• The return of Mad Men is a mere 37 days away, and the AMC show has struck a deal with Banana Republic:

The retailer will be selling a line inspired by the suits worn by the gentlemen of Sterling Cooper. (The show has also partnered with Clorox, so look for cheeky collar-bleaching spots.) [Vulture, NY Times]

• It's riveting to watch one of Chanel's couture looks being made. Whatever one thinks of the design, the craft of couture is magic. The concentration in the atelier flou's eyes as she makes the toile is an inspiration. [The Cut]
• David Lauren thinks now is as good a time as any for Ralph Lauren to launch a watch division selling $10,000-$80,000 timepieces. Marie Claire will probably still advertise them. [WWD]
• That gorgeous nude-and-black dress Emma Watson wore on David Letterman's show on Tuesday night to promote her movie was by Christopher Kane. [Grazia]
• Come this September, you'll be seeing Justin Timberlake starring in ads for two simultaneously developed and released Givenchy scents, called Play and Play Intense. [WWD]
• Accessories designer Tarina Tarantino marked the 70th anniversary of The Wizard of Oz with an Oz-themed collection — and by shooting Kelly Osborne and Debi Mazar as Glenda the Good Witch and the Wicked Witch of the West, respectively. [CBS]
• Couture week closed yesterday, which motivated the Daily to reflect on those comrades who were missing. Anna Wintour, who has never missed the couture collections before, wasn't there. Nor was her counterpart at British Vogue, Alexandra Shulman, or T magazine's Stefano Tonchi. Celebs down for the count included frequent couture customer Dita von Teese. [FWD]
• Another fashion mystery: Why has Peter Copping's first collection for Nina Ricci, Resort 2010, been delayed by one month and counting? Time's Kate Betts hasn't seen the collection, but says "an extremely reliable Parisian source" says it's "great." Copping, formerly Marc Jacobs' right-hand-man at Louis Vuitton, replaced Olivier Theyskens in the middle of his contract earlier this year. [Fashionologie]
• Fendi is "taking a break" from producing a men's wear collection. The 84-year-old Italian company is hoping to be back in the men's game by next season. [WWD]
• Do you ever question the entire nature of fashion week? The tug-and-pull of the trade/consumer focus? The fact that retailers have come to expect new deliveries monthly, not semi-annually? Do you ponder the impact of nonetheless timing the ready-to-wear collections twice per year, and the effects of having pictures of next season's clothing available instantly online months out from production? If so, you're probably a designer, and the CFDA wants to hear from you this July 28, at a townhall meeting that promises to put up for discussion everything about fashion week. What with MAC looking to produce competing shows at Milk Studios, and the coming change in venue from Bryant Park to Lincoln Center, the talk — moderated by Diane von Furstenberg — is timely. [WWD]
• Alexander Wang is debuting his first menswear collection later this month in the pages of T. And according to rumor, for his women's wear show this September, Wang will be eschewing the styling help of his friend, model Erin Wasson. In Wasson's place will be Karl Templer, who styles Calvin Klein (and worked for Interview magazine last year — or maybe he's been hired back, we can't keep track of that revolving door anymore). [Sassybella]
• Meet 20-year-old Rochelle Owen, whose job it is to help customers with Beth Ditto's clothing line at the Evans store in the Meadowhall shopping center in the UK. Her pic is fierce! And the "voluptuous size 20" says: "Beth's style is very much my look, I dress to be noticed and love girly clothes, bright colours and funky dresses with leggings and loads of accessories." [The Star]
• A day at the office with Aussie brand Ksubi: "Shit fucking happens." [BlackBook]
• Uh-oh: "The Consumer Product Safety Council recalled 3,200 pairs of Charles David of California women's shoes sold at Nordstrom." One report of a heel breaking off, resulting in bruising. [WWD</a.]
• Juicy Couture is closing its 3,300 sq. ft. store at Madison Avenue and 70th St. The rent ran $2 million a year, and the company simply cannot afford to continue paying it. [WWD]
• This June, retailers saw on average a 4.7% decline in comparable sales, supposedly because it was such a rainy, miserably month, nobody felt like shopping — and certainly not for summer clothes. But if that's the case, why were sales in the largely sunnier month of May down 4.2%? We think it's the economy, stupid. [Crain's]
• Abercrombie alone saw sales tumble 32% on last year. And a lot of companies' spin-off brands — like Abercrombie's now-closed Ruehl — are suffering even worse. American Eagle's Martin + Osa isn't faring well, and Aeropostale's Jimmy'z has already closed. J. Crew now thinks it priced offerings at its Madewell spinoff too high. [WaPo]
• And the apparel crowd doesn't expect the back-to-school season to be much better. [WSJ]
• One sector that still has the luxury of 35% margins: online, members-only designer sale e-tailers, like Gilt Groupe, RueLaLa, and HauteLook. They have virtually nil marketing costs, and their small inventories actually enhance demand by creating scarcity. [WSJ]
• New York-based fashion chain Scoop, which is being sued for employment violations by 17 ex-staffers, is allegedly behind in its payments to numerous of its creditors, too. "They're unresponsive in their accounts payable department," said Gary Wassner, president of Hildun Corp. "They're not cooperative. They're not providing any financial information to make any kind of analysis of how they're doing. In today's market, it's important to be transparent...Clients are shipping at their own risk." Rosenthal & Rosenthal's Michael Stanley said, "We're very concerned about the status of the account." Robert J. Wichser, a representative of Scoop's owners, says the company is "financially sound" and currently looking for a new CEO. The last one left in February, which is when Hildun Corp. says the company stopped paying its bills. [WWD]

