• "I've thought about clothing and jewelry lines," says Usher. "But fragrance stays on when everything else comes off." [People]
• Bottom of the barrel? For $8, American Apparel will sell you a bag of fabric scraps. [BF]

• Elle Creative Director Joe Zee dined with R.J. Cutler, the director of The September Issue. Which obviously means that he's going to spend two more years making a movie about Elle now! [FWD]
• Says lost soul Ashley Olsen, in fashion, "everyone is just really looking out for themselves. I don't know if I'll be designing this collection forever. A couple of years from now, I'm sure I'll want to do something else, and I'm not going to shy away from that. What if I just want to be an artist, or if I want to go back to acting? Which is not in the cards, but what if I wanted to do that?" [Daily Express]
• An Hermès representative says the rumors that creative director Jean Paul Gaultier is going to leave the company are false. Gaultier has been in his position for six years, and Hermès has experienced continued strong sales from its luxury categories since the start of the recession. [FashionMag]
• Christian Blanckaert, Hermès' director of international affairs, is leaving the company in early September. Blanckaert will become the non-executive chairman of the French children's clothing line Petit Bateau, and is expected to pursue a more international strategy for the brand. [WWD]
• Meanwhile, some anonymous sources in the finance industry are saying that Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy may spin off DKNY, the Donna Karan diffusion label it has owned since 2001. Or that it may sell Moët Hennessy itself, where revenues fell 17% in the first half of 2009. The reason the luxury conglomerate supposedly wants to free up some cash? To make a bid for Hermès, which is trading well below its usual share price. [Fashionista]
  
• Conservative party supporter Anya Hindmarch: "I started my business when I was 18, and I realized the difference it made having Thatcher in power. It was the start of privatization-there was a feeling of ‘Get out there, get going, be an entrepreneur.' I've seen what politics can do to make a difference. It really inspires me and that's why I've been passionate about it." [VF]
• Lara Stone is set to curate the choices available at Not Just A Label's online shop, a home for avant-garde and emerging designers. Lara's choices go on sale on September 2. [UK Elle]
• Uniqlo has a licensing deal with Disney that'll allow it to roll out Disney-themed apparel starting next month. Which should mean the mouse products will hit stores around the same time as Jil Sander's long-awaited first collection for the retailer. [WWD]
• Jean-Charles de Castelbajac is launching a diffusion line called JC/DC. The line will be presented in London and again in Paris at the upcoming shows, and the company wants real-life hepcats to model its wares — anyone who wants to apply for a spot in the runway lineup can do so via the websites of Dazed & Confused or Jalouse magazine, respectively. [WWD]
• Someone named Bronson van Wyck is obsessed with "The Penguin Sparkling Water Maker from Williams-Sonoma. The penguin makes the water fizzy. You can adjust from superfizzy like Perrier to moderate like S. Pellegrino to milder like Hendon." Socials! They're not like us at all. [WWD]
• Vogue Brasil mis-spelled photographer Guy Bourdin's name as "Guy Bourdain" in huge font on its cover. [MadeinBrazil]
• Rosemary Port, the writer behind the infamous "Skanks In NYC" hate-blog against model Liskula Cohen, says that she will continue her $15 million lawsuit against Google for disclosing her e-mail address and IP to Cohen. Even though Google only disclosed those details after losing its long legal battle and being ordered to so by a Manhattan supreme court judge! Port feels her right to privacy has been violated, and alleges of Cohen, "By going to the press, she defamed herself." Her lawyer had this to say: "I'm ready to take this all the way to the Supreme Court. Our Founding Fathers wrote 'The Federalist Papers' under pseudonyms. Inherent in the First Amendment is the right to speak anonymously. Shouldn't that right extend to the new public square of the Internet?" Which, if you think about it, is an airtight argument. Doesn't anyone else remember reading that long footnote in the Federalist Papers where James Madison goes on and on about how Brutus is, like, such a ho? And then of course next month Robert Yates was all like, Nuh uh, you're a big fat skank, Publius, and everyone knows it! Whatever, Rosemary Port. Defamation isn't traditionally considered protected speech. [NYDN]
• Louis Vuitton has won a $400,000 judgment against Bonini Handbags for trademark infringement. [WWD]
• Derek Blasberg watched The Rachel Zoe Project in Los Angeles, with Rachel Zoe. "Watching the actual show and having an alternate show happening in front of me was surreal. And kind of confusing. There was Brad on TV wearing a Missoni sequined shift dress impersonating his boss, and then there, in the flesh, was Brad trying on a Louis Vuitton tennis skirt and booties impersonating his boss. Taylor was on TV moaning, and there she was in person moaning." [StyleFile]
• Casual Male, a U.S. maker of men's plus-size clothing, has seen its quarterly profits increase by 92.1% on last year, even as sales fell 13.4%. [WWD]

