A reporter for Fashionista asked Victoria's Secret Angel Doutzen Kroes how she felt about the company's leak of around two dozen unretouched pictures of her (which you can, incidentally, see here side-by-side with their retouched correlatives from the most recent catalog).

Kroes didn't sound particularly bothered by the leak, noting that it's common for unretouched paparazzi photos of her to hit the wires. (In fact, paparazzi shots taken at the same time as Victoria's Secret's own photos have been used by blogs as the basis for Photoshop before-and-after comparisons before.) "There's always paparazzi and stuff on the beach when we're shooting, and it's just part of the job. It happens," said the Dutch model. "But like, with the retouched pictures…then you can see that even I don't look like I do in the pictures, you know?"

Kroes says she believes Photoshop has a place in the fashion industry:

"I think people still want to believe in the fantasy and they just have to know that that's not always the way it is [in real life]. You know like, I look at the pictures, and I know I don't look like the pictures."

Kroes, knowing her own body, knowing the circumstances of the shoot, and knowing how they differ from the final product as it appears in the VS catalog would know that the retouched images don't reflect reality in all kinds of ways, big and small. But hers is a privileged knowledge. Regular consumers aren't in a position to be privy to that same information; that's the point. Photoshop in advertising is supposed to fool us into thinking that what's depicted is perfect — but real. Seeing retouched and unretouched images of celebrities and models helps the people who are the objects, and not the creators, of fashion's imagery understand what Kroes knows instinctively.

Doutzen Kroes on Why Photoshop is Essential: ‘People Still Want to Believe in the Fantasy' [Fashionista]

Is Mitt Romney's secret spray-tanning? The candidate's unusual complexion — especially that ungodly shade of chestnut he rocked for his Univision interview — has been the topic of some comment this election season, because talking about issues is hard. Buzzfeed talked to an anonymous source who says that the Republican nominee has been privately getting his LiLo on for months:

The Republican nominee has made a habit of spray tanning before major speeches, debates, interviews, and other events that have a chance of getting wide TV coverage, the source said. He pays for the process out of pocket — sparing his campaign the expense, and the task of masking it on public campaign finance reports — and steers clear of public salons where he could be recognized. Instead, he gets misted down in the comfort of his own home or hotel suite.

The Romney campaign denies this rumor. [Buzzfeed]

"Number one, Sudan is not an island! And now they need to know that Sudan is two different countries, and because we have Arab influences and Nilotic influences, we're diverse. The North is Arab, the South is Nilotic, and we have so many dialects. People ask, 'Oh, do you speak Sudanese?' But there's no such thing as Sudanese, it's not a language. I guess what I'd really want people to know is how rich our culture is, and how deep and diverse it is. Look it up, and try to know a little bit about us. But don't just focus on the negative side of Sudan. War brought a lot of sadness, but we really are a happy people. We believe in community. You have to help the next person, and the next person has to help you."

[Elle]

• Tory Burch's lawyers are responding to the lawsuit brought by her ex-husband and company co-founder Chris Burch. Tory Burch's side says they plan to countersue for unfair competition, breach of fiduciary duty, breach of contract and a violation of intellectual property. At issue is Chris Burch's new retail venture C. Wonder, which has a similar aesthetic and targets a similar customer to Tory Burch; complicating matters is the fact that each Burch still owns a 28.3% stake in the Tory Burch company, which is valued at around $2 billion. Tory Burch's attorney did some thundering:

  "This guy ripped off Tory Burch. His product looks like our product, his stores look like our stores...In his complaint, Christopher Burch said he's being hurt because the company is standing in the way of me selling my shares to a potential investor. The answer is, we are not standing in the way. His conduct is standing in the way…he is driven by jealousy and animosity."

  We predict this feud will end with blood in the streets. Families all over the Upper East Side are being torn apart! [WWD]

