• Funny, this picture of Amy Winehouse looking "healthy and stylish" still looks off. British label PPQ is bringing the troubled singer's long-rumored fashion line to fruition — if you count PPQ "providing all materials and doing the design," as anything like having your own collection. [This is London]

• Here are about 500 words on how Michelle Obama sometimes lets the press know what she is wearing, and sometimes doesn't. [WWD]
• Designers at Sao Paulo Fashion Week have agreed to cast a minimum 10% quota of models of African or indigenous South American descent. Last year, only 2.3% of the models — 8 girls out of 344 — were non-white. The quota will be enforced by a hefty $120,000 fine. [BBC]
• In more news from the annals of New York real estate envy, Sally Singer, fashion news and features editor of American Vogue, lives in an eclectic apartment in the Chelsea Hotel. [The Selby]
• Pat McGrath, one of the sweetest and most talented makeup artists around, was in New York to publicize Dolce & Gabbana's new makeup line, which she helped develop. What McGrath would like most, however, would be the fountain of youth in a pill, or her own, namesake line, like François Nars, Laura Mercier, and Bobbi Brown. One of those things just might come true, in a just world. [NY Times]
• Since Gisele and Tom got married and became 78% more boring, voilà: your new model/quarterback couple is Hilary Rhoda and Mark Sanchez of the Jets. [P6]
• Complicated modern woman Miuccia Prada: "If you compare with philosophy, [fashion] is frivolous, but frivolity may be something good, something that is part of our lives, so I don't dislike it and what I like is the mix, that in your life you can have serious things, [and] more frivolous ones...Beauty is not something that is contrary; it is the right of everybody." [CNN]
• Thierry Mugler earned a kind of fashion comeback when Beyoncé chose him to design the costumes for her current world tour. And why not? Cinched waists, severely cut skirts, and padded shoulders are everywhere now. While Mugler has no plans to re-start his label, which he had already sold to Clarins long before he quit designing in 2000, this profile explains just how a ballet dancer from Strasbourg came to fashion prominence, via driving a van around Afghanistan and living in the Haight-Ashbury in the late 60s. Interesting start for a man who's made all his money from perfume since 1992. [Telegraph]
• "I don't like most perfumes," says Nicole Miller. Which is why she had to make another one of her own! Perfectly logical really. [WWD]
• And Armani, too, has a new perfume. His scent pays tribute to his muses. [WWD]
• How does El Museo Del Barrio in New York raise funds? Why, by getting Isabel and Ruben Toledo to tutor students from Spanish Harlem in art, and then auctioning their work — "portraits of Latin icons like Salvador Dalí and Christina Aguilera," reports Style.com. Also, by throwing a kick-ass party where Gloria Estefan took the stage. [Style.com]
• Burberry, which moved into the space vacated by New York magazine on Madison Avenue, will turn on its big neon sign next Thursday. Designer Christopher Bailey and CEO Angela Ahrendts will fly in from London for the vernissage. Neon signs of this type aren't normally permitted in that part of Midtown, but because of New York's iconic sign, now dismantled, Burberry has a rare opportunity to grandfather its own in. [HintMag]
• Oh, how cute. The Daily Mail have an anonymous fashion mole. Today, s/he reveals that — gasp — models aren't paid very much (but do get to meet a lot of the rich menz, which we of course totally love, since we're all privileged alphas doing this to snag hubbies anyway) and are often required to change their names. For practical reasons, such as our agencies not wanting four "Jennifers" on their books. Shocking. [Daily Mail]
• Aeropostale's profit for the first quarter grew a whopping 81% on last year. Sales were up 21%, and same-store sales jumped by 11%. [The Street]
• First quarterly profits at Gap Inc. dropped by 14%. [WSJ]
• Aquascutum's chief executive Kim Winser has resigned after the rejection of her bid to buy out the company. [WWD]
• Designer denim sales are one thing that is not going soft in the current economic climate — high-end jeans sales grew by 2.3% in the quarter just ended. [LA Times]
• Brooks Brothers luggage: launching just in time to take to Southampton for the opening of the summer place. What a relief! [WWD]
• Linda Morand, who runs this website — probably the best compendium of 60s fashion magazines out there, and the members who scan and post to it care about identifying models to boot — is to be one of the producers of a two-hour television tribute to the supermodels of the last six decades. The idea is to make it an annual event, and impanel judges of industry prominence to induct models into it. I can't lie; I would probably watch this. Especially if it turns out better than the Vogue/VH1 Fashion Awards. God knows I've happily killed far more than two hours on MiniMadMod60s. [PR Newswire]

Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, Christy Turlington and Cindy Crawford are all one-name famous, and are even enjoying a "supermodel revival." What of Tatjana Patitz? She's certainly had a successful career, and now models for Uniqlo and a few other small companies. But it's a good indication of the vagaries of the modeling agency that one model should make it to household name status while another, as beautiful, as charismatic, as distinctive, should not.

Nowadays, Patitz lives on a Malibu ranch with her young son and a veritable menagerie. Her passion, she says, is the conservation work she does with wild mustangs. And maybe her path is best explained by her words, ""There were glamorous moments, but it was exhausting...The low points were having to travel so much and being exhausted. I always thought that [fashion and modelling] wasn't who I was; it was what I did. It didn't define me. Living out here and coming back to this place was like a sigh of relief in a sense."

The Forgotten Supermodel [Guardian]

While the tears are Photoshopped out in the final image on the calendar, it's clear in the behind-the-scenes footage from the shoot that Fontana is crying. Tearing up, maybe, but still. And this is no top model challenge: She's already posed for Victoria's Secret, Elle, Vogue, Bazaar, Versace and Valentino. Watching the photographer coerce the models into doing bizarre and offensive things (more footage here) — smoke next to an elephant, run topless with frizzed out hair and a leopard-print bikini (how "savage"!) — makes you wonder: Why? Why would the models subject themselves to such icky stuff? Why did the photographer choose these painful concepts for a "pin-up" calendar? (Naomi Campbell posed in 2005, and didn't look quite as uncomfortable.) And, of course: If it's not sexy, and it's not selling tires, what's the point?

Making Of Pirelli Calendar [Spiegel]
Behind The Scenes Of The 2009 Pirelli Calendar In Botswana [SassyBella]

• I know this is why I go to the British Museum: to see a life-sized Kate Moss rendered in pure gold. "A solid gold sculpture of the model, thought to be the world's largest gold statue built since the time of ancient Egypt, was given its first showing yesterday." [Independent]
• Working to combat any taint of elitism, Anna Wintour and Sarah Jessica Parker are hosting a fashion show to raise funds for the Obama campaign. "The Sept. 9 shindig at the Charles Nolan Studio will feature designs from Beyoncé and Tina Knowles for House of Dereon, Diane Von Furstenberg, Marc Jacobs, Zac Posen, Juicy Couture, Narciso Rodriguez and Proenza Schouler, among others." [E]
• Meanwhile on the left coast, "Michelle Obama will get her chance to meet fashion and entertainment types in Los Angeles." Tom Ford is one of the hosts. [WWD]

