• One of Annie Leibovitz's Louis Vuitton ads with astronauts Sally Ride, Buzz Aldrin, and Jim Lovell is out. (Gorby was busy that weekend.) [WWD]
• Karl Lagerfeld: "Ballet is an extraordinary art: this torture of the body to make something so graceful. All this hard work, to look effortless."

• "Swans, they are the meanest animals in the world, you know. I had problems with them as a child. They hate children. I was caught by one, so I know. The idea of swans is lovely, and they have a beautiful shape, but they seem more romantic than they in fact are. I don't think really they die like this. They just drop dead, hmm? But who wants to see that?"[Guardian]
• Christian Lacroix has vowed to keep his 22-year-old label alive even as it has declared bankruptcy, but its July couture presentation is in doubt. [WWD]
• Miranda Kerr is nude on the cover of the June Rolling Stone  in Australia. Because she cares about the environment. [News.com.au]
• Whichever "fellow student" told the Daily Mail "The end of year exams are a big deal at Cambridge University and we've all spent weeks revising. I don't know how she has managed to fit any revision into her busy social life," is certainly no "friend" to model/student Lily Cole. But then, if Lily Cole didn't want tabloid attention, she might not walk around London with her boyfriend wearing a gold ring on the ring finger of her left hand. [Daily Mail]
• Everybody you might care slightly about is getting a new fragrance this year. Kate Moss is naming hers "Vintage." [WWD]
• Kind of like the departed Mr. Blackwell  or Republican trickster Roger Stone  but only for hats, Luton, England milliner Philip Wright releases an annual list of the best celebrity hat-wearers. This year, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy topped it, for her "neat, chic, pill box hat" which "was a supreme example of classic simplicity at its best - a stylish understatement which captured the attention of the world's media." She beat the Queen. [Times of London]
• I've always thought that custom-made clothing, at the right price point, could and should be a bigger part of the apparel market than it is. Because all of us have issues with the fit of standardized sizes  who doesn't have a wardrobe half full of shirts that are tight in the shoulders but loose at the waist, pants with the wrong crotch depth, and skirts that don't move quite right when you walk. But all I want to know about this Ryan Taylor, aka "Taylor the Tailor", of Los Angeles, who supposedly takes his clients' measurements and turns out custom-fitted clothing in a couple days at prices "competitive with brand name department stores" is: where does he manufacture? (A question which, funnily enough, CNN seems to have no interest in.) Because everything I know about fashion leads me to suspect that level of service is only possible if you're e-mailing those customer measurements to a guy in Malaysia. Or Hong Kong. [CNN]
• A lone man pulled off an $8.5 million jewelry heist at Chopard in the Place Vendôme in Paris. [CBS]
• A study in the U.K. found that while women make up 52% of the fashion industry's workforce, they are paid 15% less than their male counterparts, and have only 37% of the top jobs. In New York, anecdotally, I've heard from many a design assistant toiling in the trenches of a major brand that, even though here as there the industry is largely female, things like on-site daycare are nonexistent. [Independent]
• Gilt Groupe, the members-only sample sale site, sponsored Zac Posen's resort show, which is happening tonight. Interesting. [WWD]
• Shares in the national mall chain Wet Seal fell 17% in Friday's trading, following the announcement of poor first quarterly results. Same-store sales fell by 7.3%, and even though it beat analysts' expectations by turning a $5 million profit during the quarter, news that the company does not expect to meet profit forecasts in the next quarter was enough to set the stock price sliding. [The Street]
• Lord & Taylor is closing one of its 47 stores nationwide. The Landmark Mall in Alexandria, Virginia, will no longer boast a Lord & Taylor as an anchor tenant after July 12. Both Landmark Mall and its parent company, General Growth Properties, have filed for bankruptcy protection. [WSJ]
• The U.S. division of Dutch brand Oilily filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and closed its Madison Avenue store. This follows the bankruptcy of its parent company in Hollard nearly two months ago. [Crain's]
• A statement from Wells Fargo, the principal creditor of the bankrupt Hartmarx company, which owns the menswear brands Hickey Freeman and Hart Schaffner Marx, has put Hartmarx's potential deal with private equity firm Emerisque in doubt. Emerisque's bid of $119 million for the business had been accepted by Hartmarx last week, but Wells Fargo, which is owed $114 million, said that with only $70 million of the bid being cash it "fails to provide adequate value to Hartmarx lenders." Wells Fargo also objects to the bid on the grounds that the offer "does not even ensure that Emerisque will continue running Hartmarx's business operations after the acquisition," something which Emerisque had pledged to do. The bankruptcy court is scheduled to hear objections to the bid today. [Chicago Tribune]
• Mango might do most of its business in Spain, but that won't prevent it from opening a store this September in Irbil, the capital of the Kurdish region of Iraq and the country's third-largest city. [Times of London]
• Benetton's seven stores in Georgia closed in protest and Georgian politicians voiced thunderous objections to the chain's decision to open an outpost in Sukhumi, the capital of the disputed Black Sea region of Abkhazia. Tbilisi regards Abkhazia as a breakaway province; the EU and NATO concur; Russia recognizes its independence; 1.5 million Russian tourists visit Sukhumi every year. No doubt lured as much by the thought of all those rubles as by the international goodwill it advertises, Benetton has nonetheless been forced to abandon its plans to open the store. [WSJ]