• Carla Bruni says Valérie Trierweiler's life would be simpler if she and François Hollande were to marry. The former French first lady told French Elle, "I think it is more simple to be the legitimate wife of the head of state than to be his companion...Maybe I'm wrong and their choice is modern. But for my part I felt a real easing of the general concern about me when I married Nicolas." [AFP]
• Oscar de la Renta will be the subject of a retrospective at the Clinton library in Arkansas. André Leon Talley will curate. Hillary Clinton frequently wore de la Renta as first lady and has continued to do so in her political career. [The Cut]
• Alberta Ferretti has announced that she will no longer creative-direct her second line, Philosophy di Alberta Ferretti. The designer appointed Natalie Ratabesi to the position. Ratabesi is a graduate of Central St. Martins and previously worked at Christian Dior, Oscar de la Renta, Valentino, Gucci, and Ralph Lauren. [Telegraph]
• Karl Lagerfeld has signed a 20-year perfume license with Inter Parfums. Expect to smell like an old German man starting in 2014. [WWD]
• Around 2500 people lined up for the Yves Saint Laurent sample sale in New York City. People started queueing at 4 a.m. What was inside? Tribute sandals for $250 a pop and a lot of other YSL. [NYPost]
• Losses at Fifth & Pacific, the recent-ish-ly renamed Liz Clairborne, during the quarter just ended hit $18.8 million. That's bad, but significantly better than the $214.6 million the company lost during the same period one year ago. Progress! [WWD]
• Agyness Deyn — who has a role in the new Nicolas Winding Refn film, Pusher — recently told a newspaper that she had basically stopped modeling. Cue a bunch of headlines about her retirement from the industry. But that's not the right word, she says:

  "There's so much crossover. Like filmmakers do fashion commercials. There's just some real crossover. I'm not retired, it's just that I'm not doing it much because I'm doing something else. I'm not going to do fashion weeks, but it's not like I'm never ever going to model ever again, that's quite a bold statement. If you wanna write that that's hilarious. My agent called me and was like, 'You're retired!'"

  [Bullett]

• Elie Saab made the Belgian Countess Stephanie de Lannoy's wedding dress. She is marrying the Crown Prince of Luxembourg. Women's Wear Daily has the numbers:

  The dress required 3,200 hours of work and embroidery, and 700 hours of sewing by a team of 10 seamstresses and 15 embroiderers. De Lannoy's wedding dress was embroidered with 200 transparent sequins, more than 80,000 different transparent crystals and 50,000 small beads. All that finery needed more than 10,000 meters of silver-plated thread, according to Saab. When all was said and done, the gown called for 50 meters of Chantilly lace, 40 meters of Calais lace, 30 meters of satin organza, 70 meters of tulle, silk crepe for the lining, and 15 meters of silk tulle for the veil.

  [WWD]

• And now, a moment with Nicola Formichetti. Nicola, what do you think is the role of references in fashion design?

  "When I started working in fashion, Lee McQueen invited me to his office and I saw his mood board. There were so many art historical and fashion references on the board and next to it was a real dress that he had made by referring to a photo on the board. I was completely shocked and thought, is this fashion? Is it remaking what people did ages ago? When I was younger I didn't believe in it. I wanted to create everything without history, to start anew. I tried that for a few years and I ended up stuck; I couldn't do anything. Then I realised its necessary to have an awareness of history in order to move forward. I care about linking the present moment — the 'now' — to the traditions of the past."

  [Another Magazine]

Rumor has it that Mitt Romney's weirdly inconsistent skin color is due to the fact that the candidate has been getting spray-tanned on the regular. This got us wondering...what self tanner does Willard Mitt Romney use? So we're taking a very scientific poll.

Forever 21 is in trouble for alleged labor violations. You don't say. The fast-fashion chain has failed to cooperate with a Department of Labor investigation into the labor practices of its Los Angeles-based suppliers and manufacturers, even ignoring subpoenas. The agency, which is seeking information about alleged violations of minimum wage and overtime laws, has petitioned the court to compel Forever 21 to turn over the records in question. "Since 2008, our investigators have identified dozens of manufacturers producing goods for Forever 21 under sweatshoplike conditions," said a spokesman for the labor department, who said the company's actions demonstrated "a clear disregard for the law." [WWD]

