• Julia Roberts will become a face of Lancôme, appearing in ads beginning early next year. Roberts earns up to $20 million per film, and could realize a similar amount from her first major beauty contract; the company won't say. [WWD]

• Kate Moss so admired a fellow wedding guest's bracelet that her friend, Topshop owner Sir Philip Green, bought it off the woman's wrist. [P6]
• David Lynch is directing the next Marion Cotillard Dior handbag ad, and he's filming her in Shanghai right now. The video is intended to continue the story of the noirish, Hitchcockian ad by Olivier Dahan the company released in May. [Elle UK]
• Christian Lacroix has announced that he will not be involved with any of parent company the Falic Group's future projects for his namesake label, which was this week allowed to be reduced to a licensing operation by a Paris bankruptcy court. Lacroix had not been paid by Falic since the fall of 2008. The French minister of industry thinks the closure of the house of Lacroix is a travesty. He is trying to use diplomatic networks to contact the most interested-seeming buyer, an Emirate sheikh, "to alert him of the urgency of the situation." [WWD]
• Police acting on a tip raided two Detroit area stores selling counterfeit Gucci, Coach, and Polo clothing and accessories. (One had what it claimed was a $4,000 jacket on sale for $700.) The seized goods would have retailed for about $800,000, had they been genuine. [UPI]
• Silvia Fendi — the lady behind the baguette and the spy and the B Fendi bags — designed new guitars for OK Go to take on tour. The tricked-out Gibsons feature white leather, rivets, and goat fur, and, for that extra special touch, a red-and-green LED panel that flashes with the band's lyrics. "Any time an ‘F' appears in their lyrics, it's our double-F logo," says the bag lady. We need a picture of these guitars pronto. [WWD]
• Proenza Schouler has added e-commerce to its website, Proenzaschouler.com. [Vogue UK]
• Sephora is going to roll out 20 cosmetics vending machines to small J.C. Penney stores that lack full-service Sephora counters. Each machine will offer 50 of the makeup retailer's most popular products. How space-age. [WWD]
• Bottega Veneta is getting into the fragrance game. Expect the first perfume to launch in 2011. [WWD]
• André Leon Talley re-arranged a trip to China to attend the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater's opening night. Though in his words he would not presume to dance, Talley did express a willingness to go horse riding, some day: "Because the man and the horse are ballet. The communication between the man and the horse in a race, that's sort of a little dance." [The Cut]
• For some reason, it is considered news that Marc Jacobs gave Will Smith a bunch of free clothes to wear during the presentation of the Nobel Prizes in Oslo. You'd almost think Smith was the laureate. [WWD]
• Aw, watching Oprah can make Chris Benz cry. [TFI]

These eensy-weensy, teeny-weeny triangle tops are something of a P-S signature. Those of us with breasts? Movin' right along.





The fellas did a lot with playing with sportswear ideas, evoking casual, sporty elements in a sharper context. In other words, enormous shirts that look like they've got sweatshirts tied around their wastes.





The rteurn of tie-dye: I guess now that Phish has reformed, this was inevitable.


I'm intensely concerned about how scuba-princess is going to translate to Forever21.





Leighton Meester: obviously the intended customer.


Well, this looks fun and relaxed.

[Images via Getty]

• Gwyneth Paltrow's clothing line with Zoetees is hitting stores this month. The collection includes tee shirts, studded tank tops, and a grey oversized blazer  fine basics, but there's no indication why the line should start at £100. [Elle UK]

• Earlier this year, Katy Perry, desirous of a fashion line, pre-emptively sued the Australian fashion designer Katie Perry for trademark infringement. Although the suit was later dropped, now that the pop star is in Australia, all mention of Katie Perry and the trademark issue is verboten during media interviews. Which is why when a television presenter asked the singer if there were any Australian artists she admired, Perry's manager actually killed the studio lights. [News.com.au]
• The tender melancholy of Being Donatella: "I would definitely prefer not to be obliged to attend certain events and parties, but I must." [ToL]
• Being longtime fans of documentarian Loïc Prigent  the man who made both the excellent Signé Chanel and Marc Jacobs & Louis Vuitton  we cannot wait to watch his new series, which follows four designers during the last 36 hours before their respective shows. Sonia Rykiel, Proenza Schouler, Jean Paul Gaultier Couture, and Fendi are featured; Prigent says "They only have 36 hours left; they don't have time to be polite." [W]
• Gaultier was among the guests evacuated from a hotel in Nice recently following a bomb threat. Nobody was injured and no explosives were found. [Yahoo!]
• Rachel Zoe's line for QVC will be shown in the biggest tent at New York Fashion Week. [The Cut]
• Between The Rachel Zoe Project, America's Next Top Model, Project Runway, Models Of The Runway, Project Runway All-Stars, The Fashion Show, and the upcoming Launch My Line, there's more fashion-themed reality television than any human being could ever watch. Is the genre reaching saturation? No, because women think about fashion the way men think about sports, and it would be silly to ask if there is too many sports shows! No, really: "The same way that sports is a passionate category for men, women look at style in the same way," said Style Network president Salaam Coleman Smith. "Women are passionate about transformation, and about ideas for living a fun, fabulous life, to improve themselves, find a new lipstick and figure out a new haircut." [WWD]
• Zoe, for her part, admits she has "a hard time" watching her show. That makes two of us. [WWD]
• Victoria Beckham found a lookbook model for her dress line who looks very much like Victoria Beckham. [Daily Mail]
• Hussein Chalayan's line for Puma looks exciting, intimidating, and totally technophiliac. [WWD]
• Pint-sized and cooler than we'll ever be, child style blogger Tavi WIlliams may have made the first cover of Pop magazine to be produced under new editor Dasha Zhukova. Interestingly, Tavi was just in the second issue of Love, which was founded by ex-Pop editor-in-chief Katie Grand. These are Tavi's first major magazine appearances. [Fashionologie]
• Meanwhile, Tavi was asked by Laura and Kate Mulleavy of Rodarte to film the presentation of the label's upcoming Target collaboration. None of the items in that collection will be priced above $80. [Lucky]
  
• Add Antonio Berardi and Stella McCartney for Adidas to the long list of English designers beating a return to London Fashion Week this season. [Telegraph]
• Cintra Wilson  the ordinarily funny writer who penned that amazingly tone-deaf, sizist JC Penney's store review for the New York Times  would like you to know that the controversy over her comments is officially over. At least to her. So don't write her about it! Don't read the comments under her post if you don't want to hear Wilson and an acolyte braying about the "whalesong" of complaint. [CintraWilson]
• House of Dereon now has a day dress collection. Weirdly, it includes an awful looking silk drawstring-waist jumpsuit. [WWD]
• You can watch an online short with Chloé Sevigny all about hip boutique Opening Ceremony's new store in Shibuya, Tokyo. [Dazed&Confused]
• Levi's Ryan McGinley-shot "Go Forth" ad campaign for its 501 jeans also has an online mockumentary component. You can watch these "Stories Of A New America" about good-looking young people doing cool things, you know, totally spontaneously, at Break.com. [MW]
• Kenny Chesney's apparel line will launch at MAGIC, the Las Vegas apparel industry event. [WWD]

• Charlize Theron has nabbed the September cover of a slimmed-down Vogue. The issue counts only 584 pages, compared with the 840 pages of Sienna Miller's 2007 issue. Theron last made the cover in October 2007. [TFS]

• Kate Moss is the fall face of Just Cavalli. Splitting the difference between the competing trends of top- and bottomlessness, she poses for one ad in a tuxedo jacket and nothing else, and for another in some kind of leopard-print leotard. In a third, she wears a micromini sequined dress that seems to be held up with magic. [FWD]
• Legendary photographer Corinne Day — whose pictures of Kate Moss for The Face helped put the supermodel on the map — is facing a serious illness, and requires expensive medical treatment. Friends are trying to raise money by selling 500 prints of a 2001 photo of Moss nude on a bed; the pictures are £100 each. [LOVE, link NSFW]
• The first images of Jil Sander's hotly anticipated +J line for Uniqlo have just surfaced, and it looks fantastic. Japanese magazine Non-No shot seven looks from the men's collection, and it's entirely apparent that the German designer has not lost her talent for tailoring and her ability to pare down a look to its most basic, striking elements during her years in the fashion wilderness after being fired from her namesake label by owners Prada. +J, which hits Uniqlo stores this November, includes around 140 pieces of men's and women's wear, and prices start at $25. [Hypebeast]
• Macy's has announced that Ne-Yo will be the new face of Alfani's Red men's wear. [WWD]
• Uma Thurman has the campaign for Givenchy's new Angel or Demon perfume. [The Sun]
  
