• Gisele Bundchen has given birth to a baby boy. Husband Tom Brady has a two-year-old son with actress Bridget Moynihan. [People]
• A Chantilly lace LBD worn by Audrey Hepburn in How To Steal A Million sold for $97,000. [AP]

• Naomi Campbell might do a modeling reality show in the U.K. Then she and Tyra would really have something to fight about. "Naomi has been approached with an offer, which we are talking about and discussing," says her spokesperson, somewhat redundantly. [UK Vogue]
• Executives at Maison Martin Margiela have confirmed that the Belgian designer, famous for his closely guarded privacy and his avant-garde designs, has left the house he founded and later sold to Diesel. Margiela's presence or absence at the house had long been a subject of speculation, with most fashion commentators, including us, operating on the understanding that Margiela the person was gone, but this confirmation comes with a twist: Diesel will not be hiring anyone to take Margiela's place. (Haider Ackermann and Raf Simons had been mentioned as potential replacements.) The design work will continue to be spearheaded by the 28-strong creative team, saving the house the expense of a "name" creative director. Will this work? Fashion design is a collective effort — all designers rely heavily on their creative teams for the generation, not just the execution, of ideas — but fashion observers yearn for an identifiable individual (even one who is rarely seen in public) to pin their criticism on. [IHT]
• Yesterday morning, police executed raids on 30 businesses on Canal Street in Chinatown, long a hotbed of counterfeiting. The Cut snapped a photo of what a shop without its imitation Coach and Prada goods looks like: basically a particleboard shell with racks and cases. "It's time to take back the streets of New York," said a police officer. Could this be the start of a crackdown? [The Cut]
• The counterfeit goods seized, including perfumes and handbags, filled an entire trailer. The sting was the result of a month long investigation carried out by the police and a private firm called Counter Tech. Officers made controlled buys of the imitation goods, which bore the trademarks of companies like Cartier, Gucci, Tiffany, and Chanel, and then used those goods to obtain search warrants. Investigators noted that during the five weeks they observed Canal Street, there seemed to be more foot traffic in the stalls than ever before. [WWD]
• Apparently pointing out that Michelle Obama "is not the next Jackie O" is enough to count as evil, unthinkable "sniping." Designer Douglas Hannant allegedly said this perfectly reasonable thing — Michelle Obama and Jackie Kennedy-Onassis are different women who had different roles in public life even if they shared a position, and all the Obama/Kennedy comparisons are a tad trite — and people gasped. [P6]
• Vogue is doing a shoot with fashion bloggers. Somehow our invitation must have gotten lost in the post! There are allegedly seven bloggers involved, and only three of them have been named: Tommy Ton of Jak & Jil, BryanBoy, and Todd Selby of The Selby. Who are the others? Garance Doré recently mentioned losing weight thanks to Anna Wintour in New York, and Tavi Gevinson certainly merits inclusion. Seeing the women behind Refinery29 would also be great (although they were just in Elle). But how much do you wanna bet it'll just be Julia Frakes and Sea of Shoes again? [Fashionista]
• Speaking of Tavi: She plays a prominent role in this video about the Rodarte for Target collection. You won't spend a better 2:37 today than watching Tavi interview Elijah Wood and Jason Schwartzman at the Rodarte show, or seeing the Target ad shoot in surprisingly picturesque North Dakota. [Style.com]
• And Tavi is now writing for Harper's Bazaar. [WWD]
• Just what you needed for the holidays: A $3,000 Judith Leiber Hello Kitty clutch. [Racked]
• Tamara Mellon went out to the premiere of A Single Man after trouncing her mother, Ann Yeardre, in a legal battle. Mellon, the owner of Jimmy Choo, won a $10 million settlement against Yeardre after some Jimmy Choo shares were mistakenly transferred to Yeardre, and she refused to give them back. [P6]
• The spring Louis Vuitton campaign has leaked. Lara Stone's position, reclining on dark, mossy grass, with white doves and, duh, handbags, looks like a friendlier revision of editorials done by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott, one earlier this year for Vogue and the other in 2007, for W. The ads were shot by Steven Meisel. [Blackbook]
• After auctioning off all his and Yves Saint Laurent's artworks and household goods, Pierre Bergé is putting their 5,400 square foot Paris apartment on the market. It has a garden roughly equal in size, and is expected to sell for around $30 million. [WWD]
• Curious about who the most powerful 25 people in British fashion are? Well now you can find out. Good to know the British Fashion Council's on top of this stuff. [Telegraph]
• Carolina Herrera is opening her first freestanding store on Madison Avenue. [WWD]

• Lindsay Lohan's first collection for Ungaro has been derided by yet another industry heavyweight: Emanuel Ungaro himself. The designer, who sold the business that bears his name in 2005, says Lohan's work was "a disaster" that left him "furious." [Independent]