• Karl Lagerfeld and Kanye West had lunch together at the Mercer hotel. According to an onlooker, "They were in a deep conversation, then later appeared to be getting devices out to discuss design ideas." [P6]
• Rob Kardashian got himself a sock endorsement deal. "Socks are something I've always been passionate about," he says, gamely. "Ralph Lauren started with ties and I want to emulate that." The socks cost $30 per. [WWD]
• Revenues at the luxury conglomerate PPR rose 6.6% year-on-year during the quarter just ended, to $3.2 billion. François-Henri Pinault says that the group's luxury division, which includes Gucci, Stella McCartney, and Alexander McQueen, saw revenues clime 24.3%, to $1.9 billion. [WWD]
• Oh happy day! Duro Olowu is doing a collaboration with J.C. Penney. It'll be in stores in March and retail for $10-$100. [Fashionista]
• Lord & Taylor announced that, for the first time ever, it will open its Manhattan flagship store on Thanksgiving Day. Sorry, retail drones. You don't get a holiday. The store claims that no worker will be forced to work the day — and volunteers will get the enticement of holiday pay — but store associates hardly seem thrilled by the news. [WWD]
• Irina Shayk says she has a hard time watching herself as the host of Russia's Next Top Model. "I am very critical to myself. When I watch, I am like, ‘Oh my God, what am I talking about? I should not say that.'" She continued, "It's very hard to see myself on TV judging someone else because I am a person who judges myself every time and [tries] to be better." [P6]
• This coming January, Kenzo and Maison Kitsuné are to be the guest designers at Pitti Uomo and Pitti W, the Florence trade shows. [WWD]
• Eyewear giant Luxottica reported its net profits rose year-on-year by 30.6%, to $173.2 million, during the quarter just ended. [WWD]
• Procter & Gamble, meanwhile, saw sales at its beauty division fall year-on-year by 7% during the quarter. P&G owns, among other brands, CoverGirl, Olay, and Pantene. [WWD]

Drew Barrymore is apparently biding her time until her Cover Girl contract expires in January after five years as a face of the brand. Rumor has it that's when she plans to launch her own namesake beauty line with Wal-Mart as the exclusive retailer. [WWD]

"I'm totally against the debate. I think whatever you like, you should do. It's called options. Nobody's saying you're blacker than I am just because you have natural hair...The way I dress, or relax or lighten my hair, it's not like I'm saying I don't want to be black. I shouldn't be carrying the whole race on my shoulders just because I want to color my hair. To me, it's not a big deal. My daughter, she likes to straighten her hair and at the same time, she wears it curly on different days. It's not a big deal. We really need to move forward in the language of what beauty is. Beauty is such a minefield for a lot of people that we think it says something about the inner person, and it really doesn't. Sometimes, it's just play and it's about having fun. It's like, when girls wear something tight and revealing are they saying something? No! They think they look hot! Let them be! I've always hated rules and regulations."

[Refinery29]

• Retailers in the Northeast spent the weekend bracing for Hurricane Sandy. The major department stores in New York City were boarding up their windows, and many retailers closed early on Sunday. [WWD]
• Prabal Gurung spent Sunday shooting Olivia Thirlby and Chris Conroy in the West Village for the designer's upcoming Target collaboration. [Fashionista]
• Women's Wear Daily has a long, thorough story on the glass ceiling in the retail industry today. Although women shoppers make 80% of the purchase decisions in fashion, WWD reports, only 1.7% of the retailers in the Fortune 500 are led by a female C.E.O. Even more pathetic, that's actually worse than the Fortune 500 average of 3.8%. Tory Burch says, "'Ambition' should not be a four-letter word. It's something I think women should embrace. There's been something of a stigma to that word." And HSN C.E.O. Mindy Grossman puts the problem down to a lack of commitment to change: "The only way it's going to change is if the people at the top say, ‘We're going to make a change.' If you don't have senior women at the top and you're not populating your ranks, if you will, it's not going to happen by osmosis." [WWD]
• The company behind Chroma Makeup, the high end cosmetics brand, is considering legal action against the Kardashians over their planned Khroma Beauty line of drugstore makeup. [TMZ]
• Speaking of makeup, Nars opened its first store outside New York this weekend in Los Angeles. The brand plans to grow to a ten-store chain over the next five years. [WWD]
• Thirty-seven per cent of the sales racked up by the luxury conglomerate Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy, which had a net income of over €3 billion last year, are attributable to just one brand: Louis Vuitton. For that reason, the company is interested in diversifying, and company head Bernard Arnault's son Antoine has been dispatched to preside over the launch of Berluti as a men's clothing brand. Here the younger Arnault discusses John Galliano, whom his father fired from Christian Dior last year:

  "I'm sorry, but designers are not artists. They may have the talent of one, but if they want to work in that way they should paint or sculpt. Here they're working in business and they need a brief. That's what my father does so well. I've witnessed him do it countless times and I'm really inspired by that. You know, towards the end, my father just couldn't talk to John Galliano at all, it was impossible — he wouldn't listen to anything. At that point, it crashes."

