Jezebel: i-d

Lacroix Is Dead; Watch Out, Kelly Cutrone Is Coming

Jenna — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 11:30:00 EST

A French bankruptcy court has backed a plan that will cut 90% of Christian Lacroix's staff, and reduce the 22-year-old house to a licensing operation. [ToL]
None other than Simon Doonan is decorating the White House for Christmas. [NYTimes]

Speaking of the Obamas: Naeem Khan made not one but five dresses for Michelle Obama to consider for the state dinner last week. "It took 10 people three weeks to make the embroidery," says the Indian-born designer. The dresses were made in America, but the beading came from India. [W]
The point of this story seems to be: Rihanna has changed her style remarkably since she started entertaining us with song. [CNN]
Tiger Woods may still be wanted for questioning by the Florida Highway Patrol, but Nike is emphatically standing by their $40-million star. [WWD]
Kate Hudson loved the costumes in her movie Nine, set in 1960s Italy like its progenitor, 8 1/2, because the period fabulousness reminded her of watching her mother get dressed as a little girl. [UPI]
Catherine McNeil's Australian Vogue comeback cover is out. [Models.com]
Hey, everyone! This week is the week that all the major department stores expect to magically start reducing their prices as one! To a modest 30-40% off. (Just don't call it collusion!) Net-A-Porter went 30-50% off yesterday, so that $4,000 dress might now be $2,500, with tax, and Saks is starting its up to 40% off sale Thursday; hold on till after Christmas for steeper cuts. Stores laid in around 20% less stock than last year, in hopes of avoiding last fall's rash of below-cost markdowns. It appears they've been successful. [WWD]
"Whoever your mom is, people won't give you hundreds of thousands of dollars," says Vladimir Restoin Roitfeld, who was given $50,000 to mount his first art exhibition last February, and whose latest show, of Nicolas Pol's work, drew Jean-Paul Gaultier, Andre Balazs, Daphne Guinness, and, oh yeah, his mother Carine Roitfeld, to its opening. Young Vlad's secret? "We work extremely hard." [Bloomberg]
For I-D's 30th anniversary spring issue, Nick Knight will photograph 100 portraits of different fashion stars featured in its pages over the years — live, in front of an audience. His studio will be open to the public as an exhibition until December 20, and people will be able to watch shoots with, say, Kate Moss or Naomi Campbell, through a two-way mirror. Or live on the Internet, at Knight's showstudio.com. There's nothing that strikes us as less tedious than watching a month-long editorial fashion shoot, but someone might be into it. [WWD]
The Telegraph gets to the bottom of the mysteriously straight and non-neurotic fashion designer Giles Deacon. How come he's so successful, anyway? "Don't know. My parents weren't into fashion. I didn't have an eccentric granny who mixed lace mantillas with tweed. I never believe people who say that, anyway. 'Oh, my granny had great style.' I just like doing it and I enjoy working hard. I go to work at 10am and I'm still there at 8.30pm. We get the wine out then, but anyone who is successful and tells you they don't work hard is lying." [Telegraph]
Olivier Theyskens has a book on the way! Olivier Theyskens: The Other Side Of The Picture is due out from Assouline in February. He also might be involved in a new "retail concept," but neither he nor the company involved would comment. [WWD]
It's official: Bravo will begin airing the Kelly Cutrone reality television series we've all been waiting for, Kell On Earth, next February. As long as Ms. Cutrone keeps dropping f-bombs on live morning television, an audience for this shit is practically guaranteed. [UPI]
Peaches Geldof, Photoshopped within an inch of her life, is in a second campaign for the UK underwear brand Ultimo. The dividends of just happening upon that News Of The World photographer starkers continue to accrue. [Telegraph]
North Korean jeans made by a trio of Swedes who describe making contact with the communist regime as "like Facebook poking a country"? Is this a joke? [FWD]
Inez and Vinoodh shot the spring Lanvin men's wear ads this weekend in Paris, and rumor is they totally pulled a Juergen and put themselves in the shot. [WWD]