• Glamour editor Cindi Leive says the magazine has booked plus-size models for stories for every issue through February, including (relatively more prestigious) fashion and beauty spreads. "One of the plus-size models who was featured in our original story is in one of our two major fashion features in December, and looks amazing," added Leive. Could that be Crystal Renn? Or one of the other gaggle of naked lovelies the ladymag featured in November? [The Cut]
• Christopher Bailey is no longer the Burberry creative director. He is Burberry's chief creative officer, and don't you forget it. [WWD]
• Further layoffs at Zac Posen are rumored to be imminent. Since he eliminated his PR director on Monday, the task of handling publicity has been taken up by Posen's mom. Gucci is also said to be mulling serious layoffs. [NYDN]
• Marc Jacobs, maker of Louis Vuitton Everything: "The kennel was a bit of a joke, really." [ToL]
• Jason Wu loves to cook and bake, but macaroons had so far eluded his range of expertise. No more! Food & Wine arranged a special lesson for the designer with François Payard. It'll be the subject of an upcoming feature in the magazine. [Grub St]
• Not only did positive results for the last quarter not boost Crocs' share price — because investors took note that the surplus was largely the result of some kind of one-time tax bonus — but the maker of hideous shoes has trouble on the legal front, too. Porsche is suing Crocs over its use of the brand Cayman, which Porsche holds as a trademark in Germany. Apparently Porsche thinks there might be some confusion over the $29.99 Cayman sandal, and a $51,000 Porsche Cayman. [Footnoted]
• Prabal Gurung designed a festive red dress with poufy asymmetrical shoulders for Oprah to wear on the cover of the December issue of her magazine. Ellen, in a white suit, strikes a pose next to her fellow talkshow host. Gurung calls Oprah "a role model, a mentor, a leader and a constant source of inspiration." [People]
• Jean-Paul Gaultier's collection for Target will, he says, "shock parents, shock teachers." Perhaps not as much as his unwitting floor show at the Standard hotel, which has windows overlooking the High Line and Chelsea. "So, I am in the bedroom where it is an exhibitionist event!" says Gaultier. "I did not know that, so I did exhibition without knowing what I was doing. I did not know people could see. But, nobody was looking. It's quite hilarious, it's excellent." [The Cut]
• Heidi Klum will be the face of Ann Taylor's holiday collection. The company is struggling to reinvent itself after season upon season of declining sales and clothes that even the CEO has admitted were lacking in the design department. Photographer Peter Lindbergh and supermodel Klum are, apparently, part of the rejuvenation plan. [People]
• Someone is licensing John Lennon's artwork for a clothing collection. Imagine that! [UPI]
• Weirdest fashion story ever? German Vogue has an editorial featuring Lost's Jorge Garcia and Christie Brinkley. Bruce Weber shot it in Montauk. [Fashionista]
• Wow. Brazilian Vogue might just be worse than American Vogue. [MadeinBrazil]
• Adam Lippes has foot-in-mouth disease. After previously telling reporters that "it's rare to find an intern — especially one from a fashion school — that has good style," two of his workers came to him to suggest that he might, you know, apologize. He pooh-poohed them ("I was like, 'I don't mean THESE interns!'"), then reconsidered. He assembled the intern crowd, and told them "I just meant, like, fashion students." They seemed skeptical. "Meanwhile, one of them is wearing silver boots up to here and is a guy. 'Not you! Those boots are great.' But it was fine." Sure it was. The cherry on top: "Some of my interns dress fantastically." [The Cut]
• Diesel, which stopped selling its jeans in Macy's in 2005 to up its brand value, is reportedly in negotiations to sell a lower-priced line exclusively through the mega-retailer. "If they keep going this route, they'll end up like Levi's," says one person inside the company. [NYPost]
• Meanwhile, Macy's forecasts its same-store sales to fall 1-2% for the fourth quarter. Shares fell 3.4% in the day's trading. [Reuters]
• If you've ever wanted to experience the world of malodorous anguish and foot pain that is fashion blogging, here's your chance to submit to a humiliating public competition and vote! [Grazia]
• The Shophound thinks the clerks at New York's new Banana Republic are way too friendly. [Shophound]
• American Apparel's quarterly profits rose 83%, to $4.2 million, but investors aren't buying it. The stock price sank 4.6%, to $2.49. [NYPost]
• Italian cashmere producer Brunello Cucinelli runs a factory with long lunch breaks, no timeclocks, and posted "rules" are quotes from philosophers and writers. He thinks he can afford to be both a great boss and a good businessman, and his company's revenues for this year are forecast to reach 154 million Euros, which is some 7% greater than last year, even with the recession. [Reuters]
• Talbots has reportedly hired outside consultants to help the company, which has weathered five quarters of successive losses, refinance $225 million in debt. [NYPost]

• Handbag model Lily Allen performed live at the farming-themed, hay-strewn Chanel show this morning. [Fashionista]
• Claudia Schiffer has formally announced she will no longer do any runway modeling. She plans to fill her downtime with a trip to Iraq. [Sun]