• Model Liskula Cohen has confronted the woman revealed as the author of a hate-blog directed against her. Cohen told the woman that she forgave her, but the blogger did not apologize — probably because a defamation suit is pending. [P6]

• Brett Favre is going to be the new face, and presumably butt, of Wrangler jeans. [WWD]
• Marc Jacobs and Lorenzo Martone are reportedly eloping to Massachusetts this weekend. [P6]
• Elisabeth Moss, who plays Peggy Olsen on Mad Men, is sick of wearing mustard, says costume designer Janie Bryant. [W]
• Stella McCartney's perfume, Stellanude, will launch as planned, because Ali Hewson's court bid to prevent it has failed. Hewson runs a company called Nude Brands, and markets a line of skincare under the Nude trademark. [Telegraph]
• The headline — "David Bailey: Still Snapping Away At 71" — might as well just read "David Bailey, Amazingly, Still Alive." But the legendary British photographer actually has plenty to say on the topics of retouching and American Vogue: "D'you know any model over the age of 23 has to be touched up these days. Twenty-three? It's fucking ridiculous but that's what you have to do for American Vogue and it's getting to be the same over here." [ToL]
• Anna Wintour personally approves every photo published by Vogue's blog. [The Cut]
• Meanwhile, sources say that Vogue attracted early attention from the consultants McKinsey because they believe it is a model of a larger Condé Nast title, and that the lessons learned from studying Vogue will be applicable to other magazines. Vogue, representative? More likely it drew the money-savers' eyes first because of its legendary profligacy. [NYObs]
• Michelle Obama's principal hairstylist says, "I believe hair is a language, if it's not moving it has no voice." [W]
• Meanwhile, is there any reason Simon Doonan might be measuring the White House drapes? Or shall we just assume the Obamas have hired the wittiest interior designer ever? [VF]
• Ed Hardy designer Christian Audigier says there will be no Jon Gosselin clothing line. And we were so hoping. [E!]
• Sex-era Vivienne Westwood punk clothing is so popular that people are counterfeiting it now, a generation later. Three people were arrested in London and charged with fraud for allegedly selling clothing they claimed had come from Malcolm McLaren and Westwood's infamous store. [WWD]
• If you want to be an It Girl, Refinery29 created a handy charticle for your edification. It helps if you have the Cobrasnake's number. [Refiner29]
• Mario Grauso, the president of Puig Fashion Group, which owns Carolina Herrera and Nina Ricci, among other houses, is rumored to be resigning. [WWD]
• This fashion blind item is kind of generic, but anyway: "Which designer won't be showing in the Tent this year, like he usually does? Rumor has it he'll send his gorgeous gowns down the Salon's runway instead." Could be almost anyone, in this economy. But perhaps it's Zac Posen? [Fashionista]
• Earlier this month, the Michael Kors boutique on Prince Street in SoHo was burgled. A man distracted the security guard at the neighboring Apple store and made off with $13,000 worth of merchandise. [Villager]
• Pop-up stores are barely news these days, but if Rodarte is doing one at Colette in Paris this October, and selling DVDs of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and stuffed knit animals, that actually sounds cool. [WWD]
• Two men have now been arrested in connection with the $66 million jewelry robbery at the Graff store in London. [NYTimes]
• The Humane Society wants the FTC to investigate Bergdorf's and Neiman Marcus for allegedly mislabeling fur products. The Society alleges that both stores sold Manolo Blahnik boots made from ocelot fur, an endangered species. [WWD]
• The Limited's second quarter profit declined by 27% on last year's numbers. [WSJ]
• L.L. Bean is shaking things up with a new creative director, Rogues Gallery's Alex Carleton. [NYTimes]
• The Buckle has continued its trend of positive results, despite the recession. The last quarter saw its profits rise 12% on the same period last year, to $25 million. [WSJ]

