• Madonna goes all Italian neorealist for spring's Dolce & Gabbana campaign. You'd almost swear these images were by Vittorio de Sica, not Steven Klein. The advertising shots ran as editorial content "previewed" in Italian Vanity Fair. [Swide]

• If you believe TMZ, Elin Nordegren might get back at Tiger in a way that would really hurt: by signing an endorsement deal with Puma. [TMZ]
• Well, that's a twist: Ungaro's C.E.O. is resigning, while Lindsay Lohan will remain with the house that so controversially benefited from her pasty-designing prowess. [WWD]
• Kimora Lee Simmons is not judging America's Next Top Model, not even as a guest, says her rep. [The Cut]
• Saks informed 116 employees at its cosmetics and fragrance counters that the company is eliminating their jobs as soon as the holidays are over. The move comes just weeks after the employees had voted to unionize. Merry Christmas! [NYPost]
• Rodarte's Kate and Laura Mulleavy just won the same $50,000 grant as Sapphire, author of Push. [WWD]
• Gisele Bundchen and Tom Brady have yet to settle on a name for their week-old baby. Gisele vetoed the one they had picked out two days before giving birth, and they haven't been together long enough since then to really talk about it, says Brady. His only conditions are that it be "a traditional name" and something he can pronounce. [People]
• Zac Posen's collaboration with Target includes an actual gown that can be worn three ways, a tuxedo, and a red leather jacket. The print-heavy capsule collection will get the widest distribution of any Target designer collab yet. [Racked]
• Draw on your clothes lots as a kid? A dress designed by Berber Soepboer and Michiel Schuurman comes with fabric markers so the owner can add color to the eye-catching black and white print. [Daily Mail]
• Advertisements for Olay Definity eye cream featuring Twiggy were the subject of more than 700 public complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority in the U.K., and yesterday, those complaints were upheld. The government watchdog found the heavily retouched advertisement was "misleading." Proctor & Gamble, which owns the Olay brand, voluntarily withdrew the offending ad and replaced it with one they claim has had no post-production in the eye area. [BBC]
• Biba is being revived. Again. [WWD]
• American Apparel is getting into the nail polish business. "We think this nail polish captures what American Apparel is all about — a Made in the USA, high-quality product in a beautiful range of colors. It's a venture of families in manufacturing, from the factory in which the polish is made to the Nail Lacquer logo created by Dov's uncle, the noted graphic designer Israel Charney," says a spokesperson. The 18 shades are named things like "Factory Grey" and "Hassid" and, naturally, "Downtown LA," and they cost $6 a bottle. Expect memos from Dov about appropriate nail and toenail styles imminently, retail drones. [Blackbook]
• Or you could buy this darling new shade of teal, called "Dickweed." [Refinery29]
• Grace Coddington granted a surprisingly revealing interview to the Times of London — and lets slip that she originally proposed Susan Boyle to play the wicked witch in her recent Hansel and Gretel shoot. Anna Wintour nixed the idea and favored Lady Gaga, whom Coddington describes thusly: "She turned up in a white rubber coat, stark naked underneath. No buttons, nothing — and completely you know, shaved." That's right, we just read about Lady Gaga's pubic hair in the pages of a daily paper! Coddington discusses Wintour (they can't fight "like a married couple," Coddington says, because "my marriages haven't been that successful"), front-row fashion week punditry ("I'm not prepared to crush some poor designer who's just spent six months slaving over a collection. I think it's horrible and they all talk about themselves. Plus, the questions are so stupid"), and the car crash that happened in her early 20s ("I remember bleeding all over a policeman and apologising for the mess. I had this driving mirror sticking in my head. I got to the hospital and they started sewing me up. Then someone said, what do you do and I said I'm a model and they said, hang on a minute. They took out all the stitches and made them more fine. Isn't that terrible? Because as a young girl, wouldn't I want the best anyway?"). Coddington admits to favoring British models — Lily Cole, Karen Elson — and says that models these days become successful so early that she sometimes thinks they have "no personality." Then she alludes to working with Karlie Kloss: "I was working with a very successful one the other day and she told me her parents were coming to take her on a trip to the place she loved best. I thought, where's she going — Africa? It was Disney World. And I thought, ‘Good for you. You're still a child'." (Kloss went to Disney World with her parents for her 17th birthday.) Erin O'Connor chimes in to praise Coddington for her work, and for "getting it past the censors." [ToL]
• Lacoste, via a new partnership, is planning to launch high-end handbags and accessories. [WWD]
• Hermès and Gucci each hosted their own name-brand equestrian competitions in the same week. Can you say, "Attempt to appeal to some kind of presumably authentic brand heritage?" [IHT]

You know the score here already: this is one of Grace Coddington's patented fairytale shoots, wherein familiar stories from childhood are re-enacted by teenage models in $15,000 outfits for the amusement of all. Sometimes these spreads have an enforced sweetness, like saccharin; always they make one wonder just what Bruno Bettelheim would have to say about a publication made by and for adult women finding so much material in sanitized re-tellings of Grimm, with 4" Fendi heels.

But this one hits all the right notes. Actor Andrew Garfield, as Hansel, is the perfect foil to Lily Cole's Gretel; the sumptuous costumes (look at those tree men!) come courtesy of the Metropolitan Opera, where Richard Jones' production of Hansel und Gretel takes the stage next month. (Let's hope it will be better than Tosca.) But only Coddington's styling could rise to such extraordinary surroundings.

And after Hansel and Gretel fall asleep in the forest...

...the wicked witch appears! In the form of Lady Gaga.

Coddington reports Gaga turned up at the shoot "stark naked except for her white rubber raincoat and some very, very high heels!"

Did Vogue just do something...edgy?

Naturally, Gaga's plan to fatten up the wily siblings fails. "Gaga was so bubbly and chatty and enthusiastic and excited to be alive," raves Coddington. Too bad she ends up in the oven, dead.

So the little ones who were made into gingerbread come back to life, here portrayed by Grace Church's Junior Choristers.

So there are quibbles anyone could make with this shoot. Annie Leibovitz, with the sense of treacly ponderousness she brings to every shot, wasn't the most exciting choice of photographer; one imagines what someone of Tim Walker's or Paolo Roversi's aesthetic sensibility could have done with this kind of material. And in a few too many shots, Lily Cole is caught in fake-looking poses; there's no intentionality, not even any tone to her arm, when she is supposed to be holding shut the oven door for dear life. Instead, she looks like she's sort of blankly resting against it. But casting Lady Gaga as a wicked witch was inspired. Whoever did that deserves a promotion.

