• Dana Thomas — author of Deluxe — wrote an excellent feature on the quagmire of the house of Versace. Thomas takes aim at Donatella and Santo Versace's resistance to change and ham-handed business decisions. It's a thrilling read. [Newsweek]

• "My kids are my best style advisors because they are so honest," says Victoria Beckham. "I remember one time I was wearing a Chanel cape and skinny jeans and I walked down the stairs to see my sons and they said, 'Oh my God, Mummy, you're Batman!'" [Grazia]
• We know this is hard to imagine, but the new Calvin Klein billboard in SoHo is quite sexual. Some say it "goes too far"! For more details of the development of this shocking and unexpected outrage, you can count on the Daily News. [NYDN]
• Moises de la Renta, son of Oscar, is rumored to be "inking a deal" with Mango, presumably as a designer. [WWD]
• Pamela Anderson has not one, but two perfumes: Malibu Blue and Malibu Pink. They start at $39 and are available at drug stores. [People]
• Custom, one-of-a-kind Uggs really are a level of ugliness impressive to behold. [WWD]
• Tamara Mellon says the clothes she has produced for the Jimmy Choo for H&M collaboration were hard to conceptualize, because she doesn't sketch. Then, like so many designers, she had a brainwave, and picked apart some much-loved vintage pieces, cut patterns, and slapped labels on them. [LATimes]
• Although Mellon holds the copyright to the label Jimmy Choo, the real Jimmy Choo still designs bespoke shoes for an ultra-rich clientele under the name Jimmy Choo Couture. "I design like an architect," says the Malaysian-born Choo. "It's a beautiful, distinctive art, and shoes are like the foundations. If the foundations aren't right, the building won't stand upright, and if a woman's balance isn't right, nothing else is." Are you listening, Christian Louboutin? [Telegraph]
• Kate Moss is notoriously resistant to being interviewed, so when longtime hairdresser James Brown included more of her than she anticipated in the final cut of a TV doc about his shop, she cut him loose. "She maintains her hair herself nowadays," says Brown, we imagine a tad wistfully. [Daily Mail]
• Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons has a collection of handbags about the Beatles. [IHT]
• Heard of Roksanda Ilincic? Mareunrols? Bogomir Doronger? Baltic and Eastern European designers must be a trend! [FT]
• Hey, look: someone's applying the Netflix mail-order rental model to designer clothes. Drycleaning included in the fee. [NYTimes]
• Burberry's social-networking site, artofthetrench.com, has launched. [Artofthetrench]
• Cynthia Rowley is going to design new uniforms for United Airlines flight crews. [ChicagoTrib]
• Henry Holland says he and Agyness Deyn, who both grew up in a town called Ramsbottom, rarely ponder the nuances of their unlikely fashion greatness. "We'd be complete wankers if we did that, wouldn't we? Pause the TV! 'Hang on, you're the hottest model and I'm one of the hottest young designers, let's talk about that while I make a brew.'" [Guardian]
• While textile exports are worth around $12 billion to Pakistan's economy every year, the country's garment industry is relatively under-developed. "We are still doing the 30 dollar a dozen T-shirt business. There is no value added," said Ayesha Tammy Haq. "We should be employing millions of people, not hundreds of thousands of them." Hence Fashion Pakistan Week, of which Haq is the CEO. And don't expect the clothes to be dull: "This does not represent what we are as a people," designer Ayesha Tahir Masood said. "Only 0.001 percent of Pakistani women would wear these clothes, and then only in a controlled environment when drunk out of their minds." [AP]
• Carmen Colle is a French designer who runs a company, World Tricot, that hand-makes unique knitwear to the specifications of top houses like Christian Dior, Givenchy and Jean-Paul Gaultier. Colle is suing Chanel for allegedly taking one of her crochet patterns without paying for it. The four-year-old suit is finally being heard in Paris, along with a countersuit that asks the judge to consider Colle's level of fault for daring blacken the Chanel name with such an allegation. Since filing her lawsuit, World Tricot has been largely abandoned by its other clients, and Colle has been forced to lay off all but 12 of her staff. [Guardian]
• Lord & Taylor's same-store sales have risen 6% and 12%, respectively, on last September and October. Last September and October was pretty much the middle of the giant red Down arrow of the retail market, however, so even a double-digit improvement on those results is to be taken with a grain of salt. [WWD]
• The company that makes Crocs enjoyed a $22.1 million third-quarter profit, but the stock is still losing value. The surplus largely came from a one-time tax benefit, and investors are dubious about the company's long-term prospects. [TS]

• UK Harper's Bazaar named Stella McCartney its best-dressed woman of the year. [Telegraph]
• Georgia May Jagger is rumored to be the next face of Versace. [Fashionista]

• Former Prada women's wear designer Rodolfo Paglialunga is now at the helm of the revived house of Vionnet. Let's hope this works, because the woman who invented the bias cut is not to be trifled with. [WSJ]
• What was probably the fanciest party to ever celebrate the release of a DVD featured Adrien Brody, Marc Jacobs, Madonna, and Charlie Rose — all gathered in honor of Matt Tyrnauer's Valentino: The Last Emperor. Jesus Luz DJ'd, but didn't play any hip-hop. "I prefer electro-house," he shrugged. [TDB]
• Tyrnauer, on the doc's Oscar chances: "We're honored to even be considered. Of course, there's been some talk. When I started making the movie the Oscars were the farthest thing from my mind. I just wanted to survive and make the best film I could. So it to be ranking up there with great docs this year is amazing. But we're all superstitious. And Italians are very, VERY superstitious. So, I guess we'll never talk about this openly." [FWD]
• Daphne Guinness is currently re-reading Ringworld and W. Somerset Maugham's The Razor's Edge. [TFI]
• And could she possibly be the "international fashion muse" spotted out in a pair of the insane heel-less shoes from Olivier Theyskens' much-mourned last collection for Nina Ricci? My goodness, Ms. Guinness. [VF]
• It's her birthday on Monday. Guinness is going to celebrate by eating a sandwich and doing Bikram yoga. The Cut interrogated her further:

  I forget [how old I'm turning]. 41, I think." (According to Wikipedia, she's turning 42.) "You know, I really don't care, because I don't expect to live for very much longer." What does that mean? "Oh boy, this is turning into a heavy conversation," she continued. "But it isn't about age — it's about experience. The only thing worth aiming for is love. As you long as you have that, it's okay, and then you have some issues you just need to work out during this lifetime, not that I'm religious in any shape or form. But I don't fear death. Love is the only thing that matters. Everything else is smoke and mirrors." So, is fashion smoke and mirrors, too? "That's the best smoke and the best mirror. You've gotta go out, so you should go out in style."

  For the record, we hope she lives to a ripe old age. [The Cut]

• When the Jimmy Choo for H&M collection goes on sale next week, queuing shoppers will be given wristbands as a crowd-control measure. That should work! [Telegraph]
• FUBU is looking to return to the U.S., five years after leaving the market. The founder says the new collection will be "Carhartt-meets-Abercrombie-and-Fitch." Also, he thinks our short memories will save FUBU from forever being associated with tasteless puffa jackets and the wide-legged excesses of the late 90s, because "kids have a three-year memory span, so most don't have a sense of the brand's roots." [WWD]
• Italo Zucchelli has already finished designing the entire fall 2010 Calvin Klein men's wear collection. Over-achiever. [Style.com]
• Anthropologie is unveiling a new collaboration with Koi Suwannagate, under the label Lawan, Thai for "Beautiful." Although the first installment is only one dress, two cardigans, and a top, Suwannagate says the collaboration will be ongoing. [WWD]
• Why anyone would go all the way to Mykonos, just to eat at Nobu, is beyond us. [Telegraph]

Bustles, corsets, Wonderbras, that padded-booty underwear from Frederick's Of Hollywood — women have been dealing with figure-enhancing apparel for centuries. But the codpiece has come (heh) and gone. So it's interesting that Calvin Klein is trying to appeal to a man's vanity — or insecurity — when that's usually territory marketers use on women.

Sometimes stuff like this is like alcoholism: The first step is admitting you have a problem. You have to be willing to be labeled as "that" kind of person. It's easier with drugstore items like conditioner for "dry and damaged" hair or cleanser for "oily" skin. You can march up to the counter owning your issues, like, yeah, I'm dry and damaged and oily, so what?

But some men place so much importance on their junk, you've got to wonder if this is enabling, in a way. Or telling: Wouldn't you automatically assume there's a problem in that area?