• Armani joins the ranks of fashion designers inexplicably designing luxury residences. "The Armani Residences in Marassi, Egypt will offer palatial villas (of 2,500 to 5,400 square feet) furnished by, of course, Armani Casa. The resort includes a boardwalk lounge, health club, reflective pool, resort club, screening room, swimming pools, pool deck, and retail outlets." [Fashion Week Daily]
• Whether she's selling the label or not, Jil Sander is launching swimwear. [WWD]
• Despite a makeover, Vogue.com won't be getting its own site; it's still under Style.com's banner. [WWD]
• There's a book coming out on the 2002 rape and murder of fashion writer Christa Worthington. Some are crying poor taste. [NYT]
• Several retailers — Chico's and American Eagle among them — do better than expected. [NYT]
• Esprit shares plunge. [Reuters]
• Miami is scandalized by billboards: "Shot by Michael Thompson, model Hana Soukupova appears wearing only Wolford fishnet stockings. Perhaps it was their open weave that led the city to reject the banners, which usually run on major arteries, arguing they could cause traffic accidents." [WWD]
• Retailers bank on familiarity, hire old-school supermodels. "There's Linda Evangelista, with her trademark haughty sneer, wearing Prada's new austere lace look, Naomi Campbell shaking a waist-long mane of hair in an Yves Saint Laurent dress, and a black-bobbed Claudia Schiffer posing in front of a shabby-chic door for Chanel." [The Guardian]
• Sheryl Crowe, who's clothing line was already inexplicable, is moving into shoes. [WWD]
• Half the charges have been dropped against accused rapist and designer Anand Jon; that still leaves ten accusers. [LAT]
• Justin Timerlake (as William Rast, of course)'s cinematic ads are here! [FabSugar]
• Nina Garcia goes pretty easy on Hillary: "You know, I thought that what she wore was almost like sending us a message that she doesn't really care what we think." [New York]
• Oh, the challenges of costume design: "I'm the luckiest costume designer in Hollywood, for sure," The Telegraph reported Zophres said. "But getting George and Brad to look like ordinary guys? Even cheap suits look better on Brad." [UPI]
• Mulberry may be a luxury brand, but their factory still sounds like hell on earth. [Telegraph]
• Valentino has no problem playing favorites: "When asked to name the actresses who stood out for him, the designer said: "I have to be very sincere, the person that makes me feel very happy, also because (she) chose vintage, was Julia Roberts, when she got the Academy Award... I was very excited to see her when she appeared with my dress."" [The Star]
• Don't worry! "Style.com, the online home of Vogue, is introducing an iPhone application designed to enable dedicated followers of fashion to watch runway shows during New York Fashion Week." [NYT]
• Tommy Hilfiger's fashion week invitation features...a bare-assed model. [Nylon]
• Yes, indeedy. "I Am Queen" is in the works. Perfume or cologne? Diddy has yet to say! [NYT]

• Naomi Campbell has finally been charged for her April freakout at London's Heathrow airport. “Campbell is accused of three counts of assaulting a constable, one count of disorderly conduct likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress and one count of using threatening, abusive words or behavior to cabin crew, according to reports.” Her court date is set for June 20th; does anyone think that maybe a stint in juvie could set her straight? [The Guardian]
• Christian Dior cosmetics spokesmodel Sharon Stone continues to pay for her ridiculous remarks regarding last week's earthquake in China: Dior is pulling all ads starring the Hollywood wackadoo "from all of the department stores and from all of China". Karma, baby! [NY Times]
• Andre Leon Talley is returning to the Savannah College of Art and Design to speak at the school's May 31 commencement ceremony. Think he'll wear the "floor-length red satin robe and silver crown accented with red 'rubies'" this time around? [Paris Parfait]

• Is Chloe Sevigny is never not working? The Big Love star and Opening Ceremony fashion designer is coming out with a limited edition tome based on her first OC look book. "You can flip all the clothing around. You can kind of, like, mix the heads with the bodies," OC's Humberto Leon tells New York magazine. [New York]
• Stars scheduled to appear at the CFDA awards on Monday: Victoria Beckham, Eva Mendes and Maggie Gyllenhaal. Posh will be in Marc Jacobs, Mendes in Calvin Klein, and Maggie G in Proenza. [Elle UK]
• Laura Bennett, the redhead overachiever from Project Runway has 8 million kids, a clothing line, a huge apartment, and a comic strip in the Village Voice. [Blogging Project Runway]
• Proenza Schouler, who have been nominated for the 3rd year in a row for CFDA Womenswear Designer of the Year award, spill all (er, some) in an interview with Fashion Week Daily. These guys must have been nuns in a past life or something. [Fashion Week Daily]
• Patricia Field won’t be applying for welfare anytime soon. The stylist who got her start throwing glitter on the hot-pants of drag queens is now developing a line of clothing for Australian department chain, Myer. [The Australian]
• Beauty may fade, but supermodels are forever. Miles Socha reports in WWD how old-school models are returning to big-time ad campaigns. “Linda Evangelista is starring in Prada, Naomi Campbell in Yves Saint Laurent, Claudia Schiffer in Chanel and Salvatore Ferragamo, Eva Herzigova in Louis Vuitton and Christy Turlington in Escada.” More here: [WWD]
• Need to know how to deal with articles of clothing that have shrunk? The WSJ offers groundbreaking suggestions such as, check the label for cleaning directions, store your receipts in a shoebox, and other things my grandmother told me in 1957. [Wall Street Journal]
• Michael Kors confesses that he used to layer legwarmers: “I not only wore them, I used to wear two or three pairs. Everything was some shade of dusty mauve and rose, what I call 'ishy colors.' At the time I was wearing a burgundy boot.” [Style.com]
• Ugh. Members of the Chinese elite “are willing to spend their savings on designer fashions, seen as the ultimate status symbol in a communist country that is increasingly becoming preoccupied with the trappings of wealth.” [Reuters]
• Coach Inc., plans to open 50 new retail units in China. Um, I’m sorry, but wasn’t there just a devastating earthquake there? [WWD]
• Anthropologie: "[The store's] retail environment is an artful rendition of a French market that creates a mood of discovery and whimsy. While the merchandise is a unique mix of found objects from around the globe, the store is as close to a genuine French flea market as is the French bread sold at Safeway." [Business Week]
• Vogue is prepping a photo shoot starring its own editorial and fashion assistants. Says one source: "...At Vogue, you have to dress like a model anyway, so this probably isn't a stretch for the various women involved." [Fashionista]