• They said it would never happen, but a judge ordered that Google reveal Liskula Cohen's anonymous online tormentor. The model sued Google to find out who was behind a hate-blog about her, in order to file a defamation suit. [NYPost]

• Marc Jacobs does not "enjoy", "look forward to," or anticipate seeing any shows besides his own at New York Fashion Week. "Enjoy?" said the designer, at a party in the Hamptons, "Enjoy is a weird word. It's work — work is more what it's about." So it's not fun? "No." In addition to his two collections to show, Jacobs has a wedding pull together just now — his nuptuals with partner Lorenzo Martone will take place privately in Provincetown, Massachussetts, "soon." [The Cut]
• Hopefully Jacobs was put in slightly better humor by a visit from Miss Piggy. She needed a dress for a red carpet affair in Chicago, and the designer was happy to oblige, so the porcine starlet popped in for a fitting. [WWD]
• Keira Knightley and a strategically arranged suspender star in the newest ad for Chanel's Coco Mademoiselle perfume. [Egotastic]
• Sass & Bide, the Australian denim label which generally shows internationally in New York, has announced it is joining the thundering horde heading to London Fashion Week this season. A raft of British designers have made special arrangements to return to London to show in this, London Fashion Week's 25th anniversary year, and even Anna Wintour — who normally drops the city from her fashion calendar — will be showing up. [Telegraph]
• The cast of the next season of Dancing With The Stars has been announced, and Vera Wang's name is not there. Kelly Osbourne, Melissa Joan Hart, and an Ultimate Fighting Champion might not make the best company, anyway, and Wang has a company to run, so we're not that surprised. [Us]
• Elettra Weidemann, Isabella Rossellini's daughter, scored another fall campaign, for G Star. Anton Corbijn, who directed the Joy Division movie Control, and has photographed U2 for years, was the photographer. [Fashionista]
• Eugenia Kim's diffusion line for Urban Outfitters, branded Eek!, includes a nice looking cloche, and some potentially interesting headbands and fascinators. For $28-$48, as opposed to Kim's main line's $200-$300 pricepoint, this line looks like a winner. [FabSugar]
• Speaking of Urban Outfitters, is there any other chain you would expect to take up the noble cause of saving Polaroid from obsolescence? [Elle UK]
• Hermès is reissuing one of its classic scarf designs to benefit the International Federation of Human Rights. The blue-green scarf will be sold on fidh.org for 215 Euros, starting early next month. [WWD]
• Fashion blind item! "WHICH rising American model has stopped getting snapped backstage by photographers? She's dated so many of them (and their important friends) that now they refuse to give her any exposure!" [Fashionista]
• Wal-Mart is expanding its reach into the tween market. In addition to having Taylor Swift design dresses for L.E.I., and selling Miley Cyrus's line with Max Azria, the world's largest retailer has inked a deal with Nickelodeon to partner with the young stars of a show called True Jackson. [WWD]
• Presumably in order to give Toby Keith a run for his money, Kenny Chesney is launching a fashion line. [People]
• Zara is expanding its outlet chain, Leftie's, into France, after successfully opening the super-budget stores in Portugal and Mexico. This is clearly something we need stateside, stat. [WWD]
• Saks' net loss in the second quarter widened to $54.5 million, an increase from the $32.7 million loss the company experienced during the same period last year. However, Saks actually beat analysts' expectations. [WWD]

• The Gossip played an hour-long set at the Paris Fendi party. Beth Ditto stripped off the five-piece stage costume Lagerfeld made her until she was performing in a sequined bra and thong. [Telegraph]

