facebook started taking off, around 2005 or 2006, which freezes its portrait of you squarely in the Peak Embarrassment Zone (PEZ). The PEZ is that unfortunate period that constantly floats about 5-10 years in the past, where your clothes and hairstyle are just stale enough to be comically outdated, but not old enough to be retro-cool. Your jokes are too recent to completely disavow.</p> <p>I call myself a "freelance word slut" on my profile.</p> <p>19-year-old Kevin Suwandee stopped using MySpace about six years ago when he was in 7th grade, and his depicts the chubby hardcore online gamer he was at the time. Today he's in the army, lost a lot of weight and barely plays games. But he also lost his password and can't access his original email account to delete his account. Suwandee cringes whenever he thinks of the fossilized profile sitting there near the top of his Google results.</p> <p>"If anyone sees it they'd notice my weight loss and will say I still look the same, but to me it's a big difference," he told me in an email. "Since then, I've chosen a healthier lifestyle, my acne cleared up, I stopped using hair gel, and I also stopped wearing 'Southpole.'</p> <p>If you are lucky enough to still be able to sign into your old MySpace profile and delete it, do it immediately. (Here's .) Nothing good will come of it. But if you are in the same situation as me and thousands of others, stuck with a permanent record of your existence in 2006: May God have mercy on your awkward soul.</p> <p>Update: I've been informed there is a way to delete your MySpace profile even if you forgot your password and don't have your original email address. Fill out this and perhaps an administrator will delete your aging account. However, one reader who tried this says, "I've gone that route numerous times and have never even received a response."</p> <p>Update 2: If all else fails, try the .</p> <p>(A MySpace representative did not respond to a request for comment.)</p><p>Two sweatshops run by Zara suppliers were recently raided in Brazil, and the details that are emerging are all pretty sad: the youngest person freed from the factory was just 14 years old, and authorities say the workers were toiling in "slave-like conditions." The staff, mostly undocumented immigrants from Peru and Bolivia, were forced to work 16-hour shifts, they were paid the equivalent of 7-12 U.S. cents per garment sewn, and were not allowed to leave the sweatshop. Zara blames a subcontractor. []</p> Chanel is rolling out some denim-inspired nail colors for Fashion's Night Out. [] Carine Roitfeld and Karl Lagerfeld interviewed each other for Interview, and the resulting five pages is like the platonic ideal of airy-fairy fashionspeak. They spoke about creativity, freedom, children, and how Roitfeld is "like a lemon." Lagerfeld brought up Roitfeld's children. "No one can say that you don't take care of them. You're also lucky because they are very beautiful. It would have been difficult to have an ugly daughter." He added, "If I were a woman, I would love to have lots of kids. But for men, I don't believe in it." He doesn't believe in what — procreation? Then he told Roitfeld, "I think freedom is your biggest luxury. You were literally jailed before" — referring to, oh, you know, the ten years she spent running Vogue Paris. Which, if you think about it, is kinda-sorta just like being in jail! Roitfeld replied, "I am like a lemon. I'm pressed for more juice. When I have fun, there's still juice. I am not dried up." Lagerfeld said, "I think you're more like a bird that can't be put in a cage." [] Crystal Renn, China Machado, and Carine Roitfeld herself — along with that beautiful daughter of whom Lagerfeld is so fond — model in the Barneys New York fall catalog, which Roitfeld styled. []In order to view comments on jezebel.com you need to enable JavaScript.<br> If you are using Firefox and NoScript addon, please mark jezebel.com as trusted.<p>When Gisela von Krieger died in 1989, the legal team sorting out her estate found a car hidden in a Connecticut barn.</p><p>Untouched for three decades, the vehicle was an automotive time capsule. Old maps of New York and Connecticut filled the door pockets. A woman's driving glove rested in the glove box. Pink lipstick-stained cigarette butts sat in the ashtray.</p><p>This wasn't any old car, though. It was a 1936 Mercedes-Benz 540K Special Roadster, one of perhaps a dozen left in the world, representing the height of prewar German automotive engineering. "Every little detail was over-engineered" to create "a tour de force of technology and quality," said McKeel Hagerty, who heads a company that insures classic and rare cars.</p> <p></p><p>Von Krieger's brother Henning originally paid about $7,000 for the Mercedes. This Sunday, it's likely to fetch at least $10 million and could break the $16.4-million record for any auto sold at auction when it's put up for bid at the splashy Gooding & Co. auction that follows the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance car show. The vehicle is owned by New Hampshire businessman Lee Herrington, who made his money through catalog sales of preppy clothing, shoes and gadgets.</p><p>How it got to the auction is the story of a German aristocrat who defied the and saved a glossy black Mercedes-Benz two-seater that today is rarer than a Stradivarius violin. Experts have dubbed it the automotive equivalent of a coveted Picasso.</p><p>"It is one of those cars that exemplify everything that is desirable about a classic automobile," said Leslie Kendall, curator of the Petersen Automotive Museum. "It is gorgeous, it is powerful, it is rare and it was expensive."</p><p></p><p>Known as the Von Krieger Special Roadster, it was the favorite ride of Baroness Gisela von Krieger, a member of the Prussian nobility. She had a prewar romantic dalliance with a mysterious Jewish Englishman and, when the war started, refused orders from the Third Reich to return home from France.</p><p>Instead, Von Krieger and her mother fled to . But the prized Mercedes was stuck at the Daimler-Benz plant in where it was undergoing repairs after an accident. The baroness settled the bill and had the automaker ship the car by rail to Switzerland.</p><p>Von Krieger, who dressed in , lived an aristocratic lifestyle with her brother Henning and divorced mother, Josephine, while living in Paris in the 1930s, said George Maley, an auto collector and historian. Fast and expensive cars were a big part of that.</p><p>Maley met the baroness several times in Switzerland in the late 1970s and early '80s after hiring private detectives on two continents to find her. He had heard tales of her exceptional Mercedes, rumored to be housed at a Connecticut inn. Maley kept the secret from other collectors to block rivals from trying to buy the vehicle.</p><p>But he quickly learned that Von Krieger would not part with the beloved car even though there was little chance she would ever see it again.</p><p>At more than 17 feet long and 6 feet wide, the roadster is roughly the dimensions of a new Chevrolet Tahoe sport utility vehicle. The front is highlighted by a split grille offset by a pair of large round headlights that top a thin, polished chrome bumper. The long, glossy black hood hides an inline, supercharged eight-cylinder engine.</p><p>The car oozes elegance. The interior is brown leather, wood and chrome. Fenders cover the front wheels and then undulate downward under the doors to serve as a footstep. The car's lines then curve upward over the rear wheels and finish in a wide, low tail. A chromed Mercedes star ornament rises from the top of the hood. A tiny Von Krieger family crest is painted on the driver's door.</p><p>Maley said Von Krieger refused to sell the car because it was her last link to a carefree era when she socialized with European royalty and film stars.</p><p>Today's modern royalty — wealthy entrepreneurs, celebrities and racing legends — will see the Mercedes at the Pebble Beach auction managed by Gooding & Co. of Santa Monica on Sunday. Herrington, the car's owner, is selling the roadster to focus on his Ferrari collection. What he paid for the Mercedes was never made public. He did not return calls seeking comment.</p><p>First held in 1950, theConcours d'Elegancehas grown into what many now consider the most prestigious car show in the world, where luxury brands show off their new models, enthusiasts race vintage cars, and the rich and famous ogle one another's fancy rides. The festival includes collector car auctions by Gooding and rival Canadian firm RM Auctions.</p><p>The highlight is Sunday, when more than 15,000 spectators wander along the course at Pebble Beach Golf Links, viewing more than 200 entries in a judged collector vehicle show that includes the world's rarest cars and motorcycles.</p><p>The day concludes with one overall winner chosen from the class winners and given the prestigious Best of Show award.</p><p>Several news outlets reported that wore when she wed over the weekend. That would seem to be a good guess since she had been a brand ambassador of the label and a favorite of creative director Karl Lagerfeld. But not so. announced in a news release Monday afternoon that it had designed the one-of-a-kind couture ballgown, with draped bodice adorned with rose gold and crystal embroidery, and also provided the bridesmaid gowns. (Reynolds and his groomsmen reportedly wore Burberry with leather suspenders.)</p><p>The wedding was put together by 's team and included a "carnival hour" as well as an elegant reception. Martha Stewart Weddings magazine will feature the nuptials on its December cover. </p><p>Fashion's not always pretty and polite. In fact tensions over seating ran so high at 's New York Fashion Week show that a French fashion editor reportedly slapped the show's publicist, not to hurt her, the editor said, but to humiliate her. "Now you know you don't [mess] with French people," the editor reportedly said. </p> <p>Lindsay Brown, a 21-year-old soccer player from Newport Beach, will appear on the cover of Seventeen magazine's October issue, as winner of the magazine's second annual "Pretty Amazing" cover contest, co-sponsored by Neutrogena, which we earlier this year. Brown was selected, the magazine announced in a news release, because of the SEGway Project she launched to empower young women through academics and athletics -- she started a girls' soccer team in Nepal, for example, and is working to begin programs in Cambodia and Kenya. Among the four runners-up (who will also be featured in the magazine) was 18-year-old pilot Kimberly Anyadike of Los Angeles.</p><p>Nicola Formichetti, one of the creative forces behind style, is reportedly working on a handbag collection for Mugler, to be debuted during in late September. </p><p> plans to open a 3,500 square foot store on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills next year as part of a major expansion. </p><p>Hedi Slimane's first ad for the retooled YSL shows musician Christopher Owenslying on his stomachon a pillow, shirtless, revealing Owens' tattoos but no clothes. </p><p>ALSO:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p> and fashion darling reportedly married actor on Sunday night in Mt. Pleasant, S.C., with Florence Welch performing. The pair have publicly been a couple for about a year. No word yet on the wedding gown, but we're betting on . </p><p>Writer/actor Mindy Kaling has been sending funny, fake tweets from New York Fashion Week, giving the sort of details we might wish were true (like having her seat at stolen by Olympic swimmer and having a romantic fling with at the Trump Hotel). </p><p>Liberty Ross, the wronged wife in the Kristen Stewart-Rupert Sanders affair, walked in 's New York Fashion Week show Saturday and says she was terrified at making this first official (and surprise) appearance after the scandal. </p> <p> showed her capsule collection for Macy's Impulse at Macy's Glamorama on Friday night in Los Angeles, and Sean "P. Diddy" Combs showed off the latest in his Sean Jean line. The annual fundraiser benefits and charities, and this year it also featured , Robin Thicke and Karmin. </p><p> debuts a new daytime Monday, and she'll be showing off a new, more sophisticated style along with it. ()</p><p>'s House of Dereon reportedly is in retooling mode with plans to distribute in the U.S., rather than exclusively in Europe. (Subscription required.)</p><p>Over at 's show, the designer was talking backstage about the huge spike in orders arising since First Lady wore that gorgeous Reese dress to address the nation during the last week. </p><p>ALSO:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Brad Pitt has brought his new movie to the , and as The Times reported Tuesday morning, he and the film's director had an anti-capitalist message (or, at least, a message aimed against capitalism as recently practiced in the U.S.) to go along with it.</p><p>And that message is coming from the mouth of the man who is the -- a job for which Pitt reportedly will receive seven figures.</p><p>The new movie's "touchstone piece of dialogue," as The Times put it, is " -- it's a business." And Pitt has done very well in that business.</p> <p>It seems uniquely American for a celebrity to make money hand over fist, thanks to Hollywood ... and then become the highly paid face of a Parisian perfume maker, to boot.</p><p>A Pitt representative didn't respond right away to an email request for comment, but the actor said at Tuesday's news conference that at the time he decided to get behind the film, it was the "apex of the home mortgage debacle and people were losing homes right and left." </p><p>As you watch the film, he said, it seems like a gangster movie, but at the end, it coalesces, "saying something about the larger world."</p><p>It likely doesn't say that Hollywood celebrities should turn down money.</p><p>True, with Pitt and 's history of philanthropy, it could be that a good chunk of his incoming take-home pay from this film and from Chanel will not be taken home at all but will go toward their good works.</p><p>The pair have the charitable Jolie-Pitt Foundation, and Pitt has he supports, according to the Look to the Stars celebrity-giving website.</p><p>But here's a vote for Pitt keeping those seven figures from Chanel -- just be a selfish capitalist. That's one figure for each of his children plus one to grow on.</p>Brad Pitt is going to have new swag to bring home to fiancee : He's been named the new face of No. 5.<p>The company behind the iconic fragrance, famous since suggested it was all she wore to bed, has tapped the leading man to be the face of its new international campaign.</p><p>Pitt, the first male tapped to head Chanel No. 5 print and commercial advertisements, follows previous spokesfolks including , and Lauren Hutton.</p> <p>He's doing it for a paycheck estimated to be in the seven figures, E! News ; the first ad will be shot in London sometime next week.</p><p>Pitt's endorsement history is pretty lean, existing mostly in foreign markets for entities including SoftBank. Partner Jolie has had more experience, repping fashion house St. John domestically and, overseas, cosmetics company Shiseido.</p><p>Back in the world of his day job, Pitt will release "World War Z" come Christmas and might on screen with Jolie for 's "The Counselor."</p><p>RELATED:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Follow Matt Donnelly on Twitter </p><p></p><p>Bold, beautiful, even bejeweled, eyebrows are making a major statement. Full, impeccably groomed brows defined faces on key fall runways at Rodarte, , Donna Karan, and Valentino. Karl Lagerfeld drove the focus home most dramatically at , where models' brows sparkled under glittery, stone-encrusted mesh strips hand-stitched by venerable Parisian embroidery atelier Lesage. Lush, natural brows distinguish model Karlie Kloss, featured as "the new face of fashion" on the cover of W magazine's July issue and actress Lily Collins.</p><p>Pros say a strong, well-shaped brow can make a person look years younger. "Like long hair, thick full brows are a symbol of youth and vitality that add balance and proportion to the face," says celebrity brow specialist Anastasia Soare of Anastasia Beverly Hills Salons.</p><p>"There is something slightly intimidating, but gloriously sexy, about a woman who burns a hole through you with -style brows," says Jodi Shays, owner of Queen Bee Salon and Spa in Brentwood and Culver City. "We call this 'the Brow Beat Down.' Very or ."</p> <p>Over-the-counter brow strengthening and conditioning products, such as Soare's recently reformulated Brow Enhancing Serum Advanced and pro makeup artist favorite RevitaBrow Advanced, are said to create thicker hair.</p><p>When it comes to multitasking, Per-Fékt Brow Perfection Gel is our pick: It conditions, tints and tames brows with one swoop of a mascara-like wand.</p><p>And, yes, it's possible to translate Chanel's glittery brow from runway to reality. "Add a shimmering brow highlighter, like Benefit's new High Brow Glow," in champagne pink, says Hilary Foote, whose expert tips are included in the recently released book "Raising Eyebrows: Your Personal Guide to Fabulous Brows" by Cameron Tuttle. Add that to your fall reading list!</p><p>The red carpet occupies its own place in the pantheon of fashion, somewhere between the runway and the street. Thanks to their access and visibility, Hollywood stars have had a jump on the fall collections and trends, which they have been wearing to events and premieres all summer long. Here are a few of our favorite examples of menswear-inspired, luxe leather and navy-is-the-new-black looks, plus red accents and cap-toe shoes.</p><p>Malin Akerman in a jumpsuit and Louis Vuitton cap-toe pumps at the Ciroc Cabana Club May 26 in West Hollywood.</p><p>Emma Stone in a dress and Christian Louboutin shoes at the premiere of on June 28 n Los Angeles.</p> <p>Jessica Alba in an Alice & Olivia sweater, TopShop pants and Giuseppe Zanotti shoes at the LuckyFABB blogger conference April 30 in Santa Monica.</p><p>Kristen Stewart in a foulard-print jacket at the Teen Choice Awards in Los Angeles on July 22.</p><p> in de la Renta dress and red belt at the ESPY Awards in Los Angeles on July 11.</p><p> carries a red Clare Vivier clutch at the premiere of "Magic Mike" in Los Angeles on June 24.</p><p>Jaime King in a navy blue jacquard shirt and skirt at the CBS, Showtime and CW TCA summer tour party in Beverly Hills on July 29.</p><p> in a Rag & Bone tuxedo jacket and leather pants at in San Diego on July 13.</p><p> in a Winter Kate leather top at NBC Universal Summer Press Day in Pasadena on April 18.</p>One of the biggest beauty breakthroughs in recent years involves the rise of funky nail polish colors — blue, green, gray, even black — which have become socially acceptable for almost all women, no matter their age or occupation. That development is due, in part, to Peter Philips, global creative director of Makeup, who has made the company's seasonal nail shades as hotly sought after as its handbags.<br><br>"I don't say I invented green or orange nail polish," Philips said during a recent interview in Los Angeles. "But by putting those shades in Chanel packaging, you give it credibility. If Chanel makes a surf board, it's cool. Not every brand can do that."<br><br> Today's color independence is a far cry from the natural look of the 1990s, when you emphasized your eyes or your lips, but never both. It's a change, too, from the craze for mineral makeup that started in the early 2000s.<br><br>"We're seeing a shift back to the well made-up face, and nails are taking on a whole new dimension," said Karen Grant, Vice President and senior global beauty industry analyst for market research firm NPD Group. "Industry leaders look to Chanel for direction…and trends driven by Chanel affect the mass market."<br><br>Prices for Chanel makeup are some of the highest in the market, from $25 for a nail color, to $250 for the limited edition Lumieres Byzantines compact. (Only 1,000 were sold worldwide.) But Chanel consistently ranks among the top five selling prestige cosmetics brands, and is number one in the nail color category, despite limiting distribution to roughly 800 doors in the U.S., according to NPD.<br><br>While most people can't afford a $4,000 Chanel jacket, they can afford a $27 Chanel lipstick. The brand's striking black-and-gold packaging is an accessible luxury and a big piece of the bottom line for Chanel, as any beauty business is for a fashion brand.<br><br>Like Chanel fashion designer , Philips, 44, must walk the line between classic and trendy, making the beauty brand, which has an estimated value of $3 to $4 billion, appeal to young and old.