• 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]

[Los Angeles, November 8. Image via Pacific Coast News]

• "No one wants to see curvy women," says Karl Lagerfeld, who has struggled with his weight. "You've got fat mothers with their bags of chips sitting in front of the television and saying that thin models are ugly." [News.com.au]

• Meanwhile, Christian Louboutin gave Barbie a much-needed slimming treatment. The three dolls the designer is releasing will have an all-new morphology, because the shoe man "found her ankles were too fat," reports a spokesperson. [WWD]
• Heidi Klum says becoming a Barbie was "a dream come true." There's a horror movie in that somewhere. [People]
• Tom Cruise says sweet, underminey things to Katie Holmes about her clothes, like, "I think that dress might be wearing you." The only question remaining is: Is he responsible for Suri's clothing choices? [NYDN]
• Trovata and Forever 21 have settled their copyright infringement lawsuit, just days before a second trial was to begin. The terms are confidential. Despite being sued more than 50 times, Forever 21 had never faced a jury prior to the Trovata case; Trovata had sought a multi-million-dollar judgment against Forever 21 for knocking off its shirts, but the first trial in May ended in a mistrial when six jurors sided with Trovata and one sided with Forever 21. [WWD]
• The Daily Mail did a hilarious write-around on Dov Charney, The Sleazy Sexual Predator Behind High Street Store American Apparel. Wait till they realize that the "model" in the lace bodysuit ad they hold up for particular condemnation — "it is the kind of photograph which would send shivers down the spine of anyone with a teenage daughter" — is in fact an actual porn star named Faye Valentine. We can't wait for the blistering, "exclusive" follow-up. [Daily Mail]
• Marc Jacobs: "I think the idea of people being exposed, whether it's stylists who have their reality shows or whatever, is just the way of the world. It's every chef, every stylist, every hairdresser, everybody who's doing plastic surgery. We're in a period where people are entertained by what they consider to be the real lives of people in different professions, etc. And fashion has also reached this kind of proportion like football or sport, you know — a spectator sport." [WWD]
• W magazine is reducing its frequency from 12 to 6 issues per year. This is fueling rumors that Condé Nast might be interested in buying American Elle. [FWD]
• Ugg Australia is releasing a "limited-edition" kids collection as a tie-in for the Where The Wild Things Are movie. Half the proceeds will go to St. Jude's Research Hospital. Which means half will go to making more ugly Uggs. [WWD]
• Levi's is snapping up young(ish), hip(ish) artists of both coasts in the scramble for sales: after having Ryan McGinley shoot its new ad campaign, the company has announced that printmaker extraordinaire Shepard Fairey will have a capsule collection in stores by the end of this month under the label Obey x Levi's. [WWD]
• Turns out that with the move to selling exclusively at J.C. Penney, Liz Claiborne isn't closing the Claiborne by John Bartlett line — it's just firing two-time CFDA-winner John Bartlett less than halfway into his three-year contract. [WWD]
• Meanwhile, the Upper East Side has hatched another fashion label. Two people who really need the money — socialites Gigi Mortimer and Courtney Moss — want us to buy $199 rabbit fur neck warmers and $315 fox fur gloves. Oh, look: Kelly Killoren Bensimon is all over their website! [WWD]
• Women's Wear Daily puts on its thinking cap to investigate this question for the ages: Has fashion lost its mystique? Is it the reality television? Is it the Internet? Is it Marc Jacobs inviting reporters to work out with him? The story quotes an Internet commenter, and Valentino. [WWD]
• Diane von Furstenberg is mounting an exhibition of her life's work in Moscow later this month. It will include garments she designed, artifacts, and portraits of her by artists including Warhol and Horst. [WWD]

[Vancouver, October 4. Image via Bauer-Griffin]

[New York, August 6. Image via Splash.]

(Click to enlarge.)

