• A rare, left-handed Michael Jackson glove — the one the star wore when he unveiled his moonwalk at Motown's 25th anniversary in 1983 — is to be auctioned in November at the Hard Rock Café in Times Square. [CTV]

• Pictures of the +J women's collection are starting to trickle out. Isabeli Fontana stars in the campaign, and my god are we excited for Jil Sander's return to form. Not least because the godmother of minimalism is re-materializing after her long absence at Uniqlo's sensible price point; the full range will cost between $21 and $155. [WWD]
• Diane Kruger, on Karl Lagerfeld: "Karl is like a dad. I've known him since I was 16 – I would do a lot for Karl. I was once on his plane flying to China. He wouldn't stop talking. After a while, I said to him, ‘I have to sleep now Karl.' When I woke up 10 hours later he was still talking to some poor assistant!" [SassyBella]
• Designer Tory Burch and Marchesa co-founder Georgina Chapman are both making cameos on Gossip Girl's next season. [WWD]
• Mad Men's Alison Brie, on the wardrobe: "You wear girdles and tight clothes you can't really breathe in that make you sit up straight. That alone is kind of oppressive and really makes you feel how these women were feeling at the time." [TVGuide]
• From the horse's mouth: Kanye West isn't interning at the Gap. Quoth designer Patrick Robinson, on the occasion of the launch of the Gap's new 1969 Premium Jeans Collection, "He's a friend of mine, and he just likes to see what we do. I tell him, if he wants people to take him seriously in fashion, they have to see blood first! They have to see the blood and the sweat, to see that he really wants it — but he definitely has the capability." [FWD]
• Harlem resident Sessilee Lopez cooks to unwind. "I just made a pepper steak, rice and beans for Wendell the other night. I grew up watching my grandmother cook and she can make anything taste good. So I try to apply what she does. I'm also getting into baking, but I think that might be dangerous for my career." On role models: "Definitely Tyra [Banks]; I would love to benchmark myself after her. She went from being a pretty face to a mogul. It would be great to follow in her footsteps." [W]
• Justin Timberlake's Givenchy perfume ad has a behind-the-scenes video — the behind-the-scenes video now being de rigueur — so you can double up on your Justin pleasure. [People]
• Oscar de la Renta, on not dressing women with double-digit dress sizes: "Well, you cannot be a jack-of-all-trades. You must do what you do best." [VF]
• Robert Geller has a men's capsule collection with Levi's that hits stores next month. [WWD]
• The body of a man was found on the roof of Opening Ceremony, the downtown Manhattan boutique. Signs indicate the death may have been accidental, and the man a vagrant, but police investigated the scene for seven hours yesterday. [Gawker]
