• Julia Roberts will become a face of Lancôme, appearing in ads beginning early next year. Roberts earns up to $20 million per film, and could realize a similar amount from her first major beauty contract; the company won't say. [WWD]

• Kate Moss so admired a fellow wedding guest's bracelet that her friend, Topshop owner Sir Philip Green, bought it off the woman's wrist. [P6]
• David Lynch is directing the next Marion Cotillard Dior handbag ad, and he's filming her in Shanghai right now. The video is intended to continue the story of the noirish, Hitchcockian ad by Olivier Dahan the company released in May. [Elle UK]
• Christian Lacroix has announced that he will not be involved with any of parent company the Falic Group's future projects for his namesake label, which was this week allowed to be reduced to a licensing operation by a Paris bankruptcy court. Lacroix had not been paid by Falic since the fall of 2008. The French minister of industry thinks the closure of the house of Lacroix is a travesty. He is trying to use diplomatic networks to contact the most interested-seeming buyer, an Emirate sheikh, "to alert him of the urgency of the situation." [WWD]
• Police acting on a tip raided two Detroit area stores selling counterfeit Gucci, Coach, and Polo clothing and accessories. (One had what it claimed was a $4,000 jacket on sale for $700.) The seized goods would have retailed for about $800,000, had they been genuine. [UPI]
• Silvia Fendi — the lady behind the baguette and the spy and the B Fendi bags — designed new guitars for OK Go to take on tour. The tricked-out Gibsons feature white leather, rivets, and goat fur, and, for that extra special touch, a red-and-green LED panel that flashes with the band's lyrics. "Any time an ‘F' appears in their lyrics, it's our double-F logo," says the bag lady. We need a picture of these guitars pronto. [WWD]
• Proenza Schouler has added e-commerce to its website, Proenzaschouler.com. [Vogue UK]
• Sephora is going to roll out 20 cosmetics vending machines to small J.C. Penney stores that lack full-service Sephora counters. Each machine will offer 50 of the makeup retailer's most popular products. How space-age. [WWD]
• Bottega Veneta is getting into the fragrance game. Expect the first perfume to launch in 2011. [WWD]
• André Leon Talley re-arranged a trip to China to attend the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater's opening night. Though in his words he would not presume to dance, Talley did express a willingness to go horse riding, some day: "Because the man and the horse are ballet. The communication between the man and the horse in a race, that's sort of a little dance." [The Cut]
• For some reason, it is considered news that Marc Jacobs gave Will Smith a bunch of free clothes to wear during the presentation of the Nobel Prizes in Oslo. You'd almost think Smith was the laureate. [WWD]
• Aw, watching Oprah can make Chris Benz cry. [TFI]

• Karl Lagerfeld gave SpongeBob SquarePants a makeover for a charity auction, resulting in this little charmer, which sold for €1,000. [WWD]

• Zac Posen, who two weeks ago announced a lower-priced line, Z Spoke, will do a line for Target in the U.S. (He already designed a capsule collection for Target's Australian outpost in 2008.) Zac Posen for Target Go International will hit stores on April 25 of next year. Rodarte for Target goes on sale this December, at last. [WWD]
• Even though it's late November in sunny London, Kate Moss is allegedly planning an outdoor dinner party. Her nefarious plan? The supermodel, whose recent choice, in an interview, of a notorious eating disorder sufferers' slogan as her motto we highlighted, wants to be photographed eating food. [Mirror]
• The verdict on "Black Friday" post-Thanksgiving sales: an "unexceptional yet decent" $41.2 billion was spent. [WWD]
• Both potential buyers of the bankrupt house of Christian Lacroix failed to meet a new, extended deadline to provide the bankruptcy court with guarantees of their capital. If the company is not sold, the current owners, the Falic Group, will likely go forward with their preferred scenario, in which only 11 key staff are retained, and the brand is either auctioned off to cover debts, or turned into a licensing machine for scarves and perfumes. [AFP]
• Patrick Dempsey stars with his wife, Jillian, in his new Avon perfume ad. Because this scent is "about two people and the power of the relationship." [People]
• Sonia Rykiel's H&M lingerie line will be launched this December with a fashion show at the Grand Palais. The models will walk on moving floats that travel around a fantasy Parisian streetscape, dominated by a 30 meter Eiffel Tower made from 25 km of wire and fairy lights. Trees will have balloon canopies, and the Café de Flore will be mocked up as the Café Flirt. Also, imagine 6 meter poodles and 2.5 meter bunnies. Best part? It'll be streamed live on the mighty Internet. [SB]
• The pink-and-black '50s-themed collection goes on sale this Saturday in more than 1,500 H&M boutiques worldwide, as well as Rykiel's own stores. Prices range from €7.95 - €19.95 for underwear, and €79.95 for sleepwear. [WWD]
• Morrissey is collaborating with Stella McCartney on a line of vegan footwear. McCartney says the shoes could be in stores next year. [Daily Mail, 2nd item]
• Helena Christensen, on the term of art 'supermodel': it's "silly and cartoonish, but to be a part of that whole group of girls — at the end of the day, I was there. I did it. I am a million experiences richer." [Telegraph]
• It's a comeback for Aussie model Catherine McNeil. McNeil will be on the cover of next month's Australian Vogue, a casting move that her booker says gives any model "credibility" — oddly implying that McNeil needs some. The 20-year-old has been on an extended break from international modeling, but is expected to rejoin the moil next show season, in January. [News.com.au]
• Mulberry creative director Emma Hill, who previously designed accessories for Marc Jacobs and the Gap, on the heyday of 'it' bags: "I was partly responsible, at Marc Jacobs, for the It bag thing. I realized that we'd made it when I saw knock-offs on the street corner. But a trend like that squashes people's individuality. If you're all trying to get the same thing, it's not very special. There are possibly more things to worry about in life than waiting two years for a handbag. I think those years are over." [ToL]
• Jenny Sanford applied to trademark her own name in early July, shortly after the June revelation that her husband, South Carolina governor Mark Sanford, was hiking the Appalachian trail enjoying two magnificent parts of another woman. Jenny Sanford applied for the trademark intending to use it to market a line of clothing, mugs, and other household items, to be sold through her website. The trademark application has not yet been approved. [State]
• Christian Audigier is opening an Ed Hardy store in London this week, the U.K.'s first. [Guardian]
• Victoria's Secret is a popular target for professional shoplifters. Four women pepper-sprayed a sales associate in Tennessee this month in order to boost 30 pairs of underwear. [UPI]
• Due to Dubai's debt crisis, the American investors who recently and separately bought significant chunks of Barneys New York's debt, Ron Burkle and Richard Perry, might end up controlling the Dubai-owned company. If they do, they should probably convince someone there to hire a C.E.O. All the best companies have one. [Dealbook]
• Pierre Cardin, 87, was briefly hospitalized in Paris for exhibiting falling blood pressure and a slow pulse. Cardin was en route to Greece, where he was holding a fashion show. As if this were 1963, or something. [AFP]
• French eBay users are banned from selling or buying certain branded perfumes, like Christian Dior and Kenzo. A court in Paris has fined the auction site 1.7 million Euros for not enforcing the law effectively enough. [BBC]
• The market in exotic skins, like alligator, has been among the worst affected by the recession. (It's not hard to imagine why, given a pair of alligator Manolos can easily run $4,000.) The farmers who raise the gators in Louisiana, Florida, and Georgia are paid for their troubles by tanneries, who then sell the processed hides to fashion companies. But while farmers complain that prices offered by tanneries have fallen below the cost of even raising the animals, fashion companies say the reduction in the cost of finished skins has been minimal. Which major fashion brand significantly expanded into alligator tanneries during the boom years? Hermès. The other thing you should know about this article is that a man named Tommy Fletcher, whose work involves going into bayous to fight mother alligators with a pole and frequent bites when handling the live young, says that running an alligator farm is "like being married to Miss America. You get all the benefits of the hugs and kisses, but she's mighty high-maintenance." [NYTimes]

• Miuccia Prada: "I'm working on [a men's collection] right now and someone at the office worriedly asked me, ‘You're not going to make short skirts again, are you?' So I'm now pushing it even further, just for revenge!" [BlackBook]

• Leigh Lezark, on diversity: "I'm glad that a lot of kids — even now with the magazines that have come out — have something different to look up to. Not a tall, five-foot-ten blonde model, whatever...They can also look up to some faggots and a girl. I think it's great, because I wish I'd had that, and I never did." [The Cut]
• Reports that Hills villain Heidi Montag was launching a perfume with the Home Shopping Network have been denied by the network. HSN — which has recently announced deals with Naeem Khan and Badgley Mischka — was thought to be seeking a more exclusive audience, and the collaboration did seem a tad odd in that light. Now we'll never find out who would choose to smell like silicone, self tanner, and Spencer! [The Cut]
• In other fragrant news, Jude Law is the new face of Dior's men's scent, Sport. [Telegraph]
• Yesterday, to promote their new line for JC Penney, the Olsens — and the Olsens' JC Penney branded cupcake truck — went to Union Square. Although no cupcakes were in evidence, onlookers could browse the Olsenboye debut line, and even buy things for $10. (Racked says the clothes are more High School Musical than Elizabeth & James.) Today, should you be curious and New York-bound, the truck will be in Herald Square, and tomorrow, in Washington Square Park. [Racked]
• Kate Moss is happy with that Topshop line and those million-dollar cosmetics contracts, sure, but when it comes down to it, you know, she's just a mum. Reports the Guardian: " 'If I can keep people interested in my work for another few years I'll be happy. But the thing I'm always most proud of is my daughter. She's seven now, and vice captain of her class! My goodness!' Moss opens her mascara-ed eyes as wide as they'll go. 'I've never been vice captain of anything! She wants to be a chef, and her imaginary husband is a chef too. I was mother of the bride at their imaginary wedding, standing on the side holding her imaginary baby.' " [Guardian]
• Naomi Campbell told a charity event that the situation facing models of color is an "injustice." Said the supermodel, "Nelson Mandela always told me to speak my mind and the consequences will take care of themselves...There is a small group of people whose minds we have to change because we are living in a multicultural society." Maybe there are a few things Campbell could do — or not do — too. [WWD]
• Thakoon Panichgul, who was raised in Omaha, says he always wanted to be in fashion, but that his seamstress mother and grandmother didn't see how he could make a career out of something they understood as just "work." Luckily for Michelle Obama, he started going to Parsons at night, after completing business school. [Fashionista]
• Sonia Rykiel's lingerie collection for H&M will be launched with a party at the Grand Palais, where Chanel typically holds its shows. The line will be released in 1,500 H&M stores worldwide on December 5. [WWD]
• Cindy Crawford says she has no plans to make a return to the catwalk. "I don't want to stand next to a 20-year-old on the runway, even if people say you can still do it. It is like, 'Why would I do that to myself?' It would just make me depressed," said the supermodel. "I'm more comfortable with myself in the sense that hey, this is who I am now...I guess I appreciate my body for other things — like I was able to give birth to two kids. ... But at the same time, I am aware my body doesn't look the same way it did when I was 23. I actually don't want to feel that pressure." [Stylelist]
• Sarah Murdoch, a model married to media heir Lachlan Murdoch, appeared on the cover of an Australian tabloid without retouching. She has wrinkles and looks amazing. [News.com.au]
• The Escada sale certainly is shrouded in mystery. The bankrupt German house is understood to be entertaining unbinding offers from six would-be buyers, but nobody is prepared to own up to being one. One person from the company that owns Italy's La Rinescente and France's Printemps department stores spoke on the record, but denied acting in anything more than an advisory role. He declined to say whom he was advising. A deal is expected in early November. [WWD]
• Topshop, buoyed by the successful opening of its New York store, wants to open stores in Paris and Milan. And China. [Telegraph]
• The Limited's pop-up store in SoHo has been so popular with Manhattanites that the company has extended its lease — till December 28. [WWD]
• Company-wide, The Limited — which also owns Bath & Body Works and Victoria's Secret — has adjusted its forecast for the quarter. Although it says October same-store sales are going to be worse than they had originally predicted, the company still thinks it may break even. [Reuters]
• Marc Ecko, whose troubled and indebted company has been closing stores, is said to be considering selling to or partnering with Iconix. Although last month Ecko said, " We would never give up control of the intellectual property in Ecko. We've built this company up over 16 years," sources say that a deal with Iconix is about to be signed. [WWD]