<br><br>His first collection was a limited edition set of bright polishes with names such as L.A. Sunrise and Melrose, to celebrate the opening of the Robertson Boulevard Chanel boutique in 2008. He knew the time was right for shocking shades, he said, because he had noticed people dressing more adventurously. "They were getting more playful with styling, combining designer with high street and vintage with high tech sports gear," he added.<br><br>During his three year run, he's produced a number of hit products, including the nail colors Jade, Khaki Brun and Gold Fiction. At least one shade, Particuliere, the putty-colored nail polish from last spring, was created by accident. "They were mixing colors in the lab and I said, 'Stop!,' " Philips recalled. "I thought, 'This is kind of particular. It's not gray and it's not beige, it's kind of weird.' "<br><br>Once he had Particuliere in hand, he needed a runway collection in which to place it. Along came Lagerfeld's spring 2010 runway collection (shown in October 2009), set in a barn. "In French, the color is called taupe, which is a kind of animal, a mole," Philips said. "I said, 'Karl, I got a taupe for your barn.' "<br><br>(At the same show, Chanel debuted temporary tattoos in the shapes of pearls, flowers and the brand's double C logo. There was a waiting list before they even went on sale.)<br><br>This spring, Philips brought a new take to Chanel's lipstick offerings, with the minimal coverage, Rouge Coco Shine collection (including the ingeniously named neutral shade "Boy"). "The idea was to make it easy for young girls to discover lipstick. Because a lot of girls only wear lip gloss. They think lipstick makes them look old." A collection of matte lipsticks, named Rouge Allure Velvet, will follow in November.<br><br>The fall 2011 collection hitting stores now features smoky, metallic colors and introduces a new cream eye shadow with a mousse-like texture. The new nail polish shades are iridescent, including Philips' favorite--Peridot. "It changes colors," he said, "like a peacock feather or a beetle wing."<br><br>Phillips has always been intrigued by flamboyant creatures. As a kid growing up in Antwerp, Belgium, he spent a lot of time at his stepfather's sandwich shop, which served students at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, including some of the famous "Antwerp 6" fashion designers, namely Ann Demuelemeester and Dirk Bikkembergs.<br><br>"I called them the colorful birds of paradise," said Philips, who enrolled in the school's fashion program after studying graphic design for several years.<br><br>While he was a fashion student, volunteering backstage at , he discovered the transformative power of makeup. "You would see the same [models] at every runway show, but the makeup made them look totally different. Makeup brought a designer's collection to life." After graduating from the academy in 1993, he pursued a career in makeup artistry, working for free for friends, and building a portfolio.<br><br>Soon, Philips was being booked for runway shows, magazine editorials and advertising campaigns for , , , and . Then Chanel came calling.<br><br>"It was almost like they invited you," he said of his first job for Chanel, a shoot for the fall 2005 Coromandels collection, inspired by 's famous Coromandel screens. Immediately, he noticed a difference in how Chanel's longtime creative directors for makeup, Dominique Montcourtois and Heidi Morawetz, did their jobs. "Usually, shoots are very marketing driven, and you have someone saying shoot this because it's going to sell well. This was a totally different ballgame," said Philips. "It was very intimate and personal. Dominique and Heidi talked about the products they created like they were their babies."<br><br>That led to more bookings for Chanel, and eventually an offer: Montcourtois and Morawetz were retiring after 40 and 30 years, respectively, and they wanted Philips to take over. He joined Chanel in January, 2008.<br><br>Philips' studio is in the Paris suburb of Neuilly, where he works with a team of 10. He takes some, but not all, of his direction from Lagerfeld, and says the two meet informally about once a month. "We never really have a brief, it's more of I want to show you something—a photo, sketch, painting or piece of music."<br><br>When it comes to inspiration, Philips is just as likely as not to light on an everyday object."In New York, I got a shopping bag with a handle in this amazing coral color," he said. "It will be a nail polish."<br><br><p> designer is known for his stoic demeanor, white mane and whimsical fashion shows. Now he's acquired a reputation as a zany cat lover, setting off a mild frenzy among Internet denizens.</p><p>Lagerfeld gushed about his 9-month-old kitten Choupette this week in an interview with Women's Wear Daily. The proud papa alternately referred to the Siamese cat as "a famous beauty" and "a kept woman."</p><p>The German-born Lagerfeld, who has also designed for H&M and Fendi, baby-sat the kitten during Christmas for model Baptiste Giaconi but then refused to give her back. "I thought she was too cute," he told WWD.</p> <p>Now the pampered feline lives the high life. Choupette dines with Lagerfeld for lunch and dinner ("She doesn't want to eat on the floor," he noted). She knows her way around an . And she has two "personal maids" who cater to her every whim "both night and day," he said. "She is beyond spoiled."</p><p>If you're scratching your head wondering what the two kitten minders do all day, Lagerfeld goes on to explain:</p><p>"We do keep a diary. When I am not there, the maids take down, in little books, everything she did, from what she ate, to how she behaved, if she was tired, and if she wasn’t sleeping," he said. "In the nine months, we already have almost 600 pages."</p><p>"I think it could be funny to make a little book of Choupette’s diary," he added.</p><p>All this material was, well, catnip for the Internet. Almost immediately, someone created a fake account , which has racked up more than 4,000 followers.</p><p>"’s dog knows nothing about how to model clothing," goes one tweet. "Leave it to the real catwalkers: the ."</p><p>Another tweet: "Do I look like a feline that would drink LAGER?! It may be the beginning of Daddy's name but it is not my drink of choice."</p><p>We assume she sips only the finest Champagne-laced milk. </p><p>RELATED:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Follow Shan Li on </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Buying Delaware-based Atlantic Bank for $60 million was a coup for Chinese businessman Lin Chunping.</p><p>Earlier this year, Lin was describing his purchase of the bankrupt 85-year-old institution, which he he said planned to rename USA New Federation Consortium Inc.</p><p>Here was a self-made man, described as rising from poverty to buy copper and gold mines in West Africa before playing the rice trade. Despite having no banking experience, he had managed a major acquisition of what appeared to be an esteemed American property.</p> <p>His ingenuity and business acumen earned him praise and a government advisory position.</p><p>One problem: Lin's exploits were about as real as the knockoff Chanel purses and sunglasses sold on curbside mats across .</p><p>Now, after going on the lam, he sits in prison on of tax evasion involving hundreds of millions of yuan. His political appointment is no more.</p><p>The tale of his subterfuge and trickery is making its way around the Web, reported in , and in the local Chinese media responsible for his demise.</p><p>Reporters there sniffed around Lin’s story and concluded that there is no Atlantic Bank in Delaware.</p><p>In a news conference in March, Lin apologized for "exaggerating" the takeover but said he is indeed looking to acquire overseas banks, including in the U.S., .</p><p>Atlantic Bank, however, was just a code for the U.S. company he actually purchased but was not allowed to name, Lin said.</p><p>In a country that already has a bad rap for , rampant counterfeiting and questionable food supplies, touting a bank takeover that wasn't certainly doesn’t help support a reputation for legitimacy.</p><p>RELATED:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Follow Tiffany Hsu onand</p><p>Louboutin red isn’t just for the soles of sky-high stillettos anymore. Shoe designer Christian Louboutin is branching out into beauty.</p><p>His luxury French company is pairing with Batallure Beauty, which helps develop brands such as Abercrombie & Fitch, Macy’s, and Sephora, to launch the Christian Louboutin Beaute line in late 2013. Sephora, a cosmetics and fragrance retailer, happens to stock perfumes from another well-known shoe titan: Jimmy Choo.</p><p>Louboutin, who founded his company in Paris in 1991, has never ventured into cosmetics before. The new offerings will feature “luxury beauty products across a number of classifications,” according to a statement Friday.</p> <p>Does that mean eye products? Nail polish? Everyone’s keeping their (probably immaculately painted) lips sealed.</p><p>Chances are, however, that the line will feature the lustrous red that marks the bottoms of each Louboutin shoe. The designer is so attached to the hue that he’s suing in U.S. federal appeals court after trying unsuccessfully to get the venerable French fashion house to in a similar shade.</p><p>In the meantime, Louboutin is keeping busy also making handbags and designing a glass slipper forWalt Disney Co.in honor of the Blu-ray and DVD release of the classic filmthis fall.</p><p>Louboutin shoes are popular around the world among the well-heeled set. The towering, expensive spikes have been spotted on the cast, various dictators’ wives, the Kardashians and .</p><p>Speaking of Jolie, her eventual hubby Brad Pitt is making an unconventional luxury move himself. The movie star has just been for No. 5 – a famous women’s fragrance.</p><p>RELATED:</p><p><br></p><p></p><p></p><p>Follow Tiffany Hsu onand</p><p>Reports -- including one we linked to on Monday -- that told Billboard that she was "tired of being a skinny white girl" seem to have been unfounded. A purported sneak peek on the Us Weekly website of an interview the singer did with Billboard contained the alleged quote, which Aguilera's reps and Billboard both say is fake. </p><p>Hedi Slimane debuted his first collection for Yves Saint Laurent on Monday night and it was one of the defining moments of , Los Angeles Times Fashion Critic Booth Moore writes. The collection melded the spirit of the late Laurent with a Los Angeles ladies-of-the-canyon vibe. </p><p></p> <p>Follow Moore's continuing coverage of on our blog.</p><p>Fashion A-listers packed the Saint Laurent show. Pierre Bergé, the late Saint Laurent's partner and keeper of the legend, sat on the same row as French first lady Valerie Trierweiler; Vogue's and Grace Coddington; actress Jessica Chastain; and designer . Also attending were and her wealthy businessman husband, ; model and indie rocker husband Jamie Hince; couturier Azzedine Alaia and his frequent collaborator, gallerist and publisher Carla Sozzani. </p><p>Not at the show: New York Times fashion critic Cathy Horyn, who wasn't invited -- apparently due to a beef Slimane has with her over a review she wrote in 2004 giving designer credit for slim tailoring and more or less saying that without a Raf Simons there wouldn't be a Hedi Slimane. <br></p><p>Meanwhile another dazzling array of guests attended the Paris fundraiser for 's re-election campaign put on by the Anna Wintour-supported Obama Victory Fund on Monday evening. Luminaries included , , , and . </p><p>The first installment of 's new film/ad/interactive catalog, "Falling for You," goes live on target.com Tuesday. The film -- starring , and Zachary Burr Abell -- has a plot involving two Target employees pitching marketing ideas to their boss and a set and props that are made up of items Target sells. And a viewer smitten by one of those items can purchase, right from the film, at the click of a mouse. <br></p><p>Lisa D'Amato, winner of "America's Next Top Model" all-star cycle 17, reportedly married Adam Friedman in Los Angeles on Sunday. The bride wore a white A-line gown by San Patrick. </p><p> bassist Jared Followill wed model Martha Patterson on Saturday in Charlotte, Tenn. He wore , and she wore a strapless Monique Lhuillier gown, with a corset-style bodice and feathery skirt. <br></p><p> of "Girls" is somehow becoming a fashionista, appearing on the cover of ASOS magazine, among other things, even though, she says, "I could put on the classiest thing in the world and...and I kind of look like someone who’s new to being a drag queen." </p><p>'s Karl Lagerfeld announced plans to open a Paris boutique in February that will contain all things Karl, blending his various fashion lines with an assortment of objects including photographs, design books and sunglasses he has curated. </p><p>ALSO: </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p><br></p><p>Fighting mediocre sales and a sluggish economy, retailers are finding there's a booming market for plus-size clothing.</p><p>While the category has been getting notice for years, clothing companies desperate for sales see zooming growth in dressing America's expanding waistline. Many are opening specialty stores, expanding plus-size departments and targeting ads directly to the curvy woman.</p><p>Cheap chic clothier H&M began rolling out plus-size sections in stores this February. The Limited will open stores by next year for a new larger-sized line, and Lucky Brand just launched a line of roomy denim and tops. Some of Southern California's hip independent designers are debuting collections devoted to full-figured women. The sisters have a new contemporary line called Kurves at . Even and Dolce & Gabbana have offered plus-size pieces.</p> <p>Plus-size-only fashion events have been popping up in New York, Chicago and Atlanta. At South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, recently held its first-ever event hosted by a plus-size blogger.</p><p>"There are finally clothes that I can buy that say, 'I am a larger woman but I'm beautiful and proud of it,'" said Pasadena's Ivory Bragg, 33, who attended the Nordstrom show. "It's about time. We may be curvier, but we still want glamour just like girls who are a size 0."</p><p>More than one-third of American adults are obese and nearly two-thirds of women are at least overweight, according to the . Experts say that at least half of women now wear dresses and pants size 14 or larger — which falls into the plus-size category — and this group controls nearly 30% of the purchasing power for clothes, according to NPD Group.</p><p>"For retailers, the plus-size market is the biggest opportunity to grow one's business today," said Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst at NPD. "There are so many consumers who wear at least one item that is plus size, and yet the market is dramatically underserved."</p><p>Plus-size sales are poised to jump 5.2% annually in the next five years while overall apparel sales will climb a modest 2.7%, according to research firm IbisWorld. The category is expected to hit $9.7 billion by 2017, up from an estimated $7.5 billion this year and $6.6 billion in 2009.</p><p>The market is so ripe that many independent designers such as Jen Wilder, tired of fighting for the skinny woman's dollar, are designing exclusively plus-size collections.</p><p>Wilder launched Cult of California, an activewear line based in Los Angeles, in June. After her standard-size line failed during the recession, Wilder realized there was more money to be made dressing curvy women than thin dames.</p><p>"As a plus-size woman, I saw a void in the market that under-designed, underappreciated and under-marketed to us," Wilder said.</p><p>After ignoring the category for years, retailers are rushing out fashionable outfits for curvy shapes — and redefining the plus-size market.</p><p>Los Angeles-based Lucky Brand launched its first-ever plus-size collection in July after pinpointing larger sizes as a way to grow the brand and reach new customers, Chief Executive David DeMattei said.</p><p>The line focuses on trendy apparel such as skinny jeans and leopard-print cardigans — going up to size 24 in pants and size 3X in tops. DeMattei said demand has been so strong that stock marked for the online store was rushed instead to department stores that had quickly sold out of some items.</p><p>"There was a niche we could fill. Much of the collections out there for plus-size women is career oriented," DeMattei said. "There's a huge opportunity."</p><p>Lisa Cole, a Palm Springs apparel-fit consultant, said luxury and mainstream retailers alike are clued in that many full-figured women want to flaunt their curves, not hide them. Even in a celebrity world that worships rail-thin figures, actresses such as Christina Hendricks and Octavia Spencer are proving that bigger can be beautiful, she said.</p><p>"It's finally advanced to the point where the clothes match our attitude — that we are OK with our larger frames," Cole said. "A few years ago, our only option was a stretch pant with elastic and an oversized top."</p><p>The Internet gives legions of plus-size women a megaphone to swiftly condemn retailers who miss the mark.</p><p>"We will give brands feedback on social media and tell them what works," said Marie Denee, a Rialto resident who works full time on her fashion blog the Curvy Fashionista. "The plus-size woman is now speaking up for what she wants."</p><p>When the Limited rolled out its plus-size line Eloquii in October, the retailer focused on getting the right fit: Skirts have more fabric in the back to accommodate curvy behinds, bracelets are bigger, and purses are scaled 20% larger to look proportional to full figures.</p><p>The company was surprised to find that plus-size women, deprived of options for so long, were more fashion forward than smaller shoppers, demanding shorter hemlines and bolder prints, said Chief Executive Linda Heasley. "We find her very brave, a little sassier," she said of the average plus-size shopper.</p><p>At a time when retailers are closing some stores and downsizing others, many are devoting precious space to plus sizes.</p><p>Lucky Brand just opened shops for its plus-size line in two stores, including one in San Diego's Fashion Valley. H&M has rolled out its plus-size collection to 18 stores in the U.S., with more planned for the future. The Kardashian sisters introduced their Kurves denim line this month at Sears, to be followed soon by dresses, jackets and tops.</p><p>"Our fans were asking for clothes in larger sizes," said Khloe Kardashian, who fluctuates between sizes 6 and 10. "Just because you are a little heavier doesn't mean you want to be in a potato sack."</p><p>The Limited's Heasley said plus sizes are such a "growth vehicle" that the retailer plans to open at least two stand-alone Eloquii stores by next year, and it gives prime real estate to the collection at stores that carry it now.</p><p>"We didn't want to stick [the collection] in the back," Heasley said. "A lot of times full-figured is stuck on the floor with the housewares and next to the children's department."</p><p>That's something that Ashley Knell applauds. Growing up, the 21-year-old said, she had to sew her own clothes because stores simply didn't sell anything fashionable in her size.</p><p>"Now I'm finally finding reasons to shop and cute things to buy," the San Diego resident said. "We don't have to settle."</p><p></p><p>Vitaly Borker was an Internet shopper's "worst nightmare," according to prosecutors, who say he terrorized unhappy customers of his eyeglass business with threats of rape, assault and even murder if they complained about his shoddy products.<br><br>"I hope you fall off a ladder and break your head ... I pee on your negative [comments]," he told one angry buyer, according to a federal indictment. "I can hurt you," he told another. <br><br>But on Thursday, the man who gave new meaning to the term "lousy customer service" saw his alleged threats come back to haunt him as a federal court judge sentenced Borker to four years in prison for sending threatening emails and for wire and mail fraud. <br><br>"These were vile threats, and you were terrorizing these people," Judge Richard J. Sullivan told Borker, 36, who pleaded guilty in May 2011 after complaints about his Manhattan online eyewear business, DecorMyEyes.com, led to criminal charges. Borker also was ordered to pay more than $96,000 in fines and restitution.