• London police have made one arrest in connection with the Graff jewelry heist that netted $65 million worth of jewels last week. A 50-year-old man, who is not believed to have been one of the two robbers who held up the store, was arrested and bailed. [WWD]
• Jewelry designers Arielle de Pinto and Pamela Love are each doing standalone presentations at New York Fashion Week this September, and Bliss Lau — whose original necklace was shamelessly re-cast and copied by Erin Wasson for the supermodel's jewelry line — Philip Crangi, and Eddie Borg are all working on collaborations with unnamed designers for September. [Style.com]
• Anna Wintour has confirmed she will be attending London Fashion Week in September. Although Wintour normally skips the London shows, this year, a special effort by British designers to show on their home turf has resulted in a glut of bold-faced names on the schedule — Burberry, Christopher Kane, Jonathan Saunders, Gareth Pugh, Matthew Williamson — that Wintour simply can't ignore. [Grazia]
• Helena Christensen is naked and gorgeous on the cover of Citizen K. [Sun]
• Ralph Lauren is being sued over shirts he made that say "Lifeguard" on them. The Lifeguard Licensing Corp. says it registered that trademark in 1937. [NYPost]
• Artist Hugh Hayden: "I do dinner parties. The most famous one, in college, was called "Smooth." I wanted people to focus on the taste of food but make everything else a constant. We puréed all the food, had the guests wear all white and arranged them in chairs, facing the wall, around the perimeter of the room. We tied their hands behind their back and fed them through this device, which looked like a snorkel with a funnel attached. So you focus on the taste of what you're eating." Label Hayden-Harnett hired this guy to give their NoLiTa boutique a sporty temporary makeover, and to work with them on the Spring 2010 presentation next month. We're kind of scared, because that dinner party sounds like it would have a long and troubling afterlife in one's subconscious. [W]
• One thing we actually do not want to wear or even see is a "sneaker/boat shoe hybrid," but thanks anyway, Lacoste. [WWD]
• JC Penney's has a line called Twelfth of Eleven that comprises mainly t-shirts, and they won't reveal who designs it. Racked.com thinks it might be Rachel Roy, who designs a line of similar t-shirts (at higher prices) for Macy's. [Racked]
• Wal-Mart's second-quarter results were positive; the world's biggest retailer's profits rose 1.4%, to $3.45 billion. Urban Outfitters' income declined by 14%, to $49 million, but sales rose 1%. [WWD]
• Kohl's second-quarter profit fell just 3%, to $229 million, and sales actually rose slightly, by 2%. [AP]
• Same-store sales at Macy's this quarter fell by 9.5%, but the retailer clung to profitability by cutting costs, and turned in a better-than-expected result of a $7 million profit. [Reuters]

