• Fran Drescher is launching a skincare line — called FranBrand — this fall on HSN. The products are organic and paraben-free, because, as Drescher puts it, "Women are schmearing stuff on their décolleté, wondering why we're all getting breast cancer..."

• "...Once you wake up and smell the coffee, it's hard to go back to sleep. So I'm sounding the alarm." Drescher, a survivor of uterine cancer, founded the organization Cancer Schmancer. (And she also taught us to love Loehmann's.) [The Cut]
• As we learned yesterday, London Fog confirmed Gisele Bundchen's pregnancy by the roundabout way of announcing it had airbrushed her 5-6 month belly out of its latest campaign "to protect her privacy." But the outerwear brand also released a behind-the-scenes video of the shoot, which includes footage of the raw, unretouched shots as they appear on the computer monitor. A side-by-side comparison reveals exactly what London Fog thought wouldn't move units this fall. [SassyBella]
• Bar Refaeli is allegedly seeing Israeli multi-millionaire Teddy Sagi. Sagi owns a company that makes software for Internet gambling sites, and the nicest thing the Daily Mail can say about him is that he "has a lovely smile." The supermodel's relationship with Leonardo Di Caprio ended earlier this year. [Daily Mail]
• Liya Kebede addressed the UN Secretary-General's Forum on the topic of maternal health. Writes the supermodel, "In times of economic crisis, it is tempting to turn inward, to ignore or postpone the problems of the outside world and focus on ourselves. But, if we hope to thrive once again, we must realize that there are no outside problems in today's interwoven, globalized world. Each mother who dies leaves behind a devastated family and weakened community that will eventually, somehow, affect each of us. Each mother who dies deepens the financial and social strain on our world and puts economic recovery further away. Mothers are our best stimulus package because they invest in their families and in our collective future." [HuffPo]
• SassyBella unearthed footage of Karen Mulder hosting an E! special in 1999. The Dutch model encounters a new girl, who, when she introduces herself, turns out to be an 18-year-old Adriana Lima. [SassyBella]
• The first pictures of Rad by Rad Hourani, the Canadian designer's diffusion line, are looking pretty good, at least for those who were already fans of Hourani's unisex, pared-down rocker aesthetic. "This is exactly the same thing," as his main line, Hourani confirmed. Only instead of costing thousands of dollars it costs hundreds. We need more of this. [WWD]
• The writer of the sometimes entertaining, sometimes savage, always fascinating fashion blog The Emperor's Old Clothes has revealed himself — as New York designer Eric Gaskins. Gaskins, after 22 years in business, was this week forced to close his doors because of the economy. [NYTimes]
• And in September, Daphne Guinness is releasing a signature scent with Comme des Garçons. Only unlike most celebrity perfumes lines, this is actually the distinctive fragrance Guinness has, herself, been mixing for years. "I'll be in airports or in a taxi and the driver will say, ‘What are you wearing?'" reports the heiress. [WWD]
• Designer Hussein Chalayan is "weirded out" by models with clothing lines, like Kate Moss, Amber Valetta, Erin Wasson, and Elle MacPherson: "If you have a really strong sense of style and people want to aspire to being like you, I can understand that. But if you really are doing it just because you think of yourself as a brand and you haven't had the training and you know nothing about clothes, it kind of demeans all the training that designers have had." Chalayan thought Kate Moss's line for Topshop was a poor effort. "I don't think it represented her, and I didn't think she worked hard enough. I even told her to her face." How did la Moss respond? "She said, ‘Oh, I'm just trying to do a light thing; I'm not trying to do anything serious.' But I said, ‘That's not the point.'" [WWD]
• In which case, add Jessica Stam to the list of models who've raised Chalayan's ire. The Canadian just announced a collaboration with Rag & Bone. [Style.com]
• Vogue's Lauren Santo Domingo, on being told her boss Anna Wintour had worn flats to a party in the Hamptons: "I wonder if that means we can wear flats to the office now?" [The Cut]
• Fashion blind item: "Which fantastical designer has a new man? She's ditched her long term fiance for an artist with prime real estate." We're with the commenters on this: signs point to Erin Fetherston, who hasn't been photographed in public with her longtime fiancé, Hedi Ferjani, since late April. [Fashionista]
• Ali Wise, the Dolce & Gabbana publicist who was arrested for hacking into the voicemail of a woman who was dating Wise's ex boyfriend, is no longer a Dolce & Gabbana employee. Which must seem like the least of her problems: Wise is facing felony charges of computer trespass and eavesdropping. [WWD]
• A well-written parsing of W magazine's cover story on model Lara Stone: "The fashion industry — and, in turn, the fashion media — have such a warped concept of slimness that a model like Lara Stone is so much larger than her contemporaries that they feel the need to explain her presence. If Stone's body is such an outlier, what does that say about the rest of us? Worse, the magazine saw fit to issue the disclaimer that Stone 'is, it should be noted, a very lithe five foot ten.' Why, yes, do note that! As if there's the slightest chance someone is going to look at these photos and think Stone needs to, like, slow down on the Cheetos." [GlossedOver]
• Lagardère, the French publishing company that owns Hachette Filipacchi Media, which owns the U.S. edition of Elle magazine, has denied that it is in talks to sell the title to rival Hearst, as had been reported in yesterday's New York Post. [WWD]
• Scott Nylund, Beyoncé's design director, comes from Owatonna, Minnesota. Which is where you can see an exhibit that spans his earliest childhood sketches of women in dresses, to his college fashion collection, to his creations for Beyoncé. [StarTrib]
• Freja Beha Erichsen says Karl Lagerfeld's house in Vermont — which recently served as the setting for the fall Chanel campaign she starred in with Heidi Mount — is a serious farm. With horses and chickens and — spitting llamas. Erichsen also praised Chanel for providing food backstage at its runway shows, which a lot of brands don't manage to do. [W]
• Fashion Meets Finance, the terrible event for douchebags and gold-diggers, is back. It's happening August 6th in — where else? — Murray Hill. [FMF]
• Will Ferrell has a Nike sneaker coming out in Japan. It's inspired by Anchorman's Ron Burgundy, that lovable asshole we met, uh, five years ago. [HighSnobiety]
• Timberland lost $19.2 million in the last quarter, a worse-than-expected result that came off the back of a 14% drop in sales, to $179.7 million. [WWD]
• Shiseido was even worse off — its profits declined 57.8%. [WWD]
• Likewise Hugo Boss, which lost $21.17 million in the last quarter. [WWD]
• Bare Escentuals profits also slid 20% in the same period. [WWD]
• Competitor Avon's profits fell 64.3% on revenues that shrank by 9.7%. Revlon's sales fell 12.2%, and its total profits declined to just $200,000, from $19.9 million one year earlier. [WWD]
• Bucking this downward trend is Tod's — the Italian leather brand reported a 3.4% increase in sales for this first six months of this year. [WWD]
• Ann Taylor wants to cut $30 to $40 million in costs by "right-sizing" its organization. No word yet on the number of people who will be laid off. [WWD]
• Three members of a multi-million-dollar New York counterfeiting ring received prison sentences, and a fourth was sentenced to probation by a federal judge. Michael Chu, the group's leader, was in 2005 ordered to pay $7 million in damages stemming from an unrelated counterfeiting case involving North Face jackets. This time, Chu, who imported fake Nike, Chanel and Burberry products, was sentenced to prison for just over 8 years. [WWD]

