• Daul Kim's boyfriend was the first to find the body of the 20-year-old Korean model, artist, and writer, who died by asphyxiation. Police believe Kim's death was a suicide. Her agency has confirmed that her mother is en route to Paris. [AP]

• Don't want to wait until December 1 to watch the whole Victoria's Secret show? USAToday has video highlights, including Marisa Miller anxiously awaiting post-show cupcakes backstage, and Miranda Kerr doing a little dance on the runway to the Black Eyed Peas. [USAToday]
• Women's Wear Daily says it was "pandemonium" outside. [WWD]
• Eva Mendes has signed on to do more ads for Calvin Klein. When was the last time she was in a movie, anyway? [Elle UK]
• Valentino: The Last Emperor has been short-listed for the Academy Award for Best Documentary. [SB]
• Karl Lagerfeld, on Lily Allen: "I love Lily's humor, her cheekiness, her talent, her little upturned nose, and her perfect décolletage." [Elle]
• Rumor has it that Ungaro's two top executives, Asim Abdullah and Mounir Moufarrige (who once said of bringing Lindsay Lohan aboard, "It might work") are fighting over whether the actress should be fired or not. Her first collection for the brand was poorly received by buyers, the press, and the peanut gallery of the Internet; even Emanuel Ungaro himself called it a "disaster." [Elle UK]
• Claudia, Eva, and Helena share the new cover of i-D, like it's 1992 or something. [FWD]
• Shanna Moakler just launched a cosmetics collection. Called Smoak. [People]
• Moncler and Pharrell Williams are doing a line of clothing. It'll incorporate fabrics from Bionic, the eco-fabric company Williams invested in earlier. [WWD]
• Yves Saint Laurent's pots and pans sold for 15,000 Euros (just over $22,000) at the ongoing auction of the designer's household effects. [AFP]
• Sarah Ferguson will not be doing an apparel line with QVC. Pity. [WWD]
• Hand model Christina Ambers fell in love with Angel Rotger, one of the doormen at her Upper East Side building. Their romance and subsequent marriage cost Rotger his job, and led to them both being treated as pariahs by the other building staff, the two now allege in a $10 million lawsuit. Allegedly, the superintendent's wife got drunk and hit Rotger in the groin hard enough to cause a contusion. [NYDN]
• Here's an odd choice of knight in shining armor: supermarket magnate and modelizer Ron Burkle. Burkle has, through his company, invested millions of dollars in buying some of Barneys New York's debt from Citibank, for a reported 60 cents on the dollar. Barneys took on around $500 million in debt in 2007, when it was sold to current owners Istithmar. [WSJ]
• 100 new stores by March 31 is quite a clip, but Tommy Hilfiger thinks it can do it. [WWD]
• Gap's profits rose 25%, to $307 million, for the quarter ended October 31. It made $246 million during the same period last year. [WSJ]

• In an exclusive interview with Glamour, Rihanna discusses the year she's had: "I went to sleep as Rihanna and woke up as Britney Spears." She also talks about the picture released by cops:

"It was humiliating; that is not a photo you would show to anybody. I felt completely taken advantage of. I felt like people were making it into a fun topic on the Internet, and it's my life. I was disappointed, especially when I found out the photo was [supposedly leaked by] two women." She adds: "Domestic violence is a big secret. No kid goes around and lets people know their parents fight. Teenage girls can't tell their parents that their boyfriend beat them up. You don't dare let your neighbor know that you fight. It's one of the things we [women] will hide, because it's embarrassing. My story was broadcast all over the world for people to see, and they have followed every step of my recovery. The positive thing that has come out of my situation is that people can learn from that. I want to give as much insight as I can to young women, because I feel like I represent a voice that really isn't heard. Now I can help speak for those women." [Glamour]