• Marc Jacobs' and Viacom's flacks have denied the reports that Marc Jacobs and Lorenzo Martone are to appear on a gay version of the Real Housewives for the Logo network. [CityFile]
• Vera Wang, however, says bring on the cameras. "I'm doing a TV show. It's coming. I don't know when, or how, but it's coming," said the designer at the National Arts Awards. Wang, seated at the table of collector Julie Minskoff, said she doesn't buy art because she can't afford it. But if money were no object, "I would buy Tom Sachs, because I like Hello Kitty. And the guy who does all the pills, because I take them all." Should make for some interesting viewing, then. [StyleFile]
• A Puma branded mobile phone: It's happening sometime next spring. [WWD]
• Ever phlegmatic Vogue editor Grace Coddington, on fans now recognizing her in the street: "It's probably a short-lived thing. There will be another fashion movie and another person who comes out from that." [Grazia]
• During the Givenchy show, someone stole Coddington's purse from her chauffeured car while the driver apparently napped. [NYDN]
• Prince turned up at the Yves Saint Laurent show in a gold sequined suit he designed himself. [WWD]
• The only odd thing about this sweet article on the art show Rodarte is curating in Paris: who is this documentary crew that's mentioned in passing, and why have they been following the Mulleavy sisters for four years? [NYTimes]
• Actress Ashley Judd is releasing a perfume, of which she says, "Beloved Red Rose captures the essence of love." Not that she'd be an objective source on that or anything. [People]
• Meanwhile, Tamara Mellon's Jimmy Choo has signed a 12-year fragrance licensing contract. So expect a Jimmy Choo scent soon. [WWD]
• The reason Celine had a lag of 13 months between confirming Phoebe Philo as its new creative director and actually giving her a catwalk show is apparently not because the LVMH overlords' were given pause by anything Philo did — it's simply that 2009 was marked off as "Transition Year" in Marco Gobbetti's calendar, and spring 2010, well, that's a whole ball game. [Reuters]
• French Connection is closing it s21 stores in Japan. The retailer lost $16.8 million in the first six months of this year. [WWD]
• Cher and Bob Mackie are at it again, creating costumes out of rhinestones, nude tricot, and feathers for the star's Caesar's Palace show in Vegas. What else would you expect? [People]
• Juergen Teller is working on a book of nude photographs of Raquel Zimmerman and Charlotte Rampling at the Louvre. [WWD]
• Ellen Tracy is taking its sportswear slightly downmarket. From this spring onwards, its wares will cost $50-$149. The brand has signed an exclusive distributorship deal with Macy's. [Crain's]
• For those who wish they could be Don Draper: A limited run of 250 suits inspired by Mad Men will be sold at Brooks Brothers starting October 19th. [WWD]
• Pierre Bergé, Yves Saint Laurent's life and business partner, says he received death threats and was accompanied by bodyguards following his decision to auction two Qing dynasty bronzes from his and Saint Laurent's art collection that China wanted repatriated. [Reuters]
• Chef Marcus Samuelsson, television chef Giada de Laurentiis, and Zac Posen are cooking this weekend for a $325-a-head event at the Food Network New York City Wine & Food Festival. Samuelsson muses on the similarities between professional cooking and fashion design: "I've been backstage at a fashion show, and it's like a kitchen. It's a very similar energy." Posen, a home cook, says Martha Stewart and Jacques Pépin saved his life. "I was a very depressed middle-school student and I watched [those shows] avidly, and then Martha Stewart changed my life. Her first cookbook [Entertaining] was given to my mom, but I took it." WWD even re-prints Samuelsson's maple-glazed salmon and couscous recipe. [WWD]
• Renzo Rosso, the Diesel founder who owns Maison Martin Margiela, has confirmed that the rarely seen Belgian designer, rumored to have departed his namesake house, has been gone for "a long time." Instead, Margiela is "here but not here. We have a new fresh design team on board." This season's collection, just shown in Paris, was rated a disappointment by the fashion press, who would like to see a successor named. Haider Ackerman and Raf Simons are rumored to be under consideration, but anyone named would have to design the label anonymously. [Vogue UK]
• Roland Mouret: Just another designer broadcasting his show live on the Internet. [WWD]
• Some Very Important Designer forgot his ticket to Viktor & Rolf and nearly had to stand with the hoi polloi! [Fashionista]
• The Clean Clothes Campaign is pressuring Europe's biggest retailers, like Tesco, Aldi, and Carrefour, to institute a common guaranteed minimum wage for garment workers across Asia. Its lofty goal? Assuring that the people who make the clothes we wear are paid $475 a month and get a 48-hour workweek. You can e-mail retailers via the Campaign's website. [WWD]

Rumors have been swirling that Margiela the individual — who sold his business to Diesel in 2002 — would step down since at least last October. They intensified when the label showed its fall/winter collection in Paris this March, which critics roundly panned. "Just about everything at the show tonight — the hokey starlight projections on the ceiling, the empty design techniques, the use of beautiful young models instead of older, interesting-looking chicks — said that Mr. Margiela is no longer involved in his label, as editors have speculated for some time," wrote Cathy Horyn, before calling the actual clothes "home-lab stuff." Style.com's Sarah Mower said, "In the absence of any definitive corporate statement, the only test of whether Margiela is still in the house must be down to whether the inimitable dialogue of excellence, intellectual challenge, and wit is still there in his show. Safe, yet very sad to say, this time it was gone." (Margiela has the lucky distinction, I suppose, of being the only designer who can never make a bad collection, at least as long as the top taste influencers are willing to generously assume the off seasons are not his work.)

But in fact there was a definitive corporate statement. The executives at Diesel have flatly denied the rumors, Renzo Rosso saying last year that he "cannot imagine" Margiela leaving, and Giovanni Pungetti assuring us all this spring that "he's still in position." Pungetti confirmed, however, that the designer spends increasingly little time at the company's headquarters. "He's concentrating on more strategic projects. He's still working with us in the key decisions of the company. This is the spirit [Martin] wanted to create; that's his philosophy. He's more consulting with us than designing every product. The team is more Margiela than him."

Margiela's work has always played with issues of identity — he traditionally masks his models' faces for shows, and his only label is a numbered white cotton tag attached with pick stitches to his garments. In the mid-90s, Margiela stopped talking to the press and being photographed. The last known picture of him, above, is from 1997. His label has always been the product of a white-lab-coated design team (which Margiela leads — or led). Margiela has never stepped onto his runway to take a bow at the close of a show; all communication with the house is done in writing, and the communiqués are composed in the third-person-plural and signed "Maison Martin Margiela." Until Diesel bought the company, it wasn't even in the phonebook. Margiela has long concentrated on being the invisible designer: now the question, and the headwater of these persistent rumors is, how can we actually tell when someone who for so long has suppressed all the usual outward signs of being a designer stops designing? It's not like he's going to tweet it.

Edward Buchanan at JC Report contends that Margiela is backing away from his label out of a sense of disenchantment with Diesel's marketing of the brand. Diesel widened Margiela's distribution, leveraged the brand-name into arenas like home furnishings, and sales have climbed by double figure percentages even into the recession. But the Italian conglomerate's advertising-drenched culture is at odds with Margiela's studied, blank, anti-individualist ethos. If the design associate quoted by Buchanan as saying that Margiela has "not been present" since last season, that sounds like as definitive a statement as we might expect. (Assuming, of course, that the designer meant "present at the company" and not just "present at the office.") Fashion will miss Margiela's widely influential designs; he was doing the shoulder pads that turned up on Marc Jacobs' Fall/Winter runway three seasons ago, the human-hair wig coats from the last collection which Margiela is widely believed to have had a hand in have spawned a whole slew of furry imitators this season, and every time I see a pair of True Religion jeans, with their wide-set twin needle stitching and oversized rivets, I think of Margiela's playful deconstruction of those details in his collections going back decades.

Rumor has it that Raf Simons — who is safely, and for all appearances, happily — ensconced in a three-year contract at Jil Sander, and former Swiss Textiles Award-winner Haider Ackermann are among the candidates Diesel is considering as a replacement.