• Chanel's show at the Grand Palais in Paris was an appropriately star-studded affair, with Freida Pinto, Kate Moss, Olga Kurylenko and current Karl-favorite Claudia Schiffer in the front row. The models — basically a supermodel round-up, including several of the designer's former muses, like Karen Elson and Angela Lindvall — walked through a maze-like set that Lagerfeld designed himself. (Lindvall said they rehearsed the choreography three times.) Asked how it was that he got into the maze himself for the finale, the Kaiser said, "That I don't know and it's a strange thing. It happens to me often early in the mornings. I get into the middle of mazes and come out of completely nowhere!" [FWD]
• Alexander McQueen has heard your talk of recession-friendly safe fashion, and he bites his thumb at you. "I think it's dangerous to play it safe because you will just get lost in the midst of cashmere twin sets," said the designer, whose show was a vicious-minded mash-up of iconic fashions, played out on a set whose centerpiece was a crumbling, blackened heap of his own old set props. "People don't want to see clothes. They want to see something that fuels the imagination." [NY Times]
• This is the kind of gross original concept with a high potential for backfire: when launching a new cologne, how about not throw a crowded party and only allow guests into a backroom, one by one, to smell the scent — on a live male model? "It's really starting to smell in there," muttered someone who would have preferred, oh, I don't know, tester bottles. [WWD]
• Page Six is reporting that Anna Wintour shook hands with PETA vice-president Dan Matthews at the Stella McCartney show in Paris. Sees unlikely, given PETA's extra-vocal protests this season — French Vogue editor Carine Roitfeld's Balenciaga dress had its sleeve ripped off by PETA operatives, who presumably were trying to target her goat coat — and the animal-rights organization's own history with Wintour. (Once, PETA dumped an animal carcass on the editor's plate in a restaurant. Wintour calmly placed her napkin over it and asked to see the dessert menu.) But, strange things happen in fashion, so... [P6]
• The 80s are definitely back. Leighton Meester's first Reebok ad is out — and she's posing next to a boom box that looks like it takes about 19 D batteries. [Sassybella]
• Liskula Cohen, the former Vogue model suing Google in an attempt to force the company's Blogger service to reveal the identity of a user who posts scathing content about her, broke down in court when some of the offending posts were read into the record. The blog Skanks in NYC is entirely dedicated to smearing Cohen, alleging she has no soul, and calling her "desperate," a "ho," and a "skank" many times, and Cohen's aim is to pursue a defamation suit against the author, should he or she be revealed. The lawyer representing the anonymous site called the posts "youthful, jocular, slangy comments." [NYDN]
• That's Shalom Harlow, Eva Herzigova, and Vincent Gallo (yeah, wtf?) in the spring H&M ads. [Fabsugar]
• Katie Holmes told Glamour that she is currently in talks to start a children's clothing line with her friend and stylist Jeanne Yang. [Hollyscoop]
• Meanwhile, the Jonas brothers want the tween clothing market. [WWD]
• And is Heidi Klum thinking that grown women will buy Barbie-inspired duds? [The Cut]
• Christian-owned knockoff emporium Forever 21 sold an unauthorized t-shirt with the logo of punk band Minor Threat screen printed into a thicket of generic 80s imagery. Dischord Records, Minor Threat's label, objected — and in a surprise twist ending, the shirts have actually been pulled from store shelves. [Pitchfork]
• An Indonesian company that produces around 500,000 pairs of Adidas shoes every month has been sued by its main local creditors, the Bank of Negara Indonesia and a leather wholesaler, after an ongoing dispute over the shoe factory's unpaid bills. [UPI]
• After profits declined 45.1% in 2008, luxury Italian jeweler and perfumer Bulgari will cut jobs, close stores, and eliminate unprofitable product lines. [WWD]
• Eric Gaskins, a New York-based couturier whose wares have been worn by Salma Hayek and Tina Fey, among others, has been forced to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after 22 years in business. Gaskins is one of the most prominent high-end African-American designers in the US. [Crain's]
• Net profits at Swatch fell 17.4% in 2008. [WWD]

As mentioned previously, these unkind words were launched at model Liskula Cohen by class-act blog Skanks In NYC. The 36-year-old model, who has appeared in Vogue and other fashion magazines, is suing Google, which hosts the blog, for defamation, in an attempt to force the blogger out of anonymity. In the lawsuit, Cohen states that the blog's slings and arrows paint her as a "promiscuous woman who is filthy, disgusting, foul and a whore," a rep that's not done much for her "desirability for endorsing products." While the uncharitable could perhaps suggest that this desirability was already somewhat in question — and, further, that said anonymous asshole is considerably more fixated on the model's activities than is the public; and, further still, that this is in fact the first we have really heard of her and this kind of publicity isn't really serving to distract from a site we'd otherwise be unfamiliar with — the real question, which Salon's Tracy Clark-Flory poses is, does she have a case?