• Naomi Campbell stalked the runway like a thoroughbred in Mumbai for a charity show. Last time Campbell blended fashion and philanthropy, the supermodel raised over $1 million for Hurricane Katrina survivors. [Daily Mail]

• Mikhail Gorbachev is not enough for some people. The rapacious machine of Louis Vuitton's advertising, which most people don't realize actually sucks its subjects' dignity through the lens of Annie Liebovitz's Canon, has claimed more victims: Buzz Aldrin, Sally Ride, and fellow astronaut Jim Lovell. That's right: men and women who could withstand the g-forces of extraterrestrial flight could not say 'no' to LVMH. [WWD]
• British Vogue editor Alexandra Shulman says her biggest concern about taking the position back in 1992 was that it would involve a lot of flying. "I hadn't been on a plane in 10 years," she said at an event in England. "How could I accept a job that would mean that I had to fly all the time? I'm still very nervous on a plane." [Vogue UK]
• More bad news for Halston: the oft-revived label, left semi-conscious as of late following the firing of its latest creative director, Marco Zanini, is now down one vice-president of marketing. Atul Pathak resigned two weeks ago, just after the Paris shows. [WWD]
• Los Angeles fashion week happened recently. Don't feel too badly if you missed it: the LA Times itself called proceedings "more than an exercise in futility." [LA Times]
• Vera Wang's Lavender line is in trouble. Hitting the high end of the price range for a contemporary line is causing some grief, and Saks has dropped it. Neiman Marcus will carry Vera Wang Lavender in only ten stores this season, and drop it for fall. Wang says she's mulling over lowering the pricing, or spinning it off into a license. [WWD]
• Lanvin's London flagship store is now open. I suppose that means Alber Elbaz's long contretemps with the architects, related by Ariel Levy in her recent New Yorker profile of the designer, was happily resolved. [FWD]
• Kira Plastinina's still got stores a-plenty, too. (Albeit not in the US, where her eponymous pink-themed clothing chain went bust less than a year after her entry into the market.) As soon as she finishes high school in Moscow this spring, the fruit juice heiress intends to take a step that most designers tackle before launching international retail chains  going to fashion school. Since Kira Plastinina rather strikes one as the kind of person whose life is the sustained experience of getting what she wants, without regard for talent or even passion, she's expecting acceptance at Parsons in New York and Central St. Martins in London, the Yale and Oxford of fashion design, respectively. [FWD]
• Fiona Ellis, who scouts models for the London agency Independent, thinks Tyra's shorties-only season of America's Next Top Model is dumb. The woman who found Alek Wek and Erin O'Connor, among many others, would know. [Vogue UK]
• Net profits at Versace fell 30.7% in 2008, but it was largely due to the softening of the Euro against the Dollar. Without the hard shift in the rate of exchange, their profits would have grown by 10%. [WWD]
• "Heavy black lines and crisp, grid-like patterns created an Op Art effect in Dries Van Noten's spring collection," says the LA Times. Which is why you should...wear a plaid shirt from Express. [LA Times]
• The top 10 new models of the Fall/Winter 09 show season: 90% white, 10% Japanese, 50% not actually "new." [Style.com]
• Do. Not. Want. Spanx clothing. No, just...no. [Glamour]
• Christian Siriano has picked up one hell of a stockist for his line: Saks Fifth Avenue. The department store will sell his fall collection in a new store-within-a-store for emerging talents. [WWD]
• Iekeliene Stange, the quirky Dutch supermodel/photographer, has an exhibition opening in London this Wednesday, following a successful show in Berlin. [The Horse Hospital]

But as the decades wore on, the magazine became less and less about America and more and more a celebrity-oriented publication; hence this star-filled edition of "The Way We Were: The '80s" (Previously:the '70s, the 60s, the '50s, '40s and the '30s.) In addition, we found very few Life covers from the '80s, though we did find covers of sister publication Time, so we threw those in. You do what you can!

And now: The 1980s.

Women riding exercise bikes at Krylatskoya Physical Fitness Clinic. Moscow, 1989.

Spin class 1.0! Why are there no shoes here? No Reeboks behind the iron curtain?

