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

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

• Katy Perry has design aspirations. "Agyness Deyn and Dita Von Teese are my fashion icons. I love to create a character, and I like looking like I've just stepped out of a history book." [New York]

• L'Oreal has signed Zach and Miri star Elizabeth Banks! About time she got a lead! [WWD]
• Speaking of L'Oreal... aging heiress Liliane Bettencourt denies that she's ill, being duped by a gigolo. [FT]
• And: Oy. L'Oreal lays off 500 in U.S. [AdAge]
• Liar! Despite claims to the contrary, Paris Hilton has been spotted wearing the same dress twice! [E]
• Is acclaimed designer Olivier Theyskens out at Nina Ricci? People are tossing around "creative differences," which it totally the "irreconcilable differences" of the work world. [FashionWeekDaily]
• Will Tommy Hilfiger be the only designer actually showing at the Bryant Park tents? [WWD]
• We kind of don't want to contribute to this latest Levi's ad going viral. [Videogum]
• Fun, PETA-style: throw virtual snowballs at celebrity "fur hags." [AdRants]
• Stores aren't even bothering to deck the halls of their sad beauty aisles this Christmas. [WWD]
• Fashion darlings Rodarte have discovered the secret to living left-coast: "This is the secret to L.A.; you listen to music from Peanuts. We realized it last night, driving — it was late, and the Peanuts theme was playing, and it’s like the whole city was transformed." [Style.com]
• Carine Roitfeld and Kanye West are BFF. [Style.com]
• The founder of Aussie label JustJeans was caught with his hand in the till...or the white-collar, $100 million equivalent thereof. [News.com.au]
• Speaking of crime, the fashion industry took a hit in the Madoff scandal. [WWD]
• Along with other less-than-hip brands, Laura Ashley's feeling the economic pinch. [Guardian]
• J. Crew's bridesmaid's dresses are becoming an industry standard. See, J, when you price things reasonably they sell! [W]
• Accessories brand Lambertson Truex is on the block, if you're looking for a sideline. [WWD]

• Pam Anderson is Vivienne Westwood's new muse. The two seem an unlikely pair but "when Westwood saw Anderson in one of her dresses she knew instantly that Pamela was the right person for her new campaign." [ElleUK]

• MIA's clothing line is ready to drop! As is her baby! [BlackBook]
• Bill Blass closes; his meatloaf recipe lives on! [NY Times]
• Betsey Johnson's Recession-sensitive fashion week show will be "a presentation, in which models wearing her Fall 2009 ensembles will be on display, and it will likely take place in her 5,000 square-foot Seventh Avenue showroom instead of the cavernous Bryant Park tent, which fits 1,000, that Ms. Johnson has used for several years." [WSJ]
• As shoe-throwing sweeps the nation (sans cultural context) Simon Doonan weighs in: “As symbolic gestures of hostility go, shoe tossing is rather incomprehensible. Why throw something that needs to be retrieved? You cannot beat a hasty retreat without your shoes. Better to, as they do at Tom Jones concerts, toss less essential items like panties or brassieres. Other possibilities: cracked dentures, out-of-fashion hats, and expired toupees.” [Fashionista via Vanity Fair]
• The Obama evening bag, "the perfect size for a night out on the town." Features creepy, Evita-style portrait of Barry. [Washington Post]
• However! It is still less ugly than this bag by Ines de la Fressange! [WWD]
• Speaking of luggage collabs (were we?), Thom Browne's teaming up with Samsonite. Insert some kind of skinny suitcase joke here. [WWD]
• Posh Spice is inspired by schoolteacher style. Um, which school did she attend? [The Sun]
• The latest trend: shopping local designers. People do realize that doesn't mean clothes are made locally, right? [WSJ]
• Zara workers are complaining of bad working conditions, including "unpredictable schedules, short staffing, favoritism by bosses, and disregard for seniority." Sounds like most jobs to us, but right on! [ShamelessMag]
• Christina Aguilera's feeling her new Stephen Webster jewelry campaign: “The last campaign was very Hitchcock and film noir inspired. The new look is more futuristic glam that pulls from the Sixties and Seventies era that has been inspiring me lately.” [WWD]
• French Vogue is soliciting copies of back issues to build their archive. Wait, shouldn't they have them? And don't they know that's what eBay's for? [NY Times]
• Khloe Kardashian explains her 360 shift on fur: "The reason PETA approached me initially is because in my past I did wear fur and they wanted to educate me on the brutal ways in which animals are skinned for their pelts," says the sorta-star of her gig for the animal rights org. [People]
• Leona Lewis, meanwhle, has been named PETA's person of the year. “Leona Lewis is admired for her beautiful voice, but it’s her kindness to animals that makes her a superstar in our book,” quoth the abrasive org. [PopCrunch]
• The building that houses Juicy Couture's new flagship "is secretly owned in part by an Iranian bank that helps fund Tehran's nuclear program, the feds charged yesterday in a bid for an ownership stake." Funding velour sweats is bad enough! [New York Post]
• Carla Bruni prevails: not only will the company using her nude image on bags pay damages; they've promised to destroy the remaining bags. [The Sun]