• Gisele Bundchen garnered an estimated $25 million in the past year, notching up campaigns for everything from Dior to True Religion jeans. Rounding out Forbes' 10 top-earning models list are posers like Heidi Klum, Adriana Lima, Kate Moss and — the sole biracial model represented — Emanuela de Paula. [Forbes]

• A behind-the-scenes shot of Scarlett Johansson and Mario Sorrenti working on the fall Mango ads show the Tom Waits-loving actress is giving her best sexyface. [Style.com]
• Vogue Nippon and Comme des Garçons launched a pop-up store called "Magazine Alive" in Tokyo. The contents will change each month, with every new issue of Vogue NIppon — but right now features t-shirts with manga likenesses of Hedi Slimane and Donatella Versace, as well as dresses from labels like Undercover. Who else but Takashi Murakami decorated the second floor, and Karl Lagerfeld did the window-dressing. Are we brainwashed for saying that, for a pop-up store — the hackiest of all the hacky, hackneyed retail concepts out there — this actually sounds pretty cool? [WWD]
• Barneys creative director Simon Doonan's life is the subject of a new television show, Beautiful People, produced by Absolutely Fabulous' Jon Plowman, on the Logo network. Doonan's impoverished formative years in 1950s England have been shifted in time to the 1990s, a move which he says "distilled the fun-ness of childhood and left the grimness behind." The series opens with Doonan installing a window display at Barneys based on old men who look like lesbians, and even though everyone knows that's a website, we would still totally watch this. Doonan says he is proud that the show tells the story of how a gay teenager was accepted by his family. [NY Times]
• Fashion designer Nicole Farhi was among the victims of two brothers who allegedly strangled and robbed 17 women and one man in wealthy neighborhoods of London. All the people targeted survived. [Telegraph]
• The nominees for Scottish Designer of the Year are a high-fashion pack: superstar designers Christopher Kane, Graeme Black, Jonathan Saunders, and Laura Lees are represented. Annie Lennox, Sharleen Spiteri, Jenni Falconer and Lulu are all in the running for the Scottish Style Icon of 2009 award. Other awards given at the annual event at Stirling castle on June 21 will reward Scottish photographers, makeup artists, models, and one recent fashion school graduate. [Telegraph]
• The jury in the Trovata/Forever 21 copyright case was unable to reach a verdict, and the judge declared a mistrial late yesterday. [WWD]
• U.S. Customs seized a shipment of counterfeit sunglasses from China with a retail value of $1.8 million. [WWD]
• This post manages to work in mention of both the debunked "lipstick" and "hemline" economic indicators, before adding a new one, courtesy of Alan Greenspan. The men's underwear index! Greenspan reasons that since few people see men's underwear, it's the first item men stop buying during a recession, preferring instead to wear out their current pairs. Sales of boxers and briefs should spike, according to this logic, when a recovery is underway, and men suddenly start replacing their threadbare underthings. Problems with this: Alan Greenspan often speaks in the language pure koan. And men, in my experience, always wear their underwear until it falls to shreds. I've known dudes who had four or five stained, holey pairs still in regular rotation among the newer, more hale offerings. It's just another way in which dudes are gross, not an economic indicator. [Economist.com]
• Revlon's share price rose 55 cents, or 10.4%, yesterday, on the back of encouraging earnings results for the first quarter of 2009. But it's not as simple as 'women are buying lipstick': Revlon has replaced its CEO in a management shake-up, and says it profited because it introduced new product lines. [Crain's]
• DSW, after a loss in the fourth quarter of 2008, made a modest profit of $7.1 million in the first quarter of 2009. [WWD]
• Polo Ralph Lauren reported its profits for the quarter ended March 28 declined by 57% on last year's results, because of falling consumer spending and the company's own restructuring and impairment costs. Same-store sales fell by over 15% during the quarter, but the report still exceeded analysts' expectations. [Crain's]
• Shapewear for men is still a thing which people are trying to make happen. (Again? I was reading an early 20th century novel the other day that referred matter-of-factly to a male character's girdle.) [WWD]
• Oh, the old Anna Wintour ambassadorship rumor again. Contract renewal one-upmanship is such a drag. [P6]