More Secrecy At The House Of Margiela [JC Report]
A Master Class With Lanvin And Dior [NY Times]
Maison Martin Margiela FW 2009 Review [Style.com]
Fashion World Studies Margiela's Looks And His Next Move [NY Times]
More Margiela, Less Martin [WWD]

• A celeb designer we could actually get behind: Helen Mirren! If given a line for Marks & Spencer, she says she'd call it, "DWS: Dresses With Sleeves." [Telegraph]
• Meanwhile, addressing the crucial shortage of celebrity fragrances, Patrick Dempsey launches "Unscripted," replete with "lavender top notes, fig mid notes, and patchouli finish." Quoth the Can't Buy Me Love star, “Sometimes people are scared off by patchouli, but I think most people secretly like it!” Think again, mister. [Fashion Week Daily]
• Brit presenter Alexa Chung: "I stopped modelling because it was just so stifling. It is very hard, when something is your passion, to be controlled and told how to do it and what to wear." Um, exactly which part was she "passionate" about? [Telegraph]
• Vogue editor-at-XXL Andre Leon Talley is sporting a rhinestone-bedazzled "Obama" hat, overcoat. President-elect backs away slowly. [WSJ]

• Michael Jackson is auctioning off his iconic "Billie Jean" glove! The embattled King of Pop must be, ahem, embattled. [WWLTV]
• While we have no idea whether or not Michelle would actually wear Khuraira's new bronze "Lady Obama" lipstick, she'd probably approve of a percentage of profits going to a breast cancer charity. [Nylon]
• Victoria Beckham's dresses are selling like gangbusters stateside! [WWD]
• Maybe it's because Posh has her design priorities: easy access. "I knew I would spend a lot on the best-quality zips because, like many women, I’ve had my share of crappy zips. I wanted a zip that undoes from both ends because then you can either put the dress on over your head or, if you don’t want to mess up your hair, you can step into it. And also, you know, going to the loo wouldn’t be this whole big palaver." [The Sun]
• Conde Nast's new odds-beating Love mag has a secret blog. [Fashionista]
• Celebs are all about odd-looking custom knits. [Telegraph]
• Speaking of bespoke: Will Savile Row's custom tailors be a recession casualty? [Independent]
• Meanwhile, mild winters spell doom for Russia's fur industry; probably still spells doom for animals. [Reuters]
• Also hurting: the overseas factories who supply U.S. stores. [FT]
• Ugh. Theory lays off 50. [WWD]
• Oscar de la Renta, however, has hired 15! [Fashion Week Daily]
• As we suspected, the Leger bandage dress is apparently impossible to eat in. [Daily Mail]
• Conversely, sales of men's XL clothes are way up in England. [Telegraph]
• Fashionistas are pissed that Marc Jacobs has canceled his annual holiday party. But could he really top last year's camel toe? [WWD]
• Rich Parisienne scores some haute couture bargain. "It must be because of the crisis everybody is talking about." [Reuters]
• They say YSL's art collection is good. Judge for yourselves! [Vanity Fair]
• Given that Nike's collaborating with APC, you know the resulting sneakers will be chic, simple, and way out of our price range. [VogueUK]
• "Have you seen a toddler? They're all bums and tums. But if you look at a mannequin of a toddler, it's a little shrunken adult body, like a little alien. If you're making clothes and using that as the model, it's not going to work." That's why Janice Wang makes realistic fit mannequins. [FT]
• Save the planet, celeb style! "The event not only showed off McDonald’s exquisite pendants featuring pavé diamond bears on top of geodes, but also raised awareness for Conservation International, an organization that protects the Ursus Maritimus as well as other endangered species." [WWD]
• New "invisible panties" are way less sexy, more practical than they sound! [Daily Mail]
• When you remember that awful urine-drinking Diesel campaign, it's no shocker that the film for their new kids' line is totally freaky: "The finale is unnerving, as the whole cast—bathed in an unearthly, almost hellish glow—start screaming. " [AdWeek]
• Mario Testino's new Burberry ads, featuring moddles in a plant nursery, is somewhat less alarming. [WWD]

• Newly-minted Louis Vuitton designer Sofia Coppola's road was not an easy one. "At the age when Marie-Antoinette was facing the rigid etiquette of the court of Versailles, the 15-year-old Coppola was working as an intern at Chanel in Paris, a city that her parents had always loved." No wonder, then, that "Coppola drew on a well of personal experience for the accessories. A gilded wedge ankle-strap sandal (€500) was stirred by the memory of her mother's Yves Saint Laurent shoes in the 1970s." We love a rags to riches story. [IHT]
• What Not To Wear good cop Clinton Kelly has thrown his hat into the competitive fabulosity ring. "In Freakin’ Fabulous: How to Dress, Speak, Behave, Eat, Drink, Entertain, Decorate, and Generally Be Better Than Everyone Else, Kelly begins by taking the reader through his long journey toward “fabulousness,” which started prepuberty. 'While other kids on the elementary school playground were trading baseball cards and playing kickball, I was silently debating whether to spend my first paycheck on Italian suede driving shoes or on a cashmere coat,' he writes." [WWD]
• Designers won't loan gowns to Mad Men's resident bombshell Christina Hendricks! Too "curvy!" [Ephemerist]