• Under Isaac Mizrahi's direction, Liz Claiborne continues to seek a higher-fashion image without shedding its affordability. To wit: this fall, Coco Rocha and her old flaming red hair star in a very kaleidoplaid campaign. Also, count this as another example of the models-in-the-supermarket fashion imagery trope. [Design Scene]
• Patrick Robinson and his design team at the Gap have been concentrating on the basics — and particularly on revamping the company's various styles of jeans. To advertise the offerings, the company has chosen a bevvy of top models, including Carmen Kass, Anja Rubik, and Arlenis Sosa, each identified with a particular style of denim — "The Boyfriend," "Curvy," "Long & Lean," etc. We wonder who it was, though, who chose to put the lesbian model Freja Beha Erichsen next to giant type that reads "Real Straight." [Models.com]
• Loeffler Randall is adding e-commerce to its website. [WWD]
• Jewelry designer Anna Sheffield's collection for Target hits stores at the end of this month. The pieces range from $19.99-$79.99; some are made of sterling silver. They all look very cool. [Lucky]
• You know the economy's terrible when Jessica Seinfeld serves pigs-in-blankets to Gwyneth at a charity gala. [WWD]
• In Paris, several recent fashion school graduates are starting their own lines — with a difference: instead of focusing on the tradition ready-to-wear, these young designers each want to do small collections made-to-measure for each client. And the prices are right: 50-80 Euros for a shirt, 70 Euros for a dress, 150 Euros for a jacket. In putting an affordable price on services that are something more than tailoring and something less than couture, with all its connotations of excess, these youngsters have almost certainly found a gap in the market. [DazedDigital]
• Meanwhile, shoe designer Jeffrey Campbell knocked off a Chloé boot. His offerings this season are basically just Ann Demeulemeester's and Balmain's shoes done for cheap(er). How is it this guy hasn't gotten sued yet? (Of course, Chloé probably took inspiration for their shoes from some vintage boots.) [The Greyest Ghost]
• And there are also instances of high-end brands ripping off less-expensive ones. Cf. Proenza Schouler's version of the Frye boot. [On The Fringe Of Fashion]
• After the record-breaking sale of all the art he collected with Yves Saint Laurent, partner Pierre Bergé plans to go ahead with an auction of furniture, sculptures, and textiles in November. The works are expected to fetch around $5.7 million; the proceeds will go to AIDS research. [WWD]
• Miss J's new memoir, Follow The Model: Miss J's Guide To Unleashing Presence, Poise And Power contains a troubling blind item about not being let in to a fashion show on the explicit instructions of the head of the PR company running the designer's front-of-house operations. The PR company seems to be Kelly Cutrone's People's Revolution, and the designer — specified as Brazilian — seems to be either Carlos Miele or Alexandre Herchcovitch. Was Miss J denied entry because he is black, or because he now bears the taint of Night-Time Tyra? The latter seems unlikely, since Miss J points out that the same designer later begged America's Next Top Model to use his line for the finale runway show when ANTM went to Brazil in Season 12. (That particular laurel went to Rosa Chá.) [Fashionista]
• The New York Fashion Week menswear schedule is out, and it contains some surprises. This season, Yigal Azrouël is killing his separate men's wear presentation, and combining his two shows into one. Philip Lim is doing the exact opposite, adding a separate men's wear presentation. [WWD]
• Feast your eyes on ShopBop's "WARTIME" array of products, and ponder the aestheticization of orchestrated human killing. [ShopBop]

Yesterday morning, the Council of Fashion Designers of America held a private town hall style meeting to discuss the future of fashion week — but the meeting soon mushroomed into a general debate on the serious issues the industry is facing. And nothing is off the table. The entire industry superstructure — how fashion is produced, shown, and sold to the consumer — was hotly debated by everyone from Anna Wintour, to Francisco Costa, to Diane von Furstenberg.

CFDA president von Furstenberg made the case for change by drawing attention to the disconnect between the shows — which receive so much press that customers would probably buy items from the collection then and there — and the actual produced goods, which don't reach stores for another six months. By then, the hype may have gone flat — or as Jack McCollough of Proenza Schouler put it, "It's on blogs; magazines pull straight from the runways; and by the time it's in stores, it feels sort of old." Von Furstenberg ventured a solution in a split fashion week: "Maybe there can be a Fashion Week that says trade and another one that says shop?"

Other designers have decided that sales are the enemy. Donna Karan fingered early delivery dates — the well-known problem of winter coats arriving in stores in July, which is, if we're talking this so-far dreary summer, about the time you might start thinking about buying a new swimsuit — as a motivator for stores to mark down in-season clothing, hurting margins on the items most likely to actually sell. "The consumer has been trained to buy on sale," said Karan.

"Everyone had been too greedy, and everyone thought the party was forever," said von Furstenberg. "We wanted more merchandise, and more of this and more of that, and expect 20 percent increases every month, and at some point it just became too much of everything. I realized that what we all have to do is reduce the offerings and create the demand."

Elie Tahari said his company has seen success since it started making smaller, but more numerous, shipments of in-season goods to retailers. "It's about shipping clothes that you can buy and wear right away," said the designer, who compared discounting to "a virus."

American Vogue's fashion news and features editor, Sally Singer, laid blame at the inelastic production structure. "There's been an overproduction which has led to the 40 and 60 and 80 percent off. If we produce less, the consumer will have more confidence in the product."

But Anna Wintour's proposed solution really takes the cake. The Vogue editor stood up to offer, "Could someone lead a committee that would make ground rules for retailers of when the discounting starts, and then all the retailers can agree to it?" Von Furstenberg interjected that that was illegal — in fact, if the big department stores had any such agreement, it would amount to price-fixing and collusion, an anti-trust lawsuit in the making. "Is that something we can change?" asked Wintour. "We have friends in the White House now!"

Von Furstenberg stressed that none of the proposed ideas will be in effect for the shows this September — she is looking for solutions that can be put in place by September 2010. So which will it be? More frequent deliveries sounds dangerously close to the kind of permanent-new-collection madness that swept us into this mess; some of the big houses already do 12 collections a year. Restricting the volume of clothing produced is a sure-fire way to artificially inflate sell-through rates, but to what end would a successful business actively seek fewer customers when it has enjoyed more in the past? What nobody was apparently willing to address was that fashion became, during the long recent boom, simply too expensive: there are not enough good designers willing to make a beautiful dress that costs not a few thousand dollars but a few hundred dollars. True designer fashion will never be available at Wal-Mart or H&M prices, but why can so few people manage to make a dress that a member of this country's middle-class could actually, in a good month, splurge on and wear with enjoyment? Sales are not the enemy: sales are the message that what designers are doing is not working. And idle talk about lobbying the Obama administration to create loopholes in the nation's competition laws doesn't further anyone's business interests.

Betsey Johnson, for her part, supports von Furstenberg's idea of a more consumer-driven fashion week to vacuum up some of the hype away from the trade shows. "I would love to show at Madison Square Garden!" she said. "I wish Fashion Week for the public can be like Christmas, and maybe we'll put up green and pink lights everywhere. I could completely have my showroom open to the public. I could run around that week. I could celebrate in the stores."

As the New York Observer notes, her statement was met with silence from the room. A pity — I'd go to Johnson's public show in a heartbeat.

CFDA's Forum Debates The Fashion System [WWD]
At CFDA Town Committee, Wintour Proposes Discount By Committee; DVF: "That's Illegal!" [NYObs]

• Twilight clothing is happening  it's only surprising it took so long. The duds go on sale at Nordstrom in October. Selina Khan, on the right, looks like she just doesn't care about Edward or Jacob, bless her heart. [People]

• Amazon.com is acquiring Zappos.com. The cost? $847 million. [NYTimes]
• Wonder Woman Lynda Carter will be live in person at Talbot's for Fashion Night Out, a night of special sales and events designed to encourage consumers to shop at the start of New York Fashion Week. Carter will be at Talbot's Madison Avenue store to promote her new CD, "At Last." [WWD]
• Meanwhile, France is one step closer to allowing shops to open on Sundays after the bill was narrowly approved by the senate. Mon dieu! [WWD]
• Barney's New York took down a disturbing window display that featured bloodied mannequins, posed as though they were struggling against assailants. And here we thought Simon Doonan's judgment was impeccable in all things. [NYDN]
• The actress Melissa George has invented a new product which she calls "HemmingMyWay." Geddit! The Grey's star, along with her business partner Kara Harshbarger, plans to sell clear adhesive strips with snaps affixed that allow a wearer to quickly adjust the length of her pants when she changes from flats to heels. Look, it even has a Facebook page! [WWD]
• Amy Winehouse's father wants her to license her name to a perfume house for £500,000. [Telegraph]
• And Lily Allen is doing a line of jewelry. "I love jewelry, always have done," explains the pop star. [Vogue UK]
• A 1994 Arte documentary about Yves Saint Laurent, Tout Terriblement, is being released on DVD. [WWD]
• In London next Thursday, a Chanel-themed flash mob has been announced. Anyone wearing Chanel, or Chanel-esque outfits should meet like-minded sartorial souls at St. Pancras International Station at 6 p.m. [UK Elle]
• 19-year-old Georgian Sean O'Pry topped Forbes' list of the highest-earning male models. There are pictures. [Forbes]
• Retail executives' pay fell last year. The 10 top-earning executives compensation packages decreased by 9.4%. [WWD]
• Could Fabiola Beracasa really be developing a reality show in the style of Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations, where she flies around the world looking for...unusual fashion? [P6]
• Daniel Vosovic, Santino Rice, Korto Momolu, Sweet P, Jeffrey Sebelia, Uli Herzner, Mychael Knight and Chris March are the designers returning to Project Runway for a second helping of Tim Gunn's soothing drone and Heidi Klum's adenoidal exhortations. Project Runway: All-Star Challenge will be broadcast as a two-hour special before the show's sixth season premiere. All we want to know is whatever happened to Andrae? [People]
• Jeremy Scott is yet another designer heading to London Fashion Week this fall. Though based in Los Angeles, Scott normally shows in Paris. [WWD]
• MAC cosmetics is ending its sponsorship of fashion week, and instead holding its own competing roster of shows at Milk studios in Chelsea. Proenza Schouler, Erin Fetherston, and Alexander Wang have already committed to slots in the lineup. [NYTimes]
• Alex Wang on his day off, according to his friend Ryan Korban: "We do a lot of driving around - he loves driving. So we drive out to Brooklyn and just kind of cruise around. He's always got the music blasting and he's singing. It's surprising, but he's a really good driver. He's screaming and the music is to the max and he's drinking an iced coffee, but he's completely steady." [W]
• Esteban Cortazar is out at Emanuel Ungaro, WWD is reporting. The young Colombian designer had clashed with the house's management over advertising and the brand's direction; his collections met with mixed reviews, and at last month's resort show, the Ungaro CEO refused to say if Cortazar would be kept on. No successor has yet been named. [WWD]
• The quirky downtown gallery Partners & Spade got written about in the Times. Oh well  nothing good lasts forever. [NYTimes]
• Ozwald Boateng, the Ghana-born, London-based all-round spectacular menswear designer and tailor, made two suits for President Obama and hand-delivered them to the American ambassador to Ghana during the president's recent visit. If Obama wore Boateng's suits, nobody would call him frumpy, ever. [WWD]
• Another story about Crocs and what they mean. [LATimes]
• The New York Economic Development Corporation-run industry site NYCFashionInfo.com, which collates insidery arcana like designer showroom contacts and market week dates, might start accepting advertising and publishing more "lifestyle content" because it only attracts 2,000 visitors a month. [WWD]
• Apparel sales in England in the month of June rose by 1.2%. [FT]
• Skechers lost $5.9 million in the second quarter. The result was actually better than analysts had expected. [WWD]>

