Lindsay And Ungaro Part Ways; YSL Designer Sues Paper For Reprinting His Racist Comments

By Jenna Sauers  |  March 8, 2010 | 5:40pm
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  • “She’s not involved in this collection,” said Ungaro owner Asim Abdullah just before his show commenced this afternoon, Paris time. He was referring, of course, to “artistic adviser” Lindsay Lohan, whose future at Ungaro had long been in doubt. [WWD]
  • Rather than attend the Oscars, as she had planned, Anna Wintour stayed in Paris to watch the rest of the collections. So that whole my-schedule’s-tight, three-days-in-Milan thing was just a practical joke? [FWD]
  • Madonna took Adam Senn, that model from The City, to some Oscar parties. [P6]
  • An article in the London Observer last April about the under-representation of models of color on the runways has become the subject of both criminal and civil defamation complaints brought by Yves Saint Laurent and its head designer, Stefano Pilati. Writer Paul Harris repeated comments that Pilati made to the Washington Post‘s Robin Givhan in 2007. Pilati said, “You can’t find [black models] that are beautiful and with the right proportions.” Pilati did not dispute the accuracy of the quote at the time, perhaps because he felt the Post had included appropriate context — Pilati was also quoted as saying, “To me, it is a matter of proportions and the bodies I choose. My fit model was a black model. When I wanted to translate what I put on her, it was a disaster. It would need 13 times more work in the atelier to modify it to put on a more Caucasian anatomy” — or perhaps because the United States’ first-amendment protections mean any case would have been very unlikely to succeed. [WWD]
  • Naomi Campbell is planning a humanitarian mission to Haiti to attempt to rehabilitate her image see first-hand the work of White Ribbon, the maternal health charity she supports. [NYDN]
  • Campbell will also participate in a walk over the Brooklyn Bridge to celebrate International Women’s Day. [SMH]
  • Rumor has it that Kate Moss told Jude Law he can’t bring Sienna Miller to her Alice-in-Wonderland-themed Easter party. Moss is friends with Rhys Ifans, and doesn’t see why he should have to spend the evening with a woman who “broke his heart,” sources say; why it would be any less awkward for him to spend the evening with the actor currently fucking the woman who broke his heart is unexplained. Sadie Frost, who happens to be Law’s ex-wife, and Jamie Hince have tried to convince the supermodel to relent. [ContactMusic]
  • Sophie Dahl connects her “control-freak” micromanagement (she makes the bed while her husband, Jamie Cullum, is still in it, and even directs the soundtrack for her new cooking show) with her unstable childhood. Her mother, Teresa Dahl, was an alcoholic and a drug addict who overdosed in 1997. “It’s chicken and egg,” explains the cookbook author and ex-model. “I don’t come from a conventional family who lived in one house their whole life. I love being organised. Even as a child I was a list-maker. I am still a list-maker. I still have a Filofax. I don’t have a BlackBerry or iPhone. I like having something tangible.” [ToL]
  • Sherry Horman, who directed the adaptation of model Waris Dirie‘s memoir Desert Flower, says she auditioned over 1,200 women before settling on Liya Kebede, whom she didn’t even realize is, like Dirie, a successful model from Eastern Africa (Kebede is Ethiopian, Dirie is Somali). At a screening, Dirie said, “I’m happy with the movie. Liya is fantastic.” [WWD]
  • Hurt Locker actor Anthony Mackie‘s Academy Award tuxedo was the subject of some debate last night, when both Calvin Klein and Burberry sent out press releases crowing about his outfit’s provenance. Calvin Klein later retracted theirs. Did someone have a last-minute change of heart? [WSJ]
  • Over the course of a single lunch, Jean-Paul Gaultier exclaimed his disgust at the relationship of mutually reinforced greed between fashion houses and celebrities, and enjoyed eating his favorite cake, which is “like the fart of a nun.” Also, he says Guy Ritchie wore nothing under his kilt when he married Madonna, and is hung. [ToL]
  • Taylor Momsen has serious raccoon eyes in the New Look spring ads. [DailyExpress]