Daul Kim Died By Hanging; Valentino Doc On Oscar List

Jenna — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:30:00 EST

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

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

9/11 Truther Nabs Fancy Perfume Campaign

TatianaTheAnonymousModel — Thu, 14 May 2009 11:30:00 EDT

In a move that smacks of Chanel-Audrey-Jean-Pierre, Dior announced it's making a 6 1/2 minute online perfume ad with Marion Cotillard and Olivier Dahan, who of course directed Cotillard in La Vie En Rose. [WWD]

Richard Avedon's retrospective at the International Center of Photography, opening tomorrow, is the largest show of his fashion work yet mounted. Cathy Horyn spoke to curators Carole Squiers and Vince Aletti, plus friends like the New Yorker's Adam Gopnik, about the legendary lensman and his manifest influence on contemporary fashion photography. [NY Times]
Alexa Chung, the British former model who recently moved stateside to present a new show for MTV, endears perhaps most of all by not pretending her job is difficult. "Presenting isn't hard. You're basically reading cards. I mean, how fucking difficult is that?" And then by sharing these words about the television industry: "I think the mistake a lot of TV channels make is that they assume kids are dumb when they're not. Middle-aged fat men [shouldn't] tell young people [what] to watch when they have no idea." [WWD]
Aldo, the normally good relatively cheap shoe line, wants us to wear horrendous teal 'n' bronze 'n' snakeskin 'n' studs gladiator sandals this summer. [LA Times]
Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen's fashion line, Elizabeth and James, gave People the exclusive on the release of their fall '09 lookbook. This marks a new uppermost notch on the continual rise of lookbooks into campaign territory. [People]
Carla Bruni-Sarkozy and her husband are reportedly considering moving into the Paris apartment formerly owned by Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé. [Daily Mail]
The Agyness Deyn on Twitter is, says BFF Henry Holland, an imposter. "THIS IS FAKE PEOPLE!!!" typed the designer. "AGGY DOES KNOW HOW TO OPERATE A COMPUTER AND MOST CERTAINLY DOES NOT EAT BREAKFAST!" [Grazia]
C. Scott Hemphill and Jeannie Suk, law professors at Columbia and Harvard, respectively, give a good summary of the current status of U.S. copyright law in relation to clothing — which is that it offers designers not a whit of protection from knock-off artistes — and why it would be a good idea to change it. [XX]
In related news: Trovata's case against Forever 21, which it accuses of copying six of its designs, has begun at a federal court in California. [WWD]
Urban Outfitters is rolling out two new designer diffusion lines for summer: both Burberry and fellow British brand Pistol Panties are going to be selling bikinis at the American chain this summer. [Telegraph]
Urban Outfitters' Philadelphia-based parent company just announced very disappointing earnings for the first quarter of this year. Same-store sales across the whole company dropped by 9.6%, and profits fell 28%, to $30.8 million. Free People was the biggest-losing brand, with sales at its stores slipping by 23%. Anthropologie's sales were down by 13%, and Urban Outfitters by 6%. The CEO, Glenn Senk, says his company is "well-positioned to show improvement over the next several quarters," in what is surely the understatement of the year. [The Street]
Yesterday's flurry of rumors about the future of i-D magazine — Derek Blasberg Twittered from the Chanel resort show in Venice that the fashion monthly might have closed — the publishers have clarified that i-D will be bi-monthly as of this September. The current April issue will be on newsstands until then; the magazine will run more frequent online content instead. [Fashionologie]
Another not-new piece of menswear news: Designers using foam batting, instead of perhaps down, as lofty insulation within garments. You know, because foam has structure. [WSJ]
According to sources, Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy is to buy an almost 50% stake in the eco-conscious fashion line Edun, owned by Bono and wife Ali Hewson. Edun was founded in 2005 and manufactures its organic cotton goods in the third world, while paying workers fair wages. A cash infusion from LVMH would allow it to ramp up its advertising and exponentially expand its reach. [WSJ]
Philip Lim, whose clothes — though still expensive — hit a price point well below that of many of his designer competitors, is anticipating a 15% growth in sales this year. Accordingly, he's planning to add three new lines to his label: swimwear, footwear, and lingerie. The first, his swim collection, will launch this summer, with three styles, two one-pieces and one bikini, priced at $175 each. Lingerie, for $65-$125, will be available at his Manhattan boutique from May 20. Footwear, at $290-$675, will hit stores this fall. And don't expect 6" heels with fiddly feathered doo-dads that might last twenty steps in their original condition. "Everyone's making crazy shoes," said Lim, "so we were like, ‘Let's do working shoes, but sophisticated and beautiful.'" [WWD]
Maidenform's first quarter earnings declined by 0.8%. Although the brand experienced higher sales, its margins were hurt by aggressive discounting to move old stock. [WSJ]
Kohl's profit for the quarter just ended fell slightly on last year, to $137 million, but still beat analysts' expectations. Sales rose during the same period by 0.4%. [Reuters]
Hartmarx wants another six months to file for reorganization in bankruptcy court. [WWD]

