• Pictures of the new Kate Moss Topshop collection are out — and they prominently display the supermodel's breasts, which she just recently up and grew, like she's some kind of experimental woman built by science, or something. [Telegraph]

• Seeing the Alexander McQueen runway shoes side-by-side with a normal 4.5" pair of stilettos, it becomes apparent just how otherworldly those 12"-tall creatures really are. We still want to a cross-sectional view, because we're having a hard time imagining where the feet go once they're inside. [UK Vogue]
• Marc Ecko sold a controlling 51% share of his brand to Iconix. Just last month, he told a reporter on the record that he would never give up control of the trademark he'd spent 16 years building. [NYPost]
• Roberto Cavalli was dining with a tableful of models at Serafina, an Italian joint, when he was overcome by the desire for Mexican food. So he ordered in from the place next door. Vittorio Assaf, who happens to own both the restaurants, says, "Roberto loves his guacamole. Sometimes he comes in alone in the afternoon to sit in the back and order it. At Serafina we let him have the Mexican food delivered, but we don't tell our chef — he would walk out." Letting him know by reading it all over the Internet is surely the kinder move. You should recommend it to HR! [The Cut]
• Meanwhile, fellow Italian designer Giorgio Armani, who earlier this year battled hepatitis, is mulling succession. "I'm already organizing staff who will continue my work," he said in Moscow. "Of course I am not eternal, there comes a time when you must hand it over." Perhaps he'll take that Senator For Life gig in his twilight years? [Reuters]
• Finally, an explanation of the Olsenboye brand-name: it is, apparently, the Olsens' ancestral Norwegian surname. [NYPost]
• Cindy Crawford says it: "I would not have become a supermodel in 2009. I look too healthy." She told a German magazine called Bunte, bodies "with big breasts, normal thighs and toned upper arms" do not currently interest the industry. [Telegraph]
• Dutch Elle, in truly groundbreaking territory, ran a cover featuring a naked model. Can you imagine! Her name is Lonneke Engel. [IMG]
• Yves Saint Laurent has been named, by Forbes (who else?) the top-earning dead celebrity. [Reuters]
• Tamara Mellon's Jimmy Choo is launching a limited edition accessories collection. Part of the proceeds will go to the Elton John AIDS foundation to fund post-exposure prophylaxis drugs for rape victims in Cape Town, since taking the drugs within 72 hours can reduce the rates of HIV transmission by up to 79%. Mellon has worked with Sir Elton John before, and traveled to see the medical center in Cape Town, where she met victims of rape and incest. "One woman at the Simelela centre was sexually abused by a male relation from the age of 13," says Mellon. "She told me how the centre had given her the strength to get her life back. These women are dealing with AIDS, they are dealing with rape, they are dealing with incest. But it really hits you when you see where the money [we've raised] has gone. It's real, it's in front of you and it's a success. It's given me great hope." [Telegraph]
• Ivanka Trump's wedding dress, by Vera Wang, consisted of three different layers of lace — including Lyon and Chantilly — and took about a month to make. It was partly based on Grace Kelly's marital attire. It also was not strapless — something Cathy Horyn says, "made a fresh statement." [On The Runway]
• Thierry Mugler is looking to re-launch itself as a brand, with designer Rosemary Rodriguez at the helm. Although the collection is being shown at Moscow's fashion week this season, rumors are flying that the next step will be Paris. [FWD]
• Sarah Mower is looking back on the spring 2010 collections and seeing women designers on top of their game, from Rodarte to Phoebe Philo to Isabel Marant. [Telegraph]
• Joe Zee wants your boyfriend. For a makeover! He says, on Facebook, "Do you have a style-challenged boyfriend, husband or brother? Is that guy in your life screaming "untapped potential"? Is his hair more Don King than Don Juan? Then I want to make him over for my column. Let me give him my A to Zee treatment. Email me a picture of yourself with this fashion-clueless guy to AtoZee@hfmus.com by Nov 2nd." [Facebook]
• Trouble already for Naomi Campbell's new perfume deal — a fragrance partner with whom the supermodel inked a deal in 1998 is suing her for breach of contract. [NYPost]
• H&M, which already has 169 stores in the United States, would like to expand — especially in the South, where it is under-represented. [WWD]
• Jones Apparel Group is reporting an 11% year-on-year increase in third-quarterly profit, to just over $30 million. Jones owns Nine West and Jones New York. [TS]
• Versace, which recently shut its Japanese stores after nearly 20 years in the market, is now cutting 350 jobs. [WSJ]

