• Gwyneth Paltrow has tired of the cosmetics contract gravy train; no longer shall the actress concentrate on embodying the qualities of the Estée Lauder brand. Instead, she'll be the new, white Oprah! [Daily Mail]

• Nanette Lepore has added her voice to the save the garment center chorus. [HuffPo]
• According to Jesus Luz's Brazilian agent, Sergio Mattos, Luz was paid $100 for the two-day Steven Klein shoot with Madonna that ended up in W. Let me say this one more time: that kind of pay is entirely standard for an editorial shoot, no matter one's modeling experience or industry status. [NY Post]
• Christina Aguilera looks, um, Photoshopped to high hell in the new Stephen Webster jewelry campaign. [Sun]
• Jerry Hall got a $750,000 advance from HarperCollins to write a memoir that would include full details on her life with Mick Jagger. But the manuscript Hall rendered proved too tame and cagey on the subject of Jagger for the publisher's taste; the supermodel has agreed to return the advance. (Side note: how many times do you get to read a word like "priapic" in the Daily Mail?) [Daily Mail]
• Terry Richardson just shot next year's Pirelli calendar in Trancoso, Bahia, Brazil. Georgina Stojiljkovic, Catherine McNeil, Abbey Lee Kershaw, and Daisy Lowe are purported to be featured, along with actual Brazilians Gracie Carvalho and Ana Beatriz Barros. Glamurama got a NSFW snap of Richardson in action, shooting a topless McNeil on a white horse. [Glamurama via Fashionologie]
• Supposedly, Zac Posen is in the early stages of producing a scripted series for the CW network about the equestrian world. Might be a wise move to diversify, as we keep hearing wild rumors that his label is in trouble. [The Cut]
• Erin Fetherston is also shooting a short film this week, starring Juliette Lewis, and her fall collection. Music is by Damon Dash. Her husband also confirmed that the designer will launch a line for home-shopping giant QVC this fall, probably during fashion week. [WWD]
• Stacey Bendet Eisner — yes, last year she married the son of that Eisner — is the designer behind Alice + Olivia. And she says there are exciting things to come for the brand, including an expanded line of embellished t-shirts, a jewelry line with Erickson Beamon coming out this November, and a possible cosmetics deal. [Blackbook]
• Macy's says not to expect deep markdowns this season — but it does want a lower-priced outlet store bearing its name, since Saks and Nordstrom both have them. [WWD]
• Douglas Reker, one of the bracingly new designers I'm personally most excited about, has just been picked up for fall by Barneys Coop. [Crain's]
• Now that Lakshmi Menon — two-time Indian Vogue covergirl — has had her only-girl editorial debut in American Vogue, industry commentators wonder aloud: Why has it taken so long for a South Asian supermodel to emerge? Sarah Doukas of London mega-agency Storm says it's because Indians are culturally conservative and don't want their daughters modeling; Menon says agencies don't have scouting networks on the subcontinent, and if you don't look for something, of course you won't find it. [Independent]
• England's National Trust is in talks to buy the home of the late designer Laura Ashley. [Telegraph]
• Leigh Lezark, who is a member of this preposterous thing called the MisShapes, but who nonetheless finds time in her busy schedule to "model", might be Matthew Williamson's new muse. Because a perpetually black-clad stony-stared New Yorker would be the perfect match for his exuberant tastes. [Fashionista]
• Rosa Chá, which is just about the best-looking and best-fitting swimwear out there, barring perhaps Norma Kamali, and therefore heartbreaking for its extravagant price, is losing its founding designer, Amir Slama. Slama, who launched Rosa Chá over two decades ago, is going to start a namesake swim collection. Brazilian Alexandre Herchcovitz will take over at Rosa Chá. [WWD]
• Diego Della Valle, the head of Italian leather goods brand Tod's, has doubled his investment stake in Saks Fifth Avenue, to 5.9%. [WWD]
• Alberta Ferretti, Moschino, and Pollini are all lowering their prices. Their parent company, Italy's Aeffe SpA, experienced steep losses in the first quarter of this year, and has thus formulated a cost-cutting plan that is intended to save $13.6 million over the course of 2010. In addition to lowering prices, Aeffe is shrinking its collections and planning layoffs. [WWD]

It's nice to see, for one, an editorial that doesn't treat a foreign country as just an exotic background for a white model to pose against. I'm not sure if these photos, by the Swedish photographer Mikael Jansson, exactly represent an authentic engagement with Indian culture, but I do know that Laksmi Menon really lives in Goa. Like, not just has-a-house-there lives, but lives lives. Last week Menon told Vogue's Sally Singer that she doesn't buy the notion "that the First World has a better life to offer."

Menon is 27, and, very unusually, her career had something of a late start (she was already 25 when she began working in India). Now she does runway work for everyone from Alexander Wang to Givenchy. Her success offers a singular rebuttal to the idea that all models have to be underfed Eastern European teenagers. There's something grown-up about this woman who won't move to New York that I like.