• John Malkovich has a clothing line. Who knew? His collection, branded Technobohemian, is actually the actor's second foray into fashion, he launched a line called Uncle Kimono in 2002. We hope his Milan show models all wear Malkovich masks. [WWD]

• Milan menswear week overall is on somewhat shaky ground. Although it's only three days long, there are 93 collections being presented — some 15% more than in January. Some organizers are talking like they've seen the bottom of the market, but on the totality of the evidence, that view seems premature. [Reuters]
• Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, Anna Wintour's event planner extraordinaire and the woman behind the annual Met Costume Institute Gala is leaving her position. She actually says it's to spend more time with her family. [P6]
• British designer Paul Smith designed some rather innovative trash cans for London's Covent Garden and Holland Park. Shaped like 5' bunnies holding out big plastic bags, the rabbits' ears light up when people throw in their litter. It's a little Donnie Darko but cool. [UnBeige]
• A new Dolce & Gabbana ad has Claudia Schiffer, Eva Herzigova, Naomi Campbell, Noah Mills, Fernando Fernandes, and Tyson Ballou all completely naked. And yet the mood of the picture isn't all Calvin Klein tawdry. [FWD]
• Those boots from Emma Hemming's W shoot with Bruce Willis, in case anyone was wondering, were Nina Ricci Fall 2009. We were, of course, already familiar. [W]
• Alexa Chung's wardrobe from It's On With Alexa Chung is viewable, purchasable, and fully archived via the MTV website. In case one should want to buy anything the host wears. [WWD]
• Coach is said to be developing a signature line for its creative director, Reed Krakoff. The company has recently trademarked "Reed," "Reed Krakoff," and "RK." Krakoff has led the company since 1996. [FWD]
• Karl Lagerfeld's costume for Elena Glurdjidze, of the English National Ballet, was not the toast of the dance critics on opening night. The Telegraph called it an "awful outfit that put Elena Glurdjidze's Dying Swan in a feathered neck brace, which did nothing to aid her performance of Anna Pavlova's favourite party piece" and the Guardian said the tutu was "conceived with cavalier disregard for the ballerina's working body - the line of the neck broken by an egregious, fluffy ruff, the waistline broken by a too-high skirt." [FP]
• There are some behind-the-scenes shots of Pirelli's notable nudie calendar in the making. Fashionologie has the best gallery; these are by Terry Richardson, so you should consider them unsafe for work (and life?) [Fashionologie]
• Escada is said to be on the verge of bankruptcy, and needs to raise cash now to survive. [Reuters]
• Mulberry's profits are up, on the back of same-store sales that grew 21% in the 10 weeks to June 9. [FT]

• Helena Christensen is one of the many hailing British Vogue's Alexandra Shulman. "Obviously I am of the same belief," said the supermodel photographer. "Aren't we in a business that is supposed to explore all kinds of shapes and silhouettes?" [WWD]