• New lows in celebrity sartorial publicity: Dior would like everyone to know that Madonna was wearing its sunglasses when she visited the victims of her stage collapse in Marseille, which killed two workers and left eight injured. [WWD]

• A Tracey Emin etching of Kate Moss is among artworks for sale via raffle - tickets are just £1 - to benefit Mothers4Children. [Telegraph]
• For some reason, Levi's decided to give its Fall '09 lookbook a jailbird theme. Since, at least before orange jumpsuits, denim was the fabric of life in the big house, the lookbook features models styled for mug shots, and photographed through bars. (The bars appear to actually be...a fire escape.) File under Annals of Idiocy, subsection Stupid High-Concept Lookbooks. [HighSnobiety]
• Levi's has also just acquired its own footwear and accessories licensee for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, DC Co. The company wants to strengthen its presence in those markets. [WWD]
• An American Apparel store in Silver Spring, Maryland had its window broken, allegedly because the window display featured the company's "Legalize Gay" gay rights t-shirts. A threatening telephone call was also received by another area store after the attack. The company took down its window displays - "We just don't want a broken window," explained the Silver Spring store manager, Kassandra Powell - but released a statement affirming its support of gay rights, and its intention to continue running "Legalize Gay" ads in Washington, D.C., area media and providing its t-shirts to local activist groups. [The Sexist]
• Angie Everhart is eight days away from giving birth as a single parent. Her worst pregnancy cravings were for egg salad. [People]
• Jerry Hall's advice for modeling (and life?): "Be nice to everyone, even if you don't want to. Just be nice and gracious. And don't show your bum." [WWD]
• That's one way to multi-task: Alexandra Richards had a hotel minion perform a pedicure while she deejayed. "Stuff that you can't do while getting a pedicure" seems like as good a definition of "actual professional labor" as any; this anecdote therefore proves beyond all doubt that deejaying ain't a real job. (But doing pedicures sure is.) [P6]
• Bar Refaeli's new campaign for Rampage is predictably hot. [People]
• Gloria Vanderbilt told model Kiera Chaplin, Charlie and Oona Chaplin's granddaughter, that she was the spitting image of her gran. "Oona and I were often mistaken for being sisters," explained the newly minted erotic novelist. [P6]
• Top model Du Juan is being sued by the Chinese agency New Silk Road for allegedly violating her contract with them when she signed with international powerhouse agency IMG in 2005. New Silk Road wants a portion of Du's IMG earnings, and an approximately $439,000 fine. [China Daily]
• Erin Wasson is joining Swiss skateboard company Doodah's line of naked supermodel boards. Isabeli Fontana, Lara Stone, Toni Garrn, and Edita Vilkeviciute are already featured on individual skateboards, wearing shoes they could not actually skateboard in. [The Cut]
• Naomi Campbell is featured in a similar state of undress for a new D&G perfume campaign. Which motivated the Sun to write the pun, "breast assets." [Sun]
• French fashion house Cacharel is re-launching itself at Paris Fashion Week this September. [WWD]
• Scott Schuman's book, The Sartorialist, is rolling off the presses now, even though the official release date is not until August 12. The cover features stylist Julie Ragolia. [The Sartorialist]
• American Eagle's "Artist" jean, which was a best-seller until it was discontinued last year, has been brought back after a redesign. The new cut is intended to be more flattering to a lady's rear. The jeans will retail at $39.50; the two kinds that have "destroyed details" cost $10 more. [WWD]
• American Vogue's Sarah Mower writes that fashion this fall is going to be a grown-up affair - that clothes will no longer worship at the feet of youth. The girl in the photo illustrating this story looks to be about 14. [Telegraph]
• Steve Madden, which produces watches through a licensee, allegedly found fakes for sale on eBay. Imagine! But when they asked the site to remove the items, eBay didn't comply, so the company is suing. [Reuters]
• Stylist Patricia Field designed an Ugly Betty-inspired Diet Coke bottle. It's pink. Will people seriously buy anything? [Fashionista]
• Charlotte Russe announced a 4.9% drop in third-quarter profits, to $6.3 million. [WWD]
• Avon has announced it will be laying off 1,200 people, or 2.8% of its workforce, over the next four years. [AP]
• Escada's bond exchange, which needed an 80% acceptance rate from bondholders in order to save the company from bankruptcy, has only met with approval from 37% of the company's creditors. So it has extended the exchange period until August 5, and implemented an exchange of stock to raise additional cash. [WWD]
• 1.4 million pairs of children's shoes are being recalled. The shoes, shaped like racecars, have wheels which can detach and pose a choking risk. Buster Brown & Co.'s eight different styles of shoes were sold at retailers including JC Penney, Famous Footwear, Meijer, Sears, Target, and Wal-Mart, and can be returned for a full refund. [WWD]

