• Lily Allen told a British radio show that she is quitting performing for two years to open a boutique called Lucy In Disguise. She's also going to found a record label. [Elle UK]

• President Obama wore a parka to visit the Great Wall of China. "The jacket has a fleece bib and removable bucket hood, suggesting that President likes his jackets as he likes his health care bills: riddled with options," notes Women's Wear Daily. [WWD]
• Michaele Salahi wore David Yurman jewelry to that little party she crashed about a week back, if you care. [WWD]
• Japanese outfit Cross Company has bought a majority stake in Thom Browne. Which makes a certain kind of sense, since Browne's aesthetic certainly is well-suited to Japan. Haha, 'suited,' see what we did there? Sorry. Anyway, how much money Browne got to part with his controlling stake was not disclosed, and they plan to open a flagship in Japan next year. [WWD]
• Cathy Horyn, on the closure of Christian Lacroix's couture and ready-to-wear lines: "I remember taking my mother, Nancy Horyn, to the Paris ready-to-wear shows in March of 1990. She saw three — Valentino, Romeo Gigli and Lacroix. She was utterly enchanted by Gigli; it was the season of the celebrated Murano glass collection. She didn't really care for Valentino; it was, you know, not her thing. She adored Lacroix. The show that season was held in the house, on those beautiful banquettes, so it was a different experience, more like a couture presentation. Before the show we stood in the little courtyard of the house, on the steps going up to the salon, and my mother asked about so-and-so, curious about their style of dress or exceedingly impulsive hairdo. It probably all seemed very urgent, though I imagine not in the least to her." [On The Runway]
• Marc Jacobs and Lorenzo Martone closed on a nice little love nest in the Village for $10.4 million. It has a private elevator, yard, roof terrace, and a rear terrace. [P6]
• Anthropologie is moving into the Chelsea Market, at the corner of 15th Street and Ninth Avenue in New York City. [NYPost, second item]
• British designer Christopher Kane isn't having any of this Tommy-Ton-in-the-front-row nonsense: "It's a bit mad, isn't it? It feels like it's happened all of a sudden and at some shows this season the front row was just all bloggers. I think it will die down though, and people know what they are doing. No one who wants to read a serious review of a show is going to look at what a 14-year-old thinks. But it has become more critical; people can say what they want about anyone on a blog without consequences and that's quite scary. There are real repercussions for a designer if a photo of something is leaked by a blog; it can be copied in a fortnight and that can really harm a business." [Vogue UK]
• Dior Homme is launching a line of women's jeans. Women with the means to do so have been wearing Dior Homme's slim cut suits ever since Hedi Slimane was designing pants so sexy the darts alone could make you weak at the knees. Could the specifically-for-women versions be any better than those? [Vogue UK]
• You can buy Joan Collins' Dynasty costumes — along with Shirley Bassey's YSL heels — at a charity pop-up store in London, opening tomorrow. [Elle UK]
• Tom Ford smells like vanilla and has not only a Best Side but a Best Angle. He says things like, "I think of myself as a product." [NYTimes]
• Cathy Horyn likes his movie, A Single Man. [On The Runway]
• The Wall Street Journal investigates the peculiar and specific humiliation of having your once-treasured and still-fashionable clothing picked through by a snarky 19-year-old clerk at Buffalo Exchange, and found wanting. Word to the wise, as someone who used to make food and rent money by re-selling the designer "trade" I was usually "paid" in — and by scouring the $1 rag markets in LA for Lacoste sweaters and old prom dresses I could launder, repair and re-sell: Buffalo Exchange's prices are shit. They do not care if your shoes are thrice-worn Prada; they will offer you $9 for them. If you do not have the patience for eBay, go to Wasteland, if you're on the West Coast. If you're anywhere else, sew in some labels from your dad's old designer ties. Duh. [WSJ]
• Liliane Bettencourt's daughter has filed a civil case to declare L'Oreal heiress Bettencourt, the richest woman in Europe, incapable of managing her own affairs. Bettencourt gave a reported $1.5 billion worth of cash and artworks to a photographer friend, François-Marie Banier, who is already the subject of a criminal case for "abus de faiblesse," or taking advantage of the infirm. Liliane Bettencourt's lawyers reject both of the daughter's cases as an attempt to seize control of Bettencourt's assets. [Reuters]
• Someone you have never heard of before and will never hear of again was in the Victoria's Secret fashion show because she won a competition on the Internet. [AP]
• Aeropostale's third-quarter profit grew by 47% over last year's results. Same-store sales for November were up 7%, and black Friday weekend sales rose 10% on last year. Quarterly earnings were $62.6 million. [WSJ]
• Competitor Abercrombie & Fitch reported a 17% slide in same-store sales for the month of November. Analysts had expected only a 9% drop. The company's Hollister stores saw same-store sales declines of 23%. [TS]

• Bucking the recession, Elle MacPherson's labradoodle, Bella, has been signed as the body of canine fashion line Dogside.com, for a "substantial five-figure sum." [Telegraph]
• Anna Wintour wears dress twice! The sky is falling! [Styleist]
• And she wants privacy. Sorry. [NYPost]

