Rihanna Sure Looks Pale On Her New Vogue Cover

You think somebody forgot to tell British Vogue‘s retoucher that Rihanna is black? [Vogue UK]

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This Monday brings tidings of the Olsen twins’ $39,000 crocodile backpack: “It was the first thing that sold off the shelf,” says Ashley Olsen, who claims her company is “struggling” to keep up with customer demand. “During our last economic crisis in the U.S., the only thing that went up was Hermès,” she continued. (Haha, “last,” as in, “over already,” haha.) That is such a vague statement (what “went up”? The stock price, the market share, the quarterly profits, the retail prices, the control over the wholesale exotic skins market?) that is is perhaps not actually a lie, but it’s certainly far from being the truth. A lot of companies performed well during the recession. Also, it’s not hard to make a $39,000 backpack sell out: if you make like three of the damn things, and insure that for every bag that exists there are 19 tabloid photographs published of you and your celebrity friends carrying them, two articles commenting on the bag’s alleged “waiting list,” and three articles asking What The Bag Means, then yeah, you can brag that your bag sold out its purposefully tiny run. [WWD]

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Speaking of handbags the cost of house downpayments: the Wall Street Journal recommends 13 you could buy “for fall.” Average price: $1445. [WSJ]

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British Elle‘s November subscriber cover features a pink ostrich boa. Near the bottom is part of Emma Watson‘s forehead. [FGR]

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Here’s your H&M Versace campaign. [Fashin]

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Shockingly, Forever 21 is selling a knock-off of a necklace by the smaller brand Made Her Think. [The Cut]

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• Tavi Gevinson was on “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” this weekend; host Peter Sagal asked her how to talk to his teenaged daughters, and she advised him to talk in “abrevs.” “Abrevs?” Sagal asked. “Already I’m at sea.” Gevinson’s example sentence? “You’re totes jel of that boy, yo.” Sagal repeated the phrase, but still seemed lost. “This is how I talk to my peers,” Gevinson deadpanned. [NPR]
• Tod’s head Diego Della Valle is mad as hell and he won’t take it anymore. Della Valle bought one-page ads in all of Italy’s major dailies this weekend so he could publish an angry open letter in which he rails against Italian politicians. “Politicians, enough already,” he wrote. “Many Italians no longer respect or trust” a political class that “has completely distanced itself from reality and the true needs of citizens,” Della Valle alleged. “The indecent and irresponsible spectacle that many of you are showing is no longer tolerable.” Della Valle called politicians “incompetent and unprepared, clueless regarding the country’s problems, the severity of the moment and a global vision of future scenarios.” Della Valle has publicly clashed with Berlusconi before. [WWD]
• Top model Karolin Wolter, who has walked for designers including Marc Jacobs and Lanvin, has just switched to Ford’s plus-size division. Alyona Osmanova, Robyn Lawley, Inga Eiriksdottir, and Sabina Karlsson are among the other straight-size models to have made the switch. Here’s hoping some of Wolter’s high-fashion clients, like Missoni and Yves Saint Laurent, might follow her through her transition. [The Cut]
• Daphne Guinness — the heiress who totally knows what it’s like to not have any money, because, as she told the New Yorker, sometimes she forgets her wallet — is founding a film production company. [P6]
• Jason Wu has confirmed that he is Target’s next designer collaborator. His Go! International stuff for Target will likely be the first designer collection to follow that Missoni one that crashed Target’s servers at launch. [WWD]
• Models damage their hair for a living; Hanne Gaby Odiele demonstrates. [Harper’s Bazaar]
• Carol Lim and Humberto Leon of Opening Ceremony did something different for their first Kenzo show this weekend: they “transformed the company’s offices on the rue Vivienne into a carnival-like party, with a catwalk in the courtyard and Jason Schwartzman playing the drums in a neighboring salon.” [On The Runway]
• Meanwhile, the Telegraph‘s Lisa Armstrong sure loved Haider Ackermann: “Ackermann took the trouser suit, hammered it out of raw silks and Indian gold-stamped sari fabric, then steeped it in some of the loveliest colours seen so far — and it has been a season of gorgeous colours…Obviously the models looked depressed — that was part of the job description and they must have been practising like mad backstage — but depression and surliness have seldom looked this beautiful. It could have been annoying on such a gorgeous sunny morning, but the mournfulness just about worked.” [Telegraph]
• Designer Isabel Toledo showed a collection on the runway for the first time in a decade — but she didn’t do it in Paris, she did it in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The clothes were beautiful, and the models wore shoes that will be sold at Payless, which is pretty rad. [Racked]
• And now a moment with BryanBoy, who is feeling a touch of the fashion month Weltschmertz:
• In Milan, I spoke to an Editor in Chief who I love and admire and she asked me what my plans were for the night. I told her my plans and how excited I was and then she shared some memories how excited she was when she first started going to these glamorous and glittering events in the past. After awhile they all feel the same — a painful, draining, time-consuming obligation to attend due to various reasons (political, advertisers, etc). Now all she wants to do is to curl up in sweatpants in her hotel room and get a solid six hours of sleep each night. Even she couldn’t do that anymore.
• [BryanBoy]