• Breaking: Kate Moss is wearing a turban of her own creation to the Met Ball. [Fashionista]
• Did DVF rip off this jacket from an indie designer? [National Post]

• Meet the world's most expensive suit! [The Life Files]
• Dries Van Noten, intellectual designer extraordinaire, will be honored by FIT. [WWD]
• Elie Tahari has designed a "Michelle dress." Of his muse, the designer says, "She has a great style, and what's great about her is she is dressing like everybody else can dress." [WWD]
• Ooh, preview of Leanne Marshall's Bluefly line! It's gonna be green. [New York]
• Chanel opens a super-luxe beauty parlor in Tokyo. Recession fab! [WWD]
• Marc Jacobs is squiring both Madonna and Courtney Love to the Met ball! [New York]
• Good news? LVMH is (slightly) up. [WSJ]
• Rachel Zoe's reality show, going to England. Well, she's a good representative. [AP]
• Now prospective Carries have options for a jilting dress: Dame Viv has added five new wedding gowns to her range. [Fashionista]
• Uggs, the comfort food of the apparel world, continues to keep its parent co. afloat. [WWD]
• Workhorse Steve Madden is also posting strong returns. [Crains]
• Stella McCartney: "People are always trying to pull me in different directions, but I get a huge satisfaction from being able to say no! I like to do one thing properly, not lots of things quite well." [Style.com]
• Zeng Jing, a Chinese plus-sized model, invited only other plus-sized models to her engagement party, to, as she said, "highlight the concerns of larger people." Okay. [UPI]
• Speaking of modeling, Joe's Jeans wants you! "Joe wants real people with funk, spunk, and personality." [FabSugar]
• Perhaps on the strength of her Lagerfeld campaign, Jerry Hall has been re-signed by Ford. [Fashionista]
• The Avon lady is coming to TV! The struggling cosmetics veteran is branching into infomercials; we're guessing Lauren Conrad will be involved. [AP]
• Designers push for tighter regulations on piracy. Of the fashion, not naval, kind. [WWD]

• There's the usual gloom, sex, scandal and, ahem, 50 Cent's makeup line - today, but first, brace yourselves: Michelle Obama has not RSVP'd to Fashion Week. This woman's priorities are way out of whack! [WWD]

• About Fitty: he's starting a men's grooming line, containing both moisturizers and supplements. Quoth "someone," "his range will be for the guy who likes to be pampered, but the supplements will make it more butch." [Yahoo via New York]
• Katie Holmes' latest batch of Miu Miu photos is "softer" than the last: Read, she's lying around dreamily in firelight. [Popsugar]
• A bunch of children's Harajuku Lovers Hooded Jackets by Gwen Stefani are being recalled in California because their defective ties are a "strangulation risk." [CPSC]
• Kelly Cutrone, who's cut an awesomely bitchy swath across the reality show landscape, may now be getting her own. Fashion PR doyenne Cutrone, who's stirred pots on The City and The Hills, has inked an eight-episode deal with Bravo for a show that follows her, presumably, insulting people at her company People's Revolution. [New York Post]
• Alexander McQueen brings a touch of punk to a Target near you: "The heart of McQ is rebellious youth culture, a certain spirit that embodies the regular line as well as the Target collection. It's an ‘eighties punk aesthetic that evokes the anarchy and social change of the time. Youth culture now really looks back and embraces the past, but keeps it contemporary but not sticking to one particular style." [New York]
• Victoria's Secret is introducing a new, green fragrance line to the bordello, plus a perfume that "smells like lace." [Racked]
• It would seem that the president of Theory was one of Madoff's manifold victims, along wit a score of other fashion insiders. Bernie, meanwhile, is still sitting pretty under house arrest - one hopes not in a Theory suit! [WWD]
• It's not much, but they'll take it: LVMH reported a "slim annual increase" and flat profits for the year. [WSJ]
• In case no one was sure that Lorenzo Martone was Marc Jacobs' boy toy, the Brazilian looker sported, to the premiere of He's Just Not That Into You, a shirt bearing the immortal words: "Do me in the park. Marc." [New York Post]
• Sometimes there's just no point in paraphrasing the perfection of the British press:
  "Alice Hawkins looks like Dolly Parton and likes to hang out with gangsters, showgirls and topless models. She also happens to be one of the fashion world's hottest photographers." [Telegraph]
• Oh noes! Teri Agins, the respected Wall Street Journal fashion writer, is a recession casualty. [Forbes]
• Hey, remember that cute "I die. Bananas" tee? Yeah, cease and desist. Zoe has them trademarked. [New York]
• DVF just threw an odd luncheon, the guest list of which included Diana Ross, James Frey, The City + cameras, and a bunch of designers. Stars: they're nothing like us! [WWD]
• Ugh: The UGG index is up, which is bad news for real shoes, the economy. [MSNBC]
• UGGS, at least, are total depression-wear: dreary, warm, stolid. The continuing popularity of Crocs? Totally baffling! [Telegraph]
• Zara, one of the other indestructibles, expands its sorta-fast fashion to India. [FT]
• We can add nothing to this: Lilly Pulitzer-print Jeep. [Fashion Week Daily]
• What can we say? Digging on Julia Roitfeld's ads for Mango! [Fashionista]