• Poor Marc Jacobs. First the world calls him crazy, now he's caught up in a bribery scandal. Turns out that the superintendent of NYC's 69th Regiment Armory, where Jacobs' shows are held each season, demanded little cash prezzies upwards of $30,000 from Marc et al in order for him to grant them permission to show there. KCD, the PR firm that handles Marc Jacobs, is allegedly responsible for making the pay-offs. [WWD]
  
• Meanwhile, Marc has invited K-Fed to sit front row at his show tomorrow night! [WWD, 2nd item]
  
• Happy Birthday, Horrible Hagyness. [WWD, 5th item]
  
• Fashion Week is bad for Chloe Sevigny's self-esteem, "Fashion week makes me feel very self-critical. Like I'm not wearing the right thing or looking the right way. It's stressful." [WWD, 9th item]

• Samsonite creative director Quentin Mackay on why the company has tapped Chloe to collaborate on the design for the company's Black Label collection: "She has that vintage attitude. Her films are always off-the-cuff so it fits perfectly with the vintage modern feel. Design is always one step backwards, two steps forward." We think he meant that as a compliment, and yet... [Fashion Week Daily]
• What do male models do when they're no longer male models? Why, they do quickie sketches of fashion shows, of course. Former model Blue Logan (and yes, we keep reading that as Blue Lagoon, too) sits in the front row and draws the crowds and as many of the looks as he can while the show goes on. Also, he owns a night club. [Vogue UK]
• Ooh Amy Adams on the March cover of ELLE: Love. [Fashion Week Daily]
• Actress Lindsay Price on why she loves Cosmo: "My parents never taught us about the birds and the bees. They sat us down to watch Blue Lagoon and assumed that would be how we learned about sex, but Cosmo came to the rescue." [Fashion Week Daily]
• "I don't know anything cool that's going on!": Julia Restoin Roitfeld. [Fashion Week Daily]
• Seriously, how is "Would you change your style for a man?" even a legit question to ask? [FabSugar]
• Mazel Tov to Tommy Hilfiger on his engagement to girlfriend Dee Ocleppo. [Page Six]
• Also to Alex von Furstenberg (son of Diane), who is engaged to firmly-legal girlfriend Ali Kay. [Page Six]
• Victoria's Secret model Karolina Kurkova will be starring in the live-action movie of G.I. Joe. [Page Six]
• First John Deere made tractors, now it's making jeans. [BrandWeek]
• What a shocker: Children's sweatshirts made in China have been shown to have a defective pullstring that has been known to strangle children. [UPI]
• Nicole Kidman's bathing suit: Now feeding entire impoverished villages. [NYT]

• Is there anything Chloe Sevigny can't do? Playing a polygamist's wife, designing a clothing line for Opening Ceremony, acting as style adviser to British ELLE, and now, designing hand-crafted steamer trunks for Samsonite. [WWD, sub req'd]
  
• Sevigny reportedly laughed loudly and openly at last night's Miss Sixty show. From the front row, no less! [NY Mag]
  
• Several models were burned by faulty lighting used during a shoot for Marc Bouwer last week. Says a rep for Bouwer, "No one knew the lamp was giving off that much heat until the shoot ended. If they had known, they would have stopped right away." [Page Six]
  
• Fashion victim! A Cosmopolitan fashion editor is suing a slew of people, including Diane von Furstenberg, following the 2005 incident in which she was injured by falling lights from the fashion runway. [UPI]