Lady Gaga Joins Lily Cole And Andrew Garfield In A Recreation Of Hansel & Gretel [Style.com]

• Rumors are flying that Lindsay Lohan is donating her time (except for any free clothes she snags) as Emanuel Ungaro's new "artistic director." This gossip item, however, doesn't spell "Emanuel Ungaro" correctly, so its veracity may be questionable. [Fox 411]

• Ungaro C.E.O. Mounir Moufarrige says Lohan's pay is "quite enough. It's expensive." Before hiring her, he told the press he asked her how much time she intended to spend in jail this year; her unpredictability, he says, "has been factored in" to her compensation. [ToL]
• The New York Times' Horacio Silva says he just had a talk with Renzo Rosso, who is "thisclose to naming a new designer at Martin Margiela." Margiela's departure from his namesake house was only confirmed recently, after months of speculation. In a follow-up tweet, Silva says Rosso maintains Margiela will still be involved in the house. Haider Ackermann and Raf Simons have been mentioned as possible contenders for Margiela's old job. [Twitter]
• What if a luxury label opened a store, and nobody bothered to turn up? [Shophound]
• Diane Von Furstenberg tweets from Madrid: "I just got robbed in the street in front of the Thyssen museum... My wallet, cash and all my credit cards!!" [Twitter]
• Two Bravo executives described the network as "desperate" to get a reality TV deal with Marc Jacobs. Their pitch? A no-strings-attached everyday doc. "Just live his life, his amazing life, and let us shoot it," said Andy Cohen. "I mean, just go. Just go! Open your eyes, let us put the tape in the camera, and let us go." [The Cut]
• Mo Rocca on the future of fashion? Hell. Yes. [CBS]
• Number of times Time mentions Crystal Renn was a "size-0 model": 3. Number of times Time mentions she had anorexia: 0. [Time]
• Karl Lagerfeld: "My father…was not stingy but he hated unnecessary expense but clothes he saw as the exception — he was of a different generation — if you were well dressed, half of the job was done. So I was told, be well dressed and doors will open." [i-D via Fashionista]
• Can you imagine David Spade, Anthony Kiedis, Fred Durst, and Ron Burkle hanging out at a Zac Posen show? Us neither. L.A. is so weird. [Style.com]
• Oscar de la Renta was presented with an award by Grace Coddington and Hamish Bowles. [Yahoo]
• At the same event, Barneys creative director/author Simon Doonan said, "For years, all my writer friends would say to me, what the fuck are you doing working in a store every day? And now they're saying to me, how can I get a job in a store?" This is because "There's nothing at the moment that is worse-compensated than freelance writing. NOTHING. You can get more money panhandling on the street. It's shocking." We'd agree but we're now too depressed to move. Simon Doonan works for a C.E.O.-less department store with stock about eighteen zillion levels below investment grade, a department store so consistently subject to rumors of bankruptcy that its parent company periodically has to step in to remind everyone that it guarantees the (giant, growing, pile of) debt. And even he has it better than we do. [Daily Intel]
• Meanwhile, Doonan says he finds the recession "a colossal bore." [WWD]
• Martin Lingstrom, a brand strategist, spent three years hooking up over 2,000 people to sensors that monitored their physical and neurological responses to advertising and shopping. He says that, while deciding to buy something, our brains release dopamine. However, then there's the guilt: "It's not very strong at the beginning but increases when you swipe your credit card through the credit-card reader." That feeling is physiological. Instead of reaching the obvious conclusion from his data — shopping is against nature, a pattern of unhealthy addiction and guilt-ridden behaviors, and everyone in fashion is totally fucked — Martin Lingstrom apparently still works as a brand strategist. [WSJ]
• The Wall Street Journal tried out Christian Louboutin and Piper Heidsieck's Le Rituel, the $5,000 glass slipper intended to serve as a champagne flute. The verdict? "It takes some finesse, balance, and you can't fill it very high with bubbly...It has its charm, but drinkers of champagne mat opt to keep their flutes handy." Imagine that. [WSJ]
• Alexander Wang says he staged his first fashion show when he was 15, at his brother's wedding. "It was like 35 looks or something. We hired hair and make-up and everything." [Independent]
• Heidi Klum is launching a fashion line. The footwear collection, all 48 styles, will be available starting next fall; to follow will be swimsuits and casual wear. [WWD]
• Claudia Schiffer, on the supermodels comeback: "One of the logical reasons would be that we sort of went away at the same time and most of us had kids at the same time and then we sort of came back. We've also worked for such a long time, we are reliable and professional and you know what you'll get." [Independent]
• Schiffer, who was once unceremoniously dropped by Karl Lagerfeld, during the grunge days, has been spotted with the designer around Buenos Aires. They, along with Baptiste Giabiconi and Freja Beha Erichsen, are shooting the next Chanel campaign. Local media reports that they ate "rich barbecue" for lunch one day. [Fashionologie]
• Vivienne Westwood made a series of gowns for Leona Lewis. In exchange, the pop star will wear the dramatic metallic corseted creations in all the promotional materials for her new album and single. [Telegraph]
• Odds Costume Rental, which supplied costumes for 22 years to productions like Law & Order and Road to Perdition, has filed for bankruptcy. Rising rent is one culprit — the business was hit with a $5,000/month increase last year — and the willingness of designers to give their clothes away to film and television shows is another. [Crains]
• Salvatore Ferragamo is entering the online retail market. [WWD]

Coddington, a former model, spoke to New York Magazine last night, saying,

It is a big problem. I remember when I was young, they told me that if I didn't lose weight I'd be out of the show, so I spent a week living off of coffee. But I'm a very levelheaded person. These problems nowadays are with kids much, much younger than that, and that's most of the problem - when they're very young and vulnerable.

While making the point that models "have to be a little thinner than you and I because you always photograph a little fatter," she conceded that "you don't have to go to the extremes they go to. And because they're kids, they take it too far, and they can't regulate their lives, and next thing you know they're anorexic, and it is tragic." But...was she talking about the same Vogue we are? The same Anna? Quoth she,

I don't know what the answer is, except to keep on it, which we're all trying to do. Anna's trying to do it. Personally we're not allowed, at Vogue, to work with girls who are very thin, but you never know, because you could book them and think they're a certain size, and they turn up on the shoot and suddenly they've spun into this anorexic situation. And you're on the spot and you have to get the job done and you have one day to do it, and what do you do? But you try to be responsible, as Anna is.