• Propr, the inexplicable fashion collaboration between Ben Harper and David Arquette, is opening a pop-up shop in New York."Color influences me," says Arquette. [WWD]
• Amber Valetta likes the Real America: "Oklahoma people are good people, they're friendly people. Sure, there's the coasts, but when you go to the middle, it's the real deal. You get a feeling of what's really going on in America. People are having a hard time.… but it is a place with beautiful light and crazy thunderstorms. My son loves it there and we try to give him similar experiences to what we had, playing in the creek with our cousins." [Telegraph]
• And back on the coasts (presumably) Valetta's in a fab Hedi Slimane-shot spread for V Magazine. [Fabsugar]
• Meanwhile, Jessica Simpson has landed the windows at Macy's. Quoth the polymath of the Miracle on 34th Street: "It's a total thrill for me. I feel privileged just to be in business with such an iconic store...And it is an honor to know that Macy's respects and believes in my brand so much that they chose to feature the Fall collection in the windows at one of their flagship stores! WOW…I feel blessed." [People]
• TopShop is getting into makeup. [WWD]
• In honor of London Fashion Week, Jenny Dyson, the publisher of Rubbish Magazine, is introducing "fashion week finger puppets," including Miuccia Prada, André Leon Talley, Vivienne Westwood, and, obviously, Karl Lagerfeld, presumably worn on one's middle finger. [NYT]
• Is it a sign of economic turnaround that Lee Jeans has opened its first store, ever? [WWD]
• We're guessing the fact that "fleece" and "underwear" are the biggest economic performers is a sign of just the opposite. [WWD]
• Perhaps inevitably, American Eagle, the small-man-on-campus' Abercrombie, is also down. [WSJ]
• And, uh oh: "The American waistline may be expanding, but plus-size shoppers are tightening their belts." You determine what the "uh oh" refers to. [MSNBC]
• Speaking of word games, we're still puzzling over what the hell this description of Tim Gunn means: "Anyone with such proper command of the English language should be a spendthrift, right?" Wait, what? [Houston Chronicle]
• And speaking of (encouraging) mysteries: Guess? is way up. [WWD]
• Alexander Wang's muses: "The shoes are named after models — Lara, Hanne, Racquel — but the bags are named after TV show characters. We have the Brenda and Kelly [90210], the Dorothy shopper [The Golden Girls] and the Trudy [Miami Vice]. They're all the shows that used to be on TV when I was growing up." [W]
• Despite its excited "we're getting things done!" music, this star-filled PSA for "Fashion's Night Out" just confuses us. [Style.com]
• Maybe because it's been a while since we heard Diddy rap? [<a href="http://www.style.com/stylefile/2009/08/and-now-an-important-message-from-sean-combs-and-co/">StyleFile]
• Speaking of TCB, innovative fashion site Polyvore.com is going gangbusters: recently they've hosted digital campaigns for Nike and Gap and boosted their capital. [AdAge]
• In an attempt to get residents to buckle up for safety, Dubai is asking designers to help them make seatbelts chic. We find logos help. [Racked]
• Also: Andre Leon Talley wears Uggs. "It's a cozy shoe. Also, they're only $98." [Time Out New York]

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

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

You might be able to tell from what I've written here that I'm not in the former camp. And although I bless their hearts and respect their particular, luck-paved paths to riches (not least because the Ali Stephenses of this world serve as a reminder that modeling isn't actually all a shell game), I'll always identify more with the girls who make it as supes only after splitting a one-bedroom apartment five ways in Milan, getting chewed out by bookers for their measurements or their dorky walks, and being sent home from the occasional market for not making enough bookings. (As Lara Stone was from Sydney, once upon a time.) Sometimes it takes years of patience and work and occasional moments of despair to crack into the echelon where you get to work with the best photographers and stylists, and have a hand in creating images of beauty that are going to live on in the scrapbooks and bulletin boards and imaginations of young women who see fashion as a field for the projection of their dreams. And it's more than nice when the dues paying has its reward.

Lara Stone, who is Dutch, was kicked out of high school at the age of 16, and went to Paris to try to model instead. More than five years of struggle followed — she didn't make it in the French capital, so she spent a lot of time shuffling through secondary markets to build her book and try to work off agency debt — before a change of representation from Elite to IMG suddenly changed the game. IMG marketed their old/new find very selectively, pushed her to a few key industry players, and got her in front of the right casting directors. Then Ricardo Tisci picked her to open the Givenchy haute couture show, and the rest is pretty much history.

An entire issue of French Vogue dedicated to her is a nice reward for that difficult categorical jump.

Editor Carine Roitfeld, who's featured Stone in editorials and on two covers before, had Stone work with Peter Lindbergh, Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin, Hedi Slimane, Steven Klein, Patrick Demarchelier, Terry Richardson, and, in one genuine surprise of the hotly-awaited issue, Nan Goldin, who almost never shoots fashion. Roitfeld also solicited artists, including Marco Perego, Rupert Shrive, and Francesco Vezzoli, to imagine Lara's likeness in their own styles — for instance as a nude figurine among S&M-y pencil drawings of Minnie Mouse and Tinkerbell (Perego's contribution). The whole issue makes for a weird, wild trip around the art world and the world of fashion photography, and it contains a subversive (though perhaps inadvertent) statement about the former that some of the images in the actual editorials — most notably Klein's, which I'm saving for another post — are more visually powerful and psychologically disturbing than anything the ostensible artists dreamed up. (Perhaps it's not fair to judge the artists' contributions against the fashion photographers': after all, Perego et. al. don't work primarily creating decorative interludes for women's fashion magazines while Klein and company are obviously in their element.)