<br><br>The case came to light in an unusual manner. In November 2010, the New York Times ran a lengthy story outlining the saga of a woman named Clarabelle Rodriguez, who said she had been the subject of relentless cyber-bullying by someone from DecorMyEyes.com after her order for eyeglasses and contact lenses wasn't met. Borker, in that article, bragged that he welcomed barrages of negative online comments and did his best to provoke them, because more comments pushed his site to the top of Google search results and fueled sales.<br><br>Borker was arrested in December 2010, after Rodriguez's five-month-long battle with DecorMyEyes.com came to a head. According to the federal indictment, what had begun as a case of bizarrely bad customer service spiraled into threats delivered over the telephone and via email. In one case, Borker sent an email that included a photograph of Rodriguez's apartment building, prosecutors said.<br><br>When she posted a negative review of DecorMyEyes online, Borker allegedly warned Rodriguez to drop her complaints "if you know what's good for you." "Do the right thing and everyone goes away. I AM WATCHING YOU!" one email said.<br><br>Other victims had emails allegedly sent by Borker to their workplaces, falsely accusing them of drug dealing and of adulterous affairs. <br><br>"Please drop dead, OK?" Borker is accused of writing to a Colorado customer who complained when the two pairs of eyeglasses he ordered from DecorMyEyes.com arrived broken. <br><br>That was one of the milder remarks delivered by Borker, who often used the alias of Tony Russo or Stanley Bolds in his online communications, prosecutors say. Many of the threats were littered with obscenities and threats of sexual violence. All carried the same message, said the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, Preet Bharara: that customers who complained would pay dearly.<br><br>"Vitaly Borker was an Internet shopper's worst nightmare," in a statement after the sentencing. "Borker operated behind the veil of the Internet and aliases to first defraud his victims and then, if they complained, terrorize them with threats, intimidation, and harassment."</p><p>Rodriguez was one of the alleged victims who testified at a hearing held in July, which the judge called to help him decide on a sentence. "I was appalled," she said of the threats she had received. "I started to cry." Another alleged victim, Marlene Pedesclaux, testified via a video link from Louisiana and said Borker threatened to kill her and her family after she accused him of cheating her on an order for Coach sunglasses.<br><br>Sarah Lauch, who testified by video from Illinois, said Borker left her a voicemail in which he threatened to slice her legs off after she returned a pair of fake Chanel eyeglass frames.<br><br>The judge rescinded Borker's bail after the hearing, saying he felt the witnesses to be "highly credible." Borker, though, denied making specific threats of rape, murder and assault, and said he had only made general threats.<br><br>Borker's attorney, Dominic Amorosa, cited DecorMyEyes.com sales of more than 100,000 pairs of eyeglasses as evidence the business was legitimate and successful. Amorosa had also argued in court papers that there was "not a scintilla of evidence" that Borker ever planned on carrying out any threats.</p><p>ALSO:</p> <p></p><p></p><p></p>tina.susman@latimes.com <br><p>Congratulations, and Will Kopelman. The newlyweds have been upgraded to new parents.</p><p>Drew delivered a baby girl, Olive Barrymore Kopelman, on Sept. 26.</p><p>The little one is "healthy, happy and welcomed by the whole family" the pair saidin a joint statement to on Monday, thanks for "respecting our privacy during this most special time in our lives."</p> <p></p><p>Olive's parents were in a Jewish ceremony in June, drawing celeb pals including , and Jim Toth, and Jimmy Fallon to the Montecito affair.</p><p>This is the first child for both. Kopelman, an art world player, is the son of former chief executive Arie Kopelman.</p><p>Barrymore most recently continued her foray into fashion photography, snapping actress for a campaign.</p><p>ALSO:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Follow Matt Donnelly onand.Follow the Ministry of Gossip on Twitterand on Facebook.</p><p></p><p><br></p><p></p><p>Bride-to-be was spotted with pal leaving Chanel in Beverly Hills on Wednesday, where Barrymore reportedly had the final fittings for her wedding gown.</p><p>According to , Barrymore's fiance, art world player Will Kopelman, was also seen doing Chanel shopping of his own and left the store with a black garment bag.</p><p>The Chanel connection should come as no surprise, because Kopelman is the son of former Chanel CEO Arie Kopelman. Barrymore and the junior Kopelman in January after a year or so of dating. Kopelman popped the question in Idaho with a 4-carat ring.</p> <p>And to think — none of this might ever have happened if things had worked out years ago between Barrymore and the man who would be Batman, .</p><p>The notoriously private English actor recently to GQ Australia that he and Barrymore went on a date when they were both precocious teenage stars.</p><p>"We went to see some bloody awful horror film, and that was the end of it," Bale told the magazine. "She never called again."</p><p>In the end, things seem to have worked out for all parties. Bale has been married to Sandra Blazic since 2000, and the two have a 7-year-old daughter together.</p><p>[For the record, 12:10 p.m. May 31: An earlier version of this post stated that Bale is Australian. He is English.]</p><p>RELATED:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p> is a newly married lady — the actress tied the knot to art dealer Will Kopelman at her Montecito estate Saturday.</p><p>Beneath a custom chuppa a service was performed by Kopelman's rabbi, while guests such as , and Jim Toth, and looked on.</p><p>The affair was "a classic, simple, very pretty, garden-inspired wedding," to , that also featured a well-attended rehearsal dinner followed by a lively cocktail party on Friday.</p> <p>Additional guests included and , Us Weekly, and actress Busy Phillips. The wedding party snacked on lobster rolls before the service, which included a reading of the poem "I Carry Your Heart" by E.E. Cummings.</p><p>Barrymore, pregnant with her and Kopelman's first child, wore a bridal gown by Chanel. The couple shared their first dance to "Nobody's Gonna Love You" by Band of Horses.</p><p>They drove off into the night, away from their famous guests, in a vintage Mercedes.</p><p>RELATED:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Follow Matt Donnelly on Twitter </p>Just in time for his recent marriage to actress , art consultant William Kopelman has sold his bachelor pad in West Hollywood for $885,000.<br><br>Built in 2004, the two-bedroom, two-bathroom home had been featured five years ago in Elle Decor. The 1,548 square feet of loft space includes an upper level office looking down on the double-height living room, white high-gloss floors and lacquer cabinetry, a built-in bar that closes up inside a wall and large windows.<br><br> Public records show Kopelman, the son of Chanel's Arie Kopelman, bought the property in 2004 for $755,000.<br><br>Kopelman closed escrow the day before his June 2 wedding at Barrymore's Montecito home. The buyer was Jason Ehrenpreis, a commercial real estate broker.<br><br>Barry Fox of International Realty was the listing agent. Ron de Salvo of Coldwell Banker represented the buyer.<br><br><p>The under-the-sea theme has been big on the runways the past couple of seasons, as seen at Monique Lhuillier, Chanel and elsewhere. And now at the Emmys, where we’ve spotted several red carpet mermaids dressed in ocean-inspired styles -- Sofia Vergara in a backless teal, hand-beaded Zuhair Murad gown, in a super-sexy aqua chiffon Alexandre Vauthier gown slit thigh high and Julianne Hough in a risqué, strapless sea foam green corset gown dusted in sequins by Georges Hobeika. But takes the prize with her stunning white column gown with scale-like embroidery in every shade of blue by Antonio Berardi. A truly modern take on the mermaid trend.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Evening bags have been a part of Cartier's history since 1906, when the first "jewelry bag" debuted, a gold mesh design known as the hibou (French for "owl") because of its unique owl-shaped clasp with emerald eyes.</p><p>Some of the most extraordinary bags were one-offs, single pieces made to order for the likes of the Duke of Westminster, who reportedly purchased a black, white and gold enamel tube-shaped clutch with the initial "C" enscribed in diamonds for his mistress Coco Chanel in the 1920s.</p><p>Those special creations continue to inspire even today. Cartier is building on the success of its Marcello collection of day bags launched in 2007 with a new line for evening. (The designs land in stores this month, but Emma Stone, January Jones, Lily Collins and Elizabeth Banks have already taken them out on the red carpet.)</p> <p>Materials include satin, lacy calfskin and metallic goatskin. The speckled clasps are inspired by the house's panther motif.</p><p>One design, a long rectangular clutch in silk woven with silver threads, is made in collaboration with the Lisio Foundation in Florence, Italy, which promotes the art of hand-weaving with precious materials. It takes an entire day for a craftsman to weave just 4 square inches of the material, and there are more than 32 square inches used on each bag.</p><p>To ensure the bags reflect Cartier's design heritage, Marlin Yuson, accessories creative director, logged hours in the archives in Paris and Geneva looking at Cartier pieces the design house had bought back at auction. Her favorites? 's Art Deco diamond and rock crystal bracelets, a matched set the actress purchased in 1930 and famously wore in the 1950 film "Sunset Boulevard."</p><p>Perhaps another new design will soon be ready for its close-up.</p><p>Forget the Gossip Girls, Joan Holloway, Bettie Page and those other retro chicks. There is a new feminine ideal this fall, and she kicks butt. If the last five years have been dominated by the preening and pristine women of "Mad Men," we are now shifting to a tomboy ideal.</p><p>We can look to Hollywood as well as the runway for inspiration — recent film heroines such as the bow-and-arrow-wielding Katniss Everdeen of the cartoon princess Merida in Snow White as reimagined in and in that high-gloss Catwoman cat suit in </p><p>Lisbeth Salander in "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" has been influencing many designers this season, most notably Calvin Klein's Francisco Costa, who had the girl herself, , sitting front row at his runway in February.</p> <p>There were also plenty of nods on the runways to that distant silver-screen cousin . 's East-meets-West collection was inspired by Dietrich's 1932 "Shanghai Express," and Donna Karan's pinstripes and fedoras nod to the gender-bending star's 1930 film "The Blue Angel."</p><p>So, yes, the new tough is about borrowing from the boys. But it's more than that. It's about swagger in all its varied forms, from dandyish to downright dangerous. Here are a few manifestations of the trend:</p><p>Is it any wonder that leather is everywhere this fall? 's studded, second-skin leather dresses and 's kimono-sleeve coats and jumpsuits are the stuff of action heroes. For the rest of us, there are stretch leather pants and moto jackets, which look fresher in bordeaux, navy blue or bottle green than in black.</p><p>At the extreme, the new tough is also defined by a bold new silhouette. Big on the top and the bottom, it's not for everyone. But if you could pull off one of 's oversized jackets inspired by fencing, karate and judo, worn with a pair of slouchy, wide-leg trousers (a look also seen at ), you could be your own fight club.</p><p>Stella McCartney designed the British team's Olympic uniforms, and her interpretation of the new tough for fall is also sporty, but with a collegiate twist — a varsity jacket paired with cherry-red pleated pants, for example, a silk button-down shirt in a clever print of collaged monograms and an electric blue coat with technical-looking asymmetrical zippers.</p><p>Chanel's Karl Lagerfeld takes the tough mood to more futuristic territory. His new three-piece suits (a skirt and jacket over pants) have a sharp geometry, with angular shoulders and polyhedron-shaped sleeves.</p><p>Gucci's Frida Giannini brings dark romance to the look with opulent equestrian-inspired floral jacquard jackets and tassel belts, riding pants tucked into tall boots, wispy chiffon blouses and dramatic velvet capes. pairs menswear-inspired houndstooth jodhpurs and pantsuits with rainbow-hued Fair Isle sweaters, colorful fox fur-collared coats and mini crocodile attache cases. And Miuccia takes the mood to dandyish heights with riotous jacquard suits and trippy Mary Jane shoes dipped in rubber — the new gumshoes.</p><p>Several designers have added drama to everyday pieces with graphic lines and pops of color that could be drawn from a comic book. Consider 's wear-to-work, two-toned cigarette pants, black in the front and white in back. Full of contrasts between light and dark, his collection is for the superhero in all of us.</p><p>Bold silhouettes. Future shock. Dark romance. Drama. The toughest thing of all may be having to choose.</p><p>It's about swagger in all its varied forms, from dandyish to downright dangerous.</p><p></p><p> married at a ceremony at a home in Big Sur on Saturday.Choreographer famously met on the set of "Black Swan" and have a 14-month-old son. The bride reportedly wore a white, 1950s-style gown, full-skirted and nipped in at the waist. </p><p>Actress Lily Collins is a new celebrity ambassador for Movado. The star of "Mirror Mirror" will be seen in the timepiece brand's fall ad campaign. </p><p>has taken to crowd-sourcing site Indiegogo to try to raise $50,000 to put on her New York Fashion Week show in September. It seems somewhat unlikely the former star of "The Hills" actually needs the money. </p> <p>Women's Wear Daily reports that Bill Blass Limited has canceled its September runway show and fired women's designer Jeffrey Monteiro and the rest of his nine-person team. (Subscription required.)</p><p>The women of the Silicon Valley are breaking away from the geeky look cultivated by some of the male entrepreneurs. Instead of jeans and sweats, they're decked out in and Oscar de la Renta. </p><p>is adding an optical line to her fashion empire. It's scheduled to debut in October, but you can get a glimpse of what the frames will look like now. She's wearing a pair in the September issue of Glamour. .</p><p>Shoppers, it seems, are getting fed up with poor customer service in stores. And since shopping options on the Internet are better than ever, brick and mortar retailers are having to improve in the service arena. (Subscription required.)</p><p>ALSO:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p> has been appearing in ads for skin care brand Nivea since last year, but now Stefan Heidenreich, the new chief executive of Nivea's parent company, Beiersdorf, reportedly toldGerman newspaper Welt that she is "a no go." "Nivea is a company which stands for trust, family and reliability," he is quoted as saying. </p><p>The , an ardent fan at the London , met the U.S. women's gymnastics team and, among other things, told them she loved their leotards. </p><p>Supermodel and her quarterback husband, Tom Brady, topped Forbes' list of top-paid couples last year. But with estimated paychecks totaling $72 million, they've slipped to second place on the latest list, coming in behind entertainers and Jay-Z, whose combined income Forbes puts at $78 million. </p> <p>Fortunately for the Brady-Bundchens, even as I was typing the above, a news release popped into my email box saying Gisele is starring in jeweler David Yurman's latest ad campaign.</p><p>"Project Runway" host will be seen in Jordache jeans' fall campaign. For the first time in 20 years, the brand plans a major push involving both television and print ads. </p><p>Betsey Johnson's label filed for bankruptcy in April, but now the designer is back, with plans to present a collection of spring dresses with some backing from the Levy Group. </p><p>Fashion bloggers have been agog for awhile about creative director Karl Lagerfeld's fluffy white kitten Choupette. I guess it's just the thought of the steely-seeming Lagerfeld besotted with the blue-eyed ball of fluff. (Or that the kitten allegedly has her own maids.) Now the pair are appearing together in the September issue of Harper's Bazaar, with the designer sporting a little pair of cat ears atop his head. </p><p>Womenswear retailer Talbot's, trying to modernize, named a new executive team. (Subscription required.)</p><p>ALSO:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Shopping centers, department stores and boutiques all over Southern California are gearing up for the fourth annual observance of Fashion's Night Out, the worldwide shopping event created by Vogue editor in chief to stimulate sales in the fashion industry.</p><p>The designated night of special activities and promotions is Sept. 6. But those who act fast enough to purchase the limited tickets can attend an intimate pre-event dinner and private fashion show Sept. 4 at Saam at the Bazaar by José Andrés at the SLS Hotel, Beverly Hills. Tickets are $200 and can be purchased by calling (310) 246-5555. Proceeds from the dinner will go to the Art of Elysium, which encourages artists to dedicate their talent to workshops for children with serious medical conditions. The get-together, attended by fashion industry insiders and guests, is only a precursor to what Fashion's Night Out has in store.</p><p>A complete listing of events, organized by city and store or type of event, can be found at FashionsNightOut.com — and is far too extensive to be repeated here.</p> <p>But here are a few notable things to know about what is — and isn't — happening in the greater Los Angeles area. (And if none of what follows is nearby, don't worry. Just about every major shopping venue in the greater L.A. area has something fun and fashionable planned.)</p><p>At the Beverly Center, traditionally an epicenter for the local festivities, Fashion's Night Out will be hosted by "Pretty Little Liars" star Lucy Hale.</p><p>Los Angeles Mayor will make a video appearance to kick things off at 6:30 p.m., introducing Vogue's West Coast fashion editor, Lisa Love. Later on, retailers' fall merchandise will be featured during fashion shows at 7 and 9 p.m. Kendall Jenner — who is the celebrity face of the Beverly Center's FNO marketing campaign — is expected to appear, along with her sister Kylie Jenner, Jaimie Hilfiger, Francesca Eastwood and Peta Murgatroyd.</p><p>Rodeo Drive will not be the circus-themed spectacle that it was last year, with a Ferris wheel and costumed stilt-walkers. "As the economy has started to recover, we have had to reprioritize our focus with limited dollars," said Rodeo Drive committee spokeswoman Ashley Wong. Instead of an overall, coordinated extravaganza, 30 to 40 stores are expected to host individual events.</p><p>Bottega Veneta, for instance, plans to introduce a new line of eco-friendly handbags, available on a first-come, first-serve basis, and will present a new Fashion's Night Out collection of matching lip and nail duos. The two retailers are among numerous labels with special merchandise created for the event.</p><p>Robertson Boulevard will replace Rodeo Drive's street party with its first official street celebration of FNO. An anticipated 2,000 guests will be treated to live music, art-inspired activities, surprise celebrity guest appearances and a chance to experience fall's latest trends as they stroll through the stores.</p><p>Santa Monica Place plans to step up with a roster of in-store events, including two beauty lounges. Entertainment onstage starts at 7 p.m., featuring a performance by "American Idol" contestant and a fashion show hosted by Linda Immediato, style editor of Los Angeles magazine.</p><p>Farther along the coast, the celebration at the Malibu Country Mart is scheduled to be led by Gill and Jill Bumby, New York performance artists who famously rate guests' appearances on a scale from 1 to 10, issuing witty, typed-out, personal assessments of their style.</p><p>Malibu will pick up on last year's circus theme, with carnival-style red carpets and entertainment stations, including henna tattoos and magic shows.</p><p>The store in Malibu's newest shopping area, the Malibu Lumber Yard, plans to host an in-store party, featuring palm readings, manicures, hair-braiding stations and charm-bracelet design stands.