• H&M is famous for its sought-after designer collaborations. Matthew Williamson's of this summer being just the latest in a long, mostly successful, line. But the Swedish fast-fashion giant has never brought a high-profile shoe maker on board — until now. Behold: Jimmy Choo for H&M. Jimmy Choo accessories collections for women and men will be in 200 stores November 14. [Reuters]
• Designer Malcolm Harris, of the label Mal Sirrah, hung up on Angelina Jolie when she rang to inquire about one of his dresses. Twice. Harris thought it was a prank; Jolie still bought three of them for $225 apiece. [P6]
• So how did designer Zac Posen get ready for the CFDAs? "I was on Perez Hilton all day." [The Cut]
• Claire Danes and Hugh Dancy are getting hitched, and, no surprises here, Danes is choosing her favorite designer (and CFDA date) Narciso Rodriguez to make her wedding dress. The actress says the process is "intimate" and often makes her "weepy." [People]
• Rodriguez even whipped out a needle and thread to repair the train of Danes' dress at the CFDAs after a fellow guest stepped on it and it ripped. [NYDN]
• Kanye West went on a $5,000 spending spree at a Chicago store called Deliciously Vintage. With no lady in sight while he shopped, speculation is rife as to who'll get the haul. Amber Rose? Kanye himself in the privacy of his own multi-million dollar home? Rife, we say. [TMZ]
• Vera Wang was unwilling to confirm that she would be on the next season of Dancing With The Stars at the CFDAs. "They approach a lot of people, not just me," said the designer. As for going on the show, "We haven't decided. They haven't and I haven't." [The Cut]
• Esteban Cortazar, the young Colombian designer who has helmed the troubled house of Ungaro since 2007, says he is still at the company. Despite rumors of an acrimonious split, and a lawsuit on the part of Cortazar, at the CFDAs he told journalists "I am still there," but admitted, "We are trying to work things out. We have had some differences but hopefully things will work out for the best, whether I am there or not." [WWD]
• Agyness Deyn, says an anonymous friend, is considering quitting modelling and moving back to London to pursue roles in British indie films. [Mirror]
• Karl Lagerfeld made his transition into film — assuming we're not counting the excellent doc Lagerfeld Confidential — by providing the voice for an animated kid's movie villain. The designer apparently worked hard through take and re-take, bringing his famous perfectionism to bear on the character of a bitter ex-model who kidnaps people in order to "fabulous" them, or turn them into his own image. "He was very serious about it and very open to criticism," said his spokesperson. [WWD]
• Super-stylist Nicola Formichetti: "I hate the whole idea of celebrity in America. It's so boring — all fake smiles and big business. It seems like you can sell crap if you put a famous name on it. America's crazy, you know?" [The Cut]
• Eddie Van Halen's held a copyright on the famous red, black and white striped pattern of his Frankenstein guitar since 2001. So how did it end up adorning the soles of a bunch of Nikes? The rocker's lawyers sure wanna find out. [WWD]
• Sales are so bad at the Gap that the company might use a different advertising agency for its holiday campaign, after a seven-year unbroken streak with the same house. [AdAge]
• Also agency shopping: Zappos. [BrandWeek]
• Check out the new Isabel Toledo exhibit at the Museum at FIT on video. Ms. Toledo and her husband are on hand to talk about their history in fashion, and that dress that Michelle Obama wore that one time on the Mall. [The Cut]
• Aeropostale, one of the mall chains whose business isn't hanging by a thread during the recession, plans to launch P.S., a new line for 7-12-year-olds. [WWD]
• MTV VJ Alexa Chung once said of her retirement, "Modelling gave me a distorted body image. As soon as I stopped, I realised how ridiculous it all was. I went on about it because I was really fed up with modelling –- it's like I was saying negative things to reinforce in my mind that I had to get out. I never say or think those things now. I've used up all that neurosis –- there's none left. It's just really boring. I'd rather have a bigger brain than smaller bones." Apparently, Chung still models — when the project suits her. She's turned up in the look book for quirky L.A. label Wren. [Fashionista]
• A worker at London's Oxford St. Topshop flagship has a confirmed case of the H1N1 swine flu virus. The store reportedly sees over 200,000 visitors a week. Topshop has no plans to close it. [Racked]
• Giorgio Armani is set to unveil his latest scent, Idole d'Armani, next month. Polish actress Kasia Smutniak will be the face of the brand. [Reuters]
• Calvin Klein designers Italo Zucchelli and Francisco Costa defend their racy billboard against the pearl-clutchers of SoHo. (Or something.) Said Costa, "There was no intention of making that controversial. Just make beautiful ads. And they're beautiful ads. And I think, you know, we're such a forward society, but we tend to be a little prudish sometimes. It's New York City! It's the 21st century! Honey, we have to move on!" Zucchelli called the ad "In the best tradition of Calvin Klein," and said, "It's my favorite campaign ever! ...Everyone needs to be scandalized and screaming. That is what we want." [The Cut]
• The economy goes one way, shoplifting statistics go another. [WWD]
• Sophia Kokosalaki is moving to helm Diesel's Black Gold line. [WWD]
• After the hash-up of a bankruptcy auction, eventual owners of the Filene's Basement chain, Syms and Vornado Realty, say they want to proceed with their purchase as quickly as possible. [WWD]

"Some of the international designers' samples look like dolls clothes when they arrive. We shouldn't have to starve to fit the clothes. The clothes should fit us."

