You know it's bad news when Maureen Dowd sinks in her claws, and that's exactly what the NY Times columnist did this morning to the glamorous White House social secretary, declaring archly,

The statuesque social secretary brandishing a Harvard M.B.A. and animal-print designer shoes is not any mere party planner. The old friend of the first couple from Chicago has the exalted and uncommon title of social secretary and special assistant to the president....Instead of standing outside with a clipboard, eyeballing guests as Anne Hathaway did in "The Devil Wears Prada," Desirée was a guest at the dinner, the center of her own table of guests, just like the president and first lady.

In sum, concludes Dowd, "Even before the Salahis swept in preening, the Obama staffers were there preening, standing around celebrating themselves. And of course, savoring the wonder of the Obama brand."

She's referring, of course, to Rogers' infamous WSJ interview, in which the social secretary (clad, as everyone mentions, in Viktor and Rolf, Prada and Cartier), "We have the best brand on earth: The Obama brand." And despite - or because of - her #28 ranking on Vanity Fair's power list, title as Best-Dressed Washingtonian and front-row seat at Fashion Week next to Anna Wintour, the White House thereafter clamped down on the elegant Rogers' public speaking. As the Washington Post explains,

In recent years, social secretaries had always quashed their own public profiles, demurred from seeking the limelight, in service to their position and in deference to the first lady. Indeed, the names of the most recent social secretaries — Cathy Fenton, Lea Berman and Amy Zantzinger probably ring no bells outside of Washington circles. Those who have more prominent profiles such as Ann Stock, who worked in the Clinton administration and now at the Kennedy Center, and Letitia Baldridge of the Kennedy years, waited until their post-White House years to step into the spotlight.

Arguably, people have been waiting for Rogers to get her comeuppance for some time, but the Salahi's opportunism seems a pretty weak pretext. As Time's Michael Scherer explained it,

Rogers' sin, if it can be called one, was apparently in making herself a guest at the State Dinner-a star not a clerk, you see-for which she wore a cream-colored Comme des Garcons number, which was so high fashion that it looked like she might have made it herself. She also did not assign a staff person to hover over the Secret Service gates checking off guests as they arrived. Security is not her office's responsibility, everyone agrees, but it was possible, some mused, that Rogers or her staff might have provided a second set of eyes to spot interlopers when the Secret Service failed to do its job. Both the Secret Service and the House Homeland Security Committee have promised investigations, but that has not stopped a chorus of conclusions.

Immediately, fingers were pointed at Rogers. Said Lloyd Grove, bitchily, "Where, oh where, was Desiree Rogers?...In the past, White House social secretaries have worked, not partied." Michelle Malkin, of course, jumped into the fray with a slideshow of the secretary's presumably Marie Antoinette-frivolous gowns. Always with the clothes! Said Washington Post fashion critic Robin Givhan, sagely, "It was the sort of attention-getting dress, with its translucent sleeves and strands of pearls encased in layers of tulle, that proclaimed the wearer a fashion savant."

When Bravo floated the D.C. Housewives franchise, the response was low-level incredulity. No self-respecting D.C. hostess would, it was said, countenance such a thing - and if they did, whither the drama? Well, here we go. This one, first incident has launched enough cattiness for a whole season of Real Housewives, and then some. That's what's so absurd: the objectively ludicrous Salahis didn't need to bring down the dignity of the occasion, or the city, when the tsuris was all there and desperate for any excuse to get out. Bravo's just figured out how to make this series the most dramatic of all - because this time, it's political.

Piling On Desirée Rogers—Is The Social Secretary To Blame For Two Ticketless Boobs At The White House? [Time]
Who's Sari Now? [NY Times]
Rogers's Unwanted New Guest: Scrutiny [Washington Post]
The New Establishment 2009 [Vanity Fair]

Desiree Rogers Voted Washington's Best-Dressed Woman (SLIDESHOW) [HuffPO]

Desirée Rogers' Brand Obama [Wall Street Journal]

Her larger point is that fashion, that many big-headed hydra, is merely going to act out like a rebellious teen against the world. They represent the ideal, they don't make it. And if we're getting fat, and hate it, fashion's going to reflect an opposite and aspirational extreme. Because that's what fashion does, it's unattainable - and it never pretended to be anything else. Our hatred of fashion-as-scapegoat is, she's basically saying, about self-loathing, adding, "And some horribly airbrushed photos notwithstanding, the main focus of the complaints isn't that the look is unpleasant but that it's unattainable for most people."

In short,

With that in mind, maybe all of the protesting about deluded designers has been wrongheaded. Maybe all of the demands that editors and photographers just use heavier models have been misguided. Because before fashion models will get any bigger, people in general will just have to get smaller...Fashion tells us something about ourselves and our culture. It does that by reflecting a heightened or twisted reality. It may be that the only way to change the fashion industry's portrayal of women is not by trying to make sense of the funhouse reflection but reconsidering the original subject matter.

Salon's superbly-named Sady Doyle challenges Givhan's central assumption, sagely pointing out that

the backlash isn't always about health or body image, but about wanting a standard of beauty that actually seems semi-attainable. At least you could buy a corset (good luck carrying that Photoshop eraser tool around with you at dinner)...The culture" isn't insisting on emaciated models and greeting larger ones with hostility; the fashion industry is, and as such, it seems increasingly out of touch with consumer demands.

To this I'd add that whatever we think of the insanity of corsets, belladonna and foot-binding, never in the course of sartorial history have we been father from the natural ideal: all these things, however grotesque, emphasized characteristics that are associated with health and fertility in some way. Big eyes? A dramatic hip-to-waist ratio? You don't need Anthro 101 to point out the antecendents. (Maybe damaged said health along the way, but you get where I'm going with this.) Design critic Stephen Bayley's new book, ‘‘Woman as Design: Before, Behind, Between, Above, Below," deals with exactly this: the enduring, subconscious - and universal - appeal of the feminine body.

Givhan's argument, while it surely contains a kernel of truth, also denies something obvious: modern fashion isn't about beauty, and that's new. It's redefining beauty, and taking out health, which goes against our quite literal instincts. Maybe that's why we rebel, and object in ways we don't even fully understand.

Yes, Thin's In — But Why Is That A Surprise? [Washington Post]
Are Models Too Thin? Or Are You Just Too Fat? [Salon]

The Anatomy Lesson [NYTimes]

• After barring a woman from helping her autistic sister try on clothes at the chain's Mall of America outpost, Abercrombie & Fitch was fined $115,264 for discrimination. Now we can say it definitively: Abercrombie doesn't like disabled people. [StarTrib]