• Nicolas Ghesquière picked the intolerably cool Charlotte Gainsbourg to advertise Balenciaga's perfume. Ghesquière calls his friend "one of the most inspiring girls in the world." Gainsbourg said, "I was secretly hoping to be the face of Nicolas' first perfume." [WWD]

• Sources are saying Rihanna has an editorial, shot by Steven Klein, in Italian Vogue's September issue. [Fashionologie]
• Julia Restoin-Roitfelt, French Vogue editor-in-chief Carine Roitfeld's daughter, is the face of a new perfume by Jil Sander. [NowSmellThis]
• Hold onto your quirky hats, everybody! There's going to be a new hour-long television drama set in the New York fashion world. Because it's going to star a lady, it'll be just like the new Sex And The City! Isn't that exciting? [Variety]
• The ten finalists in this year's CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund are: Flora Gill and Alexa Adams of Ohne Titel; Natalie Chanin of Alabama Chanin; Patrik Ervell, Sophie Theallet, Waris Ahluwalia of House of Waris, Wayne Lee of Wayne, George Esquivel of Esquivel Shoes, Gary Graham, Monique Péan, and Simon Spurr of Spurr. Congratulations to them all! The winners of the six-year-old cash and mentorship award will be announced on November 16; past honorees include Proenza Schouler, Alexander Wang, and Doo-Ri Chung. [WWD]
• Doo-Ri Chung is just one of many designers whose business has been hurt by the economic downturn. Chung is owed more than $60,000 by the owners of Jake, a small, independent Chicago boutique. Specialty retailers have been among the hardest-hit in the whole retail sector, but the two men behind Jake, Jim Wetzel and Lance Lawson, actually managed to reorganize their company when it went bankrupt, and continue on as employees of a new entity, the Jake Retail Group. Except that Jake Retail Group did not assume liability for any of the store's debts  meaning that Chung, plus other young designers like Brian Réyes, Tina Lutz and Marsha Patmos of Lutz & Patmos, and Emma Fletcher of Lyell, are out tens of thousands of dollars each for clothes they made and shipped, and Jake sold, but which haven't been paid for. [NYTimes]
• Lyle Lodwick, brother of fameballer Jakob, is a male model. He says that male models take their jobs less seriously than women models do  which is generally true  but also that women models are, naturally, bitchier. "I've heard horror stories of girls putting needles in a girl's shoes so when she's on the runway she'll fall over." Lodwick: Whichever sweet model lady told you that is pulling your leg. [TDB]
• Ossie Clark, the iconic British label that was briefly revived by private investors, is closing again. [WWD]
• The occasion of Berlin designer Patrick Mohr's recent homelessness-themed collection, where he had homeless people walk his runway caked in mud, is used to peg a list of other politically edgy collections of varying levels of success  like John Galliano's own Spring 2000 homelessness-themed couture work, Rei Kawakubo's 1995 Comme des Garçons collection that looked like concentration camp victim uniforms, and Karl Lagerfeld's 1994 appropriation of verses from the Koran. Somehow, the list ends with nary a mention of Miguel Adrover's 2001 MeetEast collection, which was so widely panned it drove the talented designer out of business. [TDB]
• Alber Elbaz: ""The people I chose to run my new store in London are nice. I cannot work with bitches, I can't, I can't. Maybe I am too sensitive, I get blocked. There are some people who don't give a damn. With me, I find that if there is no energy flowing or no connection, I can't think. Talent is amazing - I love it, appreciate it. I respect talent a lot. But if you ask me, ‘Talent and bitch, or less talent and good?' I'll go with less talent." [MyFashionLife]
• New York attorney general Andrew Cuomo caught the firm behind the "Lifestyle Lift" cosmetic surgery procedure posting fake customer reviews and testimonials on the Internet  and won a $300,000 settlement for the astroturfing. [Clickz]
• U.K. lingerie maker Intimas is in bankruptcy administration. Around 200 jobs are at risk. [ToL]
• Liz Claiborne, which has been struggling in the recession, renewed its C.E.O. William McComb's contract, but didn't give him a raise  just a bigger bonus. [WSJ]
• That story about how Crocs are going bust is getting written again, this time kind of artlessly. [WaPo]
• In the second quarter, net income at Joe's Jeans fell 17.8%, on a same-store sales decline of 4.3% [WWD]
• Chemists have traditionally been unable to produce fabrics that are reliably water-repellent when doused with hot, instead of cold, water. Which is why the development of a hydrophobic fabric coating that can repel hot water is potentially exciting news. Scientists think it could have applications in protective clothing, for instance for people who are at risk of scalding burns. [NS]

• How cool are these Charlie Brown New Balance sneakers? Cool enough that we wish they weren't just for kids. [WWD]
• A London artist has created Kate Moss and Agyness Deyn paper dolls which look frighteningly like the real thing. [Pipeline.Refinery29]

• Your daily dose of the horrible: American Apparel shiny leggings for children. [Fashionista]
• Police in France have arrested 25 suspects in relation to last December's $118 million jewel heist at Harry Winston. Members of the alleged ring had been under police surveillance for months, and when arrangements had been made between the gang and some prospective buyers, the authorities swooped in. In addition to the 25 arrests, police found weapons and $345,000 in cash. [AP]
• Nicole Richie swears that her next collection for her House of Harlow 1960 jewelry line will be completely different than the first. In fact, it'll be "focusing more on old English, equestrian and more sophisticated looks" than the flea-market-inspired first trip out the gate. Richie's shoe and accessory lines, meanwhile, will be ready for Spring 2010. [People]
• Dolce & Gabbana, newly internet-savvy, uploaded Fall 2009 Dolce & Gabbana and D&G campaigns to its just-launched website. Steven Klein shot Mariacarla Boscono, Edita Vilkeviciute, and Heidi Mount at a casino for Dolce & Gabbana, and Mario Testino shot Katie Fogarty, Sara Blomqvist, Stephanie Rad, Hanna Rundlof, and Ragnhild Jevne for D&G. Heidi Mount also wears a giant pink Margiela-inspired fur and poses like an ape in one. [Fashionologie]
• The New Yorker sure knows how to give a bad restaurant review. Taking in the "sterile" and "unexuberant" fare at Armani's restaurant-within-a-store on Fifth Avenue, Lauren Collins writes: "At the bar, a manager and a bartender argued, loudly. The dispute seemed to be about a pen. Their passion did not extend to a pair of women who were waiting for a table, or, once the women were seated, to their full glasses of wine, paid for and awaiting transferral." [NYr]
• A historic Christian Science church on Park Avenue took a look at its dwindling congregation and finances, and its stellar real estate, and do the obvious thing: allow a catering company to use its building to host events, in return for necessary repairs, money, and continued access for regularly scheduled services. Even though the kind of events we're talking about here  shindigs with Sir Paul McCartney, Oscar de la Renta runway shows  are hardly Bushwick artist loft keggers, the Park Avenue set has gone all guerrilla in its opposition to the church's activities. One neighbour even parked her car in the middle of the avenue to block the access of de la Renta's show's guests. Is it too much to hope she was towed? [NYTimes]
• A maker of hypoallergenic beauty products has decided to associate its line with the 11th birthday of Malia Obama. Tacky. [US News]
• Natural cosmetics purveyor Dr. Hauschka is apparently swamped by demand  but, because of quality control concerns and its business philosophy based on the ideas of Rudolf Steiner (no, really), it's unwilling to expand too quickly. [Reuters]
• The website for MDLR, Moises de la Renta's fashion line, is now live. [MDLR]
• French documentarian Loïc Prigent, who made the excellent Marc Jacobs & Louis Vuitton and Signé Chanel, about the putting together of a Chanel couture collection, has a new series showing on Sundance starting September 10. Prigent's camera follows Sonia Rykiel, Proenza Schouler, Karl Lagerfeld, and Jean-Paul Gaultier in the last 36 hours before their respective runway shows. (It's a good thing Prigent is sensitive to the dramatic tension of a smoke break, because there'll be a lot of them.) Rykiel's show is her 40th anniversary extravaganza in Paris last October, Prigent finds Proenza Schouler and Fendi, designed by Lagerfeld, at the Fall/Winter 2009 collections of this Spring, and he'll catch up with Gaultier at couture week in Paris next month. I'm marking my freaking calendar. [Glamour]
• Looks like there's been a breakdown at Alessandro Dell'Acqua. The designer, whose namesake label has been owned since 2003 by Cherry Grove, an Italian corporation that produces high-end clothing, released an open letter informing the fashion world that he, Alessandro Dell'Acqua, would like to publicly distance himself from the Alessandra Dell'Acqua men's Spring/Summer or women's Pre-Spring collections, the former of which is about to walk in Milan, because he hasn't been given the opportunity to do anything beyond submit sketches to Cherry Grove. Alessandro Dell'Acqua lost his job with the Italian house Malo after holding it for less than a year following Itierre's bankruptcy; this angry letter reads like a gold-plated invitation to be fired from his own label, too. [FWD]
• Once every media outlet had dutifully covered the "outrage" over the Steven Meisel-shot Calvin Klein "foursome" billboard in SoHo, the brand replaced it with a tamer shot of a girl in a red bikini. Racked has a picture. [GoG]
• Well, lookie here: a male model who admits to having to maintain a diet to be catwalk skinny. [NYTimes]
• Everyone knows Abercrombie & Fitch has been struggling in the recession, and losing market share to lower-priced competitors like Aéropostale and The Buckle. Besides quietly breaking its rule against discounting its own stock and closing its Ruehl chain, the company hadn't exactly said what it was planning to do to reverse the tide that saw its May same-store sales slide a whopping 28%  until now. The proffered solution? Two hundred and ten store leases, which comprise some 20% of the chain's total, are up for renewal over the next two years. Abercrombie thinks it might save money by not renewing all of them. Revolutionary. [TS]
• A three-story Adidas factory in India was engulfed by flames on Tuesday night. There were no casualties. [HindustanTimes]
• Talbots may have had to cut 370 jobs, eliminate its 401(k) matching contributions, and suspend its quarterly stock dividend, but that won't stop it paying CEO Trudy Sullivan $1.2 million this year. Richard O'Connell, the struggling company's real estate and legal executive, will also get a 23% raise, to $500,000. [TS]
• Gen Art, an organization which supports emerging fashion talent in the U.S. and has helped launch the careers of such names as Vena Cava and Zac Posen, is in a bad spot financially. Already reeling from layoffs, the founders hope to raise $250,000 in ticket sales and donations for their 15th anniversary party tomorrow night. Gen Art needs another $500,000 after that to continue its operations. [WWD]