• Marisa Miller has earned the most coveted position of all the Victoria's Secret runway girls: Wearer Of The Diamond-Studded Bra. Her equipment costs $3 million. "It's surprisingly comfortable," says Miller. Sure looks it. [People]

• Sir Paul Smith would love it "if fashion shows died out completely." The 63-year-old British designer explains, shows are "pure, self-indulgent theatre. How many girls were there this year in horns or neck braces with bare breasts? It wouldn't matter if they didn't take it all so seriously, but the fashion world is a dangerous, superficial and fickle place." [Telegraph]
• Although the press sometimes jumps all over Anna Wintour for repeating her outfits, it's something she does all the time, and will continue to do, because who wears clothes once, for God's sake? "I usually wear the same dress twenty times. I think it's always fun to have something new, but it doesn't mean that everything you already have in your closet has to be thrown out, you know? Recycle." [The Cut]
• The USAToday and W did the hard work of "parsing" Amelia Earhart's style. You know her, she's that woman famous for...wearing pants. [USAToday]
• Donatella Versace tells a Vogue reader who says she would buy clothes in larger sizes, if Versace made them, that "I certainly wouldn't want to do a plus-size line, as I have no problem with women of any size wearing my clothes. I guess some styles lend themselves to being scaled up, while some others just don't work." Versace's own daughter, Allegra, has struggled with anorexia. [Style.com]
• Donatella hosted a party for the Whitney, and a lot of celebrities came. (Since when are Lindsay Lohan and Taylor Momsen "just-wanna-have-fun blondes"?) Also in attendance at what was, you know, an art benefit were Chuck Close and Ellsworth Kelly. [Style.com]
• Meanwhile, that equally tanned and fashionable Italian female, Gucci creative director Frida Giannini, is headed to Yonkers today to cut the ribbon with Mary J. Blige on something called the Mary J. Blige Center for Women. [P6]
• Somebody should tell Mark Ronson that what he has designed for Gucci is not in fact a sneaker, but a boat shoe. The eyelets give it away. [Hypebeast]
• Karl Lagerfeld is heading to Argentina. Lest you think it's to enjoy some steak and a nice Malbec, know this: "I only go to places if I have a professional reason. I'm not a tourist." He'll be shooting Freja Beha Erichsen, Baptiste GIabiconi, and Claudia Schiffer in the next Chanel campaign — what, no Lara Stone? — and researching a book about Argentine architecture. [WWD]
• London Fog's holiday ad campaign features Tony Parker and Eva Longoria. There's got to be a Mad Men joke here somewhere. [People]
• Meanwhile, John Galliano himself has revealed that the spring Dior campaign will star Karlie Kloss. [WWD]
• Grace Kelly and Cartier are each getting stars on the Walk of Style on Rodeo Drive in Los Angeles. [HoustonChronicle]
• Angelina Jolie is apparently in talks with Ridley Scott to star in a film about the 1995 murder of Maurizio Gucci. [Variety]
• Tom Ford, the man Maurizio had hired to revitalize the brand, says he will do women's wear again. Just as soon as he can get financing. [WWD]
• The Times' Critical Shopper, Cintra Wilson, went to Ann Taylor. She didn't expect to like it, but then: "Clothing companies, when they panic, tend to go rococo. They get flashier, busier and more disposable by slapping on bigger logos and more useless bows and frippery. Ann Taylor must be commended for choosing less clutter and better details that aren't always: the finished seams inside a little faille opera jacket; the velvet ribbon inside the waist of a peplum coat; the Italian three-season wool." [NYTimes]
• Iconix Brand Group, the company behind everything from Candie's to Badgley Mischka, has been fined $250,000 by the Federal Trade Commission for violating certain provisions of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act when it collected information during some of its promotions last year. [Crain's]
• Burberry is suing the U.K.-based pet supply store Pets At Home for using a checked fabric the company says is too similar to its own. Pets At Home, which has 250 stores, has pulled the offending products, but the dispute is ongoing. Burberry creative director Christopher Bailey told the New Yorker earlier this year about suing a pet store that advertised a dog cushion "in the famous Burberry check." [Guardian]
• Maybe the answer is that Burberry should make like Mulberry, and do its own line of pet clothes. [FWD]
• More details about the city's planned fashion incubator in the garment district have emerged: New York will subsidize 12 slots in a 10,000 sq. ft. space, reducing the rent from $2,900 to $1,500 a month. The designers, who are being selected right now, will also have access to mentoring and support from the Council of Fashion Designers of America. It's not for students fresh out of school: every designer must have already been in business for at least a year, and employ a staff (even if that staff is volunteer). What a wonderful use for a vacant showroom floor. [NYTimes]
  
• Australian denim brand Ksubi is going to do a lower-priced line with the department store David Jones. And possibly another one with Topshop. [Sassybella]
• Anhropologie is extending its reach across the Atlantic. Its first European store opens on Friday in London. [WWD]

Girlish ruffles in a sweet spring frock!

Dazzling, crystal-encrusted evening wear!

Naughty nightie styles!

Pretend to be Ingrid Bergman in Notorious!

Boudoir-inspired beauty!

Positively Rita Hayworth!

Shimmer and shine! Glitz and glam!

Hedy Lamarr would be so jealous!

Time to rent Joan Bennett's The Woman In The Window!

Check into a hotel using the name Lana Turner!

Or Ava Gardner!

Make sure you have an innocent look and an alibi!

He's just a Bogart, looking for his Bacall!

• Kate Moss's latest fashion contribution: tights that look like you took a drunken prat fall on a gravel driveway. [The Sun]
• The surprise guest of honor at Macy's Glamorama in Chicago: Miss Piggy. [WWD]

• Cindy Crawford: "I have cellulite. I admit it. But sometimes I just say, 'Screw it, I am going to wear a bikini." [Redbook]
• Real Housewife Kelly Bensimon is still talking "exclusively" to gullible (or merely cynical of their readers' attention spans?) publications about her Navajo-inspired jewelry line. "My mother looked like Pocahontas and was obsessed with jewelry, so I really learned at young age how accessories can change your look in an inexpensive way," explains the ex-model. At least she didn't say she was going to take Pocahontas out of the canoe and put her in the disco? [People]
• A French graffiti artist/media prankster tagged a dripping Chanel logo on the side of a Giorgio Armani store in Hong Kong. He was arrested. [ChicReport]
• As one of Fashion's Night Out's eleventy-billion events, André Leon Talley is hosting a life-sized board game tournament. You could play in it. [The Cut]
• And here's a ...deal? If you spend $2,500 on Dior merchandise at Fashion's Night Out, you can have your picture taken with Charlize Theron. [WWD]
• i-D has become the first — and so far only — major fashion magazine to feature women of color on its front cover for the September issue. Earlier this year, Sessilee Lopez and Chanel Iman tweeted separately on the same day about doing "a major surprise cover," which led fashion watchers to assume the two models would be featured together. It turns out that cover was i-D, and models Jourdan Dunn and Arlenis Sosa are also pictured. [Fashionologie]
• There is now a rumor going around about the rumor that Haider Ackerman is replacing the (rumored retired) designer Martin Margiela, which would have it — on rumor, you understand — that Margiela's rumored retirement is all one big hoax from the rumored identity-playful Belgian designer. Allegedly. [Hintmag]
• There are yet more pictures of a gorgeous Isabeli Fontana in +J, Jil Sander's hotly-awaited new line for Uniqlo. [Uniqlo]
• PETA is planning shareholder action at Talbots' shareholder meeting next year over the company's use of Australian wool; PETA holds that Australian sheep farmers' use of mulesing is inhumane. [Dealbook]
• After losing their sales commission, a majority of the employees at three New York Cole Haan stores have voted to unionize. [Crain's]
• Time is calling Abercrombie & Fitch, which has experienced ten straight months of double-digit sales declines, the worst recession brand in the world. [Time
• Also in the red: Esprit, down 26%. [WWD]
• If director RJ Cutler had to compare The September Issue to the Clinton campaign what would he say? "The similarity I would focus on is one of leadership-people who are passionate about what they do and are doing it under high stake circumstances. It's a good way of describing Anna Wintour. It's a good way of describing James Carville. And George Stephanopolous. And Grace Coddington. Though they certainly dress differently." (We'd have gone with, "NA.") [Fashionista]
• Speaking of Vogue: The Australian iteration's putting out a book that's "as much about trends of the time as it is about fashion." [News.co.au]
• Oh yeah, here's the way to pull in the kids: on Friday, the Gap "dressed 1,200 New York Stock Exchange traders in its new 1969 Premium Jeans." [New York]
• Gucci's put out a limited edition watch, sales of which go towards Mary J. Blige's "Foundation for the Advancement of Women Now." WWD describes "The Gucci for FFAWN Twirl watch" as "a sleek black PVD bracelet decorated with the signature double-G motif and a monochrome dial, and its rotating case has black diamonds. The $1,895 watch turns on itself to switch from a bracelet to a timepiece and is engraved with the words 'Gucci for FFAWN.'" It looks like a snap bracelet! But presumably won't be recalled for safety reasons! [WWD]
• American Apparel takes to the web cam. Don't worry: it's just tutorials on how to do different (sartorial!) stuff with bits of jersey and string. [AdRants]
• Speaking of new media, Henri Bendel's defeated the purpose of it entirely by sticking a model in their window for hours at a time, pretending to net-surf. You can friend her. [Observer]

• Change! Stately old American Vogue is apparently seeking to revamp itself. Says Wayne Sterling, the mag wants "a new circle of models, an influx of fresh, young photographers and a desire for 'unpredictability' in the stories." Unpredictability. In Vogue. [TI]