Miller spoke with Ray Lopez, a Macy's sales guy. "When I first tried them on, it was like, ‘Whoa! Do other people notice this?'" Ray says. "You feel more confident. You have people who wear the skinny jean, and the only thing you see is the bulge. These work with the whole body." Miller, of course, tried the jeans on:

They were a breakthrough! Such comfort, such support! And yes, my confidence was bigger! It looked bigger, at least.

Ah, yes: The illusion of change. Something push-up bra, Spanx and makeup-wearing women are quite familiar with. Welcome to our world.

Something Is Getting Between Him and His Calvins [NY Observer]

• Victoria Beckham is out at Armani, and Megan Fox is in. The actress has just been photographed by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott for next January's Emporio Armani underwear and Armani Jeans campaigns. [WWD]

• Amber Valletta has a clothing line, and Saks Fifth Avenue will donate $250,000 to breast cancer research from goods it sells from this Thursday through Sunday, whether you shop there or not. [USAToday]
• Betsey Johnson — who has talked openly of wanting a diffusion line, perhaps with Target or H&M, in the past — might get her wish. She told the National Arts Club last night that she was in talks to do a line with QVC or HSN. [The Cut]
• Women's Wear Daily tries cheekily to make the point, through historic quotes and photos, that Emanuel Ungaro, the couturier, and Lindsay Lohan, the fake tan executive who now runs his label, share an aesthetic. But, seriously, he's the guy who said "Shock for its own sake doesn't interest me," and, "A maison de couture is not a circus." [WWD]
• Former Calvin Klein underwear model and Guess? campaign star Jason Lewis — also known as that hot guy Samantha starts banging on Sex And The City — is now shilling for something called Charisma Linens. [NYDN]
• Tory Burch is getting into microfinance for women entrepreneurs — domestic microfinance for women entrepreneurs. [TDB]
• A New York University-affiliated group has ranked Louis Vuitton, Ralph Lauren, and Clinique as the top three luxury fashion brands, by "digital IQ." Strange that a company with so much apparent investment in its e-commerce division could show such an utter lack of understanding of the online media; Ralph Lauren's Filippa Hamilton Photoshop debacle, with its manifold examples of the company's digital stupidity, could be hurting the brand for years to come. [WWD]
• M.I.A. wore a $10 suit from Goodwill to meet Anna Wintour. [Twitter]
• Someone get 19-year-old French model Constance Jablonski a beer: she walked in 72 fashion shows in four cities in less than a month. [Models.com]
• Joe Corre, the famous loose cannon behind the Agent Provocateur label, has quit the brand abruptly. He will maintain his ownership share of the company, but no longer work for it. Instead, he'll concentrate on his men's wear line, called Child of the Jago. [WWD]
• Jennifer Connelly isn't returning as the face of Balenciaga. The brand's spring campaign is understood to feature Kasia Struss, and three other models. [Fashionista]
• Lacoste has collaborated with Brazilian industrial designers Fernando and Humberto Campana, and the results include a $7,000 polo shirt made entirely of the label's alligator appliqués, hand-sewn together in a lacey pattern. [WWD]
• Tommy Bahama is doing a line of shirts for Major League Baseball. The first one is for the next World Series. [Crain's]
• Patrick Robinson showed this season's Gap collection in Tokyo, after showing previous seasons in London and New York, to show that "We're all so super-connected. A lot of our stores are in big urban cities, and all of my friends now are all around the world." The designer continued, "But they're texting me and e-mailing me, and we're all connected. But we're also all trying to get back to nature. We're all starting to care about what we drink, and the food we eat, and where that food comes from. There's something about us that's longing to be back in nature. Those two things are sort of at odds with one another, and what I like about this collection is it sort of brings them together." Whatever. The guy makes incredible pants. [WWD]
• Marc Jacobs is bringing back its popular nude celebrity "Protect The Skin You're In" skin cancer awareness t-shirts. They cost $35, and all the proceeds go to the NYU Cancer Institute. [Hypebeast]
• L.L. Bean is trying to update its image with a new collection, designed by Rogues Gallery's Alex Carleton. [WWD]
• Some snooty society magazine editor named Rachel Johnson — Oxford-educated sister of London mayor Boris — decided it was proper to make fun of Twiggy's accent in her editor's letter. "I bumped into Twiggy at a Burberry event at London Fashion Week. I thanked her for being our cover girl. She went a bit blank but when I mentioned this publication her Bambi-eyes lit up and she said, 'Oi love The Lie-dee,' which made me feel very happy." [Daily Express]
• Abercrombie is planning on lowering its prices slowly and strategically, in the hopes of luring customers back without hurting its brand image. [NYPost]
• Burberry's sales in the most recent quarter rose 5%, to $545 million, ahead of analysts' forecasts. Same-store sales also rose 5%. [WSJ]

Calling Peter Gabriel. That is all.


The nightgown is back. Can the slipdress be far behind?


This organic texturing is one of the more engaging elements of the collection.


We would've gotten the "Japanese" reference without the geta-like footwear.


There was a lot done with crinkling. Would Francisco be offended to know I was reminded of my mom's Eileen Fisher phase?


I'm going to go with, "yes."


Spring '94 was the collection that introduced Kate Moss. Back then this would have been layered with about 20 androgynous tees.


The slight refinements of cut elevate its simplicity. Well, almost.

[Images via Getty]

• Mickey Rourke, at Max Azria: "I really don't like Max that much. He's a short little guy with a good looking wife. Maybe I'll steal his wife." [WSJ]
• Tom Ford to close-talking columnist: "Are you trying to smell me?" [NationalPost]

• If you care about who People thinks is the best-dressed, their annual list is out. Kate Winslet, Reese Witherspoon, Vanessa Hudgens, and Freida Pinto all made the cut; on the men's side, so did Brad Pitt, Robert Pattinson, and Bradley Cooper. [People]
• Audrey Tautou, currently playing Coco Chanel across multiple platforms, has a print ad for Chanel No. 5 out. [People]
• Lanvin designer Alber Elbaz is to address the UNESCO World Forum on Culture and Cultural Industries in Italy next week. [WWD]
• Lauren Conrad presents her fall collection for Kohl's in this video. It's very cute how she pretends to have seen it before. [People]
• Avril Lavigne presented her collection for Kohl's in New York City on Monday night. It includes a hoodie with earbuds in the drawstring. We must have missed this one for the Snuggie show. [People]
• Ralph Lifshitz and Calvin Klein grew up in the same part of the same neighborhood of the Bronx, Norwood's Mosholu Parkway, and both attended Public School 80, four years apart. Former Bronx borough president Fernando Ferrer says, "These are working-class guys — they were neither poor nor wealthy, and it's interesting that their clothes are aspirational. Ralph Lauren designs preppy, polo type clothes. That wasn't his experience then. So does Calvin Klein — elegance, simplicity." [Cityroom]
• Anya Hindmarch believes in "speaking up for bespoke" objects in a time of mass-production. Naturally, she also believes in charging £500 for a wallet. [ToL]
• Meanwhile, for the rest of us, Zara has plans to start selling its clothes online. [FT]
• Georgia May Jagger: "I really don't get it, to be perfectly honest. I still don't have that firm a grasp on why me being my parents' daughter is so interesting." Being your parents' daughter is the only reason you have a career, dear! [Style.com]
• It's certainly the only reason Vanity Fair is talking to her. "Modeling is always something I've really admired because I've seen my mum and sister do it," says Jagger. [VF]
• David Lauren: "We created the first 24-hour shopping experience on the windows of our mansion on 72nd St. You can literally walk up to the glass, press on the glass, and shop the product that's in the store. You can touch your credit card to the glass and buy it." [The Cut]
• Will lazy writers ever abandon the canard that Lara Stone — a model with stated measurements of 33"-24"-35", entirely within the tiny range of straight-size modeling — is somehow "curvy" or represents "change" on the catwalk? Stone — who is incredibly good at what she does, and well established in the business because of it — has not been "opening everyone's shows." In fact she has yet to be spotted anywhere in the lineup at a single show this season. [Telegraph]
• Halston, that long-rudderless brand, had a spring presentation that was a bit of a train wreck. The clothes looked very similar to each other, and the mannequins were weird. [WSJ]
• Barneys New York has now operated for 14 months without a C.E.O. Wracked by debt, the retailer is the subject of rumors alleging its inability to even pay its invoices. The head of Istithmar, the investment fund that owns Barneys, says "We have stood by Barneys and will continue to stand by this company." Words you never want to have to hear from a C.E.O. [WWD]
• Nina Garcia's third book about personal style is naturally all about the recessionista, not the fashionista. [Reuters]
• According to an online survey of 61,000 teens, teenagers are spending less money, because their parents are giving them less money, because their parents have less money. Thanks for getting to the bottom of this important recession conundrum, social networking site Habbo Hotel. [Reuters]