• Eva Mendes should just drop the transparent "acting" career. The woman  Calvin Klein perfume campaign-snagger, fashion event-schmoozer, Revlon face, and Italian Vogue poseur  is, as these Calvin Klein ads further prove, basically a model now. Embrace it! [People]

• Seriously, nobody is thinking about her critically acclaimed performance in Hitch here. Also the lingerie campaign shots? Are reminiscent of the Posh & Becks his 'n' hers Emporio Armani ones. [E]
• Stop the presses: Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson might still be together because Lindsay bought Sam a clutch purse at the NoHo shop Cream & Blue. She also picked up a pair of Nikes for her brother, Cody. In other Celebrities...Go Shopping! news, Robert Pattinson nearly caused a riot when he browsed the racks at Aloha Rag in the far West Village. There's a video of the commotion, but he's not in it. [Racked]
• L.A.'s boutique for the privileged ragamuffins of the super-elite, Kitson Kids, is being sued by its landlord for some $38,000 of unpaid rent. Kitson claims it is on a kind of rent strike until the landlord makes building improvements, including furnishing "a child-safe stroller ramp" so that parents will no longer have to "put children in danger on a daily basis" by taking the rugrats up the steps. [TMZ]
• Speaking of rich youngsters, Russian orange juice heiress Kira Plastinina might be making a comeback in the U.S. The self-styled fashion designer, already successful in Russia and Eastern Europe, expanded into the U.S. retail market with much fanfare  and then, seven months later, her chain collapsed into liquidation amidst allegations of unpaid wages by former employees. The teenaged tycoon is looking at two of her old L.A. locations, under the name "K. Plastinina." [WWD]
• You know what they get to worry about across the pond, where there are no guns? "Knife crime"! It's no joke: designer Nicole Farhi was allegedly strangled into unconsciousness and robbed of jewelry outside her London home by two knife-wielding brothers. And then there's fashion design student Ryan Houlton, of the University of Salford, for whom knife crime is inspiration. His latest collection is based on the hoodies and tracksuits that knife-crime-committing street gangs wear  but, the designer is quick to point out, the clothes are "not designed for people who commit crimes." Whoever does wear these threads will definitely look sharp. [Telegraph]
• Fellow British fashion student George Davies designed a dress that lights up when the wearer's cell phone rings. Maria Sharapova unveiled it. Why would you want anything so unsubtle? [Reuters]
• Dolce & Gabbana is launching an online store on June 23. [10 Magazine]
• Jesus Luz is also set to walk in Dolce & Gabbana's menswear show in Milan this Saturday as an exclusive (translation: Jesus Luz is going to make a lot of money from doing this show, and no others.) He already bagged one campaign for the brand; could this be the beginning of a beautiful partnership? [WWD]
• Diego Della Valle, who is the founder of Tod's and a big investor in Saks Fifth Avenue, owns the Schiaparelli trademark. But, Della Valle says he does not plan on reviving the house until at least 2011. That timeline casts doubt on the rumors that Olivier Theyskens, lately of Nina Ricci, could be set to take over the brand. Inquiring minds want to know: What is the Belgian boy-wonder gonna get up to instead? [WWD]
• When Lazaro Hernandez and Jack McCollough of Proenza Schouler guest-edited A Magazine, the Belgian fashion title, they made it all Team America World Police-y. There's Chloë Sevigny with stars on her face, pencil drawings of Abe Lincoln, and a story about Marfa, Texas, inside. [NYTimes]
• Designer Kenzo Takada sold his art collection at auction for $2.6 million in Paris. [WWD]
• To the surprise of exactly nobody, retail apparel prices dropped again in May. In fact, the overall Consumer Price Index fell by its sharpest year-over-year amount since, well, January. [WWD]
• Liz Claiborne announced it expected a bigger loss for this quarter than it had previously thought. Its share price tumbled 13%. [Reuters]
• Money-losing company Pacific Sunwear has chosen a new C.E.O., and it's former Vans chief executive Gary H. Schoenfeld. [LATimes]
• Eddie Bauer declared its long-anticipated bankruptcy yesterday. It's the company's third bankruptcy filing in its nearly 90-year history; it hopes to be sold and emerge as a going concern. [AP]
• Fellow recession-plagued retailer Abercrombie & Fitch, while not bankrupt, has announced the end of its pricier Ruehl brand. Ruehl's same-store sales were down 33% in the month of May. All 29 Ruehl shops will be shuttered by the end of this year. [WSJ]
• Macy's is recalling 33,000 hoodies that pose a choking hazard. The hooded sweatshirts, sold under the brand names Greendog and Epic Threads between July, 2008, and March of this year, should be returned to the store for a full refund. [UPI]
• Topshop is renting bicycles to New Yorkers for free at its SoHo store. The catch? It's only for the week starting June 20, and there are all of 30 bikes available. But still: Free bikes! [

• Rodarte's Laura and Kate Mulleavy scooped up the Women's Wear award at last night's CFDAs. In another surprise, the menswear prize was a tie between Calvin Klein's Italo Zucchelli and Band of Outsiders' Scott Sternberg. [WWD]

• Having lost the women's wear prize to the Mulleavy sisters, and the accessories award to Jack McCullough and Lazaro Hernandez of Proenza Schouler, Marc Jacobs won only the International Award, which had been pre-announced. The consolation of already having a bunch of CFDAs to his name must have nipped any sour grapes in the bud. "I'm the luckiest guy in the world," he said during an emotional acceptance speech. "I have two amazing jobs and I work with the greatest people." Fellow special award winner Michelle Obama, accepted hers via a pre-taped video. [Style.com]
• Michelle Obama's husband, the President, is now considered by other men to be the most stylish man in the world. [Reuters]
• Jacobs, of course, still has a wedding to look forward to. The designer plans to wed his Brazilian fiancé in Provincetown, Massachusetts, but the date is a closely guarded secret. Some Provincetowners were sure the wedding even happened last weekend. [WWD]
• Stop the presses: Dolce & Gabbana are lowering their prices by 10-20%, without hurting quality, simply by eliminating waste from their production chain. This leaves Versace and who else clinging to pre-recession pricing? [WWD]
• Katy Perry, born Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson, has long maintained she wants to start a clothing label. So she's doing her due diligence by having her lawyers threaten an Australian designer named Katie Perry, born Katie Perry. Perry, who has been in business two years and trades under her own name, says lawyers for the pop star, "asked me to give up the trademark, withdraw sale of my clothes, withdraw any advertising and any websites, and sign that I will not in the future use a similar trademark to Katy Perry. I pretty much burst into tears." Smooth move, Hudson. [News.com.au]
• The 25th anniversary of London Fashion Week this September might just be a big enough event that Anna Wintour will have to squeeze it into her schedule. In addition to Matthew Williamson and Burberry confirming plans to show in London for the first time in years, the 17 winners of TopShop's sponsorship for the NewGen line-up have just been confirmed. And they include a raft of exciting up-and-coming names  Mark Fast, Mary Katrantzou, Peter Pilotto  and, uh, Henry Holland. Is Agyness's BFF taking a spot from those who might warrant it, or is Holland honestly so hard up he still can't show under his own steam? [Telegraph]
• The graduate fashion shows in London last weekend were apparently awash with talent. Says the Independent's writer, "Anatomical imagery was another trope used to the same effect, both unnervingly and with a sense of humour. Central St. Martin's graduate Kye showed a sweet knitted jumper decorated with a to-scale representation of the model's digestive system." Funny, where have we seen that before? [Independent]
• Crombie, the moderately priced British suit label, might save Aquascutum from bankruptcy, after all. [WWD]
• The Victoria & Albert museum is having a hard time sourcing clothes for its planned John Galliano retrospective because so many of the garments desired have been worn past the point of museum display quality. That's got to make Galliano feel pretty good. [Fashionista]
• In further evidence of British fashion supremacy, Stephen Jones has made Jasmine Guinness an absolutely superb, breathtaking hat. It looks like two sundials fighting, beautifully. [Telegraph]
• Gisele's May cover of Vanity Fair was the mag's worst-selling issue on the newsstand in almost two years. The Brazilian supermodel's April cover of Harper's Bazaar was its worst-seller since Drew Barrymore made the cover last November. While I personally don't want to read about Gisele in Vanity Fair any more than I do Paris Hilton, this isn't exactly a ringing endorsement of model covers for fashion magazines. [NY Observer]
• Jessica Simpson's swimwear, hitting stores this December, will retail at $15.50-$25 for tops and bottoms, and up to $58 for cover-ups. [WWD]
• Animal-rights activism has hurt the fur trade significantly in the U.S. and Western Europe  but emerging markets, like China and Russia, have picked up the slack in sales. The industry as a whole still had revenues of nearly $12 billion in 2004. 85% of the world's fur currently comes from farms, not wild trapping, which might be considered progress, depending on your position. [SciAm]
• Executive Vice President of Prada Carlo Mazzi confirmed the Financial Times' anonymously sourced story that the company was in negotiations to restructure its debt. "It is true. It's the normal activity of the company, the normal rescheduling of finance," said Mazzi. Prada has a total debt of around 1.1 billion Euros, but the amount under discussion is $483.9 million owed by the holding company to two main banks, and set to mature this summer. Prada would like an extra year or two with the money. [Reuters]
• The re-opened auction for the bankrupt Filene's Basement chain was won by a joint bid from Syms, the New Jersey-based discount chain, and Vornado Realty, the landlord of Filene's flagship in Boston Crossing. Syms/Vornado's $62.4 million offer was accepted even though opponents Crown realty and the Men's Wearhouse bid $64.9 million, because Syms/Vornado's bid included more Filene's stores. [WWD]
• New Balance is planning a marketing campaign touting its domestic manufacturing. A quarter of its shoes are either made or assembled in the U.S. [AdAge]