Lindsay Sprays Her Way To Success; Freida Says Lauder Deal Is "Lovely Rumor"

TatianaTheAnonymousModel — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 11:30:00 EDT

The first pictures of Lindsay Lohan's foray into cosmetics have been released: at left, the often-orange starlet shilling for a spray tan called Sevin Nyne. [People]

Sojin Lee, formerly of online pioneers Net-a-porter.com, and Simon Fuller, the man who gave you the Spice Girls and Roland Mouret, are starting an internet fashion business together. [WWD]
Times critic Cathy Horyn went to a Chanel party, found Olivier Zahm and Stefano Pilati and no champagne. So she had a Bud. [The Moment]
"When I'm wearing a hoodie, it looks like I just threw a hoodie on. I'm wearing what I discovered and figured out is the best hoodie I can find. And I'll tell you, if you ever want to know the best hoodie, I know the best hoodie." Whatever you say, John Mayer. [FabSugar]
Editors are picking designers instead of models for their covers lately. Diane von Furstenberg graced Purple (and the issue promptly sold out) last month. Perhaps noting their success, this month i-D has Miuccia Prada on the front. [Fashionista]
In case you need to be reminded why models can make great cover choices (perhaps your name is Anna Wintour?), the Times' "The Moment" blog has this neat feature where you can slide your cursor over a photo of Kasia Struss or Jourdan Dunn to see how the makeup and hair looks at the shows come together. Latest additions: Jean Paul Gaultier and Dior. [The Moment]
And, on balance, why they might not: "I'm not your cheesy girl that's going to dress up in a hokey outfit and say all the sound bites that you want me to say," says Erin Wasson. No, Erin, you're certainly not! [Daily Beast]
Sean Avery's fashion friends came out to support him at his first Rangers game since that internship at Vogue. Even the guy who works the door at the Beatrice showed up. Who says this business doesn't foster loyal and real connections? [Observer]
There are pictures of Roberto Cavalli's new Cavalli Pets dog clothing line. The line includes a satin trimmed bath robe. For your dog. And leopard-printed shearling jackets. For your dog. [The Cut]
Roberto Cavalli also sells sex toys. The inimitable New York drag queen Lady Bunny mentioned them to Fashion Week Daily, although she does say they're kinda small. [Racked]
Model blind item: "Whicih two veteran models got into a "full-on serious fistfight" in a Paris nightclub this Fashion Week? The fight was so démodé, Uncle Karl himself had to break it up." Invitations to name the offenders or improvise the Kaiser's dialogue in the comments. [Fashionista]
Freida Pinto says the news she is going to be a face of Estée Lauder is "but a lovely rumor." [WWD]
"Beauty, economy, and usefulness are the best rules for the well-dressed woman," said Depression-era American fashion designer Muriel King. It's sound advice for today. If you're in New York City, you'd do well to check out the new exhibit of King's work at the Museum at FIT. King was a painter who got into fashion when she became an illustrator for publications like Vogue and Women's Wear Daily — eventually she hired patternmakers and garment workers to turn her original sketches into reality. [Style.com]
And laundry detergent is the new fashion must-have. Tim Gunn says so. (And we can all agree with lower drycleaning bills.) [WSJ]
Although J. Crew recently instituted cost-cutting measures including layoffs, a wage freeze, and suspending company matching of 401(k) contributions, the retailer's fourth quarter losses still reached $13.5 million, because of weak sales. However, because analysts had expected even bigger losses, their stock price rose. [Crain's]
Interestingly, they still have plans to open more stores. [WWD]
Liz Claiborne CEO Bill McComb lives in New Jersey. His misfortune is lessened by the fact that his company pays $10,500 in monthly rent to maintain a New York apartment for his occasional overnight stays in the city. Liz Claiborne's revenues shrank 10% last year, as same-store sales at Claiborne-owned Juicy Couture, Lucky Brand, Kate Spade, and Mexx all dropped by over 12%. The company announced its plays to lay off 8% of its workforce in February. [Crain's]
Charlotte Russe is offering itself up for sale. [Dealbook]
Neiman Marcus's quarterly loss: $509.2 million. Sales in the three months ended January 31 fell by over 20%. [WSJ]
Comparatively speaking, American Eagle's modest fourth quarter profit of $32.7 million is a relief, in that it's not a loss. Revenue fell 9% on a year ago, and the company says the results are disappointing overall. [The Street]
That L'Oreal/eBay legal wrangle over the sale of counterfeit goods online has been delayed in the French courts. [WWD]
In honor of Young Buck's announcement that his clothing line, David Brown, is no more, Complex magazine has a look back at the top ten failed rapper clothing lines, including Master P's No Limit Clothing, and Fat Joe's FJ560. [Complex]
Who else but Heidi Klum drove the Barbie dream car to the Barbie dream house in Malibu. [FWD]