This and the next two images are from Hedi Slimane's editorial, called "Lara by Night." I love the natural softness of the series. Stone's look is fabulously fluid, but always recognizable.

She's simultaneously sexual and androgynous, with the combination of her gorgeous full breasts with boyishly narrow hips, and her Brigitte Bardot lips that are set in a face as chiseled as Grace Jones'.

The gap in her teeth upsets her symmetry but adds to her beauty. (Hilariously, she once told i-D, "Now every time I go to the dentist they always say, 'You really need to fix that gap of yours' I'm like, 'My gap is paying your dentist bills.'")

Peter Lindbergh's contribution is an 8-page editorial called "Lara a la Mer." I feel like the black-and-white model-on-a-beach thing is a bit of a retread for him, but I'll give the man a pass because it is a good looking edit. Gender fluidity is an old idea in fashion, but it's pretty perfectly suited to Lara.

It must be said: although she is extraordinarily tall and thin, and although she has the measurements of almost any fashion model, she doesn't have the stereotypical model shape. Lara Stone is unmistakable womanly; her body has soft curves where, even I have to admit, most models have angles.

Never in any of her pictures does Stone, 25, look like anything less than a grown adult — girlish innocence might be the one look she can't do.

And, mostly, I just love her face. You can see it in her eyes just as much as it's written in the lines of her body: this is a woman who's been around, who's cracked a few jokes, broken a few hearts, and had hers broken in turn. This is the face of a woman who knows. Am I projecting? Sure. But that's what the profession invites. The fact remains that she looks like a person, with an identity. No photogenic teenager has her kind of magnetism.

Writes Sheidlower, the president's attire "was, by the standards of men's formal dress, simply incorrect." Wearing a white tie but not "white tie" is a no-no, and what's more, wearing the more formal neck ornament at a black tie event is to commit the sin of dressing more formally than the engagement demands. Sheidlower to the rescue! White tie, in case you need reminding,

is not simply a tuxedo worn with a white tie. It consists of a tailcoat, not a tuxedo jacket, and it is worn with a wing-collar shirt with a front of cotton piqué. The trousers traditionally have double piping on the side seam. Black tie consists of a tuxedo jacket (which traditionally has peak, not notch, lapels with satin or grosgrain facing) worn with a black bow tie and a pleated straight-collar shirt. The trousers have a single wide piping on the side seam.

This is all true. By the recondite system of conventions that govern men's formal wear, our new president was all kinds of wrong. (Sheidlower might have also pointed out that Obama wore a wristwatch — traditionally a no-no with evening wear for both sexes, because it implies you might be marking time instead of enjoying the sumptuous event.) But I can't help but wonder why sniffing that Obama wore the wrong suit is apparently Sheidlower's most urgent impression of the inauguration?

The point is, Obama, for all his formal wear code-switching, looked good. The notched lapels on his impeccably-fitted suit didn't distract from the elegance of the event. The white tie on his straight-collar shirt didn't even immediately jump out at me as wrong. And I certainly wasn't counting the stripes on his pants as I watched video clips on my laptop. Obama's overall look was strong, handsome, and well turned out. A certain creativity with the dress code is not, in my mind, a sin.

But what's what menswear always comes down to, isn't it? Despite the best efforts of designers like Hedi Slimane (who, although no longer at the helm of Dior Homme, will always be at the helm of my suit-loving heart), Thom Browne, and Stefano Pilati to make men's fashion about more than two-button or three-button suits, to inject it with some of the vitality and purposefulness that women take for granted in our ready-to-wear, dressing up as a dude is still about following rules more than it is about looking good. Can you imagine if we were still trapped in some timewarp where everyone was talking about Michelle Obama's inauguration day outfits in terms of the "right" colors for day and evening, the proper length of gloves, the right kind of hat and the ideal heel height? It's refreshing that so little of the commentary on her clothes has given even a cursory nod to such restrictive, convention-based notions. When it comes to one's choice of dress, maybe it's easier to be a woman than a man.

Obama's Fashion Faux Pas [Slate]

• Ooh! Sneak peek at Christian Siriano's bizarre "Moody Mamas" maternity line! [New York Magazine]
• Russia's fashion elite feel the financial burn; neglect shopping. "Usually abuzz with Moscow's rich, the shop was populated only by the mounds of black caviar and giant lobsters left untouched in fridges." [Reuters]
• Jesse McCartney (he's part of the Disney stable for those over the age of 16) is launching a scent. [WWD]
• I'm sure you can figure it out, but here's a how-to on Palin Halloween costumes! [Sassybella]