</p><p>At Fashion Island in Newport Beach, more than 40 stores plan to host fashion and beauty events and giveaways as keep music pulsing throughout the center.</p><p>Jillian Barberie-Reynolds, co-host of "Good Day L.A." on Fox Channel 11, and fashion designer David Meister are scheduled to emcee the night. At 5 p.m., Reynolds is to provide commentary for a presentation on fall's top trends, concluding in a runway show featuring Meister's eye-catching new collection of dresses and gowns.</p><p>South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa plans to feature a runway show at 6 p.m., along with special offers at more than 100 stores.</p><p>Rounding off the evening is West Hollywood's official after-party at the Standard on Sunset, complete with DJ. The party is slated for 10 p.m. to midnight, with a complimentary cocktail hour till 11 p.m.</p><p></p><p>In 1954, when was asked what she wore in bed, she famously replied, "Why, No. 5, of course." And sales of the perfume skyrocketed.</p><p>That was a free endorsement, back when there was such a thing. Hollywood and the fragrance industry have been intertwined ever since, with celebrities competing for high-profile endorsement deals, or creating and marketing their own scents, and luxury brands hiring big-name directors and ratcheting up the production values of their advertising campaigns to rival big box office releases.</p><p>This fall brings a new array of perfumes starring famous faces in print and film campaigns, most notably Premiere, which debuts with a short film starring , directed by Nicolas Winding Refn () and premiering at the Venice Film Festival.</p> <p>Here is a rundown of the season's brightest new releases.</p><p>Gucci Premiere</p><p>Starring: Blake Lively</p><p>The story line: Celebrating the star in every woman.</p><p>The juice: Wood, musk, bergamot and orange blossom.</p><p>Balenciaga Florabotanica</p><p>Starring:</p><p>Kristen Stewart</p><p>The story line: A fractured fairy tale of mesmerizing flowers.</p><p>The juice: A hybrid rose with a resonance of wood and moss.</p><p>Lancome</p><p>La Vie Est Belle</p><p>Starring: Julia Roberts</p><p>The story line: A triumph of the independent spirit.</p><p>The juice: Iris, patchouli and praline — "an oriental fragrance with a twist of gourmand."</p><p>Vera Wang Lovestruck</p><p>Floral Rush</p><p>Once again, the fashion world is taking notice of actress , who is busily promoting her new film slated to open Friday. Wearing an orange top and pants by in Cancun, a hot white peplum Mugler skirt at Comic-Con and a dress at the MTV Movie Awards, the future Mrs. is sartorially tearing up the film's press tour.</p><p>It's clear Biel is on a fashion streak, but could it be attributed to her stylish husband-to-be? In a recent In Style magazine interview, Biel revealed that Timberlake helps select her outfits.</p><p>"When I walk out of the closet after getting dressed in the morning, I'll go like this [turns palms upward as if to say, 'Well?'] And he goes like this [shakes his head no]. Then he picks again. It's hilarious."</p> <p>Whoever is choosing Biel's clothes in the morning, they're doing something right. On a recent appearance during a press conference for the film at the Four Seasons hotel in Beverly Hills, Biel continued to turn heads by going nude -- wearing the buff nude color, that is. She rocked a sleeveless sequin top and buff nude lace skirt by Oscar de la Renta and kept the color scheme neutral with a pair of Brian Atwood platform Mary Jane pumps and simple gold bangles. The mix of textures looked polished and feminine.</p><p></p><p>For a similar look, try the from Asos.com for $20.71 and the for $65 from Yoox.com. Finish with the from Topshop.com for $150 and the (set of 24) for$14 at Nordstrom.com.</p><p>Happy shopping.</p><p>Have an outfit you're dying to buy but need a frugal alternative? Email us a picture. We're up for the challenge.</p><p>ALSO:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>--Jenn Harris</p><p>Follow me on </p><p>Bottom photos, from left: Paprika sequin cutout tank topfrom Asos.com, $20.71 / Asos; Darling knee length skirt, $65 / Yoox.com; Showoff mega platform Mary Janes, $150 / Topshop; Stephan & Co. polished bangles(set of 24), $14 / Nordstrom.com.</p><p>British luxury department store Harvey Nichols is courting controversy with an ad campaign depicting models peeing in excitement over its summer sale.</p><p>One ad features a blond woman sporting orange pants with a wet spot in the crotch, while another shows a male model with a similarly suspicious patch on his gray suit.</p><p>The tag line: "The Harvey Nichols sale: Try to contain your excitement."</p> <p>The ads predictably set off a ruckus online, with comments on ranging from "Ugh" to "Totally Gross!" to "Apparently people think this is offensive. I think it's hilarious."</p><p>Harvey Nichols spokeswoman Julia Bowe told the Telegraph the inspiration for the ad campaign came from the 1990 chick flick "Pretty Woman." In the movie, , playing a hooker with a heart of gold, at one point exclaims, "I'm so excited I could pee my pants!"</p><p>"The images in our advertising were designed to be a visual representation of a well-known phrase," Bowe said.</p><p>"During the production of the campaign, we researched the use of this expression in popular culture and social media and were satisfied that it is both commonplace and invariably used in a playful, inoffensive manner," she said, adding the phrase was in keeping with "the tongue-in-cheek spirit in which we intended our campaign to be taken."</p><p>This isn't the first time Harvey Nichols has found itself in hot water for its edgy ads.</p><p>Last Christmas, the retailer weathered criticism for its "Walk of Shame" holiday campaign. The ads depicted a number of grimy looking ladies in skintight dresses walking home after one-night stands, followed by a well-coiffed woman sporting a frock from Harvey Nichols. The tag line: "Avoid the walk of shame this season."</p><p>ALSO:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Follow Shan Li on Twitter </p>NEW ORLEANS — On the seventh anniversary of on Wednesday, this city absorbed a rough reminder of the Gulf Coast's vulnerability as big, slow delivered a punishing but less powerful blow than its catastrophic predecessor.<br> <br> The massive storm lingered all day, lashing the coast with torrential rains and hurricane-force winds. Flooding was widespread from New Orleans through Mississippi and Alabama as downed trees and power lines left more than 600,000 customers without electricity.<br> <br> An upgrade of New Orleans' 133-mile flood-control system largely withstood the deluge, but to the west, St. John the Baptist Parish was inundated by storm surge from Lake Pontchartrain and Lake Maurepas. Gov. said Wednesday night that officials had evacuated about 1,500 people and had about that many to go.<br> <br> <br> <br> Elsewhere along Lake Pontchartrain, 60 people were rescued from a flooded area of St. Tammany Parish, said Christina Stephens, spokeswoman for the Governor's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness.<br> <br> And in isolated Plaquemines Parish, where Isaac came ashore Tuesday night, floodwaters spilled over part of a locally maintained 81/2 -foot-high levee, putting parts of the sparsely populated area under 12 feet of water. More than 100 residents were rescued by a flotilla of police, National Guardsmen and volunteers.<br> <br> Most of those trapped had ignored a mandatory evacuation order issued Monday for Plaquemines, located on a finger of land that juts south of New Orleans and is bisected by the Mississippi River. On Wednesday, authorities ordered a mandatory evacuation for about 3,000 people protected by an 8-foot levee along the river's west bank, south of Belle Chasse, Jindal said.<br> <br> <br> <br>For all the flooding and dislocation, Isaac was nothing like Katrina, in part because local and federal officials had learned from the 2005 catastrophe. Emergency efforts were much better coordinated, most residents were evacuated in good order and the revamped flood-control system held up. Statewide, at least 7,700 people have been evacuated, Stephens said.<br> <br> Even with relentless rain, Isaac lacked Katrina's catastrophic maximum 28-foot storm surge and 125-mph winds. Katrina, a strong Category 3 hurricane when it came ashore, caused more than 1,800 deaths, mostly in Louisiana. By Wednesday night, there were no reports of deaths directly attributable to Isaac.<br> <br> The storm made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 80 mph and a storm surge of 6 to 12 feet. It was downgraded to a tropical storm Wednesday afternoon, as the rain and wind continued, floodwaters rose and tornado warnings were issued. By 10 p.m., the storm's sustained winds had dropped to 60 mph.<br> <br> The warned that "life-threatening hazards from storm surge and inland flooding are still occurring."<br> <br> Isaac was expected to lumber through Louisiana overnight and into Thursday, passing into Arkansas on Thursday evening. The hurricane center warned of rainfall accumulations of up to 25 inches, and reported that 22.5 inches had fallen in Arabi, next to the Lower 9th Ward.<br> <br> For many in New Orleans, Isaac's chief offense was its glacial pace, 6 mph.<br> <br> "Unfortunately, the storm just won't seem to leave us," Mayor Mitch Landrieu said.<br> <br> The storm is also noteworthy for its 350-mile girth. Tropical-force winds extended 175 miles from the storm center.<br> <br> Louisiana officials warned residents not to relax, because Isaac's effects could last into Friday. "Now is not the time to let your guard down," Landrieu said.<br> <br> "There is much more coming," Jindal said.<br> <br> By late Wednesday, one-third of Louisiana households — roughly 660,000 homes — were without power, including 160,000 in Orleans Parish, according to spokesperson Chanel Lagarde of New Orleans-based . Thousands were also without power in Mississippi.<br> <br><p> might have the most enviable celebrity-kid closet, but Emme Maribel Muñiz, daughter of and , had a front row seat for .</p><p>Indeed, J.Lo brought some mommy glamor Tuesday while viewing's spring/summer 2013 collection, designed by the distinct Karl Lagerfeld, at Paris' Grand Palais.</p><p>With dancer boyfriend Casper Smart in their party, both mother and daughter caused a photographer frenzy in soft and feminine lace-detail dresses.</p> <p>All the better to be admired by row-mates including and frequent Vogue photographer Patrick Demarchelier.</p><p>Following Emme's fashion week debut (get Image's take on the Chanel show ), Jennifer and Casper hit up the presentation as a couple, chatting with the designer in their seats before the show began.</p><p>J.Lo isn't the only celeb playing in the City of Light: Kristen Stewart showed up last week at 's runway, rapper MIA came to , and stunned in support of .</p><p>ALSO:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Follow Matt Donnelly onand.Follow the Ministry of Gossip on Twitterand on Facebook.</p><p></p><p>Designer has given the classic brown paper lunch bag a couture makeover.</p><p>At her fall/winter 2012 runway show, Sander sent out models clutching her Vasari purse -- essentially a brown paper bag that looks exactly like a brown paper bag, except it retails for $290.</p><p>What makes a lunchtime staple worth the equivalent of one month's car payment? Well, this bag is actually made of brown paper that is laminated with a protective coating, stitched in brown thread at the sides and has holes to ensure that your ham and cheese sandwich gets plenty of ventilation.</p> <p>The bag recently hit stores, where it reportedly sold out quickly. A version in black leather, priced at $630, was also snapped up fast.</p><p>"You have to get a collector's piece," Mildred Fabian, regional director of Jil Sander, told the New York Daily News. "I think it's more of a fashion statement."</p><p>W magazine agreed, raving that the purse "doesn't venture far from the original" and is "perfectly in sync with the fashion house's minimalist roots."</p><p>"Forget recycling -- this bag is a keeper," the review said.</p><p>Other fashion watchers were less enthused.</p><p>"Does Jil Sander sell a bag I can barf in, too?" asked Jenna Sauers of Jezebel.</p><p>"Every time I read about a $500 pair of socks, a $9,500 bicycle. a $53,500 suitcase, a $700 Margiela t-shirt, a $2,000 Louis Vuitton trashbag purse, I feel a sense of disappointment," Sauers wrote. "Why does fashion always end up giving fodder to the haters?"</p><p>ALSO:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Follow Shan Li on Twitter </p><p>Kate Upton has appeared in all kinds of places -- and pictures and videos -- wearing teensy bikinis ever since she made a big splash on the cover of 's swimsuit issue earlier this year. So it's almost a surprise to see her in a dress -- albeit it a low-cut, micro-length one -- on the November cover of Cosmo. </p><p>At , Karl Lagerfeld showed he can still bring it at . Los Angeles Times fashion critic Booth Moore writes that the show on Tuesday morning was "a demonstration of the power of the original Chanel design codes and the energy and creative output Lagerfeld has put into sustaining the behemoth luxury brand since he took over in 1983." </p><p></p> <p>As the Paris fashion shows continued, eschewed the runway drama, posting her collection via Instagram. </p><p>, known for its stunning red carpet gowns, has designed a limited-edition top beaded with Swarovski crystals and inspired by the . The top is available for $110 at jetshop.com beginning Wednesday. And plans are in the works for tops for fans of the Steelers, Saints, Ravens and more. </p><p>Chris Burch reportedly has sued ex-wife , board members of Tory Burch LLC and the Mexican holding company that has a stake in her brand in Delaware Chancery Court, saying they've interfered with his running his own business, C. Wonder, and impeded his attempts to sell his shares in the Tory Burch company. </p><p>, and Bruno Mars are slated to perform at this year's , scheduled to air on CBS on Dec. 4. </p><p>Felicity Blunt wore a simple white gown by when she and had a formal wedding ceremony with friends and family on Saturday in London (they had a private ceremony a few weeks back). Bridesmaids, including sis , also wore white dreses by Lepore that were similar to the bride's gown in all but a few details. </p><p>ALSO:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Actress Kristen Stewart was on the paparazzi radar again when she made an appearance at on Thursday in one of her few public sightings since news broke that she had cheated on former boyfriend with director Rupert Sanders. But now that the couple has apparently reconciled, the "Twilight" saga star stepped out for the show in Paris. Fashion critic Booth Moore had all the details on Stewart's appearance and a candid photo in her .</p><p>It made sense for Stewart to attend, since she is the face of the new Balenciaga perfume Florabotanica.</p><p>Outside the show, Stewart was photographed in a pair of white and black print jeans, a plain black tee, yellow leather jacket and motorcycle boots. She wore her hair tousled and with her signature "accidental" part to one side. It was classic Stewart, clad in designer duds with edge.</p> <p>Stewart's ensemble was made up of fall trends and wardrobe staples. From her baroque-patterned jeans to her colored leather jacket, she proved that she knows how to make an entrance.</p><p>You can get a similar look with the from NeedSupply.com for $94, for $35.18 and the for $89.95 from DSW.com. Slip on a plain black tee to complete the chic motorcycle look.</p><p></p><p>Happy shopping.</p><p>Have an outfit you're dying to buy but need a frugal alternative? Email us a picture. We're up for the challenge.</p><p>ALSO: </p><p></p><p></p><p>Follow Jenn Harris on or </p><p>Bottom photo:Beanpole Insight patterned jeans, $94 / NeedSupply.com; Asos shiny pu jacket, $35.18 / Asos.com; DV by Docle Vita Simone boot, $89.95 / DSW.com.</p><p>There are so many luxurious things $50,000 will buy – a Porsche Boxster! A dozen quilted Chanel purses! A glamorous European getaway!</p><p>But if you’re a certain brandy lover, the money goes to two bottles of aged cognac.</p><p>An anonymous collector last week dropped 19,000 pounds on a rare half-bottle of 1789 A.C. Meukow & Co. cognac, according to the .</p> <p>The same buyer also splurged on an 1830 bottle of Remy Martin cognac, shelling out 12,900 pounds. The total comes out to 31,900 pounds, or $50,673.</p><p>The bottles were part of the Old Liquors Collection owned by Dutch collector Bay van der Bunt, whose more than 5,000 bottles of cognac, Armagnac, whiskey, port and more are valued at $9.5 million total.</p><p>“Collecting Cognacs and old liquors is very time consuming and costs a fortune, but it has proven to be the best financial investment I have ever made,” he told Drinks Business.</p><p>But then again, top-shelf alcohol has long commanded stunning prices.</p><p>Last month, Australian winemaker Penfolds released a wine – the 2004 Kalimna Block 42 Cabernet Sauvignon – . Only 11 “vessels” of the wine were made available for purchase. </p><p>ALSO:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Follow Tiffany Hsu onand</p>For years, L.A.-based author Lizzie Garrett Mettler thought "tomboy" was a dirty word.<br><br>"I was a definite tomboy when I was a kid," she says. "It was a nightmare for my parents to get me into a dress for a stretch of years."<br><br> As she became a teenager and young adult, she pushed that side of herself away. That changed when she started reading street fashion blogs like the Sartorialist and A Cup of Jo, and saw comments from readers who couldn't get enough of Alexa Chung and 's "tomboy style."<br><br>Maybe, Mettler thought, there was something to her lifelong fascination with Belgian loafers, tattered polos and Barbour jackets.<br><br>Indeed, in recent years, men's wear-inspired fashion for women has gone mainstream. It's seen at , where you can find a "schoolboy blazer"; on the streets, where the Breton sailor stripe shirt trend won't go away; and on the runways, in Scott Sternberg's neo-preppy collection and in the 1970s-inspired trouser and oversized button-down shirt looks by Phoebe Philo at .<br><br>"Something clicked in my head," Mettler says. "So I started a blog to answer my own question about what makes a tomboy stylish."<br><br>That blog, launched in May 2010, inspired the book "Tomboy Style: Beyond the Boundaries of Fashion," which was published this month by Rizzoli. The book is a visual history, documenting 80 years of women who blur the gender lines.<br><br>In her research, Mettler realized she discovered her own tomboy style while at boarding school, trading clothes with her frilly best friend Kingsley Woolworth, who favored bubble-gum pink bed linens and diamond stud earrings. By borrowing some of Kingsley's things and mixing them with her old favorites, many of them borrowed from her older brother, Mettler found her own style vocabulary, epitomized by a shirtdress cinched with a men's ribbon belt.<br><br>"A tomboy is a girl," Mettler explains. "Tomboy style is about a woman who channels her tomboy childhood, and mixes masculine and feminine elements in her wardrobe. It's not just wearing men's clothes."<br><br>And it's not just wardrobe; it's substance too.<br><br>Mettler had a particular interest in how tomboy style pertains to the past, "to women who pushed the boundaries," she says. These women include , and Jane Birkin, as well as those we're not so used to seeing in the style pages, such as , pictured after a deep-sea dive off the coast of Block Island in 1929, and presidential progeny Susan Ford, barefoot in shorts and a T-shirt in 1976, washing her car in the driveway of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.<br><br>"I was looking at everything from 1980s movies like 'Some Kind of Wonderful,' in which the drummer Watts is a huge tomboy, to photos of women skiing from the 1950s. I noticed a broad range of women, but a neat thread that bound them together was a rebellious, adventurous confidence," Mettler says.<br><br>She consulted out-of-print fashion books and the Life magazine archives. "There are the obvious icons you'd expect, but there's also ," she says. "I always thought of her as 's dance partner, this super-feminine, glitzy woman. But she also had a ranch in Oregon where she fly-fished and canned her own vegetables. I have a photo of her in her waders sitting outside on the ground."