Italian TV host Simona Ventura's cups runneth over in a gown that's part Mae West, part Sleeping Beauty.

Get oooout! Donatella Versace keeps the Versace message alive: It's all about tight or shiny, and hopefully a little of both. Kudos on braving the ankle-snapping heels, the thought of which make we mere mortals tremble.

Anna Piaggi! Italian fashion writer! Style icon! She of magical spreads for Italian Vogue! Always eccentric, never afraid. And she's used a bright red manual Olivetti typewriter for her work since 1969. What is not to love?!?!

Ms. Jackson's curves are positively goddess-like in this draped gown. We've been seeing a lot of electric blue and sapphire blue on the runways, and this jewel tone is really exquisite.

Kanye wants to know if you've heard any funny Kanye West jokes lately. Looks like he left one accessory — the booze bottle — at home. As for Amber Rose? She makes chic look easy. Damn her.

Rachel Bilson's black column dress is elegant, though a little dull.

Model Noemi Lenoir is one of my favorites, and her silky shirtdress is certainly sleek and chic.

A little Internet research reveals Hofit Golan's claim to fame seems to be posing on red carpets in skin-baring outfits. Mission accomplished!

While this is not my favorite dress on Dita Von Teese, I appreciate her wearing a bright color, when almost everyone else chose black. She is a show-stopper, even if the ruching and the sleeves seem a bit much.

Model Anja Rubik makes chain mail look sexy.

Chanel Iman is adorable, but I'm going to have to pretend I didn't see that incredibly chunky shoe peeking out from under her sumptuous gown.

Alek Wek: Stunning. Period.

On the left we have Giovanna Battaglia. L'Uomo Vogue editor and former Dolce and Gabbana model. On the right: Vladimir Restoin Roitfeld, son of French Vogue editor Carine Roitfeld. In other words, friends, you're looking at fashion royalty. Her ensemble is ridiculous — yet somehow amazing; his vibe reeks of "I'd rather be on a boat in Sardegna." Bow down.

Dean and Dan Caten — founders of Dsquared — can pull off pink tux jackets with roughed-up jeans like no one else. They need to call Chuck Bass when they're looking for a third to call the corners with.

Linda Evangelista looks like she's been watching old movies on TCM. Loving the hair and slinky velvet skirt!

[Images via Getty.]

• Emma Watson is doing a clothing line with ethical fashion company People Tree. We're still waiting for Mischa Barton's collection, Tree People. [Guardian]