Well, look, the woman works at Vogue, and in a seriously senior capacity. She's been there, partially-presiding, through the lean times - in every sense. Don't expect miracles here, even if her words feel a tad less lip-servicey than most. In The September Issue, Coddington came across as relatively down-to-earth, an eater of seemingly normal meals, and stupendously talented - not to mention refreshingly eccentric in her Elizabethan presentation. But the fun-house mirrors of that world go both ways, and at the end of the day, Fashion, as Robin Givhan pointed out, is a different world, and one that's not changing. Coddington does put her finger on one of the crucial points: the increasing youth of the models. We'd have thought, as creative director of Vogue, she might have a little influence on these things but, as she says in what may in fact be a back-handed way, "Usually Anna has all the ideas. I just interpret them and change them."

Grace Coddington Is Worried About How Young And Thin Models Are [New York]

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

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

• Model Lara Stone, size 4: "I don't want to be the fat one anymore, so, I have just started doing Pilates every morning, then going to the gym, running, and swimming." [ElleUK]

• BlackBook: "Given all of the hope Stone has offered in terms of representing the fashion industry eventually widening its narrow vision of what body type women should have, the comments are disappointing. Are Crystal Renn and Lizzie Miller our only hope?" We repeat: she was a size 4. [BlackBook]
• Model Erin O'Connor, vice chair of the British Fashion Council, came up with the all-sizes All Walks show. "It celebrates diversity and explores ethnicity, ageism, and body size in fashion." But...not size 4, surely? [The Sun]
• Jimmy Choo for H&M is officially visible. Our take? Not sure we want stilettos that high to be made on a budget! [Sassybella]>
• The two biggest teen target retailer demos are, according to a report by Euro RSCG, "jockettes" and "young metrosexuals." Don't forget confirmed bachelors! [BrandWeek]
• Teen retailers, in any case, are playing to the ones who pay the bills - even widening aisles to accommodate strollers. [WSJ]
• College students, meanwhile, are spending more on gadgets than threads. Beer, we presume, has stayed steady.[WWD]
• So now that she's preggers and not walking in London, how's 19-year-old Jourdan Dunn spending her time? "I've been watching a lot of daytime telly and eating a lot!" Yeah, sounds like our fashion week. [FWD]
• Designing sisters Savannah and Sienna Miller seem to have an Obama-boring great relationship. "Yeah, I guess we are really lucky to have a great relationship where we can work together," says Sienna. Cat fight fail. [People]
• Detroit tries to change its fortunes with a young fashion week. Sound counterintuitive? "They may seem like wildly different industries, but cars and clothes have elements in common, Detroit fashion insiders say. The city's industrial history gives it a unique design sensibility, and its manufacturing capabilities play well to a growing demand for garments that are made in America." [CNN via New York]
• Want Megan Fox's Transformers costume? Us neither, but if you're looking for a leather jacket drenched in sexxxy and stupid soundbytes, it'll be up for auction next month. [Yahoo]
• Christopher Bailey's Burberry collection won raves from the legions of celebs packing the front row. Despite the fact that the brand seeks to sever its ties with "Chav" culture, Victoria Beckham, who seeks the same thing, declared that "I've had a lot of fun." [Telegraph]
• In honor of London Fashion Week, the multimedia "SHOWstudio: Fashion Revolution" exhibition has opened at Somerset House. It involves "a giant suspended polystyrene statue" of Naomi Campbell. Who declared the exhibit "fabulous." [WWD]
• Despite market challenges, Tom Ford's seeking backers to move into women's fashion. If anyone can do it, it's a man with a Gucci tractor. [Reuters]
• Speaking of defying the odds - Justin Timberlake's William Rast line, which is expected to turn a profit, will be getting its own Los Angeles store. Bringing sexy back, indeed. [WWD]
• The good news: Vogue creative director Grace Coddington wrote a book. The bad news: Grace: Thirty Years of Fashion at Vogue costs $700... used. [Observer]
• Calvin Klein's teaming up with the Guggenheim to create "The Rob Pruitt Presents: The First Annual Art Awards" next month. The awards will "celebrate contemporary artists in a Hollywood-style ceremony," and for some reason James Franco is a presenter. [WWD]
• What ended Zac Posen's operatic dreams? "Opera I ended because I became a bari-tenor. And to be a baritone, you know, it's decent for musical theater, but for opera it's like THE END. So the last thing I sang was Aeneas in Purcell." [New York]
• French courts have found that there's no evidence to prove photographer François-Marie Banier gigoloed L'Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt via "exploitation of weakness." But Bettencourt's granddaughter is pursuing the case. [WWD]
• J. Crew and the Gap are going strong, in defiance of prognosticators' expectations. [The Street]
• We're not sure this is the route to high-fashion cred, but Britney Spears is soliciting fans' tee designs to sell on her website. [Sassybella]
• Twiggy's nemesis? Woody Allen, whom she's long-since consigned to the Academy of the Overrated. "There was one person who wasn't so nice - a young comic called Woody Allen and he was to interview me for a documentary. His first question was. 'Who's your favourite philosopher?' My heart sank. I wanted to run off and burst into tears. I didn't know any philosophers. And he probably knew I didn't. When I said so, he replied, 'Oh come on, everyone has a favourite philosopher.' It was such a cruel thing to do to a young girl." [Daily Express]

• The stylist who allegedly walked out on Mark Fast's show says it wasn't because the models were too "fat" - but because they were too fat to walk right! "The walk is very important,'' she explains. [Mirror]