<br><br>Mettler organized the book into seven tomboy style archetypes. The "rebels" are rocker chicks , and poet laureate of punk, who would buy an expensive coat and immediately throw it into the washing machine to distress it and make it her own. The "sophisticates" include Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, , and tomboy godmother , who turned a fascination with borrowing duds from her paramours into a new way of dressing and introduced it as sportswear to the women of the world.<br><br>A 1940 photo of Osa Johnson dressed in safari gear, riding a zebra in Africa, exemplifies the "adventuress" archetype. The "jocks" push their bodies, along with the bounds of society. There's , pictured mid-game in 1972, wearing a butterfly-appliqued tennis dress and ruffled panties, and , swinging a bat while playing ball with the boys in in 1952. In the "prep" category, there'sMonaco's Princess Caroline, having a smoke outside her family's French villa in 1982, bundled up in an Irish fisherman sweater and rain boots and snuggling her German shepherd.<br><br>Attitudes about tomboys have certainly changed over the years, Mettler says. And tomboy style doesn't seem to be going away.<br><br>To that end, she plans to continue her blog, spotlighting tomboy style icons such as Françoise Sagan and tomboy style resources such as New York-based label Thom Dolan. "There's always something new to find," Mettler says, "whether it's a music video or a family photo someone emails<br><br>me of their mother scaling the Alps."<br><br><p>You gotta love watching the Olympics — for the sports, of course, but also for the style.</p><p>Uniforms are designed primarily for function, and ostensibly they level the playing field.</p><p></p> <p>But they actually ratchet up the competition sartorially, as teams try to intimidate and outdo one another using only the skimpy canvas of a swimsuit, a leotard or a pair of shorts, and having to dress within the confines of official Olympic brand sponsors.</p><p>Take the Russian synchronized swimmers' bathing suits featuring in profile. The King of Pop (a Jackson medley was the soundtrack for routine) instantly made them the coolest girls in the pool by association.</p><p>The loud, red harlequin-print Loudmouth Golf shorts worn by U.S. beach volleyball team and projected a kind of ruthless craziness, even if it didn't ultimately help them win the competition.</p><p>Athletes express themselves through more subtle personal style choices too, whether they be patriotic manicures (U.S. swimmer 's stars-and-stripes nail art), hair color (Jamaican sprinter Asafa Powell's dyed yellow soul patch), or a tooth grill (red-white-and-blue diamond as modeled by U.S. swimmer Ryan Lochte).</p><p>Jamaican track and field star Yohan Blake may have flouted the rules about branding by wearing a fancy Richard Mille watch with a bright yellow strap during the competition, although he won't officially be endorsing it *until after the are over. (Omega is the official timekeeper of the Olympics.)</p><p>Then there are athletes who make style choices for luck. U.S. sprinter wears a bullet-shaped necklace-as-talisman when she competes, which she paired with earrings during one race. And U.K. sprinter wore a beaded Union Jack bracelet when he won gold.</p><p>The one trend that already seems to be translating to the armchair athletes is highlighter-colored sneakers. Team U.S.A.'s track and field stars are wearing bright neon yellow styles from Nike's Volt collection designed especially for them. And casual runners on the streets of L.A. are drifting in their wake, wearing Nike Free 3.0 sneakers in Volt yellow.</p><p>If only they could make me run faster.</p><p>ALSO:</p><p></p><p></p><p>[8/9/2012 at 3:09 p.m. Because of a typographical error, an earlier draft of this post stated thatYohan Blake will not be endorsing a Richard Millewatch after the Olympic Games are over. He will not beendorsingthe watch until after the Olympic Games are over.]</p><p>Authorities are investigating whether some of the seven people arrested in a shootout that killed two Louisiana deputies may have ties to extremist anti-government movements, law enforcement officials told the Los Angeles Times. <br><br>Deputies had been conducting surveillance on several of the suspects for more than two months and considered them armed and dangerous, DeSoto Parish Sheriff Rodney Arbuckle said in an interview with The Times.<br><br>Their surveillance led them to believe that several of those under watch held anti-government beliefs and were heavily armed, Arbuckle said.<br><br>Seven people have been arrested and charged in connection with the Thursday morning shootout about 25 miles west of New Orleans. In what authorities described as an ambush attack, a man armed with an assault rifle opened fire on deputies who were investigating an earlier unprovoked attack in which another deputy was shot and injured.<br><br>Authorities arrested Terry Smith, 44, who was described as the leader of the group. Also arrested were his wife, Chanel Skains, 37; his son Derrick Smith, 22; and his son Brian Smith, 24. Authorities also arrested Bryan Smith’s girlfriend, Brittney Keith; Kyle Joekel, 28; and the woman living with Joekel, Teniecha Bright, 21.<br><br>The seven have been charged in connection with the shooting of Deputy Michael Boyington, who survived. Murder charges are pending, the Associated Press reported, in the deaths of Deputies Jeremy Triche and Brandon Nielsen. Deputy Jason Triche was wounded.<br><br>All were arrested after Boyington was shot at the entrance of a parking lot used by workers at an oil refinery in St. John the Baptist Parish, the Associated Press reported. Boyington was off duty and working as a security guard there. The other deputies were shot at a trailer park in LaPlace, a nearby suburb, after the car that had been linked to Boyington’s shooting was spotted.<br><br>The surveillance of the group began more than two months ago, Arbuckle said, after the robbery of an RV park laundromat. Terry Smith and his family -- who traveled from parish to parish taking odd jobs -- were living in the RV park and working at an plant nearby.<br><br>DeSoto sheriff’s deputies questioned Terry Smith’s son-in-law about the robbery, Sgt. Adam Ewing said. He told authorities that the group of men and women living in the trailer park were armed with AK-47s. <br><br>“He told me, ‘They’ve got a lot of ammunition and firearms and they don’t like the law,’” Ewing said in an interview with The Times. "And that’s true. They are a hostile, maybe militant group that is looking for any reason to start a fight.”<br><br>The department found several suspects had outstanding warrants in Nebraska, Tennessee and Louisiana, Ewing said. The Gage County, Neb., sheriff described Joekel as one of its most-wanted fugitives for allegedly making “terroristic threats” to law enforcement and people inside a bar there.<br><br>Authorities believe Joekel may also have ties to an anti-government group known as "Posse Comitatus" that doesn’t recognize any authority above the level of county sheriff.</p><p>The phrase means “power of the country,” according to the Anti-Defamation League. The ADL labels the group as “loosely affiliated bands of armed anti-tax and anti-federal government vigilantes and survivalists.”</p><p><br>ALSO:</p> <p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Follow Laura on . Email: <br></p><p>Since is known for fully immersing himself in his movies — famously subsisting onMcDonald's menu items for "Super Size Me" and pounding the pavement for every last product placement dollar in "The Greatest Story Ever Sold" — it seemed only appropriate to ask the man behind about his go-to grooming products and tools, most of which happen to come from boutique shaving brand the Art of Shaving, which signed on to sponsor the film's recent West Coast premiere and after-party. And, just in case there is any question about possible product placement in "Mansome," Spurlock is unequivocal: "No, nobody paid to put anything in the film," he said.</p><p>Razor</p><p>"What kind of razor do I have? The Gillette Fusion — that's the one with the five-blade cartridge — is my razor of choice. The one I use came from a shaving place in New York City ... it's got a great handle and a replaceable blade."</p> <p>Fusion Chrome Collection manual razor, $100 at the Art of Shaving boutiques, better department stores including Saks Fifth Avenue and and online at http://www.theartofshaving.com.</p><p>Shaving brush</p><p>"One of the things that changed as a result of making the movie is that some time in the last year and a half I bought a shaving brush. At first I thought it was kind of old-timey and I didn't know why I'd need to use one, but from the minute I started to use a brush to apply shaving cream I haven't gone back."</p><p>Fine Badger Brush in black, $110, available at the Art of Shaving boutiques, better department stores and online at http://www.theartofshaving.com.</p><p>Shaving cream</p><p>"I'm currently using a shaving cream I got at the Art of Shaving in New York a month or two ago, it's got some combination of kelp and oils in it."</p><p>Ocean Kelp with Light Aromatic Essentials shaving cream, $22 for 5 fluid ounces, available at the Art of Shaving boutiques, better department stores and online at http://www.theartofshaving.com.</p><p>After-shave</p><p>"The shaving cream I'm not so precious about — but I am incredibly precious about my after-shave. I use Chanel Allure Homme. I got turned on to it years ago and I love the way it smells — it's musky and smells like a man. I guess I started using it not long after my son was born. I equate [having] my son to being incredibly masculine."</p><p>Chanel's Allure Homme after-shave lotion, $50 for 3.4 fluid ounces, available at Chanel boutiques and online at http://www.chanel.com.</p><p></p><p>Whether it's tiny Union Jacks, tuxedos, stripes, crystal flowers or caviar pearls, nail art has gone mainstream.</p><p>No longer relegated to the subculture sidelines or the subject of mockery, nail art has become an everyday indulgence, and not just for flamboyant pop stars like and . It's been sported by Britain's Princess Eugenie, worn to the White House ' Assn. Dinner and shown up at the .</p> FOR THE RECORD:<br> Nail art: A July 15 article erred in capitalizing the "z" in the book title "Nailed: The History of Nail Culture and Dzine," by artist Dzine, whose name was spelled correctly elsewhere in the story. —<br><p>"Nail art has been around for years, but in kitschy ways, like a or a Christmas tree on your pinky nail," says Suzi Weiss-Fischmann, creative director of OPI. "But in the last five years, the emphasis on nail design has been huge.... Nails are an accessory."</p><p>Nail art is part of a larger trend of individualized self-expression that includes tattooing, body piercing and wild, temporary hair color — all of which is being driven in no small part by our cultural compulsion to share-and-compare on , blogs and social media.</p><p>Welcome to the era of what might be called Kustom Beauty, doing for the individual what the Southern California Kustom Kulture movement did for jazzy hot rods.</p><p>"Nail art has almost crept into the mainstream a couple of times," says Linda Wells, editor in chief of Allure magazine. "The closest call came when hip-hop artists Mary J. Bligeand were doing nail art with crazy designs like dollar bills and designer logos in the late 1990s and early 2000s. But then it disappeared."</p><p>Now it's not only back, it's booming. As of June 10, consumer spending on nail products and accessories at the mass-market level had increased 23% over the previous year to more than $1 billion, according to Symphony IRI Group, a Chicago-based market research firm. And the number of nail salons nationwide doubled between 1997 and 2007.</p><p>The boom is due in part to nail technology advances. "People can do this at home," Wells says. "It doesn't require going to the salon for four hours. Maybe you can't do 's 3-D flowers at home, but you can do other things. Sally Hanson has stick-ons that look good because they are not stickers, they are made of nail lacquer, and they are flexible."</p><p>OPI recently released its first nail decals. Called OPI Pure Lacquer Nail Apps, they come in 14 designs, including rattlesnake, lace and fishnet prints, for $11.95 per package. Each kit contains 16 pre-cut appliques, which require only trimming once they are stuck on the nails.</p><p>Gel-color manicures, which are baked on using UV light and last two to three times longer than a regular manicure, allow for long-lasting decoration, including gradiated glitter and stripes, as well as crystal and charm appliques.</p><p>The fashion world has embraced — and stoked — the nail art trend. Polish and cosmetics brands partner with fashion designers to create new colors and patterns that are presented during the fashion labels' runway shows in global style capitals such as , Italy; Paris; and New York. At New York Fashion Week in February, for instance, MAC cosmetics created custom velvet-flocked nail tips for the presentation. For the Kate Spade show, nail pro Deborah Lippmann designed polka dot nail art. And, front-row regular, blogger and model Alexa Chung wowed the fashion crowd with the Egyptian-style hieroglyphic eyeballs painted on her nails. YouTube how-to videos instantly sprang up teaching people how to get the look.</p><p>"Years ago, you never used to see nail polish on the runways," Weiss-Fischmann says. "And now, designers like and want nail designs to match certain looks, like painting the nail moon a different color or stripes, two toning or gradation."</p><p>Celebrities have also been influential in popularizing nail art. Peacockish pop singers like Minaj and Lady Gaga seem to be out to see who can sport the most outrageous manicures. For the "Born This Way" video, Japanese-born, New York-based nail artist Aya Fukuda filed Gaga's talons to sharp points, polished them blood red and decorated them with Gothic-looking jet black Swarovski crystals and silver hardware.</p><p>But the trend isn't just for teen fangirls. "I'm surprised at how women in their 30s and 40s are doing this," Wells says. "It's a playful thing and the beauty of it is that it can be taken off tomorrow. It's something you really can do for an evening."</p><p>A lot of the recent creative inspiration has come from , where there are numerous nail art magazines and competitions.</p><p>"It's 3-D things and bar codes, gold glitter on the tips, nothing is off-limits," says Wells, who has yet to jump on the nail art bandwagon, being a pale pink Essie Mademoiselle woman herself. "The fascination with highly decorative things, with miniaturization of detail — that has finally come here."</p><p>The Tokyo-based Mars salon recently opened its first U.S. location on Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood, offering high-end gel manicures starting at $80, along with custom nail art in a luxury setting. Each customer has a private room, with a television, where two technicians work at one time. It's not uncommon for clients to come in with clothing they want their nails to match. One woman brought in a picture of a beaded top. The technicians were able to mimic the color and 3-D nature of the floral beading in the nail design. "Later, Diane [von Furstenberg] tweeted about it," says Hiroko Fujikawa, the owner of Mars.</p><p><p>It's a notion ingrained early: September, the start of the traditional school year, is a time to start over. For the nonstudent, that may mean cleaning out your closets, enrolling in an exercise class or recommitting to New Year's resolutions. It's also a good time to review your beauty routines. You should always get rid of products that are past their expiration dates, of course. And we checked with some experts about what else to toss, keep and add this season.</p><p>Makeup</p><p>Tim Quinn, national director of creative artistry, Giorgio Beauty</p> <p>Toss Heavy powder and heavy oil-based foundations: "With most of the new foundations and new technology, you don't even need a powder … this whole idea of setting your makeup is almost obsolete."</p><p>Keep Translucent powder and blotting papers: "If you're doing something like a red carpet where you want to control shine you can maybe use light loose powder…but I like oil-absorbing sheets rather than layering powder." Golden bronzer, not too coppery: "I don't use it all over the face. I usually use it just to add a little shadowing, like along the temple, slightly up to the cheekbone and along the jaw line.…You're not trying to look like Snooki." Rose-gold toned blush: "I've had it in my kit since forever… it exists in every brand and is a color that you use almost all of the time." One to try: Nars Orgasm blush $28, Narscosmetics.com. A classic blue-red lipstick: "At any point in your life [this] is something you should never not have." He recommends Armani Shine lipstick No. 8 red, $29, Giorgioarmanibeauty-usa.com. Black pencil: "Liquid liners come and go, but a black eye pencil is a keeper forever."</p><p>Buy Foundation with up-to-date technology: "Complexion products have changed dramatically…If you haven't bought a new foundation in the last year or two, then you're doing yourself a disservice." He recommends Armani Maestro Fusion Makeup, $62, Giorgioarmanibeauty-usa.com. Gray eye shadow: "A gray-toned eye palette is more modern than black smoky eyes." He recommends Lancome All-in-One 5 Palette, Gris Fatale, $49, Lancome-usa.com.</p><p>Rebecca Restrepo, global makeup artist, Elizabeth Arden</p><p>Toss Shiny shadow: "A woman in her 50s shouldn't be putting super shiny things on her lids. Luminous is fine but nothing that looks like tinfoil. In modern formulations, mica is really, really minuscule and unbelievably fine."</p><p>Keep Lip pencils: "Lip pencils definitely are a girl's friend, especially as we get older or have small lips. Companies now have several nude pencils [to match various skin tones]... Match your lips, like foundation, and then lipstick goes on top." A lash curler: "A little lash curl is pretty, opens up the eyes and makes a world of difference." She recommends Kevyn Aucoin Eyelash Curler, $20, Barneys.com. Pinky-peach lip gloss: "Just nothing that has glitter or sparkle in it because that's not chic."</p><p>Buy A brow pencil: "Strong brows are big this season." Plum lipstick: "Really rich tones, including burgundy wine tones, are really big for fall. Older woman will look good in a sheer tint." One to try: Eight Hour Cream Lip Protectant Stick Sheer Tint SPF 15 in honey — a peachy-pink color — or plum $19.50, Elizabetharden.com.</p><p>Skin Care</p><p>Dr. Jessica Wu, Brentwood and author of "Feed Your Face"</p><p>Toss Sunscreen that has changed color or consistency: "This can happen after it's been sitting in the sun or a hot car. If the formula has changed, you can't trust that it will still give you the same sun protection." products that make your skin dry and scaly: "The most offending ingredients are 10% benzoyl peroxide and 2% salicylic acid. If your pimples get dry and scabby, they'll heal slower than if you keep your skin soft."</p><p>Keep Olay 2-in-1 Daily Facial cloths for combination/oily skin ($5.39, Ulta.com): "I recommend them to my patients with acne-prone skin or an oily T zone. They remove makeup and oils, leaving your skin clean and soft."</p><p>Buy Lip balm with SPF: "I often notice dark spots or scaly growths on my patients' lips after they take off their lipstick or gloss. Lips are a mucous membrane, so the skin is thinner and more vulnerable to and ." One to try: Intense Therapy lip balm, SPF 25, $7.50, Sephora.com. BB cream: "If you want sunscreen, hydration and more coverage than a tinted moisturizer but less than foundation." She recommends Diorsnow BB cream, $50, Nordstrom.com. "Plus, be on the lookout for CC creams, all the rage in Asia ['s Complete Color Complexion CC cream is an example of these multitasking skin-care and coverage products] and coming to the U.S. this fall."</p><p>Dr. Harold Lancer, Beverly Hills dermatologist</p><p>Toss Face toners with harsh drying agents: "Generally speaking, [these] are a thing of the past and have been replaced with oil absorbers, which basically mop up the mess." Rough exfoliants from natural pitted products such as nuts: "That's in the garbage can.… Those are truly abrasive and can leave microscopic scratch marks."</p><p>Keep Products with retinoids, , alpha hydroxy acid, glycolic acid, antioxidant : "I've been in the skin world since 1971 and can say that [these ingredients] have weathered the test of time.… They reverse genetic and environmental aging." He recommends Lancer Skincare Evening Anti-Aging Therapy, $75, Lancerskincare.com.