• There are pictures of Threeasfour's inspiration boards, fabrics, and the in-progress pieces of its collection with Yoko Ono, which will be shown next week in New York. Ono contributed original artwork and inspiration to the collection, and the dot drawings that were transformed into original prints look fantastic with their repeated circular-organic shapes. [The Cut]
• Oprah is going to co-host next year's Met Ball. Oprah. Let that sink in. Co-hosting, of course, will be the woman who made her lose 20 pounds to be fit for the cover of her magazine: Anna Wintour. [Yahoo! News]
• This year's Met Ball model co-host, Kate Moss, stormed out of the GQ awards show in London because host James Nesbitt made a joke about her naked appearance on the cover of that magazine. She managed to interrupt Dizzee Rascal, who was being interviewed after accepting an award — twice. Once to storm out, and once to ask if anybody had seen her lipstick. [Telegraph]
• GQ anointed comedian and Little Britain star David Walliams as the most stylish man of 2009. He accepted the award wearing goggles and denim hotpants. [Mirror]
• Craig "Radioman" Schwartz, apparently some sort of serial movie set hanger-on, nearly rode his bicycle into Sarah Jessica Parker while she was filming for Sex And The City outside Bergdorf's. She stumbled over the curb. Do people really have nothing better to do than flashmob the SATC set? For the rest of the day, Parker was protected by ten bodyguards between takes. [WWD]
• Meanwhile, co-star Kristin Davis' line with Belk department stores has been discontinued, and the actress' planned New York Fashion Week show canceled. Belk and Davis say the decision was mutual. [The Cut]
• Three words: Lady Gaga Headphones. (No, she's not doing a side project with David Bazan.) [Engadget]
• The house of Ungaro has tapped Lindsay Lohan as an "artistic adviser" and relatively unknown designer Estrella Archs as its chief designer. When the Lindsay-for-Ungaro rumor started — back before the young, talented Colombian designer Esteban Cortazar had been fired — it sounded like crazy talk. Now it's happening. "Odds are it could work," says C.E.O. Mounir Moufarrige. [WWD]
• Heidi Klum, on that time Karl Lagerfeld sneered that he didn't know who she was, and that she was obviously fat anyway: "It's bizarre to me that he says he doesn't know who I am because he's dressed me in the past. I've worn Karl Lagerfeld. Not even Chanel – his line. Lagerfeld doesn't just send random things everywhere." Klum in fact wore Lagerfeld to the CFDA awards a few years back. [P6Mag — story not online yet]
  
• Fashion success story Christopher Kane, on childhood: "I was this wee kid who just stayed in the house, watching The Clothes Show with my mum and scrooging all the money from my first communion." [ToL]
• Model Crystal Renn, who was directed as a 14-year-old to lose 9" off her hips in order to work in the industry, and struggled for years with anorexia and exercise bulimia as a result, says that Glamour magazine was the only client who ever noticed her eating disorder, and took action by calling her then-agency, Next. Not that she was appreciative as a frightened young teen: "At the time, I was really embarrassed because someone had figured me out. They called it and brought it to light. I wasn't only not only not pleasing my agency but I wasn't pleasing Glamour. When I became a healthy model like I am now, they were one of the first people to shoot me at this size, and that says something." Renn, whose memoir Hungry came out yesterday, would like to have a plus-size clothing line because she says her rock 'n' roll aesthetic is under-represented in the larger sizes. [GlamChic]
• Tara Moss, who modeled for 10 years, now writes crime novels. And she does her own stunts: to research events for her books, she tries to experience the things her characters feel. In addition to spending days in morgues and courtrooms, flying fighter jets, and being set on fire, she has had an Ultimate Fighter choke her until she lost consciousness. [Reuters]
• Hadley Freeman says, of the attempts by models too numerous to name to raise awareness about the industry's working conditions, "The fact that all these efforts have come from models as opposed to the outside media (which gets too distracted with painting models as evil fem-bots and harbingers of eating disorders to see them as underpaid homesick teenagers), suggests maybe people find the idea of models making them feel fat more upsetting than the very real fact of models being raped." The serial rapist designer Anand Jon Alexander was sentenced to 59 years in prison this week; other sources interviewed for this story express amazement that any of his victims, all young models over whom he had authority, came forward at all. [Guardian]
• Anna Sui's Gossip Girl-inspired Target collection launches this weekend online and in 600 stores nationwide — and today, if you live in New York and are willing to go to a pop-up store in a townhouse on Crosby St. [WWD]
• A woman told the Post that sometimes she goes to Yigal Azrouël's Meatpacking District store to try on clothes "just to be naked in the same room with him." Azrouël is sexy and all, but that's just creepy. [NYPost]
• This story about Fashion's Night Out, which is tomorrow, includes an unexpected reference to Fitzgerald. Then Anna Wintour says, "What am I looking to buy? Something in red, some new boots, and some kind of savage fur (that's American Vogue shorthand, so you know, for a rough, shaggy stole or collar of some kind). It's not a lot, but isn't that the whole point of shopping these days." [ToL]
• Club Monaco locations in New York City will be serving champagne until 11 p.m., and the SoHo store will have a cupcake truck outside until September 12th. [FWD]
• The Financial Times' coverage of Fashion's Night Out casts Wintour as Ben Bernanke in a grand fashion stimulus plan. [FT]
• Wintour's appearance on Letterman drew slightly higher ratings than the show's average for the week and month, but ABC's Nightline still won the timeslot. [WWD]
• "Would I think twice about buying a dress that costs $2,000? Yeah! Of course I would. I'd try it on and go home and think about it before I bought it," says Victoria Beckham. Nonetheless, she says that demand for her uber-expensive dress line is outstripping supply. [People]
• Robin Givhan reports that now, the time just before Fashion Week, is a period of "soul-searching and hand-wringing" for designers and the industry. [WaPo]
• Neiman Marcus suffered a $168.6 million loss during the fourth quarter. Revenues decreased 24%. [WWD]
• Yesterday, Gap-owned e-tailer Piperlime started selling designer clothes, in addition to shoes. [NYTimes]
• Same-store sales at Laura Ashley rose 6.7%, to £101.5m. [FT]

In an interview with USA Today, Heidi Klum confirms McNamara's point: "Lifetime bought a show that they loved. They didn't buy a show to change it; they bought it to bring the show to their audience," she says. "I was kind of into changing a few things: the colors a little bit, changing the set a little bit or maybe making the runway a little bit different. But they liked it as it was."

But Gina Bellafante from the New York Times isn't so sure that Lifetime is the right fit for Runway. She writes:

What's jarring is the marriage between the series and its new home. "Project Runway" is Barneys; Lifetime is Kohl's. The cable outfit that broadcasts "Army Wives" and "Reba" reruns maintains an ethos that says, "Viewer, I see your cellulite; I'm down with your fibromyalgia; I know your menopausal misery." Strikingly, however, while "Project Runway" has been decidedly non-ageist in the past, drawing from designers at different stages in their careers, the current season is loaded with the unwrinkled: 9 of the 16 competitors are under 30, possibly a function of the fact that the casting is now conducted by Bunim/Murray, producers of "The Real World."

Still, the basic formula is still there, argues Mary McNamara: You're watching people with talent make wonderful clothes.

As ever, it seems impossible that anything even remotely resembling a dress will emerge from the miasma of quirkiness and terror swirling about in the work room, but emerge they do, in varying degrees of beauty and inspiration.

And therein lies the success and value of "Project Runway." Not with the personalities, not even with the competition. It's the miraculous simplicity of creating something from nothing that makes "Runway" endlessly watchable.

And, as the Washington Post's Robin Givhan puts it: "Despite the palm trees, balmy breezes and California informality, Tim Gunn is still there — in a dignified suit and tie — to dish out tough love amid their emotional meltdowns." Which, really, is a key component of why we watch.

Klum: Few Alterations Needed To Make 'Runway' Fit [USA Today]
'Project Runway,' 'Rachel Zoe' Return [LA Times]
Designers, Start Your Engines for Season 6 [NY Times]
Westward, Sew! Thankfully, Gunn's Style Travels Well [WaPo]

You've seen the jeans, and you've heard the backlash. Obama was caught wearing bad pants. And for a president, apparently, this is wholly unacceptable. As sartorial analyst extraordinaire Givhan would have it, the president's is a tricky balance: "Few people want him to look like he spends his afternoons thumbing through his subscriber editions of GQ. But most folks would like to think he has at least heard the phrase 'dress for success'." She adds that the jeans' frumpiness - their dated wash, suspicious lack of wrinkles, unfortunate brevity and relaxed sag - undermined people's confidence in a fundamental way. "(F)or a president who has prided himself on his forward-looking philosophy, on his embrace of the new, on his youthful vitality and on his ability to project an air of reassuring cool in the face of economic meltdown, those sad-sack, grandpa jeans were off message."