In a letter not intended for publication — but sent to Karl Lagerfeld, John Galliano and designers at Prada, Versace, Yves Saint Laurent, etc., Shulman wrote: "We have now reached the point where many of the sample sizes don't comfortably fit even the established star models." But let's not get it twisted: This is not about embracing women of all sizes. The editors' goal, primarily, is for the clothes to fit the models. Models are much, much thinner than the average woman. Still: when a fashion editor complains that she's got to hire women with "jutting bones and no breasts or hips" just so they'll fit into the samples, clearly, something is wrong.

Of course, as the Girl With A Satchel blog points out, Vogue, as a brand, is still obsessed with thinness. Writes the Girl With A Satchel blogger of the current issue of Australian Vogue:

Given the down-to-earth sentiment expressed by Aussie Vogue's top lady, I'm surprised then to see she approved 'Body of evidence', this month's "health" story, which could be called 'How to be a size zero'. The piece basically reinforces the fact that Vogue has a thin body ideal we should subscribe to, even in middle age, in order to fearlessly fit into all that fabulous, doll-sized designer garb.

The feature starts thus: "Spring's slimline pants and waist-cinching belts hold no fear for Gail Catterick. At 169 centimetres and 50 kilograms, the self-confessed fashionista delights in slipping her leanly muscled size-six frame into the latest catwalk trends. She loves a short skirt, and breezily carries off sleeveless shifts with all the elan of a woman half her age. Or less than half. Because, next birthday, Catterick will be 63 years old."

The burning question is whether American Vogue's Anna Wintour will speak up. (Hunch: No.) After all, she recently called people who live in Minnesota "little houses." Her June issue has a story called "Fat Chances," the subhead of which reads: "Will body perfection one day be possible? from skin-tightening lasers to fat-dissolving ultrasound, Catherine Percy discovers a new world way beyond lipo." December's issue had a story in which a writer froze herself for tighter-looking thighs. So while other editors are tired of the clothes getting smaller and smaller, is Wintour — who famously suggested Oprah slim down to be on Vogue's cover — actually thrilled?

Mags: Vogue Running Backwards In High Heels [Girl With A Satchel]
Vogue Editor Launches New War On Size-Zero Fashion [Times of London]
Fashion Houses Hit Back In Row Over Who's To Blame For 'Size Zero' Models [Guardian]
Fashion Heavyweight Bags Thin Models [Daily Telegraph]
Earlier: Faith Hill's 'Redbook' Photoshop Chop: Why We're Pissed
Related: British Vogue Editor's Lame PR Coup: No More Size Zeros! [Gawker]

[Image by Raymond Meier via Vogue.]

• Naomi Campbell stalked the runway like a thoroughbred in Mumbai for a charity show. Last time Campbell blended fashion and philanthropy, the supermodel raised over $1 million for Hurricane Katrina survivors. [Daily Mail]