• Madonna's fall campaign for Louis Vuitton leaked online, and the star — captured by Steven Meisel and 23 psychedelic Photoshop layers — sort of looks like a marble statue. [Fashionologie]

• Roberto Cavalli's and Gianfranco Ferré's Fall 2009 campaigns are also out. In the sense of "On the Internet," not in the sense of "In the magazines." [FWD]
• 50 Cent's new fragrance deal, for the scent "Power", is unusual in that the star is not simply licensing his name to a company. He actually is a part-owner of Lighthouse Beauty, the business that will release Power. The other partners are a veritable who's-who of the fragrance industry. [WWD]
• Clements Ribeiro is the latest British fashion house to announce its intention to return to London Fashion Week for its 25th anniversary. The husband-and-wife design duo join Burberry, Pringle of Scotland, Jonathan Saunders, and Matthew Williamson, in showing their respective Spring 2010 collections in London. Clements Ribeiro last showed in London in September 2005. [Telegraph]
• Expectant Victoria's Secret superstar Adriana Lima's wedding to Marko Jaric was witnessed only by the couple's lawyers. "It was really romantic," said the model. Lima said she doesn't know the sex of her baby, due in December, and hopes to have a large family. [People]
• eLuxury.com is closing its doors as a retailer today. (Last-minute sale items are an additional 50% off, so if you want Alexander Wang jeans for $375 $75, or a D&G corset dress for $495 $148.50, now's your moment.) Apparently, eLuxury is planning to relaunch itself as a social networking site dedicated to...luxury. Because in this economy, talking about fancy shit online is still free. [WWD]
• Supermodel Angela Lindvall has designed a t-shirt for Edun, Ali Hewson's organic, sustainably-produced fashion line (which is newly owned by luxury mega-company LVMH). The shirt is blue with a white design that Lindvall says "was created from the shadows of trees. Our shadow side is what sometimes pushes us to grow." [Fashionista]
• Style.com traced the influence of Kate Moss's gold lamé Marc Jacobs dress and Stephen Jones turban from the Met Ball through the Resort collections. As if we were ever in any doubt that Ms. Moss's style cuts a long swath. [Style.com]
• Patrick Dempsey's new scent for Avon (?!) is to be appropriately named: Patrick Dempsey 2. [WWD]
• The first rule of working for fashion publicist Kelly Cutrone is: Do not blog about Kelly Cutrone. When the fashion publicist caught one of her summer interns — an NYU student, natch — writing about her online, she took the girl aside and said: "I'm going to sue the fuck out of your family if you don't take it down immediately and your college tuition is going to seem like a pittance after you face my wrath." [The Cut]
• Reebok is launching a maternity division for its NFL line. [WWD]
• Michelle Obama wore Lanvin yesterday, should you care. [The Cut]
• Brooke Burke, her fiancé, and her four kids, ages 1, 2, 7, and 9, are going to do a Skechers ad as one big happy family. No word on how much the clan nets. [WWD]
• Zac Posen did his part for Gen Art at the fashion incubator's fund-raiser Wednesday night. Also? Zac Posen is totally that guy at the art opening who'll say, "I like the Sol LeWitt technique put into something figurative..." [Style.com]
• Escada, the struggling fashion house who earlier this year announced its debt had risen to €187.6 million, and its cash on hand had dwindled to just €24.7 million, is about to launch the €200 million bond-exchange program the company hopes will raise it enough cash to emerge from this recession intact. Bondholders, starting Monday, will be encouraged to exchange their old bonds for new ones, at an early-bird rate of €400 in new bonds per €1,000 in old bonds previously held. (After July 14, the bond exchange will net bondholders €375 per €1,000 in debt.) The exchange will only go forward if 80% of bondholders agree to it, but the company says all the preconditions are set. Its two major shareholders, the billionaire brothers Wolfgang and Michael Herz, who together own 24.9% of Escada, are on board. [WWD]
• Hartmarx has won court approval to be sold to the private equity firm Emerisque Brands. Emerisque bid $128.4 million for the bankrupt men's clothier, and pledged to retain many of the company's 4,000, mostly Chicago-based, workers. Biggest creditor Wells Fargo bank had argued that Hartmarx should be liquidated to cover its $261 million debt. [NYTimes]
• Customs and Border Patrol seized 10,900 pairs of counterfeit Nike shoes off the docks in Los Angeles. The imitation shoes had a face value of $1.8 million. [WWD]