• The stylist in question is reportedly Erika Kurihara, fashion editor at hipper-than-thou London style mag i-D. [Frockwriter]
• "Another studio insider, Amanda May, has since tweeted that the names of the three models in question are Hayley, Laura and Gwyneth and that the company is 'so happy we stuck to our guns about the casting.'" [Frockwriter]
• Says Fast's creative director, "The decision to use fuller girls is something we have been talking about. There's an idea that only thin and slender women are able to wear Mark's dresses and he wanted to combat that. We wanted women to know they didn't have to be a size zero to wear a Mark Fast dress - curvier women can look even better in them." [Daily Mail]
• Burberry's multi-pronged approach for getting down with the kids: broadcasting their fashion week show online; Facebook; Twitter; and social media site, "Art of the Trench," which "will encourage customers and fans of the brand to upload pictures of themselves sporting a classic Burberry trenchcoat." [Racked]
• Wait, what? Apparently Clint Eastwood owns a clothing line, Tehama, and it's been bought by Nacabi Inc. [WWD]
• Kelly Cutrone: "I'm, like, the patron saint of interns. I made interning famous." Well, maybe Venerable. [New York]
• The ever-modest Tim Gunn on being named a "Top 5 Silver Fox": "Well, that's very flattering but I think someone is a little cuckoo." [MediaBistro]
• And who's the Loaded Gunn's favorite superhero? Batman, of course - "the most debonair of superheroes." [USAToday]
• A Philip Lim VIP show: An intern covered in vom and a careening model. Like a PhiDelt party, plus pleating. [Racked]
• Yoko Ono's fashion show for threeASFOUR is exactly as you'd imagine a runway show by Yoko Ono. Check it. [FashionWeekDaily]
• And Rick Owens' furniture line is exactly as you'd imagine a furniture line by the punky designer. "He calls the antlers on his angular plywood chairs "brutalist crowns," and said he loves the way their elegance contrasts with the chairs' crude wooden shapes. Plywood is one of his all-time favorite materials, and a staple, "the washed black leather," he said, of his furniture collections." [WWD]
• Perhaps inevitably, Yasmin LeBon has designed a fashion line, for Sir Philip Green's Wallis chain. It's allegedly very glam, and very good. No word on whether the iconic "Rio" video was an influence. [WWD]
• Louis Vuitton hits a snag in its epic fight to protect its TM: they've lost a fight to get Google and other search engines to stop using their name. [Telegraph]
• DeBeers - which has been linked to blood diamond mining - is talking about the role of diamond mining and climate control. Says the director: "We are making sure that we do not waste any water and that we have stepped up our programs." [WWD]
• Donatella Versace regards the recession as an "opportunity." Says the tanned titan vaguely, "The crisis is a big opportunity — it offers more stimulus for creativity ... more ideas come about." [Reuters]
• In case you were wondering what Lady Gaga considers the best costume for the Vogue offices? Here's Grace Coddington: "She was wearing Philip Treacy's hat with Vogue written on it when she came to see Anna, and when she came to see me the next day she had sprayed her hair red." [Fashionista]
• In their continuing desperation to change their staid image, the Gap is collaborating with awesome illustrator Garance Dore on a line of tees. [ElleUK]
• Twiggy is the subject of a retrospective exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery. Quoth the too-nice-for-ANTM super, "It's hysterical, and incredibly flattering. I think when you're living a life you don't mark down "this is this, and in 40 years' time I'm going to be that", you just live your life." [Telegraph]
• If there's one name you take away from London's Fashion Week, people, make it Christopher Kane. He is hottt. [NYTimes]
• And his TopShop line is, not shockingly, flying off the shelves - particularly the "crocodile dress." [Racked]
• Victoria Beckham and the other WAGs (for Yanks, that's "wives and girlfriends" of football stars; think, for fashion week purposes, Kim and Nene) have hit fashion week in full force, [ElleUK]

It might not do to make too much of the fact that the Bryant Park shenanigans take place in large tents, but between the vinyl and the stage lights, there is something of a circus about the proceedings. Fashion week throws up strange combinations of people and places: You're as likely to see André Leon Talley taking a breather outside the Salon as you are to spot a young drunk editor throwing champagne over herself in the early afternoon. For a brief moment on Saturday at Band of Outsiders, Grace Coddington, tiny Jason Schwartzman, and the Cobra Snake were all browsing the same collection. No doubt each would have chosen something very different to wear from it.

As the show schedule rolls on through the tents, crowds too disorderly to be called "lines" form, hemmed in by stanchion posts, first to check in with the designer's public relations team, and then to wait in a new crowd, divided by seating assignment. Perversely, having a ticket — even having a ticket and a confirmed RSVP — is no guarantee of entry: I've been turned away from various shows so far, mostly for reasons said to be related to capacity. (But also for some that are not: On Friday, after waiting in line to check in for half an hour, a flack looked at me square in the eye and said, "I know who you are, and you are not on the list." I haven't felt so thoroughly told off since I was 8 years old and left my bunk area a mess at brownie camp.)

But not having a ticket also isn't a bar to entry: There are so many computer issues and intelligence meltdowns behind the average seating list that plenty of shows will just let you into the standing room section — or at least let you into the standing room waiting pen — if you look and sound convinced of your right to be there. That much at least mirrors the fashion world in the broader sense: Success is a special mix of confidence, entitlement, superficial appearance, and access to specialized knowledge. (Of course, these days most everything anyone who wanted to go to fashion week would need to know is available online. Democracy in action.)

This is my first year attending fashion week as a reporter, not a model, and I guess I'm not sure I understand - after you wait, and wait (and wait) behind one of the many stanchions and the many webbing ropes, after being questioned by the occasional security guard and verified by the PRs - what the point of a fashion show is. The tents are a deeply unreal space, a stage-lit environment where it never seems to be day or night, and everyone mobs the open bar after the 10 a.m. show. It feels deadening somehow, and sameish, to watch 15 or 20 models parading 20 or 30 looks in an identical venue to indistinguishable thundering electronic music before a rotating configuration of the same front-row cast, a Real Housewife here, an actor there. Given the energy and the activity that I know exists backstage, it's odd to see fashion as this white-background poker-faced hurry-up-and-wait thing. I never knew the audience saw it all that way.

On Sunday afternoon, I went to a show by a designer who is young and — though Australian — very talented: Toni Maticevski. I went with my friend Sophie Ward, who still models occasionally, and who was supposed to sit in Maticevski's front row as his friend. But because, like 90% of fashion shows, this one was starting late, and because the radiant energy from behind the scenes seemed to have us locked in like a tractor beam, she and I ended up sneaking backstage.


People were running up and down the stairs, against the grain of the taped arrows. Models where everywhere, getting their hair and makeup done and checking their Blackberries. Stylists were rushing around with voluminous dresses, tugging girls from station to station. There was a large catering tray and a strange man in a green shirt guarding it. Several times someone in a headset grabbed at Sophie's or my elbow, trying to corral us into the lineup. There were backstage photographers snapping rapaciously. Maticevski was surrounded, finessing, rearranging, overseeing. The sense of shared purpose was palpable, and deeply touching. Sophie and I sat down in the midst of it all, and let the scene wash over us. (Also we were trying to find a way to get at that catering tray.)

