Karl Lagerfeld Thinks It's OK Kate Middleton Is A Commoner, Because She's Fashionable

By Jenna Sauers  |  November 18, 2010 | 5:00pm
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  • Krazy Kaiser Karl, on Kate Middleton and Prince William: “For the royals, apparently the royal blood is not in demand any longer.” But no matter, because Middleton is “beautiful and elegant,” and “chic in a way the position needs.” [WWD]
  • Today Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony are expected to announce an inevitable branded lifestyle collection of apparel and homewares, to be sold at Kohl’s. Lopez’s last fashion ventures, JLO, Just Sweet, and SweetFace, all closed due to lack of sales, but her plethora of perfumes perform pretty profitably. [WWD]
  • Taylor Momsen Swift a Taylor wearing too much makeup was photographed for Decembe’sr Allure. [Quem]
  • Oh, to be a fly on the wall listening to Halle Berry and Daphne Guinness‘s conversation at the diamond shop. [WWD]
  • Among the many, many things altered by Photoshop in Katy Perry‘s ad for VH1’s Divas Salute The Troops is, apparently, her breasts. The crack cleavage experts at the Daily Mail are convinced Perry’s rack was made smaller. [Daily Mail]
  • Alber Elbaz says collaborating with H&M was more time-consuming than he expected (the Lanvin designer, and, presumably, his design team, ended up spending about nine months on the project). “They said there would be four or five meetings. We had 40 to 50 meetings. I don’t think you’re getting an expensive H&M [piece]; you’re getting a bargain of Lanvin.” Tonight in New York, Elbaz will present 20 of his Lanvin for H&M looks in a fashion show at the Pierre Hotel. On Saturday at 8 a.m., the surprisingly expensive collection goes on sale at 24 H&M stores worldwide. [WWD]
  • Speaking of old Alber, Karl Lagerfeld is again denying the rumor that he is planning to retire from Chanel in 2012 so that Elbaz can replace him. “I have a contract for life so it all depends on who I would like to hand it to,” Lagerfeld told Numéro. “At the moment I’d say Haider Ackermann.” Designers don’t usually get to hand-pick their replacements (or if they do, those replacements tend to get fired as soon as the old designer is off the premises). [WWD]
  • Could we possibly love Council of Fashion Designers of America/Vogue Fashion Fund award-winner Billy Reid any more? Let’s see how he celebrated his win: “We went to the after-party. I think at one point we were actually asked to leave, so we definitely closed it down. After that, my wife and I went to this dive next to our place and had a cheeseburger and beer. Just the two of us.” And the funniest thing that happened? “I just got a call from a friend who said, ‘The world must be ending because I just saw a picture of you with Karl Lagerfeld!’ That pretty much sums up how I felt, too.” No! No, we could not. [Vogue]
  • Roberto Cavalli — who has a photography exhibition up in Milan — on the differences between fashion photography and real photography: “Photos in fashion ads are not spontaneous, even mine. Why would Madonna be draining pasta in those Dolce & Gabbana ads? Models wearing dresses in the desert? Kate Moss on a tree? There’s no sincerity, no spontaneity. I prefer photos of real life.” Cavalli, you are such an artiste. [WWD]
  • The New York Post‘s media columnist has heard rumblings that Stefano Tonchi — who just joined W as editor-in-chief in April — may be on thin ice. “A reliable publishing source said the top brass at Condé Nast are none too pleased with the direction the magazine is taking,” writes Keith Kelly. “The Kim Kardashian cover — where she appeared nude with strategically placed black bars — did not go over well at 4 Times Square, sources said. Shortly after the issue appeared, the creative director, Jody Quon, was gone, with no new replacement named.” Around the time of Quon’s departure, Tonchi — who hired Quon away from a longtime position at New York admitted there had been “tension” in the office. [NYPost]
  • Also, there’s this: “FOR many longtime readers of W, the elite society bible, the appearance of the reality television star Kim Kardashian on the cover of its November issue was an outrage — ‘No iteration of W should give credence to such banalities,’ wrote one angered reader.” [NYTimes]
  • Irina Shabayeva, a Project Runway winner you already do not care about, will be selling things on HSN. [WWD]
  • Differences between the cover of Tom Ford‘s issue of Vanity Fair and Tom Ford‘s issue of Vogue Paris: Tom Ford only put half his face on the Vogue Paris cover. And unlike the naked actress extravaganza of Vanity Fair, the model he’s posing with here, 14-year-old Daphne Groeneveld, is clothed! Although Groeneveld’s ecstatic expression does rather make one wonder what Ford is doing with his hands. So on the creepiness index we’d say it’s a wash. [WWD]
  • Penélope Cruz looks fucking amazing — that’s the technical term for it, anyway — on the cover of Vogue España. [TLF]
  • Tumblr now has a store. Except, if you go to the store’s Tumblr, it asks you to go to a regular website where the products are actually listed, which makes us wonder…is this which is being touted as “the first Tumblr store” actually just a store with a Tumblr? Truthfully we’re too bored to bother getting to the bottom of this. New store on the Internet, everybody. [WWD]
  • In other fashion and technology news, the Guardian has a decent round-up of good fashion-related smartphone apps. [Guardian]
  • Women’s Wear Daily has a less rosy take on Google’s new Boutiques.com than did Cathy Horyn at the New York Times: The trade wrote that the site “still feels like a machine rather than a fashionable friend is recommending items, and the look of the site could be improved with more pretty pictures, but it gets the job done…the number of inappropriate, random or unappealing suggestions it throws out is overwhelming.” Also: “A retailer I spoke with expressed concern that the visual search would make it easy to find knockoffs and cheaper versions of designer clothes. The site certainly does offer that capability, but most women have a set price range they buy that won’t change because of Google. What the site does do that might be more threatening is make it very easy to find things on sale.” Designer-inspired pieces? Things on sale? Oh crumbs. Someone fetch us the smelling salts for we feel an attack of the fashion vapors coming on. [WWD]
  • Meanwhile, Saks is happy that it’s selling more merchandise at full price. During the third quarter, same-store sales at the retailer were up 5.7% year-on-year, and it expects its same-store sales to rise by mid-single-digits during the fourth quarter. [WWD]
  • Gap is still considered to be under-performing in its domestic sales, but the chain is expanding overseas in Asia and, now, South America. Unlike the Chinese stores Gap just opened, the stores it has planned for Chile will not be owned by the company, they will be franchises. [WWD]
  • Fendi, like its label-mate Louis Vuitton, has taken to fetishizing its (supposed) “hand-made” “luxury” qualities. The brand commissioned a writer to do a book about 100 hand-made Italian products, and took the unusual but very canny step of including a token number of its competitors’ products (like Brioni suits). The 40 Euro book will be sold only at Fendi stores, natch. [WWD]