• Marc Jacobs has added two pro-marriage equality t-shirts to his Marc by Marc line. One shows a line drawing of a lesbian couple with a child, and the other shows an American flag and a dollar sign; both have the tag line "I pay my taxes, I want my rights." The tees cost $24 and are available now. Jacobs is of course looking forward to his own gay marriage, in Massachusetts, later this summer. [PerezHilton]
• Jacobs, along with Patti Smith and David Rockwell, has been named one of the Pratt Institute's Legends of 2009. [WWD]
• Madonna wears diamond dust on her eyes. For that extra sparkly something. [People]
• Patrick Demarchelier shot Gossip Girl's Taylor Momsen in Central Park for the September cover of Teen Vogue. [TFS]
• The Kaiser's Chanel accessories ads featuring Lily Allen, who recently launched her own jewelry line, are also out. She wears a tiara in one; in another, she looks like she's hiding behind a carry-all. [FWD]
• Amanda Hearst, the model/heiress, is rumored to have been offered a job sinecure at Hearst-owned Marie Claire. [P6]
• More details are emerging about the only bid for the house of Lacroix that the bankrupt company's administrator has yet deemed "serious": Italian department store company Borletti had bid jointly with Christian Lacroix himself. Borletti bought the Printemps department store chain from Pinault-Printemps-Redoute in 2006, and owns the Italian department store La Rinescente jointly with Deutsche Bank. French turnaround firm Bernard Krief Consulting made a bid that the administrator described as "insufficient" for the fashion house, and which it has promised to revise upwards. No dollar values for these bids has been revealed. [Reuters]
• Maybe one way Christian Lacroix could make a little cash would be licensing his name to an unaffiliated uniforms division, since that's exactly what Nicolas Ghesquière of Balenciaga did. Air Tahiti Nui sent out a very happy press release yesterday announcing the introduction of its brand-spanking-new Balenciaga uniforms — but further investigation has revealed that the gear was made under license by a uniform company using the Balenciaga name. Our visions of flying with space-age Ghesquière creations were crushed. [The Moment]
• The rumors were true: Coach is launching — and fully funding — a signature line for its creative director, Reed Krakoff. The designer's eponymous accessories collection will launch for Fall '10. [WWD]
• This is despite the fact that Coach suffered a 32% decline in quarterly profits for the period ended June 27. Net income fell from $213.5 million last year to $145.8 million. [WWD]
• Rachel Roy and Estelle are working together on a jewelry line. Roy announced this via Twitter. [WWD]
• Zappos earned $10.7 million from total sales of $635 million worth of sales last year, according to new owner Amazon's SEC filing. [TBI]
• New York City charity HousingWorks, which sells used clothing and furniture and donates its profits to fund AIDS and homelessness, has been doing great business in the recession — understandable, considering so many of their offerings are designer. Susan Sarandon, Bill Clinton, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Chloé Sevigny, as well as, one presumes, a whole slew of regular well-dressed folk, all recently donated clothes and goods. [NYObs]
• Bravo, still reeling from the loss of Project Runway, is launching another fashion-themed reality show: Launch My Line. The concept pairs new designers with established industry lights in order to develop the youngsters' businesses — the best mentee gets his or her line launched, and the best mentor gets $50,000. It all unfolds under the watchful eye of hosts Dean and Dan Caten, of DSquared2, and judges Stefani Greenfield, formerly of retail chain Scoop, and Lisa Kline. [FabSugar]
• Profits at the multinational luxury company LVMH, which owns everything from Louis Vuitton to Dior to Sephora, dropped 23% in the first six months of this year, to 687 million euros, or $934.3 million, from 891 million euros, or $1.39 billion, a year earlier. Sales during the same period rose 0.2% on a year earlier. The top performing brands was Sephora, and Louis Vuitton handbag sales remained strong. [WWD]
• Maybe, just maybe, one reason profits are down is the fact that Louis Vuitton is trying to sell a $450 USB key? Hermès, in any case, is jumping on the lux-tech bandwagon with a bluetooth device "made of super lightweight carbon fiber, aluminum and supple leather ... [with a] custom-built silicon earring." [Racked]
• Men's control underwear is still being talked about as if it's a new idea. It isn't. [Telegraph]

• At last, a celebrity with a realistic outlook on her whatever-line: "Unless you need it, it's just stuff," says Alicia Silverstone of her collaboration with Ecotools. [WWD]

• Paris has a Musée de la Contrefaçon, where counterfeit and genuine goods are lined up and displayed, side-by-side. Everything from the predictable (Dior handbags) to the slightly insane (Tabasco sauce) to the downright worrisome (pregnancy tests) has been knocked off; France estimates the trade in counterfeits costs its economy 38,000 jobs and $85 billion. A museum that looks like a Noah's ark of consumer goods would be an awesome place to visit. [LATimes]
• Counterfeiting is big business in Los Angeles. Vendors of counterfeit goods are so canny they have even memorized the plate numbers of undercover cops, and some labels hire private investigators to police the trade in markets like Santee Alley. The Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation estimates that L.A.-based companies lost $5.2 billion to counterfeiters in 2005. [LATimes]
• The concept for Victoria Beckham's next campaign for her dress line apparently involves models on swings — so Posh joined the models, and sat expressionless on a rope swing. [Daily Mail]
• Jennifer Lopez's new scent, "My Glow," was apparently inspired by motherhood. [WWD]
• NeNe from the Real Housewives Of Atlanta wants a shoe line. [E!]
• Ole Schell, the co-director of Picture Me, the excellent documentary about the modeling industry, talks about the film's genesis and how it was made. [DazedDigital]
• They're out there! Some two-bit pressure group calling itself the "Australians In New York Fashion Foundation" had its inaugural dinner on Wednesday. Because no matter where you go in this world, there's always an Australian there to look like she's having more fun than you are! I'm going to sob into my mug of Edgelets, wish for some Molenberg with Anchor butter, and re-research my ironclad argument about the origins of the remarkable New Zealand dessert, the Pavlova. [WWD]
• Juergen Teller's new campaign for Marc Jacobs features some very young models — Irina Kulikova is just 17 — in some very American Apparel-esque poses. [The Cut]
• Korean Vogue has a cover in triplicate this month, featuring Claudia Schiffer, Naomi Campbell, and Eva Herzigova. [FWD]
• Re-familiarize yourself with Mademoiselle Chanel in this extensive and well-written article ahead of the release of Coco Avant Chanel. [ToL]
• Who knew that Erin Wasson had a film career? She's got a walk-on role in Sophia Coppola's next movie, Somewhere. Her character? "Party Girl No. 1." [The Cut]
• Beauty chain Ulta has 331 stores nationwide, and is giving Sephora, with 230 U.S. outposts, a run for its money. Unlike Sephora, Ulta doesn't shy away from selling drugstore makeup, like Maybelline and L'Oréal — but it still offers attentive customer service and plentiful samples. Prestige brands are also well represented. Many branches have hair salons inside. Ulta is also expanding like kudzu in this real estate market: It opened 65 stores last year. [NYTimes]
• Once the Economist is on to "pop-up" stores, they're seriously not "unusual" anymore. [Economist]
• Yes, our primary concern in this market when luxury brands are forced to price their handbags at $4,445 instead of $4,900 should be the long-term ability of those brands to hike prices to $5,200 in the near future. Give us a fucking break. [BW]
• Moody's has downgraded C.E.O.-less troubled retailer Barney's New York. Again. By two whole notches. To Caa3, which is just one stop above Ca, which is for securities that "are likely in, or very near, default, with some prospect of recovery of principal and interest." [WWD]
• Some sources are saying that Zappos wanted to remain independently owned, but was actually forced to sell itself to Amazon by venture capitalists who had invested in the company. [BusinessJournals]
• Zappos C.E.O. Tony Hsieh is denying these reports. [TBI]
• A bunch of New York fashion bloggers want us to all stop shopping. Seriously, just stop it! [Racked]

• New lows in celebrity sartorial publicity: Dior would like everyone to know that Madonna was wearing its sunglasses when she visited the victims of her stage collapse in Marseille, which killed two workers and left eight injured. [WWD]

• A Tracey Emin etching of Kate Moss is among artworks for sale via raffle - tickets are just £1 - to benefit Mothers4Children. [Telegraph]
• For some reason, Levi's decided to give its Fall '09 lookbook a jailbird theme. Since, at least before orange jumpsuits, denim was the fabric of life in the big house, the lookbook features models styled for mug shots, and photographed through bars. (The bars appear to actually be...a fire escape.) File under Annals of Idiocy, subsection Stupid High-Concept Lookbooks. [HighSnobiety]
• Levi's has also just acquired its own footwear and accessories licensee for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, DC Co. The company wants to strengthen its presence in those markets. [WWD]
• An American Apparel store in Silver Spring, Maryland had its window broken, allegedly because the window display featured the company's "Legalize Gay" gay rights t-shirts. A threatening telephone call was also received by another area store after the attack. The company took down its window displays - "We just don't want a broken window," explained the Silver Spring store manager, Kassandra Powell - but released a statement affirming its support of gay rights, and its intention to continue running "Legalize Gay" ads in Washington, D.C., area media and providing its t-shirts to local activist groups. [The Sexist]
• Angie Everhart is eight days away from giving birth as a single parent. Her worst pregnancy cravings were for egg salad. [People]
• Jerry Hall's advice for modeling (and life?): "Be nice to everyone, even if you don't want to. Just be nice and gracious. And don't show your bum." [WWD]
• That's one way to multi-task: Alexandra Richards had a hotel minion perform a pedicure while she deejayed. "Stuff that you can't do while getting a pedicure" seems like as good a definition of "actual professional labor" as any; this anecdote therefore proves beyond all doubt that deejaying ain't a real job. (But doing pedicures sure is.) [P6]
• Bar Refaeli's new campaign for Rampage is predictably hot. [People]
• Gloria Vanderbilt told model Kiera Chaplin, Charlie and Oona Chaplin's granddaughter, that she was the spitting image of her gran. "Oona and I were often mistaken for being sisters," explained the newly minted erotic novelist. [P6]
• Top model Du Juan is being sued by the Chinese agency New Silk Road for allegedly violating her contract with them when she signed with international powerhouse agency IMG in 2005. New Silk Road wants a portion of Du's IMG earnings, and an approximately $439,000 fine. [China Daily]
• Erin Wasson is joining Swiss skateboard company Doodah's line of naked supermodel boards. Isabeli Fontana, Lara Stone, Toni Garrn, and Edita Vilkeviciute are already featured on individual skateboards, wearing shoes they could not actually skateboard in. [The Cut]
• Naomi Campbell is featured in a similar state of undress for a new D&G perfume campaign. Which motivated the Sun to write the pun, "breast assets." [Sun]
• French fashion house Cacharel is re-launching itself at Paris Fashion Week this September. [WWD]
• Scott Schuman's book, The Sartorialist, is rolling off the presses now, even though the official release date is not until August 12. The cover features stylist Julie Ragolia. [The Sartorialist]
• American Eagle's "Artist" jean, which was a best-seller until it was discontinued last year, has been brought back after a redesign. The new cut is intended to be more flattering to a lady's rear. The jeans will retail at $39.50; the two kinds that have "destroyed details" cost $10 more. [WWD]
• American Vogue's Sarah Mower writes that fashion this fall is going to be a grown-up affair - that clothes will no longer worship at the feet of youth. The girl in the photo illustrating this story looks to be about 14. [Telegraph]
• Steve Madden, which produces watches through a licensee, allegedly found fakes for sale on eBay. Imagine! But when they asked the site to remove the items, eBay didn't comply, so the company is suing. [Reuters]
• Stylist Patricia Field designed an Ugly Betty-inspired Diet Coke bottle. It's pink. Will people seriously buy anything? [Fashionista]
• Charlotte Russe announced a 4.9% drop in third-quarter profits, to $6.3 million. [WWD]
• Avon has announced it will be laying off 1,200 people, or 2.8% of its workforce, over the next four years. [AP]
• Escada's bond exchange, which needed an 80% acceptance rate from bondholders in order to save the company from bankruptcy, has only met with approval from 37% of the company's creditors. So it has extended the exchange period until August 5, and implemented an exchange of stock to raise additional cash. [WWD]
• 1.4 million pairs of children's shoes are being recalled. The shoes, shaped like racecars, have wheels which can detach and pose a choking risk. Buster Brown & Co.'s eight different styles of shoes were sold at retailers including JC Penney, Famous Footwear, Meijer, Sears, Target, and Wal-Mart, and can be returned for a full refund. [WWD]