We hardly noticed when the music began. Two more-or-less-ex-models, distracted by sandwiches and our former lives: the show had started! We had to race around the back stairs, and watch the runway from the nosebleed seats.

Only three days to go and it was still the best show I've been to so far.

Earlier: I Am The Anonymous Model

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

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

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

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

What becomes clear in the film is just how far Wintour's influence ranges within the domain of fashion. In addition to interceding with designers in order to appease retailers concerned with their collections' saleability, Wintour acts as a kind of kingmaker in other ways that far exceed the presumed ambit of her magazine. Thakoon, a young designer, was a runner-up in the Council of Fashion Designers of America/Vogue Fashion Fund Award, and in this clip, he's getting part of his prize: the chance to design a line of three white shirts for the Gap.

But it isn't the Gap creative director who's okaying Thakoon's designs. It's Anna Wintour. When, later in the movie, a journalist for the National Post asks him how it was to get that call from the Gap, Thakoon corrects her: He didn't get any call from the Gap. He got a call from Anna Wintour at Vogue. When the Spanish fast-fashion retailer Mango approaches Wintour about hiring a New York designer as a consultant, Wintour also pushes Thakoon. "Thakoon?" says a clearly jealous Oscar de la Renta, who notes that the Mango position pays extremely well. Wintour replies, "Thakoon."

André Leon Talley, is a man who must live by his own "aesthetics of style." In this scene, he's decked out in designer goods, emerging from his chauffeured car holding a Louis Vuitton racket case, a small Louis Vuitton trunk, wearing Damon Dash trousers, and a vintage 1960s Piaget diamond-encrusted tennis watch. A Louis Vuitton towel is draped over his Ralph Lauren polo shirt. "Miss Wintour inaugurated me into health," he explains, "She saved my life. I guess." Then he plays what could almost be mistaken for tennis.

But the woman who steals this quiet, ploddingly paced movie is stylist Grace Coddington. Although it's a little hard to pick a winner among the Wintour and Coddington duo — in truth neither has the kind of aesthetic sense that commands much awe, as any Vogue reader has seen from Coddington's borderline cheesy styling and conceptualization (especially in her frequent "fairytale" shoots), and from Wintour's predilection for running stonkingly unimaginative spreads with models jumping in head-to-toe runway looks in front of gray backdrops. But Coddington doesn't have to be remade as, as one source calls her in a nice bit of hyperbole, "the greatest living stylist" in order for the movie to work.

To be Wintour's foil, she just has to be her reflective, sensitive, eyes-open self. Standing there on the steps of Versailles, with the wind in her hair and her boss far away, Coddington is likable and one feels that she has earned the viewer's respect.

Earlier: The September Issue: A Portrait Of The Quaint Old Consumer Economy

The cover hearkens back to 1991, the last September issue of Vogue we could find that had fewer than 600 pages. For comparison's sake: Last year's had 796, 2007's had a record-breaking 840. And 1996's had 700.

Do you think the advertising crunch and the precipitous decline in consumer spending might make Vogue do something a little different, a little out-there, a little untested?


Why, no!

Charlize Theron, this month's cover subject, has graced Vogue a total of four times — in October, 2000, October, 2004, October, 2007, and now again in September, 2009. In the last three instances, the South African actress was photographed by Mario Testino.


But that's not the only place in the magazine that had us rubbing our eyes with déjà vu. As other bloggers have pointed out, the Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott-shot editorial with Natalia Vodianova as Little Red Riding Hood from this September's Vogue bears a striking resemblance to...


A Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott-shot editorial with model Doutzen Kroes as Goldilocks, which was published in the August, 2007, issue of W.


The Natalia Vodianova spread for Vogue is called "Into The Woods."


The Doutzen Kroes editorial for W is also called "Into The Woods."


Both the editorials even boast creepy masked soft-toy molesters.


Grace Coddington, the fashion editor for this shoot, can sometimes be a little derivative for my tastes; in recent years, we've seen her turn The Wizard of Oz and Romeo and Juliet into editorial spreads that didn't add much to their source material. "Into The Woods" fits perfectly with that trend.


Natalia's absolutely wretched 'do in those pictures is not a fluke: this issue's full of deeply bizarre hair. You took one for the team here, Liya Kebede.


And in this shot, it's as if you can see Karlie Kloss thinking, "Really, Guido Palau? Really?"


I, for one, am getting just a little bit sick of seeing this particular photo re-made. This, David Sims' version...

...owes as much to an interpretation from last September's Vogue by Patrick Demarchelier, featuring model Catherine McNeil...


...as it does to the Richard Avedon original, with Jean Shrimpton, from the September, 1965, Harper's Bazaar.


Dodai already did an excellent LOLVogue! on the rest of David Sims' editorial. Karlie Kloss has apparently wrested the Vogue showjumping title from Caroline Trentini. The St. Louis teenager has an astonishing three editorial appearances in this issue — four if you count an Annie Leibovitz portrait of her, which runs alongside a short profile of Karlie by Sally Singer.


But what's amazing about that Leibovitz shot is just how much it looks like another portrait the legendary photographer recently took of a young starlet.


I'm referring, of course, to the photograph of Miley Cyrus that Annie Leibovitz took for the June, 2008, issue of Vanity Fair. Karlie and Miley are photographed with the same dampened hair, the same skin that's lit extremely pale, and the same red lips on a nude face. They even share a similar pose and both are shot against the same backdrop. The fact is that even though Cyrus and Kloss were roughly the same age when when they were photographed by Leibovitz — Cyrus was 15, Kloss, who only turned 17 earlier this month, would have been 16 — this photo is certain to draw less ire. That says more about our culture's parallel impossible expectations for the few young women who make it in the entertainment business than anything else: we demand that our pop stars remain forever young, and we expect our models to impersonate adult women from the time they hit 5'9".


Steven Meisel has a 16-page editorial with models Liya Kebede, Karen Elson, Coco Rocha, Sasha Pivovarova, and Viktoriya Sasonkina. It's shot in and around Manhattan's Essex House hotel and styled by Grace Coddington.


Something about the spread, though, suggests this was one of Meisel's autopilot days.


This shot, by Meisel for the February, 2009, issue of Vogue, has a different color palette than the "In The Mood" bicycle picture, but the quirky period styling, the models' poses, and the hats, all nonetheless echo it.


This shot, of Viktoriya Sasonkina, from September's Vogue is lovely.