</p><p>Buy Products with some variant of resveratrol, a that's antioxidant that reverses wear and tear on tissue, and/or a new stabilizing form of vitamin C: "The catch phrases will be stabilized glycolic acid, stabilized retinoic acid and stabilized grape seed extract." He recommends Lancer Skincare Vitamin C 10% cream, $50, Lancerskincare.com.)</p><p>Hair</p><p>Paul Gambutti, manager L'Oréal Professionel technical testing and development</p><p>Toss Heavy styling products that weigh hair down: "Really, no matter what your hair type or what product that you're using, the technology is so advanced now there are lighter options."</p><p>Keep A variety of shampoos, conditioners and hair masks: "Your hair might have different needs at different times depending on your circumstance, hair health and environment."</p><p>Buy Products that don't leave an oily residue: "So something like L'Oreal's Mythic Oil ($32, Birchbox.com) is nice, where you get all the benefits of the oil but you don't actually feel the oil on your hair and you don't have to wash it off."</p><p>Tracey Cunningham, celebrity hair stylist and Redken creative consultant</p><p>Toss Your desire to do Brazilian Blowouts: Ingredients in some products have proven to be potentially hazardous so "embrace your curls instead."</p><p>Keep Your favorite brands, and look for updated formulations. "Products are either discontinued or they make them better. Redken has really updated their color stay technology." She recommends Redken Color Extend shampoo, $15.49, and conditioner, $16.49, Target.com.</p><p>Buy A new curling iron: "With heat setting controls."</p><p></p>PARIS -- Erotica and Vargas girls. Corsets and crinolines. , butterflies and meadow flowers. Sarah Burton's spring-summer 2013 collection, shown Tuesday night during had all that and more.<p>The scene: The show was held in an arts space on the edge of the city. Behind the gold honeycomb runway were psychedelic-looking projections of flowers and insects.</p><p></p> <p>The look: McQueen maximalism and extreme femininity. Sculpted bustier tops with tortoise cages. Honeycomb embroidery or honeycomb brocade wasp waist jackets with exaggerated hips worn with slim, mid-calf pencil skirts or skinny pants. Corseted and ruffled Little Bo Peep dresses with suspended hoop skirts. Light-as-meringue organza and tulle ball gowns with flowers trapped inside the gossamer layers. Crystal-dusted fetish boots laced over the knee. Tortoise cuffs and necklaces encrusted with jeweled bees. A palette of poppy red, gold, primrose yellow and black.</p><p>The verdict: Although there was a tremendous amount of technical skill on display, this collection did not have the emotional charge of some of Burton's past work. There was a theme but no story to grab on to, which made the clothes feel disconnected from reality, like museum pieces.</p><p>ALSO:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>PARIS -- Was the runway show going to be a wind-powered statement by designer Karl Lagerfeld on alternative energy and global warming? It certainly looked like it from the 13 enormous white rotating wind turbines erected underneath the glass ceiling of the Grand Palais for the spring-summer 2013 runway show held Tuesday morning at .</p><p>But alas, it wasn't a themey collection in the vein of Lagerfeld's polar iceberg, faux fur extravaganza from a few seasons back, but rather a demonstration of the power of the original Chanel design codes, and the energy and creative output Lagerfeld has put into sustaining the behemoth luxury brand since he took over in 1983.</p><p></p> <p>With all the attention this week focused on new designers at Dior and Yves Saint Laurent, perhaps Lagerfeld felt like flexing his muscles.</p><p>The scene: brought daughter Emme (not bad for a 4-year-old) and her beau Casper Smart. was also front row. But this is a show where it's easy to miss people, famous or otherwise. More than 1,000 guests were there.</p><p>The look: Carefree Coco Chanel as if she were still haunting the cafes of the Riviera today. Nods to 1960s style and bold graphics, but with a modern twist. The most dominant silhouette was a cropped jacket over a miniskirt or dress. The Chanel suit was remade as a boxy, rounded-sleeve white tweed jacket and short full skirt trimmed in gobstopper-sized pearls. A blouson top and bubble skirt came in rainbow confetti boucle tweed. Graphic grid check knit chemises and miniskirts nodded to the 1960s. A cropped denim jacket and denim shirt dress with pearl buttons added a casual air. For evening, a black windowpane-sequin cocktail dress with transparent top layer touched on the spring trend of transparency. And white sequin columns came with sweet, garden floral embroidery down the fronts. Floor-sweeping gowns were trimmed with rows of pearls. For accessories, it was all about chunky clustered pearl necklaces and bracelets. Fabulous Hula Hoop bags of quilted leather came with giant circular handles. And the spectator shoe was redone in see-through plastic.</p><p>The verdict: Light and fun, even if it did blow in a lot of different directions. As evidenced by the tweed fan club that turns up enthusiastically for every show, Chanel is a brand that must appeal to a lot of different people.</p><p>ALSO:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p>PARIS -- It seemed as if there was a battle of the bigs going on at . New designers at Dior and Yves Saint Laurent grabbed a lot of attention, so Karl Lagerfeld installed wind turbines in the Grand Palais for the Chanel runway show, and Marc Jacobs installed four escalators on the runway for Louis Vuitton.<p>But in the case of Jacobs, there was method to the madness. The escalators were a site-specific installation by French conceptual artist Daniel Buren, known for creating art in public spaces that unites surfaces and architecture. His Monumenta exhibit was under the glass ceiling at the Grand Palais this spring.</p><p></p> <p>Inspiration: “Les Deux Plateaux,” a work by Buren that consists of 260 columns of three different heights arranged in a grid, which has been in Paris’ Palais Royal since 1986. The beautiful music and spoken words were from Phillip Glass’ opera “Einstein on the Beach.” This was the first runway collection not to use the LV logo. Instead, the Damier check was the defining graphic.</p><p>The look: Models came out in pairs, walking lock step, descending and ascending the escalators at once, as if on a never-ending loop. Mod, 1960s shapes. Linear, column-like silhouettes. Graphic checks in various sizes defined every look. Calf-length pencil skirts and slim shift dresses, pea coats. Sheer grids, checks with floral embroideries, checks embellished with the smallest sequins arranged by the thousands, sparkling like diamonds. Helmet like hairdos and wide head bands. Pointy-toe pumps with flat bows and chunky heels.</p><p>The verdict: Visual splendor in motion. Quite poignant. Rather than just a themey fashion show, this was performance art. But the clothes were lovely, reinforcing the graphic message of the season, which Jacobs began in New York with his own collection, and earlier this summer with an LV collaboration with polka dot-artist Yayoi Kusama.</p><p>ALSO:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><br><p>PARIS -- A bevy of starlets showed up for Miuccia ’s spring-summer 2013 fashion show on Wednesday, the last day of . Emma Stone, , Berenice Bejo and current Miu Miu campaign model sat along the sculptural wood runway at Paris’ Environmental Council building for one of the last shows of the season.</p><p></p><p>The look: Fittingly, the look was evocative of Hollywood femme fatales with a modern twist. Mid-calf-length pencil skirts, bustiers, swing jackets and coats in crinkled cotton, dark denim with fraying edges and a splatter-print satin that conjured images of explosive gunshot residue. Skirts and jackets slit high in the back. Backward tops (and some skirts) fastened with giant jeweled buttons. Furs, yes furs, for spring, with sooty splatter motifs. Jeweled flat sandals or killer pumps. Flat satchel bags.</p> <p>The verdict: Some strong ideas, but the show was a tad repetitive. And the loose-fitting bustiers and backward-fastening skirts could be a tough sell.</p><p>ALSO:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>PARIS -- It was a “” moment by way of Rome and Paris on Tuesday afternoon when designers Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli showed their spring-summer 2013 collection during . The designers, who have been at the helm of the fabled Roman fashion house since 2008, turned out a graceful collection of demure frocks that brought to mind the ladies of "Downton."</p><p>Inspiration: Nostalgia for female sensuality, not sexuality.</p><p></p> <p>The look: Modest. Ladylike. Dresses that skim rather than cling, leaving something to the imagination. Silhouettes that hit below the knee with slightly fitted waists. Dresses with rows of lattice-like stitching designed to show a hint of skin. Jumpsuits with lacy layers underneath. Exquisite lace dresses with long sleeves and delicate buttons. Lace suits with short capelets instead of jackets. Floral tea dresses with puffy sleeves. High-neck gowns painted with flowers. A clear trench edged in studs or python added a slight edge. Wedge sandals and sling-backs came with jeweled Lucite heels. A powdery color palette of blush, ivory, beige, rose and black.</p><p>The scene: You had to forget trying to be a lady when fighting through the scrum of photographers angling for shots of Valentino, who was there himself, as well as and her beau, Casper Smart.</p><p>The verdict: Sweet success, gorgeous craftsmanship. The designers have taken Valentino’s fiercely feminine DNA and softened it, making it their own, and tweaking it ever so slightly each season.</p><p>ALSO: </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>On Tuesday, the empire of stylist turned media and fashion mogul Rachel Zoe expanded to include jewelry, available exclusively at and Wednesday at 42 stores nationwide.</p><p>“It’s fancy but it’s not,” Zoe said at her Melrose Avenue showroom on Monday afternoon, where she previewed the collection, $195 to $650, inspired by her favorite things, including Art Deco and 1960s and 1970s glam. The pieces, like Zoe herself, make a big statement. “I’ve never been subtle,” she said.</p><p>Indeed, this is the kind of jewelry that lets every woman have a red carpet moment, whether it’s at lunch with friends or at a charity gala.</p> <p>“This, I have not stopped wearing since I got it," she said, fingering the chunky, twisted gold rope and tassel sautoir necklace, $650, that she wore with a skinny, black pantsuit. "You can tie it in front, drape it around your neck like a scarf and let the ends hang in front or drape down the back.”</p><p>Looking at the necklace, I immediately thought of one of Zoe’s most memorable styling coups: at the 2010 in that sexy-as-hell, backless, long-sleeved, white gown with a Cartier tassel sautoir draped against her bare back. It was such an effective styling flourish that it may have single-handedly brought tassel jewelry back into fashion. (I know it prompted me to get a tassel necklace that belonged to my grandmother out of the drawer and start wearing it.)</p><p>“Since I’ve started styling, I’ve always loved a super-low back with a necklace worn against it,” Zoe explained.</p><p>This kind of synergy explains how and why Zoe’s red carpet influence has been so successful in informing her burgeoning fashion business. And indeed, her headquarters here includes a floor for her celebrity styling business, as well as a floor for the Rachel Zoe Media Group, where she oversees an editorial staff that publishes daily email newsletters , Zoe Beautiful and AccessZOEries. Design of the jewelry collection is also done here in L.A., while the apparel collection is designed in New York, where she will present her spring 2013 runway show at fashion week in September.</p><p></p><p>Zoe picked up another piece of jewelry, a Wonder Woman-like cuff with a circular, shield-like embellishment in yellow gold, black enamel and diamante stones, $420. “I love putting one of these on each arm. This is a piece,” Zoe says with emphasis. There are gobstopper-sized cocktail rings with jade-colored stones, stackable bangles with alternating strips of black enamel and diamante stones, Lucite link collar necklaces, cuffs with interlocking knots, and dangling black and gold fringe earrings, all of which will be rolled out in Neiman Marcus stores over the next couple of months.</p><p>“I feel like I have been designing this collection for the last 20 years,” Zoe says. “I sketched and drew a lot of inspiration from my archives. And my research involved a lot of trial and error. After the first prototypes, I decided if I liked this or that, changed chains and stones.”</p><p>Zoe has quite an impressive personal jewelry collection too, which I have been able to see the two times I’ve been able to tour her closet. She loves vintage , Miriam Haskell, , Cartier and Bulgari pieces.</p><p>This collection is about giving her customers a taste of that glamour, albeit a less expensive one. “People want fun things that they can wear with jeans and a T-shirt and make their look that much better, which is why each piece has a lot to it.”</p><p>When the jewelry collection expands beyond Neiman Marcus into other stores for spring, the line also will broaden to include smaller, more subtle pieces too — in other words, not so much bling.</p><p>“For me, I have never stopped wearing big jewelry, some bigger than my appendages. But it’s not for everybody. And since my son has been born, there are more delicate things that I sleep in and don’t take off. Anita Ko made me a necklace that’s a vertical bar engraved with my son Skyler’s name and birth date, and Hilary Tisch made me a couple of delicate pieces with his name on them too.”</p><p>So will fine jewelry be next?</p><p>“Why not? I never say never. It’s the same reason I will probably go into high-end eveningwear eventually. Why not play with the real stuff?”</p><p>ALSO:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Photo:Pieces from Rachel Zoe's jewelry collection, launching exclusively at NeimanMarcus.com and Neiman Marcus stores nationwide. Credit: Rachel Zoe Jewelry.</p><p>-- is partnering with Bon Appetit magazine and restaurant reservation site OpenTable to market its new Desk to Dinner apparel collection, a report says.</p><p>The collection, debuting next week, will feature clothes that can be transitioned from the workplace to a night out. Advertising for the collection will include print ads, social media and posts on Dining Check, the OpenTable blog, the New York Times said.</p><p>Chris Nicklo, vice president of marketing at Banana Republic, told the Times that food is "definitely one of the passions" of the retailer's customer base and it will benefit from the exposure in those foodie outlets. "Bon Appetit and OpenTable have audiences that are outside my own," he said.</p> <p>--Publix, a supermarket chain operating in the Southern U.S., is debuting an online site to allow shoppers to customize deli selections from their computers, a report says.</p><p>The pilot program, intended to reduce crowds at the deli counter, is debuting in several stores in the next few months and in 50 more locations in the next year, according to the Tampa Bay Times. Customers will be able to order customized sandwiches as well as deli meat and cheese selections.</p><p>Customers will go on their smartphones or computers to order and specify a pickup time; some stores will have kiosks in-store to order while people shop, the report says.</p><p>--J.C. Penneyis adding philanthropy to the checkout counter by asking shoppers to donate to a featured charity when making a purchase.</p><p>The program, called jcp cares, will highlight a new charity each month by inviting shoppers to round purchases up to the nearest dollar and donate the difference to a select charity, the retailer said.</p><p>Penney is kicking off the program in July with the United Service Organizations (or USO), the nonprofit organization that has entertained troops away from home since (bringing stars such as and to soldiers serving abroad).</p><p>ALSO:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>-- will launch a holiday collection in October inspired by the film "Anna Karenina," the big-screen adaptation of the Leo Tolstoy novel coming out this fall.</p><p>The retailer brought on Jacqueline Durran, the movie's costume designer, to style a capsule collection based on 19th century Russian fashions -- but with a modern spin. Banana Republic has previously enjoyed success plumbing history with its "Mad Men"-inspired collections of sheath dresses and suits.</p><p>The "Anna Karenina" collection will include apparel and accessories using velvet, faux fur, lace and other materials evoking that period of Russian history.</p> <p>-- The South Bay Galleria mall in Redondo Beach has expanded its retail lineup, adding fast-fashion clothier H&M and jewelry company Pandora as well as new restaurants.</p><p>H&M has been enjoying healthy profits as shoppers indulge in inexpensive fashions. In its second quarter, which ended May 31, the Swedish retailer posted a profit of $750 million, up 23% from the same period last year. H&M's expansion strategy includes to opening 275 new stores worldwide in its current fiscal year.</p><p>-- founder Richard Schulze is considering taking the electronics chain private, according to a report.</p><p>Schulze stepped down as company chairman in May after an internal probe found he knew of former Chief Executive Brian Dunn's inappropriate relationship with an employee and failed to report it. Dunn stepped down as CEO in April.</p><p>Schulze remains Best Buy's largest shareholder, with a stake of about 20%. Citing people familiar with the situation, the report said that Schulze was working with bankers to consider his options, which include selling his stake.</p><p>RELATED:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>-- is adding 600 Izod shops within its department stores as part of an effort by the struggling retailer to increase its hip quotient by building in-store boutiques, Women's Wear Daily reports.</p><p>The new shops will take over space left after Penney earlier this year got rid of a line called American Living, said Emanuel Chirico, chief executive of Izod owner PVH. More than 500 of the stores will be 600 to 700 square feet and about 70 will be more than 1,000 square feet.</p><p>"J.C. Penney is going through a tremendous transformation. Everything about how they are going after the consumer is changing so clearly, there are going to be tactical issues that are constantly coming up," Chirico told Women's Wear Daily. "They’ve changed their pricing and marketing message but they haven’t really changed what’s on the floor yet."</p> <p>--Department store chain is offering layaway plans for packaged vacations.</p><p>On Wednesday, the retailer launched searsvacations.com, a travel site offering car rentals, hotels, plane tickets and packaged vacations that can be put on layaway and paid off a bit at a time.</p><p>After waning in popularity, layaway enjoyed a resurgence during the recession as retailers such as Wal-Mart offered the option to cash-strapped shoppers. The Sears vacation packages start at $399.</p><p>--Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is trying to bolster its green reputation by sending workers to America's wheat fields to work with farmers to reduce their carbon output.</p><p>The retailer, which has been re-crafting its reputation after facing accusations of widespread bribery in its Mexican operations, is pushing to reduce the environmental impact that comes from growing its Great Value-branded flour items by using its vast influence as the world's largest retailer, Reuters reported.</p><p>"We don't have a lot of visibility in the supply chain, so we started in the field," Robert Kaplan, a sustainability manager at Wal-Mart, told Reuters. "I hadn't seen a wheat field before and I wanted to find out how we go from a green crop in the fields to flour on our shelves."</p><p>RELATED:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Follow Shan Li on Twitter </p><p></p><p>-- Online retailer Piperlime is opening its first bricks-and-mortar shop in the Soho neighborhood of Manhattan next week.</p><p>Piperlime, owned by San Francisco apparel giant , is set to launch the 4,000-square-foot shop Thursday.</p><p>The store will transform online pages and features such as top picks from celebrity stylist Rachel Zoe into sections of the store. Jennifer Gosselin, the brand's general manager, told Bloomberg News that the store will carry clothes, shoes and jewelry priced from $49 to $600.