• Alexa Chung has been named British Vogue's best-dressed for her "quirky sense of style." Also: Audrey Tautou, Freida Pinto, and Emma Watson. [ThisIsLondon]
• She's "deposed" Kate Moss, now "relegated to 10th place, only one spot ahead of Lady Gaga." [Telegraph]

• The magazine says the list was given "in no particular order," but whatevs, they totally put Alexa first on purpose. [Vogue UK]
• Speaking of Lady Gaga, she is making a guest appearance on Bravo's new replacement for Project Runway, Launch My Line. After dropping in on the aspiring designers — and scaring the pants off them, we don't doubt, see what we did there? — they learn that their weekly challenge will be to create outfits inspired by the Lady and "make sure they are pushing the boundaries of fashion without crossing the line of good taste." Since when has Lady G cared about good taste? We thought her thing was more to épater les bourgeois. [The Cut]
• Actresses and actors attending the Screen Actors Guild and Golden Globe Awards, consider yourselves on notice: Joan Rivers is doing Fashion Police segments this year. Yay! [Stylelist]
• Gisele Bündchen and Tom Brady have decided to name their two-week-old son Benjamin. [Vogue UK]
• Says Copyranter of the disturbing new Lanvin ad featuring photographer Inez can Lamsweerde in bloody red body paint, "this could be the start of a new zombie trend for 2010." Well, that or "first-year med school." [Copyranter]
• Oh, Daily Mail: "Shamed supermodel Sophie Anderton was held overnight after making a drunken scene at a London railway station." After attempting to board the Eurostar from the wrong station, Anderton, who has been described as "embattled" more than once, apparently made a scene, actually uttered the words "don't you know who I am?" and was arrested for being drunk and disorderly. [DailyMail]
• Abbey Lee Kershaw says that she, Natasha Poly, and Sasha Pivovarova took one look at Alexander McQueen's 12"-tall alien shoes and politely declined to walk in his show. Kershaw has had several runway mishaps in her short international career: platforms caused her to fall at Rodarte in September of 2008, a stumble at the same show six months later injured her knee and left her unable to walk for the rest of the season, and she fainted on McQueen's runway due to a tightly laced corset. Good to know she has her health in mind after those close calls. [Fashionologie]
• Speaking of the health vs. vanity paradigm, a woman in England had an allergic reaction to an eyelash tinting procedure — one she apparently had undergone regularly — that left her eyes swollen shut. She feared she would lose her sight and was rushed to the hospital. After 14 days of treatment with antihistamines and antibiotics, her face and eyes are still swollen, and she has had to take time off work. The salon gave her a refund but accepts no responsibility for her injuries. [Daily Mail]
• High-end retailers claim they are trying something really novel this holiday season: being nice to shoppers. Complimentary champagne, sending thank-you notes to customers, and even designer Dennis Basso himself playing shopboy: these are all strategies that department stores and boutiques are trying after a consultant performed a year-long study that determined service at pricey stores was no better than that at Ace Hardware or Lowe's. At Bergdorf Goodman, the doormen are nicer than ever — because the old ones were fired "when we found the ones we were using weren't as friendly as we wanted them to be." Happy holidays! [NYTimes]
• For its part, Macy's is keeping 12 New York-area stores open 24 hours until 6 p.m. tomorrow. Nothing says "I love you, Uncle Gary," like a box of seasonal socks you pluck from the display at 4:30 a.m. [WWD]
• Lacoste would like you to know that it is going to spend $500,000 over the next three years to try and save an endangered crocodile. Perhaps news of this relatively modest charitable investment will spur you to think fondly of its crocodile logo, and buy an item of clothing with it on it this holiday season? [WWD]
• "Project White T-Shirt" is, yes, another ts-for-charity project, but in this case the results may be purchased for reason other than philanthropy: the 31 contributors, including "Andrea Crews, Bruno Pieters, Pelican Avenue, Slow and Steady Wins the Race, Daniel Palillo and other contemporary avant-gardists" were chosen for their creativity, and the results will be exhibited around the world before being auctioned for Designers Against Aids. [DazedDigital]
• Topshop's London Fashion Week designer collaboration project is brilliant: once again, the high-street innovator will present budget capsule collections with fashion week designers like Jonathan Saunders and Ann-Sofie Back. The way of the future? [Telegraph]
• The first preview for Beyoncé's fragrance, Heat! It shows her in what looks like a Russian bath-house, singing Peggy Lee. [JustJared]
• And speaking of celebrity scents: Danica Patrick has one. It's called Danica. Insert diesel fuel joke. [WWD]
• And speaking of previews: In case you didn't get the memo, Project Runway is back in New York. Like, really, aggressively, back in New York. [BloggingProjectRunway]
• On Sunday, various royals and fashion royals came out to watch the premiere of Karl Lagerfeld's film Sergei, Misia, Coco et Les Autres…100 Ans de Ballets Russes, Chanel et ‘Le Train Bleu. "Guests were given two dance-inspired Lagerfeld picture books, entitled "Sergei, Misia, Coco et Les Autres" and "Les Nijinsky." [WWD]
• Lifetsyle brand Le Tigre put up this charmer of a billboard on Manhattan's West Side Highway yesterday: "Golf Needs a Tiger: Let's Get Back on Course." In case you're wondering, yes, Le Tigre is owned by punmeister Kenneth Cole. [WWD]
• "When I was asked as a child what I wanted to be, I'd say, 'I want to be rich, I want to be famous, I want to live in the big city, I want to have a fabulous life'," says Tom Ford. "All I've done my entire life is fulfil my destiny." Thoughts? [Independent]

• Eva Longoria's perfume ad is a total Photoshop of Horrors. "I have always been somewhat allergic to all perfumes," admitted the actress. The scent was produced with the Falic Group, the company that recently shuttered Christian Lacroix. Priorities. [WWD]