• Call your PO on a Prada cell! [WWD]
• Scrawny designer Hedi Slimane now a photographer instead. [Fashionista]
• New CEO is optimistic about Steve & Barry's. Although seriously, what's he supposed to say? [NY Times]
• Nike is suing WalMart for allegedly ripping off a shoe, selling a cheaper version. Completely implausible! [WSJ]
• Forbes "discovers" 10 "undiscovered designers" who, despite being completely secret are, you know, already being sold at boutiques and stuff. [Forbes]
• How to weather the recession? Cross-dressing! But seriously, I've scored in the boy's section at SalvA. [WSJ]
• Gotta say, if a moddle's gotta multitask, Karen Elson's Nashville boutique sounds kind of good: "The model, musician, and Jack White spouse joints forces with Venus & Mars’ Amy Patterson to open Venus & Mars—The Showroom. As Refinery29 notes, the shop “will be stocked with rare high-end vintage duds for men and women (with the option of custom tailoring in-house, upping the profile and selection of what was already, in the words of GQ, ‘the best clothing store in America’ two years in a row.'” [BlackBook]
• Barney's fashion director on Rodarte: “They are two of the best designers right now.…I really do know. I don’t brag that often, but I really do know.” [WWD]
• Illustrator It-Girl Daisy de Villeneuve is collaborating with Absolut Vodka on this London installation, "The House of Masquerade." "A vintage clothing boutique and cocktail bar in one, for five nights only, the space will play host to a fashion wonderland, offering shoppers the chance to come in and play dress-up - there'll even be a dedicated stylist on hand to help - while chilling out in the elegant surround." [VogueUK]
• FabSugar brings us its Budget Shopper's Guide to Fall. (Otherwise known as, not shopping.) But it's good: nothing over $50 for once. [FabSugar]

• Poor Posh. After the embarrassingly poor sales of her denim line and ensuing abandonment by retailers, we hear that her men's dVb line has been pushed back "until next year" by L.A. boutique Kitson. Plucky Posh is undaunted, having spoken of her desire to launch a couture line and show at New York's fashion week. dVb denies the line is floundering, claiming that "it is currently being manufactured but is likely to reach stores later than anticipated." [This Is London]
• A man has confessed to the murder of Canadian model Diana O'Brien, whose body was found last week in Shanghai, where the 20-year-old was on a 3-month modeling contract. 18-year-old Chen Jun was arrested Friday morning in Anhui province; he apparently killed the model during an armed robbery of her apartment. [CNN]
• Gwyneth Paltrow is really slacking in her obligations to Estee Lauder's new "Sensous" perfume, refusing to show for any of the hundred ridiculous promos the company's set up (opening the stock market, anyone?) and leaving the burden on the slender shoulders of co-pitchwomen Hilary Rhoda, Carolyn Murphy, and Elizabeth Hurley. Recriminations all around. [New York Magazine]

• Seems the Nuclear Wintour has thawed for Obama: the fashionista was on the newly-published list of "major donors" to the Dem's campaign, indicating that she's raised fifty grand or more. [Neew York Times]
• Wait, fashion, and bloggers...petty? Hard to believe, but it would seem that style sites Fashion Indie and Coutorture are engaged in the most ridiculous war of words (and pictures) ever. Says The Pipeline, "in our years of reading and writing for fashion blogs, this is as mad a skirmish as we've ever seen." [Pipeline]
• The CEO of Overstock.com, that online retailer with all the insinuating "Big O" commercials, has decided not to sell fur through his sites. “You don’t have to think about it very much before you realize … you’re completely objectifying an animal when you say I’m going to wear it as a decorative object. That’s over the line for anyone who gives it any thought, I would think,' said Patrick Byrne, who's made waves in the past for his "battles against hedge funds." [Reuters]
• Are low necklines responsible for Marks and Spencer's market slump? Some suggest that the chain's base of older folks has been alienated by attempts to appeal to a more youthful demographic. "The clothes are not suitable for our age group,' says one older lady. "The dresses are too low on top and they don't have sleeves. They just show too much cleavage and at our age we can't wear that sort of style."' [Independent]
• Charity "Clothes Off Our Backs" latest fundraiser is selling off Rodo shoes. The twist/catch? Celebs like Kate Beckinsale, Cate Blanchett, Sheryl Crow, Kirsten Dunst, Zooey Deschanel and America Ferrera have each decorated a pair "as they chose." Apparently not everyone finds these words ominous: Pink's pair has already racked up $400 in bids; the heels Kristin Davis decorated have scored a more modest $170. [EOnline]
• Next up for Target GO!: Purses by Monica Botkier, coming up next week, and a jewelry line by Dean Harris on 8/17. We've not had great luck with the designer accessories lines in the past, but hope springs eternal in the breast of Recessionistas. [The Budget Fashionista]
• "Black is best when you're in court/The judge will be impressed!" That's Singin' In The Rain. This isThe Daily News on Christie Brinkley's courtroom choices :"The media-savvy former model - who's tried hard on the stand to argue she has been a perfect wife and mother - has picked crisp button-down shirts smoothed into sharp pencil skirts for her divorce trial against estranged husband Cook. Call it the Serious Woman's Uniform - and a smart wardrobe choice when you're up for a fight. "It's not threatening, that's the bottom line," says fashion commentator Mary Alice Stephenson. "The pencil skirt is a piece of clothing that all women respond to."" [Daily News]
• New York consumer confidence at all-time low. [Crain's]
• Super-scrawny menswear designer Hedi Slimane will be the cover model for the debut of Vogue Homme Japan. Said Kazuhiro Saito, editor in chief of Vogue Nippon and the new men's spin-off of Slimane's aesthetic, '"There were those very skinny, boyish male models. That works for Japanese guys."' [WWD]
• The public asks Tim Gunn ten really asinine questions like, "What movie or TV cast has had the biggest impact on fashion?" He makes it work. [Time]