Harper's Bazaar Dresses Up Kids Like Pretentious Designers (And It's Totally Awesome)

Jennifer — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 10:00:00 EDT

For its 140th anniversary issue, Harper's Bazaar styles little kids to look like mini-versions of our favorite (and not) fashion designers. And oh my god, is it awesome. (Please note mini-Olivier Theyskens, at left.) This is 10 times better than that Simpsons fashion spread, which was itself pretty freaking inspired, and may force us to reevaluate our position on the whole magazine, which is a lot to handle right now. [Fashion Week Daily]
Last night's "Fashion Rocks" event in London featured: Uma Thurman screaming at Johnny Borrell for smoking during Razorlight's set for Burberry, The Gossip's Beth Ditto throwing her shoes into the audience, Lily Allen being introduced as model Lily Cole, Stella McCartney's models playing musical chairs, and Iggy Pop. Pictures later! [Vogue UK]
Karl Lagerfeld has created a limited edition carrying case for Dom Perignon. It holds 6 bottles. At $140,000 it is the most expensive item in the Harrods Christmas catalog. And to all of this we say: Of course he did; of course it does. [Vogue UK]

Pervert and D-list designer Anand Jon has been slapped with another lawsuit, by one of the 19 women named in the indictment against him for charges of rape, battery, and committing lewd sexual acts on a child. Natalie Pack says she is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of her rape by Jon. We hope he is once again found guilty. [Yahoo]
Moe's complaints have been heard! The second go-round of Simply Vera Vera Wang for Kohl's clothes will be offered in smaller sizes than the premiere collection. It seems during the debut retailing they expected, er, bigger girls to be buying the Wang garb. Turns out the skinnies like the cheap shit too. [WWD, final item]
Um, how did we never know before that Nestle (as in makers of the deliciously-heinous chocolate beverage) owns close to 30% of L'Oreal? Yeah, but they're thinking of selling their shares. [WWD, sub req'd]
Okay, WWD, good move. The headline on their story about Stella McCartney launching an exclusive "green" collection at everyone's favorite Simon Doonan creative-directed department store: "Stella McCartney Comes To Barneys, Naturally." [WWD, sub req'd]
Rock & Republic CEO Michael Ball is being sued for libel by fashion photographer Markus Klinko. Ugh. [TMZ]
Check out Hollywould for Target here. [Coutorture]
i-D magazine has seen a 56% increase in newsstand sales with its November. Why, you might ask? Because it has Kate Moss on its cover with her new bangs. No, seriously. [Sassybella]