• Phi, the edgy, six-year-old New York-based label, is closing its doors due to the recession. The spring collection shown at fashion week in September will not go into production; the pre-spring collection that just shipped will be Phi's last. Founder Susan Dell is the wife of tech billionaire Michael Dell; it's perhaps a little odd that she didn't want to reinvest to keep the widely acclaimed company afloat. Thirty-five employees learned they were losing their jobs yesterday; the C.E.O. says there will be a warehouse sale in January. [WWD]
• P. Diddy even gave Madame Tussaud's a bottle of his "I Am King" cologne with which to douse his new wax figure, for verisimilitude. [Spoiled Pretty]
• The four stars of Sex And The City will each get their own cover of Marie Claire, but that's absolutely not because they can't stand to be in one room together. [NYDN]
• A New Zealand fashion blogger who was invited to the America's Next Top Model Cycle 14 finale runway show — which took place last week in Auckland — but didn't go posted a shot of the invitation. Turns out Anna Sui is the featured designer. [IsaacLikes]
• "She already has a great handbag collection. She has a mirrored Fendi bag. And she'll say things like, 'I'm not going to wear that any more.' She has really good style as well. She knows what she likes and I can't force her to wear anything she doesn't, which is annoying sometimes. But now I rarely go shopping without her. She tells me what she doesn't like or she'll say: 'Mummy, you look nice' or 'that dress is amazing!' She's got it." Kate Moss, on daughter Lila Grace, 7. [Company via Daily Express]
• Agyness Deyn maybe made out with a dude at a club during Saturday night's snowstorm. Hot. [P6]
• "Giving back" is one way to characterize guest judging Project Runway, Catherine Malandrino. "I can give good advice and be an inspiration for the next generation. I think everyone in life needs direction and models." [HoustonChronicle]
• Thakoon Panichgul unveiled his first jewelry collection for the Japanese pearl brand Tasaki. It features lots of big pearls on rods. Prices range from about $6,000 to just under $40,000. [WWD]
• CFDA Award winner Sophie Théallet — whose dresses Michelle Obama has worn on more than one occasion — followed a traditional route into the industry, working for well over a decade in Paris and New York for established designers before founding her own label. (It became faddish during the 2000s to proclaim your design vision to the world immediately upon graduation from fashion school, à la Proenza Schouler, or even after dropping out, à la Alex Wang.) Jean-Paul Gaultier and Azzedine Alaïa were among her employers. "Gaultier taught me to stop at nothing and Alaia gave a taste for rigor," says Théallet, now based in Brooklyn. [Telegraph]
• Vivienne Westwood's wallpaper collection features her signature loud prints. [Vogue UK]
• A Racked tipster thinks this "Italian Appeal" store has a logo that looks too similar to the American Apparel trademark. We don't quite see it. [Racked]
• Karl Lagerfeld designed a doll with a spectacularly ugly dress, and a life-sized matching dress for little girls. They cost $315 and $1,190, respectively. Part of the proceeds will go to Carla Bruni-Sarkozy's charity. [WWD]
• In ten years of operation, online discounter Bluefly.com has never turned a profit. For the quarter ended September 30, its sales fell 14% on the same period last year, despite overall rising online sales this year. It is receiving a $15 million investment from Rho Ventures, and is reducing its inventory. [WWD]

• Jessica Simpson's swimwear line is here! Simpson says it's inspired by the jet-setting getaways she dreams about. [Stylelist]
• Since snow ruined the last shopping weekend before Christmas for the Northeast, expect stores to offer extended hours and other enticements. [WWD]

• In September, a hacker allegedly accessed Condé Nast's server and downloaded 1,100 files. Two months later, the blog Fashionzag posted some of the stolen content: five alternate covers of the December issue of GQ, and pages from Vogue, Teen Vogue, and Lucky. The company is suing to determine the identity of the blogger behind Fashionzag, and for unspecified damages. [WWD]
• Rodarte's line for Target is still available at many stores in a full range of sizes, but many pieces are sold out online, leading to the inevitable eBay price-gouging. [Racked]
• UK Elle is reporting a rumor that Taylor Momsen, of Gossip Girl fame, might be the new face of the fast fashion chain New Look. [UK Elle]
• Meanwhile, the show's costume designer, Eric Daman, says "statement bracelets" and painterly prints are going to be big trends next year. You know he can make it happen. [NYPost]
• Karl Lagerfeld made a kind of cute little film where Lara Stone and Baptiste Giabiconi are two well-dressed shoplifters who make off with all the goods they want from Paris area Chanel boutiques. If it only included getaway shots — the couple jumps on a Chanel motorbike, natch — it would be adorable, but Lagerfeld just can't resist moving the camera inside for some lingering dressing-room inaction, which, combined with the man's execrable sense of pacing, bogs the whole thing down. [SB]
• Why, oh why, must a fabulous-sounding photography book called Backstage Dior by the legendary backstage photographer Roxanne Lowit cost $125? Sigh. [NYTimes]
• Vivienne Westwood is launching a denim line! Unfortunately, it will cost at least as much as that book. [WWD]
• Tag Heuer will not run any ads featuring Tiger Woods in the U.S. market for the near future. [CBS]
• However, Woods will remain a face of the brand, the company stresses. [WWD]
• Oscar de la Renta won back the rights to his own fragrance license from L'Oréal, after an 18-month legal battle. [WWD]
• Did Claudia Schiffer receive special treatment on the stricken Eurostar whose engine failed just after the train emerging on the English side of the Channel tunnel? Other passengers are reporting that they saw a car drive right up to the train and collect the model, who frequently travels first-class on Eurostar between London and Paris on business. [Telegraph]
• Balenciaga is suing Steve Madden for allegedly copying its 2007 "Sportiletto" shoe. [Cityfile]
• Loïc Prigent, one of our favorite fashion documentarians, made a six-episode series, Habillees, about the search for new French design talent. And he captured Anna Wintour disparaging France's support for the next generation of designers: "I think it's totally important for all of us in the American fashion industry to support the young designers, and I think that's why New York's become such a vibrant fashion center, because people go there not only to see the Donna Karans of the world but a whole new generation. I'm just so sorry that there isn't something like that in Paris that's similar. I think that they should look for the younger generation here [in Paris] as well. Not only New York but London really supports their young talent; Franca Sozzani at Italian Vogue supports the young Italian designers, and I think when France is so known for its fashion industry — for them not to be reaching out to help younger people today is really a shame." Although New York and London each have cash awards and mentorships available to some of their young designers, to say that Franca Sozzani single-handedly puts emerging Italian designers on the map is rather a stretch. Which gives the impression this was a meandering way to get in a dig at Carine Roitfeld. [Fashionologie]
• It's the American way to turn nurturing emerging talent into mass entertainment. Robin Givhan dedicates her weekly column to Christian Siriano, who is now three collections out from winning Project Runway. [WaPo]
• Australians are apparently surprised that Louis Vuitton has found a way to sell a plain old polyamide/elastane bikini — and not even a cute one — for over a thousand dollars. [News.com.au]
• Meanwhile, we have to contend with $2,995 custom-made Proenza Schouler surfboards. And it's not even summer up here. [NYTimes]

The way Stone is talked about in this Vogue story — cover line "When Size 4 Is Too Big: A Curvy Model's Struggle To Fit In" — you'd almost think she was a plus-size model instead of a girl with the highly typical (for a straight-size model) measurements 33"-24"-35". Writes Rebecca Johnson:

'What they say is 'curvy,' but you know they mean fat," says Lara Stone, who is Dutch and so soft-spoken, you have to lean forward to hear what she's saying. However, she enunciates that word — fat — clearly and forcefully, as if it were caught at the back of her throat. The word hovers over the din of the hotel lobby where we are seated in downtown Manhattan, laced with irony and just a tinge of bitterness.

So that's 11 rather straightforward words from Stone, and 59 words from Vogue about what Stone said. (I guess when a word, having at last dislodged itself from the subject's throat, literally flies out of her mouth and floats in the air of a hotel lobby, it requires special treatment. Did she fling her arms in the air, too, Vogue? Because limb amputation sounds almost as painful as reading that sentence!) Anyway:

Worse than being called fat is a gaggle of stylists whispering in a corner after you've been trying on clothes for ten minutes. "That," she says, "is when I know I'm about to be canceled."