• Michael Jackson's entire family — including the kids — reportedly wore Versace to his memorial service yesterday. The singer was a longtime admirer of Gianni Versace's work, and LaToya Jackson contacted Donatella Versace to arrange for the custom outfits. [InStyle]

• The above would seem to fit with the findings of this trend story on celebrities increasingly bypassing stylists to contact designers directly. [NY Observer]
• An hour after the end of his own couture show — which may prove to be his last — designer Christian Lacroix paid a visit to Givenchy. Lacroix then went backstage to greet designer Riccardo Tisci and Delphine Arnault. Givenchy is owned by Bernard Arnault's luxury conglomerate LVMH; so was the house of Lacroix, until LVMH sold it to current owners the Falic group because it wasn't making any money. Despite the fact that Bernard Arnault is nothing if not a canny businessman unlikely to send good money after bad, Lacroix's visit in the midst of his company's bankruptcy has set tongues wagging that LVMH might re-invest. [FWD]
• Precisely because it is incredibly expensive and very limited in its customer base, couture is a sensible business for many kinds of fashion house to be in — the revenues from selling couture may be small, but the brand awareness having a couture collection builds moves a lot of perfume, scarves, sunglasses, shoes, handbags, and ready-to-wear. Companies that tend to do well with couture are either mega-sized Dior logo-behemoths that work the market from all those angles, or really tiny, esteemed couture houses that don't try and wager couture's tiny revenue stream on retail stores or other big costs. According to this story, Christian Lacroix's problem was that his company was in the middle — it expanded in recent years, got the new stores, got the perfume deal, but the core of his business, and its most reliable profits came from couture alone. [WSJ]
• But this season, neither Anna Wintour nor André Leon Talley has been spotted at the couture shows. [FWD]
• Karl Lagerfeld says there's nothing whatsoever to those rumors that he is planning retirement, and will be replaced by Lanvin's Alber Elbaz. He told Cathy Horyn of the Times that he expects to die at the house of Chanel. [OnTheRunway]
• But Lagerfeld, a legendary haver of minor spats, has already found a reason to dislike Audrey Tautou. He wasn't involved in her casting, as Coco Chanel, in the movie Coco Avant Chanel, and says he didn't have anything to do with her selection in the recent Oriental Express-themed No. 5 ad, either. The point of origin of their tiff is purportedly a statement Tautou made about Chanel in the French press. When asked if she often wore Chanel, the actress replied, "Sometimes. This morning I wore the rain boots." This remark Lagerfeld found dismissive. [WWD]
• Armani might be outfitting the Italian swimming team at the World Championships this summer in Rome, but that hasn't stopped Dolce & Gabbana underwear launching an ad campaign starring the men's team's biggest stars. You're welcome. [FWD]
• Are you pale and thoughtful? Do you like boys who sparkle in the sunshine, and hanging out in the woods? Then this $64 "Twilight" hoodie — featured in the movie, fangirls! — is just the thing for you. [FF]
• Alternatively, here are instructions and patterns to make your very own Matthew Williamson caftan out of 2.5 meters of chiffon or georgette. And a sewing machine. [LondonObs]
• Because Jil Sander cannot use her own name —Raf Simons designs Jil Sander, thankyouverymuch — the capsule collection she will produce with Uniqlo will be called +J. As a creative director for the whole brand, other garments that Sander designs for Uniqlo will be simply branded Uniqlo. [WWD]
• The line-up for September's New York Fashion Week is looking strong — organizers say although there are a greater number of presentations (which are cheaper to stage) than runway shows, the total number of presentations and shows matches the total number of presentations and shows from last September. [WWD]
• Seventeen employees of the New York-based retailer Scoop are suing the company, claiming that it gave them bogus promotions to salaried positions to avoid paying them for their overtime hours. Stock handlers and security guards allege that after being hired to work for hourly wages, they received promotions to salaried assistant managerial positions, but didn't actually have any change in their duties whatsoever. Nonetheless, as "managers", they were expected to work 50-60 hour weeks for their salaries. [Crain's]
• Fashion journalist Sarah Mower hates miniskirts ("the aim is a brash, sexy glamour of the most repulsive brassiness") and wearing tights in the summertime. She also hates sales, because "They drag on for months and the shops are a mess. Plus, I do not like the experience of looking at things I've bought at full price hanging there at 70 per cent off." [Telegraph]
• Somebody named Tahnee Atkinson has won a season of Australia's Next Top Model. She's no Alice. [SMH]

