- A London stylist says the upcoming V size issue is “such an extreme response to the size-zero hoopla…I don’t think using outsize models is really the way to change perceptions.” Others, however, are more positive:
“I am thrilled when I see these pictures,” says Gary Dakin, the head of Ford +, the Ford division that represents some of the world’s top plus-size models. “Firstly, it shows that these girls can work with great photographers and amazing magazines like V and be taken more seriously for the work they do. For my girls, it means that the word ‘plus’ can — hopefully — go away soon since they are now working in every major magazine in the world…Glamour, French Vogue and a host of other publications have ensured that this segment of the industry is here to stay and a force to be reckoned with.” [Telegraph]
- Kelly Cutrone pals around with top-flight photojournalist Mary Ellen Mark and legendary backstage photographer Roxanne Lowit. We so want to be a fly on the wall at their lunches. [The Cut]
- For her second Vogue Italia cover, Karlie Kloss took a staged — but very real-looking — series of falls in a studio made to look like a runway. Welcome to show season! [Mother Model Management’s Photo Stream]
- “Karlie Kloss smoldered with the same intensity and wide-eyed look as a young Lauren Bacall,” says John Galliano, of the 17-year-old model’s spring Dior campaign. Kloss also nabbed the upcoming Hermès campaign. Meanwhile, Galliano also announced that the next installment in the brand’s ongoing “Lady Rouge” online video series starring Marion Cotillard, will be a music video. Franz Ferdinand wrote the music, and Cotillard herself will do the singing. What this has to do with handbags remains to be seen. [WWD]
- Chanel is marketing the temporary tattoos seen on its spring runway for mass consumption. You’ll get 55 tattoos for £49. (But the feeling of being 11 again is priceless.) [Elle UK]
- St. John is sick to death of Angelina Jolie‘s face. “[Jolie] overshadowed the brand. We wanted to make a clean break from actresses and steer away from blondes and cleanse the palette. We needed to show a modern point of view of St. John,” says CEO Glenn McMahon. “We have evolved.” Naturally, red-haired model Karen Elson was in order. [WWD]
- Bulgari has no such apparent concern about working with an actress. The luxury label remains so proud of its unreleased campaign featuring Julianne Moore that it’s put out a second behind-the-scenes teaser video. As videos go, it’s kind of meaningless — but pretty! We see Moore flicking through a rack of clothing, and putting an emerald bracelet on a cockatiel. [YouTube]
- All this talk of ads — some still forthcoming — has us nervous in light of an inexplicable item in today’s news. Writes Women’s Wear Daily, “The fashion world may be enamored with bloggers – but not when they post future advertising images without permission. Images from the spring-summer campaigns from the likes of Dior, Balenciaga, Celine and others have been circulating on Modelinia, Fashionologie and other sites this week, ahead of their appearances in February magazines, causing puzzlement and consternation at some design houses.” Puzzlement? Consternation? These are ads. Which blogs like this one end up disseminating for free. Advertising has always generated media commentary. Yet Katie Grand was this week forced to apologize for running images of Givenchy‘s campaign on Love magazine’s blog; we’re puzzled that any brand would have the sheer nerve to complain. [WWD]
- Perhaps related: stylist Venetia Scott says that she finds magazines “a bit tired.” Nor does she really buy magazines, or look at them. This is partly because of the restrictions on creativity that the fashion glossies’ increasing reliance on advertising has fostered: “When I first started at [British] Vogue, you’d get all the clothes in, have your rail and you’d make looks. Whereas now the designers do the looks. You can’t mix Chanel now with other designers — the power of advertising is that if you don’t do it in the way that they want you to shoot it then the magazines become scared that they’ll lose the cash. When I first started there wasn’t really any bargaining power between the advertisers and editorial; they were two completely separate things. Now it’s ‘I’ll take out a couple of pages and you give me a couple of pages.'” [Ponystep]
- Gian Luigi Paracchini’s Vita Prada, an unauthorized biography of Miuccia Prada, has become a publishing sensation in Italy. The best-seller gives an account of Prada’s first meeting with her eventual husband, Patrizio Bertelli, at a trade show. Bertelli was selling handbags, and Prada walked up to him and said, “You’re ripping off my bags.” Prada says of the book, “I don’t think I’m as big a bitch as you think, but I had fun reading it.” [Opera Chic]
- Matthew Williamson is taking his uniquely well-developed sense of color to men’s wear. His first men’s capsule collection for those with a Y chromosome hits stores next month. “It’s a nice change, from a design point of view, that I can put the garments on myself and work on a product that’s appropriate for me,” says the designer. His men’s stuff will start at around $310 for a printed wool scarf. [WWD]
- Corinne Grassini, the designer behind the Society for Rational Dress, is launching a lower-priced line, SfRD. [WWD]
- As is London-based Canadian Mark Fast. (Fast is otherwise known as the knitwear designer who put a couple plus-size models in his last runway show, and dealt with his stylist subsequently quitting.) [WWD]
- And perhaps now Fast will be otherwise known as the emerging designer who refused to lend his clothes to Lady Gaga. “I love her music and that Bad Romance song is stuck in my head all the time, but we don’t necessarily have to accept everyone just because they are famous,” explains Fast. “My work is about a lifestyle. It’s not fast-food fashion. It’s not about trends, it’s about classic, it’s about the body, it’s about beauty. Maybe that gets lost in the picture with certain celebrities.” [Metro]
- Gaga‘s appearance on Bravo’s Launch My Line involved her lecturing the designers on the meaning of avant-garde. “For me, when I’m thinking about either designing a piece, or choosing a piece to wear, I think about a shape. If you as a designer — if your aesthetic were to walk through a wooden door, what shape would it leave?” Here the Lady paused for emphasis. “I think it’s also important to be consistent with yourselves. Just because we’re doing a heightened avant-garde sense of who we are doesn’t mean we start shredding things and making, you know, giant hats — it still has to be you.” She then selected a bolt of red PVC — strongly reminiscent of the outfit she chose to meet the Queen — for the designers to work with. [Bravo]
- Jason Wu is doing a “collaboration” with a maker of digital cameras. [Sassybella]
- This Friday, outlet site TheOutnet.com is teaming up with Lucky editors to offer certain garments in a reverse-auction. [WWD]
- Pre-fall 2010 for Louis Vuitton apparently means mink leg-warmers and mini-capes. [TheLifeFiles]
- Puma has sold its majority stake in Hussein Chalayan‘s namesake brand. The buyer? Chalayan himself. [WWD]
- Jeremy Scott will be showing his next collection in New York. The designer had previously shown in Paris. [@ITSJEREMYSCOTT]
- Janie Bryant got a book deal. The Mad Men costume designer is co-authoring a book for this fall with fashion writer Monica Corcoran. [Fashionista]
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