- Nicolas Ghesquière picked the intolerably cool Charlotte Gainsbourg to advertise Balenciaga's perfume. Ghesquière calls his friend "one of the most inspiring girls in the world." Gainsbourg said, "I was secretly hoping to be the face of Nicolas' first perfume." [WWD]
- Sources are saying Rihanna has an editorial, shot by Steven Klein, in Italian Vogue's September issue. [Fashionologie]
- Julia Restoin-Roitfelt, French Vogue editor-in-chief Carine Roitfeld's daughter, is the face of a new perfume by Jil Sander. [NowSmellThis]
- Hold onto your quirky hats, everybody! There's going to be a new hour-long television drama set in the New York fashion world. Because it's going to star a lady, it'll be just like the new Sex And The City! Isn't that exciting? [Variety]
- The ten finalists in this year's CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund are: Flora Gill and Alexa Adams of Ohne Titel; Natalie Chanin of Alabama Chanin; Patrik Ervell, Sophie Theallet, Waris Ahluwalia of House of Waris, Wayne Lee of Wayne, George Esquivel of Esquivel Shoes, Gary Graham, Monique Péan, and Simon Spurr of Spurr. Congratulations to them all! The winners of the six-year-old cash and mentorship award will be announced on November 16; past honorees include Proenza Schouler, Alexander Wang, and Doo-Ri Chung. [WWD]
- Doo-Ri Chung is just one of many designers whose business has been hurt by the economic downturn. Chung is owed more than $60,000 by the owners of Jake, a small, independent Chicago boutique. Specialty retailers have been among the hardest-hit in the whole retail sector, but the two men behind Jake, Jim Wetzel and Lance Lawson, actually managed to reorganize their company when it went bankrupt, and continue on as employees of a new entity, the Jake Retail Group. Except that Jake Retail Group did not assume liability for any of the store's debts — meaning that Chung, plus other young designers like Brian Réyes, Tina Lutz and Marsha Patmos of Lutz & Patmos, and Emma Fletcher of Lyell, are out tens of thousands of dollars each for clothes they made and shipped, and Jake sold, but which haven't been paid for. [NYTimes]
- Lyle Lodwick, brother of fameballer Jakob, is a male model. He says that male models take their jobs less seriously than women models do — which is generally true — but also that women models are, naturally, bitchier. "I've heard horror stories of girls putting needles in a girl's shoes so when she's on the runway she'll fall over." Lodwick: Whichever sweet model lady told you that is pulling your leg. [TDB]
- Ossie Clark, the iconic British label that was briefly revived by private investors, is closing again. [WWD]
- The occasion of Berlin designer Patrick Mohr's recent homelessness-themed collection, where he had homeless people walk his runway caked in mud, is used to peg a list of other politically edgy collections of varying levels of success — like John Galliano's own Spring 2000 homelessness-themed couture work, Rei Kawakubo's 1995 Comme des Garçons collection that looked like concentration camp victim uniforms, and Karl Lagerfeld's 1994 appropriation of verses from the Koran. Somehow, the list ends with nary a mention of Miguel Adrover's 2001 MeetEast collection, which was so widely panned it drove the talented designer out of business. [TDB]
- Alber Elbaz: ""The people I chose to run my new store in London are nice. I cannot work with bitches, I can't, I can't. Maybe I am too sensitive, I get blocked. There are some people who don't give a damn. With me, I find that if there is no energy flowing or no connection, I can't think. Talent is amazing - I love it, appreciate it. I respect talent a lot. But if you ask me, ‘Talent and bitch, or less talent and good?' I'll go with less talent." [MyFashionLife]
- New York attorney general Andrew Cuomo caught the firm behind the "Lifestyle Lift" cosmetic surgery procedure posting fake customer reviews and testimonials on the Internet — and won a $300,000 settlement for the astroturfing. [Clickz]
- U.K. lingerie maker Intimas is in bankruptcy administration. Around 200 jobs are at risk. [ToL]
- Liz Claiborne, which has been struggling in the recession, renewed its C.E.O. William McComb's contract, but didn't give him a raise — just a bigger bonus. [WSJ]
- That story about how Crocs are going bust is getting written again, this time kind of artlessly. [WaPo]
- In the second quarter, net income at Joe's Jeans fell 17.8%, on a same-store sales decline of 4.3% [WWD]
- Chemists have traditionally been unable to produce fabrics that are reliably water-repellent when doused with hot, instead of cold, water. Which is why the development of a hydrophobic fabric coating that can repel hot water is potentially exciting news. Scientists think it could have applications in protective clothing, for instance for people who are at risk of scalding burns. [NS]
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