• Presses stopped. Chanel, Moschino, Louis Vuitton, Sonia Rykiel, Stella McCartney and Christian Lacroix are all designing DOLLS for Unicef! [VogueUK]
• Which should please foppish hockey player cum novelty intern Sean Avery, who liked playing with dolls as a kid. Us too! [New York Magazine]
• As his trial progresses, creepy designer Anand Jon is looking more perv than rapist. [Radar]
• Travis Barker's fashion line (?) makes tee shirts to benefit families of the two victims of his plane crash. [UPI]
• Here's a pic. [People]
• Who whoa whoa. Sheryl Crow's alleged clothing line? "The first line is made up of about two dozen pieces developed by Crow's stylist and inspired by clothes from the singer's wardrobe." [IHT]
• Twiggy puts clothing swaps on TV in some kind of bid to beat the recession. [Daily Mail]
• Party girl Alice Dellal may be disinherited. Which will put her on a level with the rest of us. Oh, wait, she's a famous moddle. [Daily Mail]
• Meanwhile, male model Donald Carmichael robbed and shot in New York. Well, grazed. He's okay. [UPI]
• Almost all the cosmetics you use are poison. Wah-wah. [LA Times]
• The tone of international Fashion Week? Strictly Let Them Eat Cake. [Washington Post]
• Lucky editors claim their new style guide is actually really perfect for the recession. [The Budget Fashionista]
• Diesel plans unique stores worldwide. [WWD]
• Apparently literally every celeb in the world was at one of Diesel's 17 30th birthday parties. [ElleUK]
• Zahara Jolie-Pitt wears organic denim. It's $128. [Fashion Week Daily]
• The Glamouresque Wig Party is where celebrities design wigs. For charity, obvs. [Daily Mail]
• Relive your high school years — or mine, anyway! — with Screaming Mimi's online vintage. [FabSugar]
• Why choose between cognac and sneakers when you can wear the $300 Hennessy Celebration Hi-Top? [BlackBook]
• Want to read a list of Kate Moss's debaucheries? Yeah, set aside some time. [Daily Mail]
• Cosmetics are up. Well, we all need to cover dark circles these days. [Washington Post]
• Please let this be our last mention of male pantyhose. [News.com.au]
• The recession may speed consolidation in the fashion world. [WWD]
• So, want to wear a fake school uniform? No? Here are some options anyway. [Sassybella]

• Mini moguls Mary Kate and Ashley are dipping their tiny feet into the world of fashionable footwear. They're teaming up with Steve Madden to add a shoe line to their Elizabeth and James label. [ElleUK]
• Weirdly, model Twiggy's husband calls her Twiggy too. [Daily Express]
• Moddles fall all over the runway on Prada's slippery runway. Try not to enjoy it. [NY Times]
• Following in the steps of such sex symbols as Gorbachev and the Berlin Wall, Sean Connery goes before Annie Leibovitz's lens for Louis Vuitton. [WWD]
• Just saying, if I were running for office, known ass Andre Leon Tally is kind of the last person I'd want carrying a tote with my name all over it, even if it was a DVF original. [Concrete Loop]

• Diesel launches the Diesel car. Doesn't require diesel though. [ElleUK]
• As they say, the rich get richer: cosmetics mogul Laura Mercier sells pad for numerous millions. [Observer]
• Marc Jacobs turns London's black cabs into a "dasiy chain." "In promotion for his floral fragrance Daisy, Jacobs will be adorning black cabs in London with the flower, as well as outfitting the cabs’ interiors with faux daisy fields." One can only assume long-suffering cabbies were not consulted. [BlackBook]
• Remember Bag, Borrow or Steal, which got plugged in the SATC movie when Jennifer Hudson borrowed her fug purses from them? Yeah, here's more about that. [The Street]
• Heidi Klum is very gracious about J.Lo's obvious lying to get out of Project Runway finale. [The Cut via a href="http://www.accesshollywood.com/heidi-klum-on-jlo-missing-runway-finale-she-is-fantastic-i-believe-her_article_11364">Access Hollywood]
• Calvin Klein on fashion's realities: "It's a tough business. It's one that you really have to work at — if you're a very small business, or it's very large. It requires a full commitment. There is no easy way to do this," [Yahoo]
• Prada wants in on the pre-fab millionaire's playground that is Dubai. [IHT]
• David Bowie loans Ziggy Stardust outfit to a pop exhibition. What does he do with it the rest of the time? [Daily Express]
• Despite her involvement with the Freddy Prinze, Jr. vehicle Head Over Heels, Shalom Harlow will be the star of Viktor and Rolf's virtual fashion show. [WWD]
• To make up for flagging sales, luxury retailers focus on their outlet stores. Which are hopefully less depressing as a result. Looking at you, Saks outlet at Woodbury Commons! [Business Week]
• Le sigh. Editrice spawn Julia Restoin-Roitfeld to front British chain Accessorize. [WWD]

• Paris Hilton, aka the rich man's Heidi Montag, premieres her line for Dollhouse. "Some pieces, like the tees with her face plastered on them, are quintessentially Paris, and others are a bit more rock 'n roll like her sister Nicky." Huh? [FabSugar]
• Meanwhile, in the world of the equally inexplicable, Jessica Simpson announces a dress line. "I'm extremely excited to be expanding into the dress market," Simpson tells WWD. "I plan on creating beautiful dresses in distinctive fabrics and silhouettes that are reflective of my personal style and offer something special to the marketplace." [VogueUK]
• Perennial charmer Naomi Campbell on upstart "supermodels": "Models need to earn their stripes – I just think the term is used a little too loosely. Kate Moss is obviously a supermodel but, after Gisele, I don’t think there’s been one." [The Sun]
• Um, if we're asking the pope to throw off antiquated traditions, I'm not sure his fur cape should be our highest priority. [Times of India]

• Recessionistas get all DIY; add beads to stuff. [Telegraph]
• Tsubi, or Ksubi, jeans founder Gareth Moody is apparently not that interesting. [New York Magazine]
• Paging 1984. "Nantucket preppy style." [Style.com]
• Can a nation with as much grinding poverty as India's justify a couture market? [Hindustan Times]
• Retailers get antsy about holidays; hope to distract customers with elaborate decorations. [WWD]
• Former Etsy Knits CEO changes title to "chief creative officer," "a nice loose moniker that will allow me to focus on what I'm best at: product work and long-term, big-picture thinking." [Alley Insider]
• Thought Crocs were the nadir? Meet FitFlops. [New York Magazine]
• Golfer Ryuji Imada hooks up with Lacoste. [WWD]
• Style.com gets a makeover. [Fashionista]
• Alert your mother at once! Dockers launches women's separates, so she and dad can match. [WWD]
• For some reason, Hermes thriving. [Forbes]
• Menswear shows sound horrifying: "Baggy shirts, wrinkled T-shirts, campus-throwback sweaters and boat shoes ruled at New York's nascent Mens Runway." [Reuters]
• New Diesel swimwear mixes "bikinis with props like baseball helmets, boxing gloves, football pads and other sports gear to tie in with the "collegiate varsity" theme in the brand's sportswear collection." [WWD]
• Unlike some of us who work online, apparently the "ShopBop girls" are really chic. [FabSugar]
• If you wanna see Mischa Barton's photo shoot, you're in luck: Nylon's starting podcasts. [Fashionista]
• Random teens for Bongo jeans? At least Perez is happy. [Perez Hilton]
• More on the Diesel/Viktor and Rolf marriage of convenience. [Sassybella]
• We're guessing the 12-year-old fashion blogger Tavi would have had contempt for us in middle school. [New York Magazine]
• Rachael Ray's non-status bag. [Radar]
• Short hair? All the crack. "But instead of the asymmetric (typically 60s) ‘pob’ made famous by Posh last year, the new bob hair style is more fashion forward thanks to YSL who has made the glossy, pudding bowl cut the look of next season." [ElleUK]