• Kate Moss has signed on with Virgin Books to pen a presumably un-virginal "no holds barred" autobiography. Says publisher Sir Richard Branson, "It's going to make an exciting read." [Telegraph]

• Jack McCollough, the Proenza Schouler designer allegedly head-butted by Kiefer Sutherland at the Met, isn't pointing fingers. Sort of. A statement from his camp: "Anyone who knows Jack McCollough knows that he would not hurt a fly. All we can say at this point is that he was the victim of a vicious, violent, unprovoked assault and that the matter is in the hands of the authorities." Please cue 24 joke. [ElleUK]
• A detente in the fabled War of the Nebbishes? Quoth Dov Charney, "I have deep respect for Mr. Allen, who is a source of inspiration to me." Oddly enough, Woody didn't release a similar statement of mutual admiration for Charney's jersey bodysuits [WWD]
• Charney then referenced Larry Flynt. [Gothamist]
• Tell us: would you listen to "Diesel Radio?" Would you admit it if you did? [ElleUK]
• So is the Met Costume Institute's "Model as Muse" exhibit worth the hype? Judging by what Cathy Horyn says, we're...not sure. "You're tempted to snap into one of those incredible bump-and-grind poses suggested by tiny amounts of Spandex and squeal, "Hey, girlfriend!"" [NYT]
• Some - including Mo'Nique - feel Michelle Obama is saving retail fashion. Retail fashion has not gotten the memo. [Time]
• Bucking the trend, L'Oreal's sales rose incrementally in the last quarter; because everyone's shopping drugstore? [WWD]
• And Hermes is up, too! Cross your fingers. [WWD]
• 16-year-old Katie Fogarty, of runway-fall fame, takes a philosophical attitude: "Oh whatever brightens people's days." [Teen Vogue via New York]
• Dig it: Levi's is launching the "Give Them Hope Now" campaign to raise money for New York's Harvey Milk School, the high school dedicated to LGBT and questioning students. [AdAge]
• On a completely unrelated note, Marshalls' attempt to appeal to the kids seems to appeal to no one. "A 35-year-old cross-dressing man named Liam Sullivan portrays Kelly, a shy 17-year-old girl. Kelly, a popular YouTube character, is first shown at home greeting her visiting grandma (also played by Sullivan, natch)." Then they go to Marshall's and there's a musical number involving a mime and some maraca-shaking. [BrandFreak]
• Oddly enough, Tim Gunn was not the only reality fashionisto on Capital Hill this week: Nigel Barker also betook his fine self to D.C. to film scenes for a pediatric AIDS documentary, raising the city's handsomeness quotient by 48%. [Politico]
• Agyness Deyn is hawking mineral water. This is, apparently, highly prestigious. [The Sun]
• Erykah Badu has designed a label for a special bottle of Kiehl's body lotion involving "a trippy swirl of Afro curls, butterflies and ferns." Proceeds go to the Waterkeeper Alliance. [Dallas News]
• Timberland is branching into women's footwear, introducing 12 styles of shoe. [WWD]
• Also snubbing the economy, Derek Lam opened a ritzy new store in SoHo yesterday; both Rihanna and Wintour showed. [The Fashion Informer]
• Stella McCartney and Net-a-Porter have entered into a "mutually exclusive" online sales relationship. Get those eBay-trained trigger fingers ready! [FabSugar]
• Isaac Mizrahi has crafted a (pretty cute) cocktail dress from USA Todays. USA Today likes this. [USA Today]
• Meanwhile, here's Isaac on The -it's-not-a-Project-Runway-ripoff-we-swear, The Fashion Show: "As a judge, I am looking first for integrity. I can't tell yet about niches that people will fit into, but we have to train them to think properly and then think about the marketplace aspect. The difference with our show from other shows is that we have an audience that votes every week and they say some brutal things." [Yahoo]
• Cat fight! Gucci's suing Guess?, claiming the denim chain's "G" is a knockoff of the luggage chain's "G." Or as they'd have it, 'slavishly replicating' their designs. [News.co.au]
• Stephanie Seymour's divorce from "polo-playing husband" Peter Brant is rough. Quoth the supermodel, "It's OK. I'm sleeping in the maid's quarters...I'm doing the best I can to keep things amicable. I want to be the bigger person. But it's tough. He's playing very dirty with me." Or so says a "friend." [NY Post]
• Damien Hirst's Levi's - the fabled "most expensive jeans in the world" - are, how you say, hideosity personified, also look like you could make them at home if you've hung onto your splatter-art machine from the 80's. [InventorSpot]

• Kiefer Sutherland may be looking at a minor assault charge in NYC for headbutting designer Jack McCollough. The real problem?

He may have violated the probation of his L.A. DUI conviction. If so, it's back to the slammer. [People]