• Rachel Zoe, on extra-curricular fashion week activities: "I went to a meeting with a potential book publisher, because I am starting to wrap my head around doing my next book, which I am really excited about. I've gotten a little bit of my creative writing fill with doing the Zoe Report, my daily newsletter, and really remembered how much I love writing." Funny, because I met the Zoe Report's ghost blogger a couple weeks back! (Nice girl.) [Time]
• Jil Sander's line for Uniqlo, +J, starts hitting stores on October 1. The legendary German perfectionist says, "I like the concept of basic clothes in a democratic world. Uniqlo reminds me of Apple computers; fantastic design for everyone. And I like what is Japanese about Uniqlo, a strong sense of tradition, the orderly approach to everything, great know-how and logistics." Uniqlo dreams of taking over the position of Inditex — parent company of Zara — as the world's largest apparel company by 2020. The success of the retail chain's planned expansion will rest in large part on Sander's talents. [Telegraph]
• Journalistic pet peeve #1: Confusing "discrete" for "discreet." Journalistic pet peeve #2: Spending ten minutes reading an article that tediously explains events that happened a year ago. Who doesn't already know that last fall, "upscale department stores...started slashing prices to unload a glut of inventory. Saks fired the first volley, slapping 70%-off signs on luxury designer clothing in early November 2008. Neiman and Barneys frantically followed suit." [Time]
• For some apparel trade news that is actually, you know, news, how about this: apparel sales rose 2.4% from July to August, the biggest month-to-month increase since February. Sales were still down 5% on last August. [NYTimes]
• If more couples are staying home to have sex because of the recession — sex being, as Chip Lambert pointed out in The Corrections, one of the few pleasures in life that's actually free — wouldn't we be buying fewer pajamas, not more? [Telegraph]
• Courtney Love's fashion week highlights, so far: "Me playing at Alexander Wamg. That was certainly the fucking best. And then the second best was me playing at Alexander Wang." Anything else? "The Rodarte bitches were awesome." [The Cut]
• Abercrombie & Fitch has lost its appeal in the discrimination case brought by the family of an autistic girl who was not allowed to go into a changing room with her sister at the Mall of America store. The then-14-year-old was shopping with her then-17-year-old sibling, who notified a sales assistant that her sister had a disability and could not be left alone. In court, Abercrombie trotted out a psychologist as an expert witness who said that, "this experience is best considered to be a desirable outcome of active community involvement." Because having Abercrombie refuse to make a reasonable accommodation "offers the parents the opportunity to model social problem solving and coping skills to their daughter, as they have done so well throughout her life, and thus prepare her for such future natural community experiences." Abercrombie was fined $115,264. [MPR]
• Dan Ariely, the professor who studies branding and behavior and who concludes that wearing counterfeit designer goods makes people more dishonest in their every day life — on the basis of one study, which lacked a control group — is back to explain his nifty ideas in video format. How about this new rule for science: No studies where the scientist explains his methods thus: "We got Chloé to give us sunglasses..." And no studies that are presented at conferences convened by Harper's Bazaar. [BigThink]
• Dan Caten, one half of DSquared, on the brand's new eyewear line: "It's a way that people can buy into the brand. Maybe some people can't afford to buy the clothes or fit in the clothes." Instead of making clothes above a size 10, let's license out some sunglasses! (Average price: $391.) Perfect solution. [WSJ]
• Ann Taylor is holding an in-season runway show tonight in New York, with a real fashion quotient: Kate Young will be styling. It's all part of the retailer's attempt to turn around its dowdy image. (You may have noticed the new ad campaign starring model Cameron Russell.) [WWD]
• Heidi Klum, whom you may have heard of, is taking Cameron's spot for the retailer's holiday ads. But don't expect her at the show, because she's expecting, and can't fly to New York. [NYPost]
• Vogue's publisher, Tom Florio, doesn't want to talk about McKinsey — but he will take a softball on why he goes to fashion shows: "I look for trends in the business. Like the whole idea of luxury at a better price point, which is something Tory Burch is doing. I try to get a sense of the sociological trends which our editors will adapt. It just adds a little context. You need to understand the business trends like global warming and fabrics getting lighter and more transitional pieces in fashion. If you can speak intelligently about these things when you sell ad pages, you can sort of take their [advertisers'] point of view." [NYObs]
• Burberry, which already has around 600,000 Facebook friends, is launching its own social networking site at artofthetrench.com. Christopher Bailey has commissioned Scott Schuman to take pictures of people wearing Burberry trench coats around the world for the site. Users will also be able to send in pictures of themselves wearing Burberry trench coats. [FT]
• The British brand will also stream its Prorsum fashion show live over the Internet. It's scheduled for September 22, 6:30 p.m., London time. [WWD]
• Avon president Elizabeth Smith is leaving the company. No replacement has yet been named. [Crain's]
• French Connection has laid off 50 workers at its head offices and closed its offices in Denmark and Sweden as a response to continued weak sales. [Independent]

• Candie's decided to take a chance on Britney Spears, and her cohort of current fans. The singer is the latest face of the tween-friendly brand. [WWD]