Rumors have been swirling that Margiela the individual — who sold his business to Diesel in 2002 — would step down since at least last October. They intensified when the label showed its fall/winter collection in Paris this March, which critics roundly panned. "Just about everything at the show tonight — the hokey starlight projections on the ceiling, the empty design techniques, the use of beautiful young models instead of older, interesting-looking chicks — said that Mr. Margiela is no longer involved in his label, as editors have speculated for some time," wrote Cathy Horyn, before calling the actual clothes "home-lab stuff." Style.com's Sarah Mower said, "In the absence of any definitive corporate statement, the only test of whether Margiela is still in the house must be down to whether the inimitable dialogue of excellence, intellectual challenge, and wit is still there in his show. Safe, yet very sad to say, this time it was gone." (Margiela has the lucky distinction, I suppose, of being the only designer who can never make a bad collection, at least as long as the top taste influencers are willing to generously assume the off seasons are not his work.)

But in fact there was a definitive corporate statement. The executives at Diesel have flatly denied the rumors, Renzo Rosso saying last year that he "cannot imagine" Margiela leaving, and Giovanni Pungetti assuring us all this spring that "he's still in position." Pungetti confirmed, however, that the designer spends increasingly little time at the company's headquarters. "He's concentrating on more strategic projects. He's still working with us in the key decisions of the company. This is the spirit [Martin] wanted to create; that's his philosophy. He's more consulting with us than designing every product. The team is more Margiela than him."

Margiela's work has always played with issues of identity — he traditionally masks his models' faces for shows, and his only label is a numbered white cotton tag attached with pick stitches to his garments. In the mid-90s, Margiela stopped talking to the press and being photographed. The last known picture of him, above, is from 1997. His label has always been the product of a white-lab-coated design team (which Margiela leads — or led). Margiela has never stepped onto his runway to take a bow at the close of a show; all communication with the house is done in writing, and the communiqués are composed in the third-person-plural and signed "Maison Martin Margiela." Until Diesel bought the company, it wasn't even in the phonebook. Margiela has long concentrated on being the invisible designer: now the question, and the headwater of these persistent rumors is, how can we actually tell when someone who for so long has suppressed all the usual outward signs of being a designer stops designing? It's not like he's going to tweet it.