• Marc Jacobs and his Brazilian fiancé, Lorenzo Martone, are set to marry next month in Provincetown. Also, Jacobs is taking the artists John Currin and Rachel Feinstein, plus Madonna, to the Met ball. [FWD]

• But Jesus Luz won't be in his fall Louis Vuitton campaign. "Why is everyone asking me about him? He's not modeling for me. I don't do menswear," said the designer. He did say, however, that Madonna and Steven Meisel are shooting the campaign right now, right here in New York. "She's the ultimate professional and she and Steven are amazing. I love working with her. There's no one better." [The Cut]
• Steven Alan, on this one time he opened a barbershop: "My mom was getting her haircut at this hairdresser's in the East Village, and the lady told her she was interested in opening her own salon, so my mom goes, 'Oh you should talk to my son!' And I'm like, 'Mom, I'm not opening a hair salon.' And she goes, well you should meet her anyway. So I met her and I was like, 'If I open anything it's going to be a barber shop,' and she was like, 'Ok, I can cut guys' hair.'" [Fashionista]
• Lanvin's Alber Elbaz — who seemed talented, fretful and difficult in Ariel Levy's recent New Yorker profile — is questioned by Stephanie Seymour in the new issue of Interview. "We really started from scratch eight years ago at Lanvin. It's the oldest couture house in the world, but when I came onboard, it was a great name without much in it. We slowly moved in. I love coffee, but I always say not everything has to be instant. We took the time. It took eight years to move from 15 accounts to 400 accounts. What's important is to maintain it as a family business. It's very much like Interview, which you don't talk about as a group-it's a family. The nature of fashion is family. You see that at almost every house-it was owned first by a family. It wasn't owned by a bank. In fact, the bankers went into fashion later...And look what happened to fashion!" [Interview]
• Alexander Wang, last year's Vogue CFDA fashion fund award-winner, is teaming up with the Gap. And unlike in previous years, where the CFDA designers re-imagined the retailer's white shirt — with mixed results — Wang has done something that sounds kind of exciting. Says Gap designer Patrick Robinson: "This year it's with khaki. He did this incredible motorcycle jacket in khaki that's going to be under $100. It's coming out on June 16th, so get ready!" [Fashionologie]
• Thinker of deep thoughts Michael Kors wishes there were some kind of Spanx for men. It exists, Michael! [The Cut]
• All that lobbying from the First Lady's favorite designers must have worked: a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the House has reintroduced a modified version of the design piracy bill. [WWD]
• The ever-humble Isaac Mizrahi: "I just love women in dresses. Last night I was at an event at the Pier [in New York] and everyone looked just ugh ... except those wearing my clothes." [Philadelphia Inquirer]
• Soon, there will be Jessica Simpson lingerie. And sleepwear. Fantastic. [WWD]
• And Paris Hilton is doing sunglasses. [PopDirt]
• Anne Hathaway may not be doing the next Marc Jacobs campaign — but she looks good in her new ad for Lancôme perfume. [E! Online]
• WSJ. took Hilary Rhoda to Miami to shoot swimsuits, and shot this nifty behind-the-scenes video. No amount of overdubbed music can hide the fact that modeling is generally about making odd positions look natural. [WSJ]
• This list of the top 20 fashion Twitterers covers all the bases, but all you really need to know is: Fake. Karl. [Times of London]
• In a similar vein, Rachel Roy held a press conference via Twitter. She answered such hard-hitting lines of inquiry as, "Rachel, you absolutely glow! How do you stay confident through tough times?" Oh, the vaunted democracy of the Internet. [WWD]
• Revlon is launching a new mascara, and adding two items to its ColorStay product range. [WWD]
• Henri Bendel, the department store founded in 1895, is no longer going to sell clothes. The retailer will shrink its New York flagship by one floor, and concentrate only on selling accessories, beauty products, and gift items that leverage its brand and signature colors. Eight percent of its 250-strong workforce will be laid off. [NY Times]
• Timberland's profits declined 12% in the first quarter of this year. [WWD]
• Breaking: Tiffany & Co. has bought the bankrupt Lambertson Truex handbag brand from Samsonite. [WWD]
• Abercrombie & Fitch, meanwhile, is in its second round of layoffs this year. After making fifty workers at its Columbus, Ohio, headquarters in January, the company is letting go an addition 170 this week. [The Street]
• Joe's Jeans actually rose slightly in its sales and earnings for the first quarter. [WWD]
• The Gap is recalling 22,000 toggle coats for babies, up to size 24 months. The toggles can come off, and pose a choking risk. [Babble]