• Hello, viral marketing! There's already a "behind-the-scenes" vid of Ms. Spears shooting looks for the Candie's campaign, but, slightly more interestingly, it includes rehearsal footage featuring Spears in what are presumably those DSquared costumes we just heard about. There's a cool big-shouldered red jacket with swinging black fringe on the epaulettes. [PopSugar]
• Here's some news to make it worth getting up in the morning: Tom Ford, who has said in the past that he wants to do women's wear with his eponymous label, might be re-hiring Alessandra Facchinetti as head designer for the ladies' stuff. Facchinetti was Ford's women's wear point person when he was at Gucci, and she succeeded him when he left the company. But Facchinetti was fired from her position after just two seasons, and she was unceremoniously dumped from her next position, as creative director at Valentino, after just a few months in charge as well. Facchinetti is a talented designer, but maybe it takes Ford to get the best work from her? Let's hope this rumor proves true. [The Cut]
• Uniqlo had its fourth straight month of improving same-store sales, even in the midst of this recession. Same-store sales were up 4.2% in February, mainly on the back of increased patronage, since per-customer sales didn't rise significantly. [WWD]
• Also demonstrating that retail isn't entirely a scorched-earth zone these days, albeit more tentatively, is Claire's. Although their fourth-quarter results are still bad, their same-store sales rose in January and crossed into positive numbers last month. [WWD]
• This month, Forever 21 is launching a new plus-size range, called Faith 21. (The company is run by weird fundamentalist Christians, which pretty much explains the name.) [LA Times]
• Chanel, on the other hand, is closing two of its Japanese stores, and Chopard is having layoffs. [WWD]
• Jennifer Connelly wears Balenciaga in her Revlon ads, shot at Milk studios in New York. In this video, she talks about beauty. [Style.com]
• Freida Pinto might be a pick for an Estée Lauder contract. [WWD]
• Pharrell Williams, whose fashion interests already include Ice Cream and the Billionaire Boys Club, bought an interest in an ecologically sensitive yarn company in December. Which W decided to write about, now. For some reason. [W]
• Marc Jacobs donated a signed iPod to charity and we might as well pretend for the fun of it that his song list offers unexpected insights into his personality. What kind of man mixes Leonard Cohen and Lady Gaga? And then polishes the lot off with "No Scrubs" by TLC? It's fun to imagine Jacobs mouthing, "No, I don't want your number/No, I don't wanna give you mine/I don't wanna meet you nowhere/I don't want none of your time!" while sketching blouses for his collections or something. Oh, and for one last piece of Britney news: her iPod only fetched $801 at auction. [Unbeige]
• The difference between Anna Wintour, who has the dusty feel of a fashion institution these days, and Carine Roitfeld, who gives the impression she just might have a dust rag on or about her person, couldn't be more aptly underscored by the difference in the camera crews they attract. Wintour, editor of American Vogue, is to be the subject of a 60 minutes piece by Morley Safer, who first came to acclaim for his Vietnam coverage. Roitfeld, editor of French Vogue, gets something on CNN Revealed, which will almost certainly be cooler, hipper, and better, since it's cable and Carine and all. [The Cut]
• Katie Grand's Love magazine is either sold out of its 67,000 print run, and therefore fastest-selling debut magazine for Condé Nast UK ever, or it's just a lot of creative hype and there are in fact copies all over the place in Britain, depending on whether you believe Love magazine, or a bunch of anonymous Fashionista commenters. [Fashionista]
• Ever flip through a J. Crew catalog and think, 'Wow! These people clearly are a bunch of insurgent creatives, introducing mad art and design to chinos and pastels.' The impression will only be confirmed by Alex Katz's turn as a model for their spring catalog and in-store displays. Katz, 81 years young, is a Big Deal in American painting. [Unbeige]

• This seems like a heavenly match: Britney Spears asked DSquared to create the costumes for her comeback tour. Dan and Dean Caten's fetishistic, high-energy sense of style should be a perfect foil for Brit. [WWD]