Almost as soon as he'd thrown out that fateful pitch, the criticism began - from tabloid coverage to a hard-hitting confrontation with Meredith Viera, in which Obama's bizarre rationale was that his only other pair was, apparently, hipster-skinny. Givhan joins the chorus of disapproval, deeming the jeans "not at all presidential" and declaring that, in the manner of presidents before him, he'll need to sort out a go-to uniform that conveys the same easy confidence that his suits manage so effortlessly.

I am sort of embarrassed to admit it, but I didn't mind the jeans. They were dad jeans. Dads aren't supposed to look sexy in jeans - indeed, it should be discouraged. I even found the jeans kind of...endearing. They were the sort of jeans a boy's mom buy's for him - or, in the case of my own father - a man's wife. And the thing is simply this: contrary to what the Media would have you believe, not everyone is a jeans guy. Jeans, at the best of times, are, like shorts, a tricky issue for men. There's no easy way for anyone of either sex to do jeans in this day and age: at best, unless you're going for all-out hipster fop, they look like you didn't try (a look that requires trying) - or they look crummy.

What Givhan is really talking about is the pernicious denim-jeans divide of the past decade. Obama wore jeans. People wanted him in "denim." Jeans are what a prior generation thought of as casualwear: one-style-fits-all workhorses good for chores and cowboys. "Denim" involves washes and implications and detailing - or lack of detailing - and seaming so subtle and insidious as to almost justify the astronomical price-tags. Denim, whether understated or overt, is about status. This is why many of us dislike denim. Givhan suggests that Obama was out of touch in this regard, and I guess she's right. But the popping of the denim bubble is one recession casualty I'd greet with equanimity - and in a time when we're strapped for cash, there are worse things than a tacit, unintended rebuke of one of the most obscene manifestations of pre-recession cultural excess.

For the President, A Dilemma Regarding Denim [Washington Post]
Obama: No Apologies For Relaxed All-Star Look [Miami Herald]

Givhan's analysis stems from the fact that the fashion industry has deemed sheath dresses (which are oh-so-flattering on every shape) equally authoritative as business suits and suggested that all women eschew stockings in the summer. And instead of complying with the fashion industry's advice — or, at a minimum, wearing a wrap dress — Sotomayor did what any sensible judicial nominee ought: she dressed both for her audience and the event, i.e. the Senate and a confirmation hearing. And thus she earns Givhan's opprobrium for not being feminine enough.

Her wardrobe, as she sat for her daily grilling by the Senate Judiciary Committee, did not reflect the fashion industry's constant refrain. In fact, it did not even appear to have been influenced by the 21st century. Instead, Sotomayor's clothes evoked authority in the manner of a 1980s lady power broker.

And while a wing of the fashion industry has been enraptured by the styles of the 1980s, its focus has been more on embellished military jackets, harem pants and jersey dresses that look as though they might spontaneously combust on a particularly hot day. That is not the part of 1980s fashion history Sotomayor was channeling. She embraced that period in fashion when femininity had no place in the executive suite.

Um, what? Either Robin Givhan and I experienced two different decades, or two different hearings. Sotomayor's suits, above, had hardly the big shoulderpads nor the boxy jackets of that (thankfully) bygone era, and I'm certain her skirts were either A-lines or flared, unlike the 80s ubiquitous pencil skirts. They weren't paired with high-necked silk shells, floppy bows of any kind or even button-down shirts. In short, they looked nothing like this.

In fact, by my count, Sotomayor wore a pink suit as well as a pink shell under her black suit; cuts that were flattering for her figure; exposed her collar bones and — for the first day — even wore a suit with a styled color and an asymmetrical line. But despite the skirts, the deliberately feminine color choices (pink, red, bright blue and a wide black pinstripe paired with a pink shell), the three-quarter sleeves and the stockings Givhan derides as being unfashionable (though a smart choice in what I guarantee was a frigid hearing room), Givhan says Sotomayor wasn't feminine.

Her single notable accessory was a slim bangle on her right wrist. Her neck, so exposed by her jewel collars, was bare.

Aside from her decision to emphasize skirts instead of trousers and the shoulder-length dark curls framing her face, there was nothing in Sotomayor's style that acknowledged her femininity in a significant way.

She, in Givhan's words, left her gender at the door.

Opening a Conventional Closet In Quest for a Supreme Robe [Washington Post]

Jenny Sanford has not been terribly cooperative with the media. When, we wonder, will we get the confessional, the tearful appearance, the angry tirade we're clearly ready to believe? Since, amazingly, she hasn't felt like doing this in the ten days since her world came crashing down, we're forced to search for clues - the reliable "friends and family" (who seem to think she's okay) and, obviously, the wardrobe. This is tricky, because unlike the tight-lipped spouses who resentfully stand by their men in a comfort armor of pearls and suiting - de facto First Lady Wear - Sanford has continued to dress as she did before the furor, in a relaxed vacation wardrobe that gives nothing away. But aha! According to the Washington Post's Robin Givhan, this is in fact more revealing: There is, she says

"something splendidly defiant in the wardrobe Jenny Sanford, the wife of Gov. Mark Sanford, has been wearing the past few days...when she appeared before the cameras she was dressed like she'd just come in from a leisurely bike ride amid the wildflowers, during which she did not perspire. Mrs. Sanford did not look stern or brokenhearted. Mostly, she seemed about as aggravated as if she'd run out of sunscreen. One photograph has her in white pedal pushers and a blue paisley peasant blouse. In another, she's again wearing white shorts but this time with a coral-colored, flower-print tunic. Another photograph catches her in the kind of loose-fitting paisley tunic one might wear over a swimsuit. She's wearing sunglasses, carrying a large shoulder bag and showing a little thigh. But what's most noticeable is that she's not looking like a constrained — or strained — political wife who uses clothes like a suit of armor. Instead, it's just the opposite. She comes across as a woman set free. Everything about her style is breezy.

The hieroglyphics of a public woman's grooming are complex, the paparrazzi archive is our Rosetta stone. When we feel for her - or are supposed to - a woman's blithe relaxation can be a sign of empowerment and independence. But how about when the shoe's on the other foot? Take the reviled Ruth Madoff. One rarely reads an account of her in which her impeccable presentation is referenced - "carefully groomed," a New York feature calls her, while Madoff's secretary described her as "meticulous." Now, we gleefully read about her gray roots and her demotion to jeans. This deterioration is regarded, not as a sign of a liberation from a charade, but as the cracks in the careful facade. Says New York,

In the public eye, Ruth has come to represent the spoils of her husband's criminal activity: The lifestyle, the furs and jewelry, the fancy hair salon, the clinking glasses at parties, the trips around the world-they all seemed like they were her domain, orchestrated and enjoyed more by her than by the stone-faced, withdrawn Bernie. It didn't matter that Ruth came from modest beginnings; something about the way she carried herself-her highlighted hair, the upturned collar and petite physique-played into the stereotype of the pampered, free-spending wife.

There's similarly little to go on with both women - both have been media-shy, giving terse sentences and avoiding the press, while newshounds depend on guarded, or gleeful, statements from tenuous acquaintances. One is a victim, one an accomplice - or so they are perceived in the popular imagination, whatever the reality of Madoff's situation. Sanford promptly distanced herself from her husband's tax-fueled antics; Ruth has failed to renounce her ill-gotten gains to anyone's satisfaction. The women have nothing in common save an accident of time-frame and a distaste for the public eye. So why are both reduced to their grooming?