• Kylie Minogue was in Jean Paul Gaultier's front row yesterday because she's looking for outfits for her American tour, which kicks off in October. Might we suggest this? [Elle UK]

• In the 1930s aesthetic of some of the couture shows — especially Gaultier's — some observers see the influence of our current economic crisis. We'd argue that anyone who saw Jean Paul Gaultier's crocodile overalls and furs and thought "This is the new frugality!" is blind, but whatever. [Reuters]
• Marc Jacobs is extending his reach in the West Village of Manhattan. The designer already has five stores in a radius of as many blocks, but he still expects to open a sixth in the neighborhood next February. The space, at the corner of Bleecker and West 11th Sts., has been occupied by the Biography Book Shop for over 20 years. "The space is now worth eight times what the Biography Book Shop was paying," said building owner Alexander Brodsky, who added that Marc Jacobs would be paying more than $400/sq. ft. The fate of the book store is unknown. [WWD]
• And here's Jacobs on those bunny ears Madonna wore to the Met ball, which she also sports in the fall Louis Vuitton ad campaign: "There's a girl who works for us, Lucy, she's on the design team, and Adrian, one of the boys, was tying a little bit of fabric around and it reminded me of bunny. We were thinking of all these different things like can-can dancers, and I saw this piece of fabric wrapped around Lucy's head and said, 'Bunny ears, that's what we need to finish this look.' So we made all these radzimir bunny ears and that's how it happened. I like the kind of Playboy, French coquette aspect to it." Jacobs also referred obliquely to the extensive use of Photoshop — "The solarization that they're doing to the pictures is going to give a really dramatic effect" — and confirmed that the painter Tamara de Lempicka had been a reference. [Fashionologie]
• Celebrity fashion lines are not faring well in the market downturn. A round-up of those that have closed: Mandy Moore's Mblem, Heidi Montag's Heidiwood, and Jennifer Lopez's Sweetface and JLO by Jennifer Lopez. Paris Hilton also closed her unsuccessful line with Dollhouse, and Lauren Conrad put her clothing line "on hiatus" (although she did hit back with a lower-priced range for Kohl's). Interestingly, lines where the celeb doesn't have the star branding role — Justin Timberlake's William Rast, Gwen Stefani's L.A.M.B., Jay-Z's Rocawear — are proving more resilient. [WWD]
• That doesn't mean fashion houses don't still believe celebs can move product. Marion Cotillard is in another new ad for Dior's Lady Dior handbag. [GlamChic]
• Diane von Furstenberg totally wishes Brüno had crashed one of her shows. [WWD]
• New York bumped into prominent couture consumer Daphne Guinness on the street, and asked her about her outfit. Guinness was wearing a fitted black dress by L'Wren Scott, black scarves, asymmetrical cat-eyed sunglasses, and 7" red platform Mary-Jane heels. [The Cut]
• An exhibit at the Museum at FIT, which opened Tuesday, explores fashion's relationship with politics. Included is everything from white suits worn by suffragettes to Jean-Charles de Castelbajac's sequined dress with Obama's face. Of course, also still open at the Museum at FIT is the Isabel Toledo retrospective that features Michelle Obama's inauguration day outfit. [WWD]
• We've officially found the limits of Mrs. Obama's fashion appeal: Russia, apparently, is immune to the charms of her sheath dresses and belts. "Her clothes are modest and neutral," said local designer Denis Simachev. A Russian fashion historian attributed the cool reaction to a difference in taste, the Russian being somewhat more outré: "A lot of Russians think that when something shines, it's beautiful." [WWD]
• Meanwhile, the White House is locked in a war of words with an Italian luxury goods brand over a clutch purse. VBH claims that Michelle Obama carried its black crocodile envelope clutch, sticker price $5,950, during a meet-and-greet with President Medvedev and his wife Svetlana. The White House says the purse was a black patent clutch that cost $875. Please let the Obamas not be stupid enough to lie about something so minor and so easily disproven. [NYDN]
• Everybody's favorite pervy photographer, Terry Richardson, is being immortalized in a 7.5" action figure. [Slamxhype]
• The Wall Street Journal road-tested some vegan shoes, and found that faux leather and suede are getting realer looking by the minute. Pity two of their four offerings cost over $150, and one costs over $1,200. [WSJ]
• Isaac Mizrahi curated a summer show at the Julie Saul Gallery in Chelsea, which opens tonight. The busy designer modestly says the principal theme is just "work I like by people I like," but Mizrahi goes on to explain how his famous sense of color has been informed by his favorite artists over the years. "Every time I think about color I refer to Julia Sherman," says Mizrahi. "Those Julia Sherman reds next to pale, pale pink, my Spring collection is going to be all about that. I feel like people are really open to color now. When I launched in ‘87 and I did super-bright colors, they loved it, but they didn't buy it. They'd shoot it, they'd laud it, but they'd wind up buying black. I'm talking about New York, now. The South is a different story-that's always been a haven for me. But here in the city, these days-it's nuts, color is what flies off the rack. My own line, and Liz Claiborne, too. More color sells better."
  [Style.com]
• Shoe designer Jimmy Choo says you should wash your feet in warm, salted water every night before you go to bed. Also he says that Malaysia is beautiful and you should visit. [Daily Mail]
• In case you're not already reading BryanBoy, plus Susie Bubble, the Sartorialist, Jak & Jil, and Fashion Toast, here are a few reasons why you might want to.
  [TDB]
• Once upon a time, Kira Plastinina was just another teenaged Russian orange juice heiress with a love for pink clothes. Then Kira wanted a fashion chain, so her dad bought her one. The stores did well enough in her home country and in Ukraine, but Plastinina had her her eyes set on a higher prize: the American market. So her dad agreed to pay for Kira Plastinina stores all over the East and West coasts, and threw a launch party/16th birthday where he paid Paris Hilton and Usher to show up. Within seven months, the whole hot-pink operation had been shuttered, and Kira's U.S. vehicle, the K.P. Clothing Co., was in Chapter 7 liquidation with debts of over $54 million. Which outcome, one might think, would put paid to little Kira's notions of world chain store domination — but no! Cleverly disguised under a new business name (Pink Square) and a new brand (K. Plastinina), the teenaged tycoon reopened two of her former Los Angeles locations. Which is where protesters from a building company that did $2.5 million worth of unpaid work went to go find her yesterday. "The point of all this is that there are still people suffering because of what [the company] did," says Aaron Rectenwald, who built Kira eight of her original American stores. "We haven't gotten the attention of management yet so we'll be coming back until we do." [WWD]
• The 17 workers suing New York-based retailer Scoop for allegedly giving them bogus promotions to salaried positions to avoid paying them overtime staged a protest outside Scoop's SoHo store yesterday. The former employees, most of whom are from West Africa, also allege that Scoop fired people who were in fact legal residents for supposed immigration violations. Scoop's current owners released a statement that read, "Although these allegations are against Scoop's previous management, we've conducted an internal audit to insure the company is in compliance with local, state and federal wage and hour laws. Scoop's current wage and hour practices are conducted in accordance with all state, local and federal laws." The chain's founding owners had no comment. [WWD]
• Gap Inc. expects to expand into Thailand by next Spring. The company as a whole will, however, close more stores than it will open in the next fiscal year — 100 compared to just 50. [WSJ]
• Over 3,000 pairs of Charles by Charles David high heeled shoes sold at Nordstrom Rack from April to June of this year are being recalled. The recall affects various colors and styles of shoe, and was put into effect because the heels of the shoes can easily detach while the wearer is walking. If you're affected, you can take yours back to the store for a full refund. [UPI]

• Michael Jackson's entire family — including the kids — reportedly wore Versace to his memorial service yesterday. The singer was a longtime admirer of Gianni Versace's work, and LaToya Jackson contacted Donatella Versace to arrange for the custom outfits. [InStyle]

• The above would seem to fit with the findings of this trend story on celebrities increasingly bypassing stylists to contact designers directly. [NY Observer]
• An hour after the end of his own couture show — which may prove to be his last — designer Christian Lacroix paid a visit to Givenchy. Lacroix then went backstage to greet designer Riccardo Tisci and Delphine Arnault. Givenchy is owned by Bernard Arnault's luxury conglomerate LVMH; so was the house of Lacroix, until LVMH sold it to current owners the Falic group because it wasn't making any money. Despite the fact that Bernard Arnault is nothing if not a canny businessman unlikely to send good money after bad, Lacroix's visit in the midst of his company's bankruptcy has set tongues wagging that LVMH might re-invest. [FWD]
• Precisely because it is incredibly expensive and very limited in its customer base, couture is a sensible business for many kinds of fashion house to be in — the revenues from selling couture may be small, but the brand awareness having a couture collection builds moves a lot of perfume, scarves, sunglasses, shoes, handbags, and ready-to-wear. Companies that tend to do well with couture are either mega-sized Dior logo-behemoths that work the market from all those angles, or really tiny, esteemed couture houses that don't try and wager couture's tiny revenue stream on retail stores or other big costs. According to this story, Christian Lacroix's problem was that his company was in the middle — it expanded in recent years, got the new stores, got the perfume deal, but the core of his business, and its most reliable profits came from couture alone. [WSJ]
• But this season, neither Anna Wintour nor André Leon Talley has been spotted at the couture shows. [FWD]
• Karl Lagerfeld says there's nothing whatsoever to those rumors that he is planning retirement, and will be replaced by Lanvin's Alber Elbaz. He told Cathy Horyn of the Times that he expects to die at the house of Chanel. [OnTheRunway]
• But Lagerfeld, a legendary haver of minor spats, has already found a reason to dislike Audrey Tautou. He wasn't involved in her casting, as Coco Chanel, in the movie Coco Avant Chanel, and says he didn't have anything to do with her selection in the recent Oriental Express-themed No. 5 ad, either. The point of origin of their tiff is purportedly a statement Tautou made about Chanel in the French press. When asked if she often wore Chanel, the actress replied, "Sometimes. This morning I wore the rain boots." This remark Lagerfeld found dismissive. [WWD]
• Armani might be outfitting the Italian swimming team at the World Championships this summer in Rome, but that hasn't stopped Dolce & Gabbana underwear launching an ad campaign starring the men's team's biggest stars. You're welcome. [FWD]
• Are you pale and thoughtful? Do you like boys who sparkle in the sunshine, and hanging out in the woods? Then this $64 "Twilight" hoodie — featured in the movie, fangirls! — is just the thing for you. [FF]
• Alternatively, here are instructions and patterns to make your very own Matthew Williamson caftan out of 2.5 meters of chiffon or georgette. And a sewing machine. [LondonObs]
• Because Jil Sander cannot use her own name —Raf Simons designs Jil Sander, thankyouverymuch — the capsule collection she will produce with Uniqlo will be called +J. As a creative director for the whole brand, other garments that Sander designs for Uniqlo will be simply branded Uniqlo. [WWD]
• The line-up for September's New York Fashion Week is looking strong — organizers say although there are a greater number of presentations (which are cheaper to stage) than runway shows, the total number of presentations and shows matches the total number of presentations and shows from last September. [WWD]
• Seventeen employees of the New York-based retailer Scoop are suing the company, claiming that it gave them bogus promotions to salaried positions to avoid paying them for their overtime hours. Stock handlers and security guards allege that after being hired to work for hourly wages, they received promotions to salaried assistant managerial positions, but didn't actually have any change in their duties whatsoever. Nonetheless, as "managers", they were expected to work 50-60 hour weeks for their salaries. [Crain's]
• Fashion journalist Sarah Mower hates miniskirts ("the aim is a brash, sexy glamour of the most repulsive brassiness") and wearing tights in the summertime. She also hates sales, because "They drag on for months and the shops are a mess. Plus, I do not like the experience of looking at things I've bought at full price hanging there at 70 per cent off." [Telegraph]
• Somebody named Tahnee Atkinson has won a season of Australia's Next Top Model. She's no Alice. [SMH]

