• Carine Roitfeld: "You know it's easier to look great in a dress when you are skinny. But I like a bit of curves and I like to do stories with different kinds of women...

• ... Because I see beauty in everyone." Can anyone remember the last time a French Vogue spread used a plus-size model? Because I cannot. [Fashionologie]
• Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd allegedly "chucked a wobbly" — in the native patois — when, while visiting Afghanistan, he wasn't able to blow-dry his hair prior to a photo op. [Times of London]

• Meanwhile, Gordon Brown wears four different kinds of foundation and bronzer, according to a step-by-step makeup guide left in the back of a taxi by an aide. [Daily Beast]
• Michelle Obama wore Michael Kors to the White House Correspondents Dinner, in case anyone is interested. Christian Slater, also in attendance, brushed up on his U.S. history: "I learned that John Adams and Thomas Jefferson died on the same day within hours of each other 50 years from signing the Declaration of Independence." [WWD]
• Business Week found the factory in China that makes a shoe Michelle Obama wore once last fall — the Bandolino "Berry" pump — and the management there reports that its U.S. shipments have increased by 50% this year on last. Imagine this woman's effects scaled industry-wide. [BusinessWeek]
• Speaking of which, the First Lady's de facto stylist, Ikram Goldman, is reported to have ordered a white tuxedo from Martin Margiela. Michelle's probably steering clear of the Belgian designer's human-hair coats and comb minidresses, however. [Metro]
• To heighten excitement for its resort collection, which will be presented in no doubt lavish circumstances in Venice this Thursday, Chanel uploaded a video of Lara Stone and Baptiste Giabiconi trying on the collection while Karl Lagerfeld directs and Miles Davis plays. (Moderately NSFW.) [Fashionologie]
• Kylie Minogue is doing a guest spot on next week's Britain's Next Top Model. [Mirror]
• Adriana Lima recommends boxing for health. Insert your own knock-out pun here. [People]
• Forever 21 knocked off Lanvin. Given the original t-shirt cost somewhere north of $600 US — it was 3% silk! — and given Alber Elbaz's firm position against doing a diffusion line of his own, it's hard to raise much ire about this. But has anyone at this chain ever had an idea of their own? [Fashionista]
• There was another high-end robbery in London's West End last night. This time, thieves targeted the Harvey Nichols, and stole hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of Garrard jewelry. An Anya Hindmarch store in the same neighborhood was burglarized last week, to the tune of £45,000. [UK Vogue]
• Union employees at Hart Schaffner Marx's Chicago factory are threatening a sit-in if the new owners of their bankrupt parent company, Hartmarx, move towards liquidation. [WWD]

• The U.S. military has announced that it has arrested an al Qaeda figure who helped in the 2006 kidnapping of journalist Jill Carroll. • A black female physician was blocked from seeking a DNA test to prove her direct relation to U.S. founding father James Madison by Madison's recognized/white descendants. • With Proposition 8 looming in CA to ban gay marriage, some Mormons are going on the internet to voice their support for gay marriage. • A new study conducted by an economics professor at UC Berkeley says that economic, environmental, and war-related stress causes pregnant women to release more hormones and give birth to more girls. • The creator of The Secret Life of the American Teenager is upset that a PSA urging parents to discuss sex with their kids is put on at the end of each episode. • Hot Cartoons And The Women Who Could Play Them: Megan Fox as Pocahontas? Really? • Angelica Alfaro defied the odds and stereotypes surrounding children of Mexican immigrants by attending and graduating from a college and not having children. • A guideline for members of district councils in England has cautioned council-members against using phrases like "man on the street" and "manning the switchboard" because they are "offensive" to women. • Rosie Swale Pope, a 61-year-old grandmother in England has just returned from her 5-year, 20,000-mile run around the world. • The president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, has pardoned 3 men accused of brutally gang raping a woman with a bayonet after she complained that they kidnapped her son. •

• Everyone's favorite self-hating Jew, Ralph Lifshitz, is the highest-paid "vendor" (what they call "manufacturers" that don't really manufacture) in apparel. No really, it's not just a fantasy image he uses to get you to buy those horrid Big Pony shirts: dude is loaded. [WWD, sub req'd]
  
• Reese Witherspoon is the new face of Avon. Oooooh, edgy! We eagerly await the Jake Gyllenhaal guyliner line. [WWD, 1st item]
  
• True Religion denim is making the grand, yet inevitable, business model leap into the world of fragrance. Which reminds us of someone who once told us that it's time to wash your jeans when you can smell your own crotch. Now you can just take advantage of lifestyle brand synergy! [WWD, 3rd item]

• Memo to Derek Lam: Starting your tenure at troubled Bill Blass with a fur line? And guaranteeing the wrath of PETA? Uh, that's a choice. [WWD, sub req'd]
• P. Diddy is making Sean John for the ladies. As if it wasn't for the ladies all along. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Reversing the trend of English designers returning to their mother country for London Fashion Week after long histories showing in New York and Milan/Paris, English label Preen is leaving home and headed to New York, where magazine editors will actually see its clothes. [Vogue UK]
• We read about London department store Harvey Nichols installing scratch-and-sniff windows for the launch of the new Marc Jacobs fragrance Daisy... and all we could think is of the number of unsanitized hands touching the same surface and the potential number of HPV cases spread. [Vogue UK]
• Model Daisy Lowe, the bastard child (literally) of textiles designer Daisy Lowe and Mr. Gwen Stefani Gavin Rossdale, is the new face of Burberry. [Vogue UK]

• Sienna and Savannah Miller's Twenty8Twelve by s.miller clothing line is going high-end. In addition to a pop-up store coming to London's Notting Hill in September, the line will also be sold at Harvey Nichols in the UK, Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman in the U.S., and Holt Renfrew in Canada. [WWD, 3rd item]
• OMG! Kate's just like us! Vogue UK's fashion gossip column, Style Bites, reports that Kate Moss "took a nap before her collection's launch at Barney's." [Vogue UK.com]
• The poor Jil Sander label just night be up for sale...again. [Portfolio.com]

• You know that "new car" scent that you can buy on a cardboard cutout to hang over your rearview mirror? Ford Motor Co. has just struck a deal with Estee Lauder to create a "Mustang" fragrance to be sold at Sears, Wal-Mart, and Kohl's. Steve McQueen lookalike not included. [Marketing Daily]
• A Cornell engineer and a budding designer have collaborated to create a line of clothing which incorporates nanoparticles to serve as a protective force, eliminating cold and flu viruses from coming in contact with the wearer. [The Guardian]