And even now that her position in fashion's firmament ought to be secure, given she has earned Karl Lagerfeld's favor, worked with the world's top photographers, and been on multiple covers of British, French, and American Vogue, she still encounters narrow-minded folks who make her feel like "the odd one out." "I was on a shoot just last week," Stone told Johnson, "and the stylist took out this tight corset dress and said, 'Here, put it on,' and I was like, 'Who are you kidding?' There was no way, so that was very rude of her. It's like, come on, she's a woman; whether you're buying jeans at the mall or wearing couture, you know what it's like for clothes not to fit. It's not an easy kind of rejection, because it's very personal. It's you, your body. You take it to heart."

What I guess a lot of people don't realize is that modeling is just manual labor with fancier clothes. The work is deeply bodily, and therefore the division between you and your work dissolves: everything you wear, how you present yourself, how you walk, every product you put on your face, every haircut, and, mostly, everything you put in your mouth, impacts your career. It is automatically a professional choice, not a personal one. There is no meaningful work/life balance, because your body is your work. Of course, women outside of the modeling industry have long been told that their bodies need to be their "work," too: that we all need to obsess over our arms and abs and thighs and do 30 squats on our lunch breaks and always take the stairs and use the Shake Weight and join gyms and buy athleticwear and Lose 12 lbs Before Sunday. It's just that for models, these imperatives are professional. Living is work. And that can kinda mess with your head.

Stone herself, being unable to budge from what must be her set point weight range with diet and exercise, began taking pills to lose inches. "But they made my heart race," she reports. So she started drinking. Nobody noticed, and her work didn't suffer, but soon she was waking up with the shakes. Stone did a month of rehab in January — the longest she'd spent in one place at a stretch in the two years since her career kicked into hyperdrive, she told British Vogue — and has not had a drink since.

What is elided in these kinds of stories that trumpet Lara Stone's "curves" and proclaim her to be a size 4 — because we all know clothing sizes are meaningful and consistent nation-wide standards, oh wait — is that Stone differs so barely, so incredibly tinily merely, so very little, from the accepted size standard for fashion models. She is slightly shorter, at 5'7", than most runway models, and her measurements are well within fashion's preferred range. While it's undeniable that she has a slightly different body shape than most models, her size is entirely typical of the industry. (Technically, her stated hip measurement, 35", is about 1" larger than the 34" it "should" be for her to model, but there are dozens of other models who have worked, and done the show circuit, with hips of Stone's size.) It's all well and good to call her the "curvy" model, and it is obvious from her runway work and every nude shoot she's ever done that Stone has breasts. When she slings one hip out, like for the photo accompanying this Vogue story, sure, she can indeed look kind of voluptuous. (When she doesn't, she doesn't: Would you call her the "curvy" one in this Givenchy campaign?) These stories never make clear that Stone veers from the accepted modeling standards only every so slightly, and that booking her for a shoot or a campaign is not some revolutionary act of body diversity. If anything, the fact that she is seen as a different kind of model for her size is the ultimate indictment of the fashion industry's standards. But Vogue would never make that point.

An item on Fashionista this morning points to two actual plus-size models, Crystal Renn and Amy Lemons, who are both busy working in Europe. Renn — whose struggle with anorexia and exercise bulimia is documented in her recently released memoir, Hungry — apparently went blonde for a shoot for Italian Vanity Fair, and Lemons, who also began her career as a straight-size model, is working for French Elle with the photographer Tesh. Her spread is apparently over 30 pages, and includes cover tries. Lara Stone is a fantastic model. I love a lot of her work. But seeing a plus-size model on the cover of a major fashion magazine, now that would be a real sign of change. Yes, plus-size models are still models, and the fashion industry still makes its money presenting women with images to aspire to that are, for most, unattainable and unrealistic. But if we can change the parameters of the beauty standard even just enough to accommodate tall, enviably proportioned young women who don't have 23" waists, then I'd still call that progress of a kind.

Fittingly, Fashionista asks: Italian Vanity Fair and French Elle are great, but where are the U.S. magazines? Aside from Glamour's admirable commitment to using plus-size models consistently in fashion spreads from issue to issue, and V's forthcoming January special issue, what is going at American Vogue, Elle, and Harper's Bazaar? Will we see a plus-size model in a fashion spread in an American magazine that isn't trudging through the clichés of its obligatory annual Love Your Shape issue? I have a feeling — call it blogger's intuition — that it might happen sooner than you think.

Hello, Gorgeous [Style.com]
The Tides Are Turning [Fashionista]

Earlier: Model Crystal Renn On Self-Acceptance, Size, & The Fashion Industry

"Big, little, pint-size, plus-size — every body is beautiful. And this issue is out to prove it."

V Magazine launched in 1999, and usually alternates between celebrity covers (Brad Pitt, Lady Gaga, Grace Jones) and model covers, as seen below:






But for V's January issue, expect to see Crystal Renn (that's her, at the top of the post, in a shot from the May 2009 issue of Glamour) and other plus-size models, shot by Terry Richardson, Bruce Weber and Karl Lagerfeld.

Some problems:

• Lagerfeld, you may recall, once said: "No one wants to see curvy women. You've got fat mothers with their bags of chips sitting in front of the television and saying that thin models are ugly."
• Since V usually uses "regular" models — especially for its "beauty issue," how does a one-off plus-size issue "prove" that "every body is beautiful"?
• Much like when Italian Vogue did an "all-black issue," the flipside of highlighting one kind of model in a "special" issue is that they're actually being segregated, placed in a ghetto, away from the other "real" models.
• This is mentioned often on this site, but worth repeating: A plus-size model is not the same as a plus-sized woman. A "plus-size model" is a model who is at least 5'9" but has measurements above the requirements for "straight size" models, which are, roughly, 34-24-34. Basically, a plus size model could be a US size 8, 10 or 12, despite the fact that those sizes are not considered "plus" by clothing manufacturers, So they don't exactly represent plus-sized women.

[Main image by Patrick Demarchelier for Glamour.]

It's not terribly surprising to see, after Vogue Paris's noble flag-bearing effort to make blackface directional, the white model, black makeup look become a trend worth imitating. In this case, the online magazine Tangent chose to one-up Carine Roitfeld and Steven Klein by opting not just for a blackface fashion spread, but a blackface cover. The cover image has apparently leaked ahead of its publication date, because Tangent's website still features Issue 1's cover. But this picture was shot by the magazine and intended for use.

Does Harry Connick, Jr., need to come explain it to you again, Australia?