• According to this report, Kiefer Sutherland will surrender today and be charged with with third-degree assault for his "attack" on Jack McCollough. [NY Daily News, TMZ, E!]
• Kiefer will get a desk ticket for the headbutt  meaning he won't be jailed and he's free to travel. [NY Daily News, NY Post]
• Donald Trump intends to make a decision about Miss California Carrie Prejean very soon; additionally, the guy from the website which has been releasing "controversial" photos of her says he has more, and he intends to post them. [E!]
• The Carrie Prejean semi-nude pictures will "roll out" slowly. [CNN]
• Chris Brown's lawyer, Mark Geragos, has filed legal papers asking the LAPD to state how the picture of Rihanna was leaked to TMZ. If there was misconduct by law enforcement, Geragos will file a motion to have the case dismissed. [TMZ]
• Oprah wrote her Time 100 essay about Michelle Obama on her BlackBerry: "And then I went to hit the wrong button and the whole thing deleted! I went to hit 'Save' and instead I hit ... 'Oh my God! Oh my God! It's gone!' That ever happened to you? And then you can't remember - not one sentence you wrote." What did she do? "I couldn't even think for two days… I couldn't even, like, think of a sentence. I stared at the BlackBerry, then I hit every button trying to make it come back. I hit 'Options.' I did everything!" Then she started over. [New York Mag, Gatecrasher]
• Lindsay and Sam: Romantic relapse? A source says Sam might take LL back. They've been texting and "having visits." But another source says: "Lindsay plays stupid mind games saying she is being pursued by major celebrity actors. She has a lot of free time to play all these childish games. Sam knows in her head, life is truly better off without Lindsay." [People]
• This paper claims that Lindsay Lohan "chased her ex-lover across LA yesterday before finally tracking her down at 2am and demanding one of those horrible late-night discussions." [Daily Mail]
• Steve Zahn had to touch Jennifer Aniston's ass for the new flick, The Management, and says: "We had to do it so many times. It's so weird, very awkward and bizarre. [But] she's a pro, a gifted actor, humble, modest, a genuinely kind person. She has no agenda. She's just a really beautiful person." So wait: she's not desperate and lonely, sobbing over an empty uterus? Huh. [People]
• Jennifer Aniston says if there's gonna be a Friends movie, "they should hurry up." [Mirror]
• Jennifer Aniston and Bradley Cooper: Flirting??!?!?!?! [Page Six]
• In the new Marie Claire, Beyoncé says that when she was singing for the Obamas in January, she was almost overcome: "I had to tell myself, 'They asked you to do this. You have to do a great job. This is their history. Calm down. Calm down… I barely made it. Literally seconds before the song started, I was crying like a 5-year-old." [People]
• In this video, some dude who works security at a Pennsylvania motel says Jon Gosselin from Jon & Kate Plus 8 shows up frequently and was seen "romantically kissing" a woman who was not his wife. [Radar Online]
• "Twilight fans fell in love with Robert Pattinson as a vampire who makes girls swoon. But in Little Ashes, which opens on Friday, the actor explores a relationship that could reshape his heartthrob image." No one wants you to forget that he sexes a dude in this flick. No one. [Reuters>]
• Another day, another Michael Jackson lawsuit; this one involves a former publicist who claims, "Mr. Jackson has elected not to honor the financial obligations of our contractual relationship." She wants $44 million. [TMZ, Reuters]
• Reese Witherspoon is thought to be connected to a man named John Witherspoon, who left Scotland in 1768 and went on to witness the signing of the Declaration of Independence. A BBC series, A History Of Scotland, will tell his story. [Daily Express]
• Guess who's started working out with Tracy Anderson  Gwyneth and Madonna's trainer? Emma Thompson. [Daily Express]
• Are cops in Massachusetts targeting celebs in Massachusetts? What's with all the searches on Tom Brady and Matt Damon? [E!]
• Dr. Phil has fired 15 members of his staff. "It was a bloodbath… People who had worked together for years suddenly were unemployed," says a source. Ouch! Someone call Oprah. [Perez]
• WTF headline of the day: "When Harry Met Tranny." (Daniel Radcliffe had dinner with a drag queen.) [The Sun]
• JJ Abrams says of the original TV series Star Trek: "I remember appreciating it, but feeling like I didn't get it." He was not a Trekkie! "I had no idea there had been 10 movies! I still haven't seen them all." [Guardian]
• Speaking of Trek, Zachary Quinto couldn't do Vulcan fingers while filming and JJ Abrams had to glue his fingers together. [Page Six]
• Director Robert Rodriguez was working on an adaptation of Barbarella  with Rose McGowan playing the Jane Fonda role, naturally  but the project is now dead. No orgasmatron! [MTV]
• Jennifer Aniston, Holly Hunter, Elizabeth Banks, Catherine Hardwicke and cinematographer Petra Korner will be honored at the 2009 Crystal + Lucy Awards, presented by Women in Film. [The Hollywood Reporter]
• Katie Holmes will star in a thriller called Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, scripted by Guillermo del Toro. Xenu knows she could use a hit flick. [Variety]
• Robert De Niro and Edward Norton will star in an indie psychological thriller Stone, about a a correctional officer (De Niro) who is seduced by the wife of a convicted arsonist (Norton) up for parole. [Variety]
• Susan Boyle is now in the top 5 list of most watched viral videos, right under Soulja Boy and something called Achmed the Dead Terrorist. [NY Daily News]
• Megan Fox wants to be like George Clooney: "He's sarcastic, and he has a different girlfriend constantly. It's considered charismatic. He's like this James Bond, sexy dude. The older he gets, the better he gets. It's a double standard. To be outspoken, or different at all, is a problem for women. As soon as you curse or, God forbid, make some sort of sexual reference that's a joke, you're (labelled a party girl). They don't do that with men, so I feel it would be a lot easier." [Mirror]
• This was in Midweek Madness, but here it is again: Sarah Jessica Parker's surrogate is a "tattooed bisexual." The horrors. [The Sun]
• Liz Hurley thinks people look sexier in the country than in the city. Also, she likes to have sex on sheepskin rugs in front of fireplaces. [Daily Mail]
• In 2000, Jemima Khan's plane was hijacked; she says her hair turned white after the incident and she's had to dye it ever since. [Daily Express]
• A new biography reveals that Stephen King "spent most of the Eighties on an extended drug and alcohol binge which so fogged his mind that even today he cannot remember working on many of the books he wrote during that period." [Daily Mail]
• Ryan O'Neal says Farrah Fawcett has "lost her famous hair" from battling cancer. [Daily Express]
• Ryan O'Neal also says: "It's a love story. I just don't know how to play this one. I won't know this world without her." [People]
• Trent Reznor is pissed at Apple, because a Nine Inch Nails iPhone app was rejected for having 'objectionable content." [NY Daily News]
• RIP Stanley Tucci's wife, Kate. [Page Six]
• Olympic silver medalist Sasha Cohen is returning to competitive figure skating. Will we see her in Vancouver for the winter Olympics? [AP]
• Stephanie Tanner Jodie Sweetin is being sued for not paying her Home Owner's Association fees. How rude! [Perez]
• James McAvoy, Elizabeth Banks, Laura Linney and Anna Friel will star in The Details, a flick about a a couple who discover an infestation of raccoons in their back yard. [Variety]
• Rare Marilyn Monroe photographs for sale  on eBay. [UPI]
• Blind item! "Which film director could give Robert Pattinson a run for his money in the odor department? The big-time movie man smelled so badly during a recent shoot that even his actors couldn't stand to be around him!" [Gatecrasher]
• "Would I run for public office? A delegation of Democrats from Ohio asked me if I wanted to run for a Senate seat in 2004, and I said it was a tempting offer, but no. We already had an old actor in national politics, and it didn't work out so well. He shall remain nameless."  Martin Sheen. [Mirror]
• "The rumours aren't true. We aren't moving. So many people come up to me and say 'I hear you're moving.' We love America. We've been very happy here."  Victoria Beckham. [Mirror]
• "I've never changed my name officially. I never have and I never will. In my heart, I am still Ramon. I love the name. I would never give it up."  Martin Sheen. [Mirror]
• "I'd like to see Benson and Stabler get together...but I can't let that happen. Mariska [Hargitay] and I have been a wonderful, solid married couple now for 10 years-we see each other more than our families. It's just nice to get a different dynamic in there every once in a while."  Chris Meloni. [E!]
• "I'm looking for an encyclopaedia and a dictionary. A bit of the Boy Scouts Handbook. A person who is conscientious about the trail he leaves behind him. I'm attracted to intelligence and creativity and passion  and not necessarily the romantic kind. I want to learn from someone who is greedy for information and light and laughter and the whole world."  Renée Zellweger, on what she looks for in a man. [Mirror via Glamour]
• "We know the people whose lives are on the line-those who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender-will be there. But we need everyone there. Especially straight people."  Charlize Theron, who is encouraging Californians to attend a Meet In The Middle For Equality rally in Fresno. [E!]
• "I'm a big fan of Tyra's! She is sexy. I mean, I don't really get obsessed with anyone, but Tyra is definitely hot."  Idris Elba. [Gatecrasher]
• "I'm not fiddling about with myself. We're in this awful youth-driven thing now where everybody needs to look 30 at 60 . This is the law of diminishing returns. The trick is to age honestly and gracefully and make it look great so that everyone looks forward to it."  Emma Thompson. [Daily Express]

[New York, May 6. Image via Splash]

• Rihanna was the big show-stopper at the Met Ball: Celebs cheered when she took the stage to perform. And! At an after-party, guess who RiRi was in deep convo with?

None other than Ms. Anna Wintour. Will someone be gracing the pages of Vogue very soon? [Gatecrasher]

• Have people stopped returning Lindsay Lohan's phone calls? Apparently Pharrell Williams had offered to help her revive her music career, she tells Interview: "He's an amazing guy. He's only been really kind to me whenever I've met him. He said, 'I'd love to make a great record with you, but I want to take you out of all the elements that you're used to. Let's go away. Let's go somewhere nice where you can be focused, and let's make an album there.'" Of course, she hasn't heard from him since and says: "Pharrell, please call me back!" [Daily Express]
• It seems that Kiefer Sutherland did indeed intentionally headbutt Proenza Schouler designer Jack McCollough, who allegedly knocked over Brooke Shields; Kiefer was coming to Brooke's rescue or something. Met Ball dramz! [TMZ]
• Brooke Shields' rep is saying "nothing happened to her" and "Jack did nothing inappropriate. It's not clear what caused Kiefer to do what he did." [TMZ]
• A source says Kiefer Sutherland "was really drunk and he got accidentally bumped by McCollough. They started arguing and then he just head-butted him." Hmm. Kiefer's been arrested for DUI twice. [Page Six]
• More on this in Midweek Madness, but Us magazine is confirming that star of Jon & Kate Plus 8 Jon Gosselin, 32, has been having an affair with third grade school teacher Deanna Hummel, 23. [Just Jared]
• Amy Winehouse's dad is kicking "freeloading pals" out of her hotel room in St. Lucia  her two friends Violetta and Thalia were having "all-day boozing sessions" on Amy's dime. A source says: "Amy performs for the first time in ages at the St Lucia Jazz Festival this week. Mitch knows she has to get it right." [The Sun]
• Paula Abdul is saying pain killers are to blame for when she would "get weird." [MSNBC Scoop]
• Madonna is planning a concert in St. Petersburg, Russia, but local authorities are calling it a "natural disaster" and want "guarantees that there will be no blasphemy." Ha! [Page Six]
• Victoria Beckham wears her sunglasses at night. In the rain. [The Sun]
• Excellent news: Mindy Kaling has a new deal with NBC; she'll continue to write for and appear on The Office next season while simultaneously developing a comedy in which she would also star. She says: "This is my first step in a Transformers-style way to take over the whole world." [Variety]
• Holy gray T-shirt! These pictures of Simon Cowell's new £15million mansion which looks over the Hollywood Hills are absolutely stunning. [Daily Mail]
• In a deposition regarding a lawsuit that Paris Hilton didn't do enough to promote 2006 box office bomb Pledge This, Paris says she promoted the flick "any chance I got." Her lawyer says, "She's the single busiest person on the planet." [AP]
• "Robert Pattinson 'baffled' by fans." [Mirror]
• The weight watchers have moved from Jessica and Lindsay to the King of Pop: Michael Jackson has allegedly been warned that he is "too thin" and needs to gain about 20 lbs before his 50 live shows in the UK. [The Sun]
• Details on Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard's wedding! It took place in a cloister of a convent that's a luxury bed and breakfast in Brindisi, Italy; Jake and Reese were there; guests mingled in the garden, which features a pool, wines from the nearby town of Lecce were served. [People]
• Oprah's Twitter stunt of offering everyone in America a free chicken dinner: Newsworthy. [Time]
• Speaking of Ms. Winfrey, you knew this would happen: Susan Boyle will be on Oprah. [Daily Express]
• Yesterday was Chris Brown's birthday; he turned 20 and it was "low-key." [People]
• Mia Farrow is ten days into her hunger strike for Darfur. A few days ago she said: "At this point I don't think about food. I am weaker and I am mostly in bed. I am clear-minded. I sleep less." She also says: "No one voted for President Obama with more excitement and passion than I did, but he's really been lagging and the people of Darfur can't wait." [Guardian]
• Mia Farrow is documenting her fast on YouTube. [Page Six]
• Joel Madden went on a Twitter rant after he and baby Harlow were surrounded by photographers at an airport: "Let me just say shame on any magazine or blog that post pics of us in the miami airport. The photographers were acting like animals. it was the first time i've ever seen my child scared. Not cool for any parent to see. At least in LA they gave us some space. These guys were sticking flashes in her face and bumping in to us and yelling. The most unnecessary force i've ever seen." [Perez]
• Village Voice columnist Michael Musto says Miss California USA once posed with "trannie extraordinaire" Amanda Lepore. He asked Amanda about it, but she says: "I don't remember meeting her. You know how many pictures I take!" Of Carrie Prejean's pageant answer, Ms. Lepore says: "That was stupid. She could never make a career in TV. Gays monopolize everything! She's a dummy! Now she's trying to have churches help her. That doesn't sound promising. But at least she has big tits. She can marry a high roller and have miserable kids that hate her." Musto adds: "All thanks to opposite marriage!" [Village Voice]
• Unfake my heart: A Las Vegas entertainer faces fraud charges for impersonating Toni Braxton. [AP]
• Back in the '90s, Bono wrote a poem about Elvis; it will be broadcast on the UK's Radio 4 on May 13. [The Sun]
• Rachel Weisz will star in an indie political drama, The Whistleblower, which is based on the true story of a female cop from Nebraska who serves as a peacekeeper in post-war Bosnia and exposes a United Nations cover-up of a sex trafficking scandal. [Variety]
• Will Ferrell is in talks to star in a comedy called Neighborhood Watch, directed by the guy who did Wedding Crashers. [Variety]
• Cameron Diaz plays the mother of a sick child in My Sister's Keeper, and although she appears bald in the film, didn't shave her head: She only needed to be bald for one day of shooting. [LA Times]
• Kate Walsh's divorce continues to be a mess. [TMZ]
• Debbie Matenoppoulos will get $3,595 per month in spousal support from her ex, Jay Faires. She currently lives in the couple's home and is responsible for paying all expenses, including the mortgage. [Radar Online]
• Shimmy shimmy ya: Ol' Dirty Bastard will be memorialized in an upcoming documentary and a series of tribute albums, all produced by his cousin Raison Allah Iceman. [Telegraph]
• Blind item! "Which very taken Oscar winner has been sending lots of flowers to a pretty fashion publicist?" [Gatecrasher]
• "There are many duos we wanted to draw from. Something as eccentric as The Odd Couple to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Withnail and I and Laurel and Hardy. It's the kind of friendship you can only have with someone of the same sex, a person you adore but who infuriates you."  Jude Law on the relationship between Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in Guy Ritchie's new flick Sherlock Holmes. [USA Today]
• "There's tons of stuff in my name. I mean, if I told you how many Facebook pages have my name on it, you wouldn't believe it. But I am going to join Facebook. I've been doing the MySpace thing a long time and I realize a lot of people are doing Twitter, I just don't want to know what people are doing every single second of their day. I find it a little invasive, but people are into it. To each their own. I don't have the desire to send out messages all day long. That's not me. I'd rather be doing something else."  Zach Braff [Time]