Until you remember that Meisel shot Sasonkina for last September's Vogue Italia in virtually the same pose, and practically the same dress, in a nearly identically-themed 40s editorial.


Liya Kebede, in the September Vogue spread, looks divine.


And "In The Mood" really hits its stride when it starts playing with the murals in the background. Coco Rocha looks like she could be jumping out of that painting.


And I love those creepy hands.


But again, it's hard not to think of Meisel's old Vogue Italia story, with Sasonkina.


Probably the best editorial of the bunch in this year's slimmed-down September Vogue is Steven Klein's offering, "Take Cover."


Karlie Kloss and Caroline Trentini star as two futuristic gals about town.


They are armed and they are dangerous. And what's more, this editorial mercifully does not appear to be a direct re-shoot of anything else.

Fresh ideas: how novel.


Earlier:Harper's Bazaar: Talking About That "Recession" Thing Is Just "Really Annoying" Now
LOLVogue: I Purmd Mai Hare!

The September, 2007, Vogue, which sold 13 million copies, weighed nearly five pounds, and its 840 pages made it the single largest magazine ever published. Seven-hundred and twenty-seven of those pages were ads. When publisher Tom Florio exhorts the magazine's advertising sales team to "sell Vogue the brand like it's never been sold before," you feel it: this is what things were like when economic growth and consumer spending were lockstep in one upward trend, and magazines like Vogue could reliably put out Our Biggest Issue Ever, every year.

You feel it when Grace Coddington reports that Wintour, in killing shots from a lavish 1920s-themed spread, has "just thrown out probably $50,000 worth of work." You feel it when Wintour, having seen stills from an editorial with a color-blocking theme, orders a re-shoot, with different models, different clothes, and a different photographer. (No sum is supplied for the cost of that waste of daily rates, studio rental, and catering.)

You also feel it when Wintour is filmed with her deputy, Sally Singer, at a retailer luncheon the magazine has convened. Retailers are nervous about certain of the things they've seen on the fall runways, and they rely on Wintour as a kind of emissary to the design world; when Singer prompts her boss to share their "good news," Wintour tilts her head and reports that she has spoken to "Mrs. Prada" several times, and that she has agreed to "reinterpret" certain of her runway looks in a more wearable silk-mohair blend, instead of the wool-mohair she had shown on the catwalk. The assembled tableful of executives from Saks and Bergdorf's practically coo with appreciation.

After that decree is handed down to such a happy reception, Burt Tansky, the president and C.E.O. of Neiman Marcus, starts to ask Wintour a long question about delivery schedules. Designers, it seems, are making late and infrequent deliveries, which retailers feel cost them sales; customers want what's new right now. Tansky uses the phrase "demand outstripping supply" several times. It is a shocking moment: it's as if the incredible glut of oversupply, the $3,000 handbag bubble that rose through the market during the years of easy credit and burst last fall in a mess of steep discounting and steeper layoffs, had risen up, taken over Tansky's body, and thunderously demanded to be fed.

Wintour's response is equally shocking: given her magazine's role in pushing the culture of consumption, the culture of "aspirational" consumerism and "It" bags, one might expect Wintour to tell the titans of retail that she will speak to these tardy designers and tell them what's what. But instead she dresses down Tansky, giving him a politician's non-response about how she "hears what he is saying" and that it boils down to a problem of "editing." She says some of the younger designers have trouble editing their collections down, and she will see what she can do. Never mind that "editing" is almost the exact opposite of Tansky's concern; Wintour gets up from the table and leaves. And one is confronted with the surprising sense that, whether or not she knew it at the time, Wintour was on the right side of that issue.

There are a number of surprising things about The September Issue, which I finally saw last night. Although Wintour comes across as fairly warm and forthcoming, the camera cannot hide her staff's authentically fearful reactions to her presence; when Wintour is perusing photo spreads with her art director, she moves slowly and deliberately down a long bench, looking at photos one by one. When she approaches a young assistant who is lingering over, or perhaps just straightening, one of the shots, Wintour, without moving a muscle, says quietly, "Excuse me." The girl jumps out of Wintour's way like she's been bitten, and Wintour continues down the line of pictures without breaking stride.

Apparently, there also must be a rider in Patrick Demarchelier's contract about being able to shoot in beautiful locations, because we witness the production of one of those terrible, jumping, grey-background editorials of which Vogue is so very fond, and it doesn't take place at Milk Studios. Demarchelier, Caroline Trentini, Coddington, and the rest of the team are whisked away to a beautiful modernist house on a wide-open expanse of land; in the living room, a grey backdrop has been hung, and what emerges is a shoot which gives no inkling of its geographical origin. The location fees alone for that shoot boggle the mind.

The adversarial but respectful relationship between Grace Coddington, Vogue's top stylist, and Wintour is also explored. While other fashion editors crumble under Wintour's reproach — Edward Enninful says after a styling critique where Wintour rejects nearly every look he has put together that he wants to kill himself — Coddington fights, both in her editor's office and via backchannels. (She's always using the documentarians to try and find out how her spreads are faring — gaining pages, losing pages, or holding steady — in the layout room.) Wintour seems to respect Coddington all the more for her willingness to scrap; it's as though, like a good boss, she wants to be challenged.

When cover subject Sienna Miller steps into the scene, an instructive juxtaposition between celebrities and models is created. (We also see Raquel Zimmerman, Caroline Trentini, Coco Rocha, and numerous other no-name girls, do their thing; during a couture shoot in Paris, Zimmerman carefully eats a fruit tart the size of a saucer, while a distressed makeup artist looks on in preparation to re-perform her handiwork.) Sienna is full of life, giddy and excited and seemingly fun — also a canny business woman: she makes sure to introduce her designer sister, Savannah, to Wintour and the Vogue team — and the models are more subdued; there's a care taken in their movements. When a source makes the argument that women like Sienna got the idea to be models because they saw the supermodels of the late 80s and early 90s take over the fashion world, and grew to covet Linda Evangelista and Christy Turlington's beautiful ubiquity, it's hard not to agree. Sienna poses and jumps and mugs for the camera like an actress trying to look like a bombastic 80s model, as if by sheer enthusiasm she could will a beautiful picture into existence, and consequently her shots take all manner of Photoshop trickery — fake backgrounds, a head from one shot Frankensteined onto the neck and shoulders from another — to finesse. Raquel and Coco know just how to move a hand or a shoulder to set off the lines of the garment, and they work at it until the shot is just right. Coddington says at one point that she wouldn't care if she never saw another celebrity again in her life; and after seeing the focus that Raquel brings to that couture shoot — which ended up in the October, 2007, issue — you can't help but kind of agree.