• Naomi Campbell: "Unfortunately, we are the same as before...People, in the panic of the recession, don't dare to put a girl of colour in their campaign, full stop. Nor of any other race. It's a shame. It's very sad." [Telegraph]

• Designer Tara Subkoff is on the mend following the removal of a benign brain tumor: speedy recovery! [NYPost]
• Let the wild rumpus begin! Hipper-than-thou retailer Opening Ceremony, no stranger to the celebrity vanity project, is carrying a line of faux furs inspired by, yes, Where the Wild Things Are. We're more inspired by the dough suit in In the Night Kitchen, personally. [W]
• Speaking of Opening Ceremony: its Tokyo store opening was predictably sparkly and Olsen-studded. [WWD]
• Apparently high-end retailers - think Tiffany and Neiman's - have taken to holding secret sales for VIPs, so as to get the biz without "diluting their brand" with vulgar door-busters. [TimesUK]
• What does Maria Sharapova like to do? "I'd probably have to say shopping and eating...I mean, I am a girl after all, and there's no better place than New York to shop." What, no chasing men with a sassy sidekick? [WWD]
• TopShop is getting into workout clothes. Because we know we like sweating in "chenille." [WWD]
• "Themes of youthful disdain and playfulness continue in Victoria Beckham's second film for her A/W 09 collection," which you can watch. We don't know about the "disdain," but it's pretty cute. [Dazed Digital]
• Sara Ziff, on her documentary Picture Me: "(T)here's a hierarchy when you pair a 45-year-old male photographer-and many of the photographers are older, heterosexual men-with a 15-year old girl. And I think in a way you're asking for trouble if that girl is totally unsupervised, living miles away from friends and family. It's kind of a no-brainer. There should be some protection for these girls." [Mother Jones]
• Temperley of London is launching an affordable (no, really!) line of their ultra-cool duds, coming this spring. [New York]
• Grace Coddington, on The September Issue: "But my very favorite scene is when Raquel [Zimmermann, the model] was eating pies at the couture. She kept looking at them and saying she wanted one, while we were lacing her into this tiny corset and reminding her she wouldn't fit if she ate one. So she didn't eat them ... and she didn't eat them. Then when the shoot was over she ate, like, a whole pie! It's a funny scene, and she looks absolutely beautiful." Well, yeah: that box of pastries was just sadistic! [New York]
• Wait, what? In that doc, Anna Wintour's daughter, Bee Shaffer, says she wants to be a lawyer. Now, apparently, she's working in theatre. Lady's prerogative, we suppose! [NY Post]
• Well, thank God. Pamela Anderson's addressing the serious dearth of celebrity perfumes, launching "Malibu by Pamela" this fall. [New York]
• Kim Kardashian: "My YRB magazine shoot just came out and I am loving the results! "I really love the transformation and the clothes were amazing!!! This has got to be one of the most unique shoots I've ever done! Not sure I'll ever go for a permanent short cut, but it definitely works for this shoot." She looks kind of like Karen O, weirdly. [People]
• Speaking of covers: if you buy the special Lady Gaga issue of V, you can peel her New Wavy glasses off the mag and wear them yourself! Or, you know, not. [New York]
• Model Lily Cole, who's taken a hiatus to go to university: "I like learning. I was going to do social and political science, then I switched to history of art, but I could have done either. I can get impassioned about politics, but I find studying it can lead to a boxy way of looking at the world, so I was put off studying it." [TimesUK]
• Peter Som on his scaled-down collection: "I have to make sure that every piece I design is special and unique," Som says. "People don't come to me for basics. They come to me for print and for color and for happy clothes." [New York]
• Um. For Fashion's Night Out, which we're almost starting to buy the hype for, Calvin Klein has commissioned "a performance by CK One model Jamie Burke and his band, Burke." That'll pack 'em in. [WWD]
• Alleged designer and convicted rapist Anand Jon is about to learn his fate: he could get life. [Yahoo]
• Michael Kors' description of his trip to South Africa is exactly what you'd guess if you were parodying Michael Kors describing a trip to South Africa. "We saw the big five (lions, leopards, rhino, elephant and buffalo) within the first two days. Truly mind blowing. Chilled out midday at the spa and one day even ended up doing an impromptu yoga session in the bush next to the Jeep." [WWD]
• Tyra sports Alexander Wang on ANTM, leading fashionistas who speculate that she'll start supporting more high fashion. But Ty-Ty is a fickle mistress! [Fashionista]
• Department store shoppers, take note: Miranda Kerr was momentarily blinded by a spritz of "Heavenly Enchanted" perfume at the scent's launch. [NYPost]

• The details of Fashion's Night Out — aka Anna Wintour's Plan To Save Retail — have been announced. Over 700 stores in all five boroughs will be participating in events that range from sewing circles to cook-ins to rock shows:

• Celebs and designers who will be in attendance at the various festivities include Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen, Francisco Costa, Manolo Blahnik, Isaac Mizrahi, Kate Mulleavy, Diane von Furstenberg, Liev Schreiber, Stephanie Seymour, and Anna Wintour herself. Although all the tee shirt customization and free music will be enough to drag us around to at least a few stores come September 10, we're also tremendously excited by the idea of taking salsa lessons taught by Juan Carlos Obando. [WWD]
• As is to be expected, Vogue is apparently attracting a lot of attention from cost-cutting consultants McKinsey. Dare we hope that McKinsey will shake things up at the tired mag, and shake them hard? In other Condé Nast news, Teen Vogue's very stylish accessories editor, Taylor Tomasi Hill, is leaving to take a position at Marie Claire. There are no plans to replace her. [Fashionista]
• Agent Provocateur is launching a new line of super-expensive lingerie it's calling couture. Agent Provocateur Soirée will launch with an in-season show at New York Fashion Week on September 9, and hit stores in November. Prices top £2450. [Elle UK]
• The second issue of Love is out, and it turns out the preview image that surfaced online last month actually is one of the covers — editor Katie Grand chose Alex Hartley, and 18-year-old bass player she found on the Internet, for one cover, and Sting spawn Coco Summer for the other. [Fashionologie]
• Katie Grand had 35 guests at her recent wedding. Thirty-five guests who finished 28 bottles of vodka. Our kid of woman. [ToL]
• Dasha Zhukova, the 28-year-old heiress, art gallerist, and Grand's replacement editor at Pop, is rumored to be pregnant by her 42-year-old boyfriend, Roman Abramovich. [P6]
• An image of Scarlett Johansson which might be part of the ad campaign for a Dolce & Gabbana perfume launching later this year has leaked. The perfume is called Rose The One, and the picture is very soft and rosy looking, plus Johansson is already confirmed to be the face of the scent, both of which are signs that point to yes. [SassyBella]
• Tori Spelling has launched a children's clothing range. Little Maven will cost $26-$88, and is designed for kids up to 4 years of age. [Daily Mail]
• Naomi Campbell and Queen Rania of Jordan were introduced while holidaying in the south of France. There's no word on what they discussed upon meeting. [Daily Mail]
• The mayor of Kennesaw, Georgia, which is male model Sean O'Pry's hometown, is today giving the 20-year-old an official proclamation, because O'Pry speaks highly of Kennesaw in the interviews he does between gigs for Armani and Calvin Klein. [P6]
• Comme des Garçons and Converse are giving their collaboration wider distribution this fall. Four styles of the Comme des Garçons-designed sneakers will go on sale in select cities at the end of this month, and worldwide in October, for $100 a pop. [WWD]
• When asked about the person who irrevocably changed the way she looked at fashion, Heidi Klum generously named Karl Lagerfeld, despite the designer's stated dislike of her. [Newsweek]
• Everybody is wearing Lolita glasses. And by everybody, we mean Madonna, Drew Barrymore, Katy Perry, Nicole Richie, Kelly Osbourne, and Kim Kardashian. Clearly we ought to be wearing them, too. Or something. [NYDN]
• If you are a man who wants to buy Levi's jeans that are "re-created using the original techniques from 1873" for $395, you can do so, at J. Crew's downtown men's stores. [WWD]
• Riam Dean, the young woman who was asked to work in the stockroom by Abercrombie & Fitch because of her prosthetic arm, has sold the full, terrible story of her experience of discrimination to the Daily Mail. Dean says the £9,000 she won from the company in damages hasn't covered her legal fees. [Daily Mail]
• Hats are back, again. This story gets re-written every six months. [WSJ]
• The alligator "harvest" begins later on this month in Florida, but wildlife experts expect the number of the creatures that will end up as purses this year to be drastically reduced: while revenue from alligator skins topped $71 million in Florida in 2007, a mere $10 million is this year's industry estimate. What doesn't make sense about all these stories about exotic skins, whether alligator, crocodile, or python, losing their marketplace appeal, is the fact that among luxury categories, the bridge products — wallets, keychains, and other "aspirational" branded baubles — are the ones that are experiencing the steepest decline in sales. Brands from Hermès to Louis Vuitton have reported that their most expensive offerings, like exotic skinned bags, are still experiencing strong sales — if not actually leading sales across the whole brand. So what gives? Are the pythons and gators going to be left to their own devices in the Everglades this season, or not? [MSNBC]
• H&M's same-store sales fell 3% on last year during the month of July; analysts had expected a more modest 1% drop, since the fast fashion chain has been performing relatively well in the recession so far. [Reuters]
• Following another disastrous quarterly result, Abercrombie has announced it plans to further cut its prices. [WSJ]
• Escada USA filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in New York, one day after the German parent company opened bankruptcy proceedings there. [WWD]