• The manager of an Abercrombie & Fitch store in Virginia Beach was ticketed by police for displaying overly "racy" A&F posters in the store. [UPI]
• Adam Lippes, formerly the designer of AdamPlusEve and now head of his own eponymous collection, is taking on a design collection with Spanish-based chain Mango. The Adam for Mango collection will feature 15 looks each for men and women and will be in stores for the Spring 2009 season. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Carla Bruni: Married to Nicolas Sarkozy while wearing Hermes. [WWD, 1st item]
• "This is worse than the Stones concert in '72!" That would be photographer Mick Rock, on the ill-behaved crowds outside the Rock & Republic show on Saturday night. [WWD, 2nd item]
• People will always need underwear: Hanesbrands' profits rose by 103.9% in the last quarter. [WWD, sub req'd]
• The Prada party taking place Thursday night in New York is sounding more and more like cheap porn: The short film created by Prada, Trembled Blossoms, will be screened and rock band CocoRosie will perform. [Fashion Week Daily]
• Have the designers at ThreeAsFour been reading Jezebel? The theme of their show this past weekend was "The good, the bad, and the beauty." [Fashion Week Daily]
• Heidi Klum and I have similar feelings about Valentine's Day: "If you're only in love once a year, that would be very sad!" [Chic Report]
• Costume designer Patricia Field on the look of the upcoming Sex and the City movie: "One might be dressing older, one might be dressing richer. There's always a blend of old and new because they don't change." [FabSugar]
• Former congressman Harold Ford Jr.'s fiance Emily Threlkeld pays her bills by working in business development for Carolina Herrera. [Washington Post]

[LAX, January 24. Image via Bauer-Griffin]

Related: Samsonite Black Label By Alexander McQueen [Samsonite]

• Paris Hilton showed up at the Victoria's Secret fashion show earlier this month and demanded to be cast in the show, according to model Miranda Kerr. And then — and here's where it gets really classy — she stole an outfit from the show to wear herself. [Sassybella]
  
• On being asked who designed the dress she wore to a party for actor Ewan MacGregor's new book, Helena Bonham Carter replied, "I can't remember, I can't remember anything." [WWD, 9th item]
  
• Venus Williams is inspired "as an athlete and as a designer" by Madonna. [WSJ]
  
• Model Gemma Ward: "surprisingly impressive" in her acting debut. [Sassybella]

• Adidas is partnering with Diesel to do a denim line, because what the world needs now is... that's right! Another denim line. [Vogue UK]
• Fresh from their H&M collection, Viktor & Rolf are designing a line of luggage for Samsonite. [IHT]
• Pierre Hardy for Gap shoes: Coming stateside soon! [WWD, 4th item]
• Model Natalia Vodianova and a bunch of "celebrities" we've never heard of are designing t-shirts for the Buddhist Punk label to benefit Al Gore's The Climate Project. And I guess it's understandable for Al to be tired of winning awards and ready to just party with models for once, but seriously, I am tired of the whole "designing" T-shirts for charity trend. [Vogue UK]
• Steve and Barry's is really (really!) a helluva lot more than just the place to buy Sarah Jessica Parker's "Bitten" line. Did you know they bought 3.5 million square feet of retails space in U.S. malls last year? We're not even sure what 3.5 million square feet looks like. [Business Week]
• Topshop is going to China! OMG just like this cycle's contestants on America's Next Top Model! We hope to see Heather at the first store opening. [Reuters]

• Christina Ricci, the face of the re-launched Samsonite Fashionaire collection, gave some bullshit answer at the line's launch party about how fashion is art, blah blah blah. At this point we would like to remind Christina that she's not shilling fashion. She's shilling luggage. [Vogue UK]
  
• In the words of Yogurt from Spaceballs: Merchandising! Merchandising! Merchandising! Now Project Runway has caught the bug and has forged a licensing deal with everything from sewing machine to textile manufacturers to throw the Project Runway logo on their goods. [NY Post]
  
• Badgley Mischka are debuting a daytime dress collection this fall at a much less expensive price point than their signature eveningwear collection. This is still not enough for us to forgive them for the whole Teri Hatcher thing. [WWD, sub req'd]

• Having just now gotten past their faux pas of wearing Italian designer Prada to husband French President Nicolas Sarkozy's inaugration a few months ago, France's new first family is now in trouble for vacationing in Connecticut and shopping at the Ralph Lauren store in that most all-American of cities, Boston. [WWD, 1st item]
• In Japan, clothing boutiques and art galleries are becoming one. Which sorta makes perfect sense, since both hock expensive shit whose purchase can only be rationalized through pseudo-intellectual rantings on aesthetics. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Infinitely better designed than the Kate Moss line is the Celia Birtwell line for Topshop, in stores and available online this week. [Vogue UK]
• Tom Ford: Not just misogynistic, but passive-aggressive too! The asshole designer will host a party for photographer Marilyn Minter celebrating her work the day before New York Fashion Week begins. Even though he uh, fired Minter from being the one to shoot the Tom Ford for Men advertising campaign. [Fashion Week Daily]