• Who is Tory Burch's elusive 23-year old stepdaughter Pookie? On Mondays, Pookie interns for Bruce Weber, and the rest of the week she works as the assistant to the president of Carolina Herrera, and she was (allegedly) responsible for the magical pairing of New York's leading faux-WASP ice princess with Princess Coldstare, but alas, we have scoured the Google and cannot find a picture of her. So this will have to do. [Fashion Week Daily]
  
• M.I.A has designed her own eponymous clothing line, which is really brightly colored so that, "if you lose it or someone steals it, you can see it from miles away and you can be like, 'Oy! Give me my shirt back!'" Oy is right! [WWD, 3rd item]
  
• Tinsley Mortimer, you see, is not a bad designer of handbags, it's just that she made the mistake of trying to sell them in Japan. "Japanese girls have no use for clutches because they just go to the clubs right after work. They are so different from New York. Stylewise, colorwise, stylewise. It's very youth-oriented. I'm designing for women between the ages of 20 and 40... But in Japan, after 25, it's like, basically, you're dead." [NYMag]

• "Now that I've been modeling some, I can actually stand in high heels—at least for a night." Oh, Hagyness. [Fashion Week Daily]
• Meanwhile, poor Erin Wasson broke her foot running in stilettos while shooting the ad campaign for Justin Timberlake's clothing line, William Rast. Doctors say her bones were fragile due to the amount of time she has spent in her life in heels. Ouch. [NYMag]
• Are you ready for Tuesday night's Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute Gala? [Is that a trick question? -Moe] The theme is superheroes because "the superhero is the overarching metaphor for fashion, because both share this obsession with the body, identity and transformation." [WWD, sub req'd]
• No actually, explains Diane Von Furstenberg, superheroes are just super-trendy right now. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Poor Nicole Fahri was mugged at knifepoint outside her home! [Mirror UK]
• "My wife and I had a great time just sitting and going through things and working on what we liked the best...I would love to see her have a fragrance, and us to have one together — a unisex fragrance. That would be wonderful. She's a lot more expensive than I am." Tim McGraw on his new eponymous fragrance and his oft-PhotoShopped wife, Faith Hill. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Virtual Christian Siriano prom dresses? We're confused. Explain this to us, please. [Gaia]
• Oscar de la Renta shot his Fall/WInter 2008 ad campaign at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego. Which is, um, really random and has nothing to do with polio? [WWD, sub req'd]
• Is former Dior Homme designer Hedi Slimane doing a line for Diesel? Eh, probs. [WWD, 3rd item]
• Naomi Watts is the new face of Thierry Mugler's Angel fragrance. We are so happy for her. [WWD, 2nd item]
• Martin Margiela is trying to go mainstream. Have you never heard of him? Well, that's cause he's so not mainstream. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Chuck Close, Jeff Koons, Marilyn Minter, Kiki Smith, Cai Guo-Qiang, Barbara Kruger, Ashley Bickerton, Kenny Scharf, Glenn Ligon, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Kerry James Marshall, Hanna Liden and Sarah Sze are all collaborating with the Gap on a series of t-shirts. [WWD, sub req'd]
• And Elie Tahari is collaborating with artist Kenny Scharf, too. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Alice Temperely: Showing in London come September for the first time in six seasons. Buh-bye, New York. [Vogue UK]
• Colin McDowell, fashion editor of The Sunday Times of London, is leaving the paper to become creative editor-at-large of Net-a-Porter and spearhead its original editorial content. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Revlon: In debt. But less so now than before. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Elizabeth Arden: Profits are down. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Same goes for Bebe. [WWD, sub req'd]
• And Steve Madden! Hmmm, I wonder what it all means? [Crain's]

• Georgio Armani is co-chairing a dinner to celebrate a Vogue-sponsored Costume Institute exhibit called "Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy." Which is why he gave a press conference during which he professed to be "indifferent" to Anna Wintour while standing next to her. We assume he'll be too dead to make it to dinner. [NY Mag]
  
• Then again: the shocking new garment industry tell-all Gomorrah says Italian fashion is really just the Mafia so maybe Georgio knows what he's doing. [WWD, sub req'd]
  
• Model Gemma Ward's film debut The Black Balloon takes top prize at he Berlin Festival. [Sassybella]