Maybe it's because they're both figures who are defined, for us, in relation to their husbands. Weirdly, while Sanford has thrown his wife under the "soul mate" bus, Madoff has done his damndest to keep his wife out of it, whatever her crimes - is part of it our contempt for letting someone protect her? Maybe a part of the collective consciousness feels, unfairly or not, that if we are to accept these women as living on their husband's terms, they have earned this kind of superficial, traditionally feminine scrutiny. Whatever the reason, there's something depressing about it. But here's something that, through all the mishigas, has managed to consistently put a smile on my face: Franni Franken. Franken is obviously not a political wife by vocation; she's a free-spirited woman who dresses like my mom - which is to say, acreatively-tinged boomer. And yet, check her out on the podium when Al spoke to the press about his election: she was in a First Lady costume! A boxy, Chanel-style suit and a scarf, less! It looked completely strange, and unnatural, and yet was unspeakably endearing. Probably because, at the end of the day, it actually had nothing to do with who she is, said nothing about who she is, save that she's new to politics and is trying to match the dress code. She was smiling and laughing and totally unguarded, and as a result, you didn't need to analyze the clothes, any more than you would a man's suit. And that was refreshing.

In Hubby's Time Of Trouble, She Can't Be Bothered [Washington Post]
How is Jenny Sanford coping? [GMA via Politico]
Poor Ruth [New York]
What The Secretary Saw [Vanity Fair]
Daily Show [Min 21]

• One of the hazards of dating a rock star: When, mid-fight, you want to throw some of his stuff into a pool, there's a slight risk that he might have unreleased, non-backed-up new songs among his personal effects. [Mirror]

• "I used to bring pies to the office," says amateur baker Peter Som. "I can't eat them all myself." How did that dude ever get fired? [WWD]
• Thus spake Lacroix: "Don't tell anyone, because I'm not allowed to do this, but we absolutely are going to have a show in mid-July, during Fashion Week –- and it won't be a funeral: it'll be a fightback." Since Christian Lacroix's fashion house, owned by the U.S.-based Falic group, entered bankruptcy, the fate of the couture show has been in serious doubt. "It can't cost us a single Euro to put this show on, because I'm not having my workers lose a penny from their pockets, but so far, it looks like thanks to other people's kindness — friends and suppliers working for free — it might happen. I can't stand the idea that people think I am to blame [for the bankruptcy] but to a certain extent I am paying for not having done what everyone else did, with their logos and It-bags. I never went down that route." Lacroix has been working for free for 18 months, and is owed 1.2 million Euros in back pay. [Telegraph]
• Model Lily Cole earned a first in her end of year art history exams at Cambridge, one of only three students to receive the top grade. [Mirror]
• Yigal Azrouel, whose relationship with Katie Lee Joel is rumored to have brought about the end of the latter's marriage to Billy Joel, romances a lot of ladies. (He is an attractive, straight man working in fashion. Duh.) One rumor alleges Azrouel sleeps with editors at magazines to further his career. [P6]
• Chanel and Burberry model Emma Watson is said to be launching a clothing line for children and teens to benefit Unicef. [Hindustan Times]
• Usher says his men's fragrance really "represents the growth I've had in the last two years." VIP, which he's set to launch this September, is a "tool of engagement for seduction...made for a man but for women to enjoy." [WWD]
• Uh-oh. Sales of perfumes fell 6% overall in 2008, and 7% during the first quarter of 2009. Estée Lauder's fragrance division said the last three months of 2009 saw sales fall 20%, and another perfume company executive said anonymously that he believed sales for this year were down 15-20% because distributors are not restocking after selling to retailers. [NYTimes]
• "I don't want to do 'Adele by Adele' perfume!" says Adele. [LATimes]
• A judge refused to dismiss gourmet butter distributor Clint Arthur's lawsuit against Louis Vuitton for selling off-cuts of fabric as art prints. [P6]
• You really know you've hit the event horizon of aspirational shopping when someone from a company that makes plastic shoes describes her products as "affordable luxury." [LATimes]
• Robin Givhan at the Washington Post sees in H&M's just-announced collaboration with Jimmy Choo the end of luxury as we know it. "There's something about cheap Jimmy Choo shoes that doesn't feel right," writes the critic. "Women's shoes have been sold on a centuries-old mythology that makes the discovery that Jimmy Choo can produce a desirable pair of shoes for less than $50 as jarring as when Dorothy pulled back the curtain on the Wizard." [WaPo]
• Actually, the cheapest offering from Jimmy Choo's H&M collection will retail at around 40 Euros, or $55. The 12 women's styles and four men's models will range in price from there up to 200 Euros, or $138. Bags will cost up to 200 Euros. It all goes on sale in select H&M stores on November 14. [WWD]
• Cool looking Missoni-printed Converse Chuck Taylors will also be a thing you can buy, starting next summer. [WWD]
• Prince William's girlfriend Kate Middleton is, according to rumor, sitting on an offer for a year-long internship at American Vogue from Anna Wintour. Middleton, a former fashion buyer, could take her pick of either working in New York or Los Angeles. [Hindu]
• Jason Wu anticipates $4 million in sales this year and sees a men's wear division in his future. The 26-year-old enjoys spending his Sundays browsing at the Strand and playing poker with a $20 buy-in, "just enough to take it seriously but not enough to feel bad when you lose." [NYTimes]
• The Fall Calvin Klein Collection and CK Calvin Klein ads have leaked — they feature Monika "Jac" Jagaciak and Jourdan Dunn and Sigrid Agren, respectively. The Collection campaign was shot by David Sims and CK by Craig McDean. [Fashionologie]
• Isaac Mizrahi is opening a store for his namesake label in August. It'll be 1500 square feet and located on the Upper East Side. [WWD]
• Cashmere prices have fallen so drastically that many herders of cashmere goats have had to sell their animals for meat. Orders for winter cashmere sweaters from the West have fallen by up to 30%. And get ready for a cold season: the garments being made are using less cashmere. "They are too small — half the breast is outside the sweater," said one factory's sales manager. [NYTimes]
• Jil Sander is on the comeback trail in a big way. The German designer, who lost the use of her name to Prada when the Italian company bought out her house and fired her, has just announced a fine jewelry collaboration with Damiani. This is in addition to her new position as a creative director of Uniqlo. [WWD]

Givhan makes good points about the dearth of black middle class and professional characters on television, and especially the lack of multidimensional black women. But when she starts talking about TV's application to the real world, her argument just gets strange. She writes,

Time and again, observers grasp for adjectives to describe Obama's combination of professional accomplishment and soccer-mom maternalism. It's no wonder so many eye her with awe and disbelief. Or why a minority still view her with suspicion.

And the reason? "There have been few broad cultural precedents for what she represents." Translation: we haven't seen enough characters like Michelle on TV! The exception is Claire Huxtable, "a cultural comparison more apt than the one made to Jackie Kennedy" (Jackie: real but white. Claire: fake but black. Advantage: apparently Claire). Givhan writes that "television, in particular, speaks to viewers intimately, in the privacy of their homes, building long-term relationships and weaving complicated narratives." Know what else speaks to people in the privacy of their homes, building long-term relationships and weaving complicated narratives? Human beings.

It's true that America is still highly segregated country, and that many non-black people don't live in areas with a thriving black middle class (in Iowa, for instance, black people make up 2.6% of the population and own just 0.7% of businesses). Givhan quotes Cosby Show writer Susan Fales-Hill, who says, "There's a generation with very little exposure to the black professional class, and they stand in amazement. [...] People say, 'You're so articulate.' And it's because I can string a sentence together!" Fales-Hill's experience is in line with many things people said about Obamas on the campaign trail, but Givhan's take on that experience is troubling.