• KATE MOSS VERSUS AGYNESS DEYN! "'Kate can't stand her. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that Agy is her nemesis...It's not about Agy's personality, but what she represents. She's younger, fresher, everyone loves her and she's got everything ahead of her. Now she's singing with a band, something Kate has wanted to do for years. Kate's 34 now and she realises her days as a model are numbered. Everyone's calling Agy the new Kate Moss - and that hurts.'" [Daily Mail]
• Is the panty party over already? The University of Minnesota seeks to 'distance' itself from Victoria's Secret college line. [US News]
• Taylor "Little J" Momsen, the 14-year-old Gossip Girlie, has signed on to model with IMG. [People]
• Which makes sense, as apparently this WWD model is a GG regular... [Fashionista]
• ...in stories like this one, about the changing streetwear market! [WWD]

• Brooklyn band (and Wesleyan alumni) MGMT inspire Gucci show! [Nylon]
• Diesel co-brands with Roskilde music fest. [WWD]
• "Britain's most beautiful disabled women are to be given the chance to become a top model in a ground-breaking BBC television series." Just...read the story. [Telegraph"]
• After fashion sabbatical, Christian Thomas Roth relaunches line. [WWD]
• Class-action suit against Louis Vuitton for dubious, ridiculous merchandising at the Brooklyn Museum. [Time]
• Recession breathes down Nike's neck. (Skinny part of the swoosh, methinks.) [Reuters]
• Fendi unveils 3" wedges. For men. [The Times]
• Australian designer Wayne Cooper charged with domestic abuse. [SMH]
• Katharine Hamnett gets on the organic denim bandwagon. [WWD]
• Sinister, hair-baring "super-v-neck" worst trend of summer. [BlackBook]
• Radar terms it "the douchebag neck" [Radar]
• Shockingly, novelty-Vogue-intern Sean Avery's experience was not typical. [New York Magazine]
• Amazon acquires fabric.com. [TechCrunch]
• The suggestion is that the model in the new Chanel campaign looks kinda like a contorted Barbie. [PhotoshopDisasters]
• Tony Soprano's wardrobe bags for $187,750 Wounded Warriors charity; 'hit' costume the biggest seller, obvi. [MSNBC]
• The politics of button-placement: a thorny issue! [New York Times]
• Sweatshops? Jennifer Love Hewitt's for 'em, personally. Or so claim some college kids. [Reason.com]
• In the wake of the groundbreaking Italian Vogue July issue, rumors are swirling that Lanvin will feature an "all-ethnic" lineup. Can't be behind a trend! [Fashionista]
• Other trends? Stars and stripes, apparently. No wonder Tommy's up! [New York Times]
• Founder of Tom's Shoes is apparently a madman. [Style.com]
• Penney's scales back. [Financial Times]

• Bex bares (almost) all for Armani once more. After the item, People earnestly queries, "Tell us: What do you think of David Beckham’s ads?" Eager to see the conversation this generates. [People]
• The previously-discussed Italian Vogue featuring only models of color hits European newsstands next Thursday! "In a reverse of the general pattern of fashion magazines, all the faces are black, and all the feature topics are related to black women in the arts and entertainment." [New York Times]
• Tyra Banks is one of said black models. (Click to see awesome pix.) [Fashionista]
• Tyra's new show Stylista: OBVIOUSLY BIGGEST THING OF THE SUMMER. [Fashionista]
• "Soften your image" for only $99! Michelle Obama's View dress at Donna Ricco! [Donna Ricco]

• Night owl Kate Moss launches her second perfume in Berlin. "Moss was actively involved in choosing the fragrance, packaging and name, vetoing options like Enigma and Velvet Night and instead going with Velvet Hour, a name she says invokes dusk, a favorite hour of the day. 'There's that feeling — Oh, nighttime's coming again, thank goodness,' Moss said." [WWD]
• These celebs are so enterprising! Mischa Barton's new handbag line set to launch next month. The collex is described as "30 vintage-inspired shoulder bags and clutches in earth-tone colors." No word on whether Barton was "actively involved in choosing" said styles, colors. [fabsugar]
• Adidas sues WalMart over use of stripes on sneakers. [WWD]
• Lovable Ginnifer Goodwin wins MaxMara "Face of the Future Award!" Not sure what that is, but love her acceptance speech: "And here’s to us not wasting our brain power on counting the calories of our suppers." [People]
• Diesel kicks off South Beach's "Fashion Week Swim" with, um, swimwear. [WWD]
• Fashionista goes "behind the scenes" at Kate Spade. They talk shorts. [fashionista]
• Awesome/terrifying fashion flack Kelly Cutrone, Observer via "The Cut": “I wouldn’t want 80 percent of [powerhouse fashion firm] KCD’s roster,” she insisted. “I would never rep Versace, I can’t stand her, I think she makes disgusting clothes. Calvin [Klein] is like, snore! Who wears Calvin Klein? I’m not dissing him. I think he’s built an amazing, respectable business, but I would never want to work for Calvin Klein, ever.” And that's just the start! [New York Magazine]
• Patricia Field to hawk clothes for home-shopping channel? Actually makes sense: Will probably hit coreSATC demographic! "The stylist has teamed with the shopping network on an exclusive brand, Destination Style New York, launching on TV and on hsn.com on Sept. 23. The collection, designed by Field and longtime House of Field designer David Dalrymple, is made up of 50 pieces ranging from sportswear and denim to dresses and accessories." [WWD]
• Michelle Obama feted by those who really matter: The fashion world. Pundits like Zac Posen and Tory Burch applauded the maybe-first-lady's sartorial instincts, Isabel Toledo gown. [WWD]
• But if you swing pachyderm: Cindy McCain's look for less. [The Budget Fashionista]
• Awesome-sounding "whimsical" sports-bra ad! Titled "The Apology Letter," the ad focuses on a female runner reading to men and women who usually stare at her bouncing breasts. She tells the gawkers they will "no longer have a free show due to her new extra support CW-X bra." [WWD]