• Designer Oscar de la Renta says Hillary Clinton, whom he's dressing for the Inaugural ball, is "very prudish about the type of clothes she likes to wear." It's a constant battle! [People]

• Fergie's MAC campaign is — how do we put this? —scary. [Oh No They Didn't]
• “Did you know there’s dissent in the Gossip Girl wardrobe closet? The main costume designer is clashing with the other stylists and producers on set because they think he’s making Blake look like a “trashy whore” and they’re convinced he was responsible for her awful Golden Globes dress." [Fashionista]
• Showing a total disregard for celebrity morale, every designer seems to be canceling their fashion week parties. [WWD]
• As the financial crisis hits the luxe market hard, both Elizabeth Arden and Estee Lauder cut their profit views. [Reuters]
• Alexander McQueen and Puma are teaming up for a (tartan?!) sportswear line. [WWD]
• Edina Monsoon, take note: Christian Lacroix is selling his Paris apartment for about $2.6 million. [WSJ]
• If you were panting to see the spawn of Keith Richards, Carly Simon and James Taylor shill for Lucky jeans (us neither), sorry, Charlie, you'll have to go online. [WWD]
• Optimism? Red herring? Either way, Project Runway is on the fashion week schedule, and we want to believe! [Blogging Project Runway]
• Dolce and Gabbana's long-awaited foray into cosemtics happens next month. [WWD]
• Wait for it: Alexander Wang's diffusion line is actually cheap! [New York]
• Jonathan Rhys Meyers, currently ludicrous for Hugo Boss cologne, will be the legs of New Energie jeans. [WWD]
• Stetson, us, wants Obama to wear a fedora to the Inaugural. We can all dream on. [Brand Freak]
• Oy: Saks is laying of 1,100 employees. That's 9% of its workforce. [WWD]
• And yet Uggs, the cockroach of the clothing world, are still doing better than ever! [Telegraph]
• Michael Pitt's doing the short film thin for designer Stefano Pilati. [WWD]
• And in real news, Calvin Klein is wrangling with the preservation board over overhaulin' his Hamptons waterfront home. [Media Bistro]

Because it is just so not fair that Deckers Outdoor Corp., the California-based company that manufactures the vile sheepskin boots (as well the Teva sandal) should be sitting pretty at a time when genuine fashion talents are scrambling to stay afloat. Overstocked major retailers are discounting so deeply that smaller, less nimble stores may not survive, financial backers are beating a retreat, and barely a day goes by without the news of store closures, label discontinuation, or outright bankruptcy. Obedient Sons and Daughters: gone. Peter Som: working hard to even put together a show next month. Macy's: shuttering 10 stores that together employed over 960 people. Badgley Mischka: permanently lowering prices. In the midst of all these threats to talents both established and emerging, would it be too much to ask for a little clearing of the dead wood?

And for that, might I nominate Uggs? Uggs should be prime candidates for demolition in this scorched-earth retail environment. Uggs flatter nobody. Though made of sheepskin, they are not waterproof or suitable for cold climates. (They come from Australia, and their international popularity epicenter is southern California, after all.) They are overpriced, costing well above $100 for what is a glorified pair of slippers. They were a trend eight years ago, and should, according to the laws of trend fashion, have matured into something the hip set would be embarrassed to be seen in by now. They make feet look like pastel sausages. They get so steamy inside that athlete's foot can be a concern. And they take only the merest provocation to roll a wearer's ankle.

