• Dana Thomas — author of Deluxe — wrote an excellent feature on the quagmire of the house of Versace. Thomas takes aim at Donatella and Santo Versace's resistance to change and ham-handed business decisions. It's a thrilling read. [Newsweek]

• "My kids are my best style advisors because they are so honest," says Victoria Beckham. "I remember one time I was wearing a Chanel cape and skinny jeans and I walked down the stairs to see my sons and they said, 'Oh my God, Mummy, you're Batman!'" [Grazia]
• We know this is hard to imagine, but the new Calvin Klein billboard in SoHo is quite sexual. Some say it "goes too far"! For more details of the development of this shocking and unexpected outrage, you can count on the Daily News. [NYDN]
• Moises de la Renta, son of Oscar, is rumored to be "inking a deal" with Mango, presumably as a designer. [WWD]
• Pamela Anderson has not one, but two perfumes: Malibu Blue and Malibu Pink. They start at $39 and are available at drug stores. [People]
• Custom, one-of-a-kind Uggs really are a level of ugliness impressive to behold. [WWD]
• Tamara Mellon says the clothes she has produced for the Jimmy Choo for H&M collaboration were hard to conceptualize, because she doesn't sketch. Then, like so many designers, she had a brainwave, and picked apart some much-loved vintage pieces, cut patterns, and slapped labels on them. [LATimes]
• Although Mellon holds the copyright to the label Jimmy Choo, the real Jimmy Choo still designs bespoke shoes for an ultra-rich clientele under the name Jimmy Choo Couture. "I design like an architect," says the Malaysian-born Choo. "It's a beautiful, distinctive art, and shoes are like the foundations. If the foundations aren't right, the building won't stand upright, and if a woman's balance isn't right, nothing else is." Are you listening, Christian Louboutin? [Telegraph]
• Kate Moss is notoriously resistant to being interviewed, so when longtime hairdresser James Brown included more of her than she anticipated in the final cut of a TV doc about his shop, she cut him loose. "She maintains her hair herself nowadays," says Brown, we imagine a tad wistfully. [Daily Mail]
• Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons has a collection of handbags about the Beatles. [IHT]
• Heard of Roksanda Ilincic? Mareunrols? Bogomir Doronger? Baltic and Eastern European designers must be a trend! [FT]
• Hey, look: someone's applying the Netflix mail-order rental model to designer clothes. Drycleaning included in the fee. [NYTimes]
• Burberry's social-networking site, artofthetrench.com, has launched. [Artofthetrench]
• Cynthia Rowley is going to design new uniforms for United Airlines flight crews. [ChicagoTrib]
• Henry Holland says he and Agyness Deyn, who both grew up in a town called Ramsbottom, rarely ponder the nuances of their unlikely fashion greatness. "We'd be complete wankers if we did that, wouldn't we? Pause the TV! 'Hang on, you're the hottest model and I'm one of the hottest young designers, let's talk about that while I make a brew.'" [Guardian]
• While textile exports are worth around $12 billion to Pakistan's economy every year, the country's garment industry is relatively under-developed. "We are still doing the 30 dollar a dozen T-shirt business. There is no value added," said Ayesha Tammy Haq. "We should be employing millions of people, not hundreds of thousands of them." Hence Fashion Pakistan Week, of which Haq is the CEO. And don't expect the clothes to be dull: "This does not represent what we are as a people," designer Ayesha Tahir Masood said. "Only 0.001 percent of Pakistani women would wear these clothes, and then only in a controlled environment when drunk out of their minds." [AP]
• Carmen Colle is a French designer who runs a company, World Tricot, that hand-makes unique knitwear to the specifications of top houses like Christian Dior, Givenchy and Jean-Paul Gaultier. Colle is suing Chanel for allegedly taking one of her crochet patterns without paying for it. The four-year-old suit is finally being heard in Paris, along with a countersuit that asks the judge to consider Colle's level of fault for daring blacken the Chanel name with such an allegation. Since filing her lawsuit, World Tricot has been largely abandoned by its other clients, and Colle has been forced to lay off all but 12 of her staff. [Guardian]
• Lord & Taylor's same-store sales have risen 6% and 12%, respectively, on last September and October. Last September and October was pretty much the middle of the giant red Down arrow of the retail market, however, so even a double-digit improvement on those results is to be taken with a grain of salt. [WWD]
• The company that makes Crocs enjoyed a $22.1 million third-quarter profit, but the stock is still losing value. The surplus largely came from a one-time tax benefit, and investors are dubious about the company's long-term prospects. [TS]

• Venus Williams was awarded with an associate's degree in fashion design from the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale over the weekend, becoming the first celebrity "designer" to ever get a degree in fashion design. She even got a prize for the "Best Sportswear Collection" and a 3.5 GPA. Also, she has a collection for Steve & Barry's. [Sassybella]
  
• Mango takes a nod from Pedro Almodovar, keeps Penelope Cruz as the face of its brand for a second consecutive season. Now if she could only find a boyfriend with the same devotion! [WWD, 3rd item]
  
• Italian director Franco Zeffirelli wants to give the Pope a makeover. But would the Pope approve of all the gratuitous tit scenes in Romeo & Juliet? [Sassybella]
  
• French Vogue editor Carine Roitfeld is in New York for her lesser-known spawn Vladmir's 23rd birthday. [Fashion Week Daily]

• Film mogul/fat man Harvey Weinstein and Marchesa designer/pretty young thing Georgina Chapman's honeymoon: not so picture perfect. The $250,000 yacht they're renting is unable to enter St. Bart's due to a fuel strike there. We weep for them, seriously. [Page Six]
• The real reason Vivienne Westwood is showing her Red Label line in London revealed at last: She has a coffee table book to promote. This from the woman who wrote the manifesto against capitalism! [WWD, 2nd item]
• New Balance will be releasing a new line of women's shoes called NB Inside which offer style, comfort, and basically no actual athletic usage capabilities. [MediaPost]
• Former Dior Homme designer Hedi Slimane is now in talks with his former bosses at LVMH to start his own eponymous menswear line. Which, we assume, will look just like Dior Homme. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Names to know: Roksanda Ilincic, Richard Nicoll and Jens Laugesen. These designers all won the big prize in the UK's Fashion Forward competition this year, which is basically a guarantee of becoming the Next Big Think in Cool Britannia fashion. [Vogue UK]
• Jeweler David Yurman is coming out with a perfume. There has been no mention of what it smells like. And, surprise, a whole lotta mention on the elaborate-jeweled bottle which will hold it. [Fashion Week Daily]
• Current fashion darling Phillip Lim will be making his debut in Bryant Park during the upcoming fashion show season, which means he's "arrived" or whatever in fashion world terms. [Fashion Week Daily]
• For the first time ever, we are envious of socialites: the society set got to attend a private performance of the Isaac Mizrahi-narrated Peter and the Wolf over the weekend. Mizrahi's costume consisted of a scarf and a fedora. Swoon. [Fashion Week Daily]
• Okay, for the second time today, we are envious of socialites: the rich bitches got to buy the Miu Miu spring collection at a private sale/party Friday night in New York before it goes on sale for the masses this week. [Fashion Week Daily]
• One in four Massachusetts hair and nail salons stands in violation of health codes. And if they're being that poorly behaved in a bleeding heart and highly moral state like MA, we don't even want to think how bad things are here in hedonistic New York. Ew. [BellaSugar]

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