Harris writes:

On the Internet, we are being told right and left that Rihanna is a role model for young women, the glib assumption being that she automatically agreed to don that mantle the moment she decided she wanted to be a successful recording artist. An ABC News website report called ''Rihanna: Role Model No More?'' quotes a 15-year-old girl as saying that Rihanna is ''not sending the right message to kids.'' Fox News also labels her a role model and says she deserves to lose her career if she doesn't do all she can to put Brown behind bars.

The thing is, Rihanna is a role model, whether anyone likes it or not. She's not a role model because ABC or Fox calls her one, she's a role model because young women look up to her. She has loads of fans. They see her in TV commercials, videos, and on magazine covers. We know that in a recent poll, when asked for their top career choices, 32% of teenage girls chose "model." Actress was a close second at 29%; and 20% wanted to be musicians. Many young girls want to be famous, and they follow the lives of famous women very closely — especially someone like Rihanna, who, at 21, is young herself.

Harris argues:

If we really think that being famous now automatically qualifies you as someone whose example should be imitated and followed by young people, then that can only mean we now believe that fame in itself represents a form of moral superiority. Or perhaps we're all just looking for new ways to beat up Rihanna and get away with it.

But it isn't just that Rihanna is famous — it's the package: Youth, beauty, haircut, radio hits, magazine covers, famous boyfriend — that makes Rihanna attractive to young people, who see her and think, "I want that." Moral superiority never comes into play.

While there's no doubt that young people use their parents, teachers and relatives as role models as well, they definitely look up to celebrities. But they're quick to be disappointed when celebs let them down. Revlon knows this, which is why they're curious as to whether or not Rihanna has damaged Cover Girl's brand image. The two cosmetics companies are competitors (a point many commenters missed when we posted about it earlier), and Revlon is probably secretly hoping that people will see Rihanna's Cover Girl ads and not want to buy what she is selling. Rihanna was chosen to be a Cover Girl model because she had a gorgeous face, a bright future and young girls loved her. She became not only a role model but a literal model, and her face is in living rooms all over this country. Isn't it like Uncle Ben told Peter Parker: With great power comes great responsibility? Isn't Rihanna a role model? Or, do we treat her like we did Britney, Lindsay and Paris: Now that we don't like what she's done, we must tear her down, and declare her not that important to begin with?

Rihanna Is NOT A Role Model [EW]
Has Rihanna Scandal Damaged Cover Girl Brand? [AdAge]

• Candie's decided to take a chance on Britney Spears, and her cohort of current fans. The singer is the latest face of the tween-friendly brand. [WWD]