The addendum — "Willing and labeled" — seems like the sophomoric pseudo-Marxist reflections of a distressingly earnest teenager who subscribes to Adbusters; does the Starbucks bomber have an alibi? By Sunday evening, when I walked by, the speech bubble, which was stuck on with tape, had been mostly peeled off.

Our favorite Houston St. billboard remix remains the American Apparel "rape" graffito.

Earlier: "I Went Home, Grabbed Some Spraypaint, Took The Train Back And Waited Till 4 a.m. To Climb The Scaffolding."

• For the September issue of Harper's Bazaar, the magazine interviewed Karl Lagerfeld, speaking as Coco Chanel. In character, the Grand Teuton shared such idiotic reflections as: "I was never a feminist because I was never ugly enough for that." [FWD]

• A very painterly, Frenchified image of 90s supe Linda Evangelista made the grade as John Galliano's fall campaign. [SassyBella]
• On Sunday, the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Washington, D.C., hosted an exhibition of the Indonesian batik textiles collected by President Obama's mother, Anne Dunham, during her years in the country. There were traditional Indonesian dance and music performances, and fashion shows from two Indonesian designers. [WWD]
• Victoria Beckham has decided not to renew her contract with Emporio Armani, apparently because she wants to concentrate on her dress line. [UK Vogue]
• Spice Girls svengali Simon Fuller has acquired a 51% stake in Storm, the London model agency that represents such top names as Kate Moss, Jourdan Dunn, Eva Herzigova, and Lily Cole. [Telegraph]
• This fall is going to be an exciting time for designer fast-fashion lines. Unrolling next season at a chain near you: Jimmy Choo for H&M, Stella McCartney for Gap Kids, Anna Sui for Target, Christopher Kane for TopShop, Adam Lippes for Mango, and, uh, Lauren Conrad for Kohl's. [TS]
• Add to that list Jil Sander's hotly anticipated +J line for Uniqlo, which will begin hitting stores in October. The 140-piece collection is believed to start at around $25. [Fashionologie]
• Stars like Mariah Carey, Jessica Simpson, Emeril Lagasse, and Martha Stewart are promoting Macy's "Come Together" program, a special night of dinner parties intended to inspire charitable giving. Americans are asked to host a special dinner in their homes, and solicit donations to Feeding America, in lieu of any gifts for the host. Macy's will match those donations until enough money has been raised to serve 10 million meals to poor families this fall and winter. You can register a dinner party or get new information at Come Together. [People]
• Are you a man? Are you really, really ridiculously good-looking? Have you ever dreamed of becoming a Calvin Klein underwear model? Do you live in one of nine European countries? In that case, you might be in luck: to launch a new underwear line, Calvin Klein is holding a model search. Jamie Dornan will be one of the judges. [WWD]
• "She's like, 'What about Maximilian? Bruno? Sebastian? Hector? Guido?' I always tell her I'll put it on my list." Karolina Kurkova's Slovak mother sure does have interesting taste in baby boy names. [USAToday]
• Donald Fisher, the Gap founder, and his wife Doris spent the last 50 years collecting art by such eminent figures as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and Alexander Calder. But San Francisco preservationists have nixed the Fishers' plans to build a museum in the Presidio, a historic military base inside the city. The Fishers would prefer to keep the priceless collection in San Francisco, perhaps at the De Young or at the SFMOMA, but after the rejection of their standalone museum idea, other art museums are actively wooing the couple. [LATimes]
• Australian Merino lambs are routinely mulesed — that is, they have the skin around their buttocks cut off, often without anaesthetic, to prevent a disease called flystrike, which occurs when flies lay maggots in the folds of the lambs' skin, and those maggots then commence eating the animals' flesh. Although flystrike is horrifying, many animal rights activists are even more aghast at the mulesing, and with Australian farmers now announcing that they will fail to meet an agreed-upon 2010 deadline for ending the practice, some top fashion chains are discussing a ban on Australian merino wool. In which case, might I suggest New Zealand merino as an alternative? New Zealand is already phasing out mulesing. [Guardian]
• Heidi Klum had to close her five-year-old jewelry line because of a trademark infringement lawsuit from Van Cleef & Arpels, who objected to her use of its signature clover design. "We stopped because we had a lawsuit with Van Cleef & Arpels — they wanted to have the clover, even though our designs had never matched," said the supermodel. "I think when you're a small company, which we are, we're not a Van Cleef — they have a thousand lawyers. I'm a small fry next to that." [LATimes]
• Imagine the delicate hell of being a parts model: "Most people can walk away from work when they're done with a job, but parts models can't, because [our parts] have to be flawless. I moisturize 20 to 30 times a day, and wear gloves 90 percent of the time," says hand model Ashley Covington. [CNN]
• Coach C.E.O. Lew Frankfort, who has been with the company for 30 years, extended his contract until 2013. [Crain's]
• Paula Dorf cosmetics is bankrupt. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, owing more than 50 creditors a total of $3.9 million. [Crain's]
• K Swiss lost $11.5 million in the second quarter of this year. Last year, they made a $26.4 million profit in the same period. [WWD]
• Astoundingly, high-end children's clothing is also suffering in this economy. A Connecticut store that sold $995 Peter Som girls' dresses close its doors this summer, and companies are dialing back their kids lines. [WSJ]
• A new strategy in the open question of how, and whom, to sue over the online trade in counterfeit luxury goods: after the failure to get auction sites like eBay held accountable — L'Oréal lost its multi-million-dollar suit, and Steve Madden had to drop its lawsuit just last week — Gucci has hit upon suing the credit card processing companies. The lawsuit accuses the companies of facilitating the sale of fake purses, and names the companies "full partners in those counterfeiting activities." Gucci has already wrangled a $5.2 million settlement from the Laurette Company, which runs the website TheBagAddiction.com, where counterfeit bags were often sold, and the credit card processing companies are those companies which worked closely with Laurette. [Reuters]

• This rather banal anecdote about Michael Kors being mistaken for Marc Jacobs is enlivened by an adorable photo of the two from when Jacobs was pale and long-haired and still had those clear-framed glasses that are so totally hot. [FWD]