• Jennifer Lopez is getting out of the U.S. clothing business, closing her brand, Sweetface. In 2007, Lopez shuttered JLO, replacing it with Justsweet — which then closed after two seasons. It's tough out there for a wannabe fashion mogul. [WWD]

• However, you'll be happy to know that Lopez's Passionista lingerie range is still faring well enough to hire Ana Beatriz Barros for its campaign. [Sun]
• And yet the fall-back advertising strategy remains: if all else fails, throw celebrities at the problem of generating sales in this economy! OP has Sophia Bush, Brody Jenner, Solange Knowles, and a gaggle of other faces in its summer campaign. [People]
• Angelina Jolie takes it easy when it comes to dressing for the red carpet: "I don't think too much about what to wear on the red carpet. I usually have three basic colors and I get the same shapes in different colors!" [MyFashionLife]
  
• Heidi Klum's Barbie, launching this September, comes clad in a sequined mini-dress — and a gold pair of shoes heavily inspired by those Dior gladiator platforms everyone was wearing last summer. Is it still a knock-off if it's plastic and 1" tall? [PopBytes]
• Michelle Obama favored New York designer Rachel Roy with her sartorial selections in San Francisco. The First Lady wore a dress by the designer to attend a conference on volunteering. [The Cut]
• The first of the Michelle Obama style books are here. There's Michelle Style: Celebrating the First Lady of Fashion by Mandi Norwood, Michelle Obama: First Lady of Fashion and Style by Susan Swimmer, and, amazingly, even a Michelle Obama 2010 wall calendar dedicated to 20 glorious full-color pictures of her style. Shockingly, the "experts" agree: the lady dresses well. [USAToday]
• Alexander McQueen said he wouldn't do a runway show for his Spring 2010 men's wear collection, but would instead present his goods in some very special format that the fashion world has eagerly anticipated, McQueen being known for theatrics. Well! If you want to spend 2:19 minutes of your life watching a heavy-breathing pyromaniac in his underwear crawl around an abandoned mental hospital, draw on his own arm, compulsively build a house out of sticks, and slather himself with a brownish substance he then uses to write "Shit" on the wall, all while creepy music plays, now's your chance! Directed by David Sims. Dazed & Confused called it "a daring expedition into both the mind and the wardrobe of an artist." [AlexanderMcQueen]
• Jonathan Saunders is returning to London Fashion Week for the Spring 2010 collections. He had previously shown in New York. Burberry, Matthew Williamson, and Pringle of Scotland have all similarly announced their intentions to celebrate LFW's 25th anniversary by showing there. [UK Vogue]
• The two brothers accused of committing dozens of robberies, mainly on lone women, around London were convicted in court yesterday. Daniel Mykoo, 28, admitted 19 offenses, including choking fashion designer Nicole Farhi until she became unconscious, and stealing her rings and watch. Matthew Mykoo, 27, was convicted of seven attacks but cleared of another eight, including the one on Farhi. [Guardian]
• Vogue hasn't lost any time in replacing Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, the director of special events (a.k.a. the woman in charge of the Oscars of the East, the Met Costume Institute ball), who resigned last Thursday. Sylvana Soto-Ward, an accessories editor who started as Anna Wintour's assistant in 2003, will take the reins. [WWD]
• Yasmin Le Bon is behind a U.K. charity that aims to help children in Romanian orphanages. To support it, you can buy weekly £1 raffle tickets with a chance of winning bounty donated from sponsors. The prize for the first week is a £2,000 voucher from Net-A-Porter. [Times of London]
• 17-year-old fashion blogger Jane Aldridge of Sea of Shoes has a deal to sell her own shoes at Urban Outfitters. Three styles will be in stores next month, and three more will debut in December. Pricing information isn't yet available, but pictures are. (Ironically, to my eye, the heel-lover's flats are the best-looking pair.) [SeaOfShoes]
• And fashion designers think using Twitter will help their business. [WWD]
• Gildo Zegna, the chief executive of Ermenegildo Zegna, the Italian suit maker, says fashion talk of an economic recovery by spring next year is foolish. "I remain positive long term, but we have to be realistic about the crisis," said Zegna. "I think it will be longer than initially anticipated and marginal players are going to go out of business. We have the example of the banking system and the car industry. If it happened to them, it can happen in our business." Zegna just showed the younger, lower-priced line Z Zegna at Milan's men's wear week for the first time, and has aggressively expanded over the past few years in China, to the point where it now has 60 boutiques there and foresees China becoming a bigger market than the U.S. within the next 18 months. Zegna also believes luxury's next great frontier will be Africa. "Look how the Chinese are investing in Africa — they are smart." Did we just hear the future of fashion articulated by one of the industry's oldest names? [NY Times]
• Struggling Abercrombie & Fitch is opening a 40,000 square foot flagship mega store for its Hollister brand in New York. [WWD]
• Chinese counterfeiters are shipping products with fake "Made in India" labels. The ultimate blame-the-other-emerging-economy dodge. [Hindustan Times]

• 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]

• Michelle Obama wore tidy Thakoon in D.C., and vivid yellow Jason Wu in London. New York Times fashion critic Cathy Horyn wonders what it all means. [On The Runway]

