• Audrey Tautou reunited with Amélie director Jean Pierre Jeunet to star in an Orient Express-themed Chanel No. 5 ad, which took three weeks to shoot. The reel's not up till May 5. [WWD]

• In some perfect fashion synergy, Liya Kebede and J. Crew are at work on a creative partnership. Liya will become the first model to lend her services to an entire catalog, front-to-back, and the company's children's line, Crewcuts, will stock pieces from the model's kids' line, Lemlem. Liya launched Lemlem in 2007; it's handmade in her native Ethiopia from cotton. [FWD]
• W, Glamour, T The New York Times Style Magazine and Vogue are among the fashion magazines nominated for prizes at this year's National Magazine Awards. Whoever thinks Vogue is generally excellent — or that Glamour's essays are praiseworthy — is smoking something epic. [ASME]
• More from Jil Sander, on her new role with the Japanese streetwear brand Uniqlo: "We are living in a small world today. People are in easy contact with each other. There is a new collective feeling of democracy. You can sense it everywhere. It is a wonderful challenge to dress this new world as attractively as possible. I am thinking of clothes that are comfortable for everyone, beautiful and not expensive. I am convinced that there can be luxury in simplicity. One glass of water doesn't equal another. One may just appease the thirst, the other you may enjoy thoroughly. In Japan, people know about this difference. Details are everything here. The challenge for me is to establish premium quality in a democratically priced brand: Quality for everyone." [On The Runway]
• Prada's favorite architect, Rem Koolhaas produced the brand's spring look book. (Which, in further proof that falling on the runway doesn't have to hurt a model's career, features Katie Fogarty, one of the girls who fell so spectacularly during the brand's spring show last September.) Koolhaas' offering fits with the trend of ever more bizarre look books — there's a classical theme, with models Photoshopped to look like crumbling statuary and other weird and wonderful effects. [OMA]
• This is what L.A. fashion week has been reduced to: "model-actress Molly Sims donned a bright cranberry colored one-shouldered dress custom-designed by [Kevan] Hall for the event and decorated with real, freeze-dried cranberries to promote a new cranberry body wash by Dial." [Yahoo! News]
• André Leon Talley still bothered to show up. Or was his trip just in honor of the fact that he can only freely indulge in fast food when Anna's safely in another time zone? Someone spotted the Vogue editor-at-large eating at the airport Chili's. [P6]
• L.A. kid Chanel Iman's new gig as a special correspondent on the revived House of Style might be a bridge to other slashy things. [Fashionologie]
• But is Chanel prepared? She admitted to only YouTubing a few minutes of old host Cindy Crawford's footage since getting the job. "There's Cindy, and ... I forgot the other girls' names! But I know there's more. Cindy was the only one I found on YouTube when I did my research," said the model, unpromisingly. She also gave a false birth year in the same interview. Alas, I know very well why even a girl born in 1989 might start shaving a tad off her age in this industry. [The Cut]
• Matt Tyrnauer, the Vanity Fair writer who directed the new documentary on Valentino, The Last Emperor, says that when the designer and his partner, Giancarlo Giammetti, first saw his film, they "freaked out." And tried to have scenes removed, despite having the fact that Tyrnauer held full creative control. But now, having seen audiences react positively to the portrait, they have come to appreciate Tyrnauer's efforts. [On The Runway]
• That much hoped-for bail-out of the Italian garment industry looks like it will indeed come to pass: industry minister Claudio Scajola resumed his talks with industry heads last night. Italy exported $35 billion worth of fashion goods in 2008, making it the world's second-largest apparel exporter, and the center of manufacture for nearly all high-end handbags and shoes. The Italian fashion industry employs some 800,000 people. [Forbes]
• Perry Ellis failed to meet even lowered expectations for the quarter, announcing a loss of $22.3 million, mainly due to write-downs. [WSJ]
• Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, paid $933.6 million in bonuses to about 1 million of its hourly staff yesterday, or about two-thirds of its total workforce. The bonus pool was increased by 46% on last year's. Occasionally a man does bite a dog, I guess. [WSJ]

1. Patent red plus a pussy bow? Some how filthy. Try not to think about it. 2. For when the sales girls at Ralph Lauren have been naughty? 3. Why be a jockey if you can be a stripper?

