Amy Winehouse Once Barbecued A £15,000 Alexander McQueen Dress

An old boyfriend of Alexander McQueen says that Amy Winehouse and the designer had a feud. McQueen offended the singer when they met — the boyfriend doesn’t say how, but it was apparently serious enough that when McQueen sent Winehouse a £15,000 dress by way of apology, she burned it. On her barbecue. Winehouse also once spat on a McQueen dress at a department store; the store made her pay for it, which she agreed to do. “Fine,” she supposedly said, “but tell Alexander McQueen I ruined his dress.” [Daily Mail]
After consulting with the late singer’s family, fashion label Fred Perry will produce two more collections from its collaboration with Amy Winehouse. “Amy’s royalties and fees from both collections will be donated to the soon-to-be-established Amy Winehouse Foundation,” explained the company. “Fred Perry will also make a seasonal donation to the Foundation.” [WWD]

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The “Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty” show at the Met closed this weekend, having broken all kinds of attendance records. During the final weekend, when the museum kept the show open ’til midnight, lines stretched for entire city blocks. Among the last to see it were Ladyfag, and a 14-year-old girl and her mother, who had sewn a copy of a McQueen tartan dress from his Widows of Culloden collection and a copy of McQueen’s famous white dress, which was spray-painted by automotive robots live at one of his shows. “‘I’ve still got spray paint on me,’ Bella said, lifting the first dress to show a leg speckled in green,” reports the Times. [NYTimes]
The McQueen show was not only the most well-attended Costume Institute show ever, by the time it closed it had become the Met’s eighth most popular show of all time. [Artinfo]

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The Kardashian Kollection for Sears isn’t even in stores yet — but if you’d care to pre-order some $25 panties or a $99 stretch jersey dress or a $22 plastic-and-rhinestone ring, sight unseen, you can do so now and get 30% off. $17 panties! Awesome. [Racked]

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It’s been a long time since fashion had a story about hemlines. Designers showed a lot of midi skirts — that’s below-the-knee skirts, to us plebs — for fall, and this time, Alexandra Shulman swears it’ll be different. Women have traditionally been resistant to the whole shit-or-get-off-the-pot in-between-ness of midi skirts (just read Kennedy Fraser’s take on the Great Midi Debacle of 1970: “Last year, our skies rang with charges that the new lengths were regressive and inappropriate”). Shulman, the editor of British Vogue, strikes a reassuring note: “Not that anyone is going to be deprived of the mini altogether, it’s just that we are going to have more options.” [Daily Mail]

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Supermodel Carolyn Murphy‘s biggest regret? “Not going to college, I would have loved to major in literature.” [Models.com]

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Lindsey Wixson, 17, was shot poking herself in the eye with an ice-cream cone for the latest issue of i-D. [FGR]

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Daisy Lowe posed for the cover of the new Playboy. And inside, she wears a pearl necklace. Geddit? Yeah. Also, nobody has any pubic hair anymore. [CQ, link NSFW, duh]

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Britain and Ireland’s Next Top Model did a nude shoot. Surprised it took them this long. [Daily Mail]

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Things that make you go “huh”: Josh Foer‘s Moonwalking With Einstein, a cultural history of memory-cum-narrative of the author’s journey to the finals of the U.S. Memory Championship, made it onto Fashionista’s August “mood board.” Right next to Lara Stone, Johnny Depp and Kate Moss, Miu Miu, Marni, and Angela Chase. [Fashionista]

• Kanye West wants it to be known that he’s just not that into Miss Universe Albania 2010 and Elite model Angela Martini. According to Page Six, Martini was not allowed to attend the launch party for Watch the Throne. “Sources say Martini cozied up to one of West’s producers so she could attend his earlier listening party at the Hayden Planetarium, but West nixed her from the after-party.” And in July, Martini “rushed over to Greenhouse after Rihanna’s concert when she heard West was partying there, but sources say West didn’t want to see her. Another source said, ‘She eats at his favorite restaurant, Niko, near his SoHo apartment just to bump into him. She says they’re in love.'” Martini was unavailable for comment because she was too busy clipping photos to add to the “Angela + Kanye 4-Eva” motivational collage she keeps in her bedroom closet, next to the chloroform and the handcuffs. [P6]
• Kanye is apparently designing a line of stilettos with Guiseppe Zanotti. “Kanye is always here in my factory. In the last three years, he has come here maybe every month and worked with the employees 10 to 12 hours a day,” says Zanotti. [Telegraph]
• And now, a moment with model/actress/DJ/socialite/sculptor/music label executive Hannah Bronfman, of, you know, the Bronfmans: “Our family is in the medical marijuana game right now. My brother has a permit to cultivate organic weed in Oakland, and we are in the process of opening a dispensary with Cypress Hill. B-Real called me up and asked me to do it in my aesthetic.” Her parents love this idea. “They see it how it is, the next billion-dollar crop. It’s just funny, because our family started with Seagram’s during Prohibition. So we’re going round two right now. Same shit, different day.” [WWD]
• Vivienne Westwood said some moderately critical things about Kate Middleton‘s eye makeup and overall “style.” Are you ready to be outraged?! “I think she’s got a problem with eye make-up! The sharp line around her eyes make her look hard.” Westwood also thinks Kate Moss wears “too much vintage.” [Telegraph]
• Tavi Gevinson is no longer partnered with Jane Pratt to launch her planned magazine for teenaged girls. Gevinson, 15, decided not to work with Say Media — the backers for Pratt’s latest project, XOJane.com — on Rookie. “It was just that I want to have full control, and it’s important to me that we’re independent, not so that we can be indie and ‘down with the Man,’ but because I find a lot of comfort knowing that it’s all in my control.” [WWD]
• J.Crew, which currently has no stores outside the U.S., is about to open its first of a planned 25-30 Canadian stores. The company used to have some licensed stores in Japan, and wants to re-enter that market, along with China, too. [WWD]
• Mary J. Blige says that her latest perfume “represents where I am today. It’s about arriving at that place of self-acceptance and really finding inner peace.” Who knew that Mary J. Blige’s inner peace could be had for $55 a bottle? [People]
• Gen Art, an organization that offers emerging designers the chance to show at New York fashion week, is back after almost going bankrupt two years ago. Designers including Zac Posen, Phillip Lim, and Kate and Laura Mulleavy of Rodarte have benefitted from Gen Art’s support in the past; this season, four accessories designers and seven ready-to-wear designers will get the Gen Art treatment. [WWD]
• Saks Fifth Avenue is getting into the online flash-sale game. [WWD]
• Andrej Pejic and Lea T. filmed a commercial for Gay Men’s Health Crisis. [Andrej Pejic Page]
• No way! You mean outlet stores sometimes carry merchandise that isn’t totally pristine? And don’t have generous returns/exchanges policies? And some stores even design and manufacture totally different products just to sell them at their “outlet” stores? That’s crazy! Wow! [LATimes]