  [Guardian]

• Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana will return to court on December 3 to stand trial on tax charges in Italy. [WWD]
• In order to trim costs, La Perla's owners plan to lay off around 309 of the Bologna-based lingerie company's 600 workers. Unions representing the affected garment workers are protesting. [WWD]
• A book about Kylie Minogue's fashions titled Kylie/Fashion will be released in November. [Vogue UK]
• Forever 21 says that it has already complied with all of the Department of Labor's requests pertaining to an investigation of alleged minimum wage and hour violations at its Los Angeles-area factories (and those of its suppliers). The Department of Labor disagrees, and on Friday filed a request to get the court to compel Forever 21 to comply with its subpoenas. [WWD]
• The accessories brand Hayden Harnett has been acquired by AHQ, which also owns Kooba and Yak Pak. The value of the deal was not disclosed. [WWD]

Kate Zambreno's book Heroines comes out today! And you should read it. It is fantastic. It is basically How A Book Should Be.

You should also read Kate Zambreno's blog. How good is Kate Zambreno's blog? I just typed her blog URL into the URL-making thingee of this idiotic CMS from memory, is how good - and you could list the personal blogs whose URLs I know and can type by heart on the fingers of a one-handed man who lost a couple in a knife fight down in Reno.

Kate is everything: smart, insanely prolific, invested in exploring female subjectivity, and engaged by topics as diverse as Robert Pattinson/literary theory/Gramsci. Her Marie Calloway essay is basically the best thing ever. Zambreno's is the kind of omnivorous intellect that writes things like, "I want to read books on outsider art and magic. I want figure out how to grow sprouts. I would like to read more disability studies, and history of medicine. Performance studies. Anarchism. Ecofeminism. Animal rights. Witches. Etc." And, "Disgust for Anais Nin is a disgust for the girls with their Livejournals." And:

I am beginning to realize that taking the self out of our essays is a form of repression. Taking the self out feels like obeying a gag order-pretending an objectivity where there is nothing objective about the experience of confronting and engaging with and swooning over literature.

Heroines is a sort of hybrid memoir and literary scavenger hunt in search of what you might jokingly call the WAGs of Modernism - the women whose papers weren't archived, whose oral histories weren't recorded, whose lives aren't accorded any kind of public memory apart from their men. Even though they were writers in their own right. Olive Moore. Vivien(ne) Eliot. Zelda Fitzgerald. Anna Kavan. Jane Bowles. Although Zambreno's interest in the neglected women writers of the Modernist movement is longstanding, the book draws on blog posts she wrote while living in Ohio, where she had moved to follow her husband to a tenure-track job. That's an experience many coupled women have: you stack up the professional opportunities, you weigh the respective earnings, and you find that, no matter how the two of you do the math, he wins. And when you move to Akron or wherever he takes you, you start to question your own ambition, your own capabilities, the extent to which your identity is or should be subsumed into his. I think men are much more rarely in a position to ask those questions of themselves; they always seem to get offered the tenure track. It's no coincidence that Zambreno found her topic just as her own life was beginning to resemble her subjects'.

The book is startlingly insightful. Zambreno writes of Zelda Fitzgerald and F. Scott Fitzgerald's relationship, "She played the parts so he could immortalize her."

He draws almost verbatim from her diaries and letters-turning down an offer to publish her journals. They were his material he insisted. She was all raw and intense emotion. "I am not going to write you anymore. I am too unstable."

In a mock-serious review of The Beautiful and the Damned, Zelda writes:"It seems to me that on one page I recognized a portion of an old diary of mine which mysteriously disappeared shortly after my marriage, and also scraps of letters which, though considerably edited, sound to me vaguely familiar. In fact, Mr. Fitzgerald-I believe that is how he spells his name-seems to believe that plagiarism begins at home."

Yet of course the flapper or Surrealist femme-enfant is not a writer. She might write loveletters or keep a journal (whatever happened to Zelda's teen-dream diary?) but she is not a serious writer or taken seriously, even when she eventually longs for this. Even if she could write her own life better than he could.

Over at the Paris Review, there's an excellent interview with Zambreno in which she says of writing the book:

I didn't know whether all these notes I was hoarding were criticism or experimental biography or memoir or a novel. I started rereading novels during the long spaces of the day, the times in between teaching-Madame Bovary, Tropic of Cancer. Meditating on these male authors who I found so ecstatic to read but I also kind of hated, if that makes sense. I started a blog. I didn't know anyone who blogged. I think I was trying to notebook these ideas. I thought, Maybe what I'm doing is essaying.

I was surprised to find this community out there, of writers with similar obsessions. I went from invisible community-the wives, my regular seance-to another invisible community-online. Sheila Heti told me she thinks of Heroines as a novel. Maybe it is a novel. I don't know.