• Hello, viral marketing! There's already a "behind-the-scenes" vid of Ms. Spears shooting looks for the Candie's campaign, but, slightly more interestingly, it includes rehearsal footage featuring Spears in what are presumably those DSquared costumes we just heard about. There's a cool big-shouldered red jacket with swinging black fringe on the epaulettes. [PopSugar]
• Here's some news to make it worth getting up in the morning: Tom Ford, who has said in the past that he wants to do women's wear with his eponymous label, might be re-hiring Alessandra Facchinetti as head designer for the ladies' stuff. Facchinetti was Ford's women's wear point person when he was at Gucci, and she succeeded him when he left the company. But Facchinetti was fired from her position after just two seasons, and she was unceremoniously dumped from her next position, as creative director at Valentino, after just a few months in charge as well. Facchinetti is a talented designer, but maybe it takes Ford to get the best work from her? Let's hope this rumor proves true. [The Cut]
• Uniqlo had its fourth straight month of improving same-store sales, even in the midst of this recession. Same-store sales were up 4.2% in February, mainly on the back of increased patronage, since per-customer sales didn't rise significantly. [WWD]
• Also demonstrating that retail isn't entirely a scorched-earth zone these days, albeit more tentatively, is Claire's. Although their fourth-quarter results are still bad, their same-store sales rose in January and crossed into positive numbers last month. [WWD]
• This month, Forever 21 is launching a new plus-size range, called Faith 21. (The company is run by weird fundamentalist Christians, which pretty much explains the name.) [LA Times]
• Chanel, on the other hand, is closing two of its Japanese stores, and Chopard is having layoffs. [WWD]
• Jennifer Connelly wears Balenciaga in her Revlon ads, shot at Milk studios in New York. In this video, she talks about beauty. [Style.com]
• Freida Pinto might be a pick for an Estée Lauder contract. [WWD]
• Pharrell Williams, whose fashion interests already include Ice Cream and the Billionaire Boys Club, bought an interest in an ecologically sensitive yarn company in December. Which W decided to write about, now. For some reason. [W]
• Marc Jacobs donated a signed iPod to charity and we might as well pretend for the fun of it that his song list offers unexpected insights into his personality. What kind of man mixes Leonard Cohen and Lady Gaga? And then polishes the lot off with "No Scrubs" by TLC? It's fun to imagine Jacobs mouthing, "No, I don't want your number/No, I don't wanna give you mine/I don't wanna meet you nowhere/I don't want none of your time!" while sketching blouses for his collections or something. Oh, and for one last piece of Britney news: her iPod only fetched $801 at auction. [Unbeige]
• The difference between Anna Wintour, who has the dusty feel of a fashion institution these days, and Carine Roitfeld, who gives the impression she just might have a dust rag on or about her person, couldn't be more aptly underscored by the difference in the camera crews they attract. Wintour, editor of American Vogue, is to be the subject of a 60 minutes piece by Morley Safer, who first came to acclaim for his Vietnam coverage. Roitfeld, editor of French Vogue, gets something on CNN Revealed, which will almost certainly be cooler, hipper, and better, since it's cable and Carine and all. [The Cut]
• Katie Grand's Love magazine is either sold out of its 67,000 print run, and therefore fastest-selling debut magazine for Condé Nast UK ever, or it's just a lot of creative hype and there are in fact copies all over the place in Britain, depending on whether you believe Love magazine, or a bunch of anonymous Fashionista commenters. [Fashionista]
• Ever flip through a J. Crew catalog and think, 'Wow! These people clearly are a bunch of insurgent creatives, introducing mad art and design to chinos and pastels.' The impression will only be confirmed by Alex Katz's turn as a model for their spring catalog and in-store displays. Katz, 81 years young, is a Big Deal in American painting. [Unbeige]

• Diane Von Furstenberg: writer. The wrap doyenne's gonna "pen" a column for Departures, the high-falutin American Express travel magazine. "The designer and Council of Fashion Designers of America president will start writing about her jet-set life starting with the magazine's November/December issue." Let's hope she doesn't make yet another investigation of "how to pack" her inaugural column. [WWD]
• Penelope Cruz for Mango. Yes, she looks stunning. [FabSugar]
• Ew. Harper's Bazaar has shot the Ronsons (DJs, LiLo lovers, designers and socialites) as Wes Anderson's eccentric Tenenbaum clan. They wish! [Harpers Bazaar]
• Outspoken ass Roberto Cavalli describes models thus: "For me, models are just pieces of wood that I carve to make clothes look beautiful," goes on to trash Kate, Naomi. Bad enemies, Cavalli. [NY Mag]

• Justin Timberlake to show/perform at Fashion Week. [NY Mag]
• Jimmy Choo director, Christian Slater-squeeze and legally embattled Tamara Mellon has joined the board of directors at Revlon. Quoth she, "I am thrilled to become a director of Revlon, an iconic brand in beauty and one that represents the image of a confident, glamorous woman." [ElleUK]
• Spanish chain Zara takes 'world's largest retailer' title from Gap. [Guardian]
• Sneak "peek" (okay, description) of the Commes des Garcons for H&M line, W via Fashionista. It's "mostly black and with Japanese tomboy airs, the H&M collection includes a range of tailored jackets, many deconstructed, along with cropped pants, baggy shorts and a variety of skirts in stretch wool. On the perkier side are polkadot knits in jersey or merino wool, colorful shirts - some with dots - and a "showpiece" coat-dress decorated here and there with dense Victorian ruffles." [Fashionista]
• Weirdly, the recession isn't curbing men's spending on clothes. "Over the past year, men have been on a clothes-buying spree, while women have pulled back even more." [Los Angeles Times]
• Depressingly, the Olympics aren't helping Beijing retailers at all. [WWD]
• Steve Madden names new CEO. [Crains]
• That open call for real women to model in that British Wonderbra campaign has resulted in a creepy-sounding mosaic of boobs, plus the tagline, "D to G, because we're more than a handful." [Salon]
• Style.com is finally adding the long-awaited beauty blog. [WWD]
• Celia Birtwell's rad new Top Shop line will just whet your appetite for the new AMERICAN TOP SHOP opening in October!!! [VogueUK]
• Back away slowly. IToo Faced Fuze Slenderize Guilt Free lip gloss may be the Antichrist. "Inspired by fruity flavors like Blueberry Raspberry and Dragon Fruit Lime, these lip shiners are made with Fuze ingredients that supposedly suppress appetite and boost energy levels — all from glossing up your puckers." [Nylon]