Meanwhile, there is a near-complete absence of any actual Asian people acting the Asian roles in Karl Lagerfeld's just-released movie, Paris-Shanghai. The film relates a journey Coco Chanel takes around China: visiting workers in the 1960s, dropping in on Marlene Dietrich in the 1940s, gambling with Wallis Simpson in the 1920s, being received by the Empress Dowager and her adopted son, presumably sometime before 1898, when she put him under house arrest. And then Coco wakes up and it was all a dream. Actually, it's worse than that, because you see her falling asleep on her office couch after the conclusion of the interminable opening scene, so you know even going into it that it's going to be one of those just-a-dream endings. There, I just saved you 23 minutes.

The plotting is trite, the acting atrocious — Edita Vilkeviciute, as young Coco Chanel, seemingly makes no attempt to hide her thick Lithuanian accent, and Heidi Mount, as Dietrich, gets peevish and sulks like a bored American teenager — and between the tedious pacing and Lagerfeld's failure to indicate what exactly is going on whenever something minorly climactic does occur, it's a hard film to get through. (Turns out Lagerfeld's genius reaches its limit where the task of making beautiful and effective moving images begins.)

What unfolds is a classic orientalist narrative that treats China as the interesting backdrop to an intrigue motivated by and created for white Europeans. No mention is made of the various upheavals that were actually going on in China during the early part of the 20th Century — like, uh, the end of the monarchy, the struggle for unification, and the Civil War — or of the 1960s, the period of the Cultural Revolution. In 1923, Sun Yat-Sen proclaimed the Three Principles of the People as the basis of the modern Chinese state, and Mikhail Borodin arranged the first Soviet arms deals with China — but the year is represented in the film by a craps table back-and-forth about palm reading between Chanel and Simpson. Lagerfeld told Women's Wear Daily his film "is about the idea of China, not the reality. It has the spirit of, and is inspired by, but is unrelated to China." Far easier indeed to investigate your own "idea" of a country than to contend with the reality of it as a place in itself.

But what is most worthy of note is Lagerfeld's consistent choice of European actors to play Chinese roles. This is obviously intentional. "It is an homage to Europeans trying to look Chinese," says Lagerfeld. "Like in The Good Earth, the people in the movie liked the idea that they had to look like Chinese. Or like actors in Madame Butterfly. People around the world like to dress up as different nationalities."

WWD calls it like it is: yellow face. The Empress Dowager is played by Lagerfeld's longtime muse, the Briton Amanda Harlech. Her son is played by Lagerfeld's latest boy-toy, Baptiste Giabiconi, an Italian. Giabiconi, in an earlier scene, plays a Chinese peasant alongside the Dane Freja Beha Erichsen. Erichsen then pops up in the gambling scene, as the "Chinese Courtesan":

There are a handful of Asian actors who warrant small roles. Tao Okamoto, a model who is, incidentally, Japanese, gets about two minutes of screen time as Anna May Wong, the actress who played opposite Dietrich in Shanghai Express. Some of the men in background scenes, and the train conductor, are Asian. But what the sight of Erichsen and Giabiconi in their various Chinese roles conjures most for me is this:

Image of Mr. Yunioshi via Hokubei

Will Tangent Be Left Red-Faced By 'Blackface' Cover? [Imelda]
Karl Lagerfeld Talks Shanghai And Fashion [WWD]
Chanel Paris-Shanghai Part I [YouTube]
Chanel Paris-Shanghai Part II [YouTube]
Chanel Paris-Shanghai Part III [YouTube]

[Shanghai, December 3. Image via Getty.]

A model displays an outfit by German-born fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld during the Chanel Paris Shanghai fashion show in Shanghai on December 3, 2009. The show featured Lagerfeld's new collection Paris-Shanghai under the Chanel brand. AFP PHOTO/PHILIPPE LOPEZ (Photo credit should read PHILIPPE LOPEZ/AFP/Getty Images)

• Karl Lagerfeld gave SpongeBob SquarePants a makeover for a charity auction, resulting in this little charmer, which sold for €1,000. [WWD]

• Zac Posen, who two weeks ago announced a lower-priced line, Z Spoke, will do a line for Target in the U.S. (He already designed a capsule collection for Target's Australian outpost in 2008.) Zac Posen for Target Go International will hit stores on April 25 of next year. Rodarte for Target goes on sale this December, at last. [WWD]
• Even though it's late November in sunny London, Kate Moss is allegedly planning an outdoor dinner party. Her nefarious plan? The supermodel, whose recent choice, in an interview, of a notorious eating disorder sufferers' slogan as her motto we highlighted, wants to be photographed eating food. [Mirror]
• The verdict on "Black Friday" post-Thanksgiving sales: an "unexceptional yet decent" $41.2 billion was spent. [WWD]
• Both potential buyers of the bankrupt house of Christian Lacroix failed to meet a new, extended deadline to provide the bankruptcy court with guarantees of their capital. If the company is not sold, the current owners, the Falic Group, will likely go forward with their preferred scenario, in which only 11 key staff are retained, and the brand is either auctioned off to cover debts, or turned into a licensing machine for scarves and perfumes. [AFP]
• Patrick Dempsey stars with his wife, Jillian, in his new Avon perfume ad. Because this scent is "about two people and the power of the relationship." [People]
• Sonia Rykiel's H&M lingerie line will be launched this December with a fashion show at the Grand Palais. The models will walk on moving floats that travel around a fantasy Parisian streetscape, dominated by a 30 meter Eiffel Tower made from 25 km of wire and fairy lights. Trees will have balloon canopies, and the Café de Flore will be mocked up as the Café Flirt. Also, imagine 6 meter poodles and 2.5 meter bunnies. Best part? It'll be streamed live on the mighty Internet. [SB]
• The pink-and-black '50s-themed collection goes on sale this Saturday in more than 1,500 H&M boutiques worldwide, as well as Rykiel's own stores. Prices range from €7.95 - €19.95 for underwear, and €79.95 for sleepwear. [WWD]
• Morrissey is collaborating with Stella McCartney on a line of vegan footwear. McCartney says the shoes could be in stores next year. [Daily Mail, 2nd item]
• Helena Christensen, on the term of art 'supermodel': it's "silly and cartoonish, but to be a part of that whole group of girls — at the end of the day, I was there. I did it. I am a million experiences richer." [Telegraph]
• It's a comeback for Aussie model Catherine McNeil. McNeil will be on the cover of next month's Australian Vogue, a casting move that her booker says gives any model "credibility" — oddly implying that McNeil needs some. The 20-year-old has been on an extended break from international modeling, but is expected to rejoin the moil next show season, in January. [News.com.au]
• Mulberry creative director Emma Hill, who previously designed accessories for Marc Jacobs and the Gap, on the heyday of 'it' bags: "I was partly responsible, at Marc Jacobs, for the It bag thing. I realized that we'd made it when I saw knock-offs on the street corner. But a trend like that squashes people's individuality. If you're all trying to get the same thing, it's not very special. There are possibly more things to worry about in life than waiting two years for a handbag. I think those years are over." [ToL]
• Jenny Sanford applied to trademark her own name in early July, shortly after the June revelation that her husband, South Carolina governor Mark Sanford, was hiking the Appalachian trail enjoying two magnificent parts of another woman. Jenny Sanford applied for the trademark intending to use it to market a line of clothing, mugs, and other household items, to be sold through her website. The trademark application has not yet been approved. [State]
• Christian Audigier is opening an Ed Hardy store in London this week, the U.K.'s first. [Guardian]
• Victoria's Secret is a popular target for professional shoplifters. Four women pepper-sprayed a sales associate in Tennessee this month in order to boost 30 pairs of underwear. [UPI]
• Due to Dubai's debt crisis, the American investors who recently and separately bought significant chunks of Barneys New York's debt, Ron Burkle and Richard Perry, might end up controlling the Dubai-owned company. If they do, they should probably convince someone there to hire a C.E.O. All the best companies have one. [Dealbook]
• Pierre Cardin, 87, was briefly hospitalized in Paris for exhibiting falling blood pressure and a slow pulse. Cardin was en route to Greece, where he was holding a fashion show. As if this were 1963, or something. [AFP]
• French eBay users are banned from selling or buying certain branded perfumes, like Christian Dior and Kenzo. A court in Paris has fined the auction site 1.7 million Euros for not enforcing the law effectively enough. [BBC]
• The market in exotic skins, like alligator, has been among the worst affected by the recession. (It's not hard to imagine why, given a pair of alligator Manolos can easily run $4,000.) The farmers who raise the gators in Louisiana, Florida, and Georgia are paid for their troubles by tanneries, who then sell the processed hides to fashion companies. But while farmers complain that prices offered by tanneries have fallen below the cost of even raising the animals, fashion companies say the reduction in the cost of finished skins has been minimal. Which major fashion brand significantly expanded into alligator tanneries during the boom years? Hermès. The other thing you should know about this article is that a man named Tommy Fletcher, whose work involves going into bayous to fight mother alligators with a pole and frequent bites when handling the live young, says that running an alligator farm is "like being married to Miss America. You get all the benefits of the hugs and kisses, but she's mighty high-maintenance." [NYTimes]