Anyway. Heroines. You should totally read it.

Nicolas Ghesquière is leaving Balenciaga after 15 years as the house's creative director. The brief announcement in Women's Wear Daily says the designer and the company made a "joint decision to end their working relationship" effective the end of this month. No word on what prompted Ghesquière's departure, or whether it is in fact voluntary; the designer has presided over Balenciaga during a period of tremendous growth (particularly in its accessories category with trend-setting best-sellers like the motorcycle handbag) and relationships with top celebrities including KStew, all while maintaining cred with the fickle high-fashion elite. To call this news unexpected is an understatement. [WWD]

• Fashion historian Valerie Steele, the curator and director of the Museum at FIT, gave a wide-ranging interview to Fashionista. She says of street style photography:

  "It's a very interesting phenomenon and I think it's good for fashion, that people are dressing up to be seen and to be photographed. I think that in order for fashion to flourish, you really need to have a culture where people are performers and also sort of knowledgable observers and connoisseurs."

  [Fashionista]

• New York magazine hangs out with Solange Knowles in Red Hook, Brooklyn, near her recording studio:

  "It's got some pajama vibes, but it works," she says of her outfit. Her Technicolor coat is on permanent loan from Alberta Ferretti, for whom she recently did a runway show in Milan ("They forgot to ask for it back"), and she's paired it with neon-orange socks, open-toed heels, and an Afro wig. Most of the men loitering outside bodegas and 99-cent stores don't recognize her as a singer-or as Beyoncé's younger sister — but they do recognize that she looks good. "Beautiful. I like your style," says one, mouthing a kiss.

  Later, a strange man on the street offers her chicken jambalaya out of a styrofoam container. "I just ate," says Knowles. "Otherwise, I would totally dig into that." [Vulture]

• "Things like blogs and the Internet are so important now." This is a thing that the Sartorialist, Scott Schuman, said in an interview. He also held forth on Bill Cunningham, the legendary photographer of the New York Times's On The Street column:

  "You know, I hate to say it, I'm sure everyone thinks he's a lovable guy, and I'm sure he is. We've never had a conversation. The only conversation we've ever had is when I'm trying to shoot someone and he says, ‘Hey, get out.'

  "The only influence he's had on me is that I want to be doing that when I'm 80. That's the only thing. I want to be on the bike, I want to be doing that at 80.

  "His photographs, I think they're nice, they're just a totally different style from me. I don't think they're bad, really just a different style. He's really reportage, shoot, snap, he's just going, going, going. His only influence has been in the quality of the effort he puts in and the joy — you can literally really see it on his face, the joy that he still has for fashion."

  [WWD]

• The Mall of America just turned 20. Its impact on the Minnesota economy through sales and tourism is around $2 billion annually. [WWD]
• The producers of the Victoria's Secret fashion show helped the National Guard power its base at the Lexington Avenue Armory during the blackout after Hurricane Sandy. The company, which tapes its fashion show inside the armory every year, let the National Guard use the generators and communication system it had installed in anticipation of the event. [Wired]
• Speaking of Victoria's Secret, Jourdan Dunn and Cara Delevingne are both set to make their debuts in this year's show. [Telegraph]
• Leonardo DiCaprio and Erin Heatherton reportedly broke up last week. Don't worry, the actor is already "partying with a gaggle of models" at Cipriani. Stick with what works! [P6]
• Tiffany & Co. is planning to open a store on the Champs Elysées in Paris. [WWD]
• Amazon.com is continuing to expand its fashion retail business, which category it finds profitable and fast-growing. Amazon is leasing a 40,000-square-foot space in New York to photograph clothing and accessories for the main site as well as Shopbop and MyHabit, which the company owns. The studio will be in Williamsburg, and will employ a small staff in addition to a roster of freelance photographers, stylists, models, makeup artists, and hair stylists that will likely number in the hundreds. [WWD]
• Gaspard Ulliel — the totally hot dude from A Very Long Engagement, remember him? — has been cast as Yves Saint Laurent in an upcoming French biopic. Bertrand Bonello is attached to direct. Meanwhile, another Saint Laurent biopic, to be directed by Jalil Lespert, has won authorization from the designer's widower, Pierre Bergé. [Vogue UK]
• Karl Lagerfeld is adding a licensed line of watches, produced by Fossil, to his namesake brand. [WWD]
• Lawrence Lenihan, a professor at NYU's Stern School of Business, has harsh words for most of the fashion start-ups he sees cluttering the Internet with "virtual closets" and flash sales and crowd-sourced this and that:

  The biggest flaw I see is that these "Internet entrepreneurs" fail to understand how the Internet will fundamentally transform the fashion industry, not just provide another access point to buy something.