• I love it when the Brits write authoritative, informative articles that get — how would they say it? — pipped at the fact-checking post. The New York Topshop store's opening party may take place tomorrow at 11 a.m., Kate Moss may be there live in person, there may be scones and jam and DJs, and there may be capsule collections from Preen, Richard Nicoll, Jonathan Saunders, and the latest Kate Moss line, but whatever you do, do not turn up for the party in "midtown Manhattan, one of the big apple's busiest, buzziest retail districts." The store's on Broadway near Broome St. That's in a part of town we like to call "SoHo." Yes, we know London has one as well, albeit spelled differently, but trust us, that's where the store is. [Telegraph]
• Those French sure know from populist outrage. François-Henri Pinault, the head of luxury goods multinational PPR (and Salma Hayek's hubby) was surrounded in his car by a crowd of angry workers for the better part of an hour. Pinault was trying to leave a meeting with the European workers' council. PPR, which owns brands including Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, and Bottega Veneta, announced plans to cut 1200 jobs recently. And, in a scene right out of Tout Va Bien, three Sony executives were held hostage by laid off workers at a factory the company closed in the south of France a few weeks back. [WWD]
• "Nicole is designing everything herself," says Nicole Richie's business partner, who is apparently unaware of Richie's well-publicized deal with jewelry designer Pascal Mouawad, who does the actual work on her House of Harlow 1960 line. Planning world domination of the accessories trade, Richie announced her intention to "design" bags, belts, and shoes for spring 2010. [People]
• Is Richard Chai going to be the new creative director of the revived Bill Blass? New owners Peacock Holdings are adamant Bill Blass will be on the New York runways come September, but they are staying tight-lipped about their choice of designer, despite the rumors that Chai is heavily favored. The reason for the odd delay in Peacock's next move, despite its stated intention of reviving the bankrupt line following its acquisition of the label from previous owners NexCen, is a six-month embargo period that was a term of purchase. [FWD]
• Resort shows are bearing the recession's bite: Gucci, which showed its cruise collection on the runway in both New York and Rome last year, is doing a mere presentation. Dior, which had a mega-show in New York last time around, isn't going to show at all. That's right. Christian Dior canceled its resort show. Chanel will have nothing of this; Karl Lagerfeld is going ahead with a lavish resort show at Venice's Lido Beach. WWD doesn't give any details about Céline's plans — Resort 09 is supposed to be Phoebe Philo's hotly anticipated industry re-entry after her years spent raising her family far from the madding crowd. If Celine scales back its resort show, then Philo's return won't look half as big a deal as it really is. [WWD]
• The latest images from Britney Spears' Candie's campaign are in, and, folks, it's a Photoshop of Horrors. [Daily Mail]
• Hayden Christensen is in an ad for a Lacoste men's perfume. He's shown reaching up for the bottle, a searching look in his eyes. [JustJared]
• Martha Stewart's shareholders might regard with interest the fact that, while Martha Stewart Omnimedia's stock price, at $2.50, has declined 67% on one year ago, Stewart's personal compensation more than doubled between 2007 and 2008, from $2.06 million to $5.4 million. (Other executives at the company's salaries declined.) Martha's daughter, Alexis Stewart, earned $209,000 for her work on the show "Whatever, Martha!" while her co-host, Jennifer Koppelman Hutt, got $130,000. Nepotism truly is priceless in this town. [WWD]
• Fashionista road-tested three sulfate-free shampoos — they're better for the environment, and your hair — and unfortunately fell for the expensive French one. I know that pain. Once I scored a gigantic bottle of Frédéric Fekkai conditioner after doing an unusually brutal hair job, and I trudged around the world with it for almost a year. Then I ripped off the label, so I could find the product again, and carried that around for months. When I finally found it, it cost $60 or something. I didn't buy it and my hair has never been as shiny and tangle-free since. [Fashionista]
• Speaking of Fashionista, a little bird tells me that editor Natalie Hormilla is leaving the site to pursue unknown other projects. We certainly wish her well.

(Click on any image to begin gallery)

Earlier: We Love Cheap Stuff But Fast Fashion Is Hard To Defend

• Like everyone in Fashion, Vogue Editor at XL Andre Leon Talley has many opinions, feels they should be heard. "Asked how Americans can still look fabulous despite the recession, Talley said, 'Wear something old that you love' until Election Day. 'Then, vote for Barack Obama, who'll fix the economy.'" [NY Daily News]
• Most depressing/embarrassing WSJ video ever. "Guy" reporter goes to the Mall of America and interviews people about Republican style. [WSJ]
• Beloved former Chloe brain Phoebe Philo snapped up by Celine! [WWD]
• Nastia Liukin is so over gymnastics. The gold medalist, who's gonna be front and center at Fashion Week, is launching a line. "The five foot three athlete is working with Vanilla Star jeans on launching Nastia Liukin Gold jeans and tops for holiday sales. She is also in talks to design a line of activewear for GK, the company that makes her leotards, which she designs with her mom." [NY Mag]