• I grow increasingly obsessed with Victoria Beckham and Marc Jacobs as each new ad starring Posh as the face of MJ's Spring 2008 collection is revealed. Vicks as a naughty dark angel? Love. [Chic Report]
• Project Runway bitch slap! Chris Marc says Christian Siriano is going to be designing for K-Mart soon enough. [AdAge]
• Eva Herzigova: Doesn't need a swimwear line now that she has a son. "[The line] was my little baby. But since I have my own now, it's really hard to follow... Unless I get a license deal, I don't think I'll do it." See ladies, if your career is as pointless/lucrative as modeling and celebrity guest design, you don't have to feel any guilt about giving it up to have babies! [WWD, 3rd item]
• Hayden Panettierre is the new face of Candie's footwear. [Sassybella]
• Ooh la la! Former Dior Homme designer Hedi Slimane is going to be shooting the haute couture collections for French Vogue. [WWD, 4th item]
• 15-year old Russian designer Kira Plastinina on who she hopes to see in her designs, "I like Paris, I like Vanessa Hudgens, I like the High School Musical girls, and Rihanna. I love Rihanna." [Chic Report]
• Yves Saint Laurent is once again pretending that advertising is political activism. [Vogue UK]
• A line of body shapers called Yummie Tummie. [WWD, sub req'd]
• The British fashion industry is blaming its second-tier status in the fashion world on the absence of enough factories to produce its wares. Uh...because Jakarta and Dhaka are totally the new fashion capitals. [Reuters] [WWD, sub req'd]

• Venus Williams was awarded with an associate's degree in fashion design from the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale over the weekend, becoming the first celebrity "designer" to ever get a degree in fashion design. She even got a prize for the "Best Sportswear Collection" and a 3.5 GPA. Also, she has a collection for Steve & Barry's. [Sassybella]
  
• Mango takes a nod from Pedro Almodovar, keeps Penelope Cruz as the face of its brand for a second consecutive season. Now if she could only find a boyfriend with the same devotion! [WWD, 3rd item]
  
• Italian director Franco Zeffirelli wants to give the Pope a makeover. But would the Pope approve of all the gratuitous tit scenes in Romeo & Juliet? [Sassybella]
  
• French Vogue editor Carine Roitfeld is in New York for her lesser-known spawn Vladmir's 23rd birthday. [Fashion Week Daily]

• Film mogul/fat man Harvey Weinstein and Marchesa designer/pretty young thing Georgina Chapman's honeymoon: not so picture perfect. The $250,000 yacht they're renting is unable to enter St. Bart's due to a fuel strike there. We weep for them, seriously. [Page Six]
• The real reason Vivienne Westwood is showing her Red Label line in London revealed at last: She has a coffee table book to promote. This from the woman who wrote the manifesto against capitalism! [WWD, 2nd item]
• New Balance will be releasing a new line of women's shoes called NB Inside which offer style, comfort, and basically no actual athletic usage capabilities. [MediaPost]
• Former Dior Homme designer Hedi Slimane is now in talks with his former bosses at LVMH to start his own eponymous menswear line. Which, we assume, will look just like Dior Homme. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Names to know: Roksanda Ilincic, Richard Nicoll and Jens Laugesen. These designers all won the big prize in the UK's Fashion Forward competition this year, which is basically a guarantee of becoming the Next Big Think in Cool Britannia fashion. [Vogue UK]
• Jeweler David Yurman is coming out with a perfume. There has been no mention of what it smells like. And, surprise, a whole lotta mention on the elaborate-jeweled bottle which will hold it. [Fashion Week Daily]
• Current fashion darling Phillip Lim will be making his debut in Bryant Park during the upcoming fashion show season, which means he's "arrived" or whatever in fashion world terms. [Fashion Week Daily]
• For the first time ever, we are envious of socialites: the society set got to attend a private performance of the Isaac Mizrahi-narrated Peter and the Wolf over the weekend. Mizrahi's costume consisted of a scarf and a fedora. Swoon. [Fashion Week Daily]
• Okay, for the second time today, we are envious of socialites: the rich bitches got to buy the Miu Miu spring collection at a private sale/party Friday night in New York before it goes on sale for the masses this week. [Fashion Week Daily]
• One in four Massachusetts hair and nail salons stands in violation of health codes. And if they're being that poorly behaved in a bleeding heart and highly moral state like MA, we don't even want to think how bad things are here in hedonistic New York. Ew. [BellaSugar]

• Designer Issey Miyake's show taking place today in Paris is inspired by vacuum cleaners. Guaranteed not to blow you away? [WWD, 5th item]
  
• TopShop is opening its first U.S. store, supposedly in time for the holiday season. [Fashionista]
  
• Giorgio Armani paid himself $346.5 million this year. We hope he enjoys it before the "I Dream of Jeannie" pants he designed this season hit the stores. [WWD, sub req'd]
  
• Donna Karan is taking her Urban Zen concept beyond the integration of holistic practices into Western medicine: Now she's reconciling Palestinian and Israeli children and selling Urban Zen: The Clothing. How does she do it? [WWD, sub req's]

• You know how some dudes are really into having sex in really uncomfortable positions with girls wearing nothing but their most uncomfortable heels? We kinda think that's what David Lynch was getting at with his latest series of Louboutin ads. Edgy! And we are so tempted to buy now! [Sassybella]
• Chanel (and Fendi) designer Karl Lagerfeld might be starving himself these days, but he's gorging his resume! His latest project: shooting the Dior Homme ads, now that former Dior Homme designer Hedi Slimane has been Auf'd. [WWD, 1st item]
• Oh fuck: Fashion has even attacked the trees in Paris! Stop the madness! [GlamChic]
• Uh, oh: Calvin Klein designer Francisco Costa better not be going all Ralph Lauren on us! [The Fashion Informer]

• Todd Oldham has been named creative director at Old Navy. Says ON prez Dawn Robertson:"Todd was an interesting choice because he is so relevant. He is really modern." Which is interesting, you see, because the Gap usually goes the extra mile to be irrelevant. [WWD, sub req'd]
  