And yet they persist. Last November, Ugg opened its first standalone store in Europe, inside a West London luxury mall. The Chicago Tribune reported on December 22 that an area Nordstrom was entirely quiet, except for the shoe department, where Uggs are sold. Racked snapped a picture of shoppers lined up outside the SoHo store on December 24, waiting for it to open. Although initially investors nervous about the retail sector let share prices for Deckers Outdoor Corp. fall to less than $50 in late November, the company's performance has been stellar by every other measure. Earnings and revenues are up from 2007. People are still buying the damn things.

This must stop. If ever there were a brand marked for total annihilation in these straitened times, it would be the uncomfortable, unsupporting, ugly footwear choice of megatanned B-list celebrities shuffling towards gas station convenience stores at 11:30 in the morning. The whole point of this recession was to throw a little cold water on overheated consumer culture so that people would no longer line up in the December pre-dawn freeze to pay too much charging so-called status items on their Visas; instead of blindly following trends, we were going to think about fit and flattering cuts and durability and wearability and whether buying non-waterproof boots with flimsy soles in shades of show-dirt beige is actually a sensible thing to do. Instead, we're abandoning CDFA award nominees and driving small retailers out of business. And I was so hoping for a silver lining.

Related: These Uggs Aren't Made For Walking [Independent]
Why Uggs Won't Be Feeling The Pinch [Telegraph]
A Shopper's Cold Toes Lead Her To A Warm Pair Of Uggs [Chicago Tribune]
Ugg in Soho Undaunted By the Recession, Christmas [Racked]
Ugg, Teva Maker Bucking The Recession? [BloggingStocks]

• Apparently emboldened by last week's success in Milan, Bruno — aka Sacha Baron Cohen — crashed Stella McCartney today. "With his red thong clearly visible above his jeans, the comedian — who was virtually unrecognisable in a flamboyant leather gilet, with his slicked-down hair dyed blonde and brown — sucked Tampax, clapped along to the music and generally disgruntled the front row by continually pushing aside those sitting in front of him for a better look at the models." He then delivered a "lone standing ovation." [VogueUK]
• In total radness: DVF to design a comic book in connection with her Wonder Woman-inspired collection. Really hoping she has to make the rounds of the comics conventions. [Fashionista]
• Chloe Sevigny gets into menswear. Well, Gallo will wear it. [Nylon]

• Andre Benjamin's clothing line is for the modern fop. "To create a persona for his fashion line, Mr. Benjamin combined his surname with that of Bill Bixby. The character is a world traveler whose wardrobe includes things like a $995 cotton corduroy blazer, a $350 felted waistcoat and a $95 newsboy cap." [NY Times]
• Whoever wears that will surely be the intended demographic for "J. Crew's first book." "Written by Max Blagg and illustrated by Hugo Guinness, What a Man Should Know is a collection of 50 (very) whimsical tips for the modern male. So what should you know? Chess, wine, and figure-drawing." [Men.Style]
• Some people claimed Heidi stole the Project Runway premise — aka the same setup every single competition reality show has ever had ever. A judge, not surprisingly, dismissed it. [wwltv]
• Michelle Obama sports H&M on the campaign trail. [BlackBook]
• Lagerfeld video. Nuff said. [NY Mag]
• Scary Spice Mel B wants a Project Runway-style reality show. Get in line, kid. [E]
• Rather than going bargain basement, Target courts recessionistas. [Business Week]
• More on Miss Sixty's woes. [BBC]
• Sorta It-Girl Cory Kennedy to replace Kinda It-Girl Daisy Lowe as the face of Docs. [Fashionista]
• Levi's tries way, way too hard: "The San Francisco company has launched a new viral effort it hopes will attract young men to pass along videos of customized "beasts" emerging from the button-fly of Levi's jeans. At Unbuttonyourbeast.com, visitors can choose from nine different animated characters with names like Trout Troutman, Paul the Pincher and Sock Nasty, then customize the beast's message by calling a toll-free number. The effort, unsurprisingly, is geared to young men just out of college." The emails are titled, "Do you dare to unbutton my beast?" [AdWeek]
• India eases the way for the burgeoning luxury market. [IHT]
• Guy Ritchie's first hit since hooking up with Madge: a Nike ad gets big on YouTube. [Telegraph]
• Naomi Campbell's gonna walk for Hermes; everybody flips out. [Fashion Week Daily]
• I wish these celebs would stop calling their mix tapes "albums." Anyhoo, Heatherette designer Richie Rich's, "Celebutante," is about to drop. [Fashionista]
• "If there were a gold medal for marathon modeling, Shalom Harlow would surely win it for the Viktor & Rolf fashion film that will begin today on the Dutch duo’s Web site. 'It was like the fashion Olympics,' said Rolf Snoeren, who, with Viktor Horsting, reenacted a high-tech version of 'Funny Face' to showcase their spring collection. 'It was 14 hours a day on high heels, but she was a champion.'” [WWD]
• 80's power shoulders are big (sorry) on the Paris runways. [WSJ]
• That gold statue of Kate Moss was just unveiled. [Mirror]
• UGGS are like cockroaches: all that will be left after a nuclear holocaust. While everything else is foundering, UGGs is way up! [WSJ]
• The Lauren Conrad line forlorn and unbought. [Page Six]
• Bossy new bikini has "decorative beads" that change color when UV rays grow dangerously high. [Telegraph]
• Screw Jimmy Choos. Cheap shoes make more sense for actual walking. [Daily News]
• "Margherita Missoni, meanwhile, has experienced some teasing for wearing vintage sparkling Harper’s Bazaar frames — due to an eye problem. 'Suzy Menkes says it’s my Sarah Palin look,' she laughed. 'It is definitely not inspired by her.'" [WWD]