• Chanel boycotts Russia because of Georgian situation...?! Oh, wait, no, the conflict just meant they couldn't get the venue they wanted. "A Chanel spokeswoman said the decision to nix Moscow was made in July before the crisis in Georgia as the company could not secure the venue it wanted in the Russian capital." [WWD]
• Crasher alert! "A man calling himself "Tom Klein" has been infiltrating chic soirees, claiming he works for Women's Wear Daily. This Klein character got caught when he tried to get on the list for last night's Gossip Girl party at the Empire Hotel, hosted by Dior Beauty, a source said. The crasher, claiming to be a senior editor at Fairchild Media, sends e-mails from a fake address. A WWD spokeswoman told Page Six, 'He is not an employee of Fairchild or Condé Nast.'" [P6]
• Here's how to deal with the recession: Meet the new status phones! "Constructed of precious metals, studded with diamonds and other jewels, and wrapped in exotic leathers, they have struck a chord among the small group of people who can afford them—namely, millionaires and celebrities." [BusinessWeek]
• Banana Republic courts Details readers...or the other way around? Are they different? "Beginning Wednesday through Sept. 17, each retail location will have extensive in-store magazine branding with "look cards," store displays, signage and fitting room signs. Bananarepublic.com will host a microsite with more style tips from Details and special offers from the retailer." [WWD]
• Stefano Pilati's beautiful YSL fashion look book being ignored because it's in a free tote. "When the news hit the fashion blogs last week, it was all about the cute bag, not the amazing images of Naomi Campbell, photographed by Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin. To think, a real ‘It’ bag, for free, considering a Muse starts around $1,395. And, on the handout, the YSL logo is fetchingly printed upside down." [NYT]
• For those of us who already can't afford Tracy Reese, the news of her new, high-end line will not come as a joyful surprise. [WWD]
• Uniqlo might be bringing its cheap cashmere to India, Russia. [WSJ]
• What recession? H&M expands. Says the CEO, "Our strategy is based on the concept of fashion and quality at the best price...It helps us stay balanced even during economic downturns." [Business Week]
• Apparently, fashionistas have no qualms about fast fashion! Reports a Racked spy,"I was in the Forever21 in Soho and heard the one of the managers tell her staff in a meeting to 'look out' and 'be prepared' for stylists, editors and celebrities coming this week for Fashion Week." [Racked]
• Todd Oldham admits his show Top Design kind of blows. Okay, not really. "I would not want to be a contestant on this show at all," he says. "It's just too brutal. I said it before, but this is the only show I know on TV that is a thousand times harder than what it looks. It was way, way harder than what it looked like." [Breitbart]
• Designer and glamorous eccentric Isabel Toledo feted by the fashion elite: "A drag queen performed a cabaret homage to Ms. Toledo—"Isabel, you've chaaaaanged!"—which featured the word "motherfucker." Then Emcee Simon Doonan, of Barney's...narrated a slideshow of Ms. Toledo's life, from 'the Cuban Revolution to this incredibly un-Communist luncheon.'" [Observer]
• The Hef effect? "At New York fashion week, which kicks off Friday, designers including Phillip Lim, Michael Bastian and Tim Hamilton are expected to show a number of pajama-inspired clothes that are meant to be worn in broad daylight. The looks include colored piping on jackets and shirts, spread-open pajama collars, soft, unpadded jackets that hang loosely off the shoulders — and, of course, voluminous drawstring pants." [WSJ]
• Jonathan Saunders for Target might be awesome. Why must they tempt us with their fast fashion?! [Fabsugar]
• "With casual sweaters and sharp suits in shades of black, white and grey, Ji Wenbo became the first Chinese designer to showcase a collection at Japan's Fashion Week in a bid to woo customers in fashion-savvy Tokyo." [Reuters]
• With fashion in transition, we lack a Savior: "Still, there is no world-beater. There are no names that suggest clear-cut potential both to reshape fashion and somehow with it the global culture of style. There is no one, to take the obvious example, likely to replace Yves Saint Laurent, who died in June and seemingly took with him not merely a genius for conjuring glamour from whole cloth, but also for draping his designs to suit the mood of his time." [NYT]
• The New York Observer throws its pink hat into the fashion-glossy ring with Observer Style, "a semiannual magazine due to make its debut Nov. 16 and focused on the local fashion scene." [WWD]
• Carlos Miele is expecting a baby. "Insiders" say it's a boy called Leonardo. The item is titled, "stork to bring stylish baby." [P6]

• Isaac Mizrahi is defecting from Target to join Tim Gunn at Liz Claiborne. [Maybe they will post a YouTube video of themselves doing lunch at the company salad bar so Jennie can use it for porn! -Moe] This is supposed to be a big "blow" to Target, but Claiborne can use all the help it can get. [NYT]
  
• Keith Richards is the new face of Louis Vuitton. It was Marc's idea, of course. It's like post-post-sharkjumpism or something. [WWD, 1st item]
  
• Designer Diane von Furstenberg on Hillary Clinton: "I support Hillary because I believe she will do the best job in the White House. I do know her a little and like her very much. She is intelligent, diligent, micro and macro, and she truly cares." [WWD, 2nd item]