• Cell phones are the new handbags, so if your Prada phone, your Dolce & Gabbana phone, and your iPhone aren't cutting it for you, never fear! Armani is getting into the mix too. [WWD, sub req'd]
  
• Chanel president Veronique Morali has resigned, having only held her position at the French fashion house since March. Meaning the turnover rates for heading up Chanel are about on par with the turnover rates for fashion magazine assistants. Only with, like, three zeroes added to the salary. [WWD, sub req'd]
  
• Former Dior Homme designer Hedi Slimane told France's Le Monde newspaper he agreed with us about how fashion weeks are completely absurd and retarded because we have the internet now, duh. "[Seasonal fashion shows] don't relate to anything anymore." [WWD, 2nd item]

• Vera Wang: Set to play herself (but bitchier) on Ugly Betty! [WWD, 4th item]
• Ellen Tracy founder Herb Gallen has died at age 92 of natural causes. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Burberry: Now offering its already-expensive shit at even more ridiculous prices, courtesy of a new luxury handbag capsule collection. Oh and if you feel like coughing up the dough for one of these, take heed: Buying one is invitation only. Barf. [Vogue UK]
• On the fate of his company (will he sell it or won't he?), designer Roberto Cavalli says, "I'm not a great businessman unfortunately." But at least he knows his way with a snake print and neon-hued ruffle? [Vogue UK]
• Cathy Horyn may have finally stopped talking about Marc Jacobs, but Simon Doonan has just begun: "I'm sure I would've loved Marc Jacobs but I had to go home. By 10:40, I was out the door. Not in a huff. I didn't leave in a huff. I just thought, I need to go home now and walk the dog and take my girdle off." [The Fashion Informer]
• If by chance you find yourself in Milan with the hope of stalking your favorite (and by favorite we mean least favorite) fashion types, here's a good list of places to start. [GlamChic]
• Further evidence that high fashion in fact steals from its knockoffs: Burberry has taken to manufacturing, and incorporating into its ad campaigns Burberry plaid buttons that originally emerged as a clever means off renegade logo-theft. [EV Said via Coutorture]

• Alina Shriver, who is part of the whole Shriver-Kennedy clan, is getting in on the whole rich socialite starting a fashion label thing. We hope it evades the Kennedy "curse"! [NYPost]
  
• He speaks! Notoriously hermetic, recently-ousted Dior Homme designer Hedi Slimane will be interviewed in French newspaper Le Monde this weekend. We're suddenly glad we didn't take a more useful language in school! [WWD, last item]
  
• Actress and ridiculous person Nicole Kidman makes her modeling debut today at London Fashion Week, albeit via video like Princess Leia because she's a ghost or something, for label Antoni & Alison. [WWD, 1st item]
  
• The super-exclusive fete for the opening of the new Barneys New York outpost in San Francisco was hosted by Danielle Steele. Which is awesome. [Fashion Week Daily]

• Of the new Lanvin store in Paris, one of those "modern" raw and unfinished warehouse-y kinda spaces, designer Alber Elbaz says, ""It was not at all about making a beautiful boutique; it was about making a boutique that makes the clothes more beautiful." Wait a second - how hard is it to make a $8000 skirt look beautiful? [WWD, sub req'd]
• Yves Saint Laurent designer Stefano Pilati was approached about the design gig at Valentino, but turned it down 'cause he's all super loyal like that. That, and he just talked his way into a multi-year contract with YSL. [Vogue UK]
• Petanque, some weird French game where you hurl balls across a yard, was one of the best things we ever learned about in all those years of French class. And now we can, apparently, buy our very own set of Louis Vuitton petanque balls, retailing for approximately $1813, which is even more retarded sounding than the game itself. [Fashion Week Daily]
• Cathy Horyn has stopped talking about Marc Jacobs, started drinking heavily in London bars. [NYT]
• Andre Agassi is suing Target. [The Budget Fashionista]

The first time I saw an International Male catalog was at the all-girls Virginia boarding school I attended in the 1980s. The cool girls — the ones who owned their own horses and got BMWs for their 16th birthdays, with car-size bows on top — got the catalog in their mailboxes, along with subscriptions to GQ. The uncool girls, if we were lucky, got to peer over their shoulders at pictures of male models in thong bikinis. I found the presentation of male genitalia, packaged and posed and seemingly aroused, totally terrifying. Were they really that long and tuber-like? And were men supposed to stare at you in such a brooding, animal way, their eyes glowering at siesta level, their mouths puckered in baby-doll O's?