Through her description of the power of television ("TV builds kinship") and her vague analysis of the American psyche ("what [people] do not see on a regular basis, they assume to be rare or even nonexistent"), she implies that it is television's responsibility to prepare us for successful black women like Michelle Obama. This is offensive to black people (invisible unless they're on TV), white people (too dumb to know anything but what they see on TV) and television (not an art form, but rather an educational medium for dumb people). Rather than tackling the social and economic reasons why people might still be uncomfortable with Michelle (racism? Large-scale segregation in cities? Lack of education about other successful black Americans?), Givhan weirdly turns to an outdated fictional comparison, and then wonders why there aren't more outdated fictional comparison to turn to.

Far more enlightening was Ta-Nehisi Coates's look earlier this year at Michelle's roots on the South Side of Chicago and what her life story really says about race in America. Coates quotes Michelle's mother Marian Robinson, who says,

I keep saying this: Michelle, Barack, and my son are not abnormal [...] All my relatives, all my friends, all their friends, all their parents, almost all of them have the same story. It's just that their families aren't running for president. It bothers me that people see [Michelle and Barack] as so phenomenal, because there's so much of that in the black neighborhood. They went to the same schools we all did. They went through the same struggles.

And he closes his piece with the assertion that people like Michelle Obama

offer a deeper understanding of African American life, a greater appreciation of the bourgeois ordinariness of our experience. "People have never met a Michelle Obama," the soon-to-be first lady said toward the end of our interview. "But what they'll come to learn is that there are thousands and thousands of Michelle and Barack Obamas across America. You just don't live next door to them, or there isn't a TV show about them."

There is now.

Even if white people once needed to think of Claire Huxtable in order to understand Michelle Obama, the Obamas have been in the White House almost six months now. Michelle Obama is regularly on television, and Claire Huxtable is not. Why would we compare Michelle Obama to a TV character when, as Coates points out, she has her own show now? Of course, this show is also real, like the lives of millions of black middle-class people who existed before the Huxtables, and will continue to exist after them.

Echoes Of TV's First Lady [Washington Post]

Related: American Girl [Atlantic Monthly]
What Michelle Can Teach Us [Newsweek]
Cosby, Part II [Columbia Journalism Review]
And Claire Begat Michelle! [Columbia Journalism Review]

Earlier: Michelle Obama: The Best Black Female Role Model Since Claire Huxtable?

Robin Givhan has a typically thoughtful piece in yesterday's Washington Post about notions of beauty: specifically, having out expectations overturned. "As much as people like to pretend that looks don't matter, there are archetypes ingrained in our subconscious about what certain kinds of people are supposed to look like." She brings up the examples of Elizabeth Edwards - steely and pragmatic where we expect maternal warmth - and Wanda Sykes, whose recent charges of "gone too far" outrageousness she contrasts with the pass we'd give a similar 'firebrand' like Bill Maher. And then there's Carrie Prejean.

Writes Givhan,

When Prejean's inquisitor, the blogger known as Perez Hilton, asked about same-sex marriage, no one was really expecting her to say anything beyond some mumbled combination of the words "world peace," "love" and "tolerance." But then she had the nerve to have an opinion — however awkwardly stated. And not only that, it wasn't the point of view the audience expected from a 22-year-old blonde who happily struts her surgically enhanced stuff in a bikini on national television in the sort of competition that has inspired more than a few drag shows. Prejean took a conservative stance. And in the cultural field guide, she is not what a conservative woman who puts her Christianity out there for public consumption is supposed to look like.

See, I read that very differently. Maybe - happily - Givhan and I don't have exposure to the same crop of stereotypes, but I think Prejean conforms pretty exactly to people's idea of such a woman's opinions. Sure, there's the stereotype of the grim conservative. But the bubble-headed conservative sorority girl is every bit as much of a trope. Maybe this is a newer product - that of the Real World generation, which does a brisk trade in glamorous conservatives who need their minds opened by equally token minorities or gay people. A character like ANTM's Clark - a token glamorous conservative - is familiar to any viewer of reality TV. And far from counteracting any liberal stereotype, it reinforces them: what is more satisfying, after all, than being able to class a dissenting view with the retrograde banality of pageant life, the air-head cliches of the beauty contestant? Pageants - like opposition to gay marriage - are not just anathema to the average sophisticate, but wholly inexplicable. Prejean may be a new archetype, but she's an archetype nonetheless: in the Sarah Palin mold. To this roster we can add Palin's daughter, Bristol, now public figure and Living Example, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, from whom we expect adorably shrill incoherence, and Meghan McCain, who's been at pains to balance her image with a dose of topical frivolity. Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham, sharp and predatory, have been supplanted by unthreatening young women who see no contradiction between espousing Conservative - even Christian -values and enjoying Spring Break.

To smart conservatives, this can hardly be encouraging: Cheney-style paternalism and these vague ingenues as the pop-cultural face of a movement. For years, the charge of emotion unbacked by facts has been leveled at left-wingers, and now this perception is nothing if not bipartisan. The Carrie Prejean "scandal" has done nothing to challenge anyone's views - conservatives still feel victimized by media, liberals still feel confidently superior, everyone is comforted by Donald Trump's comfortingly consistent absurdity.

Words Mistaken At Face Value [Washington Post]

• 1. Kate Moss is fat. 2. Kate Moss is in. 3. Fat is in. Q.E.D. [Times of London]
• Salma Hayek wore Balenciaga for her second wedding to Francois-Henri Pinault, head of PPR. [UK Elle]

• Robin Givhan has a report on the lobbying trip made last week by Maria Cornejo, Jason Wu, and Narciso Rodriguez. The designers went to Washington, D.C., to argue for a law that would offer stricter protections against design piracy. "There's a lot of misconception thanks to movies like Sex and the City or The Devil Wears Prada," said Cornejo. "People think designers spend all this time swanning around. We don't do much swanning." Cornejo, who has only twelve employees, can't compete directly with larger businesses on price. "The only way we can compete is with our ideas. That's like my bank. So when someone steals my idea, it's like they've put their hand in my bank. They're taking ideas out of my head." [WaPo]
• Diane von Furstenberg hit the headlines late last week after a Canadian blog revealed striking similarities — down to the placement of darts and the distinctive raw edged collar — between a jacket by von Furstenberg's company, and an earlier piece made by the Montreal label Mercy. Von Furstenberg, who has championed the expansion of copyright protection and attacked copy-catting in the past, is blaming the apparent knock-off on a member of her design team who is no longer with the company. "When I saw it on the Internet, I thought, The print is completely different. But then I saw something about the style with the bow, so I am not sure," said von Furstenberg. "I am finding out the information, and I have asked my attorney to contact [Mercy's designers] and say that we are investigating. I am mortified that something like that could happen here. I will do what is necessary to do, and if indeed there was an infringement, I will compensate and will use this example to make sure this doesn't happen again — not just for me, but for everybody." [WWD]
• Meanwhile, in one of Forever 21's several ongoing court cases on knock-off allegations, the company founders were deposed for two whole days earlier this month. Anthropologie is suing the fast fashion chain for allegedly copying nine of its garments. [WWD]
• That blonde lady with the nose has a new perfume. Wonder if they'll box them in a collection? 'The Nine Smells Of Paris Hilton.' [NYDN]
• Michelle Obama wears Rodarte. This makes me insanely happy, for some reason. [WWD]
• Lily Cole, the doll-faced red haired model, spoke at a student-organized ethical fashion show at Cambridge University, where she studies. [Daily Mail]
• Leggings: The Trend That Will Not Die. [WWD]
• Serena Williams, tennis star/fashion designer, has more than 300 pairs of shoes, but can't find a pair of jeans to fit. [NY Times]
• And if you think those two facts aren't connected, you're dreaming. Shoes are easy to love, and their sizing doesn't connote judgment. I can admit to refuging in a new pair of shoes after a mortifying defeat in some other wardrobe arena. Maybe that's why shoe stocks are winners. Of course, in spending money on shoes, I am left with less to put in shoes. Now that's an economic catch-22. [WWD]
• Ever wonder idly about Marc Jacobs and Lorenzo Martone's relationships? No? Well, regardless, it turns out that Martone was the one who proposed, after having picked out matching rings at Jacobs' favorite jeweler in Paris. Now that the designer has met his fiancé's extended family in Brazil, it's full steam ahead to the wedding. Martone likes the thought of St Bart's in December. Don't we all! [The Cut]
• Kerry Washington already has her mind on gifts. "I'm not saying what I'm really going to get them — then it would ruin the surprise! If I could get him anything in the world, it would be a private jet so they could jet around all around the world to have fittings in the world with all the girls, stress-free!" [FWD]
• Beyoncé gets dressed with the aid of Style.com. [Style.com]
• Tim Gunn is set to receive an honorary doctorate from his alma mater, the Corcoran College of Art and Design, when he speaks at its commencement ceremony on May 23rd. [Blogging Project Runway]
• Six people were arrested when police raided a warehouse full of $20 million worth of counterfeit goods in Brooklyn. [WWD]
• Filene's Basement, the much-loved discount department store, was acquired on April 21 by a company that specializes in liquidations, which could mean the 25-store chain will close. If Filene's does meet that fate, it could imperil former sister company Discount Shoe Warehouse, which lent Filene's millions of dollars. [WWD]
• Sophie Dahl: "To everything there is a season; from 17 to 21 mine was the season of chocolate cake. I didn't know how to eat within the boundaries of reason; instead I learned loudly through trial and error...I really don't believe in cutting out food groups or subscribing to militant, forbidding diets. What I do believe in is moderation and balance, because both have served me well. The recipes in my book are all things I cook and eat. There are recipes for rainy, insatiable chocolate days and lighter things for the gossamer, less hungry summer evenings." Now that's a cookbook I would buy! [Daily Mail]