</p> <p>“In terms of experiencing the brand, it’s the difference between having a relationship over e-mail versus one in person,” Gosselin said.</p><p>-- A New York judge rejected a bid by Inc. to block Co. from selling a variety of Martha Stewart Living products.</p><p>Department store chain Macy's sued J.C. Penney in January, claiming it had an exclusive right to sell Martha Stewart items in specific categories. A month earlier, J.C. Penney had announced a deal with the company founded by lifestyle maven Stewart.</p><p>In July, Judge Jeffrey Oing granted a preliminary injunction sought by Macy's to stop Penney's Martha Stewart deal from moving forward. But in a hearing this week, the judge decided against the injunction after all.</p><p>-- weekend may actually be the best weekend for finding bargains, according to online shopping site Shop It to Me.</p><p>During last year's Labor Day shopping period -- which stretched from the week before to the week after the official holiday weekend -- shoppers found discounts of 48.4% on average, according to data aggregated by the site.</p><p>Those deals trumped ones found during the New Year's (44.2%) and Presidents Day (46.7%) periods and even Black Friday and , which many consider prime time for bargain hunters and yet offered discounts averaging only 41% to 42%, the site said.</p><p>ALSO:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Follow Shan Li on .</p><p>--Action-sports apparel company Vans Inc. is venturing further into athletic footwear with the launch of the LXVI line of shoes.</p><p>The line, named after the Cypress, Calif., company's founding year in 1966, will start with five designs to be sold online, in select Vans stores and at retail stores such as , the company said.</p><p>Vans has traditionally appealed to teenagers who skateboard or those who simply like skater fashions. Priced beginning at $70, the new shoe line is aiming for a mainstream audience of young shoppers who “are more likely to be a teen walking around the streets in a pair of running shoes or basketball shoes,” Vans President Kevin Bailey told Bloomberg. “This brings a new consumer into the Vans stable of footwear.”</p> <p>--Luxury brand , the favorite of several first ladies of the United States, is stretching its retail footprint with a new London store and expansion of its New York flagship.</p><p>In April, the high-end retailer opened its second Middle East store in , and last November planted a boutique in the , bringing its store count up to 13.</p><p>President Alex Bolen told Women's Wear Daily that Oscar de la Renta was dedicated to adding more bricks-and-mortar stores.</p><p>“We have become increasingly confident in the risk-reward of managing a retail business," Bolen said. "Don’t misunderstand: E-commerce has many attractive characteristics.... As we’ve opened our own stores and have learned what works and what doesn’t, we’ve become increasingly focused on expanding our retail presence.”</p><p>--For its latest designer collaboration, cheap-chic retailer H&M is teaming up with Paris design house Maison Martin Margiela.</p><p>H&M has previously brought on high-end brands such as , Commes de Garcons and to design capsule collections, which have inspired huge crowds to camp out overnight at stores for a chance to get luxury designs at affordable prices.</p><p>The latest collection will go on sale in stores and online Nov. 15, and will include both men's and women's apparel and accessories.</p><p>H&M confirmed the rumored holiday collaboration with H&M by posting a short video on .</p><p>RELATED:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Follow Shan Li on </p><p>Consumers worried about the economy appeared more cautious about buying in June, prompting concerns about a possible slowdown in spending just ahead of the back-to-school shopping season.</p><p>Major chain stores posted a weak 0.1% sales increase in June compared with the same month a year earlier, below analysts' expectations of a 0.5% rise, according to ' tally of 20 retailers.</p><p>"Volatility is the word that best describes the June performance," said Michael Niemira, chief economist for the International Council of Shopping Centers. "Weather was one factor that was cited as a drag on the overall performance, but some retailers pointed to broader economic uncertainty as well."</p> <p>Top performers were a mixture of high- and low-end stores. Action-sports chain Inc. led the way with an 8.2% increase. Luxury department store posted an 8.1% rise. Discounters fared especially well, with off-price retailers Ross Stores Inc. and TJX Cos. both reporting a strong 7% increase and Costco Wholesale Corp. seeing sales rise 3%.</p><p>Other retailers did not fare as well. Struggling teen clothier said sales fell 9%, while Kohl's Corp. reported a 4.2% drop.</p><p>Retailers are looking ahead to the back-to-school season, which begins this month and is typically the second-largest sales driver of the year (after the year-end holidays), accounting for more than 10% of the industry's annual sales.</p><p>Results are based on sales at stores open at least a year, known as same-store sales and considered an important measure of a retailer's health because it excludes the effect of stores' openings and closings.</p><p>RELATED:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Shoppers hit the malls for shopping in August and handed retailers a healthy boost despite continued worries about the job market and a sluggish economy.</p><p>Major chain stores posted a 3.6% sales increase in August compared with the same month a year earlier, outpacing analysts' expectations of a 2% rise, according to ' tally of 16 retailers.</p><p>"Consumer spending increased for the first time in three months," said Chris Christopher, an economist at IHS Global Insight, "providing evidence that after hunkering down for two consecutive months there are signs of life on the consumer front."</p> <p>Top performers were a mixture of high- and low-end stores. Luxury department store led the way with a strong 21% jump. San Francisco-based continued to show signs of a turnaround by posting a 9% increase. Discounters fared well, with off-price retailers and both reporting a strong 8% increase. Limited Brands, parent company of and Bath & Body Works, also saw sales rise 8%.</p><p>Other retailers posted weak results. Struggling teen clothier , which recently ousted its chief executive and is facing a discrimination lawsuit, said sales plummeted 18.3%.</p><p>August has traditionally been the core of the back-to-school shopping period, the second-most-important time of the year for retailers (after the winter holidays), accounting for more than 10% of the industry's annual sales. But this year many parents and kids say they are waiting until after school starts to shop in order to pick up the best deals and buy the right trends.</p><p>Results are based on sales at stores open at least a year, known as same-store sales and considered an important measure of a retailer's health because it excludes the effect of stores' openings and closings.</p><p>ALSO:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Follow Shan Li on Twitter </p><p> is on the cover of Elle's November issue, its 19th annual Women In Hollywood issue dedicated to women the film industry. This year's honorees are Parker, , , , , , , Emma Watson and . The women are to be honored at an awards ceremony in Los Angeles on Oct. 15, and the magazine is scheduled to be out Oct. 16. </p><p>Montblanc honored with the 21st annualMontblanc de la Culture Arts Patronage Award at an event at the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles on Tuesday night, the watch company reported in a news release. Attendees included the music legend's daughter, actress Rashida Jones; ; ; ; Selita Ebanks; and Jesse Williams.</p><p>A vanload of tourists in Beverly Hills saw more sights than they bargained for when they stumbled across soccer star shooting an underwear ad for his H&M line in a leafy -- and he thought secluded -- area. </p> <p>Fashion it girl Alexa Chung is writing a book, her first, targeted for release in September 2013 and as-yet untitled. </p><p>MAC and Carine Roitfeld celebrated the launch of their new makeup collaboration with a party in Paris. Guests included Karl Lagerfeld, , Julia Restoin-Roitfeld and Karlie Kloss, and the night ended with an exuberant pillow fight. </p><p>Yves Saint Laurent's new creative director, Hedi Slimane, barred New York Times fashion critic Cathy Horyn from his show, as , writing her an open letter in which he said she was a bully and later insulting her via Twitter. Now, Laura Craik, fashion editor at the Times of London, has sent Slimane an open letter saying that even though she did attend the show -- and hopes to be invited back -- he didn't make journalists feel very welcome. </p><p>'s 4-year-old daughter was quite the fashion plate when she accompanied Mom to 's Paris Fashion Week show on Tuesday. She reportedly wore $2,400 worth of Chanel accessories, including a brooch and a bag. </p><p>ALSO:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>With summer in full swing, it's time to hit the beach — for sunning, yes, but also for shopping.</p><p>There's a new level of sophistication in shopping along the coast. Locally owned boutiques with a curated point of view are changing the flavor of beach towns from beer-soaked spring break haunts to chic retail and dining destinations.</p><p>The style renaissance is fueled in part by the success of Venice's Abbot Kinney Boulevard, which this spring was dubbed by GQ magazine the chic-est street in America. With stores in Craftsman-style houses and beach bungalows, along with ping-pong tables and comfy outdoor seating that encourage visitors to linger, even the retail scene has a friendly sense of community.</p> <p>"Abbot Kinney has an energy that you cannot find anywhere else in L.A.," says fashion maven Jeannie , who recently opened a second outpost of her popular 3rd Street boutique Satine on Abbot Kinney Boulevard, selling $500-plus designer clothing by and alongside wetsuits by for Roxy. "No matter what day of the week or time of day, there are always people on the street. Since we have been open I noticed that we have little to no down time. The level of traffic coming into the store is intense."</p><p>Stylish, new independent boutiques have been cropping up in Manhattan Beach (Dawn Baker), Hermosa Beach (Deep Pocket Jean Co.) and Long Beach (Port, Long Beach Trading Co.) too, as fashion industry vets have moved from L.A. to the beach cities and designers and merchandisers who came of age working for surf and skate industry giants have left to start their own lines and retail endeavors.</p><p>"Hermosa is filled with authentic creativity," says David Borgatta, who opened Deep Pocket Jean Co. on Pier Avenue in Hermosa eight months ago after working as a designer for 25 years at , Guess, Hollister and other brands. "The old Hermosa is changing. It's more about lifestyle, and not just partyers and drunks. We also have a lot of pro athletes living here."</p><p>We surveyed the scene and came up with coastal shopping itineraries that sample stores in Laguna Beach, Newport Beach, the South Bay and Long Beach. But let's start with the most chic of streets, Abbot Kinney.</p><p>VENICE</p><p>On Abbot Kinney, just steps away from the sand, the boardwalk and the drum circles, high-end fashion and design stores sit alongside pot pharmacies and bike shops. Although the area is steeped in the powerful legacy of the surf-skate culture stretching back to the neighborhood's 1970s Dogtown days, even its beach T-shirt shops have been elevated now to something more special. It adds up to an eclectic mix of shopping opportunities from Venice to Westminster boulevards.</p><p>With a bright blue exterior painted with two bunnies by local graffiti artist Jules Muck, the new Satine (1508 Abbot Kinney) can't be missed. Lee's vision of luxury fashion in Venice comes in a relaxed beach bungalow setting. There are cheery dresses, cuddly Jenni Kayne sweaters, Ancient Greek Sandals footwear, Eugenia Kim straw hats, Meredith Wendell macrame clutches and sleek totes, as well as eclectic goodies such as green tea Kit Kats and crochet covers, inspired by Lee's love of Japan.</p><p>At the other end of the street, Heist (1104 Abbot Kinney) was one of the first fashion boutiques to open on Abbot Kinney at the dawn of the street's renaissance, in 2004. It has a European flavor, featuring floral dresses and fringed sweaters, Of Two Minds tweed jackets, Dieppa Restrepo booties, K. Jacques sandals, Jerome Dreyfuss totes and Pippa Small semiprecious stone jewelry.</p><p>Pamela Barish (1327 1/2 Abbot Kinney) also opened her store in 2004. A die-hard Venice local, Barish has adopted her own 100-mile-radius rule, and all of her clothes are made within it. Her spring collection includes picnic-ready gingham, eyelet and polka dot fit 'n' flare dresses, solid sheaths, skirts and tops with Peter Pan collars.</p><p>There's lots here for the more avant-garde set too, beginning at Guild (13351/2 Abbot Kinney), where you'll find lace shorts, distressed Greg jackets and Ronald Pineau studded clutches. Salt (11381/2 Abbot Kinney) is less rock 'n' roll, with modern-looking clothes from Elaine Kim, Hache and Hartford.</p><p>Mona Moore (1112 Abbot Kinney) is the place to find cutting-edge shoes by , and Martin Margiela, while Waraku (1225 Abbot Kinney) has hard-to-find kicks for men and women, like gingham check Nikes, Marimekko print and split-toe Sou-Sous, alongside Japanese streetwear brands.</p><p>For leather accessories, San Francisco-based designer Kendall Conrad (1121 Abbot Kinney) specializes in bags that incorporate traditional techniques of Spanish saddlery, including sleek styles with fringe, tassel or whipstitch trim and brass hardware, as well as leather wallets and cuff bracelets.</p><p>You'll find men's canvas totes, messenger bags and accessories at Jack Spade (1132 Abbot Kinney), and Lucite bracelets and other fashion jewelry at Alexis Bittar (1612 Abbot Kinney).</p><p>And for an olfactory treat, Venice-based Strange Invisible Perfumes (1138 Abbot Kinney) and New York-based Le Labo (1138 1/2) recently formed a "Perfume Commune," co-existing in side-by-side storefronts where they spritz the art of custom perfumery.</p><p>The Stronghold (1625 Abbot Kinney), L.A.'s first denim brand circa 1885, worn by in the "Little Tramp" and in "Grapes of Wrath," has its flagship on Abbot Kinney. The place has an old-fashioned vibe and features the house-label jeans, alongside goods from other American heritage brands, including Alden shoes, Russell moccasins, Filson bags and Dickies shirts. Don't miss the chic carpet bags for women either.</p><p>Steven Alan (1601 Abbot Kinney) has a preppy vibe, with button-down shirts for men and women, Lauren Moffatt cotton dresses in delicate prints, Clare Vivier envelope bags and Soludos espadrilles.</p><p>In Venice's boho spirit, L.A. designer Karyn Craven recently opened her first Burning Torch (1627 Abbot Kinney) store here. The atmosphere is warm and welcoming, with breezy tunics in bright silk prints, exotic beaded bed jackets and dresses, woven leather tops, upcycled blouses and chunky necklaces.</p>In the mid-1980s Suzy Gershman was having lunch in Beverly Hills with three friends — all ladies who loved to shop — when she hatched the idea: She would write a shopping guide that would make her readers "feel as if we've met for lunch and I'm giving them tips for their trip."<br><br>The result of her brainstorm was the first "Born to Shop" travel guide, published in 1986. Over the next three decades she turned out 15 more books loaded with carefully honed recommendations about the best places to buy almost anything — designer clothes, soap, garden torches, art supplies, homemade focaccia, antiques — in tourist destinations from New York to Shanghai. More than 4 million copies in half a dozen languages have been sold.<br><br> A self-described "global shopping goddess," Gershman died July 25 in San Antonio, a year after being diagnosed with brain , said her son, Aaron Gershman. She was 64.<br><br>True to her original concept, Gershman conveyed her tips in a breezy but authoritative tone. She described Sabbia Rosa, a lingerie shop in Paris, as "the kind of store where a man takes his mistress." To emulate the Los Angeles look of laid-back chic, she advised that one need only "have enough money to shop at Fred Segal," the Melrose Avenue emporium, adding "Okay, big boobs help, too."<br><br>But Gershman was not primarily interested in high-end shopping. She loved a good bargain and enjoyed all kinds of kitsch, once noting, "If you don't think that Minnie Mouse made into the and selling for under $10 isn't genius, then you are Goofy."<br><br>What set her apart from other travel guide authors was "an unmistakable voice — funny, risque, brutally honest," said Kelly Regan, editorial director of Frommer's, the travel book company that has published the last dozen of Gershman's guides, including "Suzy Gershman's Where to Buy the Best of Everything" (2008). "She didn't mince words, and that made her advice trustworthy."<br><br>Gershman especially relished discovering stores far off familiar paths. "She liked to find the unique shops in the area, not the Louis Vuittons, the stores you can find in any big city," said her collaborator, Bay Area writer Sarah Lahey. "She liked to explore the local neighborhoods and residential areas."<br><br>One of the finds Gershman touted was Forgotten Shanghai, a shop selling contemporary and antique Chinese furnishings on an easy-to-overlook stretch of Kansas Street in San Francisco. It "is not only the store of your dreams," she wrote in the San Francisco guidebook, "but one you would never have found without me."<br><br>Gershman's personal style was as distinctive as her attitude. She kept her hair a vibrant red. She combined layers of flea market clothes with bags and Hermes bracelets and "always looked like a million bucks," Lahey said.<br><br>She once customized plastic Minnie Mouse headbands with elegant fabric flowers for herself and a colleague, Cathy Nolan, to wear at the opening of Paris Disneyland, in 1992.<br><br>"All the other press wanted our picture — we were pursued by paparazzi and TV cameras," Nolan recalled in a remembrance for the online magazine .<br><br>Born in Syracuse, N.Y., on April 13, 1948, Gershman was one of three children of Gloria and S.S. Kalter. Her father was a virologist for the and the World Health Organization and took Suzy and the rest of the family on his frequent travels.<br><br>She studied Russian history and language at the University of Texas at Austin, graduating in 1969. The following year she moved to New York, where she worked in advertising and public relations before beginning her career as a journalist. In 1975 she married Michael Gershman, a writer and publicist, and moved to Los Angeles, where she worked for and People.<br><br>They were married for 25 years, until his death in 2000. In addition to son Aaron, she is survived by her brother, Dr. Steven Kalter; her stepmother, Yvette Kalter; three step-siblings and a granddaughter.<br><br>After her husband's death, Gershman fulfilled a dream they had shared by moving to Paris. She wrote a memoir about her first year of widowhood, "C'est la Vie" (2004).<br><br>Gershman's years prowling posh boutiques and seamy bazaars led her to a few hard-and-fast rules. One was buy less but buy quality. Another was never shop when you're lonely or blue, have PMS or with a group of friends whose opinions might derail you. And, of course, don't shop when your funds are low.<br><br>Her most important tenet was inspired by conditions she observed in the Russian capital as a journalist years ago, when scarcity meant if a shopper changed his mind about buying something, there were no second chances. She called it the Moscow rule. "If you see it and you want it," she said, "buy it."<br><br><p>There is Black Friday for bargain hunters, for tech lovers and Fashion's Night Out for fashionistas. It was only a matter of time before retailers invented a shopping holiday for kids.</p><p>Enter Teen Vogue magazine, which has officially anointed Aug. 11 as Back-to-School Saturday, an event designed for students and their harried parents.</p><p>Back-to-School Saturday will mimic other big national shopping days with dozens of retailers -- including H&M, Express and -- signed on as advertisers who will also offer sales and promotions as enticement, the New York Times reported.