• Kors designed the dress for his mother's second wedding. "Who in their right mind would actually listen to their five-year-old? Though the marriage didn't last, the pictures are timeless." When pressed on his status as a top or a bottom, Kors replied, "Well, I love eveningwear and I love sportswear." [VF]
• Karlie Kloss — who just turned 17 and celebrated at Disney World — booked the fall Alexander McQueen campaign. She looks ethereal and a little frightening — perfect for McQueen's aesthetic. [Fashionologie]
• Eva Mendes does what Eva Mendes does best for Calvin Klein, with Jamie Dornan. [Sun]
• An object lesson in what happens when you refuse a reporter's questions at a press event: they get snippy! Kanye West was described as "skittish" and "visibly withdrawn" as he "avoided all questions" at an event for Casio G Shock. Even though the rapper didn't clam up entirely — he praised Amber Rose, and said she'd just done her first modeling shoot — the interaction motivated WWD to note, "When he later took to the stage, 90 minutes behind schedule, West interrupted his set with a spontaneous, free-style rant against the press, with such lines as 'I'm sorry I broke your arm/I meant to break your camera' and 'I could kill a man/I am a man/Don't forget I could kill a man' regarding his fury at the invasive nature of today's media. As he stirred the audience into a frenzy, the bevy of invited reporters and photographers at the event (marketed by Casio as a press conference accompanied by a concert), were left to fidget uncomfortably with their press passes." [WWD]
• Kanye didn't mention it, but Elle's Joe Zee pointed out that the rapper recently styled a shoot for the magazine. Could Amber possibly have been the model? [FWD]
• Fifteen-year-old Christine Staub, the eldest daughter of Danielle Staub from the Real Housewives of New Jersey, has been signed by the modeling agency IMG. [Fashionista]
• Christian Siriano is looking forward to the advent of marriage equality so that he can marry his long-time partner, photographer Brad Walsh. "Maybe we'll buy a farm or something," explains the Project Runway designer. "I want to raise alpaca or something. You know, make my own alpaca coating." [E!]
• Sarah Jessica Parker is suing a Long Island perfume distributor for allegedly selling bottles of her "Lovely" fragrance without the quality-assurance marks. Her company is accusing the distributor of selling counterfeit or stolen product. [P6]
• Padma Lakshmi had Steven Meisel shoot the fall ads for her jewelry line, and the results are lovely, if a little overly Photoshopped. [WWD]
• Banana Republic's fall campaign is modeled by — wait for it! — actors and actresses. Krysten Ritter, who used to be a working model but would almost certainly never have booked such a gig before becoming an actress, must have had a tremendous case of déjà vu. Joining her in the shots are Lauren Ambrose, Chris Messina, Scott Speedman, Florence Faivre, Nicole Fiscella and Juan Diego Botto. [WWD]
• Residents of SoHo are reportedly unhappy with the new Hollister store downtown. One building is even flying a "Go Home Hollister" banner off a balcony. [Curbed]
• Retail rents are falling all through Manhattan, but the most drastic drop is along the Manhattan shopping corridor of Madison Avenue. With many prominent brands moving out of their former flagships on the Avenue, rents there have sunk from $1,100/sq. ft. to around $500/sq. ft. [Crain's]
• Company earnings for K Swiss fell 62% in the first six months of this year, off the back of a 29% decline in sales, and the company reported a net loss of $11.5 million. [WWD]

• Chris Brown has released a video apology for assaulting Rihanna. He says: "I've told Rihanna countless times and I'm telling you today that I am truly, truly sorry...

• "Although I will do some interviews and answer some questions in the future, I felt that it was time that you heard directly from me that I am sorry," says Chris. He claims that it's taken him this long to apologize because his lawyers wouldn't let him speak about the case, but now he's asking fans to forgive him. He adds that he's in counseling and, "I intend to live my life so that I'm truly worthy of the word 'role model.'" [TMZ]
• Mischa Barton's rep says the rumors that she wound up in the hospital after a three-day coke bender, "completely preposterous." [OK]
• A source says Mischa Barton's drug and alcohol use cost her friends, including Nicole Richie. "In the last few years, her dark side has really come out," says the source. "Her friends, like Nicole, want to be supportive but they really can't be around her too much. She's too volatile. It makes us sad, but we're also like, 'Pull it together and get help already." [People]
• Austin Stark, the director of Mischa Barton's new film Homecoming says, "I'm very concerned about her... First and foremost, we hope she gets better. I don't know exactly what happened ... I wish she wasn't going through the turmoil that she is right now." [People]
• Jon Gosselin was spotted playing in the park... with his girlfriend Hailey Glassman, not his kids. The two were photographed on the swings, holding hands, and kissing. [Radar Online]
• Jackass star Bam Margera was taken to the hospital yesterday after paramedics responded to a 911 call from his Pennsylvania home for a "possible overdose." [TMZ]
• Though his mom claims he was just "severely dehydrated." [TMZ]
• Paula Abdul is mad because Ryan Seacrest has a $45 million three year deal with American Idol, but she only makes about $2 million a year. The producers want her back but now she's pretending she might not return. [TMZ]
• Simon Cowell says of Paula Abdul, "She'll be fine. She'll be on the show... I don't get a lot of say. I've just made it clear that I want Paula on the show. Full stop." [People]
• A representative for Conrad Murray, Michael Jackson's doctor, says that rumors that he isn't cooperating with the police are, "Absolutly untrue. Murray continues to cooperate fully with investigators and there have been no requests for additional interviews." [Radar Online]
• Several studios are in a bidding war over the rehearsal footage from Michael Jackson's "This Is It" comeback concert. Sony's movie studio bid $50 million for the distribution rights. [AP]
• Christina Milan says of her engagement to music producer The Dream, "We don't have [wedding] plans yet — but it hasn't [already] happened, that I can confirm. We just want to have our closest friends and family there; it's not going to be too big." [UPI]
• Demi Lovato and Miley Cyrus' brother Trace were apparently dating, but now that they've broken up Twitter has exploded with their teenage drama. Trace, Miley, their mom Tish, and Demi all posted passive aggressive Tweets. For example, in response to "mommytish"'s Tweet "It really makes me sad that most people find it so easy to hurt other people. Why is that? I never want to hurt anyone…… EVER," Miley wrote: "We can't control the path of their wicked hearts mama. All we can do is shine a light & guide their way back home. Smile mommy." [Perez Hilton]
• Organizers of the Les Vieilles Charrues festival in France say that Lily Allen pulled out of the charity concert at the last minute. On Friday she cancelled another appearance at Spain's Benicassim festival because she was sick, but she says she never agreed to do the French festival. She Tweeted: "This is rubbish, I am sorry for pulling out [of Benicassim] yesterday, I am ill though. I've never heard of this French festival." [The Daily Express]
• In a new book a doctor who tried to save Jimi Hendrix's life on the night he died says he believes he may have been murdered by having red wine and sleeping pills forced down his throat. [The Daily Mail]
• Foxy Brown is being sued for the $641,558 she owes in taxes. She allegedly stopped paying her taxes in 2003. [Contact Music]
• Tony Romo, who has been seen partying most nights since he brokeup with Jessica Simpson says, When you let your mind wander or think about other things, you're setting yourself up for failure. So I just try to stay focused. I've done a pretty good job of that this week." But, a friend says that Tony is "emotionally drained" right now. [People]
• Jessica Simpson went out with her friends on Saturday for a girls night out. She Tweeted: "Love my ladies!!!... Wish I could be with them everyday of my life. Laughter is wonderful :)" [People]
• Susan Boyle says of her rise to fame, "It's just been unbelievable, it's indescribable... I'm having a wonderful time. I don't want it to end. It's just really good. She added, "Being plucked from obscurity is a bit like going on a long journey, really; you don't know what's going to happen. You don't know how it's going to end." [The Mirror]
• Mindy Cohn, a.k.a. Natalie from The Facts of Life is starring in a new film about a straight woman with many gay friends who decides she needs to date a "fag stag," a straight man OK with her gay friends. When asked if the role was a stretch for her, she said, "In Fire Island, I was getting drinks for Calvin Klein's butt-boy... It's my life!" [The Village Voice]
• Ashton Kutcher tweeted this weekend, "Wifey just got a new haircut. What do you guys think? I love it." Then linked to a Photoshopped picture of Demi Moore with a mohawk. She replied, "I have the buzzer ready baby!" [E!]
• Here's a sampling of things people say to Seth Green at Comic-Con: "How tall are you?", "Can you sign my boobs?", "You were great as Bud Bundy." [Entertainment Weekly]
• Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick went out this weekend for the first time since they brought home their twins. They attend an AIDS fundraiser in the Hamptons. [The Huffington Post]
• A Time reporter discovered that Adrian Grenier is a member of his food co-op in Brooklyn, which requires members to work at the store for a few hours a week. When the reporter told another member that Grenier was working in the back, she had no idea who he was because she doesn't own a TV. [Time]
• At the link you can listen to the 911 call made on Friday from Nadya Suleman's house. First a child calls and hangs up without saying anything. Then when the dispatcher calls back an adult says everything is fine. Then an adult calls again and says two-year-old Caleb is "vomiting nonstop." He was taken to the hospital and released that night. [TMZ]
• Pink has rescheduled a show in Brisbane because she has laryngitis. [Brisbane Times]
• Rumors that Jennie Garth has left the new 90210 are untrue. She just signed a deal to return for multiple episodes this fall. [Entertainment Weekly]
• [The Daily Mail]
• Though her new film is all about the rules of romantic relationships, Katherine Heigl says she doesn't follow them. "I'm not very good at being a wife because I sort of break them all," said Heigl, "So does he, though, so whatever." [People]
• Chef Mario Batali has been cast in the film Bitter Feast. The film is about a celebrity chef who takes revenge on a food critic who gives him a bad review. Batali will play the owner of the chef's restaurant. [UPI]
• Here's a very lengthy description of a fan's Ed Westwick sighting. He was understandably freaked out when she walked up to him and said "I love you. And I am so sorry to bother you right now and I don't mean to freak you out but I want to enjoy my dinner but I can't even think about eating knowing you're back here and please don't leave... [N.Y. Magazine]
• You can check out the video for Coldplay's "Strawberry Swing" here: [Rolling Stone]
• Annette Merar, the first wife of Phil Spector has been reported missing from her home in Van Nuys, California. [UPI]
• "I get very dark moods for no reason. Nothing in particular brings it on. You can be having the best time of your life and yet you're utterly and totally miserable. I get very anti-social, depressed and irritable with people. I don't have time for them. I can't make phone calls and stuff. I just sit on my own for days... If I went to see a psychiatrist, it would be a long session... I've always thought that I do have a number of issues that probably need dealing with because I am quite odd in some ways." — Simon Cowell [Now Magazine]

We decided to resurrect some early gems, like this Versace campaign, shot by Richard Avedon, and co-starring (who else?) Naomi and Linda.


