Jessica Alba And Kate Winslet Score Fashion Campaigns

Two actresses have nabbed major campaigns this morning. Piaget took to its Facebook page to reveal Jessica Alba as its newest face. Rachel Zoe escapee Brad Goreski styled the campaign, which makes Alba look pretty thoroughly un-pregnant. Meanwhile, St. John made a big deal last season about replacing Angelina Jolie, a mere actress, with the model Karen Elson. The brand sniffed that it was “getting back to its roots” (we suspect it had simply tired of paying Angie’s $10 million fee). Well, so much for that! Next season’s face will be Kate Winslet. Sorry, models. [Elle]

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One look from Gucci‘s spring collection looks very similar to something Marilyn Monroe wore in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. [Fashionista]

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Johnny Weir‘s new dress collection features some looks with bustles and corsets. “I myself am a lady with quite an ample booty,” explains Weir. “So I love bustles for that reason.” He also says, “I’m hoping that some of RuPaul’s drag queens will wear these dresses.” [The Cut]

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Flatforms. Supposedly they’re big this season. [NYPost]

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• New York night life photographer Patrick McMullan accidentally stepped on the train of Blake Lively‘s dress at a red carpet. The train adhered to his shoe, so when McMullan walked away, he tore it right off. Lively went to a bathroom — where she apparently burst in on an occupied stall — and safety-pinned the train onto her butt. [NYDN, The Cut]
• Even though it’s only April, Us weekly has determined that Jessica Simpson is the Style Icon of the Year. We’d, uh, quibble with that assessment, but we actually don’t care what Us weekly thinks about…anything. [Us]
• Vogue editor and woman who never bothered learning to wash her hair Lauren Santo Domingo has given birth to a baby boy. [NYPost]
• Allegedly, the royal wedding has New Yorkers lining up to buy hats for their wedding-viewing parties. We actually have a nifty DIY cooking on this topic as we type; hang in there, royal watchers/hat lovers. [NYDN]
• What comes after the royal wedding, again? Oh, that’s right, the Met Ball! Goody. When Dennis Freedman, the Barneys creative director, suggested Daphne Guinness get dressed for the gala in the store’s windows, her reaction was “I thought, ‘Of course!'” But the couture collecting heiress who doesn’t like to be called “eccentric” won’t be nude in view of the public. “I am not doing a burlesque — no way. I’m going to be getting dressed behind something. I’m not Dita Von Teese, nor shall I be.” The chosen dress is a feathered Alexander McQueen. [NYTimes]
• Inès de la Fressange, on walking in Chanel‘s most recent show: “Listen, it was a stupid idea of pure vanity. The thing the most difficult to get rid of is vanity. When somebody tells you, ‘You’re just gorgeous, you’re beautiful, I would like you to do my show,’ how do you say, ‘Oh no no, thank you, not for me.’ You say, ‘Oh really? Thank you!’ And you do it. Even with my old age, no wisdom at all. I was there, and I had flat shoes, because Karl knows I usually wear flat shoes, and I had all these Ukrainian, huge giants around me. I was feeling so much like a granny … And then it was impossible to escape, it was too late. I had to go on the runway, and then two or three friends of mine started to clap, in a very nice way. Maybe they felt bad for me, it was very, very kind of them, but it gave the idea to others to clap. And usually at fashion shows, nobody claps anymore. I mean, you clap at the end but not at the fashion show anymore — you tweet, you phone, you put your eyeglasses on, whatever, but you don’t clap, not anymore. But they were clapping and smiling. [So] it was fun to do it like this, just also because it was a symbol that even the big Karl Lagerfeld himself could appreciate a woman that had a bit of a tummy, wrinkles, all the things you get after a while.” [The Cut]
• A new study indicates that less than 2% of online purchases are attributable to social media. [Mashable]
• Harper’s Bazaar‘s Glenda Bailey thinks the proposed law to criminalize the buying of counterfeit designer goods in New York City is a great idea, “So all of those people from Des Moines who go to Chinatown and are somewhat innocent — or not! — fine them $1,000.” Do you hear that, all of you people from Des Moines who go to Chinatown? Glenda Bailey is on to you. And your tacky, cheap counterfeit-buying ways. [The Cut]
• Yesterday, there was a rumor that Steven Meisel would be shooting this year’s Pirelli calendar. But it’s Mario Sorrenti instead. [FashionETC]
• When people react negatively to Vogue Italia editor Franca Sozzani‘s blog posts — like the one she wrote calling fashion blogs stupid, or the one she wrote accusing the alleged victims of John Galliano’s anti-Semitic attacks of just being out for “thirty pieces of silver,” or the one she wrote announcing her campaign against pro-anorexia websites, without acknowledging or seeming to consider the fact that fashion and its imagery might play any role in the glamorization of a body type that can, for most women, be maintained only via dangerous means — she has one very clear response. “I respond, ‘They can go to hell.’ I say that I’m sick and tired and I won’t write my blog anymore, then they say, ‘Oh, continue.’ I write what I think and we can’t all agree; if we all did, where would controversy be? If there is no controversy, there is no opinion. If there were controversy, we wouldn’t have Berlusconi, right? We would maybe have someone else. So the beauty is to have controversy. Unfortunately, we don’t have it in Italy, and for this reason our political situation remains what it is. I don’t need to prove anything to anyone, because I’ve been head of a magazine for 22 years, and I find that I can express my ideas the way I want to. Then if you don’t agree, we can discuss it. I didn’t say I’m right, I say what I think.” On Photoshop: “We have this damn Photoshop, where 14-year-old girls are polished, they take away the stomach, the sides and they all seem thinner. And why shouldn’t one have wrinkles? I don’t understand.” Franca Sozzani doesn’t understand why images are so extensively manipulated, everyone. Do you think someone could explain it to her? Women’s Wear Daily asked the obvious follow-up: doesn’t Vogue Italia use Photoshop, too? “We use it less and less, increasingly so — actually recently I am very much against it. But now it’s part of daily use and you can’t blame it. There are few photographers who don’t use Photoshop, very few. But you can’t say fashion is the cause of anorexia — what about Twiggy in the Sixties? There were anorexics already, were they so because of Twiggy? Or Jean Shrimpton? There are psychological problems. I don’t feel a hypocrite at all and I couldn’t care less if they say I am.” Franca Sozzani reports that her blog, by the way, only gets between 1,000 and 3,000 hits a day. [WWD]