• Rihanna also sat down with Diane Sawyer, for an interview which will air Thursday on Good Morning America. This happened to me. … It can happen to anyone," she says. And she admits that Chris Brown was "definitely" her "first big love." [People, Extra, ET]
• Mariah Carey and Rihanna refused to talk or be photographed together at a Halloween party; yet Mariah's rep insists that MC "loves" Rihanna and would have said hello. [Page Six]
• Angelina Jolie and Shiloh shopped for Stella McCartney's new kids' line at the Gap in Santa Monica yesterday. A source says she "purchased two complete outfits right off the mannequins, head to toe, the shoes and everything. Then she bought a couple Junk Food t-shirts — one with a Superman emblem — and a bunch of Gap watches for all the kids. She probably spent close to $500." [Radar Online]
• Tyra Banks has lost 30 lbs. since her "Kiss My Fat Ass" incident in early 2007. She used to get awful stomachaches, and says: "I switched up my unhealthy eating habits for healthier eating habits, and I haven't had a tummy attack since December '08." And: "I feel good about my curves and my imperfections – my booty, my boobs, my thighs – I embrace it all. Now I really can say … kiss my fat – and still fat – ass." [People]
• A source says Gerard Butler did not hook up with Lindsay Lohan, despite that that was reported yesterday: "He's a fun, good-looking guy, and every time he even gets close to an actress, people assume something. He has no interest in Lindsay." [Gatecrasher]
• Gisele Bundchen passed the written exam to get her pilot's license. She's a month from her due date to give birth and the president of the aviation company says: "She's almost to a point where she's too big to be flying. She needs to be able to move the rudder around and she's getting there." [NY Daily News]
• Kate Gosselin believes her eight kids are "starting to show signs of stress and behavioral changes." [NY Daily News]
• Ooh, another Britloid caught in a lie! "Kate Winslet accepted £25,000 libel damages today after an 'offensive' claim in the Daily Mail that she had publicly lied about her exercise regime." [Guardian]
• President Barack Obama's Committee on the Arts and Humanities has a gaggle of bold-faced names: Sarah Jessica Parker, Kerry Washington, Alfre Woodard, Edward Norton, Forest Whitaker, Teresa Heinz (yes, John Kerry's wife), Anna Wintour and Yo Yo Ma. According to Politico, "The committee works with the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute of Museum and Library Services to coordinate the administration's arts initiatives." [Politico]
• Kathy Griffin will host Let's Dance, a new ABC show in which celebrities reenact famous dance routines from pop culture. Prediction: "Single Ladies" will be on the menu. Hopefully so will any number from Flashdance. [The Wrap]
• Owen Wilson has signed on to do the voice of Marmaduke in a live action/CGI movie based on the comic strip. I want to hear the dog say: "Me and my friends have been too busy bathing off the southern coast of St. Barts with spider monkeys for the past two weeks. Tripping on acid changed our whole perspective on shit." [The Hollywood Reporter]
• Drama involving Men Who Stare At Goats: "Jon Ronson, a journalist whose work inspired the film, credited his one-time best friend and film maker John Sergeant in the pages of his book. However, Sergeant claims to have been "airbrushed out" of the film adaptation and has aired his grievances about the snub in a letter to George Clooney." [Telegraph]
• Jude Law: Seen making out with a "hot blonde." [Page Six]
• A California appeals court has set a date to hear arguments in the Roman Polanski case: December 10. [AP]
• Courtney Love says she moved to New York because of "raids" on her home; a source says the visits were actually attempts by her drug counselor to stage an intervention. [Page Six]
• Kiefer Sutherland racked up a $700 bar tab between 7am and 1pm. (San Pedro) California… knows how to party! Keep it rockin… [TMZ]
• Mischa Barton saw her ex, Brandon Davis, at a party and spent the night avoiding him. Stars! Just like us. [Page Six]
• "Reports of a Halloween bust-up between Paris Hilton and her boyfriend Doug Reinhardt have been 'grossly misrepresented,' a rep for the socialite said." [Mirror]
• Jordin Sparks and Always brand feminine products are hosting "America's Biggest Sleepover" online on November 7. I don't get it, but there it is. [BrandWeek]
• Stephanie Seymour is getting divorced from husband Peter Brant and will get $270,000 a month. [Page Six]
• MSNBC columnist Courtney Hazlett actually read Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt's new book, which she calls "America at its worst." The chapter titled "Women's Weapons of Mass Destruction" has Heidi writing: "A crying woman trumps all things … let's pretend for one second you MIGHT be wrong in an argument one day. Just go to the waterworks and all is forgiven, isn't it? … Even the most hardened villainess can break people down with puppy-dog eyes and a few tears." Hazlett responds: "Hey Heidi, quick question: Why did you have to lump an entire gender into your scurrilous web of fame whoring tactics? I shudder to think, and do doubt, that a vapid essay about the upside of emotional exploitation could do anything to really move the needle on that front but nonetheless, it's counterproductive to continue to perpetrate such ideas. Women work hard enough to be taken seriously, this does no good." [MSNBC Scoop]
• For the last two months, six of the top 10 songs on Apple's music site have been from Glee. In this review the soundtrack gets four out of five stars. [NY Daily News]
• Simon Cowell's mom thinks he should marry his ex, Terri Seymour, and this is news. She told some magazine: "Terri loved Simon purely for the person he is, unlike some of the others. She was my favourite, but sadly Simon is married to his work!" [The Sun]
• This Nas vs. Kelis stuff is still going on! He's trying to block her from getting spousal support… and he's also asking for joint custody. [TMZ]
• Jeremy Piven stopped drinking soy milk: "I've found out [it] has enough estrogen for me to grow breasts." [Gatecrasher]
• Mel Gibson's divorce = selling off of his production company. [Showbiz 411]
• ZZ Top guitarist Billy Gibbons took the subway to his gig at Wembley Stadium and found that he was riding with ZZ Top fans on their way to the concert. He says: "Being the consummate tourist, I wanted to ride the Tube… It's a only a block from the hotel down to the station. There was a guy on the route that was checking me out and it was getting a little edgy, and then I realised that he was looking at a ZZ Top concert ticket for the Wembley show. I may [do it again] in the future... I beat my partners by 45 minutes." [BBC News]
• At the link, Carly Simon talks about her new album. As for her previous album — which was released by Starbucks right before the company scaled back its involvement in music — she says: "My record was basically an abortion. I was in a really bad funk, because I had put so much of myself into the record." [Reuters]
• Flight Of The Conchords' Jemaine Clement is in a new film, which he says he enjoys: "Things like Gentlemen Broncos are even more fun, because someone's already thought of all that stuff, and I just slip into it and try to realize their idea." [Reuters]
• "'Action hero' is not something I thought I'd have the chance to do. I mean, I'm 39 years old! I thought at this point, I'd be sinking into oblivion." — Elizabeth Mitchell, of Lost, and now V. [LA Times]
• "It was the first time that anyone has ever died that's close to me — it's a universal feeling that anyone feels, shock, sadness… I do feel really proud, I feel like it was such an impossibly difficult thing they were faced with trying to finish and I feel very proud that they did manage to finish it. Heath was an extraordinary person and you get to see it now." — Lily Cole, who stars with Heath Ledger in The Imaginarium Of Dr Parnassus. [Mirror]
• "Starting the SNL process… I kinda feel like I might have a heart attack or pass out in the pitch meeting. I'm that excited." — Taylor Swift, via Twitter. [People]
• "I was particularly upset to be accused of lying about my exercise regime and felt that I had a responsibility to request an apology in order to demonstrate my commitment to the views that I have always expressed about body issues, including diet and exercise. I strongly believe that women should be encouraged to accept themselves as they are, so to suggest that I was lying was an unacceptable accusation of hypocrisy." — Kate Winslet. [Guardian]
• "When I was younger, I was much more careful about choosing my roles. I was nervous. Hollywood in the '80s was a horrible place. Now that I feel less stressed, I can take more risks… There are some really shocking things in Antichrist. They are important and they are part of the film, but they are not the film. It's like with The Crying Game. Everything hung on those two seconds, but there was so much more to the story than that. I hope Lars hasn't shot himself in the foot by being provocative." — Willem Dafoe, who is a rat in The Fantastic Mr. Fox, a creature of the night in The Vampire's Assistant as well as a man who gets his genitals mutilated in Antichrist. Also, click to see a great portrait of Dafoe — dig the flower behind the ear! [BlackBook]
• "She needs to sell records because she's not a singer, and that's not an offense to her because I think that she knows that too. I think she's a performer and she's more of a personality than she is a singer. But I think when musicians are really making real music people come to the show and that's what we make our money from, from playing live. And I think it's probably harder for an artist like Lily and any other pop acts. It's really about the track and about their personality and their celebrity and that's how they make their money is selling those records. So the downloads — she's not going to win that fight. None of us will win that fight. So let's just accept it and let's see it as something that can be beautiful and it might change music for the better. It might sort the weeds from the flowers. Who said that musicians have to be millionaires? Who made this a rule? We don't need that much money. We just don't. We only need enough to make music and to eat and to go on tour." — Joss Stone on Lily Allen. [MIrror]
• "I am going to go to court to get a legal conservatorship to get Lindsay into rehab and finally get her off all the prescription meds. [Wife] Dina is going to sit down with me and the lawyers and make things right for Lindsay. She is taking Adderol, Xanax, Paxil. She's a beautiful girl but she looks 100 years old." — Michael Lohan on daughter Lindsay. [Page Six]

[Image via Glamour]

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

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

• Elijah Wood and Shirley Manson star in a new ad campaign for Oliver Peoples Spring 2010 Resort Collection. Hate to say it, but in this Mad Men-inspired campaign, both come across as a poor woman's Joan & Don. [Black Book]

