- Annabelle Neilsen, on Alexander McQueen: “He was loved by so many, but felt loved by so few.” A Scottish pipe band played at McQueen’s memorial service, and Björk performed in a winged dress made of molded wood and feathers.
- “All of it was absolutely fitting, just beautiful, and typically Lee didn’t show up,” said Daphne Guinness wryly, afterwards. [WWD]
- Then she fell on the cobblestones in her ginormous (McQueen) platform heels. [Daily Mail]
- Suzy Menkes had mixed feelings about McQueen’s last collection, including about the shoes. “I am happy for Lee — and for fashion — that his final women’s collection was such a vivid combination of imagination and energy, even if Lady Gaga‘s online enthusiasm sent the system crashing and even if the shoes he designed were some of the most chillingly misogynist footwear we have ever seen on the runway.” [IHT]
- Peter Brant and Stephanie Seymour have unexpectedly called off their divorce. After months of nastiness — Brant alleged Seymour was unfaithful and outed her as a past prescription drug abuser, Seymour said Brant hired security guards to rough her up, they both laid claim to millions of dollars worth of art and fought over their kids — the couple walked into court hand-in-hand and told the judge they wanted to hug it out. Women’s Wear Daily is admirably cynical in the face of this apparent triumph of True Love: “The only question left now? How quickly can Vanity Fair turn this story around and who will be assigned the task of penning the sordid tale?” [WWD]
- A new documentary about Yves Saint Laurent drew a star-studded crowd for its Paris premiere. Loulou de la Falaise, Betty Catroux, Arielle Domasle, Sonia and Nathalie Rykiel, and Bettina Graziani all turned up; Saint Laurent’s widower, Pierre Bergé, said the director had included some footage that was even new to him. “The result is magnificent. I am very, very, very happy with this film,” he said. [WWD]
- Suzy Menkes, on the New York collections: “American fashion seems oblivious to anything happening beyond the runway and the minor front-row celebrities stirring up a paparazzi storm.” Whenever is it not? [IHT]
- Courtney Love was the most ubiquitous celebrity at fashion week, with 13 events attended. Jessica Szohr and Leighton Meester, with nine apiece, tied for second place. [WWD]
- Isaac Mizrahi: “My advice to young designers is never be bored. Okay? If you’re bored, it’s a bad collection. And you can probably show it, but — don’t bother. Don’t bother showing the collection, okay? So this time, I have not been bored once. And I have been amused the entire time. It’s like, unless I am amused at all times, it’s not going to be a good collection, kay. Period. I just learned that, I just learned that. And now it’s like anything that isn’t amusing gets edited. You are no longer amusing — I don’t like you, buh-bye, get outta here.” [The Cut]
- Samantha Cameron, known for sporting the creations of various British designers, seems to have taken on the support of the U.K. fashion industry as a key issue. Cameron has taken on an as-yet-undefined role with the British Fashion Council, which puts on London Fashion Week. [WWD]
- In other politico-sartorial news: Sens. Orrin Hatch and Patrick Leahy are co-sponsoring legislation that would crack down on websites that sell counterfeit luxury goods. [WWD]
- Women’s Wear Daily has a report from a major textiles fair in Paris: “Between June and August, cotton prices increased an average of 45 percent on a like-for-like basis, according to a report by France’s Union of Textile Industries, affecting the entire textile chain. Silk prices have climbed 30 percent in the past 18 months, and wool prices are up 40 percent since mid-2009.” Looks like clothes will be getting more expensive. [WWD]
- Christopher Kane on his new, heavily neon, collection: it best suits “a royal on crack.” [On The Runway]
- There wasn’t a seat for Vogue Paris editor Carine Roitfeld during Kane’s show, so her daughter, Julia Restoin-Roitfeld, stood. [Guardian]
- It’s not often one encounters a five-dollar phrase like “parade of pulchitude” in the tony pages of Page Six, but there we have it, ladies and germs, in reference to Gisele Bündchen, Fernanda Motta, and Alessandra Ambrosio‘s expected attendance at the Brazil Foundation gala. Also: Jeffrey Epstein, the billionaire financier and serial abuser of minor girls, whose connections to the modeling industry were already established, has apparently been engaged to tend Naomi Campbell‘s boyfriend Vladimir Doronin‘s fortune. [P6]
- Gisele Bündchen, who is a U.N. Goodwill Ambassador for the environment, turned up to mingle with dignitaries at the opening of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals Summit in New York. [JustJared]
- Maggie Rizer married Alexander Mehran this weekend in upstate New York. Nancy and Paul Pelosi were among their guests. [P6]
- 16-year-old model Lindsey Wixson, on staying in an agency apartment with her five roommates, including three Brits: “I can’t wait to go to London! I’ve been invited to go to their houses and meet their parents and like have dinner so we’ve really bonded. They’re so entertaining and like so fun. We eat lots of food most people think that models don’t eat but we eat a lot like cereal. Bowls and bowls of cereal and we’ll just like have girl talk, normal girl talk. It’s really fun.” [Modelinia]
- Slovakian Rebeka Zuborova, also 16, has been modeling since she was 13. But she’s been boxing since she was 12. “It’s good for your body. It’s really hard training. I won’t spar with another person, because I’m afraid of it, but it’s a good workout. When I first started, I looked funny because I was so skinny and so tall and just punching at the bag. Now I’m better. I was the only girl there too, but it was fine because I knew the guys from my neighborhood.” [WWD]
- Marc Jacobs has a cute, new, e-commerce-enabled website. Although we are assured it is viewable on iPhone and iPad, all our prehistoric laptop got when we tried to load it was a “Warning: Unresponsive Script” error message. [Official Site]
- Maison Martin Margiela is launching an online boutique on October 1. [WWD]
- Chanel took out another of its periodic Women’s Wear Daily full-page ads imploring journalists and editors to stop comparing other designers’ offerings to Chanel. Or they’ll sue. Maybe we can instead re-define “Chanel-esque” to mean “pusillanimous legalistic bullying on the part of a multinational”? That empty threat to free speech was so Chanel. [Fashionista]
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