• Who is Tory Burch's elusive 23-year old stepdaughter Pookie? On Mondays, Pookie interns for Bruce Weber, and the rest of the week she works as the assistant to the president of Carolina Herrera, and she was (allegedly) responsible for the magical pairing of New York's leading faux-WASP ice princess with Princess Coldstare, but alas, we have scoured the Google and cannot find a picture of her. So this will have to do. [Fashion Week Daily]
  
• M.I.A has designed her own eponymous clothing line, which is really brightly colored so that, "if you lose it or someone steals it, you can see it from miles away and you can be like, 'Oy! Give me my shirt back!'" Oy is right! [WWD, 3rd item]
  
• Tinsley Mortimer, you see, is not a bad designer of handbags, it's just that she made the mistake of trying to sell them in Japan. "Japanese girls have no use for clutches because they just go to the clubs right after work. They are so different from New York. Stylewise, colorwise, stylewise. It's very youth-oriented. I'm designing for women between the ages of 20 and 40... But in Japan, after 25, it's like, basically, you're dead." [NYMag]

• "Now that I've been modeling some, I can actually stand in high heels—at least for a night." Oh, Hagyness. [Fashion Week Daily]
• Meanwhile, poor Erin Wasson broke her foot running in stilettos while shooting the ad campaign for Justin Timberlake's clothing line, William Rast. Doctors say her bones were fragile due to the amount of time she has spent in her life in heels. Ouch. [NYMag]
• Are you ready for Tuesday night's Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute Gala? [Is that a trick question? -Moe] The theme is superheroes because "the superhero is the overarching metaphor for fashion, because both share this obsession with the body, identity and transformation." [WWD, sub req'd]
• No actually, explains Diane Von Furstenberg, superheroes are just super-trendy right now. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Poor Nicole Fahri was mugged at knifepoint outside her home! [Mirror UK]
• "My wife and I had a great time just sitting and going through things and working on what we liked the best...I would love to see her have a fragrance, and us to have one together — a unisex fragrance. That would be wonderful. She's a lot more expensive than I am." Tim McGraw on his new eponymous fragrance and his oft-PhotoShopped wife, Faith Hill. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Virtual Christian Siriano prom dresses? We're confused. Explain this to us, please. [Gaia]
• Oscar de la Renta shot his Fall/WInter 2008 ad campaign at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego. Which is, um, really random and has nothing to do with polio? [WWD, sub req'd]
• Is former Dior Homme designer Hedi Slimane doing a line for Diesel? Eh, probs. [WWD, 3rd item]
• Naomi Watts is the new face of Thierry Mugler's Angel fragrance. We are so happy for her. [WWD, 2nd item]
• Martin Margiela is trying to go mainstream. Have you never heard of him? Well, that's cause he's so not mainstream. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Chuck Close, Jeff Koons, Marilyn Minter, Kiki Smith, Cai Guo-Qiang, Barbara Kruger, Ashley Bickerton, Kenny Scharf, Glenn Ligon, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Kerry James Marshall, Hanna Liden and Sarah Sze are all collaborating with the Gap on a series of t-shirts. [WWD, sub req'd]
• And Elie Tahari is collaborating with artist Kenny Scharf, too. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Alice Temperely: Showing in London come September for the first time in six seasons. Buh-bye, New York. [Vogue UK]
• Colin McDowell, fashion editor of The Sunday Times of London, is leaving the paper to become creative editor-at-large of Net-a-Porter and spearhead its original editorial content. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Revlon: In debt. But less so now than before. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Elizabeth Arden: Profits are down. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Same goes for Bebe. [WWD, sub req'd]
• And Steve Madden! Hmmm, I wonder what it all means? [Crain's]

• Luke Wilson is "designing" a line of golf products and accessories for Puma. Ah, the insatiable American hunger for the consumption of stuff and celebrity! Or the perception of the insatiability, or whatever. [WWD, sub req'd]
  
• Speaking of! Rod Stewart is launching a clothing line. [Guardian]
  
• Donna Karan is doing Passover with Demi and Ashton in Miami. [Fashion Week Daily]
  
• Really, how much longer can Christian Siriano hold congratulatory celebrations for himself? [Fashion Week Daily]
  
• Elle Macpherson is the latest face of Revlon. [WWD, sub req'd]