On how fashion is stupid, even though Linda Evangelista adamantly seems to believe it is not.

Modeling is just showing up and putting on clothes. I was beaten up in school and had paint poured over my head. I was tall and gawky and lost. I didn't know the language very well—that made me a target...I may not have loved it, but I'm not stupid. What other job could I have pursued where I could make $10,000 a day with no education? By the time I was working on Estee I had this problem where I would get physically ill before work every day. I would feel like I was going to vomit, and then I would call in sick and suddenly feel fine. That'w when I knew there was something psychosomatic going on. I hated it...I showed up to work on time and that was my orte. I wasn't interested in fashion like the Holy Trinity — Naomi Campbell, Christy Turlington and Linda Evangelista. They thought modeling was an art form. When you watch Linda work, you can feel like her bones are cracking — it's almost alien. I never thought matching my handbag to my shoes was all that important.

On how you should spend more time with your husband and kids but never own up to that publicly!

I never fear three-way love situations. Every party had a hand in it. I feel perfectly fine about being a homewrecker, especially since I've ended up being married to him twice as long as he was married to her. Making each other a number-one priority. So we don't have glorious careers, but we have a glorious marriage. I think it's so sad when women say, 'Oh, I've been spending my last few years being a mom.' It's like, you were someone before you had children, and you aer sure as hell going to need to be someone afterward. Being a mother is something I do daily, like showering or eating. It's not my career.

On her abortive attempt to Dance with the Stars!

I was the first to be sent home. I sat in my hotel room in LA and ate caramels for a week, until my family had to drag me out of bed. I should have guessed: I look like a giraffe on crack when I try to dance.

P.S. Isn't Cindy Crawford just about the worst when it comes to reading lines? She totally would've failed at the correspondent challenge on Top Model.

• British Fashion Council head Harold Tillman wants to start a "Big Sister" program in which old skool supermodels mentor malnourished up-and-coming mannequins. Leading the way in this admirable new endeavor? Naomi Campbell. [Vogue UK]
  
• Elsewhere in Naomi news, she uses Berlin Fashion Week to point out on the 75th anniversary of Nazi rule that, uh, the industry is still pretty white. [Guardian UK]
  
• Elsewhere in Naomi news, did you know she asked Hugo Chavez about the Spice Girls? [Guanabee]
  
• Karl Lagerfeld: now a teddy bear. [WWD, 2nd item]
  
• Remember Zulema? From Project Runway season 2? Who got voted off for a dress which Michael Kors described as looking "like something the town whore's mom who's a real bad sewer made"? Which doesn't even make sense, but whatever? Well, now she's showing her collection during New York Fashion Week... on her MySpace page. [Sassybella]

• Balenciaga designer Nicolas Ghesquiere: really, really good at sports. Who knew? [WWD, 1st item]
• I would actually play sports if it gave me an excuse to wear Chanel. [Vogue UK]
• At Betsey Johnson's Fall/Winter 2008 runway show on Saturday (don't worry, we'll be there), the designer will be celebrating the 30-year anniversary of her line with a retrospective of 15 different looks from the house's history. She'll still be doing a cartwheel at the show's end, another 30-year old tradition, too. [WWD, 3rd item]
• Although many designers (including Marc Jacobs, Donna Karan, DVF) are showing a single "green" look at tomorrow night's "Future Fashion" show, the sisters Mulleavy of Rodarte are making their entire collection eco-friendly this season. [Fashion Week Daily]
• The recession might be bad for you, but it's going to be great for the kids looking for work in sweatshops. [Guardian]
• Um, I'm weirdly excited by a website entitled MyTights.com. [FabSugar]
• Thou shalt wear your hair in a low and tight bun for spring. [BellaSugar]
• Mischa Barton's Spring 2008 Keds ads are so much better than the ones she did for Iceberg. [Sassybella]
• Oooh video of Chanel couture collection from 1983. [Sassybella]