• Let slip the knock-offs! The Oscar gowns worn by Kate Winslet, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Angelina Jolie will be among those replicated by the notorious inspiration-takers on the design team at prom label Faviana. (This is the utterly shameless company who called its collection re-creating things Michelle Obama wore the "First Lady Collection.") Interestingly enough, last year Faviana knocked off Miley Cyrus's Oscar dress — but not this season. Perhaps being copied is the ultimate test of taste. [NY Post]
• Amber Le Bon, daughter of Simon and Yasmin, just signed with Models 1 in London — her mom's agency — and says she might make her catwalk debut next season. For now, she's sticking to watching shows in Milan and "guest-editing" the Moschino online boutique, whatever that means. [WWD]
• That "announcement" that Roberto Cavalli said he'd make about the future of his Just Cavalli line? At the showroom presentation he held in lieu of his normal splashy runway show, the chain-smoking designer launched into a 45-minute rant in a variety of languages about the bankruptcy of Just Cavalli's production licensee, Ittierre, the just-announced bankruptcy of Ittierre's parent company, IT Holdings SpA, and the state of the fashion industry and the shrinking consumer dollar it chases. I never thought I could feel bad for a man who believes in leopard print sequined everything, but my heart actually goes out to him. I mean, he cried. [Guardian]
• In case you missed that: the bankruptcy a few weeks ago of Ittierre, licensee to John Galliano, Just Cavalli and Versace Sport, among others, has been followed by the bankruptcy of parent company IT Holdings SpA. IT Holdings owns the brands Gianfranco Ferré and Malo, both of which still plan to show and present, respectively, at Milan fashion week. IT Holding's debts total $376 million. [WWD]
• Mango, the Spanish fast fashion chain, is continuing its pattern of rapid expansion into the US market, even despite the recession. Earlier this month, the company announced what passes for healthy sales figures in the retail sector these days — revenue growth for '08 of 8%. [WWD]
• Eddie Bauer, on the other hand, sees a meager future in women's fashion apparel. It's retreating to its neglected core concern — outfitting the rugged menz for adventuresome outdoor pursuits. [WSJ]
• Fourth quarter profits at the Gap shrank 8.3%, which beat analysts' expectations because sales for the same quarter fell 13%. The retailer has been focusing on cutting costs and reducing inventory. [AP]
• Some of the many women who work at LVMH, the luxury conglomerate, posed for black-and-white portraits for a photo project concentrating on women in fashion. An exhibit of the photos opens on March 8, International Women's Day, at LVMH's Avenue Montaigne HQ in Paris. [WWD]
• Newlyweds Tommy Hilfiger and Dee Ocleppo confirmed they are expecting their first child together. [People]
• Seeking to diversify his portfolio of irritations, Pete Wentz has designed some t-shirts. [FWD]
• And Pamela Anderson has garnered a spot in the runway lineup for Vivienne Westwood's Red label, showing next week in Paris. [Vogue.co.uk]
• The perks of being a celebrity's parent: you get to go randomly to fashion week and hang out backstage. Hello, Gerard Hathaway, nice to meet you! [Times]
• The re-launched Versace diffusion line, Versus, is designed by Christopher Kane. It includes bags and shoes. [Telegraph]
• Model Erin Wasson left her issues with the homeless to go to London to launch her RVCA collaboration line. Which promptly sold out. [UK Elle]
• Cecille Villacorta was either a spectacular jewelry sales associate at Saks, earning over $400,000 in salary and commission in her final year with the company, or an inveterate thief who kept customers coming back by giving them unauthorized refunds and credits that were only discovered when the company updated its computer system. A criminal case and a countersuit in New York City aim to determine which it was. [NY Times]

• Tomorrow night the new Bravo show Make Me A Supermodel premieres. It's hosted by Niki Taylor and Tyson Beckford, the latter of whom is um not exactly humble:"I used to shut the malls down. I was ahead of my time. I made the model a celebrity. It wasn't the celebrity that made the model but the model that made the celebrity. I used to pack kids into a mall and that's the frenzy I want to create with this show." Um, we were kind of more excited about Niki? [Fashion Week Daily]
  
• Seriously, we can't tell Penelope Cruz apart from her sister Monica in their new ads for Mango. But whatever, they both look fucking gorgeous. [Daily Mail]
  
• Is D-Squared the new Dolce & Gabbana when it comes to borderline offensive ads? The Italian design house's spring ads feature female models in lieu of where crash test dummies should appear. [Fashion Week Daily]
  
• Wildly unacceptable fashion licensing deal of the day: John Lennon accessories. First up, neckties. Next: Boxers. Not kidding! [NME]