• English girl designers Georgina Chapman and Keren Craig are adding a bridal collection for their label, Marchesa, to debut next month. Chapman made herself not one but two wedding dresses for her recent nuptials to Harvey Weinstein, so she's totally qualified, btw. [WWD, 1st item]
• Marc Jacobs is already fighting with his new boyfriend, Austin A. Also: partying in sweatpants and wife-beaters.[Page Six]
• Mary J. Blige is taking sellers of knockoff Mary J. Blige concert tees to court. [Page Six]
• George Clooney may not be doing his own clothing line, but he does wear Belstaff in his upcoming film Leatherheads and the Italian label is sponsoring the film's European premiere. [Vogue UK]
• Steve McQueen also did not do his own clothing line. Though we think the fact that he's dead should have been evidence enough. [Reuters]
• Israeli fashion is apparently on the rise. I am going to be polite here and pretend like the words "Israeli style" don't actually evoke any sort of mental image for me because I love my people. But. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Jean-Paul Gaultier: Dressing Kylie Minogue for her upcoming tour. [WWD, 3rd item]
• Azzedine Alaia just received a French Legion of Honor. Who? What? [WWD, 1st item]
• Tom Ford has designs on Japan. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Stella McCartney is heading to India. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Agyness Deyn continues to find work. [The Sun UK]
• Drinking this water will apparently magically protect your skin from UV rays; LOL. [Chic Report]
• O.C. alum Samaire Armstrong: has a clothing line too. [Sassybella]
• How to recycle your clothing! [Utne]

• M.I.A. on playing the role of spokesmodel, DJ and popular celeb sighting during NY Fashion Week: "Last year I wasn't let into the Marc Jacobs party and this year I own it!" Ah, groundedness. [Fashion Week Daily]
  
• International Herald Tribune fashion critic and former MJ nemesis Suzy Menkes really liked this season's (punctual!) (we're still getting over that!!) Marc Jacobs show: "It was such a good show, I would've waited three hours for it." Tell that to Robin Givhan's dog, Suze. [Fashion Week Daily]
  
• On a darker note, is Marc's mom in rehab? [NY Daily News]
  
• Spain is encouraging apparel manufacturers to start making clothing sizes for three distinct different body types: hourglass, pear, and cylinder. [NYT]

• Join the Rachel Hunter-faced "Style Your Slim" Slimfast program and automatically become part of the American Express fashion rewards program. Because a woman who commits to a lifetime of shakes for breakfast, lunch and a sensible dinner is definitely committing to a lifetime of clothing sizes that change every two months. Yay, money! [FabSugar]
• Loulou de la Falaise, onetime muse to Yves Saint Laurent, to shill costume jewelry for Home Shopping Network. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Comme des Garcons designer Rei Kawakubo has partnered with Speedo to design "the fastest swimsuit ever." [WWD, sub req'd]
• Showing her Red Label line in London clearly isn't activist enough for Vivienne Westwood, who has made encouraging English designers to show in their home country into a full-out political cause. Says Red Label managing director/Westwood mouthpiece Carlo D'Amario, "London has become the global reference point for creativity and never like now there is a need for a permanent platform for the promotion of dynamic British and European talent... I call on John Galliano, Alexander McQueen and Burberry among others to show their younger distribution lines here in London and unite to make London Fashion Week and London not only a centre for creativity but also for business." Talk about a rebel without a cause. [Vogue UK]
• Jezebel girl crush Tilda Swinton on her plans for Oscar fashion: "My pajamas! I'll be watching them from home." [Fashion Week Daily]
• Hush Puppies: Still around! [The Street]
• Revlon is reissuing its Kiss Me Coral lipstick after London-based designer Roksanda Ilinicic pulled the color from their archives to use in tomorrow's London fashion week show. Our grandmother will be so, um, "tickled"! [Vogue UK]
• How did unsigned unknown Argentinian singer-songwriter Lights nab a gig to do the soundtrack for all Old Navy's latest look-how-hip-we-are ads? Turns out some folks still use MySpace! [AdAge]

• Hilary Swank in the January issue of W magazine: "I just took my most important [pills], which are my Oz Garcia Longevity Pak. I shoved them in my mouth right before I met you, which I actually shouldn't do, because I choked on my vitamins once before." [W]
  
• Has Vogue's Anna Wintour really had her lips injected and her eyes lifted.? If one of you can confirm this for us, we'll buy you a dozen cupcakes. Or a colonic, if you're a Conde Nasty and that's more your thing. [NY Post]
  
• A tipster tells us that this year, Conde Nast staffers are receiving "very big, engraved" umbrellas as their Christmas bonuses. "Engraved"? With what? Wintour's new lips? Anyone have a pic?