• To mull during your post-Thanksgiving satiety: A reclining Heidi Klum, with feast, in jigsaw puzzle form. [FWD]

• Karl Lagerfeld's helmets — first glimpsed on the runway earlier this year — have entered the retail food chain. Anyone in need of a €1200 - €4545 helmet, possibly mink-covered or embroidered with pearls, should try her luck at — where else? — Colette in Paris starting this December. These have iPod hookups, people. [Hintmag]
• Online magazine Flamboyant — which has one of those frustrating websites where the component pages are unlinkable — did a wickedly funny editorial where it styled various bread rolls as though they were designer branded creations. In a world where Karl Lagerfeld can make $6,000 helmets and Christian Audigier can sell $3 name-brand water, let's not give them any ideas, shall we? [FWD]
• If you can fit into the Kate Moss — Scarlett Johansson size range, want to wear a Lanvin dress to your holiday party, and live in the UK, Topshop just might have your number. The high street chain has persuaded 20 celebs — Freida Pinto, Jourdan Dunn, and, uh, Peaches Geldof among them — to donate one preferred party frock apiece. (Peaches' is that horrid floral curtain number she wore at Cannes this summer, so beware.) The dresses will be available for public hire for £40, and then a silent auction for outright ownership. All proceeds go to a charity for the elderly. [Daily Mail]
• Alternatively, you could just wait 6-12 months for Coco Rocha's fashion line to become a reality. She just posted a video on her blog announcing the new venture, and which shows her hard at work sketching. She's also seeking name ideas. [OhSoCoco]
• Eugenia Kim reads Gawker. HAMILTON WILL NEVER LOVE YOU LIKE I DO, EUGENIA!! [TFI]
• Tommy Hilfiger's Greenwich, Connecticut, home sold for $20 million, about $8 million less than his asking price, but still $2 million more than he paid for it in 2005. [AP]

• 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]

• Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have designed a fine jewelry collection for Asprey, which goes on sale this week. The line, themed around snakes and called "The Protector," starts at $525; all proceeds go to support Jolie's children's charity. [WWD]

• After decades of marketing skin-lightening creams, like Unilever's Fair & Lovely, to Indian women, cosmetics companies are beginning to target Indian men. Brands like Fair & Handsome, Fair & Lovely Menz Active, and Nivea for Men Whitening, are selling well. Says a male model who does commercial work, "Anyone who's fair gets on Indian television." The cultural preference for lighter skin can be traced back to the Hindu cast system. [NPR]
• Lindsay Lohan claims she's doing a jewelry line with Pascal Mouawad, and working on a clothing collection for Bebe. Mouawad says the line isn't finalized. [AccessHollywood]
• Four words: Paris Hilton Bridal Footwear. [Style Section LA]
• Speaking of shoes, don't go overpaying for Jimmy Choo's H&M collection on eBay. A spokeswoman for the chain says new stock will be available today. [Daily Mail]
• H&M's sales fell 3% in the month of October. The fast-fashion retailer has now had six straight months of declining sales. [WWD]
• Victoria Beckham, who already spent £250,000 on a lot of Audrey Hepburn's letters, is expected to bid for some of the actress's dresses in London early next month. [Independent]
• Beckham is rumored to have enlisted Blake Lively to model her spring dress collection. [SB]
• Iceland may no longer have a financial services industry to speak of, but the fashion industry has apparently been picking up there since the crisis of last fall. Emerging designers are more than happy to snaffle up spaces with cheap rents, and as one put it, "No one is traveling abroad, so you have to shop locally. We have actually doubled our sales." [Time]
• Iman, on how her life changed with retirement: "Where everything was about what you do and about how you look, it changed to more security about me. It was not about 'how will I look ten years from now?' It all became about what kind of person would I be ten years from now." [CNN]
• Hotelier André Balazs gets top billing alongside Angela Lindvall in the new Brioni campaign. Balazs donated the money he earned to charity. [P6]
  