• Poor Dmitry Prut: Designed the logo for Nicky Hilton's clothing line in exchange for a little free press for his Miami art gallery, only Hilton forgot to ever mention that he designed the logo. Whoops. [Page Six]
• Lagerfeld-designed Fendi toys! [Fashion Week Daily]
• Gisele + Versace = Toned-down sophistication?! Whoda thunk? [Fashion Week Daily]
• Christy Turlington is back at work as the face of Chanel bags for spring 2008. [Sassybella]
• The fashion industry has its grumpy pants on now that the Golden Globes have been cancelled: However will they get tons of free advertising now?! [WSJ]
• The latest in free trade: Jewelry! [Reuters]
• In some sort of perverse thank you, the Spice Girls will be attending the menswear runway show on Monday in Milan of Roberto Cavalli, who designed their god-awful costimes on their current tour. [WWD, 1st item]
• British everything-under-the-sun store Marks & Spencer's isn't doing so well profit-wise, after having worked really, really hard to up their fashion ante. So they're going to stop paying so much money to Lily Cole and other models and instead are going to shift their focus to food. [Vogue UK]
• Designer Zang Toi's computer got hacked and an email got sent to everyone in his address book saying he was inviting them to join the hot new (faux) social networking site Gayguyschat.com. Who knew hackers could be fashion-obsessed queens? [Daily Mail]

• Celebrity stylist and stylist-cum-celebrity Rachel Zoe is rumored to forbid designers who loan her pieces from loaning them out to competing clients, but Zoe denies so we're gonna give her the benefit of the doubt. [NYP]
  
• "I have high anxiety from having two teenagers who tell me I have no taste. I love them, and even though they insult me, and make fun of me, it is what it is," says Vera Wang. Um, who taught your daughters to talk to their mother that way? [WWD, 4th item]
  
• Dean and Dan Caten, the twin bros who design DSquared, are going to be exclusively styling the America's Next Top Model contestants for cycle 10. [Fashion Week Daily]
  
• George Clooney and Julia Roberts will be joining Anna Wintour in chairing the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's annual gala this year. Oh, so that's why George looks like he's lost so much weight lately? He's Anna-rexing? [Vogue UK]

• Designer Dries van Noten in this month's Details magazine: "David Beckham - he's trying very hard. I'm not so fond of his look, but I think a lot of people consider it extremely stylish. So who am I to say it's unstylish? I'm not a dictator." Aw! [Sassybella]
• Consider this a Jezebel PSA: "There is no such thing as an organic pair of jeans. It's not just about the fabric. It's what happens after you wash it," Mel Matsui, founder of denim line Christopher Blue. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Status property ventures are the new status meals are the new status bags? Giorgio Armani unveiled the residences bearing his name in Dubai yesterday, just after revealing his plans for an Armani hotel and resort in Marrakech. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Fashion Week in Moscow vs. Russian Fashion Week: We'll err on the side of Putin! [WWD, sub req'd]
• Kate Moss to make cameo appearance in British soap opera EastEnders! Report back to us, British Jezzies! [Vogue UK]
• Hans Stern, who created the jewelry line H.Stern, died Friday in Brazil at age 85. [Fashion Week Daily]
• Whoah: Control top thong. [FabSugar]

As Milan winds down, some of our favorite fashion critics [Ou est tu, Robin Givhan?] waxed not-so-poetic on what they've seen over the past few days. Gucci was universally slammed. Marni, Ferragamo, Dsquared, and Missoni got words good, bad, and ugly all thrown at them. The poison pens are out, there, and we're looking forward to the start of Paris Fashion Week on Monday - who shall be Cathy Horyn's next victim? In the meantime, we mourn those slain by Horyn this week.