Edward Buchanan at JC Report contends that Margiela is backing away from his label out of a sense of disenchantment with Diesel's marketing of the brand. Diesel widened Margiela's distribution, leveraged the brand-name into arenas like home furnishings, and sales have climbed by double figure percentages even into the recession. But the Italian conglomerate's advertising-drenched culture is at odds with Margiela's studied, blank, anti-individualist ethos. If the design associate quoted by Buchanan as saying that Margiela has "not been present" since last season, that sounds like as definitive a statement as we might expect. (Assuming, of course, that the designer meant "present at the company" and not just "present at the office.") Fashion will miss Margiela's widely influential designs; he was doing the shoulder pads that turned up on Marc Jacobs' Fall/Winter runway three seasons ago, the human-hair wig coats from the last collection which Margiela is widely believed to have had a hand in have spawned a whole slew of furry imitators this season, and every time I see a pair of True Religion jeans, with their wide-set twin needle stitching and oversized rivets, I think of Margiela's playful deconstruction of those details in his collections going back decades.

Rumor has it that Raf Simons — who is safely, and for all appearances, happily — ensconced in a three-year contract at Jil Sander, and former Swiss Textiles Award-winner Haider Ackermann are among the candidates Diesel is considering as a replacement.

More Secrecy At The House Of Margiela [JC Report]
A Master Class With Lanvin And Dior [NY Times]
Maison Martin Margiela FW 2009 Review [Style.com]
Fashion World Studies Margiela's Looks And His Next Move [NY Times]
More Margiela, Less Martin [WWD]

Worried that Alexander McQueen's show, a tribute to his friend and champion, Isabella Blow, was going to be bathed in bathos? Well it turns out that McQueen, who showed in Paris over the weekend, had the collection of the season, or so sayeth the critics. Those same critics were less kind to Nina Ricci and Chloe - except for Suzy Menkes, who seems to love everyone except sworn enemy Marc Jacobs. Below, the major fashion critics take on McQueen, Ricci, Chloe and John Galliano.

"[Isabella] Blow is now with the angels" "emotional sensitivity of the show brought some beautiful homages" "unique pieces" McQueen's harsh attitude to women has not changed. Models struggled down the runway on teetering platforms. It is an inevitable part of his oeuvre that a woman will appear caged - even if the dress underneath is divine" —Suzy Menkes, International Herald Tribune

"[A] collection of outrageous beauty" "all a vivid reminder of Blow's eccentric, stylish wardrobe." —Hilary Alexander, The Telegraph

"McQueen mustered the clarity to dispense with smoke and mirrors and show his capabilities in cut, drape, and feathered flourish to an audience near enough to inspect every detail" "his romantic fairy-goddess chiffons put him back in the game of current trend" "McQueen honored his mentor by striving to bring out the best in himself" - Sarah Mower, Style.com


Nina Ricci:
"[A] listless collection that didn't suggest a clear plan" "he achieved... wreckage" "dirty colors" "jackets that looked lifted from a mud room" "stringy hair dangling with feathers" "[b]ut other designers have done the same" "isn't very far from what a cool girl is wearing now" —Cathy Horyn, The New York Times

"Nina Ricci has never been so beautifully realized" "a perfume of a collection that hit a modern spot between romantic and sugary" "combining a youthful stride" —Suzy Menkes, International Herald Tribune

"[A] particularly poetic state of dishevelment" "smudged by the murky first light of a city day" "a reassertion of his Belgian identity" "deciding to take the path of underground edginess rather than Parisian chic" "what he's doing for day is the thing to watch" - Sarah Mower, Style.com


John Galliano:
"Mr. Galliano's style is romantic and narrative, typically with an impoverished muse at the center" "for once the models looked happy in their outfits and nobody complained that they were too thin" "looked fresh" "light and friendly" —Cathy Horyn, The New York Times

"Everything in John Galliano's garden was lovely" "However much the designer plants new ideas and changes the landscape (this time it was a carousel and fairground) the effect is always much the same" "this was just Galliano light" "sweet but never cloying" —Suzy Menkes, International Herald Tribune

"Here all was softness, frills, retro bias-cuts and gentle pastels, with the emphasis on roses; printed on chiffon, appliquéd in silk and half-hidden within the folds of a ruffled peplum." —Hilary Alexander, The Telegraph