• This week, 800 pairs of the late Adam Goldstein's sneakers are being auctioned off on eBay. All of the proceeds will go to the DJ AM Memorial Fund, which gives money to groups fighting addiction. [eBay]
• On Wednesday, eBay is launching its own online magazine, The Inside Source. [The Moment]
• Barneys is getting a blog. The department store has announced a 7% rise in same-store sales for the month of October, following September's 9% decline. No word on whether or not the company plans to hire a CEO anytime soon, but it is launching a blog for its fashion directors this week. [WWD]
• Not to be outdone, Forever 21 and Karl Lagerfeld are also founding their own magazines. [Blackbook]
• Perhaps Lagerfeld can use this new platform to declaim elasticized waistbands. "I never wear jogging pants. Those things are dangerous," says the designer. "Because they have an elastic band. It stretches and then you don't know when you put on weight. Also, I hate it when you let yourself go! I'm always looking the way you see me now." Also, even though he is now 76, don't say that "R" word around him: "Retirement is not one of the topics with which I deal. Why should I? I still have so many projects that I sometimes don't know where to begin. Chanel will still need some clothes when I'm 89. The world can count on me for a long time." [TV3]
• "Financially successful fashion companies have duped our industry into sacrificing a model's traditional earnings from both fashion shows and fashion advertisements in the name of positive exposure," says Chris Gay, president of Marilyn Model Agency. "If campaigns and shows are now considered just another form of positive exposure, then where's the recompense for a model's time and effort?" Good questions. [TDB]
• Lee Daniels, director of Precious, is modeling in the November J. Crew catalog. [StyleList]
• A dress designed with more than 24,000 ultra-flat LEDs is going on display at the Museum of Science of Industry in Chicago. [Wired]
• In other technofabrics news, a Swiss company has developed a fabric treatment that can make wearers of processed garments up to 9 degrees Fahrenheit cooler, reducing the black-suit-hot-day problem. [NYTimes]
• The New York Foundation for the Arts is under fire for allegedly withholding $175,000 raised for designer Tara Subkoff's struggle with a brain tumor. Subkoff, who was uninsured when the non-cancerous tumor was discovered, according to a source, apparently took a few acting jobs in order to qualify for Screen Actors Guild insurance to cover surgery. The NYFA, meanwhile, was sponsoring a fund-raising event for Subkoff's supporters, intended to raise money for the designer's medical and living expenses during her recovery. But now, $175,000 in hand, the NYFA allegedly won't give the money to Subkoff for anything but medical costs, leaving Subkoff to live in a borrowed apartment and necessitating her to skip required post-operative therapies. [P6]
• Rue21 and Dollar General each debuted as public companies on Friday, Rue21 on the NASDAQ and Dollar General on the NYSE. Rue21 closed at $19, above the hoped-for range, while Dollar General rose by just over a dollar during the day's trading. [WWD]
• Australian big-box retailer Big W has a clothing line inspired by Gossip Girl. It's designed by Kai Aiyub, who does makeovers and styling for a morning television show Down Under, and it includes dresses, shoes, tops, jewelry, bags, and an aquamarine "playsuit." [Big W]
• Saks' longest-serving employee, Nena Ivon, is retiring after 53 years at the Chicago flagship. Ivon began her career as a sales assistant while still in high school; she rose to fashion director and manager of special events. "Retail is retail," says Ivons, who plans to write a book. "It hasn't changed. We still sell clothes, but how we do it is different." [WWD]

• Kate Moss says her motto is, "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels." [WWD]

• In December Harper's Bazaar, Victoria Beckham reveals that she is itching to dress Emma Watson. [People]
• Alexander Wang is now 100,000 Euros richer, thanks to the Swiss Textiles Award. [WWD]
• Bridget Moynahan is becoming a face of Garnier Nutritioniste skincare. [WWD]
• It took a while, but someone finally got around to identifying what Sasha and Malia wore in the official White House family portrait, and putting together a press release. (Turns out it was French children's label Dino e Lucia.) [WWD]
• Miss J, on fun times with André Leon Talley: "I was working for Lars Nilsson at Bill Blass and André Leon Talley came over to the studio with Elizabeth Taylor's epic movie Boom!, which Karl Lagerfeld did the costuming for. We got down on some fried chicken, corn bread and popcorn shrimp and were in fits of hysterics well into the night. We went from working with models who don't eat all day to watching all of us get down on some soul food!" Says Miss J, "Sticks and stones may break your bones, but fabulous gets you most places." [The Moment]
• Naomi Campbell held a Fashion For Relief runway show to raise money for maternal health in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. (Previous stops have included Mumbai and New York, and have raised $1 million in aid for Hurricane Katrina and the Mumbai terrorist attacks.) Campbell walked the runway for the first time in the continent of Africa, and talked about the importance of diversity in fashion. "There's definitely space [for more black models] but has there been enough effort? It was getting better but it's slipped back this year," said the model. "The world is not made up of blonde hair and blue eyes. We need to share ourselves." [Reuters]
• Claudia Schiffer wouldn't rule out starting a clothing line. "I would consider it but it would have to be the right thing. They would need to be clothes that I would want to wear." [Telegraph]
• Liu Wen will be the first Asian model to walk in the Victoria's Secret fashion show. [Modelinia]
• Marc Jacobs' fiancé, Lorenzo Martone, and Ryan Brown, formerly of Elite, are starting a talent PR agency for models together called ARC NY. Lydia Hearst has signed on. [P6]
• Mango might ink a distribution deal with a U.S. department store, like JC Penney, Macy's, Bloomingdales or Saks, to help its retail expansion. [WWD]
• What other fashion house has ever inspired poetry upon its demise?
  "Luella, we will miss
  The frills
  The spills
  But know this

  Your work will live on
  In a sample sale shirt
  I once purchased
  Cheap as chips." [Guardian]

• As one exits, another enters: Biba is being revived. Again. [Catwalk Queen]
• Jimmy Choo has opened a Chinese restaurant in London. [Elle UK]
• For $8,500, you could own a sofa in the shape of the Chanel logo. [FWD]
• Bamboo fabric, though made from a plant that can be grown without pesticides and fertilizers, is processed with toxic solvents, just like rayon and viscose are made from wood. Eco-friendly it is not. [WSJ]
• Nordstrom's revenues for the third quarter jumped 17% on last year's results, but the company missed its earnings forecast by one cent, which sent the share price tumbling. [TS]
• Abercrombie & Fitch's quarterly profit fell to $38.8 million, from $63.9 million a year ago. [Reuters]
• Sales of department store fragrances fell by 11% on last year during the first three quarters, to $1.38 billion. [WWD]
• That hasn't stopped Gwen Stefani and her perfume partners, Coty, from putting out five new Harajuku Lovers fragrances. [WWD]

• Alicia Keys has a jewelry line; her bangles and rings come engraved with the words of the Japanese pseudoscientist Masaru Emoto. You can't make this up. [WWD]
• Marie Claire has published some clear pictures of Rodarte's line for Target. [Nitrolicious]