"[A]nother Gucci glam slam for after dark" "energetic attempt to turn rock chick into rock chic just didn't happen" "pert party dresses and 1960s graphics...just seem so passé" "for people who party harder than they work" "many of her instincts are good" "parade of cute, commercial outfits" —Suzy Menkes, International Herald Tribune

"[A] difficult thing to categorize" "boyish checked shirts, and the odd little cropped biker jacket, including a noticeably good one in black snakeskin" "unrelenting combination of black, white, and a particularly harsh sunflower yellow" "the show was bumpy" "an off moment" —Sarah Mower, Style.com


Marni:
"A dungeon might be more fun than some of Consuelo Castiglioni's sad sacks" "cruelly linear shapes" "take some expensive cotton, print it with a streaky esoteric pattern and then make a shift that's gathered in random places" "If this weren't such a cool label, you'd wonder how much design or thought was involved." "just seemed boring" —Cathy Horyn, The New York Times

"[T]he story of the season" "the colors were a modern art riff" "intriguing example of the Marni duality" "plasticized finishes have lost their shock value" "powerful collection" "interpretation of the new fashion volumes" —Suzy Menkes, International Herald Tribune

"[A] staple formula" "one of the brands upon which Italy's pride as a style leader rests" "Castiglioni took the don't-mess-with-success approach" "easy-on-the-body loose-waisted shifts" "wonky-but-right abstract gathers and tucks" "seen before" "cute petaled cone hats" "didn't seem overly concerned with breaking too much new ground" —Sarah Mower, Style.com


Missoni:
"[F]resh" "sensuous lightness" "terrific tunics and smock dresses" "[o]ccasionally it worked" "hard to see what connected a baby-doll dress of beige silk knit and stone-embroidered chiffon with a mustard tunic of lace-cut cotton" —Cathy Horyn, The New York Times

"[A] friendly-scale line of highly identifiable knits and prints" "a bit of this and a bit of that" "has a place in a sunny holiday setting" "any piece would make a girl stand out at a relaxed party" "Missoni would do better to devise a more intimate way of showing them" —Sarah Mower, Style.com




D-Squared:
"[G]leaning the top notes of a supermarket tabloid and spitting them back to us" "a knucklehead version of Dolce & Gabbana" "popular fashion fantasy of an auto-repair garage" "you might wear at Cannes if your film career was tanking" "Rihanna looked fabulous and the gross guys in the front row grinned their heads off" —Cathy Horyn, The New York Times

"Rihanna...took to the runway for a very believable turn as a top model" "a lot of skin for a 9 a.m. show" "pretty standard stuff" "theme, loosely, was party girls and the grease monkeys who love them" "wasn't all trash and vaudeville" "cheap yet satisfying thrills" —Nicole Phelps, Style.com


Ferragamo:
"[O]n the wild side" "just a whiff of Africa" "sophisticated clothes" "accessories are king" —Suzy Menkes, International Herald Tribune

"[S]eized on the seventies" "hopscotching back through the decades...probably wasn't the best tack" "not without its better moments" "[t]he clothes could stand to be more distinctive" —Nicole Phelps, Style.com

• Angelina and St. John calling off their collaboration? The word on the street is that the rich folk knitwear company is going to be ending the Mother Teresa Of Hollywood's contract as the face of their design house after this year. Which invariably means there going to take a turn towards old and frumpy again, image-wise. Fun! [PopSugar]
  
• Marie Claire's Joanna Coles is now officially on our shitlist. The editor-in-chief was overheard saying to a security guard at the Gucci show in Milan, "You need to let me in. You need to let us all in. I'm from Marie Claire in the U.S. Do you know how many credits we give Gucci every year? This is unacceptable!". [Fashion Week Daily]
  
• Jil Sander is going to write a tell-all/memoir about her career in the fashion industry. Gonna be hot. [WWD, 1st item]
  
• Rihanna is the latest celebrity to think she's a model (walked for D-Squared) and, worse yet, the latest celebrity to think she's a fashion designer. Oh yeah sure she hasn't exactly found a company to attach her name too, so, uh, possible partners gp ahead and line-up to back her "something edgy" line. [WWD, 2nd item]

• Why did nary a single celebrity attend the Fendi show in Milan? Because they're all coming for the 2nd showing next month on the Great Wall of China Obviously. [WWD, 2nd item]
• Martha Stewart wears Simply Vera Vera Wang for Kohls? Like, whoah! [WWD, 2nd item]
• "Alberta is such a sweetheart, I just want to hug her and never let her go!" says Marisa Tomei of designer Alberta Ferretti. [Fashion Week Daily]
• A fashion show without models? Oooh. We like. [Fashion Week Daily]