• Britney Spears' second trip out the gate for Candie's is an equestrian-themed acid-trip Photoshopped to ridiculousness. [DListed]
• No Shit Headline Of The Day: "New Report Sees Luxury Struggling." [WWD]

• Megan Fox said at the Armani Privé couture show that she is going to star in a fashion campaign for "a worldwide brand." [WWD]
• Lipstick sales may not actually spike during a recession, but that doesn't mean you can't make money off the colorful tubes. If you want to have a go at naming designer Chris Benz's shade of Lancôme lipstick, which will be worn by models at his September show as well as sold to the public, you could win a $500 gift certificate and a whole bunch of the lipsticks. And even if you aren't into lipsticks, you can re-sell these limited-edition rouges on eBay. One of Proenza Schouler's Lancôme lipsticks went for $120. Write your suggestions on Benz's Facebook fan page and wait for the money to roll in. [Fashionista]
• Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs wore a giant, caped caftan printed with lobsters and multi-colored eyeballs to Glastonbury. She topped it off with a Native-American-inspired headdress made of fringed hands of Fatima. [British Vogue]
• Meanwhile Roberto Cavalli, the animal-print-enamored designer who says "I don't know anything about the financial crisis," is opening a made-to-measure service. While it won't technically be a couture collection, it will hit a couture price point: The cheapest item is a $41,000 cocktail dress. [WWD]
• Louise Wilson, head of the fashion design M.A. program at Central St. Martins in London, shared some harsh words for her students and her industry in an interview with Cathy Horyn. "There are immensely talented people around but I feel huge vortexes of them are sucked into this mediocre world where nobody criticizes and it's all terribly politically correct. Even journalists are the same. You now hardly get a bad a review. In their mind the journalists are supporting the industry, so they don't want to dish it. For me it's that banality of what is youth....[A]nother thing I've noticed today — everything is farmed out. Someone else is going to cut it, and someone else is going to supply the fabrics. The hands-on gets more and more removed. If Lee McQueen or Christopher Kane had nothing, they could still make their garments. They have the skills. I think the problem is that fashion has become too fashionable. For years, fashion wasn't fashionable. Today fashion is so fashionable that it's almost embarrassing to say you're part of fashion. All the parodies of it. All the dreadful magazines. That has destroyed it as well, because everybody thinks fashion is attainable." [OnTheRunway]
• For her part, Miley Cyrus says of her upcoming collection for Wal-Mart, designed with Max Azria, "The jeans are my favorite part of the entire line. Because, like, literally this is going to be good for, like, Middle America, and it will be great for kids that really want to be in fashion but that don't have it available." [Sassybella]
• Cheaper designer clothes are our manifest economic destiny! Retailers are requesting collections be produced to hit a much wider range of price points — and designers are mostly happy to comply. [WWD]
• After winning the Council of Fashion Designers of America womenswear award last month for their label Rodarte, the Mulleavy sisters vacationed at Yellowstone National Park, where they saw herds of bison. They would like to go to Redwood National Park next. [W]
• Unsurprisingly, the Dior atelier was a hive of activity prior to yesterday's couture show, the first the company has done in-house in some time. The seamstresses and tailors worked through the night, and the towering floral displays took 4,000 roses to construct. The audience of 500 was actually smaller than the crowds were at some of Christian Dior's own shows at the salon in the 1950s, because fire codes now prevent, for example, letting guests sit on the stairs. [WWD]
• New York Times critic Cathy Horyn's review just went up on her blog. She liked Galliano's collection, although she did admit to needing to "mentally erase the distraction" of certain of the lingerie-inspired elements. "Despite the archive references, the collection didn't feel archival. Every delicate, restrained tuck of the jackets made the difference, as did the emphasis on short dresses and modest splashes of embroidery. There were a few big skirts at the end, including one with a tiny beige silk corset and layers of white tulle, but longer lengths now seem as annoying as Rapunzel's hair. Oh, just chop it off." [OnTheRunway]
• Horyn also put up pictures of model Magdalena Frackowiak reading Proust while her hair was crimped to perfection. [OnTheRunway]
• A judge has upheld designer Anand Jon Alexander's convictions for rape and sexual assault of young women models despite juror misconduct. During the trial, one juror passed a note to Sanjana Alexander, the designer's sister, and she subsequently called him, twice, to discuss the case. Sanjana Alexander alleged the juror asked for money or sex as a bribe to influence the verdict, but this was not evident from her secret recording of one conversation. The judge held that both Sanjana Alexander and the juror, Alvin Dymally, committed misconduct, and found them both to be in contempt of court, but did not agree that the "trifling" misconduct cast doubt upon the jury's verdicts. Anand Jon Alexander, who was automatically sentenced to life in prison, has vowed to appeal. [LATimes]
• On the President's trip to Russia to talk about nuclear weapons, Michelle Obama wore Narciso Rodriguez and the same Sonia Rykiel plastic belt she wore on the cover of O. Malia and Sasha Obama wore J. Crew's kid's line, Crewcuts. [E]
• When they left U.S. soil, Michelle Obama was wearing the Talbots dress from her Essence cover, Sasha was wearing more Crewcuts — and Malia appears to be wearing a See by Chloé skirt. Designer birthday present? [ABC]

• Jennifer Lopez is getting out of the U.S. clothing business, closing her brand, Sweetface. In 2007, Lopez shuttered JLO, replacing it with Justsweet — which then closed after two seasons. It's tough out there for a wannabe fashion mogul. [WWD]

• However, you'll be happy to know that Lopez's Passionista lingerie range is still faring well enough to hire Ana Beatriz Barros for its campaign. [Sun]
• And yet the fall-back advertising strategy remains: if all else fails, throw celebrities at the problem of generating sales in this economy! OP has Sophia Bush, Brody Jenner, Solange Knowles, and a gaggle of other faces in its summer campaign. [People]
• Angelina Jolie takes it easy when it comes to dressing for the red carpet: "I don't think too much about what to wear on the red carpet. I usually have three basic colors and I get the same shapes in different colors!" [MyFashionLife]
  
• Heidi Klum's Barbie, launching this September, comes clad in a sequined mini-dress — and a gold pair of shoes heavily inspired by those Dior gladiator platforms everyone was wearing last summer. Is it still a knock-off if it's plastic and 1" tall? [PopBytes]
• Michelle Obama favored New York designer Rachel Roy with her sartorial selections in San Francisco. The First Lady wore a dress by the designer to attend a conference on volunteering. [The Cut]
• The first of the Michelle Obama style books are here. There's Michelle Style: Celebrating the First Lady of Fashion by Mandi Norwood, Michelle Obama: First Lady of Fashion and Style by Susan Swimmer, and, amazingly, even a Michelle Obama 2010 wall calendar dedicated to 20 glorious full-color pictures of her style. Shockingly, the "experts" agree: the lady dresses well. [USAToday]
• Alexander McQueen said he wouldn't do a runway show for his Spring 2010 men's wear collection, but would instead present his goods in some very special format that the fashion world has eagerly anticipated, McQueen being known for theatrics. Well! If you want to spend 2:19 minutes of your life watching a heavy-breathing pyromaniac in his underwear crawl around an abandoned mental hospital, draw on his own arm, compulsively build a house out of sticks, and slather himself with a brownish substance he then uses to write "Shit" on the wall, all while creepy music plays, now's your chance! Directed by David Sims. Dazed & Confused called it "a daring expedition into both the mind and the wardrobe of an artist." [AlexanderMcQueen]
• Jonathan Saunders is returning to London Fashion Week for the Spring 2010 collections. He had previously shown in New York. Burberry, Matthew Williamson, and Pringle of Scotland have all similarly announced their intentions to celebrate LFW's 25th anniversary by showing there. [UK Vogue]
• The two brothers accused of committing dozens of robberies, mainly on lone women, around London were convicted in court yesterday. Daniel Mykoo, 28, admitted 19 offenses, including choking fashion designer Nicole Farhi until she became unconscious, and stealing her rings and watch. Matthew Mykoo, 27, was convicted of seven attacks but cleared of another eight, including the one on Farhi. [Guardian]
• Vogue hasn't lost any time in replacing Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, the director of special events (a.k.a. the woman in charge of the Oscars of the East, the Met Costume Institute ball), who resigned last Thursday. Sylvana Soto-Ward, an accessories editor who started as Anna Wintour's assistant in 2003, will take the reins. [WWD]
• Yasmin Le Bon is behind a U.K. charity that aims to help children in Romanian orphanages. To support it, you can buy weekly £1 raffle tickets with a chance of winning bounty donated from sponsors. The prize for the first week is a £2,000 voucher from Net-A-Porter. [Times of London]
• 17-year-old fashion blogger Jane Aldridge of Sea of Shoes has a deal to sell her own shoes at Urban Outfitters. Three styles will be in stores next month, and three more will debut in December. Pricing information isn't yet available, but pictures are. (Ironically, to my eye, the heel-lover's flats are the best-looking pair.) [SeaOfShoes]
• And fashion designers think using Twitter will help their business. [WWD]
• Gildo Zegna, the chief executive of Ermenegildo Zegna, the Italian suit maker, says fashion talk of an economic recovery by spring next year is foolish. "I remain positive long term, but we have to be realistic about the crisis," said Zegna. "I think it will be longer than initially anticipated and marginal players are going to go out of business. We have the example of the banking system and the car industry. If it happened to them, it can happen in our business." Zegna just showed the younger, lower-priced line Z Zegna at Milan's men's wear week for the first time, and has aggressively expanded over the past few years in China, to the point where it now has 60 boutiques there and foresees China becoming a bigger market than the U.S. within the next 18 months. Zegna also believes luxury's next great frontier will be Africa. "Look how the Chinese are investing in Africa — they are smart." Did we just hear the future of fashion articulated by one of the industry's oldest names? [NY Times]
• Struggling Abercrombie & Fitch is opening a 40,000 square foot flagship mega store for its Hollister brand in New York. [WWD]
• Chinese counterfeiters are shipping products with fake "Made in India" labels. The ultimate blame-the-other-emerging-economy dodge. [Hindustan Times]

The recession has already spawned its own language of buzzwords, as if the right combination of meaningful letters whispered in the consumer's ear will suddenly unlock her wallet: there's "investment" fashion, "green" fashion, the "new vintage." (That one sold out, so perhaps Stefano Pilati's on to something.) "Ethical" fashion. We're told there will be "slow" fashion, to match our slow food. There's the fantasy that we'll all start making our own clothes, and the competing theories that we'll have more of our clothes made in America — or that we'll continue having more made overseas.

What this confusion of language speaks to is the underlying truth that this recession will permanently change the apparel industry — and the profound uncertainties that still cloud what those changes will be. How we dress, how we shop, how we are marketed to, where our clothes come from and who makes them are all up for reconsideration. The propagation of inanities like the concept of "investment" dressing is just evidence that even most industry experts are only grasping at straws, like the rest of us.

Cathy Horyn was asked to speak on fashion and the economy last week at an event for Citi's Women & Co., a $125-a-year members-only women's professional organization run by the bank. Horyn's speech, a "trimmed" version of which she later posted to her blog, and then chased with more thoughts yesterday, amounted to a kind of fashion state of the union.