Image Copyright 2008 Giorgio Armani

• Who is Tory Burch's elusive 23-year old stepdaughter Pookie? On Mondays, Pookie interns for Bruce Weber, and the rest of the week she works as the assistant to the president of Carolina Herrera, and she was (allegedly) responsible for the magical pairing of New York's leading faux-WASP ice princess with Princess Coldstare, but alas, we have scoured the Google and cannot find a picture of her. So this will have to do. [Fashion Week Daily]
  
• M.I.A has designed her own eponymous clothing line, which is really brightly colored so that, "if you lose it or someone steals it, you can see it from miles away and you can be like, 'Oy! Give me my shirt back!'" Oy is right! [WWD, 3rd item]
  
• Tinsley Mortimer, you see, is not a bad designer of handbags, it's just that she made the mistake of trying to sell them in Japan. "Japanese girls have no use for clutches because they just go to the clubs right after work. They are so different from New York. Stylewise, colorwise, stylewise. It's very youth-oriented. I'm designing for women between the ages of 20 and 40... But in Japan, after 25, it's like, basically, you're dead." [NYMag]

• "Now that I've been modeling some, I can actually stand in high heels—at least for a night." Oh, Hagyness. [Fashion Week Daily]
• Meanwhile, poor Erin Wasson broke her foot running in stilettos while shooting the ad campaign for Justin Timberlake's clothing line, William Rast. Doctors say her bones were fragile due to the amount of time she has spent in her life in heels. Ouch. [NYMag]
• Are you ready for Tuesday night's Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute Gala? [Is that a trick question? -Moe] The theme is superheroes because "the superhero is the overarching metaphor for fashion, because both share this obsession with the body, identity and transformation." [WWD, sub req'd]
• No actually, explains Diane Von Furstenberg, superheroes are just super-trendy right now. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Poor Nicole Fahri was mugged at knifepoint outside her home! [Mirror UK]
• "My wife and I had a great time just sitting and going through things and working on what we liked the best...I would love to see her have a fragrance, and us to have one together — a unisex fragrance. That would be wonderful. She's a lot more expensive than I am." Tim McGraw on his new eponymous fragrance and his oft-PhotoShopped wife, Faith Hill. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Virtual Christian Siriano prom dresses? We're confused. Explain this to us, please. [Gaia]
• Oscar de la Renta shot his Fall/WInter 2008 ad campaign at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego. Which is, um, really random and has nothing to do with polio? [WWD, sub req'd]
• Is former Dior Homme designer Hedi Slimane doing a line for Diesel? Eh, probs. [WWD, 3rd item]
• Naomi Watts is the new face of Thierry Mugler's Angel fragrance. We are so happy for her. [WWD, 2nd item]
• Martin Margiela is trying to go mainstream. Have you never heard of him? Well, that's cause he's so not mainstream. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Chuck Close, Jeff Koons, Marilyn Minter, Kiki Smith, Cai Guo-Qiang, Barbara Kruger, Ashley Bickerton, Kenny Scharf, Glenn Ligon, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Kerry James Marshall, Hanna Liden and Sarah Sze are all collaborating with the Gap on a series of t-shirts. [WWD, sub req'd]
• And Elie Tahari is collaborating with artist Kenny Scharf, too. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Alice Temperely: Showing in London come September for the first time in six seasons. Buh-bye, New York. [Vogue UK]
• Colin McDowell, fashion editor of The Sunday Times of London, is leaving the paper to become creative editor-at-large of Net-a-Porter and spearhead its original editorial content. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Revlon: In debt. But less so now than before. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Elizabeth Arden: Profits are down. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Same goes for Bebe. [WWD, sub req'd]
• And Steve Madden! Hmmm, I wonder what it all means? [Crain's]

• Isaac Mizrahi is defecting from Target to join Tim Gunn at Liz Claiborne. [Maybe they will post a YouTube video of themselves doing lunch at the company salad bar so Jennie can use it for porn! -Moe] This is supposed to be a big "blow" to Target, but Claiborne can use all the help it can get. [NYT]
  
• Keith Richards is the new face of Louis Vuitton. It was Marc's idea, of course. It's like post-post-sharkjumpism or something. [WWD, 1st item]
  
• Designer Diane von Furstenberg on Hillary Clinton: "I support Hillary because I believe she will do the best job in the White House. I do know her a little and like her very much. She is intelligent, diligent, micro and macro, and she truly cares." [WWD, 2nd item]

• Kenneth Cole is not returning to the runways anytime soon because he doesn't feel "runway ready," or just can't bother justifying the expense to his shareholders, or whatevs. [WWD, 1st item]
• Hilary Duff is set to launch her second fragrance, With Love. (More apt name: With Greed.) [BellaSugar]
• Paris' infamous boutique Colette, which, depending on your point of view, is the most pretentious/awesome store in all the universe, is partnering with H&M to carry the cheap chain's Fashion Against AIDS collection, the first time H&M has allowed another retailer to stock its merchandise. The line includes design collaborations with famous designers like The Cardigans, Ziggy Marley, Rihanna, Good Charlotte, Jade Jagger, My Chemical Romance, Rufus Wainwright, the Scissor Sisters, and Timbaland. [Fashion Week Daily]

