Kate Middleton‘s Alexander McQueen wedding dress, along with her veil, shoes and jewelry, goes on public display at Buckingham Palace starting tomorrow. Middleton and her grandmother-in-law just checked out the exhibition, which we know because the Official Royal Twitterer (The Lady Of The Tweets? The Keeper Of Her Majesty’s @Reply? The Honorable Corps Of Gentlemen-At-BlackBerrys?) just Twitpic’d it. Welcome to the 21st Century. [@RoyalMonarchy]
Up to 650,000 people are expected to attend the show. [AP]
Katie Holmes dressed up in a skintight black lace catsuit and leather daddy’s cap for the cover of Spanish Vogue. [E]
Today we’re going to talk about perfume bottles that are topped with oversized, stylized flowers with three-dimensional plastic petals. The first entry in recent memory into this niche category was Marc Jacobs‘ “Lola” (right). Then Justin Bieber launched “Someday,” (center) which made a ton of money, and everyone thought it was funny that the bottle looked so much like Lola, but Marc Jacobs said he wasn’t going to sue them or whatever. Perhaps emboldened by that news, BCBG has now made its contribution to the Large Flower Perfume meme (left). Um, what gives? [WWD]
There’s something wrong with this sign spotted at the Bloomingdale’s New York flagship. [Racked]
Karmen Pedaru stars in Michael Kors‘ fall campaign. [Ford]
Here’s David Beckham‘s ad for his new scent David Beckham Homme. [WWD]
Meanwhile, Victoria Beckham has designed a “limited-edition” handbag in white crocodile. It costs £8,995. [Vogue UK]
- It takes Tom Ford a while to assume the identity of Tom Ford and all that it connotes, okay? “It takes me a long time in the morning to become the person that other people expect me to be. When I feel depressed and I have a bad day or something terrible has happened or I have to face something, I go through a very precise ritual getting dressed in the morning. In a sense it is armor; I’m building up a layer. If everything in my material world is in order, I will be able to get through it.” The designer is also sad that nobody hits on him these days. “I am married but no one comes on to me, ever. It is like I don’t exist sexually…No one, no one flirts, no one comes on to me. Usually when people are personal with me, then they want to give me their business card at the end of the conversation.” Would he like to be hit on more often, then? “Of course! (Laughs) Why not? I am not saying I would act on it, but it would be nice.” [TheTalks]
- Marc Jacobs‘ favorite movie is Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?. [ONTD]
- Hussein Chalayan kinda wishes you would shut up about that coffee-table dress already. “We’ve done so many projects, and those showpieces as I call them are not the essence of what we are. Our real clothes inspire more people. The showpieces, like the coffee table dress, are monuments of the clothes we make. It’s the real clothes that take up the most of my time. As a journalist you’re interested in those big, experimental pieces but it is the real clothes that are really important. My work is an experimental relational approach to design, that ends up as real clothes that people want to wear.” [Vogue UK]
- Real Something-Or-Other Bethenny Frankel is getting into skincare in a big way: her new line of Skinnygirl lotions and potions will ship to select Wal-Mart stores this November, expanding to 1,500 locations just after Christmas. Given the success of her margarita business, which she sold for a rumored $100 million, retail analysts estimate the skincare could do $18 million at retail in its first year. Frankel talks a good game: “A $150 eye cream is ridiculous and absurd,” she says. “I don’t make false promises.…I don’t want people to think in three days they’ll have no cellulite. That’s not going to happen.” [WWD]
- Also launching a beauty line is Charlotte Ronson. Her collection, priced at $14-$28, will hit Sephora in September. [WWD]
- Vogue is launching a new website in December, but what it is and what it does is a secret for now. [AW]
- Maybelline Great Lash turns 40 this year. A tube is sold somewhere on earth every 1.7 seconds. [WWD]
- Cotton prices, which had been nudging up against all-time highs in the spring have fallen 38% in the past month. The volatility has apparel manufacturers and designers thoroughly perplexed. [WSJ]
- People have forked over $850 million of their hard-earned cash in exchange for Céline Dion‘s perfumes since the first one launched in 2003. Who are these people? Titanic die-hards? The singer has a new one, called Signature. [WWD]
- The Olsen twins have launched a collaboration with Toms shoes, resulting in $150 Toms made of cashmere. Perfect for July! [Vogue UK]
- In case you were in any doubt before, Women’s Wear Daily just tipped its hand in the ongoing Yves Saint Laurent/Christian Louboutin intellectual property dispute over the former’s use of red soles, which the latter holds as a legal trademark. In an item entitled “RED, RED WHINE,” the fashion trade writes, “Giancarlo Giammetti, the longtime business partner of designer Valentino Garavani, has been watching with some bemusement the polemic over red soles ignited by Christian Louboutin’s legal action in New York against Yves Saint Laurent, alleging infringement on its trademark color. Giammetti points out that the now-retired Roman couturier, famous for his red gowns, also designed shoes with red soles way back in 1969 and 1983…Louboutin started using red soles in 1992.” Ouch. It’s not Christian Louboutin’s fault that a trademark can be lost if the holder fails to defend it vigorously from alleged infringement. [WWD]
- Helena Christensen: “I was once stranded on a broken-down boat in shark-infested waters in the middle of the Indian Ocean for five days before we were rescued while doing a Vogue shoot. We ended up shooting the story on our way to the airport on the last day.” [Vogue UK]
- Male model David Gandy watches what he eats. “I love my food, but I do have to be careful. Everything in moderation. Drink, fatty foods, trans fats, everything. A lot of the American guys have such a strict diet of fish and vegetables, and there are things they just will not touch, like a latte. If they’re having a coffee, they will not touch milk. And of course, they won’t have any sort of chocolates, sweets, or bread. That, to me, isn’t living. I’m careful, but I’m not pedantic about it…If I have a big underwear shot, like when I had the Light Blue campaign shoot, maybe a month and a half before that I’m extremely careful. I come off the drink, and I come off a lot of carbohydrates and salts. I won’t eat carbohydrates after 5 p.m. when I have something coming up.” Gandy, who previously criticized Zoolander, has now come around: “The only access people have had to male modeling is really Zoolander — which is an amazing film and I hope No. 2 gets made. But it’s an exaggerated version of what happens. That really is the major question I get asked about male modeling: ‘Is it like Zoolander?’ Well, Zoolander is a comedy. It’s not a documentary.” [Details]
- Australian model Dempsey Stewart sews her own clothes. Cool! [The Cut]
- According to a survey of college students, Asian American teenagers spend more on average than any other ethnic group on back-to-school shopping: a whopping $140.97 a month. Black teenagers spend $137.37, Latinos spend an average of $132.96, and white teens spend $111.58. [Fashionista]
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