• Kate Moss partied in London wearing ripped-from-the-catwalk Fall 09 Balmain. The skintight dress, being a runway sample, wasn't designed for actual wear. So a seam split wide open. [Daily Mail]

• Under Armour and Cal Ripken, Jr., have announced a five-year partnership. The brand will sponsor youth sporting events and outfit the Maryland Aberdeen IronBirds, a minor-league team. [WWD]
• André Leon Talley has the biggest Obama button you have ever, or will ever, see. [FWD]
• Levi Johnston says he will become an electrician  but is "open" to modeling or acting opportunities. The agencies' reaction? No thanks. "If you hear him interviewed, he's not that bright. Even if he were amazing looking, he still comes off as a bit of a lug. Doesn't have the elegance," said Elaine Bohary, director of the New York men's division at Next. [VF]
• The launch of Matthew Williamson's line for H&M in select stores worldwide elicited mixed reactions from shoppers this morning: the London flagship was buzzing with folks eager to pick up the British designer's wares for slightly less money than normal (the most expensive items in the collection are about $250 US), and there were lines in New York as well. (The clothes in both cities sold out in minutes.) But in Japan, the clothes barely elicited a reaction. Beijing was bustling, but it was likely because today was that H&M store's grand opening. [WWD]
• I'm given to understand that the part of Isaac Mizrahi's old television show where he'd sketch an answer to a guest's fashion question was among the best-loved elements of his repertoire. How great, then, that the Miz is bringing back Sketches and Answers as a web feature! [Blackbook]
• This internal Kohl's video of Lauren Conrad plays like a Kenneth Anger film. Seriously, turn on some Debussy during the silent B-roll of her rocking up to an empty Kohl's in her town car and inspecting some tank tops. [Racked]
• Let nobody say the Council of Fashion Designers of America isn't canny. To promote the re-introduction of a bill that would hold offer more protection to designers whose garments are knocked off by other retailers, they sent all of Michelle Obama's favorite designers to Washington. Currently, it is possible to copyright an individual pattern, and creating a counterfeit product  one intended to pass as the real thing  is illegal, but defending against the theft of unique design elements, absent the exact replication of a pattern of the mimicry of logos, is nearly impossible. Maria Cornejo, Thakoon Panichgul, Narciso Rodriguez, and Jason Wu all went to D.C. to do their part for the industry lobby. [NY Times]
• Richie Rich says Heatherette, the line he did until early 2008 with Traver Rains, failed because their financial backers "were basically assholes." Rich, who's currently pursuing both a namesake line and a collection of eco-friendly fashion with Pamela Anderson, went on to say, "I'm not mad at Traver, it's just that the people who backed us really weren't nice people. They took advantage of us in every respect." Heatherette partnered with the Weisfeld Group, owner of brands such as FUBU, in 2005; Weisfeld withdrew its financial support in 2008. At the time, Rich was singing a different tune: "With the partnership, we have more resources at our fingertips and it's almost easier to see your vision come alive. Yesterday we got back a sample with an eyelash hem on it, and who would have ever thought we could do that?" [The Cut]
• Juicy Couture will discontinue its men's wear line, Dirty English, after its fall collection hits stores. The brand intends to focus instead on core business. [WWD]
• Blind item: "Which two fashion superstars play best friends, work together and even lived together but hate each other so much they arrive separately to events and don't even call each other by name?" Methinks it's Lazaro Hernandez and Jack McCullough of Proenza Schouler, but I'd be happy to be corrected. [Fashionista]
• That 16-year-old Australia's Next Top Model contestant who was ordered into anger management counseling? Is engaged to be married to a 25-year-old. He's a bricklayer. "Our relationship is really weird and it's different to everyone else's because I am so annoying and drive people insane but he puts up with it," said the girl, who describes herself as "a Jim Beam and Coke person." I would say that's spoken like a true 16-year-old, but then I happen to know dozens of teenagers who exhibit far more maturity. [News.com.au]
• Patricia Field: "Einstein is an icon of my life, along with Socrates. Socrates was a genius and his genius is that he delivers new ideas in the most simple and understandable way. At the same time, he will shake you up, but when you got stuff out of him, it seemed obvious. And Albert Einstein was the same way. His theories were the most simple and logical theories and he told you them in simple and logical ways. Like, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. It's obvious! Those two were twins. The distance between them is a straight line. Ha!" [The Cut]
• Yasmin le Bon is designing a collection for the British high-street chain Wallis. [Elle UK]
• LVMH's sales rose slightly  0.4%  in the first quarter of 2009, mainly because rising sales of Louis Vuitton products offset losses in other areas. Sales across the chain fell 15% in the US. [WSJ]
• Oscar de la Renta won a $1 million ruling against a neckwear licensee for breach of contract. [WWD]
• World Wide Women's Wear Digest, the excellent Fashion Week spoof publication ("Bee Schaffer Shocked To Learn Most Parents Do Not Have Annual Hug Quotas") will be coming back as a fortnightly missive. Tidbits from any that come my way will be eagerly reported! [The Cut]
• A customer ordered pants online from a company called Hot Skinny Jeans, and when after trying them on she wanted to exchange them for a different size, Hot Skinny Jeans customer service told her they couldn't because they'd been "worn." Also: "What you've been doing on your knees, I don't want to know." [Consumerist]
• Joseph Abboud men's wear is moving from Macy's to J C Penney this summer. It'll change its design focus from business to casual wear, and lower its prices slightly. [WSJ]
• Dillard's is actually suing the landlord of a Texas mall for failing to maintain the facility. The shopping center has less than 50% occupancy, and Dillard's doesn't much like the company of what neighbors it does have. [WWD]

• The future will smell like Jay-Z, Rihanna, and Kanye West. (And, if I'm understanding "established female artist" correctly, Beyoncé.) [WWD]
• Kim Gordon hates it when you call some fashion thing "fierce." [The Cut]