As Givhan points out, we love Susan Boyle in part because she doesn't fit the gorgeous, size-2 stereotype we're all used to:

Boyle beat the system that rewards the drop-dead gorgeous 10s and ignores the 3s and 4s. And people love her for that. Her rough-cut curls and sensible shoes make them feel virtuous. If she should decide to take designers up on their offer of free flattering frocks, avail herself of a smart new haircut and vigorous eyebrow arching, would she ruin the fun being had by her millions of fans?

And, she adds, a makeover need not be the sinister blonde-ing and drastic weight loss it's come to suggest.

The point of a proper makeover... is not to look like someone else but the best version of yourself. This is not a recommendation for an "Extreme Makeover," but rather the Tim Gunn or "What Not to Wear" version. Those are the kind of transformations in which the recipients spend a little time figuring out precisely why they've been squeamish about trying to achieve their personal best.

In sum, to Givhan, "The tale of Susan Boyle will not be complete until the shy spinster blossoms. Those who have been entranced by her story so far should let Boyle's fairy godmother finish her work." Our rationale is different. Boyle should not get a makeover to satisfy our fantasy. Rather, she should be kitted out like any professional entertainer would be, with good hair, makeup, and costumes, because that is what professional entertainers do, and that's what Boyle is now as a result of her undeniable talent. She should not to transformed; she should be polished. Because to not do so would be patronizing and creepy. If we insisted that Susan Boyle change absolutely nothing about herself, that she continue to play an undiscovered amateur when she has earned the privileges of the pro, would be to reduce her to a caricature, a sort of spinster minstrel, who didn't deserve better and who has no value beyond being an "ugly duckling."

The kind of singing Boyle will likely do - concert singing, perhaps work in musicals - does not, after all, demand American Idol-style sartorial hijinx. Concert singers, opera performers, generally look elegant, polished, professional, but are rarely required to be sexy or overly youthful, and we can't imagine that Boyle would either. Given her admiration of singer Elaine Paige's career, it seems likely that Boyle would assume - if not want - a similar level of polish and low-key glamor. To deny her that would be a grave injustice, and anything less would be, at this point, artificial.

Susan Boyle Makeover Would Add Grace Notes [Washington Post]

• Vogue subscribers are lured with a free-gift gimmick that looks...different when it comes in the mail. Of course, subscribing to Vogue is basically scheduling disappointment monthly, but the bait-and-switch is not normally so overt. [NYPost]

• Natalie Portman would very much like to tell you about some t-shirt brand she likes. Band tees are a great way of learning about music, see! [Daily Beast]
• Lauren Hutton might miss the Met ball, which is themed around models this year, because a young surfer accidentally rammed his board into her knee in Hawaii, causing ligament damage. "The only thing that's holding our foreleg bones attached to our thigh bones are these little ligaments around the knee," said Hutton. "And once they go, the bones fall sideways inside the bag of skin. It was like one of those Halloween skeletons." The supermodel, currently in LA, cannot walk without crutches. Her date, Michael Kors, will probably understand if she stays home. [Daily Intel]
• Fellow famously made-up face Isabella Rossellini is pretty sure Lancôme regrets dumping her back in 1995 for being soooooo old. But she made her money and now does videos about the sex lives of animals. Lancôme contents itself with Rossellini's daughter, Elettra Wiedemann. [WWD]
• "I'm Not A Plastic Bag" designer Anya Hindmarch says, "Accessories are how women accent their character; they are a form of self-expression. If you see someone carrying a tatty, beaten-up handbag, full of crumbs, doesn't it kind of make you wonder if their house is just like that, too?" She would say that, wouldn't she? [Telegraph]
• Adriana Lima, the Brazilian model best known for wearing giant wings and Bedazzled bras for Victoria's Secret and looking hot on the covers of men's magazines, stunned when she walked for Givenchy in Paris. (Normally, the fashion industry likes to draw as bright a line as possible between camp and the "real" stuff.) Could she be working herself out from under the taint of commercial lingerie to take on a Givenchy campaign for fall? And does that mean Lima is transforming into a Gisele-style double threat, who magically gets bookings for Dior and drugstore makeup at the same time? [Fashionologie]
• Hudson St. in New York's West Village has 15 empty storefronts on one six-block stretch — and, like, 14 Marc Jacobs, Marc by Marc Jacobs, and Ralph Lauren shops. Some see a connection: one retailer, who did not want to be named, said that when businesses' leases turn over, landlords are asking for steep increases in rent, because the high-end retailers are able to pay up to $60,000/month. "They are killing the Village," the man said. "Ten years ago — mom-and-pop stores gone, restaurants gone, they're all gone." [The Villager]
• Tao Okamoto, the hot "new" Japanese model with the interesting haircut, bagged the Fall Ralph Lauren campaign — and, according to rumor, the Fall ads for the Polo Ralph Lauren line, too. [Style.com]
• Nadja Swarovski, scion of the Austrian crystal concern, is a pretty brilliant businesswoman who's taken her family's product from an icon of kitsch to the raw material of fashion's avant garde. But that's not what makes this profile writer like her: the fact that she feels she doesn't see her kids often enough ("much as one rushes to reassure, she is probably right," notes the Times) is the chink in the armor that lets her feel comfortably pitying. The profile is sprinkled with German words, but unfortunately Schadenfreude is not one of them, so let me insert it here. [Times of London]
• Robin Givhan writes this week about the Museum at FIT's announcement of its upcoming Isabel Toledo exhibit, and the question of fashion exhibits in general. The most popular clothing shows are inevitably those organized around a celebrity name, like Jackie O's at the Met; "It's an ongoing battle," Givhan writes, "in fashion exhibitions: the scholarly preference for the clothes to stand on their own and the public fascination with the back story." [WaPo]
• Stila, the makeup brand recently rumored to be facing bankruptcy, has been saved at the 11th hour by a New York private-equity firm. Patriarch Partners will acquire the brand from Wachovia and CIT Group, the banks that took Stila over after it defaulted on debt obligations. [WSJ]
• Filene's Basement is in a similarly dire position — facing bankruptcy and courting buyers. The discount chain closed 11 stores in January, but its parent company said Friday that the cost-cutting moves are "not likely to lead to sustainable operations for Filene's Basement." How is it possible that "it's like a department store, but everything's on sale" is a failing business model at this juncture? [Crain's]
• Valentino's operating profits fell 7% in 2008, the year its founder and namesake retired. [WWD]
• J. Crew opened a beach-themed store in Malibu. [LA Times]
• Headstrong model Elle MacPherson popped home to Sydney for Easter, and made a supermarket deli worker come out from behind the counter to load her cart. Then she snapped at a gossip columnist and micro-managed a television appearance. [News.com.au]