Horyn gets down to business by assessing the state of fashion before this recession began — and noting how it's different than past periods of economic instability. The downturn of the early 2000s, she argues, barely registered in fashion (in 2001, consumer spending actually increased). The late 90s and the early 2000s, taken together, were a period of remarkable consolidation and expansion in the rag trade. As Horyn explains,

This was the era when luxury groups were being formed — when Saint Laurent sold out to Gucci, when Bernard Arnault hired John Galliano and Marc Jacobs to shake up Dior and Vuitton respectively, when Prada made a bid for global power by buying Jil Sander and Helmut Lang, and when PPR eventually took control of Gucci...This shift from a largely craft-based, family-owned culture to a brand management culture mirrored what was happening in the financial markets, in the explosion in the art markets, and the excitement surrounding new architecture, particularly in countries like China and Dubai. Dress codes and divisions of all kinds have been breaking down for years — we scarcely notice when someone mixes high-low elements. But the late 90s and early 2000s saw fashion's ivory tower crumble a little more as designers became ardent marketers — selling the image rather than, in some cases, the clothes. In 2001, Marc Jacobs brought out the Vuitton bag splashed with Stephen Sprouse graffiti. It was followed by the Murakami bag, along with those indelible, digitally enhanced advertising images by the photographers Mert and Marcus. These designs were plainly creative, but the point is these bags were not precious objects. They expressed perfectly the blending of art and commerce, and insolence over elegance — a mood also conveyed in the ironic images of the photographer Juergen Teller, who for more than a decade has created Jacobs' ad campaigns for his own label, including the one of Victoria Beckham as a commoditized celebrity in a shopping bag.

So the recession of 2001 did not throw anyone off the rails.

In many ways, Louis Vuitton is the perfect embodiment of this grading-down of luxury. Until the 80s, Louis Vuitton was just another nice French handbag brand, perhaps known for quality and definitely known for high prices, sure, but not a "fashion" brand with much season-to-season variance, and certainly not a true "luxury" one either. Its coated-canvas monogram wares were widely available and sold in department stores like any other high-end bag; for nearly 20 years, handbags were even made under license for the U.S. market. Then that all changed: Louis Vuitton restricted the sale of its bags to its standalone boutiques, and started aggressively associating its bags with luxury and status through advertising. Naturally, the company raised its prices, which only raised its cachet. But the Speedy 30 that was sold off the shelf at Saks in 1980 is still fundamentally the same bag that runs $700 at Louis Vuitton's own store today. It was a triumph effected with marketing and precious little besides; the bags did not noticeably change or actually become more "luxurious" in their trip up from "good brand" to "luxury brand." But we bought them anyway. Now the deal isn't looking so good.

The stock market crash of 1973 and the long period of stagflation that ensued, as Horyn remarks, is a formal pendant for the current economic situation: a Wall St. crisis that spurred a recession in the "real" economy. But within the apparel industry, too much has changed to allow for any direct analogy between then and now:

In the mid 70[s], fashion was also a relatively small, familial world, with manufacturers forming relationships with stores through expert buyers, and styles evolving slowly. In 1975, a widely popular style was the quilted Chinese jacket, no doubt influenced by the opening of diplomatic relations with China. I am reminded of a conversation I had years ago with the comic Sandra Bernhard, who told me that when she began to do stand-up, she would include as part of her act a reading from Women's Wear Daily's pages. That's how strange and remote the fashion world seemed — those socialite names sounded exotic. By contrast, in the past decade, fashion has become a marketing tool for all kinds of non-fashion products, from stylish cell phones to boutique hotels. And, for better or worse, it has transformed urban neighborhoods, like the Meatpacking District in New York or South Congress Avenue in Austin, Texas.

So what is next? And what are the issues on the table, according to Horyn?

[T]his recession is different. Just about every luxury group and upscale retail chain has reported declines, and no category, with the exception perhaps of watches, is performing very well. Private investment in fashion companies is virtually non-existent, and there is very little acquisition activity. Of course, part of the problem is over-capacity — there's just too much stuff around.

That's not strictly true; certain luxury categories are performing well. Hermès leather goods division — the sector of the company that sells $50,000 crocodile handbags with a three-year waiting list — experienced a 21.7% jump in sales during the first quarter of this year. (It's the expensive but comparatively lower-priced goods, like watches and perfumes, that aren't doing so well for the French brand.) But other luxury companies are deeply troubled. Harry Winston and Tiffany's both just released quarterly results that were marked by steep losses.

Horyn sees the industry facing challenges along two primary axes. For one, there will continue to be steep growth in consumer spending in emerging markets, like Asia and South America — especially at the high end of the retail continuum. While the recession might be stalling luxury spending in Japan, it won't stop growth in China and India. It can't. At the couture shows in Paris this January, the happiest man around was the consultant who helps introduce wealthy Indian women to the designers and advises them on which pieces to buy. (And by "piece," we are talking here of $75,000 dresses.) These consumers will be predominantly under 35, and they will want "real" luxury — not $4,000 Prada it-bags that only hold any allure for a season. There's a reason they're going to the Paris couture collections.

As for the rest of us? Horyn thinks the designers that will be successful over the coming years and after the recession will be those who cast off "history-minded" dressing and think instead of, wait for it, the future.

It involves thinking of the consequences of technology, and relating these changes more imaginatively to how we dress, how we shop — the design of stores, the potential of online magazines and stores. A "sartorial consciousness," to use Quentin Bell's term, is not limited to moral indignation; it also applies to the raw materials, the energy sources, and labor practices used in making a garment. "Green fashion" will become more and more important, and young consumers in particular will expect to see innovation and experimentation in this area — the kind they see in proposals for wind-powered skyscrapers and carbon-free transportation systems. Indeed, I am somewhat surprised that a big luxury group has not had the foresight to create a separate eco-brand of high-quality garments, with a casual yet sophisticated aesthetic. We've seen a number of niche labels, but not one that draws on the brand power and advertising reach of a luxury group.

Perhaps that's exactly what LVMH is thinking in acquiring Edun, and bringing its tremendous marketing resources and distribution network to bear on the organic cotton, sustainably-made fashion line.

Horyn's closing remarks I'll give in full:

a great many people in the fashion world would share the photographer Horst's view that "fashion is a universe full of art and excess where no one thought of the outside world," even though that statement was made about the late 1930s. This may be why many designers do not know how to fully relate the Internet to fashion — imaginatively. I mean only that it took radio roughly 40 years to reach 50 million people, while it took the Internet just 4 years to reach the same number of people.
This is the dynamic that fashion must embrace in the coming years in order to be truly creative and relevant. It's great to talk about "slow fashion" and the value of handcraft in informing our imagination. These qualities will still be important, as Paris is, but imagine the other system of thought that revolts and finally breaks free of the old world.

If that's the future of fashion, I want to be there to see it. Provided it costs less than $700 for a canvas bag.

The Bigger Picture [On The Runway]
Bic Pic: Further Thoughts [On The Runway]

Related:
Green Fashion: Is It More Than Marketing Hype? [Fast Company]
Pilati Unveils YSL "New Vintage" At Barneys [WWD]
Rethinking Outsourcing In The Recession [Forbes]
Apparel Import Slump: U.S. Importing Much Less Clothing Because Of The Recession [South Florida Sun-Sentinel]
Dress For Less And Less [NY Times]
In The Bag: how Hermès Beats The Recession [ABC News]
LVMH Near A Big Stake In Bono Firm [WSJ]

Earlier:
"Investing" In Your Closet Not Recommended By Actual Investment Experts
New York Times Bets Against Anna Wintour, American Vogue

• No plain yearbook headshot for this year's CFDA nominees: Jason Wu, Marc Jacobs, Alexander Wang, et al posed for Craig McDean while wearing their own creations. [WWD]
• Leggings impresario Lindsay Lohan is rumored to be seeking a position as Ungaro's "creative consultant." Designer Esteban Cortazar is allegedly spitting pins. [P6]

• Marc Jacobs, his intended, Lorenzo Martone, and Donna Karan all agree: Nacho Figueras, the Argentine polo champ, is totally hotter than Prince Harry. "Nacho's the sexiest man on earth. Hello," averred Martone. I suggest you look at this picture, and make up your own mind. [The Cut]
• Nicole Farhi, somewhat unsurprisingly, thought she was going to die during a knifepoint robbery outside her home when her two assailants strangled her until she lost consciousness. The trial of the brothers accused of carrying out this and 16 other robberies around London is ongoing. Farhi lost a ring and a Rolex that belonged to her father in the attack. [Telegraph]
• Diane von Furstenberg and Barry Diller have made a $10 million commitment to the High Line project, which is transforming a former elevated railway line into a landscaped mini-park. [NY Times]
• For its couture show this July, Dior is returning to its first-ever store and the site where Christian Dior launched the famous "New Look" collection in 1947. [British Vogue]
• Thakoon Panichgul has launched his slightly lower-priced line, Thakoon Addition. And by slightly, we mean dresses starting around $600. Sigh. [FWD]
• Meanwhile, Gucci has opened its Shanghai flagship store. [WWD]
• How have I only just discovered Erin O'Connor's blog? The British supermodel reports that on her last trip to New York, she overheard a woman ordering a plastic surgeon to give her lips like Erin's, on the grounds that they are "kinda thin enough to look real." Erin and old friend Karen Elson decided to re-start their netball team, and Maggie Rizer apparently has held on to pictures of the three of them in agency housing at the very start of their careers. Her trip through the Met's "Model as Muse" exhibit made her observe: "'Muse,' I thought out loud, is so passé. Surely models no longer exist to amuse as muses? The models I know are collaborators, brand makers and ball breakers!" [British Vogue]
• Izod home furnishings will soon be a thing which you can buy. For what reason, I don't know. [WWD]
• In a diversification that makes slightly more sense, Puma is getting into swimwear. [WWD]
• Ben Westwood is, at 49, slightly too old for the "enfant terrible" label his gallery would give him. (Is it fair to say that after a certain point, you're just plain terrible?) Vivienne Westwood's eldest son thought long and hard about being the child of a celebrity, and decided the best way to represent this unique set of problematic circumstances through art would be to hire fetish models to pose tied up in ropes with the names of famous parents — Bob Geldof, Paula Yates, Keith Allen — and then clumsily Photoshop images of the real progeny's faces over the models' heads. You see, the kids are literally tied up by their heritage. Groan. His show opened in London last week. [Flavour]
• Uniqlo's May same-store sales grew by a whopping 18.3%, proving that in a troubled economy, everyone likes a little cheap cashmere. [WWD]
• And the Japanese retailer is rumored to be interested in taking over Brooks Brothers' old store location at 666 Fifth Avenue. Brooks Brothers consolidated two Midtown stores, and initially Abercrombie & Fitch was to move into the Fifth Avenue space — but when neighboring Hickey Freeman closed because of parent company Hartmarx's bankruptcy, Abercrombie moved there instead. Uniqlo, Topshop, Zara, Forever21 and Century 21 are among those said to be interested in the prime location. Because even now, Fifth Avenue still means sales volume. [NY Post]
• In bankruptcy court, Hartmarx and Emerisque, the private equity firm that wants to buy the bankrupt men's clothier, renegotiated the proposed takeover bid to give more cash to chief creditor Wells Fargo. If the new plan is approved by the judge today, Hartmarx and its factory could remain in operation. [NY Times]

• Gisele Bundchen garnered an estimated $25 million in the past year, notching up campaigns for everything from Dior to True Religion jeans. Rounding out Forbes' 10 top-earning models list are posers like Heidi Klum, Adriana Lima, Kate Moss and — the sole biracial model represented — Emanuela de Paula. [Forbes]