Actresses Beatrice Arthur, Estelle Getty, Rue McLanahan and Betty White of television series "The Golden Girls." 1986.

LOL at Bea Arthur's face. She is NOT amused.

Fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg w. fashion designer Calvin Klein & his wife, Kelly at the Don't Bungle the Jungle rain forest benefit concert at Brooklyn Academy of Music. May 1989.

These were the days. Diane von Furstenberg wasn't wearing a wrap dress and Calvin Klein was married to a woman.

Astronaut Sally Ride, first American woman in space, zipped up in "sleep restraint" during flight aboard Space Shuttle Challenger II (STS-7). June 1983.

Creepy but cool.

Comedienne Joan Rivers, in a denim jacket, with her dog Spike at a press conference to announce that she is the new "No Excuses" jeans girl. New York, 1988.

Acid wash denim jacket FTW.

TIME cover 01/05/1987: Corazon Aquino, TIME's Woman of the Year.

Not to be confused with Imelda Marcos.

Drew Barrymore and Mr. T, 1984.

I want this framed. Not even joking. the only thing that would be better would be this.

Madonna, 1984.

*cough*oldnose*cough*

Cyndi Lauper, 1986.

What shall we call this hue of hair? Lemon? Goldenrod? Taxicab?

Patti Labelle, 1986.

Yes. Thank you.

TV talk show host/actress Oprah Winfrey w. her boyfriend, Stedman Graham, chatting w. black leader Rev. Jesse Jackson at Tyson/Spinks pre-fight party at the Trump Plaza hotel. Atlantic City, 1988.

Oprah is saying, "I'm not as think as you drunk I am!"

k.d. lang w. actress Liza Minnelli at a party to celebrate lang's concert. New York, 1989.

Awesome.

Model Jerry Hall w. models wearing bathing suits she designed, at unveiling of her swim wear line. New York, 1988.

Only in the '80s would you unveil your swimsuits on models wearing ballet flats and long scarves.

TIME cover 02/09/1981 featuring model/actress Brooke Shields.

At the time, these eyebrows made a statement.

Model Cheryl Tiegs playing tennis at unident. location. 1982.

Those pink shorts are adorbs.

Model Beverly Johnson, wearing black dress and red hat . and singer Grace Jones, wearing green fur jacket and hat w. sunglasses. 1988.

Aren't you just dying to go wherever they're are going?

Lucia Ahn sitting at the piano with her sister Angela Ahn who is holding a violin at the student concert hall. Aspen, 1987

Asian people! This is from a story called "Whiz Kids."

Actresses Jackee Harry and Marla Gibbs w. track and field athlete Florence Griffith Joyner.

Wow. Just… wow!

Actress Jean Kasem, wearing unusual purple floral outfit. 1988

'80s red carpet: Not boring.

Girls sitting around table in class in School No. 32. Moscow, 1989.

So curious as to what these ladies are doing now.

TIME Cover: 12/09/1985 on Teenage Pregnancy. Photo Credit: Duane Michals.

Every decade: The same cover!

Actors Woody Allen and Mia Farrow w. her adopted daughter Soon-Yi leaving Farrow's apartment to see Liza Minnelli at Carnegie Hall. 1987.

Sigh. We all know how this ended up.

Comedienne Phyllis Diller on the beach. 1981.

What? Where? Why?

Actresses Danielle Brisebois and Jamie Lee Curtis, both wearing bathing suits. 1983.

Who is that little girl behind Jamie Lee Curtis? And is she thinking, "Why is she wearing pantyhose?"

Actress Morgan Fairchild wearing pink dress, reflected by mirror.

Big hair? Check! Off-the-shoulder neckline? Check! Intense pink hue? Check! Giant ruffle? Check! Floofy skirt? Check! Practical pumps? Check!

Life Magazine Photo Archive [Google]
Earlier: The Way We Were: Life Magazine Photos Of Women In The 1970s
The Way We Were: Life Magazine Photos Of Women In The 1960s
The Way We Were: Life Magazine Photos Of Women In The 1950s
The Way We Were: Life Magazine Photos Of Women In The 1940s
The Way We Were: Life Magazine Photos Of Women In The 1930s

• Women are having their feet surgically-altered the better to fit into high heels. And, according to one well-compensated NYC plastic surgeon, it's because of Sex And The City. [TimesOfLondon]
  
• Will the dieting insanity ever end? Young women with diabetes are purposely not taking insulin in order to get skinny. And yes, it has a name: "diabulimia". [ABCNews]
  
• On this day in history: In 1983, Sally Ride becomes the first American woman to go into space. [Wired]
  
• Okay, we get it! Breastfeeding = good! [Babble]
  
• Have Greek drivers never seen a scantily-clad woman before? If this story is any indication, the answer is no. [Guardian]