Lady Gaga Called Anna Wintour "Bitch" In A Text
LatestLast night, the Council of Fashion Designers of America held its annual awards show, a night where celebrities applaud designers and models are treated like celebrities and Lady Gaga wears even more uncomfortable shoes than usual. Gaga arrived late to the red carpet, where her sister Natali Germanotta walked alongside her. Gaga wore a blue wig and a Mugler dress with an enormous train, which she later removed to accept her award. Anderson Cooper hosted the show — and treated the crowd to photos of his child modeling days — before running off, as Diane von Furstenberg put it, “to deal with a Weiner.” Gaga was dubbed a Fashion Icon, Kanye West reminded us how much he loves Phoebe Philo, and Grace Coddington presented legendary photographer Arthur Elgort with a special tribute award.
Elgort said in an interview that he doesn’t know Terry Richardson‘s work. “I know the name but I don’t know his style. I know the name because he had a father that was a photographer. In fact, his father was…very good. I couldn’t tell you what Terry Richardson has done, but maybe he is very cool, I don’t know.” [Style.com]
Some people don’t think Lady Gaga deserved the CFDA’s Fashion Icon award because she hasn’t been around long enough to be an “icon.” Friends, file this under pageview-trolling 101. [Forbes]
Robin Givhan points out that before receiving her award, Lady Gaga “sat politely in the audience for what must have been a full hour” while wearing a bustier with a studded thong. [TDB]
Gaga used her speech to talk about her pet rat, and share an anecdote about texting with Anna Wintour. The Vogue editor texted her to give her the news of her win, see, but the Lady thought it was a different Anna, an Anna who works with her stylist, Nicola Formichetti, and so Gaga texted back, “Yes, bitch, we did it!” Anna Wintour replied, “How lovely, and we will all be waiting to see what you will wear.” [YouTube]
Prabal Gurung took home the Swarovski award for women’s wear — he mentioned in his acceptance speech that his parents in Nepal seemed more excited for him to get a picture with Gaga than anything else. (Gurung also thanked the U.S. government, because his unemployment insurance helped him when he was just starting out.) Robert Geller won the Swarovski for men’s wear, and Eddie Borgo for accessories. Men’s wear designer of the year was Michael Bastian. Iris Apfel presented Alexander Wang with the prize for accessories designer of the year. Women’s wear designer of the year went to Proenza Schouler. [The Cut]
As of Sunday afternoon, Lifetime Achievement award-winner Marc Jacobs was taking in a polo match. He had not written his speech. “I’ve been struggling with writing it, to be honest. I’m not a good writer at all. Anytime anyone’s ever asked me to write something, what I do is, I write notes and thoughts, and they build up and over a week I kind of edit through those thoughts. And then I try to put them in some order and then I reread it. Then I run it by somebody. Then I rewrite it. So it’s kind of a process that has to happen over a course of days, and I think when the pressure is there, that’s when it’ll come. So tonight and tomorrow I’ll get it together.” [The Cut]
Of the nineteen nominees for this year’s CFDAs, only two were designed by women: Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen’s The Row, and accessories designer Pamela Love. Neither won. (Special awards were given to Philo, who nabbed the International Designer of the Year award, and Gaga.) This isn’t unusual: in 2010 and 2009, there were also only two women nominees, and in 2007, there was just one. While CFDA president Diane von Furstenberg and executive director Steven Kolb wouldn’t comment, the Fashion Institute of Technology’s Valerie Steele suggests “The new young cool male designer might just be considered more marketable at the moment. I don’t think it’s conscious.” The biggest issue, however, seems to be venture capital. FIT’s student body is 85% female; the New School’s, which includes Parsons, is 71%. But women don’t get anything like equal access to venture capital. In 2009, less than 10% of all capital funding went to women entrepreneurs. [Thread NY]
Chloe Memisevic, an 18-year-old, Swedish-raised Serbo-Croatian model says that shooting her Marc Jacobs campaign with Juergen Teller took five minutes. [WWD]
Erin Beatty and Max Osterweis of Suno have a studio dog named Squid and books organized by spine color. [Refinery29]
Michael Jackson‘s “Thriller” jacket is up for auction. It’s expected to fetch $200,000-$400,000. [TMZ]
This new Lancôme campaign starring Daria Werbowy, Elettra Weidemann, and Arlenis Sosa is spooky-pretty. [FGR]
Anna de Rijk stood on a horse for the cover of Spanish Harper’s Bazaar. [Fashionising]
We simply can’t imagine why these camouflage-etched Trussardi sunglasses are only being made in an edition of 750. [Dazed Digital]
- Diane von Furstenberg launched her new fragrance, Diane, on a boat. (A motherfucking boat.) [WWD]