• According to Paula Sutter, Diane von Furstenberg is "a techy." "She's constantly looking at new technologies. We have a lot more to do there," she said at a recent conference. [WWD]
• In response to the recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai, fashion industry members have come together to create a new book, titled To India, With Love. Contributors include Yves Carcelle, Diane von Furstenberg, Evelyn Lauder, Silvia Fendi, Matthew Williamson, Rachel Roy, Kenneth Cole, Tory Burch and Cynthia Rowley. Natalie Portman, Wes Anderson, Adrien Brody and Elizabeth Hurley are also involved. [WWD]
• Marks and Spencer model - and former WAG (American translation: former wife or girlfriend of an athlete) - Noemie Lenoir had a slight wardrobe malfunction while she was on stage at a charity auction. The back of her dress came unzipped, revealing some very small underwear, but she shrugged and let the bidding continue. [Daily Mail]
• Rory Tahari, wife of designer Elie Tahari, is publishing a book on getting organized, which will include chapters on weddings, children, divorce, and even death. [Observer]
• Gucci will be the main sponsor of the European Equestrian Masters, an international horse jumping show. This will be Gucci's first equestrian funding in 20 years, but the luxury brand has a long history with the elite sport. [WWD]
• New York State's first lady Michelle Paterson recently got the celebrity treatment from Rachel Roy, who sent out a publicity alert announcing Paterson's recent sartorial choice at a party thrown by New York Post gossip columnist Cindy Adams. [Observer]
• Mark Badgley and James Mischka, the designer team behind Badgley Mischka, may be in talks with the home shopping network. Sources say that they are considering following in the footsteps of Tina Knowles and creating a "lifestyle collection" specifically for HSN. [WWD]
• Further proof that Michelle Obama can make anything a trend: Kitten heels are suddenly all the rage in Milan. Of course, that could be because they are just more practical, but that's not half as interesting. [Black Book]
• The ethereally beautiful clothing of Kate and Lura Mulleavy will be featured in an exhibit at the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum next year. Now you, too, can touch the Rodarte! (Actually, that's probably a bad idea.) [WWD]
• Fancy cotton-shirt brand Three Dots has created a basic white v-neck with built-in shoulder pads. Sorry to spoil the surprise, but it's fug. [Inventor Spot]
• Danielle Vitale, president of Gucci America Inc., has announced a shift in focus for the brand. While they plan to continue to stress the "power and allure of product," Vitale would also like to see a greater focus on customer service and employee satisfaction. [WWD]
• Women in the UK are spending more money on clothes, but buying less, according to analysts. This may mean that more people are turning away from fast fashion and favoring quality over quantity. [Daily Mail]
• Victoria's Secret Angel Miranda Kerr is launching an organic skin care line. We're just glad she's not "designing" clothes. [Sassy Bella]
• To address the dearth of angels caused by the model baby boom, Victoria's Secret has reportedly hired Guess model Jessica Hart. [NY Post]
• 1,500 immigrant workers have been fired from American Apparel in the last month because they had not been granted the legal right to work in the U.S. [WWD]
• Gap Inc. has selected a new agency for their holiday ad campaign. Crispin Porter & Bogusky will replace Laird & Partners, which is a shame, because one of the few things likable about the Gap were those cheerful, winter-y holiday ads. [AdAge]
• Jil Sander on her new line for Uniqlo: "I have always been fascinated by the original concept of high street fashion; by the idea of offering attractive, clean-cut clothes to everyone...If you want to make a real difference in the future of fashion, it makes a lot of sense, to engage in a company that has the power to reach people on a global scale." [Times of London]
• Nike shares rose 4.8% in after-hours trading Tuesday, exceeding Wall Street's expectations. [TheStreet]
• According to sources, an Ajman sheihk has submitted a bid for broke fashion house Christian Lacroix. The new owner would preserve Lacroix's current operations, including couture. [WWD]
• Like Diane von Furstenberg, David Lauren, senior VP of Ralph Lauren, is a self-proclaimed techy. "It's great to see all these brands innovating on the phone. It takes shopping and really makes it a part of your life," he says of the company's iPhone app. [Ad Age]
• Hermes is refusing to comment on whether or not they bought jewelery label Asprey. They have, however, confirmed a collaboration with Monaco-based ship-builder Wally to create a £90 million yacht. We were going to make fun of this, but then we saw the pictures, and... we want to go to there. [Vogue UK & Daily Mail]
• Sources say Sarah Jessica Parker is in talks with Halston to be their next celebrity face. Earlier this month, SJP was photographed on the set of Sex and the City: Not Again in a Halston dress, so that could be a sign. [E Online]
• Although the last thing we need is yet another celebrity fragrance, this ad for Kylie Minogue's new perfume, featuring two versions of her model boyfriend, is pretty awesome. [The Sun]

• Sonia Rykiel will be H&M's next guest designer. Her first collection of lingerie will be in stores in December and her knitwear and accessories collection will be available in February. [WWD]

• Donald Fisher, founder of The Gap, died of cancer yesterday at 81. He served as the company's chief executive from 1969 to 1995 and remained chairmen until 2004. [WSJ]
• The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art will exhibit 1,100 works of art collected by Gap founders Donald and Doris Fisher, including pieces by Warhol, Lichtenstein and de Kooning. [Reuters]
• Kate Moss is joining the Performing Rights Society, which protects UK musicians and songwriters' rights. This may mean boyfriend Jamie Hince of The Kills is finally going to let her sing with him, even though he wouldn't let her perform with the band last year. [The Sun]
• "I Want To Hold Your Handbag": Comme des Garcons and Aplle Corps Ltd. are teaming up to launch a line of Beatles handbags, which will debut in November. [WWD]
• Christian Audigier is considering investing $7.3-$14.7 million in Club Med. Hopefully the deal won't include Jon Gosselin hosting anymore pool parties. [Reuters]
• Sources say Tom Ford is definitely trying to find funding to launch a women's wear collection in fall 2011. [WWD]
• Rumors that Mark Fast is doing a line for Topshop are true, according to a profile in last week's Sunday Telegraph magazine. [Fashionista]
• Agent Provocateur has made a comic book called "New World Order: Mission To Earth" featuring semi-nude caped crusaders. [Racked]
• Faith Hill Parfums is using print ads, webisodes in which Hill answers questions on the theme, "The Beauty of Being a Woman," and online discussions and polls about womanhood. [Brand Week]
• Gisele Bunchen wrote an article for The Times of London about working with Mario Testino in Rio. She writes: "If someone else asked me to do some of the things Mario does, I would say, no way. But Mario, with that clever way of his, is like, 'Ah, Gisele...' and the next thing I know, we're doing some picture with my butt sticking out. What can I do? It's hard to say no to him." [Times of London]
• Fatou Cham, a Gambian supermarket checker chosen to model for Tesco's fall advertising campaign has been arrested because she's in Britain illegally. She entered on a student visa in 1998 and never left. [Daily Mail]
• Due to the recession, raw cotton prices are expected to rise by 20 percent, which will hurt clothing retailers. [The Independent]
• Sources say Gianluca Lera is leaving Bulgari. [WWD]
• Kelly Brook modeled for an early Ralph Lauren photo shoot... sort of. She's nude and holding a bunch of hydrangeas in a strategic position. [Daily Mail]
• Gok Wan says he's grateful to Jean Paul Gaultier for developing a line of men's products, "...because if I wear women's make up, I end up looking like a ladyboy". [Times of London]
• Hermès is buying the Bond Street shop that Asprey occupies for £75m and may be planning on acquiring the entire company. [The Guardian]
• Natalia Vodianova was on the Milan catwalk for the first time in seven years on Friday, opening and closing the Ermanno Scervino show. [WWD]
• Jews aren't supposed to wear leather to synagogue on Yom Kippur as a symbol of modesty and humanity, so many have been wearing Crocs. But, an influential Lithuanian rabbi is telling Jews not to wear Crocs on the holiday because it's a day of atonement and the shoes are too comfortable. [N.Y. Magazine]
• Victoria's Secret will hold open casting calls to find a new Runway Angel for the next Victoria's Secret Fashion Show on December 1. [UPI]
• Katie Holmes says of the fashion line she's designing with Jeanne Yang, "It has been my dream forever to be in fashion and I'm truly inspired by my daughter Suri. She just loves dressing up so I decided to launch this exciting venture with Jeanne." [The Sun]
• Holmes & Yang officially launched on Thursday night at Maxfields. [WWD]
• At the event she added, "Jeanne's girls and my daughter have a point of view of what they want to wear. I'm constantly amazed by all the colors and layers that Suri will put together." [Style.com]
• Christina Binkley Tweeted: "Milan fashion week shows running late. Rumor blames Anna Wintour for introducing Roger Federer to Mr. Armani today - causing hour delay." [@BinkleyOnStyle]
• Elie Saab signed a 10-year fragrance and cosmetics licensing agreement with Beauté Prestige International, a division of Shiseido. [WWD]
• Carolina Herrera, who was born in Venezuela, became an American citizen on Friday. She said, "I have been here for many years, and I love this country very much. I love New York and everything about America. It was very emotional for me." As for the exam, "I was constantly testing people in my office... I told them, ‘With this test, you would never become a citizen,' ... Now I know more than they do." [WWD]

The Boston-born Cunningham started shooting street fashion in 1966, when a photographer friend of the young fashion journalist gave him a $35 camera and advised him to use it like a notebook. Captivated by the New York's clothing soup him ever since, Cunningham has photographed a weekly "On The Street" fashion column for the Sunday Styles section ever since a couple good shots of Greta Garbo's nutria coat caught the section editor's eye in 1978. Cunningham has a passionate, discriminating, but stubbornly democratic love of fashion. He's as likely to be captivated by the turn of a workman's trouser cuffs as he is by the twist of a Balenciaga heel; despite a lifetime spent working in the industry, starting off as a stocker at Bonwit Teller, Cunningham retains an outsider's eye. He loves shooting on 5th Ave., where he says you can see the whole world go by, if you're patient enough. But he's been known to get on trains to go clear across the city if he thinks he's missed a shot that'll fit with his week's theme.