• Diane von Furstenberg is to China as Tom Ford is to Russia. Says DVF, ""I am totally impressed and excited — totally impressed. I haven't ever been this impressed about anything — to witness what they are building in Beijing — from the Opera House to Rem Koolhaas' TV tower and the Aquatic Center and the Bird's Nest — it's like nothing I have ever seen before... It's like being in ancient Egypt during the time of the pharaohs — this is something that happens every two millennia." Really, Diane, don't hold back! [WWD, sub req'd]
• Fashion goes Bolshevik! England's models are unionizing, but because they're too lazy to start their own union, they're just joining the British Actors Equity instead. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Giorgio Armani on picking David Beckham to be the face of Emporio Armani underwear: "He represents a notion of modern masculinity: as a sports hero, husband and father. He is also a man with a great sense of style. There was a time when soccer players were not always considered to be fashion role models. David Beckham has helped to change that." Bonus: He has a big package! [Vogue UK]
• Wha? Versace chocolate? You just know that shit is laced with coke. [Fashion Week Daily]
• Calvin Klein Inc., in an attempt to pinch pennies, is going to start to once again create its designer ready-to-wear line collection in-house. Yes, that's right: If you've been buying any schmancy Calvin you saw on the runway it was like made in some factory God knows where. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Tom Ford's former Gucci boss on what it was like working with Ford: "He'd lost touch with the ground. He had no experience of management on this scale." Ford's response: "Serge was a fish out of water at Gucci Group, as he had absolutely no experience in the fashion or luxury-goods sector. He is a nice guy, but had no understanding whatsoever of our business. He was a bit surprised, I think, when I challenged his knowledge of things, which I often did." God, we love a good male-on-male fashion catfight! [Vogue UK]
• Ellen Barkin ex Ron Perelman is shuffling money from his company MacAndrews & Forbes Holdings Inc. to Revlon, another of his holdings. Is this legal? Also, does this mean that Halle Berry is no longer getting free lipstick? [WSJ]
• Moschino is being rebranded as Love Moschino. Does anyone care? [Sassybella]
• You can now buy your Prada on-line from Prada! Ooh, how meta. [WWD, sub req'd]

• Although Paris Hilton promises she'll wear pieces from her own apparel line, her loyalty doesn't extend to her eponymous timepiece collection. [WWD]
• Loungewear designer Susan Beischel is offering fur slippers and shrugs that come with "certificates of natural death". [WWD]
• Jovovich/Hawk's Milla Jovovich and Carmen Hawk are selfish bitches. [WWD]
• Four wanna-be Project Runway designers... deconstructed. [NYMag]
• Unfortunately-illustrated Portfolio fashion blogger warns designers of L.A.: Skinny, tacky Posh Spice will kill your image. [Portfolio]
• Revlon nail-polish may give you nail fungus. [Fashionista]

The magazine is a snooze (or maybe it's that I've just gotten older), with pages upon pages of what is essentially advertorial and the stray, insightful article by some smart writer from another Conde Nast magazine. The February 2007 issue, however, seems to be different. At first. After all, there's cover girl Julianne Moore, who I believe, is both over 40 and with a BMI well over half that number. And I'm liking the clumpy-mascara look on the cover photo, despite Allure's claim that the majority of the makeup used by Gucci Westman on Julianne was made by Revlon, one of Julianne's employers. [For those who don't know this already, women's magazines lie about stuff like this]. I'm also enjoying the fact that two of the magazine's staff contributors — Elizabeth Einstein and Lindsy Van Gelder — admit upfront in their contributors' bios that they don't really care that much about makeup or getting facials. Brava, girls! For the next step in your recovery might we suggest a public admission that you think Ron Perelman is a short little pig?

Things, unfortunately, go downhill from here. In her editor's letter, Linda Wells recounts what she undoubtedly feels is an illuminating story about a friend, Jane, who turned up at a party wearing black velvet shorts with tights, platform shoes and a flowy white top. The lesson to be learned? Well, Linda's point is that when you wear an outfit with confidence, it will undoubtedly look "right". Fascinating stuff, that is.

Onward and downward. I'm intrigued by the Sarah Van Boven feature on women with serious hair loss, mostly because of a not-so-blind item in an essay in this book by a former Allure editor (and, full disclosure, a former boss of mine) that seems to imply that Linda Wells herself suffers from such an ailment (and may even wear a hairpiece). Why this has never made the gossips, only Richard Johnson knows.

Page 120: Allure reports that two professors at USC have concluded that celebrities have a tendency towards narcissistic traits that lead them towards the limelight, "rather than vice versa." Pages 121-181: A spa directory package (yawn); a feature on shimmery eye-makeup (written by poor Elizabeth Einstein, who, as you'll remember, admits up front that she couldn't care less about cosmetics); a feature on hair accessories with NO PRICES ATTACHED; a story on happiness by Rebecca Mead (you're slumming it, girlfriend); and a fashion feature on spring-y, flirty frocks with again, NO PRICES.

Last up, the story I've been waiting for: the Julianne Moore profile by Kevin Sessums. Kevin, who used to write puff pieces for Vanity Fair, seems to have acquired an edge in the ensuing years, as he all but calls Julianne old within the first paragraph:

"There is something about [NYC's Broadway district] on such a morning that can remind you of a woman past her prime but still beautiful. At least that's the image that comes to mind before I open the stage door of the Music Box Theatre, and a fresh-faced Julianne Moore comes bounding down the stairs to greet me."

But Sessums makes up for his diss - and recalls the good 'ol Vanity Fair days - in the very next paragraph with agonizing pronouncements like these:

"...her mass of unbrushed curls, the color of a rusty sunset."
"...as if captured in one of those luminous closeups for which she has become known."
"She is the kind of actress whose otherworldly beauty onscreen, glazed both by life and lighting, can't quite mask her earthiness."

Will someone put Kevin Sessums out if his misery already?

Overall Grade: D-