• Breaking news: a Telegraph profile today inspired me to finally watch the Agyness Deyn music video. It is generic and derivative and cynically targeted at the aging Britpop nostalgists who write blogs and I fucking love it. Oh man, and I don't even hate myself for this. Embedded after the jump. [Telegraph]
  
• Tinsley Mortimer's makeup may look light and natural but it is actually deceptively heavy and high-maintenance! One brave New York writer consumed three hours she will never get back in an effort to emulate the Tinz. And you wonder why they pay her the big bucks. [NY Mag]

• It's intern theme day at Rag Trade! Hockey player Sean Avery just started his internship at Vogue. WWD thinks it's kind of scandalous that he maybe gets to attend the couture shows with Andre Leon Talley. Fashionista thinks it's kind of scandalous that he's actually getting paid minimum wage when "almost every single other intern there not only doesn't get paid at all, but usually ends up actually paying to be there (as I, dear reader, did three times for Conde internships)." We can think of other things involving the minimum wage that scandalize us more, but why discuss the travails of ordinary Americans when...
• We found out the real reason Teen Vogue banned high school interns! A tipster tells us: "so last year, one of teen vogue's interns crashed the met ball in a dress she had borrowed without permission from the teen vogue fashion closet, and then [blogged] about all the celebrities she met and exactly what they said to her... and then Kimball Hastings lost his shit, obviously."
• We had high hopes that a recession would usher in a new era of fashion, but this is somewhat worrisome: retail sales are so dismal that H&M sales fell last quarter for the first time since the Clinton Administration. [WWD]
• And yet! Abercrombie & Fitch somehow continues to thrive. [WWD]
• Which can only be auspicious for the...Ugg clothing line! [FabSugar]

• So that's what Naomi Campbell was doing in Venezuela: interviewing Hugo Chavez for British GQ. Now they're sending her to talk to Fidel Castro. Is this a fucking joke? And if not, does she realize the whole Latin American socialist alliance thing is like, kinda last season? [Vogue UK]
  
• Selling real fur as "faux": clever move, Neiman and Saks! [Consumerist]
  
• On the heels of an ELLE redesign, Vogue is undergoing some design "tweaking" of its own. [WWD, 1st item]
  
• Agyness Deyn is the face of — well, the whole entire fucking universe, including the Armani cell phone. [Sassybella]