Lauren Collins, who profiled Cunningham in this week's Style issue of the New Yorker, reveals that the photographer, who turns 80 this month, lives alone in the Carnegie Hall Tower. He sleeps on a piece of foam that tops a board propped up by milk crates, and has access to a shared bathroom and kitchen. He is most often dressed in a utilitarian blue cotton smock — like those some garment workers still wear, with thimbles and embroidery scissors in the pockets and needles holding many colored threads in a row down one sleeve — and he generally gets around town on his red bicycle. When he travels to Paris, his editor at the Times, Trip Gabriel, reports that Cunningham "insists on staying at a cheapo hotel that has no phones in the rooms." He takes all his pictures with a well-used Nikon; in the years since the Times photojournalism department went digital, Cunningham has processed his film at a 1-hour photo lab on 43rd St.

Cunningham is a quiet man who works in the loud, twinned industries of fashion and media. But what captivates him is still the simple aesthetic joy of noticing what people wear, and identifying commonalities. "I don't really see people — I see clothes," he says. And he has little patience for the sky-is-falling rhetoric of America's allegedly faltering style. "People say everybody's a slob. Ridiculous! There are marvelously dressed women you see at a quarter to eight, going to business. When people say fashion is no more, they're ridiculous! It's as good as it ever was."

Cunningham has perfect recall of individual ensembles — what they were, when they were worn, what the person was doing — that were of particular interest to him, going all the way back to the 1960s. "I'm looking for something that has beauty," he says, simply. And he hasn't the heart for criticizing the sartorial choices of private citizens. "Dos and Don'ts? I don't think there are any don'ts! What right does one have?"

In the profile, Collins mentions that Cunningham has often been called a "fashion monk" — but instead classifies him as an oblate, "a layperson who has dedicated his life to the tribe without becoming a part of it." And it's this crucial distinction that sets him apart from the current popular crop of street style bloggers, whose work Cunningham's pioneering in many ways made possible. There's often a mind-numbing sameness to the outfits recorded on various of the well-read blogs that chronicle the styles of the world's cities; it's the young, good-looking subject, wearing the cool outfit with the 80s thrift-store touches, shooting a doleful look down the camera's lens. Reading their offerings, the overwhelming impression is one of a flattened world where all the hip young things have the same ideas about how to dress, whether they happen to live in Mexico City or Berlin. The stylistic tranche being diaried is limited. You can't imagine Jak & Jil finding anything of interest at the Puerto Rican Day Parade or in the outfits of tourists — two things Cunningham loves.

Although a few street style blogs, like Garance Doré's, seem to share Cunningham's enthusiasm for fashion as it's worn by real people — and his knack for identifying unthought-of trends — a lot of street style photobloggers behave as though they're (im)patiently waiting for their place at the fashion table. And why shouldn't they? Scott Schuman, aka the Sartorialist, has been featured in a Gap campaign and himself photographed the new DKNY Jeans campaign. Jak & Jil's Tommy Ton (who says of Doré and Schuman, "They're interested in taking a beautiful photograph. I'm just a freak for the Balmain and the Balenciaga!") nonetheless attracted the attention of the Asian retailer Lane Crawford, who asked Ton to step into Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin's shoes and shoot, presumably at least somewhat beautiful, images for its next campaign.

Cunningham eschews such trappings of the profession. He lives for the next great shot, the next strange confluence of colors and shapes, the next windstorm that turns umbrellas into spiny exoskeletons, the next rainstorm that shows the wealthy that the waters don't magically part. "Oh, it's marvelous — it just rearranges the whole fashion scene when the wind blows down from the top of the Avenue," says Cunningham. "Six-, seven-hundred-dollar shoes, and they're all in the slush — hey, it's pretty peculiar! Nothing like a good blizzard, kid, and you get pictures."

Which is not to say that Cunningham doesn't speak fluent couture — he can spot a Dior or a Chanel at fifty paces, and he has a particular love of the more eccentric labels, like Comme des Garçons and Martin Margiela. (In 2000, when hip-hop fans started wearing their sweatshirts "abstractly, with the neck hole on the shoulder, or with the sleeves dangling down the back," Collins writes, Cunningham compared the look to the Japanese avant-garde deconstructionist designers.) But despite his depth of insider knowledge, or perhaps because of it, it's fashion qua fashion that interests him, not the label per se. That might be the biggest difference between Cunningham and Ton.

Cunningham is looking forward to seeing, over the coming months, how people are going to reflect the changing economy in their daily dress. "Fashion, the people wearing it, will do it before they even know what they're doing. You don't know yet, it's just starting to gel, but there will be a style. You watch, you'll see something. There's the old saw about hemlines. Who knows? It's only in the future you can know. You just have to stay out on the street and get it. It's all here."

Man On The Street [New Yorker — sub req'd]
Bill Cunningham [NY Times]

• Wanna see Posh's designs, complete with lampshades and elephant-trunk headpieces? Check out the new commercial for her fashion line. [Fashionista]
• "The video sees various models taking inspiration from Posh’s own ads for Marc Jacobs last season by hiding themselves all over a large mansion – behind drawers, in carrier bags, hanging behind doors, turning themselves into lamp shades and transforming themselves into an elephant." [Sassybella]
• Says Posh: “Being in the Spice Girls, fashion-wise probably didn't open any doors. If anything it shut doors and I've had to bang them down.” [Times Online]
• A New York bridal shop is knocking off the Vivienne Westwood wedding gown in which Carrie Bradshaw was jilted. [New York Post]

• Notify jeans classifies butts into three categories. [Guanabee]
• Apparently Katie Holmes is surrounded by a whole gaggle of other moddles for her ballyhooed Miu Miu campaign. [New York]
• Uniqlo beats the odds, is up 32%. [WWD]
• This, we like: Kate Moss is teaming up with Liberty to use their classic floral prints in her next Top Shop collection. [WWD]
• "Liberty are already working with Topshop on a lingerie collaboration, which launched in stores yesterday, though exactly how Moss will use the London store's iconic prints is still under wraps." [ElleUK]
• Michelle Obama's Vogue cover's not a sure thing. Neither, apparently is Anna Wintour's job! [New York]
• Meanwhile, Michelle continues to boost young designers: the latest beneficiary is Jason Wu. [WSJ]
• Oh noes! J. Crew and Bloomies knocked out on a prime shopping day by website malfunctions. [Crains]
• So why is the entire payroll of NBC in this batch of holiday Gap ads? [Jossip]
• Luxury luggage gets extra-ridiculous to woo reluctant jet-setters. [IHT]
• Zara's founder is funding alternative energy solutions in Spain. [Business Week]
• Pre-fall collection peeks for Versace, DKNY, Alexander Wang, Armani, Missoni! [WWD]
• Supermodel Miranda Kerr has been replaced as the face of Australia's oldest department store. [AdAge]
• The “2009 Shop with a Conscience Consumer Guide" is a cheat-sheet to apparel made under ethical conditions. [WWD]
• Helena Christensen's line for Pilgrim jewelry is "typically, ethnically-inspired and feminine, in both delicate orchid-pastels and strong, spicy colours, priced between £10 and £100." [Telegraph]
• Victoria's Secret tries to go higher-end with a new flagship, "a level of elegance that casts the flirty and frilly lingerie and romantic beauty products in a softer, luxurious light." [WWD]

• In a video, skeevy CEO Dov Charney claims that "there's a conspiracy against celebrities in the Hollywood area" and that "the judges are generally patriarchal, they don't want to give celebrities a chance." Down with the patriarchy! [The Street]
• Word is, Katie Holmes shot her Miu Miu campaign yesterday. [Fashionologie]
• More inaugural gown sketches! We're not feeling 'em. [Politico]
• Colombian bulletproof jackets were inspired by our trigger-happy Veep. “This is a new market for us. Dick Cheney has helped raise awareness of accidents." [Think Progress]
• Thakoon, maker of Michelle Obama's "reverse kimono" DNC dress, has discontinued the design. [WSJ]