  • There are reports that over the weekend, up to 50 people turned over trash cans and threw smoke bombs on N. 6th St., the main drag of hipsterriffic Williamsburg. The damage appears to have been minor; two panes of American Apparel‘s window were smashed. [Free Williamsburg]
  • Hadley Freeman‘s little rant about why models should stick to modeling would be entertaining enough, in a glib kind of way, if only it didn’t include a little dig at Karen Elson, who recently announced she would be releasing an album. Elson’s talent is self-evident; although for obvious reasons “model” is the kind of career designation that tends to follow one, binding Elson, or any other woman, to the fashion industry forever when she has worked so hard to create opportunities for herself outside it seems mean-spirited. [Guardian]
  • Especially when what we really ought to be exercised about are celebrity fashion lines. Jade Jagger (who, okay, used to model but only because she was already famous) is still showing hers, which is named “Jezebel” and mainly features t-shirts with designs on them. [Style.com]
  • “I don’t want to turn into one of those women with a power-dressing fur, heels and a glossy blow-dry. I’d feel as if I was playing a character…I’m quite formulaic. I’ve usually got a bit of leg on show, with a boxy layer on top, and if you see me in a Breton stripe, it’s because I didn’t know what to wear that day.” — Alexa Chung, voted the best-dressed woman of 2009 by British Vogue readers, on moving to to New York and her style. [ToL]
  • Vanessa Paradis, currently the face of Chanel‘s Rouge Coco lipstick, will also advertise Chanel’s Cocoon handbag. [WWD]
  • Isabel Marant showed a collection that was heavy on the sequins and leather, leading some to wonder if the French designer, renowned for her taste, had entered bad Balmain territory. [ToL]
  • Colin McDowell on Alexander McQueen: “Gothic horror always hovered over his runways as a reminder that life is cruel — especially, perhaps, for women — but in that cruelty lies a strange, compulsive beauty…McQueen had more in common with Diaghilev and Cecil B DeMille than with Vionnet or Balenciaga. He was always about the grand idea, yet he never quite closed the gap between the singer and the song.” [ToL]
  • Meanwhile, Gareth Pugh, via his PR agency, has “vehemently denied” that he has been in talks to become Alexander McQueen‘s next creative director. [Telegraph]
  • Carolina Herrera says one of her favorite books is Pride and Prejudice. Her tastes in music run to Beyoncé and Beethoven. [Independent]
  • At his show in Paris, Karl Lagerfeld confirmed he will shoot the next Pirelli calendar. He’ll take haute-pinup shots of some of the world’s best-known models in his studio this April, because, the Kaiser explained, “it’s too obvious to have a beach setting.” [WWD]
  • Robin Givhan has noticed that many fashion houses (Burberry, Marc Jacobs, Dolce & Gabbana) live-streamed their shows this season. Givhan wonders if this move will lead to mere plebs (“as opposed to fashion savants”) “scratching their heads” in confusion at the designers’ high-concept flights of fancy. Somehow, I think we’ll survive early exposure to next season’s skirts. [WaPo]
  • Here is a picture of Phoebe Philo on the cover of the new magazine The Gentlewoman, sister title of Fantastic Man. [WWD]
  • Philo‘s second runway show at the helm of Céline was heralded a success. The Wall Street Journal called it “precise” and praised her restrained use of color and lessened reliance on leather, while Suzy Menkes, also using the p-word (three times), wrote, “Ms. Philo proved her worth. This was 21st-century fashion for a woman, by a woman, with all the confident modernity and emotional understanding that implies.” [WSJ, NYTimes]
  • Peta says that it has convinced Nike-owned brand Cole Haan to stop using exotic skins in its footwear. [DailyFinance]
  • The Fort Lauderdale art museum is the latest stop for the traveling exhibit of Edward Steichen‘s fashion photographs from the 1920s and 30s. [AP]
  • For something completely different, Paris boutique Colette is exhibiting some of Olivier Zahm‘s super sexay photos. [WWD]
  • Lanvin will open its third U.S. store this June, and it will be in New York. Alber Elbaz, who didn’t attend either of the brand’s two previous American openings, at the Palm Beach store and at the Las Vegas location that opened its doors just last week, will make an appearance. [FWD]
  • Kenneth Cole‘s father founded Candie’s shoes. Who knew? [Vogue UK]