• 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]

• Hark, watchers of the court of Karl Lagerfeld: doubleplustop prettyboy Brad Koenig is out. Model Baptiste Giabiconi is in. This is just like when Louis XV replaced Madame de Pompadour with Marie-Louise O'Murphy! [The Cut]

• Police in Berlin have been told not to wear clothes by the labels Fred Perry, Ben Sherman, ACAB, Alpha Industries, Consdaple, Lonsdale, Pit Bull, Outlaw, Troublemaker, and Thor Steinar while on duty. The reason? Higher-ups consider these brands to be popular among right-wing extremists and neo-Nazis, and understandably, German authorities are at pains to be dissociated from such ideologies. The labels involved — with the exception of Thor Steinar, which apparently embraces neo-Nazi-ism — are concerned because being put on the official neo-Nazi uniform list makes for terrible press. (Some of the companies have taken particular care to distance themselves from extremist political views and tried to restrict their sales outlets to combat the right-wing perception.) The police union also objected to the ban, because they think it could harm undercover officers' ability to blend in with the groups they are infiltrating. [WWD]
• Those fish pedicures? Not legal in 14 states. The downsized fish in one New Hampshire salon now swim around a decorative tank, eating fish food "or each other if they get too hungry." Why did we think having live fish chew the dead flesh off our toes was a good idea, again? (Remember when Diane Sawyer did it?) [WSJ]
• Diane von Furstenberg is keen, in her role as president of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, to clarify the purpose of New York fashion week, and distinguish between trade events and consumer events. She's interested in seeing more consumer shows. As for her own line, no men's wear and no children's wear is in the cards. [WWD]
• Kate Moss is supposedly coming to New York on April 1 or the supposed opening of the first American Top Shop. We've had our Top Shopping hearts broken by these exact wolf cries before, so, we're not getting our hopes up. [P6]
• Robin Givhan, fashion critic for the Washington Post, is not cheered by the thought of a return to the time when everyone's ass was in acid wash. On the 80s revival theme prevalent this season — perhaps most notably in Marc Jacobs' collection — Givhan says, "I think that it's just a lack of imagination whenever so many people latch on to something like that ... And I think I would feel differently if I thought it was sort of lovingly being done well and with a certain panache. But I don't think the world needs MC Hammer pants ever, ever again. Michael Jackson is back and he wants his clothes ... I mean, acid-wash jeans, hello? Hasn't everyone had some horrible run in with acid-wash jeans?" [The Cut]
• French daily Le Monde has launched a new style magazine — kinda like the New York Times' T. Why do we say that? Partly because it's called M. Audrey Marnay is on the cover, and there's a neat Matthias Vriens editorial inside. [Fashionologie]
• DSW, the discount shoe retailer, lost $7.5 million last quarter. [WSJ]
• Selling briskly by comparison is anything to do with that sparkly vampire abstinence movie. [WWD]
• Dov Charney, founder and CEO of American Apparel, bought $2.67 million worth of shares in his own company. It boosted the stock price, which hit a low of $1.26 on March 10, just before a crucial refinancing deal saved the company from bankruptcy, to $3.38. Charney had made personal loans to American Apparel before, but never made a large direct purchase of company stock. [WSJ]
• Clarins is hoping to boost sales by opening mini-salons, and targeting Hispanic customers, within department stores in the U.S. Maybe they could try putting some women of color in their beauty campaigns? [WSJ]
• A raft of business executives and fashion operatives, including John Varvatos, Stephen I. Sadove, and Wal-Mart chief merchandising officer John Fleming will speak at this year's Global Retailing Conference at the University of Arizona's Lundgren Center. This is of course assuming they don't decide to just hold each other and weep. [WWD]

Givhan is a fan of reality TV, but makes a distinction between "high-class" ones and the rest of them. But the line between them, she feels, is becoming blurred. And while I agree that some shows are better than most, I wouldn't exactly say they're "high class." They just have better concepts/casts/editors. Also, our opinions on what shows are "better" than others—and what makes them so—differs.

Frankly I think that shows like American Idol, Top Chef, and Project Runway—all of which Givhan champions—are the biggest offenders when it comes to being afflicted by hubris. These shows actually reference their own "integrity." The fact that they believe that they have any is laughable. I mean, modest success aside, has any winner from Project Runway ever gone on to have their clothes on the cover of Vogue? Has any American Idol winner actually ever achieved idol status in a Madonna/Britney/Mariah sense? Has any Top Chef winner ever been the top chef in America? Let me put it to you this way: In 50 years, will we see anything of these people in the Smithsonian that doesn't involve a display of their respective shows? The titles that they win are about as authentic as the hair dangling from beneath Bret Michaels' bandanna.

That said, I like that Givhan is an unabashed reality TV fan, because I hate when people get all uppity about the genre, particularly when it comes to shows like Rock of Love or Bad Girls Club. Remarks about how such shows are an indication of our society's decline, or "How can anyone watch this crap?" confuse me, because you'd think people who believe they are above that kind of programming would at least be grateful that it exists, as it provides solid evidence in proving their superiority. People can't pretend that they don't like seeing other people act like idiots. Schadenfreude is more real than reality TV itself.

Besides, not only is it id on TV, it's id on our couches, which is probably the healthiest, most cathartic way to deal with our pleasure principle. It provides a forum in which we can laugh at others' misfortune and embarrassment, and be jerks in the privacy of our own homes, without having to be assholes for real.

If anything, I love shows like RoL and Toddlers & Tiaras, as it provides a peek into human behavior I don't encounter in my everyday life. And while Givhan doesn't want to see "paternity testing, toothless protagonists and scenes during which more than 50 percent of the dialogue has to be censored," I live for that shit, because it shows a side of humanity that might not be pleasant, but certainly exists. When it comes to reality, I like it — genital warts and all.