• Rich kid Peaches Geldof's music and fashion tips! "Most people who know me know I don’t follow fashion. I mean, I just dyed the tips of my hair blue for God’s sake. I hate stars who look totally overstyled, like Victoria Beckham; give me Courtney Love, with her babydoll nighties and ripped fishnet tights, any day. For me, fashion is about pushing boundaries. Vivienne Westwood once told me that people who aren’t creative or have no love for art don’t dress up, I asked her why people should and she replied simply, 'Because it’s fun.' Sage advice." [Nylon]
• DNR, the men's trade fashion mag, has been folded into WWD. [Fashionista]
• Steve & Barry's liquidates. [WWD]
• So does Bill Blass New York. [WWD]
• Cathy Horyn's all about Norma Kamali for Wal-Mart. Maybe we can call it...VallMa? [New York Times]
• Gap surpasses Wall Street's third quarter expectations. [Reuters]
• Liz Claiborne, however, is hit hard. [WWD]
• 80's icon Romeo Gigli is back, baby. "I have never created for 'someone' in particular, always for 'anyone' willing to take a journey of the imagination made up of dissonant harmonies, freedom and sharing." [IHT]
• Hoping to offset shopping malaise, Fifth Avenue outdoes itself with Christmas decorations. [IHT]
• Madonna's astroturf special? It's Vuitton. [New York]
• Mod maven Mary Quant unveils her special-edition stamp. [Sassybella]
• Modestly belly-buttoned moddle Karolina Kurkova has been voted "World's Sexiest Woman" by E. [InventorSpot]
• Beyonce's Japanese ads for “Samantha Thavasa” handbags — with singer Takuya Kimura — are pretty cool. [LifeFiles]

• Suri Cruise's custom Roger Vivier flats: Cute, or creepy and decadent? "Bruno Frisoni, the creative director of the French luxury label and pal of Tom and Katie, made Suri her very own pair of iconic buckle flats (made famous by Catherine Deneuve in Belle de Jour)." Oh, and if you want your own toddler to look like a Parisian hooker? Sorry, they were a one-off. [People]
• Paris Hilton continues her career as political satirist with some advice for Sarah Palin: "You've got a hot bod; don't keep it to yourself...Why wear a pantsuit when you can wear a swimsuit? Welcome to the Lower 49, girlfriend." Or maybe that wasn't satire. [New York Post]
• Media reports that Gisele sends moola to her family in Brazil so now the fam are at risk for kidnapping. [Daily Express]
• That Van Cleef & Arpels suit against Heidi Klum's jewelry line has been dismissed. [Sassybella]

• Britney might be a surprise performer at this Diesel party in Brooklyn. Screw that! MIA will be there! [Fashionista]
• Coach's Reed Krakoff, who wrote a book about ultimate fighting, trotted out a bunch of (uncomfy) fighters to Barneys for the event. “I thought they’d just roll us in off a bus, and that we would have dinner with a bunch of suits,” said one. “I didn’t expect all this.” [WWD]
• If you don't mind imposing both puns and political endorsements on babies, you'll like this new line of Obama-wear. "Baby Needs a Change," anyone? [Utne]
• I'm guessing at this point most of us don't want to waste a mouse click on Lauren Conrad's holiday collection. [FabSugar]
• Gap and Abercrombie both down; middle-schoolers obviously hit by recession. [WSJ]
• In fact, Wal Mart's about the only one who's up. [WWD]
• Vanessa Paradis: "The red carpet is not something I really know how to work. It intimidates me. I feel very tiny...I don't have famous neighbours and if I did, I'd avoid them. I don't live the jet-set." Guess she prefers to hole up with Depp. [VogueUK]
• The blouse is back, baby. [ElleUK]
• Marc Jacobs “totally channeled" late artist Stephen Sprouse in his new collection. [Fabsugar]

• Rumor has it that the mini moguls' "lifestyle differences" are tearing their fashion collabs asunder. “Ashley really wants to be a respected businesswoman and be taken seriously...MK does too, but she hasn’t been willing to give up her lifestyle and act like an adult for their job.” Result? MK is being "distanced" from the business end. [LA Times]
• Gossip Girls Blake Lively, Leighton Meester and Michelle Trachtenberg have all "designed" Stuart Weitzman heels for charity. "Blake's candy-themed kicks (no doubt courting comparisons like "sweet" and "confectious") are going for the highest of the three at $300 - Leighton's in the middle and Michelle's on the right." [Fashionista]
• A petulant Oscar de la Renta is skipping the Metropolitan Opera's opening night for the first time in 20 years. He "was none too happy to learn that Renée Fleming’s onstage frocks for the affair were designed by Karl Lagerfeld, John Galliano and Christian Lacroix." Um, is his ticket going begging? Sounds better than fashion week! [WWD]
• Markets rebound a tad; retailers still panicky. [WWD]

• Uh oh. Amidst the recent financial turmoil, Prada has called off its widely-reported plan to go public this year, "making it the global financial turmoil's most high-profile fashion victim." [WSJ, WWD]
• The "Obama Effect" has done wonders for designer Thakoon, whose rose-colored frock Michelle sported on nom night. "I saw her on TV and I couldn't even look, I was so embarrassed from being excited,'"quoth he. [LA Times]
• Norwegian designer Peter Dundas joins venerable print-meisters Pucci as creative director. [IHT]
• Rumor — no, it really might just be a rumor — has it that Marc Jacobs is opening a store in Manhattan's East Village. Which, even if true, doesn't seem like that big a deal. [Fashionista]
• Thes auction Naomi "Siddhartha" Campbell organized for the White Ribbon Foundation was a big hit. "London’s big spenders outbid each other for looks donated by designers including Alexander McQueen, Zac Posen and Christopher Kane." [WWD]
• "Last year, Giorgio Armani told Time that PETA had persuaded him to drop fur from his designs, but his fall line includes fur coats for babies, floral-printed fur coats, fur-hemmed skirts and fur-trimmed jackets." PETA's pissed. So now they're going to go back to the always-effective plan A: harassing and heckling! [P6]
• Gap is opening in Mexico, stealthily: it'll be opening "stores within stores" in an established department store chain. [WSJ]
• A graphic designer named "Salvor" has teamed up with Rogan to lauch a capsule collection which, one assumes, will have a one-word name. [Fashionista]
• Fans of both clothes and Sonic Youth — read, anyone — must be thrilled about Kim Gordon's new line, Mirror/Dash. Even if, so far, it's just one jacket. [BlackBook]
• The New Yorker's panel talk on "The Future of Fashion": snooze or revelation? [Fashionista]
• "A Japanese designer and furrier, Chie Imai, has called her autumn 2008 collection of fur-trimmed capes and boleros Eco Harmony." The fabric is, indeed, recycled. The fur? The animals in question might take exception to the "harmony." PETA certainly would. [Independent]
• Sears is introducing these 3-D virtual dressing rooms that will allow you to "try" things on from home. If you thought store mirrors were dishonest...! [Reuters]
• Betsey Johnson loves being a grandma, fresh fish. [Fashion Informer]
• Fashion Fringe winner: "Go By A Secret Path, aka designer Eun Jeong Hong, yesterday earned herself a rather nice end of week treat in the shape of £100,000, as well as continuous support from the Fashion Fringe at Covent Garden team to kick start her professional design career." [VogueUK]
• Abercrombie and Fitch pioneers "scent ambience services" in its stores. Why am I having visions of the poppy field in the Wizard of Oz? [Breitbart]
• Wyndam Hotel employees will go green whether they like it or not, sporting "uniforms made with polyester fibers spun from plastic beverage bottles." All we can say is, whoever made that virtuous decision better be wearing Coke couture, too. [BrandWeek]
• A few royals hit Fashion Week, but paps mostly had to settle for Kate Middleton's little sister. [WWD]
• Pamela Anderson escorted by "a man in a white mask" at Vivienne Westwood show. [ElleUK]