The film is a well-studied evocation of all the hard work that goes into producing a magazine; unfortunately, the beauty and editorial sides are a little under-represented (we briefly see a spread featuring the makeup artist Pat McGrath in the layout room, and Wintour spends one scene looking bored while a junior editor goes over story ideas for the issue. "We're focusing on the eye, because I think eyes are a real concern for all women, they're the first thing that starts to really show age, even girls in their 20s worry about their eyes," says the editor. It's like watching a need being manufactured.) Wintour emerges as a surprisingly insecure. "Just because you like to put on a beautiful Carolina Herrera dress or a pair of J Brand blue jeans instead of something basic from Kmart doesn't mean you're a dumb person" is the kind of pre-emptive defense that says more about the defender's perceptions of the attack than anything else. "People are scared of fashion — because they're frightened or insecure, so they put it down...There is something about fashion that can make people very nervous." The idea that people only hate what they do not understand — implicit in which is the idea that there are no valid grounds on which to criticize Wintour, her magazine, or the fashion industry, just hurt feelings — is about the oldest trick in the book. And it comes off like Wintour, with her intellectual heavyweight family, is shadow-boxing. Who seriously pretends these days that appreciating good design and being smart are incompatible? Wintour's eagerness to defend herself on the issue is telling.

Vogue editorial image via Luxx at The Fashion Spot

• 42-year-old Kristen McMenamy, whose deeply unconventional beauty shone in many of the most memorable fashion photographs of the early '90s, was chosen by Steven Meisel for the new cover of Italian Vogue. [FWD]

• Yves Saint Laurent's Stefano Pilati, whose recent ads have starred Naomi Campbell, continues his run with the '90s supes in his Fall 2009 campaign. Christy Turlington, wearing pleated pants that do no women any favors, poses against a white background, inside a black picture frame that floats in space. [Telegraph]
• Speaking of Naomi Campbell, she'll be the face of Dennis Basso this fall. Basso is a well-known fur designer, and Campbell once famously declared that she'd rather go naked than wear fur, but obviously her naked avarice got in the way. [WWD]
• Madonna wore jet-beaded Givenchy couture on stage in London. Says designer Riccardo Tisci, "She's wearing an outfit that will make history." [People]
• The couture shows get underway in Paris today, and in this economy, selling $70,000 dresses seems like a difficult task. But at Christian Lacroix, whose house recently declared bankruptcy, there is an order backlog for more than 20 outfits. [WWD]
• That still might not save Lacroix. Employees were told Friday of a restructuring plan that would cut the 124-strong workforce to 12, and reduce the Lacroix label to a licensing operation. The only hope is for a buyer to step in. [WWD]
• Prodigious design talent — and rumored Madonna collaborator — Christian Audigier has some sharp words for Victoria Beckham and her celebrity dress line. "I like her, she is a nice girl, but she is not completely my style. I have seen some of her designs — they are very simple. It's difficult for an artist or a singer to enter into the world of fashion," quoth the popularizer of such classics as the trucker hat and the tattoo t-shirt. "You can't just rely on your name to help you sell. The way to sell and who to sell to and what you want to accomplish, these are all things you will need help with if you're entering into the world." [HindustanTimes]
• "I can't analyse my appeal. If I did I'd be in a straitjacket," reports supermodel Daria Werbowy. "I am very lucid in relation to the reality of this industry, the ephemeral nature of beauty and fame,' she says, 'and that gives me a certain distance and quite a bit of humour." [Telegraph]
• Stylist Patricia Field took the opportunity of an interview with the Mirror to settle an old disagreement with Kristin Davis. And with A-line skirts, which we always have found extremely flattering. "I hate the A-line skirt. It's like a lampshade. Ugly. Kristin Davis always wanted to wear A-line skirts as she thought it hid her big behind. She has a fabulous figure – she is completely hour glass, and I would say: ‘Kristin, you have a small waist – show off your round ass!' She would never show it. I wanted to make her into a Bettie Page in Sex And The City, but all she wanted were A-line skirts and Ralph Lauren clothes." [Mirror]
• Meanwhile, Roberto Cavalli has deep thoughts on our economy. "I never pay attention to costs — it's not attractive to speak about numbers. Why can't we just focus on the beauty of an object? I don't know anything about the financial crisis." [ToL]
• Times of London writer Shane Watson asks whether Abercrombie & Fitch's decision to tell an employee with a prosthetic arm to stay in the stockroom was really all that surprising, given the chain's refusal to hire anyone who isn't "regulation cute." Because discriminating against disabled people is exactly the same as dictating your employees hair length and nail polish colors! [ToL]
• Seeing the Wall Street Journal's perspectival dry-point etching of a man wearing skinny jeans totally makes up for this pedestrian story about how the trend caught on. [WSJ]
• Foot wear maestro Manolo Blahnik: "Are shoes so important? Really? If I was a woman, I would be dressed in the same thing for a month and just change my hat and gloves. Maybe my shoes too; yes, I see what you mean but, really, it's jewels that change an outfit. And I do love gloves. And I adddore hats. There are toooo many shoes now. I always tell the children, 'Don't do shoes! Do hats!' And the shoes are so strange, so vulgar. I hate these platforms that are all over the place today; they are all about grabbing attention. They are suburban! I never do a platform. Well, I did, in the 1970s, but that was a bad experience." [FT]
• Ben Westwood, Vivienne Westwood's fetish photographer son, whose latest exhibit featured bound models with the heads of celebrities' children inexpertly Photoshopped onto their bodies, is launching a men's wear line. London Fashion Week must be holding its breath. [Harper's Bazaar]
• Children's apparel is more resilient than other sectors of the clothing market during economic downturns. Why? Kids grow. [WWD]
• The Guardian reviewed R.J. Cutler's The September Issue, and called it "utterly riveting." The paper also said, of the relationship between stylist Grace Coddington and editor Anna Wintour, "to watch them do battle over whether or not to shoot a rubber dress is to see the great fashion battle of creativity versus commerciality acted out in an urbane New York office: a Punch and Judy show scripted by Woody Allen." [Guardian]
• If this is news to anyone here: online ads in the form of fake quizzes, à la Coach's new "Are you a Poppy girl?", are rigged. We are all Poppy girls, in the eyes of Reed Krakoff. Buy a $198 tote bag now! [TBM]
• Apparently, while New York has been drowning in a consistent downpour since mid-April, London has been having a heat wave. Unsurprisingly, sales of bikinis — and beer — have spiked. [FT]
• Because he is paid primarily in stock and options, Ralph Lauren's compensation slipped by more than 40% in value this year. He still made $20.3 million. [WWD]
• Despite cashflow concerns, Prada is still opening stores at a fast clip. Two new boutiques will open this month in Paris and Prague, and the company plans to keep up its 2008 pace, which saw 34 new stores open, for the next three years. [WWD]
• For those nights when you can't seem to remember your underwear, behold: the anti-paparazzi handbag! Activated by camera flashes, the bag emits a beam of light (clue: it's like a slave flash) powerful enough to ruin anyone's shot. [BoingBoing]