• Mikhail Gorbachev is not enough for some people. The rapacious machine of Louis Vuitton's advertising, which most people don't realize actually sucks its subjects' dignity through the lens of Annie Liebovitz's Canon, has claimed more victims: Buzz Aldrin, Sally Ride, and fellow astronaut Jim Lovell. That's right: men and women who could withstand the g-forces of extraterrestrial flight could not say 'no' to LVMH. [WWD]
• British Vogue editor Alexandra Shulman says her biggest concern about taking the position back in 1992 was that it would involve a lot of flying. "I hadn't been on a plane in 10 years," she said at an event in England. "How could I accept a job that would mean that I had to fly all the time? I'm still very nervous on a plane." [Vogue UK]
• More bad news for Halston: the oft-revived label, left semi-conscious as of late following the firing of its latest creative director, Marco Zanini, is now down one vice-president of marketing. Atul Pathak resigned two weeks ago, just after the Paris shows. [WWD]
• Los Angeles fashion week happened recently. Don't feel too badly if you missed it: the LA Times itself called proceedings "more than an exercise in futility." [LA Times]
• Vera Wang's Lavender line is in trouble. Hitting the high end of the price range for a contemporary line is causing some grief, and Saks has dropped it. Neiman Marcus will carry Vera Wang Lavender in only ten stores this season, and drop it for fall. Wang says she's mulling over lowering the pricing, or spinning it off into a license. [WWD]
• Lanvin's London flagship store is now open. I suppose that means Alber Elbaz's long contretemps with the architects, related by Ariel Levy in her recent New Yorker profile of the designer, was happily resolved. [FWD]
• Kira Plastinina's still got stores a-plenty, too. (Albeit not in the US, where her eponymous pink-themed clothing chain went bust less than a year after her entry into the market.) As soon as she finishes high school in Moscow this spring, the fruit juice heiress intends to take a step that most designers tackle before launching international retail chains — going to fashion school. Since Kira Plastinina rather strikes one as the kind of person whose life is the sustained experience of getting what she wants, without regard for talent or even passion, she's expecting acceptance at Parsons in New York and Central St. Martins in London, the Yale and Oxford of fashion design, respectively. [FWD]
• Fiona Ellis, who scouts models for the London agency Independent, thinks Tyra's shorties-only season of America's Next Top Model is dumb. The woman who found Alek Wek and Erin O'Connor, among many others, would know. [Vogue UK]
• Net profits at Versace fell 30.7% in 2008, but it was largely due to the softening of the Euro against the Dollar. Without the hard shift in the rate of exchange, their profits would have grown by 10%. [WWD]
• "Heavy black lines and crisp, grid-like patterns created an Op Art effect in Dries Van Noten's spring collection," says the LA Times. Which is why you should...wear a plaid shirt from Express. [LA Times]
• The top 10 new models of the Fall/Winter 09 show season: 90% white, 10% Japanese, 50% not actually "new." [Style.com]
• Do. Not. Want. Spanx clothing. No, just...no. [Glamour]
• Christian Siriano has picked up one hell of a stockist for his line: Saks Fifth Avenue. The department store will sell his fall collection in a new store-within-a-store for emerging talents. [WWD]
• Iekeliene Stange, the quirky Dutch supermodel/photographer, has an exhibition opening in London this Wednesday, following a successful show in Berlin. [The Horse Hospital]

Alexandra Shulman, who's run British Vogue since replacing Liz Tilberis there in 1992, was treated to an extraordinary drubbing in the Independent last weekend.

Writer Deborah Orr opens her piece with a paragraph quoting Shulman on the problems for which the industry she loves is, in her opinion, sometimes unfairly held responsible: "Fashion is blamed for paedophilia, landfill, drug addiction, animal rights [...] Every kind of goody-goody projects on to fashion as the epicentre of all that is wrong with the Western world." Taking this as an invitation, Orr adds a raft of her own: "Eating disorders, the obsession with looking youthful unto death, the generation of a consumer debt unequalled by any other country on the planet [and] regular exposés of sweatshop working practices." Phew! But, the writer goes on, most importantly fashion has some kind of unacknowledged moral responsibility for the current crisis and recession:

All I'm trying to suggest is that the huge growth in demand for more and more new clothes, has played a significant part in fuelling the boom that has now been so clearly revealed as a hypertropic, transient bubble.

"All," indeed. Then, pitilessly, Orr has Shulman offer a mealy quote about how shopping can be, like, fun sometimes. It's at that point I actually started to feel bad for her.

The article never lets up. When Shulman tries to play up her attitude towards democratically priced chain stores, Orr hits back with sweatshops and "the glut of discarded cheap clothing that has become so great that only a small fraction of it can be recycled in any form." When Shulman downplays the extent to which she was interested in fashion prior to writing for women's magazines, Orr spends a paragraph accusing her of false modesty. Shulman even, to her credit, admits the endless manufactured cycle of demand for luxury goods may have been pushing things too far — that retailers asking designers to create fall/winter, spring/summer, pre-fall, and resort collections, to oversee eyewear licenses, handbags, shoe lines, regular unveilings of new perfumes, and all the other manifold icons of false plenty that her magazine, she admits, has held up as desirable status items, may have thinned the aesthetic broth. In response, Orr takes the opportunity to note that "Few people would find it easy to accept that fashion designers have been the helpless victims in the fashion boom, reluctantly labouring away at filling the shops with new stuff, and unable to protest because the gold that has been stuffed into their mouths has rendered them dumb." Shulman can't win for agreeing with Orr, and Orr never gives her any good word in disagreement, either. ("I totally buy into that idea that for a brief moment everything seems better, when you've got a new dress that you look good in.") The nicest thing Orr can bring herself to say about Shulman is that "she is not herself a super-thin, over-groomed, clothes-horse," and personally unafraid to say "I don't know." The main qualification of either of these statements as compliments is the comparatively subtle attack on Shulman they couch.