There is an entire cultural studies thesis about power dressing and the representation of women as authority figures and "having it all" latent in this picture from 1987.


Isn't it strange that this one, though it dates from almost ten years later, seems so passive by comparison? Calvin Klein had Turlington on a very restrictive exclusive contract until the early 1990s, when she was dumped by the brand for cutting her hair without consulting them — a relationship, and a reaction, that has always struck me as emblematic of a deep paternalism.


Herb Ritts, for Versace, makes Turlington look here like a piece of Surrealist art.


You just know there's a hipster in Williamsburg itching to wear this, a coat so ugly even Irving Penn couldn't make it look appetizing, right now.


Pressing questions: what is going on with the crotch of those pants?


Oh, man, remember film grain?


Since it seems inevitable that we're heading back to the 90s, would it be totally unrealistic to hope that we might return to these 90s?


Because I, for one, do not relish the thought of going back to these ones.


Ah, that's better.


Irving Penn contributes so very rarely to Vogue these days — which is understandable, given his advanced years. But this picture, and the next one, help show why he is missed.


Seriously, how long has it been since we've seen the actual shape of a human body, unaltered by Photoshop, in the pages of American Vogue? All the twists and overlaps are what make this picture — like the bulge in her arm that proves its supporting her weight, and the indentation the protrusion of her heel makes in her ass. And you can easily imagine these being among the first features that would be smoothed and tightened away under today's aesthetic regime.


Like they are here, in this otherwise striking cover from 2002.


Someone should make pumps like these again. They're not stupidly high, they have that perfect not-too-pointy toe, and the classic tapering heel. No hidden platform, no witchy long vamp, no 4" stiletto to negotiate walking in — just cute proportions and cute prints. Linda is saying, "Fuck yeah!"


Meisel in the 80s doing Avedon in the 50s isn't the most original of themes, but I'm a sucker for shots of women putting on their makeup and jewelry. Something about those moments of feminine toilette is so intimate and fascinating.


Shoulder-grazing ear-rings and 3 lb necklaces are fun to wear! Whee!


Never one to shy away from the unusual, for a 2006 campaign for her Puma line Nuala, the supermodel had artist Alex Katz paint her.

Christy Turlington is, of course, a lot more than a model these days. She quit the industry at the age of 25 to study comparative religion at NYU, and is currently a graduate student in public health at Columbia. Now 40 and a mother of two, Turlington is making a documentary about maternal health in developing countries. She's financing it with the money she makes from her occasional gigs, like being the next face of YSL. "I can talk about things that people in the field are afraid to bring up," says Turlington, "because their funding is tied to administrations and policy."

25 Years of Christy Turlington in Vogue [Style.com]
Beauty And Soul [Style.com]

• 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]

Karen Mulder was a blonde 5'10" Dutch teenager who shot to fame after a friend sent in pictures of her to the Elite agency's famous Elite Model Look competition. Within two years, Mulder had given up high school to work full-time for clients like Valentino, Giorgio Armani, Calvin Klein, Yves Saint Laurent, and Versace. She made the covers of British Vogue, Italian Vogue, and various international editions of Elle, among many other magazines. At 21, she bagged a multimillion-dollar multiyear contract with Guess? She was picked as one of Peter Lindbergh's iconic gaggle of leather-clad biker supermodels in American Vogue in 1991, when DUMBO was still thought of as a little dangerous.

That's Mulder second from the right, between Stephanie Seymour and Naomi Campbell. Her career, still managed by Elite, flourished through the 1990s. Mulder capitalized on her wholesome look with commercial gigs, like her two appearances in Sports Illustrated's Swimsuit Edition, and she became a Victoria's Secret model. There was a Karen Mulder doll, made by Hasbro. Mulder dated a racecar driver, she dated Prince Albert II of Monaco, she dated a real-estate developer named Jean-Yves Le Fur. They broke up, but it was still Le Fur who picked her up off the floor of her Paris apartment and called the ambulance in the winter of 2002, after Mulder attempted suicide by overdosing on pain pills.

The suicide attempt and the coma she would lie in for two days following it came after Mulder had told the press, "From the beginning, I hated being photographed. For me, it was just an assumed role, and in the end, I didn't know who I really was as a person. Everybody was saying to me, 'Hi, you're fantastic.' But inside, I felt worse from day to day." It came after she laid a formal rape complaint in France against Prince Albert. It came after she said, "My job distracted me from my worries. It enabled me not to be myself, to pretend I was someone else." It came after a notorious appearance on French television where her various claims — that men at Elite had raped her, that she had been coerced into having sex to garner better contracts, that Elite had used her and other models as sex slaves in a ring that extended through the top echelons of French society, implicating politicians, members of the police, and other top officials, that her own father had raped her, that she had been sexually abused by a family friend from the age of 2, that she had been hypnotized and raped, kidnapped and raped, and raped some more — were regarded as so potentially libelous that France 2 not only never aired the segment, but destroyed the master tape. No matter: In a series of more-or-less coherent magazine interviews, Mulder repeated most of her accusations, and added that her agency had encouraged her to use cocaine and heroin. She told the Daily Mail, "They tried to turn me into a prostitute because they thought it would be so easy. I was raped by two bookers. I reported them and they were fired. Another time I was shut in the office of [a high-profile man from the modeling world] for a whole day. All these people who betrayed me I used to love very much. Then I realized how big the conspiracy was. It brought in the government and police, who both used Elite girls. People have tried to kidnap and poison me."

Her suicide attempt came after she was packed off to Montsouris hospital and heavily sedated for five months of treatment for depression and anxiety. (Gerald Marie, the head of Elite Paris and one of the men Mulder had accused of raping her, paid.) It came after Marie was filmed on hidden camera by the BBC trying to give a 15-year-old model £300 for sex, and bragging of how many entrants to the Elite Model Look competition — average age 15 — he was going to sleep with that year. It came after Mulder's attempt at a crossover music career resulted in the release of a cover of "I Am What I Am", which peaked at number 13 on the French pop charts in the summer of 2002. It was after recanting all her rape accusations, and explaining that she was in fact dealing with the aftermath of childhood sexual abuse and had "gone overboard," that the former supermodel tried to kill herself. Since emerging from hospital, and until her arrest yesterday, Mulder has kept a low profile.

How a woman like Mulder, one of those people who journalists are always quick to say "has it all," could fall so far, so fast is not really the question that commands interest here. We all know this story: it's got drugs in it, and predatory older men, and very young women, and the abject self-consciousness of the individual whose worth is in her pictures. It's always more or less the same story, even if Mulder, with her recantations and paranoid stories of kidnapping and poison at the hands of a shadowy "they," isn't always its most credible narrator. It's the story of Wallis Franken, of Ruslana Korshunova, of Katoucha Niane.

It's the story presented in a 60 Minutes segment from 1988 that reported, according to author Ian Halperin, "about the many models who had been drugged, raped, and sexually harassed by the world's top agency owners." (Halperin characterized the segment as "shocking.") It's the story of the BBC's undercover documentary of Elite executives offering to pimp out their models for drugs. (This was seen as "alarming" and "surprising.") It's the story models like Sena Cech are telling when they talk about being coerced into sex by photographers and clients at castings and on the job. (These accounts, and model Sara Ziff's documentary that provides one vehicle for them, were described in the Observer by writer Louise France as both "shocking" and "surprising.")

What amazes even more than how little the story actually differs from telling to telling, how fundamentally the same its elements remain, is our capacity for disbelief. It takes a certain dedication to one's own credulity to insist on being "surprised," "alarmed" and "shocked" by a situation that has been the subject of interest from such under-the-radar media venues as 60 Minutes going back a generation. As a culture, we have so far managed, through every news story and blog post and exposé, to maintain an innocence of the realities of the modeling industry that is almost touching. Or nearly culpable.