• John Galliano's Christmas tree design for Claridge's is extraordinary and very weird. [Vogue UK]
• Madonna has rebounded from Louis Vuitton's decision not to re-hire her for a third season of ad campaigns rather well: she shot the spring Dolce & Gabbana campaign with Steven Klein in a Brooklyn studio on Friday. [WWD]
• Zac Posen has eliminated his public relations officer because of budget constraints. [WWD]
• Jamba Juice is getting into the rag trade. The maker of delicious smoothies thinks it can whip up "Jamba-inspired" t-shirts, sweatshirts, and headwear that everyone will want. No delivery date for the first collection was given. [BrandWeek]
• Express is suing Forever 21 for copyright violations concerning several plaid patterns, in what has to be the endgame for fashion originality. [WWD]
• Scarlett Johanson is apparently still doing ad campaigns for Mango. [FWD]
• Diane Von Furstenberg dropped a few dresses off with Ikram Goldman during a recent trip to Chicago. We all know what that means! [WWD]
• Thakoon Panichgul is now the creative director of the Japanese jewelry brand Tasaki. [Style.com]
• Tom Ford's profile in the Advocate is alternately touching, perhaps too revealing, and kind of crass — kind of like the man's designs. He opens up about his depression, his struggles with alcohol dependency, admits to chasing youth with Botox and Restylane, and how he once shaved his eyebrow off when he was on mescaline, but most fascinatingly of all, to our ears, is the revelation that in his adaptation of Christopher Isherwood's A Single Man, he gave the main character a last name after his first boyfriend, Ian Falconer. Oh! Also there's this: "Yves and his partner, Pierre Bergé, were so difficult and so evil and made my life such misery. I'd lived in France off and on and had always loved it. I went to college in France. It wasn't until I started working in France that I began to dislike it. They would call the fiscal police, and they would show up at our offices…They'd come marching in, and you had to let them in and they'd interview my secretary. And they can fine you and shut you down. Pierre was the one calling them. I've never talked about this on the record before, but it was an awful time for me. Pierre and Yves were just evil. So Yves Saint Laurent doesn't exist for me…I have letters from Yves Saint Laurent that are so mean you cannot even believe such vitriol is possible." [Advocate]
• Says Vogue/CDFA Fashion Fund finalist Flora Gill, of Ohne Titel: "My parents were always very supportive. They actually bought me books about Comme des Garçons when I was 8 years old, which I think is not…usual." Meet the other nine finalists in this video. [Style.com]
• Simon Fuller, who already holds a 51% stake in London's Storm Models, is rumored to be investigating setting up a New York agency. Posh is supposedly involved. This sounds awfully similar to the Simon-Fuller-and-Kate-Moss-are-going-to-found-an-agency rumor of a few months back. [Daily Mail]
• The woman who runs British lingerie brand Ultimo (current face: Peaches Geldof) noticed her 10-year-old daughter talking about going on a diet. So she has decided to ban excessive Photoshopping in Ultimo's advertising images. (Whether she'll ban the company from employing women like Peaches Geldof as role models is unanswered.) [Sun]
• Friday, Lady Gaga tweeted that she was visiting Nick Knight's Showstudio. The singer is apparently working with the fashion photographer/videographer on a video for her upcoming tour. The concept apparently involves "a veritable menagerie of animals." [Showstudio]
• Style.com ranked 2009's top fashion partiers; all the usual suspects — Olivier Zahm, Alex Wang, Lauren Santo-Domingo, Vladimir Restoin-Roitfeld, Leigh Lezark, Derek Blasberg, and Karl Lagerfeld — make the cut. But more importantly: can we never, ever refer to the Meatpacking District as "MePa" again? [Style.com]
• Cacharel, relaunched this October under Belgian designer Cedric Charlier, is returning to worldwide distribution in the spring. [WWD]
• And, just like that, it's over: Versace face, British Vogue cover model, Rimmel campaign-nabber Georgia May Jagger says she's quitting the biz. At least for the rest of the year: she's 17, so she has school, you know. [Vogue UK]
• Luella is closing. [Vogue UK]
• Former Gucci creative director Dawn Mello was allegedly run down by a bicycle messenger outside Bergdorf's. She has a shattered femur. [P6]

Doesn't Deneuve look divine?

Wherever Gloria Vanderbilt is going, I want to follow.

In 1969, Karl Lagerfeld was already doing that strange pursed-puffy lips thing.

Producer Robert Evans clearly believes there is no such thing as too much velvet.

It's decided. Kenneth Jay Lane has the best caftan, ever.

And then Christian Dior designer Marc Bohan has the best staircase. Or at least he did in 1973.

I want to know what's making Jeanne Moreau look so sad.

Like Nancy Reagan, I often pause to laugh haughtily to myself when reading the newspaper. Don't you?

The promised, inexplicable, picture of William F. Buckley and his wife, Pat.

Maxime de la Falaise, with her sketching and her silk pajamas, clearly has life all figured out.

The late, great Yves Saint Laurent, pictured at his home in 1983.

Home Sweet Home: Designers' And Socialites' Abodes [WWD]

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

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

[Buenos Aires, October 21. Image via INFDaily.]

• Marisa Miller has earned the most coveted position of all the Victoria's Secret runway girls: Wearer Of The Diamond-Studded Bra. Her equipment costs $3 million. "It's surprisingly comfortable," says Miller. Sure looks it. [People]

• Sir Paul Smith would love it "if fashion shows died out completely." The 63-year-old British designer explains, shows are "pure, self-indulgent theatre. How many girls were there this year in horns or neck braces with bare breasts? It wouldn't matter if they didn't take it all so seriously, but the fashion world is a dangerous, superficial and fickle place." [Telegraph]
• Although the press sometimes jumps all over Anna Wintour for repeating her outfits, it's something she does all the time, and will continue to do, because who wears clothes once, for God's sake? "I usually wear the same dress twenty times. I think it's always fun to have something new, but it doesn't mean that everything you already have in your closet has to be thrown out, you know? Recycle." [The Cut]
• The USAToday and W did the hard work of "parsing" Amelia Earhart's style. You know her, she's that woman famous for...wearing pants. [USAToday]
• Donatella Versace tells a Vogue reader who says she would buy clothes in larger sizes, if Versace made them, that "I certainly wouldn't want to do a plus-size line, as I have no problem with women of any size wearing my clothes. I guess some styles lend themselves to being scaled up, while some others just don't work." Versace's own daughter, Allegra, has struggled with anorexia. [Style.com]
• Donatella hosted a party for the Whitney, and a lot of celebrities came. (Since when are Lindsay Lohan and Taylor Momsen "just-wanna-have-fun blondes"?) Also in attendance at what was, you know, an art benefit were Chuck Close and Ellsworth Kelly. [Style.com]
• Meanwhile, that equally tanned and fashionable Italian female, Gucci creative director Frida Giannini, is headed to Yonkers today to cut the ribbon with Mary J. Blige on something called the Mary J. Blige Center for Women. [P6]
• Somebody should tell Mark Ronson that what he has designed for Gucci is not in fact a sneaker, but a boat shoe. The eyelets give it away. [Hypebeast]
• Karl Lagerfeld is heading to Argentina. Lest you think it's to enjoy some steak and a nice Malbec, know this: "I only go to places if I have a professional reason. I'm not a tourist." He'll be shooting Freja Beha Erichsen, Baptiste GIabiconi, and Claudia Schiffer in the next Chanel campaign — what, no Lara Stone? — and researching a book about Argentine architecture. [WWD]
• London Fog's holiday ad campaign features Tony Parker and Eva Longoria. There's got to be a Mad Men joke here somewhere. [People]
• Meanwhile, John Galliano himself has revealed that the spring Dior campaign will star Karlie Kloss. [WWD]
• Grace Kelly and Cartier are each getting stars on the Walk of Style on Rodeo Drive in Los Angeles. [HoustonChronicle]
• Angelina Jolie is apparently in talks with Ridley Scott to star in a film about the 1995 murder of Maurizio Gucci. [Variety]
• Tom Ford, the man Maurizio had hired to revitalize the brand, says he will do women's wear again. Just as soon as he can get financing. [WWD]
• The Times' Critical Shopper, Cintra Wilson, went to Ann Taylor. She didn't expect to like it, but then: "Clothing companies, when they panic, tend to go rococo. They get flashier, busier and more disposable by slapping on bigger logos and more useless bows and frippery. Ann Taylor must be commended for choosing less clutter and better details that aren't always: the finished seams inside a little faille opera jacket; the velvet ribbon inside the waist of a peplum coat; the Italian three-season wool." [NYTimes]
• Iconix Brand Group, the company behind everything from Candie's to Badgley Mischka, has been fined $250,000 by the Federal Trade Commission for violating certain provisions of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act when it collected information during some of its promotions last year. [Crain's]
• Burberry is suing the U.K.-based pet supply store Pets At Home for using a checked fabric the company says is too similar to its own. Pets At Home, which has 250 stores, has pulled the offending products, but the dispute is ongoing. Burberry creative director Christopher Bailey told the New Yorker earlier this year about suing a pet store that advertised a dog cushion "in the famous Burberry check." [Guardian]
• Maybe the answer is that Burberry should make like Mulberry, and do its own line of pet clothes. [FWD]
• More details about the city's planned fashion incubator in the garment district have emerged: New York will subsidize 12 slots in a 10,000 sq. ft. space, reducing the rent from $2,900 to $1,500 a month. The designers, who are being selected right now, will also have access to mentoring and support from the Council of Fashion Designers of America. It's not for students fresh out of school: every designer must have already been in business for at least a year, and employ a staff (even if that staff is volunteer). What a wonderful use for a vacant showroom floor. [NYTimes]
  