• Kenneth Cole is not returning to the runways anytime soon because he doesn't feel "runway ready," or just can't bother justifying the expense to his shareholders, or whatevs. [WWD, 1st item]
• Hilary Duff is set to launch her second fragrance, With Love. (More apt name: With Greed.) [BellaSugar]
• Paris' infamous boutique Colette, which, depending on your point of view, is the most pretentious/awesome store in all the universe, is partnering with H&M to carry the cheap chain's Fashion Against AIDS collection, the first time H&M has allowed another retailer to stock its merchandise. The line includes design collaborations with famous designers like The Cardigans, Ziggy Marley, Rihanna, Good Charlotte, Jade Jagger, My Chemical Romance, Rufus Wainwright, the Scissor Sisters, and Timbaland. [Fashion Week Daily]

• Target might have lost Isaac to Liz Claiborne, but it looks like they're about to gain the designing powers of hot English designer Jonathan Saunders for the GO International line. [Vogue UK]
• Juliette Binoche is selling Lancome now. [Chic Report]
• And Diesel is selling bed linens now! [WWD, sub req'd]
• Christian Louboutin and his red-undersided shoes will be the sole focus of an upcoming exhibit at the Museum at FIT in New York. [Fashion Week Daily]
• Neiman Marcus commercials from 1985! [Sassybella]
• Laura Ashley to take over Moss Brothers? [NYT]
• Burberry: Stock might be dropping, but revenues are rising. Oh, the chavs. Gotta love 'em. [WWD, sub req'd]

• Miramax mogul Harvey Weinstein and Marchesa co-designer Georgina Chapman got hitched on Saturday night at Weinstein's home in Westport, CT. The bride wore Marchesa, the groom Tom Ford, the Gypsy Kings gave a private concert and even Vogue's Anna Wintour attended. Also there: Model Natalia Vodianova, celebrity stylist Rachel Zoe, Renée Zellweger, Jennifer Lopez, Marc Anthony, Anne Hathaway and Cameron Diaz (all of whom, sadly, need no further introduction). [WWD, 1st item]
  
• Chapman designed not one but two gowns for her wedding: One for the ceremony and one for the reception. Modest! [GlamChic]
  
• This year's CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fun big winner Rogan Gregory is rumored to be the next designer to do a collection for Target, thus confirming Moe's theory that designers go straight from Vogue to the red bullseye, lovingly guided by Anna Wintour herself. [WWD, 2nd item]

• God bless Valentino. The man denied his retirement for an eternity, then announced he was retiring, then threw himself a giant party for the anniversary of his label, and now — just for good measure — he is being honored by the mayor of Paris with an honorary citizenship to the city. [Fashion Week Daily]
• Victoria Beckham's "V-Sculpt' make-up line scares us even more than Victoria Beckham's sculpted boobs. [BellaSugar]
• Oh Lord: Who would want Tara Reid to be the face of anything? Yet alone "sleepwear." [Sassybella]
• High Grant ex/English socialite Jemima Khan has designed a charm bracelet to benefit some charitable cause. The charms on the bracelet represent the five major world religions. Says Khan of her design, "I have been personally connected to the three Abrahamic religions: Judaism through my paternal grandfather, Christianity through my mother, and Islam through my marriage and my children." Well doesn't that make her special! [Fashion Week Daily]
• All that talk about Vivienne Westwood moving her show back to London from Paris? Sorta bullshit. Westwood will only be showing her secondary line, Red Label, in Mother England. The eponymous shit will still show en Paris. [Vogue UK]
• YSL designer Stefano Pilati has decided that runway shows and scary and impersonal so he will be showing the YSL menswear collection in a presentation and a private dinner this season instead. Touching is permitted. [Fashion Week Daily]
• Oh no! Another cryptic e-mail from ELLE's Gilles Bensimon! Really, someone please stage an intervention and soon. [Fashion Week Daily]
• Another reason to love/loathe Topshop: Launching collections ''collaborated" on by English designers Jonathan Saunders, Louise Goldin, Christopher Kane, Marios Schwab, Todd Lynn and Richard Nicoll starting in mid-January. [WWD, 5th item]
• Herve Leger is back! And now designed under the Max Azria label. Um, ok? [WWD, 4th item]