New Push-up Thong: Padding hidden inside lifts you up and out. ($23)

Contour Thong: Our famous Contour underwear with a sleek thong back. The V-seam pouch is contoured for a natural look and terrific support. Machine wash. Cotton jersey. Import. ($8)

Gauze Caftan: Think of all the occasions you have to wear such a comfortable piece of clothing: the beach, the pool, Sunday mornings at home, late at night. Oh the comfort. Made from a lightweight and airy cotton gauze. Loose, full sleeves. Deep cut neck. Side slits. ($29)

Times Square Leather Trenchcoat: 120 square feet of soft lamb leather. 56" long. Single-breasted. Banded collar. Silvertone buttons run from collar to waist. Darted/pleated back. 5" long leather cuffs. On-seam pockets. Slightly padded shoulders. 3/4 polyester lining. ($399)

UNDERGEAR® Kensington Denim Vest: Flap pockets, metal buttons down the front. Cotton denim. Machine wash. ($45)

Nude Awakening [NY Times]

• Rachel Zoe: prepare to die. The celebrity stylist has announced herself mightier than Anna Wintour! Uh, didn't Zoe ever study Greek mythology in school? Don't taunt the gods. [WWD, 1st item]
  
• Former Dior Homme designer Hedi Slimane is BFFs with French president Nicolas Sarkozy?! (Might they be interested in a threesome?) [WWD, final item]
  
• Benetton profits up by 6.5%. Which we think is pretty impressive considering the last time we remember buying or knowing anyone who bought anything from the brand was the late 90's. [Uh, try eighties. Oh right, you were wearing diapers. -Moe] [WWD, sub req'd]
  
• Doing even better than Benetton is Tod's, whose profits are up by 18.5% thanks to those pebble-soled shoes that are less ubiquitous but just as profitable as Tory Burch flats. [WWD, sub req'd]
  
• Dita von Teese: The new face of Cointreau. It's about time someone thought to make the direct connection between taking your clothes off and drinking. [Sassybella]

• Victoria Beckham had a spot of tea with ELLE's creative director Joe Zee and editor-in-chief Roberta Myers, eh? Do they want to help us get tickets for the Spice Girls reunion tour? Please? [Fashion Week Daily]
• Vogue UK calls the New York S/S 2008 collections "quietly competent." Which we think is the critical equivalent of saying that a potential suitor "has a real nice personality." [Vogue UK]
• Ralph Lauren is selling new polo shirts to fund breast cancer research. [Vogue UK]
• More fashion-oncology collabo! Marc Jacobs is the NYC Cancer Institute's honoree this year for having raised $400,000 for melanoma research. Oh and some oncologist is also being honored. [Fashion Week Daily]
• So People magazine thinks that Beyonce is one of the best-dressed celebs of 2007? Please god no one tell Tina Knowles. We just know this is going to make her even more unbearable. [People via FabSugar]

• "If I could just do one thing for 24 hours it would be [have sex] . . . or sew. Or have sex while sewing. Or sew an outfit to have sex in." So says singer Beth Ditto, which is why the plus-sized Ditto is now collaborating with New Look to become the most unlikely (and kinda awesome!) celebrity clothing endorser yet. [The Sun]
  
• Charlotte Ronson, whose name sounds familiar because she's Lindsay Lohan enabler Samantha Ronson's twin sister, is once again slated for a role in the forthcoming Soapnet reality show The Fashionista Diaries, which will chronicle the ins and outs of the week leading up to New York Fashion Week. If there's a God, Lindsay will be off the wagon by then. [WWD, 2nd item]
  
• "Fashion's over," declares the legendary Hubert de Givenchy. Now what are we supposed to write about? Oh yeah, celebutard nipple slips! [WWD, sub req'd]

• Roberto Cavalli is in Paris — not to show couture, but to preview his H&M line to magazine editors. Oh please please please someone report back re garishness, degree of in this line! [WWD, 1st item]
• After having posed for Italian Vogue , Gavin Rossdale's love child, 18-year old Daisy Lowe, is rumored to be assuming Kate Moss's soon-to-be-empty knickers as the face of Agent Provocateur. We assume this means that Rossdales's missus, Gwen Stefani, will not be wearing the line anytime soon. [Sky Showbiz]
• Too many fashion events, too little time: The 10-year anniversary of Gianni Versace's death is keeping Bottega Veneta away from its slotted showtime as the closing show for the first-ever Berlin Fashion week. [Vogue UK]
• Anime movies! Spectator shoes! An entire Rem Koolhaas exhibit around her skirts! So what's up next for renaissance fashion-quirkstress Miuccia Prada? Designing a bar in London with whimsical Belgian sculptor Carsten Holler, naturally. [WWD, 1st item]
• Fashion hungry private equity firm Permira hopes to buy out all remaining shares of Valentino through the Italian stock market's regulatory system for an estimated $3.52 billion. Which is probably only a slightly greater figure than the price of a couture Valentino wardrobe. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Since leaving his design perch at Dior Homme, Hedi Slimane has taken to designing... furniture? [WWD, 3rd item]

• Take it from the Journal: skinny jeans are over. [WSJ]

• What's harder to pronounce than "Ghesquiere"? Hachette Filipacchi, the owner of Elle, whose CEO Jack Kliger claims teenage girls would rather use the internet than read print magazines and informs us Elle Girl is actually still online. [WSJ]

• If you shop, as we shop, at TJ Maxx, your credit card information stolen from the company by hackers has probably already expired, so if you are, as we are, completely irresponsible you will proabably just forget about it and commence not ever looking at your bill. [WSJ]

• Nobody knows how the fuck to pay for college. Take it from us: don't go! [WSJ]

• You will be more Zen if you get organized, closet therapists say. You will also be more Zen if you have money, Suze Orman says. We would be more Zen if we had some Adderall right now, because none of that shit is happening.