• A behind-the-scenes shot of Scarlett Johansson and Mario Sorrenti working on the fall Mango ads show the Tom Waits-loving actress is giving her best sexyface. [Style.com]
• Vogue Nippon and Comme des Garçons launched a pop-up store called "Magazine Alive" in Tokyo. The contents will change each month, with every new issue of Vogue NIppon — but right now features t-shirts with manga likenesses of Hedi Slimane and Donatella Versace, as well as dresses from labels like Undercover. Who else but Takashi Murakami decorated the second floor, and Karl Lagerfeld did the window-dressing. Are we brainwashed for saying that, for a pop-up store — the hackiest of all the hacky, hackneyed retail concepts out there — this actually sounds pretty cool? [WWD]
• Barneys creative director Simon Doonan's life is the subject of a new television show, Beautiful People, produced by Absolutely Fabulous' Jon Plowman, on the Logo network. Doonan's impoverished formative years in 1950s England have been shifted in time to the 1990s, a move which he says "distilled the fun-ness of childhood and left the grimness behind." The series opens with Doonan installing a window display at Barneys based on old men who look like lesbians, and even though everyone knows that's a website, we would still totally watch this. Doonan says he is proud that the show tells the story of how a gay teenager was accepted by his family. [NY Times]
• Fashion designer Nicole Farhi was among the victims of two brothers who allegedly strangled and robbed 17 women and one man in wealthy neighborhoods of London. All the people targeted survived. [Telegraph]
• The nominees for Scottish Designer of the Year are a high-fashion pack: superstar designers Christopher Kane, Graeme Black, Jonathan Saunders, and Laura Lees are represented. Annie Lennox, Sharleen Spiteri, Jenni Falconer and Lulu are all in the running for the Scottish Style Icon of 2009 award. Other awards given at the annual event at Stirling castle on June 21 will reward Scottish photographers, makeup artists, models, and one recent fashion school graduate. [Telegraph]
• The jury in the Trovata/Forever 21 copyright case was unable to reach a verdict, and the judge declared a mistrial late yesterday. [WWD]
• U.S. Customs seized a shipment of counterfeit sunglasses from China with a retail value of $1.8 million. [WWD]
• This post manages to work in mention of both the debunked "lipstick" and "hemline" economic indicators, before adding a new one, courtesy of Alan Greenspan. The men's underwear index! Greenspan reasons that since few people see men's underwear, it's the first item men stop buying during a recession, preferring instead to wear out their current pairs. Sales of boxers and briefs should spike, according to this logic, when a recovery is underway, and men suddenly start replacing their threadbare underthings. Problems with this: Alan Greenspan often speaks in the language pure koan. And men, in my experience, always wear their underwear until it falls to shreds. I've known dudes who had four or five stained, holey pairs still in regular rotation among the newer, more hale offerings. It's just another way in which dudes are gross, not an economic indicator. [Economist.com]
• Revlon's share price rose 55 cents, or 10.4%, yesterday, on the back of encouraging earnings results for the first quarter of 2009. But it's not as simple as 'women are buying lipstick': Revlon has replaced its CEO in a management shake-up, and says it profited because it introduced new product lines. [Crain's]
• DSW, after a loss in the fourth quarter of 2008, made a modest profit of $7.1 million in the first quarter of 2009. [WWD]
• Polo Ralph Lauren reported its profits for the quarter ended March 28 declined by 57% on last year's results, because of falling consumer spending and the company's own restructuring and impairment costs. Same-store sales fell by over 15% during the quarter, but the report still exceeded analysts' expectations. [Crain's]
• Shapewear for men is still a thing which people are trying to make happen. (Again? I was reading an early 20th century novel the other day that referred matter-of-factly to a male character's girdle.) [WWD]
• Oh, the old Anna Wintour ambassadorship rumor again. Contract renewal one-upmanship is such a drag. [P6]

• Hilary Rhoda: Estée Lauder spokesmodel with a thing for drugstore makeup. A woman after our own hearts. [Daily Beast]
• In other news from model-land, Adriana Lima might be pregnant. [NYDN]
• Also said to be expecting: Gisele Bundchen. [NYDN]
• And sources say Kate Moss could be birthing a "novel." [Sun]

• Givenchy's Fall/Winter campaign, shot this time by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott after nine seasons in the hands of Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin, features newcomer model Ranya Mordanova and her distinctive bowl cut. [WWD]
• Stefan Persson, the Swedish owner of H&M, is in the final stages of a $40 million deal to buy an entire village in Britain. Linkenholt, its manor estate, cricket grounds, town hall, forest, surrounding farm land, and all 21 current residents' homes, will become Persson's. Curiously, the neighboring town of Andover was the site, in 994, of the confirmation of Viking King Olaf Tryggvason, who, in following the religious ceremony and the receipt of other gifts, promised King Ethelred the Unready that he would stop raiding England. (The Viking king was technically Norwegian, not Swedish, but it's still an odd coincidence.) [UPI]
• Another country estate, this one in Scotland, with a fashion connection, is to be restored by its owner. Rundown Rosehall House, which was decorated by Coco Chanel in the 1920s, is going to be turned into a luxury country club under a £3 million renovation plan. [Daily Express]
• At Dior's party for Marion Cotillard at Cannes, Alex de Betak, who produces shows for the major houses, revealed that he's curating an exhibition dedicated to fashion shows that will unfurl in 3-D at the NRW Forum in Dusseldorf in July. Expect references to the now in-again late 80s/early 90s: "There are shows that made a big impression on me before I even started out, like the Thierry Mugler with the motorbike and George Michael or Gaultier's shows at the Villette where girls were coming out of the floor. Those were so memorable." [WWD]
• Cartier filed and withdrew a lawsuit against Apple in the same day. The jewelry house alleged that two iPhone applications infringed on its trademark Tank watches; Apple removed the apps from its online store. [WSJ]
• John Duerden, the new CEO of Crocs, a company which was supposed to be bankrupt already after losing $22.4 million in the first quarter of this year alone, thinks the company can be saved with aggressive cost-cutting and a thorough pruning of its inventory. [WWD]
• The rejected Aquascutum buyout may have been the company's last chance for survival. Former chief executive Kim Winser, who transformed Pringle into a fashion brand before taking over Aquascutum three years ago, had wanted to buy the venerable English house from its current Japanese owners, Renown, which is looking to spin off the brand as part of company-wide restructuring. Now, 400 jobs and the company's pension obligations are in jeopardy. [FT]
• Fellow iconic British label Burberry Prorsum will show in London, not Milan, this September, to mark the 25th anniversary of London Fashion Week and the British Fashion Council. [WWD]
• Rumors of a rift between Donatella Versace, creative director, and Giancarlo di Risio, chief executive, over Versace's falling fortunes and recession strategy have been denied "unanimously and categorically" by the company board. Di Risio was said to be on the point of leaving the company. Versace has so far refused to adapt much to the new patterns of consumer spending, emphatically not lowering its prices. The company believes that discounting would harm its luxury brand identity in the long term; sales have plummeted, even relative to the overall troubled high-end fashion market, with revenue falling 13.4% in the first quarter of 2009. [FT]
• Saks's CEO has pledged to offer more low-priced items following a 27% decline in sales in the first quarter. Lanvin, meanwhile, has just announced that it made $9.9 million in profits during 2008, a year for which sales grew 29%. [WWD]
• Nordstrom's prices are already an average of 10% lower than they were one year ago. [WWD]
• For his part, John Varvatos has one question he'd like to ask God, assuming s/he exists: "When is the economy going to turn around?" [The Fashion Informer]
• Sergio Rossi has a new president and CEO: Christophe Mélard. [WWD]
• Guthy Renker Australia, which, there as here, sells skincare products, including Proactiv and Principal Secret, via infomercial, lost AU$15 million last year. The American parent company has had to guarantee its debts. [News.com.au]
• Ittierre, the troubled Italian fashion company that Roberto Cavalli blamed for the cancellation of his Fall/Winter Just Cavalli show this February, has renewed its licensing deal not only with Cavalli, but with C'N'C, Costume National's diffusion brand. [WWD]

• In a move that smacks of Chanel-Audrey-Jean-Pierre, Dior announced it's making a 6 1/2 minute online perfume ad with Marion Cotillard and Olivier Dahan, who of course directed Cotillard in La Vie En Rose. [WWD]

• Richard Avedon's retrospective at the International Center of Photography, opening tomorrow, is the largest show of his fashion work yet mounted. Cathy Horyn spoke to curators Carole Squiers and Vince Aletti, plus friends like the New Yorker's Adam Gopnik, about the legendary lensman and his manifest influence on contemporary fashion photography. [NY Times]
• Alexa Chung, the British former model who recently moved stateside to present a new show for MTV, endears perhaps most of all by not pretending her job is difficult. "Presenting isn't hard. You're basically reading cards. I mean, how fucking difficult is that?" And then by sharing these words about the television industry: "I think the mistake a lot of TV channels make is that they assume kids are dumb when they're not. Middle-aged fat men [shouldn't] tell young people [what] to watch when they have no idea." [WWD]
• Aldo, the normally good relatively cheap shoe line, wants us to wear horrendous teal 'n' bronze 'n' snakeskin 'n' studs gladiator sandals this summer. [LA Times]
• Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen's fashion line, Elizabeth and James, gave People the exclusive on the release of their fall '09 lookbook. This marks a new uppermost notch on the continual rise of lookbooks into campaign territory. [People]
• Carla Bruni-Sarkozy and her husband are reportedly considering moving into the Paris apartment formerly owned by Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé. [Daily Mail]
• The Agyness Deyn on Twitter is, says BFF Henry Holland, an imposter. "THIS IS FAKE PEOPLE!!!" typed the designer. "AGGY DOES KNOW HOW TO OPERATE A COMPUTER AND MOST CERTAINLY DOES NOT EAT BREAKFAST!" [Grazia]
• C. Scott Hemphill and Jeannie Suk, law professors at Columbia and Harvard, respectively, give a good summary of the current status of U.S. copyright law in relation to clothing — which is that it offers designers not a whit of protection from knock-off artistes — and why it would be a good idea to change it. [XX]
• In related news: Trovata's case against Forever 21, which it accuses of copying six of its designs, has begun at a federal court in California. [WWD]
• Urban Outfitters is rolling out two new designer diffusion lines for summer: both Burberry and fellow British brand Pistol Panties are going to be selling bikinis at the American chain this summer. [Telegraph]
• Urban Outfitters' Philadelphia-based parent company just announced very disappointing earnings for the first quarter of this year. Same-store sales across the whole company dropped by 9.6%, and profits fell 28%, to $30.8 million. Free People was the biggest-losing brand, with sales at its stores slipping by 23%. Anthropologie's sales were down by 13%, and Urban Outfitters by 6%. The CEO, Glenn Senk, says his company is "well-positioned to show improvement over the next several quarters," in what is surely the understatement of the year. [The Street]
• Yesterday's flurry of rumors about the future of i-D magazine — Derek Blasberg Twittered from the Chanel resort show in Venice that the fashion monthly might have closed — the publishers have clarified that i-D will be bi-monthly as of this September. The current April issue will be on newsstands until then; the magazine will run more frequent online content instead. [Fashionologie]
• Another not-new piece of menswear news: Designers using foam batting, instead of perhaps down, as lofty insulation within garments. You know, because foam has structure. [WSJ]
• According to sources, Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy is to buy an almost 50% stake in the eco-conscious fashion line Edun, owned by Bono and wife Ali Hewson. Edun was founded in 2005 and manufactures its organic cotton goods in the third world, while paying workers fair wages. A cash infusion from LVMH would allow it to ramp up its advertising and exponentially expand its reach. [WSJ]
• Philip Lim, whose clothes — though still expensive — hit a price point well below that of many of his designer competitors, is anticipating a 15% growth in sales this year. Accordingly, he's planning to add three new lines to his label: swimwear, footwear, and lingerie. The first, his swim collection, will launch this summer, with three styles, two one-pieces and one bikini, priced at $175 each. Lingerie, for $65-$125, will be available at his Manhattan boutique from May 20. Footwear, at $290-$675, will hit stores this fall. And don't expect 6" heels with fiddly feathered doo-dads that might last twenty steps in their original condition. "Everyone's making crazy shoes," said Lim, "so we were like, ‘Let's do working shoes, but sophisticated and beautiful.'" [WWD]
• Maidenform's first quarter earnings declined by 0.8%. Although the brand experienced higher sales, its margins were hurt by aggressive discounting to move old stock. [WSJ]
• Kohl's profit for the quarter just ended fell slightly on last year, to $137 million, but still beat analysts' expectations. Sales rose during the same period by 0.4%. [Reuters]
• Hartmarx wants another six months to file for reorganization in bankruptcy court. [WWD]