Our persistent willingness to be taken aback by the notion that wealthy, powerful, older men, when left in charge of a younger, poorer, female workforce, might generally act as something less than gentlemen, is testament to the power the multibillion-dollar fashion industry wields as an expert creator of narratives. It's this attitude of disbelief that allows agency directors to claim they had no idea some of their models were using cocaine and that some of their bookers were dealing it to them, or that some photographers like to sleep with models and some bookers encourage models to go along with it. Our endless capacity for shock is what gets Karen Mulder sedated and lets Gerald Marie retain, to this day, his position as head of Elite Paris.

The longer we keep up our charade of disbelief, the less the industry will change. One of the most chilling scenes in Sara Ziff's documentary, Picture Me, didn't make the final cut. A model was talking about a photo shoot that took place she was 16, with what Ziff has described as "a very, very famous photographer, probably one of the world's top names." When the girl left the studio to go to the bathroom between shots, the photographer cornered her in the hall. Then he started touching her dress. "But you're used to this," Ziff reported he said. "People touch you all the time. Your collar, or your breasts. It's not strange to be handled like that." Then the world-famous photographer put his hand to her crotch and forced his fingers into her vagina. The teenager, who had never even kissed anyone before, just froze and waited for the man to walk away. They finished the shoot, and she never told anyone. The day before the New York premiere, she begged for the scene to be cut.

But more and more models are speaking out. (I have.) If only we can dispense with our "shock" at what they have to say, perhaps this is an industry where some realistic chance for improvement remains.

Supermodel Karen Mulder Arrested For Threatening To Attack Plastic Surgeon
"We Need To See You Without Your Bra, He Told Me. I Was 14. I Didn't Even Have Breasts Yet."

Earlier: The Not-Rape Epidemic: The Modeling Industry Is Anything But Immune
Suicide And Abuse In Fashion's Top Echelon
Ruslana Korshynova, No Longer Anonymous

• How cool are these Charlie Brown New Balance sneakers? Cool enough that we wish they weren't just for kids. [WWD]
• A London artist has created Kate Moss and Agyness Deyn paper dolls which look frighteningly like the real thing. [Pipeline.Refinery29]

• Your daily dose of the horrible: American Apparel shiny leggings for children. [Fashionista]
• Police in France have arrested 25 suspects in relation to last December's $118 million jewel heist at Harry Winston. Members of the alleged ring had been under police surveillance for months, and when arrangements had been made between the gang and some prospective buyers, the authorities swooped in. In addition to the 25 arrests, police found weapons and $345,000 in cash. [AP]
• Nicole Richie swears that her next collection for her House of Harlow 1960 jewelry line will be completely different than the first. In fact, it'll be "focusing more on old English, equestrian and more sophisticated looks" than the flea-market-inspired first trip out the gate. Richie's shoe and accessory lines, meanwhile, will be ready for Spring 2010. [People]
• Dolce & Gabbana, newly internet-savvy, uploaded Fall 2009 Dolce & Gabbana and D&G campaigns to its just-launched website. Steven Klein shot Mariacarla Boscono, Edita Vilkeviciute, and Heidi Mount at a casino for Dolce & Gabbana, and Mario Testino shot Katie Fogarty, Sara Blomqvist, Stephanie Rad, Hanna Rundlof, and Ragnhild Jevne for D&G. Heidi Mount also wears a giant pink Margiela-inspired fur and poses like an ape in one. [Fashionologie]
• The New Yorker sure knows how to give a bad restaurant review. Taking in the "sterile" and "unexuberant" fare at Armani's restaurant-within-a-store on Fifth Avenue, Lauren Collins writes: "At the bar, a manager and a bartender argued, loudly. The dispute seemed to be about a pen. Their passion did not extend to a pair of women who were waiting for a table, or, once the women were seated, to their full glasses of wine, paid for and awaiting transferral." [NYr]
• A historic Christian Science church on Park Avenue took a look at its dwindling congregation and finances, and its stellar real estate, and do the obvious thing: allow a catering company to use its building to host events, in return for necessary repairs, money, and continued access for regularly scheduled services. Even though the kind of events we're talking about here — shindigs with Sir Paul McCartney, Oscar de la Renta runway shows — are hardly Bushwick artist loft keggers, the Park Avenue set has gone all guerrilla in its opposition to the church's activities. One neighbour even parked her car in the middle of the avenue to block the access of de la Renta's show's guests. Is it too much to hope she was towed? [NYTimes]
• A maker of hypoallergenic beauty products has decided to associate its line with the 11th birthday of Malia Obama. Tacky. [US News]
• Natural cosmetics purveyor Dr. Hauschka is apparently swamped by demand — but, because of quality control concerns and its business philosophy based on the ideas of Rudolf Steiner (no, really), it's unwilling to expand too quickly. [Reuters]
• The website for MDLR, Moises de la Renta's fashion line, is now live. [MDLR]
• French documentarian Loïc Prigent, who made the excellent Marc Jacobs & Louis Vuitton and Signé Chanel, about the putting together of a Chanel couture collection, has a new series showing on Sundance starting September 10. Prigent's camera follows Sonia Rykiel, Proenza Schouler, Karl Lagerfeld, and Jean-Paul Gaultier in the last 36 hours before their respective runway shows. (It's a good thing Prigent is sensitive to the dramatic tension of a smoke break, because there'll be a lot of them.) Rykiel's show is her 40th anniversary extravaganza in Paris last October, Prigent finds Proenza Schouler and Fendi, designed by Lagerfeld, at the Fall/Winter 2009 collections of this Spring, and he'll catch up with Gaultier at couture week in Paris next month. I'm marking my freaking calendar. [Glamour]
• Looks like there's been a breakdown at Alessandro Dell'Acqua. The designer, whose namesake label has been owned since 2003 by Cherry Grove, an Italian corporation that produces high-end clothing, released an open letter informing the fashion world that he, Alessandro Dell'Acqua, would like to publicly distance himself from the Alessandra Dell'Acqua men's Spring/Summer or women's Pre-Spring collections, the former of which is about to walk in Milan, because he hasn't been given the opportunity to do anything beyond submit sketches to Cherry Grove. Alessandro Dell'Acqua lost his job with the Italian house Malo after holding it for less than a year following Itierre's bankruptcy; this angry letter reads like a gold-plated invitation to be fired from his own label, too. [FWD]
• Once every media outlet had dutifully covered the "outrage" over the Steven Meisel-shot Calvin Klein "foursome" billboard in SoHo, the brand replaced it with a tamer shot of a girl in a red bikini. Racked has a picture. [GoG]
• Well, lookie here: a male model who admits to having to maintain a diet to be catwalk skinny. [NYTimes]
• Everyone knows Abercrombie & Fitch has been struggling in the recession, and losing market share to lower-priced competitors like Aéropostale and The Buckle. Besides quietly breaking its rule against discounting its own stock and closing its Ruehl chain, the company hadn't exactly said what it was planning to do to reverse the tide that saw its May same-store sales slide a whopping 28% — until now. The proffered solution? Two hundred and ten store leases, which comprise some 20% of the chain's total, are up for renewal over the next two years. Abercrombie thinks it might save money by not renewing all of them. Revolutionary. [TS]
• A three-story Adidas factory in India was engulfed by flames on Tuesday night. There were no casualties. [HindustanTimes]
• Talbots may have had to cut 370 jobs, eliminate its 401(k) matching contributions, and suspend its quarterly stock dividend, but that won't stop it paying CEO Trudy Sullivan $1.2 million this year. Richard O'Connell, the struggling company's real estate and legal executive, will also get a 23% raise, to $500,000. [TS]
• Gen Art, an organization which supports emerging fashion talent in the U.S. and has helped launch the careers of such names as Vena Cava and Zac Posen, is in a bad spot financially. Already reeling from layoffs, the founders hope to raise $250,000 in ticket sales and donations for their 15th anniversary party tomorrow night. Gen Art needs another $500,000 after that to continue its operations. [WWD]

[New York, June 17. Image via Getty]

NEW YORK - JUNE 17: A woman stands by a crosswalk near a Calvin Klein billboard on the side of a building June 17, 2009 in the SoHo neighborhood of New York City. The provocative ad featuring a topless model and three young men has provoked controversy in the city. (Photo by Chris Hondros/Getty Images)

• 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]

• Rodarte's Laura and Kate Mulleavy scooped up the Women's Wear award at last night's CFDAs. In another surprise, the menswear prize was a tie between Calvin Klein's Italo Zucchelli and Band of Outsiders' Scott Sternberg. [WWD]