• The supermodels of yore think they deserve film careers. Naomi Campbell would like to start doing comedies (in itself: comedic!) and Helena Christensen hopes to be the next Bond girl. [Vogue UK]
  
• How did this not happen earlier? The official periodical of normal people who aspire to be hipsters (Nylon) teaming up with the official retailer of normal people who aspire to be hipsters, Urban Outfitters. Starting in September, little Nylon "shops" will open in all Urban Outfitters stores. [WWD, sub req'd]
  
• Disney is set to release fragrances inspired by High School Musical, Hannah Montana, The Cheetah Girls, and That's So Raven. That's so... sadly unsurprising. [WWD, sub req'd]
  
• Burt's Bees has set up an an online petition to set standards that companies must meet to be able to stamp the word "natural" on their packaging. We always feel a little unnatural buying $6 chapstick in line at the bookstore, but whatevs. [WWD, sub req'd]

• Karl Lagerfeld on violent crime prevention: "I'm rather pro-prostitution. I admire people who do it. It can't be much fun. Thank goodness for it. People need relief or they become murderers." [Vogue UK]
• A forthcoming documentary looks at the house of Louis Vuitton since it fell under the design helm of Marc Jacobs. Hey, God? Please tell me the documentarian got some footage of him trashing Galliano on the Stairmaster.. [Sassybella]
• At his company's annual meeting, Ralph Lifshitz says he hopes he lives forever (or whatever, that "Ralph Lauren" does). [WWD, sub req'd]
• The brand Adampluseve is hacking off the pesky female part of its name, hereon to be known as "Adam - Adam Lippes." Because Eve would never be there in the first place without that stolen rib of Adam's.... [WWD, sub req'd]

[LAX, July 18. Image via Bauer-Griffin]

[London, July 11. Image via Splash]

• Eva Longoria had accessories designer Rafe Totengco make custom clutches for each of her bridesmaids for her Friday nuptials to Tony Parker, and then had the girls carry their gifts down the aisle. Uh, isn't it kinda awkward to have bridesmaids carry clutches down the aisle? And how could the bridesmaids adequately straighten Longoria's train and tend to her every idiotic need besaddled with a clutch? Um okay we're stopping now. [WWD, 1st item]
  
• L'Oreal Paris makes our favorite mascara. They are also apparently racist. Sigh. [WWD, 2nd item]
  
• The Vera Wang for Kohl's drama continues to mount as Macy's drops Wang's two lingerie lines after an annoucement that Wang will be designing a third Kohl's-exclusive line. [WWD, sub req'd]

• American Eagle Outfitters and J. Crew are predicted to be the biggest sellers among teens for the upcoming back-to-school season, which means teenagers are as boring and uncreative as we remember them being. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Topshop attempts to make up for not selling Kate Moss's line online by selling vintage designer finds on its website. [WWD, final item]
• Berlin's first-ever Fashion Week begins Thursday. Meaning: Wednesday should be a good day in at the colonic clinic! [WWD, sub req'd]
• Is Prada going English? Possibly, if rumors of a sale to an English tycoon are true. Also allegedly vying for ownership are the two private equity firms that just jousted for control of Valentino, winner Permira and loser Carlyle. What does it all mean?? Um, a lot of money will be made by all. [Yahoo]
• Ferragamo is resurrecting not only iconic images from the film La Dolce Vita for its fall advertising campaign, but also the careers of former supermodels Claudia Schiffer and Stephanie Seymour. [Vogue UK]
• Dita von Teese's beauty philosophy summarized: Why be a natural beauty when using lots and lots of makeup is so creative? Spoken like a true mall goth. [Vogue UK]

Christian Dior Fall 2007 Couture Collection [Style.com]