Lady Gaga Looks Like Ursula the Sea Witch on the New Cover of Vogue

Lady Gaga is on the cover of American Vogue‘s September issue. The notional news peg for the appearance is her perfume, which Vogue calls “the most innovative perfume in two decades.” Yawn. But what do we think of the cover shot? It looks like the magazine was going for something different, which, hey, props for that — Vogue‘s usual cover is definitely not a full-length studio shot with lots of some white space. Gaga said on Twitter she reckoned she was channeling RuPaul, but, seriously, between the hair and the purple dress, she looks almost as much like Ursula the Sea Witch. And what is that weird, Photoshopped in red banner behind the logo? Is that supposed to be some kind of heraldic flag? And as regards that inside shot, when it comes to september issue photo shoots involving big, pink hats we much prefer Harper’s Bazaar‘s with Gwen Stefani. [Vogue.com]

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Speaking of which, in this behind-the-scenes video from her Harper’s Bazaar cover shoot, Gwen Stefani says that while the day was her first time working with Terry Richardson as a photographer, it was not her first time meeting him: when No Doubt was gigging around L.A. in the ’80s, they sometimes played with Richardson’s old punk band, Double Freak. “It was…pretty freaky,” says Stefani, before changing the subject to hair. As we know, back then Richardson — who has been accused of sexual harassment and misconduct by some of his models — was fond of singing songs like “Child Molester’s Coming For You.” Freaky, indeed. [YouTube]

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Christy Turlington was shot by Bruce Weber for the first cover of Du Jour, a magazine for rich people who want to buy $37,000 bicycles. Weber, notes the Times, ” also shot covers for a new magazine coming from the retailer Opening Ceremony on Sunday, and Carine Roitfeld’s comeback magazine, CR, planned for a September release.” [NYTimes]

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Meghan Collison is topless on the cover of the new i-D. [FashionCopious]

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Lucky is launching a new e-commerce platform called MyLucky, and it’s advertising it with this charming campaign. The tag-line is “Fill the void,” as in: “My boyfriend dumped me via text: Fill the void,” “My longest relationship is with my doorman: Fill the void,” and “My 5-day cleanse is only on day 2: Fill the void.” Because buying things you don’t need to make yourself feel “better” when life goes wrong is such a good idea for your credit card and for the planet’s resources — and totally empowering. [AdAge]

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Karolina Kurkova, of all people, should probably not be this desperate to be seen as sexy. [VF]