• Marketing ploy we just can't avoid: Blackberry has asked Karl Lagerfeld, Dita von Teese, Henry Holland and others to share their favorite secret spots for the masses on their new website The B List. Karl: likes eating tacos at La Esquina in NYC. Where they put crickets in the tacos! [Vogue UK]
• Signing bottles of Armani perfume in Milan, Beyonce shared how excited she was to go to her "mum's" for Christmas. Oh god. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Whoah: Over-the-knee Uggs. [FabSugar]
• Coach: still doing meh. [Portfolio]
• Lanvin Spring 2008 ads: you know, they said the giant tent-dress trend was over, but not really getting that vibe with this one... [Sassybella]
• Valentino Spring 2008 ads: who needs plastic surgery when you've got a giant handbag to shield your face? [Sassybella]

[London, December 20. Image via INF.]

• We don't think we can design clothes, so why do clothing designers think they can blog? The Proenza Schouler boys, Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez, will be blogging for the New York Times's T: Style magazine's new site all this week. Says T's online editor, "One of the things I'm trying to avoid is solipsistic navel-gazing." Um, good luck with that! [Fashion Week Daily]
  
• What would you do with $15 million? If you're Mr. Dolce and Mr. Gabbana, you use it to give your New York flagship store a little make-over! [WWD, sub req'd]
  
• And apparently it took $15 fucking million for Mr. Dolce and Mr. Gabbana to haul their Italian booties here to New York. The designers will be back in New York for the first time in two years to celebrate the re-opening of their store at a private dinner tomorrow night. No, we weren't invited. [NYP]
  
• Say what you will about Sarah Jessica Parker, but at least she understands decorum. Of super low-rise jeans she says, "There is not going to be any inappropriate midriff showing, regardless of age," she says. "It's provocative in a way that I just don't feel comfortable with." Also? Kind of 5 years ago. [Daily Express]

• Prepare yourselves, people: Snowjoggers are the new Uggs. Just as ugly, and worn by Lohan too! [Independent]
• Stop the madness! Fashion houses are now hiring meteorologists as consultants to help them best predict the upcoming weather patterns and what kinda clothes folks are going to want to wear given the climate. Ridiculous? Or inspired? [NYT]
• The new apartment building in New York designed by Zac Posen's boyfriend is being shot by Elle international creative director Gilles Bensimon for an "advertorial" for Elle Decor. Follow? No? The lesson here is: It's all about who you're fucking. [Fashion Week Daily]
• Claire Danes walked as a model for Cynthia Rowley when she was 16. And waved to the other model going the opposite direction. Thank God this bitch isn't always so perfect! [Sassybella]
• Teen Vogue continues its strange dance between "art" and life as senior editor Kimball Hastings leaves the Condé Nast title to become the head of celebrity dressing for Polo Ralph Lauren. First: That's an actual job? Second: Apparently now Hastings himself is a "celebrity" because, uh, he's been on The Hills. [WWD, 1st item]
• The Wilhemina modeling agency is 40 years old! Mazel tov, models. [WWD, 5th item]
• Luxury markets? Not doing so well. Our guess? People are over expensive shit. [WWD, sub req'd]
• You've heard of a shaman — Rupert Sanderson is a shoe man. And when he sees a woman on the street in a pair of his handcrafted shoes, he has been known to "hurr[y] along behind her checking the balance and the line of the shoe, to see whether she [is] comfortable walking in them. [Then I] realise that I [am] getting a bit close though so I ha[ve] to cross the road in order not to appear like a stalker. But I got a better perspective on the shoes from the other side anyway." [Vogue UK]
• Burberry designer Christopher Bailey not only won Menswear Designer of the Year at the British Fashion Awards last week, but he also took home the Bambi Award for Fashion on Thursday and an honorary degree on Friday. All these people giving him accolades do know that he designs for Burberry, right? [Vogue UK]
• OMG cutest thing ever: A website where you can try to find your glove's lost mate! [Sassybella]

Too Posh For La La Land [The Guardian]

I saw a young woman last week who had completely wrecked the boot at the back - the sole is a very soft material and it hadn't held her foot in position. This can cause a lowering of the arch, which can cause tendon strain. Her sole had just worn through, like you'd find on the slippers of an old lady hobbling around a nursing home.

The UGGly Truth [Daily Mail UK]