• Meanwhile, Solange Knowles snagged a spot in the new Op campaign. That's that Wal-Mart brand that egregiously Photoshopped Rumer Willis last year. [WWD]
• Marc Jacobs' people say they have no plans to use Anne Hathaway in any future advertising. So who will be in his fall campaign, now that Posh is concentrating on her own dress line? [People]
• For Easter, why not consider Florentine Armani-branded chocolate eggs from the Armani store? They start at $15 for 3.5 oz, and if you buy one of the $145 big eggs, inside you will find a "gift", like an Armani luggage tag. [NY Times]
• Speaking of Florence, Proenza Schouler is going to show in Europe for the first time this June at the city's fashion trade fair. But it's not going to be a "show" show, says designer Lazaro Hernandez. Expect a surprise! [WWD]
• The company that makes Crocs is on the cusp of bankruptcy. This is the week it has to pay off $22.4 million in debt from its revolving credit line  and nobody believes it has the money. Ready for a wistful look back? This article connects the success of the shoes that "looked like clogs that had mated with bath mats" to 9/11 ("in 2002, America was, more than anything, a country desperately in need of comfort") and a culture that privileges being noticed over looking good. [Smart Set]
• Daniel Vosovic is in the early stages of planning the launch of an eponymous line. He plans to hit a contemporary price point (aka nice dresses for $300-$800, like 3.1 Philip Lim and Alexander Wang), and it will be made domestically. He foresees beginning with presentations, not runway shows, for cost reasons, and he wants to debut for fall/winter 2010. He also tells an adorable story about how Tim Gunn used to have a tea set in his office at Parsons, and have people in for advice and a cuppa. [The Cut]
• Michelle Obama wore fake lashes in Europe, so this writer would like to let you know about some other weapons in the eyelash product arsenal. There are lash strips, individual fake lash clumps, semi-permanently glued lash extensions, and a prescription eyedrop adapted from its original use as a treatment for glaucoma. Of that last one, it should be noted, "There has been some controversy over possible side-effects, but that is unlikely to stop women from trying it." [Times of London]
• Richie Rich: Finds doing Pammy's bidding and producing vegan clothing difficult. For his own line, he intends to do "a plus size." I would make a crack about how one probably won't suffice, but I rather suspect Rich has simply fallen into one of the most basic patterns of fashionspeak: treating plural nouns as singular. Pants become "a pant." ("We're doing a very nice pant this season.") Shoes become "the shoe." ("The shoe is very important to our customer this spring.") (Truly. See for yourself.) Throw in a few well-judged repetitions of "fabulous!" and one mention each of "fabrication" and "costing" and you'll probably pass. [The Cut]
• Expectations are that LVMH will have strong quarterly results to report next week. [WWD]
• The Savannah College of Art and Design has honored Robin Givhan  the Pulitzer-toting fashion scribe for the Washington Post  and Russell Simmons at its annual gala. [FWD]

• Katie Holmes is the new face of Miu Miu. Srsly? [New York Magazine]
• Marc Jacobs' company has been accused of bribing a state official so the designer "could get a desirable venue for his fashion show." They're paying $1 million in fines. [TMZ]
• In happier news, Marc is open to marriage! Even if California isn't. “I refuse to let anyone tell me who I can and cannot marry, and who I can and cannot love. That’s just bullshit...Wherever we’d have to go. If he’s up for it, I’m up for it.” [New York Magazine]
• Are women overreacting about American Apparel's latest ads? Reverse Cowgirl's Susannah Breslin thinks so. Personally, I just hate leggings as pants! Seriously, we're talking blouses tucked into leggings, kids. [Reverse Cowgirl]
• Jessica Biel is not, we repeat, not, designing handbags for William Rast. [Fashionista via People]

• Steve & Barry's files for bankruptcy for second time. [WWD]
• Leighton Meester continues the strange Gossip Girl cast-sneaker trend as she becomes the new face of Reebok. [Fashionista]
• Karl Lagerfeld just designed a piece of French currency. "The limited-edition collector’s coin, which features Chanel’s signature quilted pattern on one side and the head of Coco Chanel on the other, was created to commemorate the 125th anniversary of Ms. Chanel’s birthday." [WSJ]
• Celeb spawn Julia Restoin-Roitfeld and Dakota Johnson Griffith are the new models for Mango. [WWD]
• Diane Von Furstenberg: "My mission is to make women feel more confident. I do it through fashion. I do it through philanthropy. I do it through everything I do. I didn't know what I wanted to do when I grew up, but I knew the kind of woman I wanted to become and I became that woman: an independent woman who was in the driving-seat. Because I am in fashion I have given other women tools to become that also." [Telegraph]
• In a rather less vague example of this, Eileen Fisher gives out this year's Business Grants: “With the credit market tightening and small businesses finding it increasingly difficult to secure financing, it is important to support woman entrepreneurs more than ever." [WWD]
• PETA comes down hard on "bunny butcher" Donna Karan. [Racked]
• George David, the ahem "colorful" head of Marks & Spencer's Per Una brand, steps down. [Guardian]
• In other M&S news: this affordable bespoke shirt idea seems genius. [Telegraph]
• Sarah Palin sports wrist corsage to Alaska's birthday party. From her date?! [LA Times]
• Meanwhile at his own birthday party, Christian Siriano — "pausing for impromptu dance-offs with friends and later, grinning over platters of cupcakes festooned with sparklers" — was feted by the MisShapes. [Observer]
• Many are boycotting Australian wool because of a "barbaric" process designed to prevent maggots; wool producers say there's no alternative. [Reuters]
• Naomi Campbell to host Miami photo retrospective...of herself. [Yahoo]
• The Limited experiences major net fall. [WSJ]
• How to accessorize your Prada phone? The Prada Link, of course — "a braceletlike leather and metal timepiece that alerts Prada phone users to calls and SMS messages." [WWD]
• Proenza Schouler designer Lazaro Hernandez raises his own turkeys, which for some reason, makes sense. [New York]
• Recycled soda can lingerie. Green? Sure. Cool? Very. Comfy? Yeah, not so much. [InventorSpot]
• On the Sonia Rykiel retrospective: "She did conceptualism before the conceptualists, Japanese before the Japanese, minimalism before the minimalists. So in a way she smoothed the way for all movements in contemporary fashion." Well, il faut pas exaggerer! [Guardian]

• Designers like Donna Karan, Elie Tahari and Thakoon are fighting to get to Michelle Obama. [WWD]
• Even though her Narciso Rodriguez dress drew mixed reviews. [NY Times]
• According to polls, 65% considered it a "Don't." [USA Today]
• Proenza Schouler’s Jack McCollough on the election. “A shout-out to the gays? I mean, never, ever, ever in an election or an acceptance speech has a President-elect said something like that. To hear that, for me personally, is so fantastic. Barack Obama is exceptional. Exceptional!” [Style.com]
• Exceptional enough to inspire a "Yes. We. Did." thong. [Babble]

• Speaking of Michelle, her favored label Thakoon's about to hit Target! Take a gander. [Nylon]
• Doesn't it seem weird that Ed Westwick should choose K Swiss as his first campaign? Or are we thinking of his character? [E!]
• Ooh, those snarky British writers do not like Peaches! "Fresh from a disastrous foray into column-writing, Peaches Geldof has decided to tuck her be-fringed head back into her shell and stick to what she knows best. Apparently, that is designing clothes. Her capsule collection for cult fashion collective PPQ is due to hit the shelves in Selfridges today." [Guardian]
• Apparently Vogue editor-at-XXL Andre Leon Talley was in the VIP section at Grant Park; rumor has it his mag has his eye on a Michelle cover. [Fashion Week Daily]
• Alexander Wang on the recession: "There’s a certain amount of fantasy to fashion, but you also have to think about the fit, the sell-through, the accessibility. There’s no point in creating clothes so out-there, so special that no one can wear them. I try to stay in touch with the customer. We’ve been lucky—our sales are growing. I think we were also pretty lucky to get out a T-shirt line. It’s nice to have a $65 product. But it’s also nice to have a $1,200 dress, say, for that person at Colette. The key now is that dress has to be worth what it costs." [Style.com]
• Online retailers expect a lot of holiday shopping...maybe because it doesn't feel like real spending? [WSJ]
• The recession takes a heavy toll on India's textile industry. [BW]
• Meanwhile, Britain prepares for a steep rise in clothing prices. [Guardian]
• Good news, at least, for Adidas! [WSJ]
• Lilly Pulitzer never ages...maybe because it's permanently middle-aged? [NY Times]
• Elite moddle management gets some escort service to stop using their name. We're sure Tyra's relieved. [NY Daily News]
• H&M TV? It'd better be an improvement on their soundtrack! [Fabsugar]
• Patagonia's ambitious plan to sell only recycled materials by 2010 proves harder than they anticipated. [Business Week]
• Meanwhile, a Japanese company attempts banana fiber denim. [WWD]<<br /> li>"Syunsoku" sneakers make people faster...or not. Either way, they're big in Japan! [Reuters]
• Speaking of shoes, Zappo's stellar customer service keeps the company healthy. [NY Times]
• "Lagerfeld goes through at least 365 bottles of Shu Uemura’s Pleasure of Japanese Bath oil per year. 'Normally, you’re supposed to put one cup in the bathtub,' he says, sitting in the leafy garden of Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin in Paris. “' put the whole bottle in every morning. It is the most divine product.' His beauty ritual doesn’t stop there: Lagerfeld spritzes a scent on various items of his clothing, not to mention his bedding. 'What I put on my sheets is always different from what I wear on myself. It’s like if I sleep with a person who uses another perfume.'” [W]
• Juicy Couture store opens in Manhattan, which for some reason means "the Harlem Boys' choir, American Ballet Theatre dancers, Juilliard school violinists, and stilt-walkers will entertain the likes of Gina Gershon, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Gretchen Mol, Molly Sims and Sarah Silverman, plus Saturday Night Live stars Seth Myers and Fred (Obama) Armisen." [New York Post]
• This fashion origami kit is totally the kind of thing we'd never actually assemble, but it's very cute. [Fashionista]
• Colin Firth on his director, Tom Ford: "If he turns his hand to this with the brilliance that he's turned his hand to everything else that he's ever done in his life, it'll be a masterpiece." [VogueUK]
• Ooh! Legendary fashion lecturer Rosamond Bernier is selling off some of her vintage couture! Well, it's fun to look. [Sassybella]

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