- Allegra Beck Versace, who was given a majority stake in the company in her uncle Gianni’s will, has begun working in fashion again. Previously, she studied in the United States and struggled with anorexia. Of that time, she says, “anywhere I went, I was a Versace. I couldn’t escape, and it did me harm. I hated Los Angeles. However I did have beautiful moments. For example, when I was in New York, Rupert Everett played in Noel Coward‘s ‘Blithe Spirit,’ and I, behind the scenes, acted invisibly as a dresser.” [Fashionologie]
- Haider Ackermann met Tilda Swinton “In a Chinese karaoke. I think we were both pissed. It was in Paris, in a very lost area in the fourth arrondissement. I don’t even know how we ended up there. She has a quite nice voice, which is not my case. I mean, this is quite embarrassing, but I like to sing ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’ and ‘Love Lifts Us Up Where We Belong.'” Ackermann would also like to point out that he is not — as he is often described — Belgian, okay? He studied in Belgium, but he was in fact born in Colombia and adopted by French parents. Who raised him in Algeria, Ethiopia, and Chad. (His dad was a cartographer.) He has a sister from Vietnam and a brother from Korea. Got that? Ackermann likes to travel. “Let me get lost in the city and then I’m happy. I remember the first time I went to the office of American Vogue a few years ago, I came out and put Bach on my iPod to calm down. Then I just walked. I didn’t even know where I was going. At a certain point, I was like, ‘Where the hell am I?’ I do this wherever I am — Paris or Rajasthan, India. You learn so much about a country by observing it. You make your interpretation and you tell yourself your own stories and your stories might reflect slowly in your work. It’s sometimes very nice to do one step back and to just absorb. I think that time is our new luxury nowadays.” Ackermann has turned down nine jobs in fashion — his name, indeed, always seems to come up when a major luxury house has a vacancy — but he declines to discuss specifics because “it will be very un-elegant to the other persons who accepted the jobs.” [WWD]
- Jason Wu would probably agree with that luxury=time thing: “I found myself talking to one of our embroiderers in India at 2am the other day. It’s really 24 hours. In the morning I generally catch up with Paris and Italy, and get ready and come to work then [catch up with] everybody here…I get home around 10:30, 11. Catch up on TV and go to bed, although I do work some more before I go to bed.” [Fashionista]
- Vogue Italia editor Franca Sozzani says that extraordinarily thin models are the beauty of the moment, and “All in fashion are victims — the media, even myself, even the runways — of the beauty of the moment.” This was why she put Candice Huffine, Tara Lynn, and Robyn Lawley on her latest cover. More than two years ago, Sozzani put out her all-black issue: “and I see on the runway more and more black girls and more and more beautiful black girls. This kind of provocation makes a change; it could not affect everybody, that’s for sure. But I don’t want it to change the world. I only would like that instead of skinny girls, that they should have real women — like the moment of the supermodels. Cindy Crawford was an amazing woman, Naomi is so beautiful — so why should we not just see younger girls but adults?” [The Cut]
- Hussein Chalayan is changing his brand name. From now on, his main collection will be known as Chalayan. “I’m doing it mostly because I have a long name,” the designer says. At the spring shows this September, he will also be launching a diffusion line, called Grey Label. Pieces from that collection will be priced at around $150-$700. [WWD]
- Forever 21‘s legal fight with a blogger who made fun of its clothes is making headlines far and wide. Good. [NYDN]
- Union members are protesting at the construction site of a new Vera Wang store, where they claim Wang’s contractor is using non-union labor. Appropriately, the giant inflatable rat — a feature of most New York City union disputes — has been given a bridal veil for the occasion. [P6]
- Mark your calendars: on October 15 and 16, you can tour one of 22 Louis Vuitton factories in France, Spain Italy, Poland, or Scotland. [WWD]
- We, um, couldn’t make it through this very serious documentary about Daphne Guinness‘s recent “installation” in a department store window. [Nowness]
- Ling Liu and Dawei Sun have been named the new co-creative directors of Cacharel. [WWD]
- Italian regulators have cleared Salvatore Ferragamo to go through with its planned IPO this month. [WWD]
- British shoe brand Georgina Goodman has gone bust. [Vogue UK]
- And here is an update from a man who did not marry Marc Jacobs: “I think the subway in New York is great — it has AC and is somewhat safe.” [TFI]
- OK! magazine puts the value of Suri Cruise‘s shoe collection at £100,000. The story doesn’t mention whether the magazine used a wild guesstimate, a drawing of numbers from a hat, or the time-tested throw-darts-at-a-board method to arrive at this figure. [OK]