Victoria Beckham has red hair, pendulous earrings, and gold eyeshadow on the cover of Chinese Harper's Bazaar. [DS]
Prabal Gurung and Diane von Furstenberg have been Instagram'ing their way through a vacation in Gurung's native Nepal. [@prabalgurung]
Georgia May Jagger is on the cover of Brazilian Elle. [FGR]
We told you Crystal Renn looks pretty good as a blonde. [Ford Models Blog]
Another 197 workers at a Nike supplier factory in Cambodia fainted yesterday. Earlier this week, at least 107 workers fainted. Mass faintings are increasingly common at garment factories in the nation because of poor ventilation, crowding, exposure to toxic chemicals, and heat. Additionally, labor rights groups say that many factory owners are pushing workers to work even longer than usual shifts because they want to complete orders before the Khmer New Year holiday on April 13-16. [WWD]
Texas Monthly says it stands by its Jane Aldridge profile — "In Jimmy Choo stiletto heels." The Sea of Shoes blogger was apparently upset by the piece, which she yesterday called "exaggerated" and claimed included "made-up" quotes. Aldridge also disputed the numbers given in the piece by her parents — for instance, her father said that Sea of Shoes represented a sunk cost of "several hundred thousand dollars," mostly on designer shoes, and that Aldridge commanded appearance fees of up to $20,000. The magazine says, "Texas Monthly engages in a rigorous fact-checking process for each of its stories before they go to press. We check quotes, figures, descriptions, and any factual statement with each source mentioned in the story, as well as with outside sources. The profile of Jane Aldridge we published in the April 2012 issue, written by Jason Sheeler, underwent this very same process. Both the writer and the fact-checker contacted Jane multiple times throughout the editing process to clarify details, and Judy Aldridge, as Jane's spokesperson, confirmed figures, quotes, and biographical details with our fact-checker through several phone calls." [The Cut]
Wal-Mart — which has, shall we say, a tiny leetle problem with endemic sex discrimination at management level — is launching a program intended to "empower" 60,000 women who work in its supplier factories. Topics covered according to the company will include "communication, hygiene, reproductive health, occupational health and safety." [WWD]
Sienna Miller disavows that whole "boho" thing. "I hate the word boho so much now! I suppose I am inherently bohemian in terms of the way I am as a person, and I definitely went through a hippie phase with my style. But I think it's really more about the way my personality is, than the way I dress." [Vogue UK]
Manolo Blahnik says he is "filled with gratitude" towards Sex and the City for exposing him to a new audience. [CNN]
Kanye West raps in his new song "Theraflu," "Tell PETA my mink is draggin' on the floor." PETA doesn't like this very much, or think this is an appropriate thing to rap about. PETA says what's really dragging on the floor is "Kanye's reputation as a man with no empathy for animals or human beings." PETA needs to learn to write better dis tracks. [TFL]
Alber Elbaz says he was touched that fellow designer Giambattista Valli came to a party at Barneys New York celebrating Elbaz's decade in charge at Lanvin. "There used to be a time in fashion when we all hated each other and would send nasty messages," explained the designer. "Now we all send flowers, well, I send a cake or macaroons, but there's a great respect between all of us." Elbaz also says:
'Women today are not what they used to be. They're not just beautiful creatures. I always used to say that women are strong and men are powerful. Power you can buy at the bank, you can lose it at the bank. But strength is internal. Women now are not only strong but also powerful, and this is a deadly combination. These are the women that we're dressing. I ask day after day, ‘What is it that we want, that we need?' What we're looking for more than anything is to be loved, to be hugged, to be with people who we feel comfortable enough to sit and be silent with when we're tired, and that's what we're trying to do at Lanvin. To bring you love."
[WWD]
Revenues at Christian Dior are up 21% year-on-year during the first three quarters of the fiscal year, suggesting that maybe the company doesn't need a new creative director. Like, ever. [FT]
The Times noticed that nail art is A Thing. And, yes, this has already been mocked on The Times Is On It Twitter account. [NYTimes]
The Obama administration has been sending trade representatives and Commerce Department officials to visit garment factories and designers in support of the "Made in America" campaign, which aims to double U.S. exports by 2014. Although the 1960s peak of the Garment District is far behind us, designers say there are advantages to domestic manufacturing. L.A. designer Karen Kane: "Since shifting our production, we've improved our ability to insure the quality of our items, the reliability of their delivery time, and had much more stability with pricing...We can turn our products around in less than a month, and it might take three months for some of our competitors to do the same." [DFR]
British Elle wants you to get excited that it's putting a mystery man on its cover for the first time in 26 years. What editorial daring. [Elle UK]
"Karl Lagerfeld to design VIP helicopters." Why, of course he is. [WWD]
The fire at Macy's in Herald Square was started by a passerby's dropped cigarette that burned its way through silicone sidewalk caulking, found its way into a void in the building, and fell to the sub-basement where it smoldered and eventually ignited debris. [NYTimes]
Emmy Rossum and Camilla Belle will be next to star in those weird ads for cotton, the fabric of our liiiiiiiiiives. [WWD]
Model and trained ballet dancer Laura Love: "Mario Testino once told me, 'Stop dancing — your thighs are going to get too big for modeling.' Luckily, that didn't happen." [The Cut]
J.C. Penney is laying off 900 workers as part of the company's ongoing reorganization. The affected workers were all employees at the company's headquarters. [WWD]
A shoplifter who swapped his coat for a $3,598 one on display at a John Varvatos store was identified and arrested — because he left a piece of chewed gum in the pocket of his coat and police tested it for D.N.A. Meanwhile, thousands of rape kits languish untested on laboratory shelves. [NYPost]
And now, a moment with Gerardo Chavez, who works in the shipping department at the nail polish brand China Glaze. Gery, how did you get into nail art?
"Frankly, I cannot recall a time in my life when I have NOT been practicing art. As a child I spent most of my days armed with a handful of crayons ready to draw on whatever I could get my hands on (including the living room walls which my parents didn't appreciate very much). My talent then shifted to the classroom — and even on to the classroom wall — after my high school art teacher let me draw one of my designs right on the wall with a marker. I continued to draw on walls when I was in the United States Navy. I painted a couple of murals on the USS Tarawa. I then received formal training in college and earned a degree in graphic design. Even though I was not able to get a job as a graphic designer I nevertheless continued to practice my art. I have even painted and mounted auto body panels on my Mustang. With so many colors of nail polish going through my shipping department I now focus my creative intuition on nail art."
Why yes, Gery does have a Facebook page. [Fashionista]