Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana say their most difficult time came in 2005, when they broke up as a couple after 23 years together, but remained partners professionally. Reports the Financial Times:
"The worst time for us was when we broke up but kept working together," says Gabbana. "We thought about splitting up, but no. And the truth is, everything is exactly the same. But no sex!"
"No sex," agrees Dolce.
[...]"About three or four years ago, I thought, ‘I am exhausted by seeing you all the time!' " says Gabbana. "I mean, this is the conversation: he says, ‘I want yellow.' But I want blue. And then he says, ‘This shirt is giving me a headache,' and, of course, I have to say, ‘It's my fault?' and then he says —"
"No, it's not your fault," smiles Dolce.
Funny, they still fight like an old couple.
[FT]
We would say Lady Sybil looks like a warmed-over corpse in this new jewelry campaign, the first modeling-type gig involving Downton principals (to our knowledge), but that would be an insult to the freshly dead. Seriously: how do you fuck up when your job is to take attractive photos of Lady Sybil? She's so gorgeous! [Telegraph]
Angelina Jolie is on the cover of Turkish Vogue. [DS]
Crystal Renn sports a blonde bob wig and bleached eyebrows on one of the new covers of W Korea. [HuffPo]
Tali Lennox and male model Ash Stymest posed for a very tasteful set of pictures with Terry Richardson. [Daily Mail]
In case you forgot what her nipples look like, Kate Moss is topless on the cover of Another Man. [Fashionista]
Lara Stone demonstrates krav maga in a fashion spread for V's new "sports" issue. [The Cut]
Karlie Kloss has been absent from the runways so far this season due to some kind of a big job. Well, she just opened the Anthony Vaccarello show in Paris. It's hard to imagine that Vaccarello, a young (if critically lauded) designer is that aforementioned big job — more likely Kloss is doing something with her longtime client Christian Dior. [The Cut]
Christopher Kane says he has no idea where Suzy Menkes got the idea that he might be under consideration for the creative directorship of Dior. "While it is incredibly flattering that I could be considered for a role at a house such as Dior at this stage in my career, I can confirm that I have not been approached," said the designer. [Vogue UK]
Dior launched a new online magazine called Diormag today. It's debuting with eight articles, because that was Christian Dior's lucky number (and the designer was so superstitious, he apparently sewed Lily of the Valley into his dresses for good luck on show day). Dior's show on Friday will also be livestreamed online for the first time. [Diormag, WWD]
Bridget Foley of Women's Wear Daily is possibly the only person alleging that Raf Simons, the departing Jil Sander creative director, didn't resign to take the top job at Dior (or possibly YSL) — he was fired. Or as she puts it, "unceremoniously dumped" because Jil Sander wanted to come back to lead the label she founded, and the company threw him over. [WWD]
The owner of Jil Sander would disagree: "It's not that we wanted to change designers," he told Cathy Horyn. "Raf has done a really good job. He's one of three or four top designers in the world." [NYTimes]
James Franco is making a "documentary" about Gucci, the fashion brand of which he is a paid "face." "I like fashion," says the actor/permanent M.F.A. student. "I see it as a creative endeavor, and I'm making a documentary about Gucci because I am interested in all creative processes." [VF.com]
The latest in the Macy's/Martha Stewart/J.C. Penney lawsuit and countersuit: Macy's disputes Stewart's claim that it failed to sufficiently promote and support the Martha Stewart branded products it sold under an exclusive agreement. (Stewart and Macy's are suing one another for breach of contract, following Stewart's decision to take her line to J.C. Penney.) Macy's says that sales of Martha Stewart's line actually increased from 2007-11, while sales of Macy's own private label goods were essentially flat during the same period. That...actually makes Macy's sound kind of bad. [WWD]
In other Macy's news: Joe's Jeans and the chain have announced a new line, called Else, which will be produced by Joe's Jeans and sold only at Macy's. They're saying no Else jeans will cost more than $80. [WWD]
Coco Rocha and James Conran are selling their gorgeous Gramercy Park apartment. [ByrneNotice]
Cartier shot a new ad with Shalom Harlow and three panthers. Harlow and the Panthers cram Prague, the Dolomite mountains, Spain, the Taj Mahal, and Paris into 3.5 minutes — and a lot of expensive jewelry. [WWD]
Banana Republic hyped its new Mad Men-themed collection with a fashion show held on a commercial flight from JFk-LAX today. [Fashionista]
Vera Wang has confirmed it is looking to open its first freestanding stores in Asia, most likely initially in Japan. [WWD]
Hermès can't trademark its name in Chinese, which would be pronounced Ai Ma Shi, because it is already the trademark of an outfit called the Dafeng Garment Company. Reports Women's Wear Daily, Hermès trademarked "Hermès" in China when it entered the market in 1977, but it never trademarked the name by which Chinese people use when referring to the brand:
"It's kind of a classic mistake — forgetting to register the Chinese mark," said Beijing lawyer Stan Abrams, who writes the blog China Hearsay. "If you go back far enough, these were very common mistakes for foreign companies. Companies didn't understand the market very well and they thought that the foreign-language brand had value in the market. It turned out that the Chinese local version, that's the one that has the value."
[WWD]
Today in museology and capitalism, it looks like the cost of renting out the Louvre for your fashion show — something which the museum has never before permitted — is a mere principal sponsorship of an upcoming museum exhibit. Salvatore Ferragamo, which paid an undisclosed sum to sponsor a Leonardo da Vinci show, has gotten the go-ahead to stage its resort show at the Louvre this summer. [WWD]
And now, a moment with Marvin and Lee Traub. Marvin, the former longtime C.E.O. of Bloomingdale's, now heads a fashion consulting company. Lee is a retired dancer who worked with Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham. They told Women's Wear Daily how they met after being set up by friends:
Marvin: "I was the business manager of The Crimson. I had a secretary call Lee [for the date]. I thought she would be impressed with this. It cut no ice with her whatsoever."
Lee: "You won't believe what our first date was. We went to ‘Tristan und Isolde.' It's a four-hour opera and Marvin doesn't even like the opera. His friend had tickets. It was a long first date."
Marvin: "We went out in January and got engaged the following November. I proposed after the Harvard-Princeton game. We met in January 1947 and got married in September of 1948."
Lee: "Oh my god. I had to go to all these football games. Did my mother buy that book? How to Talk With Your Date at a Football Game. Things to Say to Your Date. The only line I can remember is, ‘Smith was wide open and Jones didn't see him.' That's what you would say but with interchangeable names."
Marvin: "When we got married I had another year of business school. She worked my way through business school, through our first year of the marriage."
Lee: "He's still paying me back for that. It was so hard to get a job. I worked in an advertising office. I was a one-girl office. I did everything. We shared space with an Egyptian chemical company which was in the embalming business. It was like a scene out of, what was that old play, ‘You Can't Take It With You.'"
[WWD]