A&E IndieFilms, in addition to bringing us documentaries like Jesus Camp and co-producing The September Issue, is owned by Hearst Entertainment and Syndication. Hearst Entertainment and Syndication, as the name might suggest, is owned by Hearst. What else is owned by Hearst? Vogue competitor Harper's Bazaar, Glamour doppelganger Marie Claire, and a raft of other direct pendants to Condé Nast media properties. It's not clear that A&E IndieFilms' ownership status meant that anyone at Hearst enjoyed editorial control or creative influence over The September Issue, it is surprising that Condé Nast would accidentally put itself in its rival's hands.

And it does fit with reports that the documentary is notably harsher on Anna Wintour than previously thought.

Fashion Week Daily acquired a copy of the documentary, which isn't to be released in the U.S. and U.K. until September 11, and posted a detailed recap of its contents on the Friday before the long U.S. Memorial Day weekend. Cutler opens with a long discourse from Wintour, defending fashion on intellectual grounds, and calling people who criticize the fashion industry frightened:

"What I often see is that people are scared of fashion — because they're frightened or insecure, so they put it down. On the whole, people who say demeaning things about our world, I think it's because they feel in some way excluded or not part of the "cool group." Just because you like to put on a beautiful Carolina Herrera dress of a pair of J Brand blue jeans instead of something basic from K-Mart doesn't mean you're a dumb person. There is something about fashion that can make people very nervous."

It's often those who themselves are most desperate to be taken seriously who are quickest to project "insecurity" onto others. Perhaps it isn't a coincidence that Cutler, when he succeeds in getting Wintour to talk about her family, admits that her fellow high-achieving siblings — Patrick Wintour, political editor of the Guardian, Nora Wintour, deputy-general secretary of the Public Services International union, and James Wintour, an official with the Gravesham Borough Council who works in low-income housing — all regard her work with, she believes, "amusement."

What seems to emerge as a theme of the film, however, is Anna Wintour's relationship with Vogue stylist and former model Grace Coddington. Coddington, unhappy about the documentary team, threatened to quit the magazine and resisted Cutler's attempts to film her for months, the director recalled. (Coddington eventually relented, and Cutler's team's presence at one of her shoots led to a charming picture of Caroline Trentini and a cameraman, jumping together for an editorial.)

Wintour says that the cameraman's stomach needs retouching. "You need to go to the gym!" she says, not remotely in jest. (This is the woman who ordered Oprah to drop 20 lbs before shooting her for the cover, and who bullied André Leon Talley into taking up tennis, a sport he is filmed pursuing while decked out in Damon Dash pants, a Polo Ralph Lauren shirt, a vintage diamond Piaget watch, a Louis Vuitton towel, a Louis Vuitton racquet cover, and a Louis Vuitton gym bag.) Coddington rejects Wintour's criticism of the cameraman's body — "Everybody isn't perfect in this world. It's enough that the models are perfect. You don't need to go to the gym" — but she waits for her boss to leave the room before airing her disagreement.

The film also apparently gives an unprecedentedly detailed look at Wintour's managerial style and her level of involvement with the magazine. Wintour retains absolute creative control over every editorial shot. She does not shy from killing spreads by talented and proven long-time collaborators, such as Edward Enninful (Coddington's story with Trentini is a re-shoot of an Enninful effort) and Coddington herself. "I'm in a really foul mood right now because they've just killed another spread of my '20s story, and they're about to kill another one," says Coddington, at one point. "And they're all lying to me about it. It's just incredibly boring."

She also kills a spread with models Hilary Rhoda and Chanel Iman, jumping. (This was during Vogue's long, just-ended drought of faces of color on its editorial pages — it's interesting to note that Iman, who is black, was even in the running for inclusion in American Vogue in September 2007.)

It's no wonder, really, that her publication's creativity so often ends up channeled into the inevitable jumping editorial, the inevitable lavish-but-boring set piece. Wintour's nit-picking leaves even the talented eyes and minds around her too hamstrung to function.

If the full film is as critical as FWD maintains, then that means Anna Wintour has made one move worthy of respect: allowing Cutler to film her, no-holds-barred. But will Condé Nast be pleased at the results?

The September Issue, Revealed! [FWD]
More Details from The September Issue Vogue Documentary Featuring Anna Wintour and Grace Coddington [Fashionologie]
Hearst Takes On Condé [FWD]
Film reveals soft side to Vogue's icy style queen Anna Wintour [Guardian]

Earlier:
Vogue Documentary Is Delicious & Devil-ish

This 45-second clip, complete with the typical plodding Morley Safer voiceover, hints at the main newspeg of the whole segment: that four-syllable word that starts with "E" and rhymes with "nobody has any money anymore." At an editorial meeting with André Leon Talley and Grace Coddington, among others, Wintour states that the September issue has to be about "value." Yawn.

Looking over proofs for what would become the May issue, Wintour criticizes the subhead for a Stephen Meisel portrait of some of the photographer's current favorites models, Isabeli Fontana, Natasha Poly, Raquel Zimmerman, Liya Kebede, Karen Elson, Sasha Pivovarova, Natalia Vodianova, Lara Stone, Coco Rocha, and Caroline Trentini. An editor wanted to headline the photo "The Faces of the Moment," because that's the issue's cover tagline — even though these models are a slightly different group than the cover gang — but a nonplussed Wintour replies, "Keep thinking." (I just checked Vogue. The picture ends up getting called "Divine Inspiration.") Snooze.

Ever the hard-hitter, Safer also apparently gets Wintour to explain why she wears sunglasses indoors. Snore.

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