Not exactly. As a lawyer tells her, for the case to hold water, the model would have to prove that Skank's assertions were not just their opinion, but rather, deliberately misleading: "a false and unprivileged statement of fact that is harmful to a person's reputation." In other words, well-nigh impossible to do. (Although it does seem like she could probably prove pretty conclusively that she's not the #1 skank in New York — surely there's gotta be some viable competition, both amongst celebrities and professional prostitutes, no?)

Of course, however much flack she'll take for the law-suit, her thin skin, the fact that she had an unpleasant bottle contretemps with a bouncer last year, and the possible publicity ploy — in short, however misguided it may be - we get why someone would want to do it: on a basic level, it seems wrong that a stranger (or, even worse, not) should be able to write vile things anonymously. Sticks and stones nothing, reading that has to be a punch to the gut for anyone not trained from childhood to weather gratuitous insults. And the internet is, as pundits are fond of saying, still the "wild west," legally speaking. There's certainly scope for precedent-setting and why not in this case, frivolous though it may seem? It would be nice if there was some resolution to this case beyond "Skanks in NYC" getting more hits, Cohen humiliating herself, and the rest of us just feeling really, really sad. Because we imagine the wild west being slightly more exciting than that - or at least involving more frontier justice.

Model Sues Over "Skank" Comment [Salon]

Earlier:Rag Trade: Model Sues Google After Random Blogger Calls Her "Old Hag"

• Versace model Liskula Cohen is suing Google after a blogger called her a "skank" and "old hag." Cohen hopes the defamation suit will unmask the mudslinger. [New York Daily News]

• Kanye West might be releasing a Louis Vuitton sneaker. We wish he'd stop being so lamely mysterious. [The Life Files]
• Monique Lhuillier and Naeem Khan are the latest designers to jump on the non-runway-show Fashion Week bandwagon. Cause who wants to be the insensitive designer throwing a show in these times? We all know an uber-select show in a small room is the way to fix the economy! [WSJ]
• First Lady Carla Bruni, at least, will be at Paris Fashion Week. [WWD]
• So, if you beat Stuart Weitzman in ping pong (which you won't, because he does "finger aerobics" and keeps his custom paddle in a silver case) you win a bunch of his shoes. [Fashion Week Daily]
• Talk about rags to riches! Model Daniela Cott, "who stands 5ft 10ins tall and has emerald green eyes, was spotted two years ago as she sifted through rubbish on the streets of Buenos Aires." Yes, she was fashionably gaunt! [Telegraph]
• Miss Vermont, Ashley Ruth Wheeler, will be wearing a green gown to the Miss America Pageant. The earth-friendly eco-frock will be made from hemp, organic cotton and silk, and lace and beads made from organic materials. No word yet on the swimsuit. [UPI]
• A new bra, designed for older and disabled women, has replaced tricky hooks with magnets. A boon for their suitors, too! [Science Daily]
• Diddy is king of his castle: "I need some advance notice because when I'm at home I'm really likely just to hang totally loose. I really like to just walk around in my underwear...I get a little embarrassed when people drop by; I'm not really prepared."[VogueUK]
• Stephanie Seymour for Valentino - part of the much ballyhooed 'year of the classic supermodel' —looks pretty amazing. [Fashion Week Daily]
• At least they can't be accused of false advertising: a new counterfeit shopping mall in China sells only knock-offs. [Mirror]
• This grotesque Roberto Cavalli snakeskin-print MasterCard was "created for those who thrive upon excellence, elegance and quality." [The Life Files]
• Los Angeles' 7 Showroom was robbed of $300,000 worth of merchandise on New Year’s Day. [WWD]
• Toni Chorley, a promising young model dubbed "the new Twiggy" when she came on the scene, has died of Hodgkin's Lymphoma at just 23. [Daily Mail]
• In a welcome piece of good retail news, fast fashion chain New Look reports that their numbers are up. [FT]
• Skechers launches (presumably fug) clothing line for kids. Sorry, that was uncalled-for. [WWD]
• Alfred Shaheen, credited as the inventor of the Hawaiian shirt that swept the mid-century nation, has passed away at 86. Aloha! [Reason]
• Now they say the first American TopShop is opening in March. Whatever. Fool us twice...[New York]
• Peaches Geldof has chopped her hair. It must be said: looks good. [ElleUK]