The thing is, magazines like Vogue do push a lifestyle of retail fantasy that is, for most if their readership, completely unattainable. And getting Tim Walker to shoot a $10,000 couture gown for an editorial on page 325 helps the maker of that dress sell us his perfume, handily advertised on page 116, and his diffusion line at H&M, the release of which merits a quick friendly mention on the fashion calendar on page 34. Shulman knows that's how the game works, and so does Orr. (Complaining on principle about advertisers' filthy lucre subsidizing the pleasures of seeing Tim Walker shoot a one-of-a-kind dress, however, strikes me as a jejune argument in the extreme.) But it remains true that living beyond one's means is not a tenable proposition, and as a culture, that's what we've been doing in the West for the past decade (at least). Consumer debt in the U.S. reached $2.55 trillion in 2007. Magazines in general, and ladymags in particular, played a role in promoting and normalizing that paradigm. You can lay blame at the feet of their editors for plenty of things: you can wholly legitimately criticize overheated consumer culture, the unsustainable lifestyle of accretion, and you can point out the heartbreaking naïveté of literally buying in to the idea that a new dress will change your life.

But Orr is out for blood. Fashion has to be responsible for the recession, because, I repeat, "the huge growth in demand for more and more new clothes, has played a significant part in fuelling the boom that has now been so clearly revealed as a hypertropic, transient bubble." This is just flat-out wrong.

Orr is working on an ancient set of assumptions about personal debt. Every major religion and culture has attached at least some level of shame to the idea of being a debtor; there are strong taboos against taking on debt for consumption, as opposed to for investment. But the bone Orr is picking about consumer debt ignores the fact that unsecured credit card balances, as much as they may have ballooned through the boom years of easy credit, are not the cause of this current mess. Ironically, the housing bubble led the most stereotypically anodyne kind of debt, the kind of debt with which Orr would probably have imagined no philosophical problem even five years ago, the humble home loan, to become the prime agent of economic destruction. The total value of outstanding residential mortgages in the U.S. totaled $10.6 trillion by the middle of 2008; $1.1 trillion of that was home-equity loans. Mortgages being bundled, atomized, divided into investment tranches, swapped, leveraged, hedged, by Wall St. was the problem. "Securitization" was the problem. The separation of borrower from broker from lender from bank from investor was the problem. Credit card debt may be at an all-time high, but it still makes up a tiny portion of the overall credit market. Orr shouldn't jump through this particular set of hoops just to try and make women feel bad for liking clothes; saying this recession is our fault isn't that different from laying blame at the feet of poor minorities who "connived" to get home loans.

The fact remains that, while freshman-level Marxist takedowns of Vogue masquerading as profiles of the publication's editors are fun and entertaining, fashion has vanishingly little to do with the recession we are currently experiencing, and it's in poor taste to construct this particular straw man when the fashion industry — reeling from massive layoffs, shriveling sales, vanishing capital, bankruptcies, liquidations, financial backers in retrenchment, and the shuttering of design houses at all points on the promising/established continuum — has been suffering from it so greatly. Orr is trying to critique consumer culture by hanging responsibility for the recession on silly women who like handbags and the silly women's magazines they read, and while I'm as ready as the next girl to question the status/disposability combo fashion pushes, I feel obligated to point out that Orr's argument is actually false. And sloppy, all too convenient, and more than a touch classist and sexist. This recession is, as always, due to Wall St. greed, not Hermès and H&M and the women who dare admit to liking the feeling of wearing a new dress. And insofar as this recession has an archetypal villain, it's not the editor of Vogue and the prissy ladies who read her prissy lady magazine. It's the rich white men who run everything. I'm only half joking when I say I think it is important women remember our common enemy sometimes.

Life in Vogue: The Fashionable World Of Alexandra Shulman [Independent]

Related: Credit Card Industry Facts, Debt Statistics 2006-9 [CreditCards.com]
Board of Governors of the U.S. Federal Reserve System, Release Z.1, 9/18/08 [Federal Reserve]