A Wrong Turn On TV's Escape Route [Washington Post]
Earlier: 20 Best Reality TV Show Moments Of 2008

• 80s supermodel-turned-businesswoman Elle MacPherson will star in the CW's Beautiful as an 80s supermodel-turned-businesswoman. The show revolves around models living in agency housing. It'll be MacPherson's first television gig since her stint on Friends. [THR]

• Barack Obama started wearing a Jorg Gray wristwatch instead of his Tag Heuer — and the private label, which had only been marketed on the corporate gifts market, promptly launched Barackswatch.com to make the best of the endorsement. Stay classy, Jorg Gray! [WWD]
• Robin Givhan, longtime Washington Post fashion critic, is departing New York City for Washington in order to cover the First Family beat. She'll still write a weekly column on fashion, but in her new surroundings, the scope will widen to include "politician[s] looking especially appalling." [WWD]
• Anna Wintour, who has always been a strong supporter of designer Olivier Theyskens, lashes out at Puig fashion group in her April editor's letter. Puig fired Theyskens before his contract with the house of Nina Ricci was even up. Of course, Wintour's support doesn't mean Theyskens will automatically ascend to a similarly good position: Phoebe Philo, who left Chloé in 2005, has always enjoyed Wintour's good graces, and she's only just about to settle into a design role at Celine now. [FWD]
• Jessica Joffe is going to be in Katy Rodriguez's fall campaign. [Vogue UK]
• Agyness Deyn and Albert Hammond, Jr., they of the Vogue Valentine's Day photo spread, are no longer an item. [Daily Intel]
• Is it still news to anyone that editorial work is not remotely remunerative? Here is yet another industry person, Betty Sze of Models.com, to give the good word about the bad pay. Condé Nast, says Sze, pays new models about $150 a day, and more experienced girls can expect to net about $250. Those rates actually set the curve for editorial pay in the rest of the industry: three of the last half-dozen eds I've done didn't pay at all. I will say this of Condé Nast: if one of their titles is shooting you in an out-of-the-way location, unlike other media conglomerates, they send a car to take you to the airport. Which is rad, because LIRR and MTA are two acronyms you do not want on your mind when you're trying to make a 7 a.m. departure at Kennedy airport, and dropping $100 on cabs to take you to and from a job that's gonna pay $200 (after your agency's cut, when you get paid in three months, if other expenses your agency assesses in the meantime don't eat it up entirely) makes no sense. The idea is to do editorials to work with good photographers and generate enough buzz to book campaigns (or, at least, catalogs) but that second, crucial step to financial solvency is a lot tougher than anyone makes it sound. [Fashionologie]
• Collabs between designers and mass-market retailers are on the rise this season — I'll give you one guess as to why. (Starts with "R"!) [WWD]
• Urban Outfitters has been unveiling an unusual number of collaborations, particularly with lesser known, cutting-edge designers, this season. But that didn't stop their design team ripping off a sandal design by Hayden Harnett. They even copied the name. The New York designers called their shoe the "Camille" — Urban's offering is the "Camilla." [Fashionista]
• Palm Beach's retail environment is struggling under the twin curses of Bernard Madoff and The Recession. [WWD]
• Lakme fashion week in Mumbai has a bunch of designers — and a Barbie-themed show. Because what world fashion week is complete without that? [FWD]
• The Lauren Conrad Collection is no more. Funny to think that you couldn't sell an entire line of boring jersey dresses produced by a girl whose claim to fame is playing herself on television in this economy. [P6]
• In somewhat more disappointing news of reality star fashion projects, House of Harlow, Nicole Richie's jewelry line, sold out online before it even reached stores. Alas, she plans an empire: "I'm focusing on my brand right now. There will be a maternity line, a clothing line, shoes, belts, everything!" [People]

Not the Washington Post's Robin Givhan, who is giving up her swell New York digs and heading to D.C. to cover the Michelle beat, according to Politico's Michael Calderone.

Givhan, according to the memo, will "bring that sharp eye to bear on the cultural and social issues that swirl around the new occupants of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave."

Already there's been a huge appetite for stories on Obama's style — J. Crew outfits, young designers, toned arms — so it shouldn't be surprising the Post wants to carve out a piece of the beat.

Well, that and, despite Givhan's Pulitzer, her best-known piece is probably the one about Hillary Clinton's cleavage rather than her work on actual fashion, so it probably makes sense to have her cover the fashion-for-D.C. that people seemingly read rather than the Fashion Week stuff that confuses the be-suited denizens of the District.

Givhan will have some competition for the Michelle beat — Politico's own Nia Malika Henderson is covering Michelle and the girls as a big part of her portfolio as well. Now if we could just spend nearly as much time talking about her brains as her arms, that would be great.

WaPo's Givhan to cover Michelle O [Politico]

Earlier: Hillary Dresses Like A Total Whore

• That's it. Olivier Theyskens is out, fired, goneburgers, signing off, stick-a-fork-in-it done at Nina Ricci. The Belgian has left the building. Peter Copping, senior designer at Louis Vuitton, is in. [WWD]

• Fashion designer Anand Jon's family has appealed to President Obama to intervene in the designer's ongoing rape case. Jon, who once dressed celebrities like Paris Hilton and had a guest appearance on America's Next Top Model, was indicted by a grand jury on 59 counts of rape and sexual assault against victims, mainly models, as young as 14. Prosecutors built their case around representative charges they felt were the "strongest"; last November, Jon was convicted of 16 counts of rape and sexual assault. Jon's lawyers have filed a retrial on the grounds of prosecutorial and juror misconduct, and his sister says she'll go on a hunger strike if he's not freed. [Times of India]
• Laurence Dacade, the shoemaker who brought Olivier Theyskens' mesmerizing Nina Ricci heels to life, says, "You should put these on when you walk into the boss' office to ask for a raise. He wouldn't be able to say no." [WWD]
• The creative director of recently-revived London label Ossie Clark has left the company. [Elle UK]
• Grand dame of English fashion Vivienne Westwood took her gardener, Andy Hulme, as a muse for her latest menswear collection. [Independent]
• Carine Roitfeld says she hasn't been offered Anna Wintour's job, but if she were she wouldn't dismiss it out of hand. Still, she has reservations about creative control and the size of the editorial team: "I'm very happy at French Vogue to be able to do everything — almost everything — I want in the magazine," Roitfeld said. "It would be too political at American Vogue for me. And I'm not sure I'm talking enough good English to work there." So, Carine fans of the 50 states, dream on — or just watch CNN International's doc about the editor when it airs this week. [CNN]
• Robin Givhan has an appreciation of fashion's capacity to choose diverse It girls, from Beth Ditto to Michelle Obama. [WaPo]
• Claudia Schiffer says she has so many closets of Chanel "it's like a Chanel boutique." She cleared out her wardrobe, which she's saving for her daughter Clementine, into a helicopter hanger on her property in England. [Daily Mail]
• The first images of Matthew Williamson's hotly anticipated H&M line is out. Let there be tie-dyed sequined tunics! [Racked]
• Storm, meet teacup: Pierre Bergé, Yves Saint Laurent's effective widower, has withdrawn several Warhol portraits of the designer from an upcoming exhibition of the artist's work in Paris. Saint Laurent's likeness was to be hung in a section of the show called "Glamour," which included — horrors — other designers like Giorgio Armani. Bergé thought his former life partner should be in the "Artists" section. [NY Times]
• Meanwhile, Valentino is getting a star on the Hollywood Walk of Style. It's yet another promotional tie-in for his new documentary, titled Valentino: The Last Emperor. [WWD]
• And let it be said that there's another reason, besides the market crash, that Valentino's glad he retired when he did. The fact that the collections now are all So! 80s! "I hate the eighties," he says. "I did it, and I hate it. When I go to see my dresses of the eighties, I vomit." [NY Mag]
• Forever 21 is opening its first store in Japan next month in Tokyo's Harajuku district, but the retail chain plans to have an additional 49 outlets there in the next few years. [WWD]
• The CEO of the privately-held luxury goods brand Salvatore Ferragamo is worried about the economic outlook, though he won't divulge any numbers. The company is slowing its retail expansion for 2009, and believes concentrating on Asia might work. [FT]
• The world's biggest eyewear company, Luxottica, has posted 59.9% declines in revenue for the fourth quarter of 2008. [The Street]
• Sitting comparatively pretty is Christian Siriano. The new designer saw his orders double this season, and he also added ten new stockists. [The Cut]
• And in other news from the wake of Project Runway, Jay McCarroll on the documentary 11 Minutes. "I let them [co-directors Michael and Rob Tate] be filmmakers," says the designer. "I stepped back and prayed that they wouldn't show my naked body." McCarroll also has noticed that models these days are very thin. (And that Marilyn Monroe was not.) I have actually never heard anyone put it quite like that before! What a wonderful insight. [CBS]