• Target might have lost Isaac to Liz Claiborne, but it looks like they're about to gain the designing powers of hot English designer Jonathan Saunders for the GO International line. [Vogue UK]
• Juliette Binoche is selling Lancome now. [Chic Report]
• And Diesel is selling bed linens now! [WWD, sub req'd]
• Christian Louboutin and his red-undersided shoes will be the sole focus of an upcoming exhibit at the Museum at FIT in New York. [Fashion Week Daily]
• Neiman Marcus commercials from 1985! [Sassybella]
• Laura Ashley to take over Moss Brothers? [NYT]
• Burberry: Stock might be dropping, but revenues are rising. Oh, the chavs. Gotta love 'em. [WWD, sub req'd]

• Paris Hilton showed up at the Victoria's Secret fashion show earlier this month and demanded to be cast in the show, according to model Miranda Kerr. And then — and here's where it gets really classy — she stole an outfit from the show to wear herself. [Sassybella]
  
• On being asked who designed the dress she wore to a party for actor Ewan MacGregor's new book, Helena Bonham Carter replied, "I can't remember, I can't remember anything." [WWD, 9th item]
  
• Venus Williams is inspired "as an athlete and as a designer" by Madonna. [WSJ]
  
• Model Gemma Ward: "surprisingly impressive" in her acting debut. [Sassybella]

• Adidas is partnering with Diesel to do a denim line, because what the world needs now is... that's right! Another denim line. [Vogue UK]
• Fresh from their H&M collection, Viktor & Rolf are designing a line of luggage for Samsonite. [IHT]
• Pierre Hardy for Gap shoes: Coming stateside soon! [WWD, 4th item]
• Model Natalia Vodianova and a bunch of "celebrities" we've never heard of are designing t-shirts for the Buddhist Punk label to benefit Al Gore's The Climate Project. And I guess it's understandable for Al to be tired of winning awards and ready to just party with models for once, but seriously, I am tired of the whole "designing" T-shirts for charity trend. [Vogue UK]
• Steve and Barry's is really (really!) a helluva lot more than just the place to buy Sarah Jessica Parker's "Bitten" line. Did you know they bought 3.5 million square feet of retails space in U.S. malls last year? We're not even sure what 3.5 million square feet looks like. [Business Week]
• Topshop is going to China! OMG just like this cycle's contestants on America's Next Top Model! We hope to see Heather at the first store opening. [Reuters]

• It's official, confirms Victoria Beckham: Roberto Cavalli (not Donatella Versace and not David Beckham, as had been rumored) is designing all the costumes for the upcoming Spice Girl reunion tour. Trashulous! [WWD, final item]
  
• Kanye West and artist Takashi Murakami are collaborating on a jewelry line together. [WWD, 3rd item]
  
• John Galliano is designing a line of children's clothing for Diesel. Ugh. [Vogue UK]
  
• Sienna Miller are her boyfriend are sharing clothes. How, um, progressive? [FabSugar]

• Holy shit, if you live in Paris and you're reading this please please watch Paris Premiere channel for us on your TV from Saturday through Oct. 12: Karl Lagerfeld is going to be "guest editing" the entire channel and thus filling the programming with whatever he fancies. [WWD, 2nd item]
• Stella McCartney, ever the do-gooder, is donating the wall of flowers used as the backdrop to her Paris show yesterday to some low-income housing community. We gag. [Fashion Week Daily]
• Kristin McMenamy, to whom you'll surely remember Tyra comparing Asperger's Heather to in the casting special episode of America's Next Top Model, returned to the runway for the first time in nine years for the Givenchy show yesterday. Sign from the gods that Heather will win this cycle? We think yes! [WWD, 3rd item]
• Remember how we mentioned the opening of the eco-friendly nightclub the other day? Says face of the project model Jessica Stam: "I'm not sure an eco-friendly nightclub is gonna fly, but it's raising awareness. Every little bit helps." Ohhhh it's a bad sign when you don't even believe in your own model hangout. [WWD, 5th item]
• The new $18,000 handbag: the $18,000 Lancome makeup kit. [WWD, 8th item]

• Fresh off her appearance on the cover of the June Glamour, Jennifer Lopez will grace the cover of Conde Nast's supremely stupid supplement Fashion Rocks. We don't know if it's more retarded that Jennifer Lopez is supposed to represent "rock" or that Conde Nast is so used to putting pointless, overexposed celebrities on their covers to sell newsstand copies that they did it on a supplement. [WWD, 2nd item]
  
• Banana Republic, on its demographic: "Our customers are creative souls, inspired by art and culture." [Uh, Substitute "creative" for "conformist" and "insecurity and markdowns" for "art and culture" and you will have the reason I shop there! -Moe] [WWD, sub req'd]
  
• Wait, seriously? NASA orange flight suits for $60 bucks? We sorta want one. [WaPo]

• Breaking News! "Jeans Still In" for college students! No way! And appearing on the crime blotter, spoons still being stolen from the dining hall. [MarketWatch]
• Dorina Dixon "D.D." Ryan died yesterday morning. The former fashion editor at Harper's Bazaar was also frequently a costume designer to Stephen Sondheim, a friend of Halston, and one of the people responsible for bringing some of our favorite books, the Eloise series, into the world. [MGross.com]
• And the finalists for the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund award are: too numerous to list here, Moe says. But it's one impressive class, from which we predict the three prizewinners will be Phillip Lim, the Vena Cava girls, and Erin Fetherston. Your guesses? [Vogue UK]
• First Levi's asks him to design, now Prada wants him at her parties: Will someone tell us why fashion is so relentlessly trendhumping Damien Hirst? No, seriously, we want to know. [WWD, 1st item]
• Like perfume? Then you'll love L'Artisan Parfumeur's new battery-operated "art" box that emits a burst of fragrance from magical glass beads every three minutes, yours for $230. [WWD, 1st item]
• And in other window design news, the Diesel store in London is incorporating the scorched remains of its recently burnt-down store into its holiday windows! How nouveau something!
• Husband and wife design team Y&Kei: Cried at The Notebook? [The Fashion Informer]