1.Unflattering in so many different ways. 2.This sweater gives the poor girl football player shoulders. 3. This look really makes no sense.

1. A dress to make my vertigo worse. 2.Houndstooth and pleather: unfortunate bedfellows. 3.Prim, proper, and so not Hilton.

[Runway images via AP; Hilton image via Splash.]

The Good: Lauren "Lo" Bosworth looks surprisingly, well, sophisticated in this strapless cocktail dress. (I can't believe I just called Lo sophisticated.) I'm totally into Audrina Partridge's sporty-chic look: It's so 80's in all the right ways.

The Bad:
I hope LC didn't design this dress herself, because if she did, she sure ain't helping business. The proportions are weird — I can just hear Michael Kors making some nasty comment about not understanding women's bodies.
Whitney's "I'm-Not-Even-Trying" look looks like she needed to try. The length of the dress is no good on her, the leather jacket seems to severe, and the bootie mocassins just make my heart bleed.
While I commend Lisa Rinna for not wearing animal print, I frown on any dress that is so short that it makes for an automatic crotch-shot when you sit down. Also, is she looking thinner than normal?
Stephen Colletti looks like some fresh-out-of-school investment banker. In other words, he looks like a douche.
Looks like the kids wore different clothes to the show itself than to the party. (When will someone tell them that they're not actually celebrities?) I much prefer the dress Whitney wore to the runway show — seems much more her and much more polished. But ugh, is that Lauren Conrad collection Audrina's wearing? And I'm not sure I approve of Lo's homecoming court-esque red taffeta number. Also, see how Brody Jenner is sitting with hit not-ghetto hoody over his head? Mega douche.

The Ugly:
Congratulations, Ashley Jones, for sporting one of the ugliest dresses I have ever seen in my life.

[Images via Bauer-Griffin, FilmMagic]

Earlier: Lauren Conrad's Bella Collection Just As Bad As City Of Angels

• Model Coco Rocha on performing an Irish dance for kids in Harlem on Friday: "It wasn't a huge crowd, but these are kids who are interested in dance... I just don't want people to think I'm fake." Um, yeah, because your completely retarded scheme to teach city kids how to look stupid and white while dancing seemed so cannily slick and manufactured. [Fashion Week Daily]
  
• Krazy Karl Lagerfeld quote of the day! Regarding his Fendi collection just shown on the Great Wall of China: "I didn't want to make it a Madame Chiang Kai-shek collection so I did just one dress in a very sophisticated way to say hello to her." Um, so presumably he knows that this is sort of like if he had held the show at the Masada and said, "Hey, that jacket — that was my little shout-out to Ahmadinejad. I didn't want to do the whole show on the guy, just that little thing." [Fashion Week Daily]
  
• American Apparel does Halloween costumes. Because gold lame leggings and tie-dye unitards are everyday clothes for some people. [American Apparel]

• The Chanel bike we showed you yesterday? It has a crossbar! Which confirms what we've long suspected: Krazy Karl hates women. [Sassybella]
• L.A. Fashion week: Yeah, no one went. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Hermes is celebrating the re-opening of its Paris flagship with a party that will go on for 24 hours straight, because retail is sort of like the religion of modern society. [Vogue UK]
• The new-and-possibly-improved house of Halston is already gearing up for its debut at New York Fashion Week this February. Halston CEO Bonnie Takhar: "It's important that we focus on the past, but very important we bring it into the modern day." Worry not, Bonnie - you have Rachel Zoe as a creative adviser! You're practically guaranteed to be getting the same rehashed looks over and over again and be told that they're cutting edge! [Vogue UK]
• We take this opportunity to congratulate our fellow Tufts alum Coach President/Creative Director Reed Krakoff on Coach's 23% raise in income this past fiscal quarter. Go Jumbos! (Um, or jumbo bags or whatever.) [WSJ]
• Marc Jacobs is opening his fifth retail store within a 3-block radius in New York. [The Fashion Informer]