Jones got his start in hat making simultaneously in two very different venues: at the venerable English couture house Lachasse, where he trained while studying at Central St. Martins, and in his flat, where he'd fashion creations for the New Romantic London club kids of the late 70s. His work shows the mark of that very wide set of influences. Jones is responsible for everything from the headwear that marches down the runway at all of Dior's couture shows to the human-hair caps from Nicolas Ghesquière's first season at Balenciaga. His designs vary from Surrealist-inflected doll-part deconstructions (the "Myra", from Jones' Fall/Winter 03 collection, shown below) to showgirl showpieces (see Kylie Minogue's last tour) to things made out of popsicle sticks: if you buy Jones' millinery-as-escape-of-self bit, you might say his work contains multitudes of people you can be. (Perhaps "people" is too generic — characters, then, for sure.)

Solve Sundsbo shot this story, for Another Magazine, and it's beautiful. (It is also available for free online.) The directional lighting, the clinical atmosphere, the cool, desaturated tones, the lines of Guinevere Van Seenus's barely made-up face are all so perfect. (And that's saying something, given I normally can't even stand to look at Van Seenus, a Steven Meisel favorite who once told The Face that the Holocaust could be interpreted as karmic retribution for something really bad the Jews must have done.)

Hats are costume, no matter how many times that trend piece gets written. But they aren't any more costume-y than most of the other looks in fashion magazines; many of us would no sooner wear a felt galleon perched atop our heads than we would a pair of Balenciaga armored leggings or a deconstructed Comme des Garçons cape (Rei Kawakubo is another designer for whom Jones frequently works). I manage to keep a hat or two in my suitcase, and whenever I put them on, they change the tenor of any outfit — definitely moreso than any other accessory — precisely because of this touch of the pure editorial sublime they provide. Once I walked into a designer's showroom wearing a floppy 60s-style hat with an extravagant brim and a scarf for a band, and she booked me on the spot. It was definitely because of the hat.

Continued Jones, to Another Magazine's Susannah Frankel, "Especially if people are coming to me, they're looking for a costume, a way into becoming someone else. Whether you're becoming a lady going to Ascot, or you've got a soft felt on and you're becoming Garbo, or you're putting on a baseball cap and you're becoming 50 Cent but really you're a nice boy from Winchester. The self-expression for the milliner is about creating something that is dynamic and can be an expression of themselves. For the person wearing the hat, it's about expression too, not necessarily of yourself, but of another self."

You could say that's the project of fashion in general — the expression of another self.

"Hats: An Anthology," the show co-curated by Stephen Jones and Oriole Cullen, closes at the Victoria and Albert museum on May 31.

Stephen Jones [Another Magazine]
Hats: An Antholoy [Victoria and Albert Museum]

I so wanted to love this exhibit. I'll admit that bias right from the start. I know first-hand what goes into a shoot, and the crucial animating energy of modeling — the performance that is part mute, still-frame acting, part own-stunt cojones (who do you think climbs South American rock faces without ropes, in couture? Lily Donaldson's double?), part pure, inexplicable presence — and I feel, frankly, that our contributions to the fashion industry and the discourse of images that the industry uses to represent itself to the world are often underreported and undersold. Getting up in the morning and transforming, convincingly, into the apotheosis of a photographer, designer, and stylist's only partly shared creative vision isn't easy.

And just now, after season upon season of most designers choosing to make their models look as inconspicuous, anonymous, and blandly interchangeable as possible on the runway and in advertising, after years in which the model has shrunk before our very eyes, the culture seems ripe for some kind of redress: a resurgence of individuality, a reassertion of personality. A return to the days when the casual fashionista — as opposed to only the dedicated indexer of Internet-derived fashion arcana — could at least tell us all apart. The theme of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute's brand-new and infinitely hyped "Model as Muse" exhibit, with its privileged understanding of the lowly clotheshorse's role in advancing fashion, seemed to promise a move in that direction.

What a terrible disappointment, then, to walk through the Tisch gallery on opening day and find an exhibit that was seemingly laid out with the goal of inspiring the utmost tedium in the viewer. I should have known as soon as I passed that terrible bit of tat with creepy Robo-Dovima in the entryway: the first corridor of photographs is lit with softboxes suspended from the ceiling. Softboxes. Photographic equipment illuminating exemplars of fashion photography! The single-entendre curation never lets up; the viewer is also subjected to such cheesy gestures as stepping literally through a velvet rope in order to enter the 1970s gallery. (Done up, naturally, to look like the basement of Studio 54, complete with unlit cigarettes.) It is difficult to concentrate on the beauty that surrounds when your ears are being assaulted with Alicia Bridges' "I Love The Nightlife" and your eyes with a tawdry-looking spread of yet more blank-faced mannequins, all decked out in truly atrocious wigs by fashion hairstylist Julien d'Ys.

I suspect even the curators, led by Costume Institute head Harold Koda, found their vision a little less than compelling: the exhibit often seems like the product of minds that occasionally wandered. In the wall copy, I spied the former model Anjelica Huston's name mis-spelled with a 'g', and I read twice within 30 seconds the phrase "attenuated limbs." (British model Karen Elson, in the 90s room, has "elegantly attenuated limbs," while American Stephanie Seymour, who closes out the 80s gallery, has "gracefully attenuated limbs.")

This Avedon photo of Lauren Hutton is what every American Apparel ad wants to be. And never will.

The exhibit proceeds dully, chronologically, through roughly the past 60 years of fashion history. The galleries dealing with each decade are separated by lines as clear as they are arbitrary; the Fifties, you see, was the decade of the Continent and Dior and Balenciaga, but then once the clock struck 12:01 on January 1, 1960, nobody made couture anymore, and Rudi Gernreich immediately put the obliging Peggy Moffitt in his monokini. Cue mod! (Cue the Who! On repeat!)

Veruschka, shot here for the August, 1968, issue of French Vogue by her then-lover, Franco Rubartelli, played a role in her shoots that today would be highly unusual for a model. She had significant input into, or sometimes even sole control, of the styling, the makeup, and the hair, and the images produced were generally collaborations between herself and the photographer.

It's hard to screw up showing quality fashion photography, framed on a wall. (Even the various viewer-insulting "contextual" gestures, like blaring pop music and the intrusive graffiti in the 90s room — perpetrated by hairdresser d'Ys, at Anna Wintour's instruction, which goes to show just how much control the noted museum patron has over the arts on display — do not entirely manage to quash the timeless beauty of, for example, Irving Penn's June 1950 Vogue cover shot of Jean Patchett. The presentation of the artifacts on the walls is fine. What I am still unclear about is the value of seeing the mannequin'd tableaux-morts featuring the actual designer clothes; if the point of this show is to celebrate models and their animating contributions to fashion and fashion photography, then, after seeing Veruschka in Yves Saint Laurent's safari collection, or Bert Stern's astonishing studio shot of Twiggy in the same designer's beaded midriff-dress, what end is served by seeing these same garments presented in dim exhibition suites, too far away to make out any detail of stitching or cut, on lifeless dummies that bear no resemblance to the women who once illuminated their beauty as articles of clothing? The safari dress as it hangs in the show isn't even styled properly. It lacks, in addition to Veruschka's firepower, its ring belt.

Even back in 1967, sample shoes didn't fit. Twiggy poses here, on her first trip to the U.S., for Vogue photographer Bert Stern.

If "Model as Muse" serves any useful purpose, it is to remind the viewer of fashion's headwaters, and of just how derivative fashion photography has become. In the first hall of the exhibit is Richard Avedon's iconic image of Sunny Harnett at the roulette table; in the last, is Stephen Meisel's 1998 version, with Carolyn Murphy. The elements are so much the same — blonde, cream dress, tuxedo'd gent, roulette — that the latter scrambles to rise to meet the criteria of "homage."

Sunny Harnett by Richard Avedon, for U.S. Harper's Bazaar, September, 1954.

In the 1960s suite, somewhere under the blaring of "My Generation" and the projected Qui Etes-Vous, Polly Magoo clip on repeat that overwhelms the room, there's a single page from the September, 1965 Harper's Bazaar.

Jean Shrimpton, by Richard Avedon.

It served to remind me of nothing so much as this Patrick Demarchelier image from last September's Vogue.

Catherine McNeil, by Patrick Demarchelier.

A picture of Lisa Taylor wearing Calvin Klein, by Helmut Newton for the May, 1975 issue of Vogue, hangs in the 1970s hall, near some mealy wall copy about 1970s gender roles. (A subject which any viewer would learn more about simply by pondering the viewer-viewed dynamic here between the languid, powerful-looking Taylor and the foregrounded male model, whose ass looks so unusually objectified.)

Lisa Taylor, by Helmut Newton.

Of course, as commenter LittleNemo pointed out last year when I posted a spread, Glen Luchford's September, 2008, Harper's Bazaar photo of Freja Beha Erichsen owes a debt to Newton.

Freja Beha Erichsen, by Glen Luchford.

This Demarchelier and the Luchford were not in the Met's show — the post-grunge years seem to be a curatorial afterthought, as they are represented in main by two outfits from a recent Louis Vuitton collection by principal exhibit sponsor Marc Jacobs and a bunch of pictures of Gisele Bundchen. But, whether all these archetypal images' latter-day derivations are physically present or not, you can only wander through these corridors for a matter of seconds before phrases like "anxiety of influence" come irrepressibly to mind.

It is, I am sure, not the reaction Koda, Wintour, Jacobs, and d'Ys would want. But these eminent lightweights, with their spraycans, their predilection for references to fictional movies about the industry, their ugly wigs and their uglier Nirvana soundtrack, their mis-spellings and their children's book fashion history — not to mention their craven elision of designer Azzedine Alaïa — did more than enough to earn it.

Perhaps someday a museum will be equal to mounting an intelligent investigation of the changing roles of fashion models, and fashion photography's relationship to the wider culture — its uneasily shifting placement on the continuum between high art and low commerce, between editorial content in magazines and clothes and makeup as we do them in everyday life. Perhaps someday, we'll see the model as muse. But that museum is not the Met, and that exhibition is not yet come.

The Model As Muse [Metropolitan Museum of Art]

Related: Alaïa Pulls His Dresses From The Met Gala [On The Runway]
Model As Veteran [NY Times]