• Australian denim brand Ksubi is going to do a lower-priced line with the department store David Jones. And possibly another one with Topshop. [Sassybella]
• Anhropologie is extending its reach across the Atlantic. Its first European store opens on Friday in London. [WWD]

"There's no Chanel collection without black. (It) will never exist. Who can live without some black clothes."

The designer takes a bow at the conclusion of his all-white Chanel couture show, February, 2009.

"What I hate most in life are people who are not really the peach of the day but who want to be young and sexy. You can fool nobody. There is a moment when you have to accept that somebody else is younger and fresher and hotter."

Lagerfeld in Harper's Bazaar, September, 2008.

"Life is not a beauty contest."

"The discussion of fur is childish." Furriers make a living "killing those beasts who would kill us if they could."

"There are nearly 30 per cent of young people who are too fat. So let's take care of the zillions of the too fat before we talk about the percentage that's left."

Karl Lagerfeld in 2000, when he was still fat, and Devon Aoki still modeled.

"When I was four, I asked my mother for a valet for my birthday."

At the Paris Hotel des Monnaies, holding a gold commemorative Coco Chanel coin worth 5,900 euros.

"I wish her all the luck in the world, just so long as I don't have to see her any more or hear her spoken about."

Karl and then-muse Ines de la Fressange in happier times on French television, in 1987.

"I am a sort of vampire, taking the blood of other people."

• The designer in the 2000 documentary Karl Lagerfeld Is Never Happy Anyway.
  
  "I'm a kind of fashion nymphomanic who never gets an orgasm."

  
  "I have no human feelings."

  
  "Vanity is the healthiest thing in life."

• Giorgio Armani might be made Senator for Life (a real position) by the Italian president. The designer would then vote on the national budget, and "beautify" parliamentary proceedings. Armani's reaction to the nomination, and his political leanings, were unknown. [WSJ]

• Pamela Anderson has got to be the driest wit in Hollywood. When the tabloid press asked her to name her style icon, she replied, "Humpty-Dumpty." Pressed on the subject of her perfumes, Malibu and Malibu Night, which will be sold only at drugstores starting this November, the actress said, "That is why I always smell so cheap." Then she pulled up her Vivienne Westwood bedsheet dress — it "came with a million safety pins, and Westwood told me to just pin it and knot it in a bunch of places" — and walked away. [P6]
• Then she wrote a hand-written note to Allure. "I've been offered fragrance contracts like everyone else and their dog (hey, that's that good idea, all natural, of course) but all the elements never came together — the stamp of approval from PETA; the environmental aspects. (I was a bit ahead of my time). But now it works!" And: "I worship drugstores, it's hard to get me out." [Allure]
• Karl Lagerfeld has been immortalized in a 25 cm vinyl doll. The best part? Mini Karl is mute. [DazedDigital]
• The best part about Betsey Johnson's award from the National Arts Club? Her portrait will soon hang among the Gramercy Park institution's other dusty luminaries. We can't decide if this maneuver raises the NAC's stock more than it depresses Johnson's — perhaps O. Aldon James, Jr., will write us a letter of explanation — but we still think it's pretty awesome. [WWD]
• Guiseppe Zanotti is obviously one of those people who pulls a face when posing next to a famous person. In this case, Blake Lively. Oh, isn't he wild and spontaneous! [People]
• Four words: Olsen twin sunglass line. [Elle UK]
• Charlize Theron is collaborating on a t-shirt line for a humanitarian cause. Give and Take Tees is releasing $42 vintage-inspired t-shirts, and half the proceeds will go to Theron's own Outreach Africa Project, which funds a mobile health center for rural South Africa. [People]
• Laura Mulleavy, of Rodarte: "I can think of this outfit we did like our fall '08 collection that was red and black and it was all just hairy, leather jacket and fur. For me, that collection was specifically about Japanese horror films and this idea of these girls coming from the ground and being tied down with twine with the hair dangling in their face, and just being completely just like this sunken girl that maybe got stuck in a well somewhere, and I don't know if that would translate into everyday life as I see it, but I don't think that's necessary. I don't know, maybe I am just creating for, you know, the one character that survives." [DazedDigital]
• Kanye West had been planning to launch a clothing line called Pastelle since even before he gave us the immortal lines, "So go 'head, go nuts, go ape shit/ Specially in my Pastelle or my Bape shit." Pictures from a lookbook shoot for the brand finally hit the Internet yesterday, only for Yeezy to announce he's scotching Pastelle as a brand entirely. It's as dead as his Gap collaboration. But there still may be a Kanye clothing line under his own name. [HighSnobiety]
• The bankrupt Germany fashion house Escada has reportedly attracted 10 different would-be buyers. Perhaps it's not too much to hope for a Christian Lacroix resolution here? [Forbes]
• The Limited is trying to claw its way back to brand relevance. It's starting by opening a pop-up store on Spring St. in SoHo, re-launching the discontinued brands Forenza and Outback Red, and hiring Jodi Arnold — as in MINT Jodi Arnold — as a "partner." Does this mean we'll see Jodi Arnold designs at The Limited prices? C.E.O. Linda Heasley, who test-drives unreleased garments herself, says the company is looking forward to its first profitable year in well over a decade. [WWD]