• Reports Hot Topic eyewitness:"ONLY 7 people showed up. SEVEN. That’s it. Mario was BEYOND upset texting and DEMANDING the right water, food, ETC he was a rude royal pain in the ass and BEYOND crass... My manager was trying to get people to come in to meet Perez by handing out $5 gift cards NO ONE WANTED TO MEET HIM! ...he left around 8:45PM without saying goodbye to anyone & looked like he had been crying like the little bitch he is. We sold a grand total of $6.45 of Perez Hilton items between 6PM - 9PM. My manager has already talked about discounting his ‘line’ !" [New York Magazine]
• GAP "ends child labor" after subcontracting comes to light. [WWD]
• Recession a boon(?) for consignment shops: "'Everyone is feeling the pinch these days or knows people who are feeling the pinch,' said Linda Kenney Baden, a prominent lawyer in New York. 'It’s good to buy a used car again, and it's chic to buy used clothes.'" [New York Times]

• Juicy Couture, sartorial "comfort food?" I'll stick with the mac, thanks. [WWD]
• Erickson Beamon to design jewelry line for Urban Outfitters. [fabsugar]
• New "cooling" tights for summer. Do they work? "If you've ever accidentally sat on your leg for too long, so it hasn't quite got to the pins and needles stage but still feels unexpectedly cold when you stop, you'll have a vague idea what's in store. It's not exactly an Arctic wind breezing across your flesh, but it's the sort of chill that menthol leaves on the skin. I'm not claiming that if you sat in the sun with these on you wouldn't feel the heat, but they certainly seem to work to some extent." [Daily Mail]
• Nuclear Wintour enjoys heat wave. [New York Magazine]
• Pregnant Alessandra Ambrosio? Not so much.[Page Six]
• Jones Apparel buys hefty stake in Rachel Roy, high-end markets. [WWD]
• ShopBop attempts the impossible: simplifying online jeans buying."The video guide is hosted by Shopbop's style director, Morgan Wendelborn. She navigates three different body types — curvy, petite and regular — as models try on different jeans brands, styles and washes. Wendelborn outlines to the viewer why each pair is suited for their body type and explains technical elements that are figure-flattering. Rise, inseam, fabric content, pocket placement and wash are a sampling of elements explored." [WWD]
• "Doctors issued a warning today about the risks of "flipflop cancer." Apparently, exposing unprotected skin to the sun for years on end is, um, not good for it. [Daily Mail]
• Post-Angelina, St. John revamps image. [WWD]
• Lagerfeld kind to American Friends of Versailles: "Look how many of these charming Americans are wearing my Chanel and how well they look in it. It's an honor and a pleasure to help them." [New York Post]
• Take careful note: Project Runway to premier JULY 16 AT 9PM!!! [ONTD]
• Nicole Kidman might be on it. Might. [New York Post]
• Target axes Isaac Misrahi, continues guest designers. [WWD]
• Jovovich hawks: Milla and kin shill for Samsonite. [fashionista]
• Official NYLON mag taxis hit NYC: "The cars feature NYLON and NYLON TV graphics, and aim to bring a little bit of downtown to anywhere they go." [NYLON]
• Lanvin seeks investor. Any takers? [WWD]

• Stella McCartney calls dibs on bride-to-be Scarlett Johansson: "I'm definitely doing her wedding dress. She doesn't know it yet." Awkward. [People]
  
• Says Marc Jacobs on the bride-to-be, "I'm really happy for her. She's a great girl. I just think Scarlett is great and I hope she is very, very happy. She's super funny. I love a smart, ballsy, New Yorker and that's what she is. I wish her the best." And by "the best" he clearly means, "Do why didn't that bitch ask me to design her wedding dress?" [Vogue UK]
  
• Chris "Mr. Big" Noth has some strong feelings about Victoria's Secret, "I'm not into Victoria's Secret so much. I find it over the top. I like subtlety and I like elegance. I think their things are gaudy and they are really trying too hard. If I could make a fashion statement, I think that Victoria's Secret looks to me like somebody who is putting on too much make-up. It's too gaudy, man. I mean, come on take it easy, you don't have to have a fuckin' bouquet of flowers on your underwear. Sorry Victoria's Secret; I hope they're not one of our sponsors!" [Oh No They Didn't]
  
• "You can get diamonds cheap," says Heidi Klum, which is why she's going to start sewing them into the pockets of her Jordache jeans line. Clearly, she has not seen Blood Diamond. [WWD, 9th item]

• Good for you, Adidas, for winning your lawsuit against Payless shoes for their blasphemous thievery of what is clearly a design that only you own: Stripes. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Seriously, Suri Cruise does not need custom-made Roger Vivier shoes. I, however, do. [WWD, 1st item]
• So what did More editor-in-chief Lesley Jane Seymour do Monday night in lieu of attending the Met Costume Institute Gala? (She wasn't invited.) "I dressed up in my best Versace and barbecued on the my outside deck in the suburbs! Only kidding about the Versace! I wore Prada." [Fashion Week Daily]
• Oh also, Christina Ricci left the Costume Institute Gala in a huff after realizing upon entering that she and her boyfriend had not been seated together. [Page Six]
• If only I had been trapped in an elevator with Giorgio Armani yesterday. [Wowowow]
• So Gwyneth Paltrow is all, "I don't get why there's this big fuss about my S&M footwear fetish." [USA Today]
• Video footage of Gemma Ward trying to slay Liv Tyler: Here. [Fashionista]
• Video footage of Karlie Kloss doing ballet: Here. [NY Mag]
• Model and sometimes di Caprio girlfriend Bar Rafaeli sorta needs to pony up and serve in the Israeli Army already. [UPI]
• Oh of course Jimmy Choo is trying to usurp as much press and glory as they can from the opening of the Sex and the City movie. [Vogue UK]
• Ksube + Kanye = Pretty cool. [Sassybella]
• Diet Coke + Patricia Field = Pretty random. [Sassybella]
• OMG why did The Sartorialist get fired from the new Gap ads as a model already?! Why?! Why?! [Fashionista]
• Beth Ditto will be entertaining guests at the opening of the Alexander McQueen store in L.A. next week. [Fashion Week Daily]
• In the midst of economic downturn Barneys New York and Target seem to be entering into one of those "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship" sorta things. [WWD, sub req'd]
• And young design bad-ass Danielle Scutt is designing for Topshop. Seeing a theme here? [WWD, 8th item]
• The Turks? Love them some Dior. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Just what you needed: How to dress like celebrities, made easy. And a little stalker-ish. [TechCrunch]

• More rumored changes for The Greatest Show On Earth, Project Runway: Season 6 of the show, the first to be broadcast on Lifetime, may feature "More Than A Pretty Face" magazine Marie Claire in lieu of Elle as the affiliated fashion magazine sponsor. [WWD, 1st item]
  
• Whoah: Are New York Times fashion critic Cathy Horyn and Skeletor/stylist Rachel Zoe more similar than we could have ever imagined? Possibly, if it's true that Cathy Horyn was also mysteriously not invited to the dinner and dancing portion of tonight's Costume Institute festivities. [Fashion Week Daily]
  
• And what does legendary costume designer Bob Mackie not like about the fashion industry? "Doing a fashion show that's on for 20 minutes and then it's over and everybody runs to the next one. Nobody sings, nobody dances, nobody tells jokes. I found it quite unsatisfying." I second that emotion. [WWD, sub req'd]

