- Carine Roitfeld finally addressed her infamous blackface editorial: “We take risks. Painting Lara Stone in black, for example. We were accused of being racist, which was totally untrue, since I once did an entire issue on a black model.” [WWD]
- Gisele Bündchen, a strange wig, and the oddly made-up male model Yuri Pleskun star in the spring Balenciaga campaign. [WWD]
- Liberty-print Dunks and Air Force 1s are now a thing you can buy. [High Snobiety]
- Kate Moss: “I think I could open a modelling school. In Britain’s Next Top Model they put the contestants through the torture of what modelling can be like. And it honestly can be humiliating.” What’s the best advice about modeling anyone can give? “I guess you need an eye for art, and also to get into your head that it’s not you — you’re somebody else. You have to be somebody else to be able to move like somebody else and act like somebody else.” [Telegraph]
- Moss said in the same interview: “How long will I keep modelling? I really don’t know. I didn’t even see myself lasting as long as I have. I did my first photo shoot at 16 and I thought that was it.” [MonstersandCritics]
- Jerry Hall: “There’s something creepy about fashion shows. The models look like they’re going to be tortured. They do this strange pony walk; their heels are so high, they can hardly walk. Creepy!” [NYDN]
- Modeling super-agency IMG can confirm it no longer represents Taylor Momsen. [Fashionista]
- Modeling super-agency IMG can confirm it now represents Dakota Fanning. Sausage, made. [Nylon]
- Coco Rocha nabbed the cover of Italian Elle. [DS]
- Rocha and her friend, fellow model Behati Prinsloo, are set to visit orphanages in Haiti later this year. They want to film a short documentary about the humanitarian situation there — and they are also starting a project they call Letters to Haiti. “When we visit the orphanages we want to take with us letters from people around the world to show the children of Haiti that they have global friends, real people who care about them,” Rocha explains on her Tumblr. “In return we will be bringing back with us their letters to you all. Please get out your pen and paper today and write a letter for them.” [Oh So Coco]
- Sara Ziff: “The modeling industry is essentially unregulated. As independent contractors, models don’t have the same basic workplace protection as a lot of other industries do. They don’t have workmen’s compensation. They often don’t have access to affordable health coverage. There are no provisions for rest and meal breaks [during work hours]. There is little recourse for issues of sexual harassment and sexual abuse. And a lot of modeling agencies have a huge amount of power over international girls because they sponsor their visas.” Ziff is working to found a professional organization for models in the U.S., and Fordham’s Fashion Law Institute has set up a legal clinic to help models. [WWD]
- You can ask any question of Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana! They’re being interviewed by British Vogue, so just send the magazine all your questions about their billion-dollar alleged tax evasion scheme, how their relationship has changed since their breakup, and the horrific Photoshop in their ads, and let British Vogue toss those questions out in favor of ones about where they get their “inspiration” and whether they like lace or really like lace! [Vogue UK]
- Designer Thakoon Panichgul, on moving to Omaha at age 11: “I didn’t know a lick of English. I had no friends. And I was coming from Bangkok, which is a huge, huge city and [where] my brother and I were running around by ourselves and knew everyone and were like the life of the party and having fun. And then we get to Omaha and there was really nothing to do. So I think it forced me to kind of dig within myself to survive. But I think that helped foster my creativity.” [Globe and Mail]
- A model of the ’60s named Evelyn Kuhn is suing a stock photography agency for licensing an old image of her to a new Stella Artois campaign. [AdWeek]
- In other endorsements gone wrong, Leighton Meester sounds frankly embarrassed of the Korean cosmetics brand Espoir in this video: “Well, I love what it represents. It’s very stylish, and it’s for a girl just like me. Um, I think it’s for a woman who’s very confident and stylish and sexy. Um, and it’s very— it’s really good makeup.” Stars used to be able to jet off to foreign linguistic enclaves and pad their bottom lines with shitty endorsement deals for God knows what — and practically no-one would know. With the Internet, everyone knows. [Styleite]
- Megan Fox is still shilling for Armani. [YouTube]
- Chloë Sevigny: “I’m glad I grew up during the last vestige of cool, in the 1990s, when everything wasn’t blogged and on the Interwebs, when things were more on the downlow and underground. I guess I am stylish, but I would rather have people come up and say ‘I really liked your performance in this or that’ than ‘I really like the way you dress.’ That irks me.” She also says “It-girl” is used too loosely. “Today the term is used to describe, say, Peaches Geldof — a girl who doesn’t do anything but is just sort of around.” [Playboy]
- There was a bomb scare at Macy’s yesterday. An abandoned suitcase near the doors of the Herald Square store — the chain’s New York flagship — forced the closure of some of the department store’s entrances while the bomb squad investigated. The suitcase proved to be full of clothes. [WWD]
- There are no real surprises in The Daily Beast’s 2010 best- and worst-dressed list. (If you’re thinking, ‘The Daily Beast has an annual worst- and best-dressed list?’ Then welcome to our frame of mind the moment before we clicked this link.) Michelle Obama, Blake Lively, and Rihanna are all given high marks, while Christina Aguilera and Kristen Stewart get brickbats. [TDB]
- Scene: a sound stage somewhere in far Western Manhattan. A fashion-designer-turned-Target-designer-turned-fashion-designer-again and a caterer-turned-multi-media-billionairess-turned-felon are icing cakes. Martha: “Just put that on (placing pan on the scale) and its now on zero, see. You have to negate the weight.” Isaac: “I wish there was a way of doing this with my own weight, ya know, like negate part of the weight. Would that be great if there was a button, like negate please!” End scene. [Racked]
- Tamara Mellon is still defending her horrific Jimmy Choo/Ugg collaboration: “Uggs were my guilty pleasure until I was on a flight to London and the airline staff said, ‘We’re all so excited to see what shoes you’re wearing!’ I had Uggs on. So now we’ve done a collaboration where I took traditional Uggs and decorated them with the DNA of Jimmy Choo — animal prints and studs.” [W]
- The U.K. cold snap is hurting holiday retail. [WWD]
- Michael Kors is suing a company that printed an image from his spring advertising campaign on a t-shirt and sold it for $15.99. [Racked]
- Givenchy is selling BDSM-friendly leather face masks for spring and summer. [TLF]
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