• Having lost the women's wear prize to the Mulleavy sisters, and the accessories award to Jack McCullough and Lazaro Hernandez of Proenza Schouler, Marc Jacobs won only the International Award, which had been pre-announced. The consolation of already having a bunch of CFDAs to his name must have nipped any sour grapes in the bud. "I'm the luckiest guy in the world," he said during an emotional acceptance speech. "I have two amazing jobs and I work with the greatest people." Fellow special award winner Michelle Obama, accepted hers via a pre-taped video. [Style.com]
• Michelle Obama's husband, the President, is now considered by other men to be the most stylish man in the world. [Reuters]
• Jacobs, of course, still has a wedding to look forward to. The designer plans to wed his Brazilian fiancé in Provincetown, Massachusetts, but the date is a closely guarded secret. Some Provincetowners were sure the wedding even happened last weekend. [WWD]
• Stop the presses: Dolce & Gabbana are lowering their prices by 10-20%, without hurting quality, simply by eliminating waste from their production chain. This leaves Versace and who else clinging to pre-recession pricing? [WWD]
• Katy Perry, born Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson, has long maintained she wants to start a clothing label. So she's doing her due diligence by having her lawyers threaten an Australian designer named Katie Perry, born Katie Perry. Perry, who has been in business two years and trades under her own name, says lawyers for the pop star, "asked me to give up the trademark, withdraw sale of my clothes, withdraw any advertising and any websites, and sign that I will not in the future use a similar trademark to Katy Perry. I pretty much burst into tears." Smooth move, Hudson. [News.com.au]
• The 25th anniversary of London Fashion Week this September might just be a big enough event that Anna Wintour will have to squeeze it into her schedule. In addition to Matthew Williamson and Burberry confirming plans to show in London for the first time in years, the 17 winners of TopShop's sponsorship for the NewGen line-up have just been confirmed. And they include a raft of exciting up-and-coming names — Mark Fast, Mary Katrantzou, Peter Pilotto — and, uh, Henry Holland. Is Agyness's BFF taking a spot from those who might warrant it, or is Holland honestly so hard up he still can't show under his own steam? [Telegraph]
• The graduate fashion shows in London last weekend were apparently awash with talent. Says the Independent's writer, "Anatomical imagery was another trope used to the same effect, both unnervingly and with a sense of humour. Central St. Martin's graduate Kye showed a sweet knitted jumper decorated with a to-scale representation of the model's digestive system." Funny, where have we seen that before? [Independent]
• Crombie, the moderately priced British suit label, might save Aquascutum from bankruptcy, after all. [WWD]
• The Victoria & Albert museum is having a hard time sourcing clothes for its planned John Galliano retrospective because so many of the garments desired have been worn past the point of museum display quality. That's got to make Galliano feel pretty good. [Fashionista]
• In further evidence of British fashion supremacy, Stephen Jones has made Jasmine Guinness an absolutely superb, breathtaking hat. It looks like two sundials fighting, beautifully. [Telegraph]
• Gisele's May cover of Vanity Fair was the mag's worst-selling issue on the newsstand in almost two years. The Brazilian supermodel's April cover of Harper's Bazaar was its worst-seller since Drew Barrymore made the cover last November. While I personally don't want to read about Gisele in Vanity Fair any more than I do Paris Hilton, this isn't exactly a ringing endorsement of model covers for fashion magazines. [NY Observer]
• Jessica Simpson's swimwear, hitting stores this December, will retail at $15.50-$25 for tops and bottoms, and up to $58 for cover-ups. [WWD]
• Animal-rights activism has hurt the fur trade significantly in the U.S. and Western Europe — but emerging markets, like China and Russia, have picked up the slack in sales. The industry as a whole still had revenues of nearly $12 billion in 2004. 85% of the world's fur currently comes from farms, not wild trapping, which might be considered progress, depending on your position. [SciAm]
• Executive Vice President of Prada Carlo Mazzi confirmed the Financial Times' anonymously sourced story that the company was in negotiations to restructure its debt. "It is true. It's the normal activity of the company, the normal rescheduling of finance," said Mazzi. Prada has a total debt of around 1.1 billion Euros, but the amount under discussion is $483.9 million owed by the holding company to two main banks, and set to mature this summer. Prada would like an extra year or two with the money. [Reuters]
• The re-opened auction for the bankrupt Filene's Basement chain was won by a joint bid from Syms, the New Jersey-based discount chain, and Vornado Realty, the landlord of Filene's flagship in Boston Crossing. Syms/Vornado's $62.4 million offer was accepted even though opponents Crown realty and the Men's Wearhouse bid $64.9 million, because Syms/Vornado's bid included more Filene's stores. [WWD]
• New Balance is planning a marketing campaign touting its domestic manufacturing. A quarter of its shoes are either made or assembled in the U.S. [AdAge]

• In your daily back-to-bed moment of despair for Western culture, Heidi Montag has become a bathing suit designer. [E! Online]
• Elle MacPherson reportedly shops at Toys in Babeland. Unless there's some other "toy" store near Schiller's. [FWD]

• Claire Robinson, a former model and Canadian beauty queen, is suing her former acting agent, Jack Gilardi, and management company, Los Angeles's ICM. Robinson alleges that Gilardi's friend John Rockwell raped her in 2008, and that Gilardi himself touched her inappropriately in the back of a limousine. Robinson's class-action suit also will challenge the legality of an entertainment industry practice known as hip-pocketing — which I actually had to Google, because as it turns out there is an indignity that models are not subjected to — and will seek to designate ICM, one of the world's biggest talent agencies, under the RICO statute. Robinson claims that being hip-pocketed left her and others sexually vulnerable to their agents. She also says Gilardi and ICM sent her on fake auditions, or auditions for jobs for which they knew she was not qualified. In addition to actual damages for what she says is her ruined career, Robinson and any women who join her class action are seeking punitive damages to the tune of 10% of ICM's gross earnings for one year. ICM denied any and all wrongdoing through a spokeswoman. [AP]
• Calvin Klein finally won approval to tear down his 50,000 square foot castle in the Hamptons. The $5 million beach behemoth was originally built as a much smaller structure in the 1920s, and then renovated and expanded into something that looks like a Disneyland ride you'd take on shrooms by an eccentric junk-bonds billionaire in the 80s. Klein's new home will be a comparatively modest 17,000 square feet. [Newsday]
• Blind items: "Which unhinged, avant-garde downtown NYC designer is rumored to be in the running for a top job at Escada? Talk about non-traditional casting." And: "Which super-famous European supermodel fired her NYC apartment-sitter when she came home after an international job and found a condom at the foot of her bed?" [Stylelist]
• Whoa. Marvel Comics is creating a series called Models Inc., featuring some of their more fashionable superheroes — plus a cartoon Tim Gunn. He saves fashion from evildoers. [NY Times]
• Aboriginal artist Gloria Petyarr has designed a scarf for Hermès. Petyarr, who lives in a remote community 250 km from Alice Springs and has no access to a telephone, was paid a "substantial fee" according to an Australian gallerist known to the artist, and would earn royalties from sales of the scarf for 75 years. Her design features medicinal plants used by Aboriginal peoples. [Reuters]
• The bankrupt men's wear giant Hartmarx, which owns the brands Hickey Freeman and Hart Schaffner Marx (Barack Obama's suit brand), may have found a savior in the London-based private investment firm Emerisque. Emerisque is said to be offering to keep the chain in operation and give 80 cents on the dollar to Wells Fargo, Hartmarx's $100 million-plus creditor. Union leaders at Hartmarx's Chicago factory have threatened to sit in if Wells Fargo accepts a buyer who will liquidate the business. Negotiations are ongoing. [NY Times]
• Ann Taylor is dabbling in a little self-blame for poor sales results. CEO Kay Krill described some of the chain's troubles as "self-inflicted," saying "the product assortment was not compelling or relevant." Beats the old "it's the economy" excuse. And they're revamping their product lines to address it. [WSJ]
• Limited Brands suffered a 92% plunge in first-quarter earnings. Sales dropped 10% overall, and same-store sales fell 7%, which means that new stores opened in the past year actually did worse than their established counterparts. The company offered little explanation for the disastrous results in its one-page quarterly statement. [The Street]
• Andreas Ortiz, the man who runs Technical Garment USA, a small garment factory in the fashion district which was raided by the New York State Department of Labor last month, denies his business is a sweatshop. Ortiz is accused of failing to pay overtime and violating legal employee rest times. Two employees interviewed in Ortiz's presence claimed to earn $10 an hour, and to be paid on time. [NY Times]
• Agyness Deyn, new face of Uniqlo, is in this cute ad spot for the Japanese brand. [Grazia]