• It's so hard to be Gossip Girl's Penn Badgley: "I wear a lot of Burberry at events and the brand's been really supportive of me since the beginning. On the show, we wear H&M suits." [Fashion Week Daily]
• Sex and the City costume designer/fun drunk lesbian Pat Field: Now designing Diet Coke bottles. [FabSugar]
• More pearls of wisdom from Tim Gunn: "Always keep your tux jacket closed in photos." [Page Six]
• Starring in the latest Gap ads are actors Ginnifer Goodwin, Liv Tyler, Hugh Dancy, Fabcon Clemence Poesy, Catalina Moreno, Edgar Ramirez, photographers Scott Schuman (The Sartorialist) and Ryan McGinley, and also Marchesa designer Georgina Chapman, model Chanel Iman, Visioniare's Cecilia Dean, and Princess Coldstare herself, Leigh Lezark. [FabSugar]
• Leona Lewis: The latest celeb to believe she can be a fashion designer. A vegan fashion designer, that is. Watch your back, Portman and McCartney. [Fashionista]
• Lord & Taylor is launching a new "reality" advertising campaign, with TV and radio spots featuring real customers "ambushed' in their stores by "celebrity stylist" Robert Verdi and quizzed on their shopping experiences. Oh Lord. [WWD, sub req'd]
• WWD asks: "Tax Rebate Checks: Will They Spend Or Will They Save?" [WWD, sub req'd]
• More stars coming to tonight's Vogue and Armani-sponsored Costume Institute gala: Kate Bosworth, Thandie Newton, Audrey Tatou, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jourdan Dunn, Elettra Rossellini Wiedemann, and Roberto Bolle will all be there. In other words: Lots of good photos for us to dish on tomorrow. [WWD, 1st item]
• Also: Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, Gisele Bündchen and Tom Brady, Scarlett Johansson, Iman and David Bowie, Sofia Coppola, Karen Elson and Helena Christensen. [Vogue UK]
• Mary Alice Stephenson (formerly the fashion director at Harper's Bazaar and the co-host of America's Most Smartest Model on Vh1) is shooting a special for E! on tonight's festivities, set to air May 8th for the viewing pleasure of us plebs. [Fashion Week Daily]
• Elle editors might have put Kelly Clarkson on the cover of the mag, but that doesn't mean they think she's very fashionable. [Page Six]
• Marc Jacobs: Now in Moscow. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Former model Josie Maran may have fake breasts tits. [Awful Plastic Surgery]
• The fashion on Gossip Girl? Kinda crazy. But that's why we love it so. [EW]
• The rock stars today? The just don't dress like they used to. [LATimes]

• The latest on the Nina Garcia saga: If she takes the editor-at-large gig she'll only be there til mid-October, when ELLE's contract with Project Runway ends and then she'll be let go for reals. (Dear Nina: You can do better than that.) Meanwhile, no one at ELLE or its publisher Hachette Filipacchi Media has issued a single comment on the entire situation. [WWD, 1st item]
  
• Meanwhile, everyone at ELLE is pissed that the taping of its reality show Fashionista is ruining everyone's lives. [NY Daily News]
  
• Audrey Tatou is rumored to be the newest face of Chanel No. 5. Does this mean that Nicole Kidman got the boot? Maybe she and Nina can start a sort of ex-wives club together. [WWD, 1st item]
  
• "I think the luxury is not only what we give to ourselves, but what we can give to others. Obviously, we can get more of this and this, but the true luxury is being able to give back. When one has been blessed with the ability to have made it...it's our social responsibility." Nice try, Donna Karan. But...no. [WWD, sub req'd]

• "You can sort of tell the designers by the pieces," says Gap designer Patrick Robinson on the retailer's white shirt sdesigned by Phillip Lim, Band of Outsiders, Michael Bastian and Threeasfour. Um, wouldn't it be troublesome if you couldn't? Isn't this sort of a given when it comes to design? [WWD, sub req'd]
• Victoria Beckham is not above groveling to get L.A. boutique Kitson to not drop her denim line from its stores. [PopSugar]
• Women need to learn to "shop like a man"? My ass! Don't know about you, but the ladies I know think a lot more about where they put their dollars then the fellas in my life. [Telegraph]
• Margaret Thatcher: Style icon? Sure, and Hillary's yellow pantsuits are going to be the next big thing for spring! [Telegraph]
• Kenneth Cole has poached Liz Claiborne executive vice president Jill Granoff to make her the company's new CEO. Smells like another failure of the Tim Gunn-Bill McComb regime at Claiborne to me. [WWD, sub req'd]
• LVMH's profits are up by 12%, largely because of the roaring success of the Louis Vuitton label. Marc Jacobs: 1, haters: 0. [WWD, sub req'd]
• How the hell are Burberry's profits up by over 19%? Really: Explain it to me. [WWD, sub req'd]
• And L'Oreal's profits are in the shitter. [Reuters]
• Who's the most accomplished Versace sibling now? Santo Versace, who has just joined Italy's House of Parliament. Can't you just see Donatella busting in there, screaming, "Geeeeeeeet outtttttt!" 'Cause I can. [WWD, 2nd item]
• Gucci has hired David Lynch to direct commercials and James Franco to front its new men's fragrance. [WWD, 3rd item]
• So word on the street is that Sasha Pivovarova is being ousted as the face of Prada for Linda Evangelista. Drama! [Sassybella]
• Designer Roland Mouret on what makes a fashion icon: "Icons last but fashion changes. What I try to do is allow a woman to work with the icon inside herself. The body is an icon, and I create a shell for that body." Just like Invasion of the Body Snatchers! [Vogue UK]
• These shoes scare me. [Chic Report]

• Kate Moss's fifth collection for Topshop launches today. It's inspired by "travel." Oh, bite me. [Vogue UK]
  
• Spanx bras — to flatten your back fat, of course — in stores now! [WWD, sub req'd]
  
• You will be so proud of Eva Mendes! She overcame that whole nasty rehab debacle to be chosen as the face of Calvin Klein underwear. Yay Eva! And yay Calvin Klein for taking a chance on a star who is trying to overcome adversity. [WWD, sub req'd]
  
• Pussycat Dolls founder Robin Antin has extended her evil empire to include a lingerie line (entitled, sickeningly, "Pussycat Dolls...shhh") and a costume jewelry line. [WWD, 3rd item]
  
• Nicole Richie doing a maternity line? Why, God, why? [LATimes]

• Marc Jacobs and his histrionic boyfriend Jason Preston are fighting again. [Page Six]
• "I feel like Beyoncé is a very good image for what I do. She's the woman that I present. I adore women with curves," says designer Elie Saab. We remain skeptical. [Fashion Week Daily]
• I know I'll sleep better tonight knowing that Lord & Taylor has achieved its life-long dream of stocking Juicy Couture. [IHT]
• Also, knowing Victoria Beckham owns ten different Hermes Birkin bags, all in different colors. [Sunday Mirror]
• Evangeline Lilly is the face of Davidoff Cool Water Women. [WWD, 2nd item]
• Bindi Irwin's children's clothing line on sale everywhere... well, in Australia. [News.com.au]
• Paris Hilton: Inspiration to Indian fashion designers. [Reuters]
• Gap has once again commissioned supercool designers to design limited-edition white shirts for the chain. 3.1 Phillip Lim, Band of Outsiders, Michael Bastian, Philip Crangi and Threeasfour have all signed on for the project, sponsored by Vogue and the CFDA. It seems like only yesterday they were doing this for the very first time! I have only written approximately 3.1 x 10²⁹ words on this site since then. [WWD, sub req'd]
• No, light-up packaging scares me. [BellaSugar]
• Our favorite model-blogger Erin O'Connor is now preparing to make a documentary about the fashion industry. $10 says everyone comes off looking ethical and well-groomed. [Daily Mail]

• (Photoshop of) Horrors! It's Drew Barrymore on the March Vogue and something just does not look right. [Just Jared]
  
• You won't be seeing Lily Allen in her underwear anytime soon: the rumors about her being the latest face of Agent Provocateur are allegedly BS. [Sassybella]
  