"[A] gamely dizzy performance of typical Galliano-esque high jinks" "Galliano is motoring on reinterpretations of his classics" "it happens that this is a season in which that looks right" "the narrative wasn't a groundbreaker, merely a device for trotting out Galliano's standard pretty, printed, flouncy dresses" "Galliano is still in the game" —Sarah Mower, Style.com


Chloe:
"But could Mr. Andersson have starved his hungry audience more? The shapes in the collection were so undefined, so indistinct that you had the feeling the same dress was going by again and again" —Cathy Horyn, The New York Times

"It seemed smart to take Chloé back to its roots - while still pushing forward. It has most recently been pitched as a brand for women who want to stay forever innocent on the cusp of maidenhood and maturity" "...this season proved that [designer Paulo Andersson] is not trapped in that vision." —Suzy Menkes, International Herald Tribune

"[R]etro-cuteness cauterized by an intrinsic graphic modernity" "something fresh" "a few rare thoughts about how to make transparency passable on a daily basis" "there was a lot of repetition" "reverted, in a contemporary way, to the old-time Chloé of the early seventies, when Karl Lagerfeld [designed it]" - Sarah Mower, Style.com

Dior
"[A]lluring androgyny" "Marlene Dietrich" "Billie Holiday, Josephine Baker and the Great Gatsby" "1940s-style dresses had accentuated shoulders and below-the-knee hemlines" "epitome of early Hollywood glamour" —Hillary Alexander, Telegraph

"[T]he man-woman thing exemplified by Marlene Dietrich" "variations on the top hat showed a seductive way" "more John than Christian in the ultra-glamorous take on Galliano's signature bias-cut dresses" "let the couture and its major theatrics go to turn out a seductive but simple collection that, with its racy tailoring and lacy delicacy, will please rather than provoke." —Suzy Menkes, International Herald Tribune

"Sting's "Englishman in New York" set the theme" "a light, nonintellectual revival of all the patterns John Galliano has amassed through his ten-year career at Dior" "twenties-through-forties styling" "this wasn't one of his camp-hysteria evasions, nor was it one of his more passive-aggressive collections of bottom-line merchandise" "pretty, accessible things" "a knowing nod to the current feel for pajama dressing" "missed the flair and humor Galliano can muster at his best" —Sarah Mower, Style.com


Balenciaga
"[V]ivid floral prints" "old-fashioned couture fabrics" "full of thought and invention" "incredibly precise and clear" "a strong fashion statement" "push[es] our imaginations" —Cathy Horyn, The New York Times

"[A]ll about the extreme beauty" "21st-century techno treatment" "extreme, ultra-modern volumes" "catapulted into the future" "The silhouette was of a short dress with rounded shoulders and hemline" "it was a magic carpet ride." —Suzy Menkes, International Herald Tribune


Vivienne Westwood
"[U]ltra-hourglass dresses and jewelled "trapeze artist" costumes" "what the offspring of a marriage between Marilyn Monroe and an English aristocrat would have looked like" —Hillary Alexander, Telegraph

"[I]nimitable blend of cheek, sensuality and historical histrionics" "tribal, tough and rock 'n roll" "a twinkle in the eye, a sway of the hips and a dress designed to cup the bosoms" "reveal as well as conceal, with a bodice swooping down, a skirt cut to rise in a half moon up to the thigh and beyond" "fringe...looked more Las Vegas showgirl than English aristocrat" —Suzy Menkes, International Herald Tribune

"[T]here were a lot of different, seemingly unrelated looks packed onto the runway" "buttons askew over unfastened dresses" "twisted ball gowns" "holographic sequin dress with padding at the hips and bum" "A beautiful mess? For members of Westwood's tribe, yes. But to the uninitiated? It just looked nutty." —Nicole Phelps, Style.com


Comme des Garcons
"[C]razy-wonderful" "layered coats and bloomers in Crayola colors" "about a cartoon-absorbed culture as randomness" "kooky ikat print, deconstructed bloomers in ruffled pink and yellow cotton, and roomy coats with built-in bags. Loved those for the Food Town." —Cathy Horyn, The New York Times