</p> <p>“We saw it as a real opportunity, because for our girls, back-to-school is as important as” Christmas for shopping, Jason Wagenheim, vice president and publisher of Teen Vogue, told the Times. "We're trying to create a moment of imagination and motivation."</p><p>The tactic has already been tried, somewhat successfully, at sister publication Vogue with the creation of Fashion's Night Out in 2009. Helmed by , the impeccably coiffed Vogue editor in chief, the event was intended to attract recession-shy adult shoppers with late store hours, food, booze and celebrity hosts.</p><p>Teen Vogue will market the event in print and online (and has already laid claim to the hashtag #btss). Malls and participating retailers are expected to work up in-store attractions. The Grove shopping center, for one, is planning a fashion show, the paper reported.</p><p>RELATED:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Follow Shan Li on </p><p>A New York-based designer named Alfred Fiandaca appears to be one of 's favorites. Both the cream skirt suit she wore to Wednesday's presidential debate and the attention-getting black outfit she wore on Jay Leno's program last week were by Fiandaca, whose staff says she has been buying his clothes off the rack for years. </p><p>For the debate, wore the "Lavender" dress and boxy jacket from 's fall 2011 collection -- an outfit she's worn before. </p>It was only a matter of time. Willow Smith, the 11-year-old daughter of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett-Smith who grabbed the world's attention at age 9 with her "Whip My Hair" song and video, has started a fashion blog. <p>More details are out about the fairytale dress wore when she married Adam Shulman on Saturday. The custom gown by was of ivory silk point d’esprit tulle with a pink hand-painted shaded train embroidered with satin flowers. </p> <p>Ten pieces of Cartier jewelry worth $127,000 reportedly went missing from 's New York brownstone over the summer while the actress was away. </p><p>Glenda Bailey, editor in chief of Harper's Bazaar was named a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres at a ceremony in on Wednesday. The award is given by France's Culture Ministry in recognition of significant contributions to the arts or literature. Designers Alber Elbaz (), Karl Lagerfeld () and Sarah Burton () were among those attending. </p><p>ALSO:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Much ado was made of wearing not a wig, but her natural hair at this year. And while a good deal of the news coverage focused on the politics, history and cultural Sturm und Drang that surrounds the topic of African Americans and hair, the event also illuminated a simple truth — false hair is ubiquitous in Hollywood, on runways, in magazines and, increasingly, on the heads of women across America.</p><p>No matter their ethnicity, stars and models frequently augment their natural hair with wigs, woven-in or clip-on extensions or hairpieces.</p><p>"The wig business now is crazy ... it's just exploding," says French wig maker Julien d'Ys, talking by telephone from Paris. D'Ys is renowned for his avant-garde, flamboyant and fantastical wigs that have appeared in Vogue, Vanity Fair and W; his collaborations with designers , and Comme des Garçons; and several exhibitions at the Costume Institute of the , including "AngloMania," "Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy" and "Dangerous Liaisons."</p> <p>Today's hottest trends start with celebrities, are picked up by the masses and can be helped along with some fabricated tresses.</p><p>Fantasy shapes, bold color</p><p>The fantasy wig is bursting out of its store confines into the forefront of pop culture. D'Ys attributes the trend in part to 21st century divas such as and , who perform and pose for paparazzi donning far-out wigs as if they were interchangeable Easter bonnets in an array of fluffed-up cotton candy colors: yellows, blues, pinks.</p><p>In L.A., New York and Paris, "you see all these retail shops that have all these wigs in different colors or different shapes or different textures," he says. "It's fun.… Young people love that type of thing."</p><p>For the "real" woman, his preference is for the fantasy wig to be worn for special occasions, not every day. Experiment with transformation by wearing a less extreme bob, styled à la " or . ... That's a classic look," the wig maker says.</p><p>Big hair</p><p>Many celebrities seem to have lots of hair. And it's very likely that some, if not all, of that hair was added on with a lace-front wig or a weave.</p><p>Lace-front wigs are full wigs made of either natural or synthetic hair sewn onto a delicate mesh lace base. The wigs are glued or taped along the hairline, clipped on or sewn onto braided natural hair. They are ready-made or custom-sewn strand by strand, measured, dyed, fitted to your hairline, cut and styled.</p><p>"The lace-front wig is definitely in big demand," says L.A.-based hair stylist Kim Kimble, owner of Kimble Hair Studio, who has done hair for a host of celebrities, including Beyoncé and Shakira. Her new reality show "L.A. Hair" premiered May 31 on WeTV.</p><p>"[Lace-front wigs] work well in the entertainment industry because you can switch the hair up quickly and get different looks in a video or photo shoot. ... And people, you know, they follow the trend of what the celebrities do," Kimble says.</p><p>D'Ys says that models commonly wear lace-front wigs too and that for fashion shows, wigs can serve as a kind of uniform, giving all the models a similar look.</p><p>Wigs, in general, are of a better quality than they used to be and feel lighter on the head. A custom-made natural-looking lace-front wig can cost as much as $10,000, but "a woman can get a synthetic wig for $40, $70," he says.</p><p>Having hair extensions woven in is another alternative for achieving bigger, longer or more colorful hair. Weaves are about looking natural. "That is the one reason why I am successful," says Kimble, citing several techniques she uses that make her weaves look as if the hair is growing from the scalp.</p><p>Getting a weave can cost from $150 to thousands of dollars. A variety of textures are available, and Kimble is working on creating more extensive African American textures. Color techniques have improved, although blond extensions can be dry or damaged from overprocessing. "Now there is natural blond hair from Russia, but it's more expensive," says Kimble, adding that using ombre hair (dark at the root graduating to lighter tips) is still popular. wore this trend this year.</p><p>Twists, braids and cornrows</p><p>"The messy braid on the side is definitely not that happening anymore," says Mary Guerrero, chief hairstylist for for 14 seasons and a five-time Emmy winner for hairstyling, including one win for "."</p><p>Instead, today's hot styles are variations of the French braid or the cornrow, which can be added with braided hairpieces. Try with a trendy side part.</p><p>Embellished up-dos</p><p>This trend jibes with 2012's love of fairy tales such as "Once Upon a Time" on . "I still see quite a bit of that messy but elegant bun in the back of the head," Guerrero says. "Elegant buns will never go out of style."</p><p>A hairpiece can help create the look. Guerrero also strives to make the familiar look original, different or edgy by adding tiny hair ornaments, minimal sparkle, ribbon, tinsel or different textures in the hairpieces. "For something that's more rock 'n' roll-looking, maybe a piece of leather going through the braid, or if you're blond, we'll weave black hair extensions through their hair," she says.</p><p>Bangs</p><p>"We use [clip-on] bangs like nobody's business on 'Dancing With the Stars,'" Guerrero says. Perhaps this trend is the influence of from "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" on so many red carpets this year or the persuasive cuteness of "New Girl" Zooey Deschanel.</p><p>Ponytails</p><p>Ponytails can be sporty or elegant, and thanks to hairpieces, even short-haired women can wear the look. Try combining one with slicked-back hair. "You can make it a little bit more rock 'n' roll by popping in highlighted or colored clip extensions," Guerrero says.</p><p></p><p><p>Marie Claire's cover star reveals she's finally ready to fall in love.</p><p>The winner says she's been single since she entered the contest, but now feels ready to find a man!</p><p>'I am looking for a boyfriend... I have never been in love but I want to feel that. I'm ready for it,' she says.</p><p>But she's hoping her new love will be get her out of dating unsuitable men.</p><p>'I've only ever had two serious relationships and they were both bad boys,' she tells The Sun.</p><p>'I think every girl gets drawn to bad boys at a young age.'</p><p>Alex, 21, reveals she split up from her ex when she discovered she was through to the live rounds of The X Factor last year.</p><p>'He was very insecure and I have no time for that. There's been no one since,' she says.</p><p>The Hallelujah singer herself could never be called insecure. Quite the opposite in fact!</p><p>When X Factor judge and her record label boss told not to get any tattoos, she promptly went out and got three.</p><p>'I'd wanted a tattoo for ages. I plan to get loads more, but they have to be tasteful and out of sight. No tramp stamps,' she told the paper.</p><p>Alex now has a musical symbol behind her right ear, 'love' on her neck and three tiny stars on her right foot.</p><p>But Simon obviously wasn't too disappointed with the singer - he still bought her a Chanel handbag for her birthday.</p><p>' [Cole] got me a watch to match,' she adds. Alex - seriously - who needs a man when you have Chanel?!</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>WATCH: Our EXCLUSIVE behind the scenes video of Alexandra's cover shoot below: </p><p><p><p><p><p><p><p><p><p> </p></p><p>After lots of will she, won’t she, speculation, it’s been confirmed that Alice Dellal is the new face of handbags. <br><br>The punk model – famous for her nose ring and half-shaved hairstyle – has bagged the prestigious campaign for the French fashion house’s new Boy handbag collection. <br><br>The London It-girl will follow in the footsteps of Lily Allen, Vanessa Paradis and, most recently, , to become the new face of Chanel, and bring a touch of bad girl edge to the classic brand.<br><br>A sneak peek of Dellal, who is also a drummer in the band Thrush Metal and sister of Charlotte Olympia shoe designer Charlotte Dellal, modelling for the ads has been released by the label to industry paper, WWD. The image shows the 24-year-old being photographed by Creative Director Karl Lagerfeld, while she sits on top of an antique desk, dressed in a signature cream Chanel dress and jacket, and clutching a pale grey quilted handbag.<br><br>Chanel told WWD in a statement: ‘Lagerfeld had a crush on this unique, charismatic young lady, who is both a model and musician, during a photoshoot several months ago. This previously unforeseen alliance finally became self-evident. Alice Dellal represents the perfect incarnation of all that is unique about the Boy Chanel handbag collection, which strives [to be] far from conformist notions of femininity.’ <br><br>Can’t wait to see the completed pictures! <br><br><br><br><br></p><p>Alice Dellal has been spilling the beans about what it's like to work with Karl Lagerfeld.<br><br>In the video, the London model and younger sister of Charlotte Dellal, creator of Charlotte Olympia shoes, explains that working with the designer was an amazing experience, stating that 'he knows what he likes.' <br><br> named the Chanel Boy, last December but this is the first time she has spoken about the campaign. <br><br>'I would have never thought that I'd be doing Chanel,' she confesses. 'I don't want to compare myself to the others, but the other people that did the handbags are all so different. , , , and now me. I think it's good. They've got a variety of people and personalities.'<br><br>But the model and lead drummer of punk band 'Thrush Metal' won't be flaunting the ladylike trend as seen on explaining that she prefers a more boyish style.<br><br>She said: 'I like to be comfortable. And I think men tend to dress more comfortably than ladies. They can just put on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, and I like doing that. Comfort first.' <br><br>WATCH the video below for more...<br><br><br><br><br><br></p><p>Day two of the saw covetable collections from , Givenchy and , and a whole host more famous faces hitting the front rows. <br><br>But almost distracting from the fabulous fashion on display (wait, we said almost!) were a couple of Gossip Girls sitting pretty at the side of the catwalk.<br><br><br><br>All eyes were on and when they put in appearances at the Chanel Couture show, among a host of other fashionable faces including Jessica Alba, Milla Jovovich and newest Gossip Girl Clemence Poesy.<br><br>With both girls donning their finest Chanel (naturally) the co-stars went for a Yin-and-yang approach to dressing, with Leighton in a tough-look leather dress, and Blake in pretty pastels from the recent Resort collection.<br><br><br><br>The guests took in Karl Lagerfeld's newest collection for the French fashion house - a traditionally demure array of heavily textured two-pieces, button-up coats and layered dresses, with plenty of thick tweed, luxe velvet, fur trims and intricate embroidery.<br><br><br><br>In contrast, the earlier Armani Prive catwalk was awash with high-octane, glittering gowns, in a colour palette of mesmerising metallics, golds, bronze, amber and shimmering soft caramel. Think plenty of draping silks, luxe satin and fairytale tulle.<br><br><br><br>The Givenchy Couture collection saw Ricardo Tisci showing off his unimitable genius in the form of ten couture pieces, inspired by surrealist Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, and her passion for religion, anatomy and sensuality...<br><br>Cue ten spectacular creations - light silk-tulle gowns with lace overlays and silk fringing, three-dimensional stone-encrusted coats and abstract, hand-painted patterns. <br><br><br><br><br><br></p>Heidi Klum<p>Heidi Klum was among a host of stars to hit the red carpet at the amfAR MILANO 25th anniversary meal and auction, held at the end of fashion week in Milan. Sizzling on the red carpet, Miss Klum was joined by Bar Refaeli, Lindsay Lohan and Isabeli Fontana at the event. <br></p><p>Notice to our readers…</p><p>We'd like to let you know that this site uses cookies. Without them you may find this site does not work properly and many features may be unavailable. More information on what cookies are and the types of cookies we use can be found </p><p><p>She may not necessarily be known for her style choices, but is reportedly in talks to create her very own fashion collection.<br><br>Set to join the ranks of celebrity designers, the Back to Black singer is in negotiations with label Fred Perry, according to The Sun, and has been bragging to friends that a line is already in the works. <br><br>Winehouse was overheard sharing the news with holidaymakers in St Lucia, where she is currently enjoying a break with friends and family. <br><br>A source revealed to the paper, 'She was almost childishly excited and couldn't stop talking about it.'</p><p>Following a tumultuous 2008, Winehouse may be best known for her troubled love-life and reported addictions, but she has been held up as a style star by industry icons such as Karl Lagerfeld.<br><br>Speaking of the singer, the Chanel designer mused, 'She's a style icon. She is a beautiful, gifted artist. And I very much like her hairdo. I took it as an inspiration.'</p></p><p>She may have played a young and innocent Jane Austen the last time you saw her, but takes on an entirely different guise in new movie Get Smart, playing a secret agent with some kickass moves.<br><br>How much did you draw on the original TV character for this movie version?<br><br>The most overt reference that I make to Barbara Felman is in a scene when I wear a short, fringed wig, which is reminiscent of her original haircut. And, of course, I was very grateful to inherit her Chanel handbag addiction, that wasn't too painful at all. <br><br>You took dance lessons growing up. Was there any friendly rivalry between you and Steve Carell in your dance-off scene?<br><br>I'm one of those people who studied ballet for 12 years and you can't tell, like someone who takes a language all through high school and at the end can understand a little but can't speak it at all. There wasn't any rivalry; I think we were all nervous that we were going to suck.<br><br>You did some of your own stunt scenes, any cuts and bruises to show for it?<br><br>Yes actually, I'm wearing shorts today and you can sort of see I have a couple of dents in my legs. In one scene I accidentally hit a bar and had to have 15 stitches in my legs – seven in my left and eight in my right. I couldn't walk for a week, but I healed and after shooting an action movie for four months, it could been worse.<br><br>This is your first foray into action movies. Did you get a taste for it?<br><br>I was surprised by how much I liked it. Agent 99 [my character] is probably as different a role from my own personality as I've ever played and just getting to come to work every day and be kickass and sexy – characteristics that I don't come by naturally - was a lot of fun. Steve [Carell] and I giggled throughout at the idea of us being action heroes – we're not exactly the first people you'd think of!<br><br>Get Smart is released nationwide on 22 August.</p><p>The 24 year old adds the Massimo Dutti SS/12 campaign to herever growing model resume<br><br>With her gazelle-like limbs and razor-sharp cheekbones, the mother of one shows shows just why she 2012’s model of the moment.<br><br>Shot in Marrakech, Muse pouts and poses her way through a string of scenes showcasing the. <br><br>The campaign is the fifth this season that Muse stars in– having also shot for Isabel Marant, Giada, Louis Vuitton Cruise and Fendi. <br><br>In late 2011 it was rumoured that after photos appeared of them being shot wearing some of the collection. <br><br>However, the released campaign in fact features Karmen Pedaru and Kate King - the mystery continues! <br><br>Arizona Muse rose to fame in 2010 when Miccuia Prada chose her as an exclusive for the Prada SS/11 show in Milan. <br><br><br><br>Throughout New York Fashion Week she walked for , Hervé Léger, and , before jetting off to Paris for , , , and <br><br>And with the fashion house's gearing up for Autumn Winter 2012 shows we bet Arizona isn't going to have much free time this year either. <br><br>Watch the video below to see Muse smoulder with the campaign’s best accessory – male model Ryan Burns. <br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br></p><p>Where? 260-262 Brompton Road, London SW3 2AS (020-7052 0100)<br>

“To-morrow or the day after. The day after tomorrow at the latest — that’s settled. I don’t know much about it myself yet, you see; and in fact I’ve not made any arrangements. I thought that perhaps Natasha wouldn’t come today. Besides, my father insisted on taking me to see my betrothed today. (You know they’re making a match for me; has Natasha told you? But I won’t consent.) So you see I couldn’t make any definite arrangements. But anyway we shall be married the day after tomorrow. I think so, at least, for I don’t see how else it can be. To-morrow we’ll set off on the road to Pskov. I’ve a school-friend, a very nice fellow, living in the country not far-off, in that direction; you must meet him. There’s a priest in the village there; though I don’t know whether there is or not. I ought to have made inquiries, but I’ve not had time. . . . But all that’s of no consequence, really. What matters is to keep the chief thing in view. One might get a priest from a neighbouring village, what do you think? I suppose there are neighbouring villages! It’s a pity that I haven’t had time to write a line; I ought to have warned them we were corning. My friend may not be at home now perhaps. . . . But that’s no matter. So long as there’s determination everything will be settled of itself, won’t it? And meanwhile, till tomorrow or the day after, she will be here with me. I have taken a flat on purpose, where we shall live when we come back. I can’t go on living with my father, can I? You’ll come and see us? I’ve made it so nice. My school-friends will come and see us. We’ll have evenings . . . ”
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“You talk about proposing — wait till I have proposed,” Lord Lambeth went on.
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