• The Gap's spring advertising campaign features Coco Rocha, Anja Rubik and other top models. Think this will finally be the advertising campaign that convinces everyone to start buying their crappy clothes again? [Sassybella]
  
• Because the Oscars are actually on (thanks WGA!), the WWD reports that all the big celebs are already headed out to Hollywood to primp for Sunday night — you know it takes a week of preparation for these things — meaning the biggest celebs that can be wrangled for the front row of the Milan shows are James Blunt and some soccer players who are not Beckham. [WWD, 1st item]

• And yet... Monica Bellucci, Naomi Campbell, Sheryl Crow, Fergie, Lindsay Lohan and French actress Fanny Ardant are all expected to show for the Dolce & Gabbana show. Because, uh, that other thing we just said about no big celebs was just some stupid angle we made up. You think it's easy filling an ENTIRE NEWSPAPER with material solely about the fashion industry every day? [WWD, 4th item]
• Kanye: Likes Chanel cell phones. [Chic Report]
• Isla Fisher on her upcoming starring role in Confessions of a Shopaholic: "I've done a lot of research." LOL. [Sassybella]
• Yay Bob Mackie! The man who dressed Cher, Carol Burnett, Diana Ross and Barbie in some of their finest frocks is being honored by the Costume Designers Guild today. [WWD, 8th item]
• Gemma Ward: The face of Karl Lagerfeld's spring line. It's all sorta suburban goth girl....so I'm weirdly into it. [Sassybella]
• J.C. Penney and Ralph Lauren have teamed up to create a new, "exclusive" label. Polo Penney! We can't say this aloud and not laugh. [NYT]
• Takashi Murakami: He's everywhere! First on Vuitton bags, then at the Brooklyn Museum of Art in April and then at the Museum of Contemporary Art in LA in October. [Fashion Week Daily]
• Isaac Mizrahi's designing the costumes for the New York City Opera's production of King Arthur, which could actually be enough to get our asses to the opera. [Fashion Week Daily]
• It's so hard to be a model: "Everyone sees you as merely another pretty face, and I work really hard every day to show I am more than that," says Vanessa Hessler. [WWD, 2nd item]
• Execs at Gianfranco Ferre are all grumpy that the fashion community is being all gossipy about the unexpected (and unexpectedly swift) exit of creative director Lars Nilsson from the label. Um, are they new to the fashion industry? Gossip always takes precedence over clothes. [Vogue UK]
• Fight MS! Wear lip balm! [BellaSugar]
• Playboy cosmetics: Definitely skeeve us out. [BellaSugar]
• Matthew McConaughey. Dolce & Gabbana. Video. LOL. [Sassybella]

• The facts speak for themselves: Heidi Klum is designing a capsule collection for Jordache, for which she has been modeling over the past year. Think she'll offer hair extensions to cover nipples as well? [WWD, sub req'd]
  
• Kathy Hilton just released her own perfume. It's called "My Secret." We don't really want to think about what Kathy Hilton's secret might smell like. [BellaSugar]
  
• Gloria Steinem would not approve: Georgina Chapman, Marchesa designer and wife of Halston co-owner Harvey Weinstein, was named "Georgina Weinstein" on her front row seat at Halston yesterday. Only, as Chapman herself put it, "I didn't change my name, they did it for me." [WWD, 1st item]
  
• Jimmy Choo's CEO Tamara Mellon thinks that boyfriend Christian Slater should take a more active, or acting, role in fashion. Mellon says Slater would be "perfect" to play Halston in any upcoming biopic on the designer. [WWD, 1st item]

• One last Halston item! Rachel Zoe, who sits on the label's creative advisory team, wasn't at yesterday's debut show. A rep for the label was quick to issue a statement that Zoe has not been fired. Um, the lady doth protest too much? [WWD, 2nd item]
• Does the fashion industry hate the Bush Administration? Laura Bush is having a luncheon next week for all the designers who participated in this year's The Heart Truth's Red Dress Collection but Nicole Miler, Donna Karan, Carmen Marc Valvo, Tracy Reese, and Marchesa designers Georgina Chapman and Keren Craig have all said that they won't be able to attend. [WWD, 3rd item]
• Is anyone else depressed that Naomi Campbell and Andre Leon Talley collaborated to star and style in a SoBe "Thrillicious" commercial? [Fashion Week Daily]
• Burberry faux-fur parkas actually use dog fur. Fun! [UPI]
• Charges have been dropped against the manager of the Abercrombie & Fitch store in Virginia Beach, who was scapegoated by a cop whose delicate sensibilities were offended by A&F ads. [MSNBC]
• The latest item up for sale under Bono's (Product) RED line: The Mulberry Roxanne bag, done in sweatshirt material (red, naturally), for the Gap. [Sassybella]
• Count Fergie in as the latest face of MAC Viva Glam lipstick. [WWD, 2nd item]
• Brittany Murphy on Mr. and Mrs. Max Azria: "They're a very nice family, with great morals, very grounded. Plus, they'll even invite you over for Shabbat dinner. Who would turn that down?" [WWD, 4th item]
• Model Caroline Trentini has declared that she will be donating a percentage of her earnings from New York fashion shows to the Center of Support of Underprivileged Children with Cancer in her native Brazil. [WWD, 5th item]
• Is model/First Lady of France Carla Bruni pregnant with a son? [Vogue UK]
• Just what the world needed: Chocolate Armani Easter eggs. [Fashion Week Daily]
• Avon profits have dropped by 30%. There is no time for beauty in a recession. [Breitbart]

• Carrie Bradshaw in Burberry in Sex and the City movie ads: Potentially even more damaging to the brand than the chavs? [Vogue UK]
  
• Quick turnaround! Halston redux will be available on-line on Net-a-Porter the day after its runway show next week? Says Net-a-Porter chairman Natalie Massenet:"I am sure this will be a shock to the brands that specialize in knocking off some of the talent in the fashion industry. They had their cake and have been eating it for a while." [Vogue UK]
  
• All employees in the Tod's group were just given a $2,000 bonus by Group head Diego Della Valle as an "I'm-Sorry-The-Italian-Economy-Is-Bad-Right-Now" gesture. Um, are you reading this, Mr. Denton? [WWD, 2nd item]
  
• Cynthia Rowley: Now designing for Target. [WWD, 4th item]
  
• ThreeAsFour: Now designing for the Gap. [Fashionista]

• Louis Vuitton, not content to merely assault us with logos in magazines, on billboards and plastered across half the luggage in LAX's baggage carousels, is producing television commercials now too. [WWD]
• Since the stars have no awards shows to go to it looks like many will be coming out to New York for next week's fashion shows instead. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Alberta Ferretti has inked a fragrance licensing deal with Elizabeth Arden; the label's premiere scent is set to launch in spring 2009, with a skin care line to follow. [WWD, 1st item]
• Ralph Lauren just opened a new endoscopy wing at the Ralph Lauren Center for Cancer Care and Prevention in Harlem. We never knew that Ralph was all into helping cancer patients in Harlem! [WWD]
• The Spring 2008 Nordstrom campaign is all artsy and highbrow, with paintings done by Ruven Afandor. Paintings done by Ruven Afandor on models, that is. [Fashion Week Daily]
• Marie Claire editor-in-chief Joanna Coles on the reasoning behind the pre-Fashion Week dinner she threw: "The designers needed help and the models needed feeding." [Fashion Week Daily]
• More from PR pro Kelly Cutrone on preparing for Fashion Week: "Mara Hoffman...refus[ed] to show before 2:21 p.m. on February 2 as the moon would be void, off course (of course)...Araks will show first, immediately followed (after 2:21 p.m.) by Mara. I call Mara and ask, "What is happening astrologically?" She replies, "Mercury is in retrograde." [Chic Report]
• No shocker here: More and more people are buying clothes from Amazon.com. [Times of London]
• How bad is the economy? So bad that lipstick isn't even selling. And lipstick sales are supposed to go up during a recession. [AdAge]