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• Dazed & Confused Tweeted that its upcoming Azealia Banks issue has “been banned from 7 countries so far. Thank God for the Internet, huh?” Why could that be? The Telegraph reports that the cover features a photo of the rapper “with an inflated bright pink condom between her lips like a giant cigar, accompanied by the cover line ‘Azealia Banks Blows Up.'” [Telegraph, @DazedMagazine]
• The head of Zara‘s parent company Inditex, Amancio Ortega, is now the third-richest man on earth. With a personal fortune of $46.6 billion, Ortega comes after Carlos Slim and Bill Gates. He knocked fucking Warren Buffett into fourth place. [Telegraph]
• Naomi Campbell (still) has traction alopecia around her hairline due to years of wearing wigs and weaves. (The damage was first publicly noted back in 2010.) Models damage their hair for a living, and black women who are asked to wear weaves are at particular risk for hair breakage and follicular damage. [Daily Mail]
• J. Crew is rolling out a new ad campaign including buys in such publications as Vanity Fair, Vogue, Fast Company and the Sunday New York Times Magazine. The company, which previously communicated largely through its catalog, says it is approximately doubling its 2011 ad budget for the year 2012, which would put its total spending at around $13 million. Tag-lines include “You speak softly and carry a loud bag,” and “You notice the lapel before the label.” Fine print touting J.Crew’s quality of materials is also included, to emphasize “authenticity and integrity.” [NYTimes]
• One of the challenge prizes on the next season of America’s Next Top Model is a small role in a Tyler Perry movie — judged by Perry himself. Alicia Keys will also serve as a special guest for one episode. [Essence]
• White House Black Market repeated its spring ad theme, which featured a clever video of Coco Rocha dancing while her outfits appeared to instantly change thanks to snappy editing. The fall ad will show Rocha tap-dancing. [WWD]
• Feel like you’re missing out on fashion’s current bushy-brow trend? You can now get an eyebrow transplant of hairs from the nape of your neck. For $6,000. “Right now Kim Kardashian is hot — that is, eyebrow-wise,” says a Beverly Hills dermatologist who performs the procedure. “I also get Brooke Shields sometimes.”[On The Runway]
• Despite the fact that Ryan Lochte and fashion don’t really mix — his Vogue cover stank in terms of sales, and the dude wears three-quarter cargo shorts, for Chrissakes — the Olympic swimmer has apparently fielded offers, that is offers plural, for a celebrity clothing line. [THR]
• People in fashion are playing tennis, you guys, and the Times is on it! Here’s how Anna Wintour‘s instructor describes her game:
• “She’s like a retriever,” the muscular and fit Mr. Spence, also from Jamaica, said of the powerful Vogue editor. “She’s so fast. She’ll chase down everything. She doesn’t hit with a lot of spin, but she has an amazing cross-court forehand.”
• [NYTimes]
• New York magazine’s The Cut relaunches on Monday as something more like a general-interest women’s blog with lots of fashion content. [WWD]
• Today in ongoing trends, accessories are the only way anybody in fashion is making any money these days:
• “The accessories business is healthier than the apparel business,” said Marshal Cohen, chief retail analyst at NPD Group. (Indeed, accessories and related merchandise at Michael Kors accounted for about 75 percent of total revenue in 2012, a company spokeswoman said.)
• “Women’s fashion, for the last 18 months, has been running negative numbers,” Mr. Cohen said. “Over the last six months, accessories have been 2 percent ahead over the last 12 months. That may not sound like a lot, but in the fashion sector, that’s great.” Footwear, luggage, small leather goods and glasses are doing particularly well, he added.
• [NYTimes]
• Profits at Dillard’s grew year-on-year by 76%, to $31 million, during the quarter just ended. [WWD]
• And now, a moment with John Jannuzzi, who writes today about the Abercrombie & Fitch hoodies he loved in the late ’90s and early 2000s. You know how most first-person stories about treasured items of clothing are kind of self-aggrandizing in that incidentally-look-at-my-excellent-taste kind of way? Rarely does a fashion writer cop to knowing what it’s like to love something that was formative but, well, in retrospect tacky as fuck. (No offense to teenage Jannuzzi’s sartorial choices intended — in 1999, we were wearing elaborate, wide-legged homemade jeans we called “phat pants.” Some of them involved reflective tape. Others, rainbow trim.) Jannuzzi writes lovingly, and with a keen understanding of the teenaged yearning to just fit in, of the hoodies he sourced from the Abercrombie & Fitch in Farmington, Connecticut, which was an “experimental” Abercrombie, “which basically means it was legendary and housed mythical track jackets you couldn’t find at a bush-league Abercrombie in, say, Michigan or some other miserable state.” He explains:
• What did an allowance-laden youngster yearn for most from the overly pornographic emporium of shit? Was it the distressed denim, or perhaps the Baby Gap-esque shrunken polos? Nah chill, I was after the hoodies. If there was a hooded article of clothing in that store, I wanted it. Badly. All the popular kids wore them (the barometer of teenage consumer confidence), and they were all so fucking cool, I just had to have that shit. The first, let’s call it “gateway hoodie,” was red with a shield on it — extremely regal. I’ve always been a sucker for medieval insignia, especially when a brand bastardizes everything by throwing their name all over it. A few days in that hoodie and I was unstoppable. After a girl smiled at me from the back of a school bus (I was driving in my Jeep because, um, fuck yes) I decided I needed to invest the rest of my savings in A&F hoods so I could be popular and awesome.
• [Four Pins]