Of course we already knew Menon looks hot in a swimsuit.

This white dress is by Yves Saint Laurent, which probably means it would cover the cost of a return flight to Goa, which just happens to be the location of this shoot. Where you could visit the Menezes Braganza house — "one of Goa's grandest mansions" — and ponder colonialism and its fall out at Literati, a bookstore which Menon particularly recommends.

"What's that, you say? This Alexander McQueen dress costs $1,695? I'll take one of your saris instead, thanks."

This photo, again, could look really ridiculous — Oh, spontaneous dance party! Yay, fashion! — but instead I'm intrigued by the coloration. The setting sun off the coast casts a perfect light, but what is that red dye that seems to cover everyone and everything?

"Proof that simplicity (tank, skirt) and comfort (flat sandals) are often the most liberating luxuries." Question: is it better or worse for Vogue to offer eminently wearable ensembles that nonetheless cost more than anyone's rent? This tank top and skirt run $1165; the shoes are price-on-application at Chloé. Is this, for not being a head-to-toe runway look replete with 6" stilettos, a nod to the ways in which women actually dress as functional human beings with jobs to do and feet that get sore, or is it base and unoriginal pandering to the small subset of the extraordinarily wealthy who lack for white tank tops, white skirts, and the imagination to put them together?

Here's the unbridled enthusiasm I was talking about! Sure, Vogue always shoots models on jumping in front of greyish-beige background. But are they ever this adorable? No. They are not.

I swear to the almighty Aphrodite, this girl is selling me those pants. I would look horrifying in white wide-legged pants, like the Sta-Puft Marshmallow Man's girlfriend, and yet, I want them! Because she makes them look fun!

Let's not mention body mass index or the fact that their legs are the width of arms in some other magazine. Let's focus on the glittery jewelry and their contagious smiles!

The shoes! Can we talk about the shoes? And the way they go with the shorts? And the tone-on-tone laces? Oh, and for those of you who watch Model.Live, the one on the left is Austria.

Sigh. When my sister gets "dressed up," she wears tux pants and a ribbed tank. On some women, it just works. And I love this. I love the shoes! And the $450 necklace that modeling can buy you but blogging cannot. I'm almost ready to sweep last month's corn row debacle under the rug where it belongs.


Teen Vogue [Official Site]
Earlier: Teen Vogue: Be A "Gender Bender" With A Blazer & Cornrows

• Rapper and fashionisto Kanye West announced from the men's shows of Milan that he is, indeed, teaming up with LV to design some kind of shoe. To which we say: okay. [WWD via Perez Hilton]
• Personally, we'll hold out for the new Obama Air Nikes! [BlackBook]
• Now "Love Triangle" rumors are flying in the wake of model Ruslana Korshunova's suicide. Well, at least at the New York Post. [New York Post]
• Presses officially stopped. Anna Wintour wears same dress thrice in a week. [This Is London]
• Why do they persist in talking?! Brazilian model Isabela Fontana: "I wouldn't want one of my sons to be gay. It just a minimum amount of prejudice. I have many friends who are gay, and I love them to death, but I wouldn't want to have a son turn out to be gay." [Made in Brazil]

• Wal-Mart to pay 6.5 million in workers' comp. [WWD]
• Apparently "the bitchy one" has won Australia's Next Top Model. [News.com.au]
• Is this in poor taste in an election year? Not sure: JFK-inspired togs. [BlackBook]
• Gucci CEO weighs in on market challenges. [Business Week]
• Anorexic model makes happy recovery. [Telegraph]
• Is Sierra Leone the next fashion capital? [Good Magazine]
• No doy (ooh, let's bring that back!): YSL worth more now that he's dead. "The death of Yves Saint Laurent and the fact that he is not creating any more collections will definitely change some things," Didier Ludot, owner of the highly esteemed eponymous vintage boutique in Paris, told us. "It's very rare a lady would sell her vintage haute couture YSL — it's a good time to buy such pieces." [New York Magazine]
• In an apparent attempt to not sell clothes, TopShop rips off Chloe Sevigny's clothing line. [fashionista]
• Lacoste partners with Australian Open. "Lacoste is going to be part of the upcoming Australian Open. They’ll provide us with over 1000 uniforms and be the apparel of the Australian Open. It will be for our officials, linespeople and the Aviva ballkids,” Says my boyfriend: "I want to be one of those models, floating on air." [sassybella]
• Cavalli boosts menswear with licensing deal. [WWD]
• "Well, duh! Everyone cries at McQueen!" [fashionista]
• Michael Kors swimwear will be "integral to his design philosophy." [VogueUK]
• Retailers are abandoning boomer market for "millennials.' [WWD]
• Carla Bruni: model, pop singer, first lady, muse, fashion savior. [IHT]