  In my opinion, the biggest change will be a dramatic shift in the relationships amongst brands, retailers and customers. Going forward, every brand must figure out how to connect directly with its customers and they must structure their business around the relationships they want to have with their customer rather than let their distribution channels define them. The economics are too great not to do so.

  [BoF]

• Elizabeth Arden's efforts to reposition the brand have hurt its profitability in recent months, but not its sales. In the quarter just ended, net income fell year-on-year by 76.3% to $2.2 million. Sales rose by 13.5%. [WWD]
• True Religion saw net income rise year-on-year by about 2%, to $12.3 million. But while sales rose year-on-year by 9.4%, same-store sales fell 4.7%. [WWD]

Norwegian designer Siren Elise Wilhelmsen has made a clock that knits. In fact, knitting stitch by stitch is how the clock represents the passage of time. In a year the clock knits one two-meter-long scarf. Wilhelmsen calls the clock "365."

"Now the past can be carried out in the future and the upcoming year is hiding in a new spool of thread, still unknitted," writes Wilhelmsen on her Web site.

If the clock knitted just a little bit faster, this would be perfect. Not to mention the solution to all of my holiday-present needs.

Clock Knits A Scarf Over 365 Days [PSFK]
Siren Elise Wilhelmsen [Official Site]

Kate Moss gave the second of the two interviews she will give in support of the new book of photographs of her, Kate, to the New York Times. Moderately juicy thing she said about Lara Stone and Christy Turlington, ho:

"I think she's very hot, with her boobs and her teeth," Ms. Moss said, referring to Ms. Stone's gaptoothed smile. "Though my husband says she's not his cup of tea."

Speaking of the model Christy Turlington, one of the Three Graces of the supermodel era and a woman Ms. Moss once considered a paragon, she revealed some of the edge that has kept her relevant to fashion. "The last time I saw Christy, she was wearing a twin-set," Ms. Moss said. "You can think twin-set, but you can't wear one."

[NYTimes]

• Oh yeah, wasn't there something we were supposed to do today? Katy Perry and Beyoncé would like to jog your memory: the former wore a skintight blue dress with Obama's logo on it and the latter wore Obama hoop earrings. [MTV]
• Here is a report from today's Alexander Wang sample sale in New York/indictment of our choices as a society: "I just found out that the first person in line got here at 10:30pm last night. About 50 people or so back from him are people who showed up this morning around 6:30am. One girl even has a tent...One girl near me says she would have gotten here at 4:30am, but her friend told her that that was insane. Innocent bystanders keep asking us if we're waiting in line to vote. It's kind of embarrassing." [Racked]
• Jason Wu went to Taiwan to speak to students, and WWD reports the designer "received the kind of reception normally given to a pop star that's been out on tour for two years." [WWD]
• Gisele Bündchen: still gestating. [HuffPo]
• Coach Inc. is donating $2 million to Hurricane Sandy relief. Ralph Lauren is also making a personal donation of $2 million, and the Ralph Lauren Corporation is donating a further $1 million. The private foundation of the Newhouse family, of Condé Nast fame, is giving $1 million. Hearst is donating $1 million and matching employee donations up to another $1 million. Limited Brands, which owns Victoria's Secret, is giving $1 million. [WWD]
• Fessler, one of the largest remaining U.S. knitwear manufacturers, is going out of business. The company, which just last year invested in solar technology (with the help of a federal tax credit) to provide for the energy needs of its Pennsylvania factory and headquarters, couldn't get a needed loan; 130 direct and 150-300 indirect employees will be affected. [WWD]
• Lana Del Rey is not the face of Versace, contrary to what some random on the Internet Tweeted last week. [Vogue UK]
• Italian police have seized some $83 million worth of property — including a castle — from the Marzotto family. The textile tycoons are the latest high-profile targets of an Italian government that has been aggressively investigating alleged tax evasion and avoidance. The Marzottos are alleged to have created a Luxembourg-based shell company to handle the sale of Valentino Fashion Group to the private-equity firm Permira in 2007, specifically to avoid paying taxes on the transaction in Italy. [WWD]
• Narciso Rodriguez' collection for Kohl's hit stores one day early, and is selling strongly. [SheFinds]
• David Gandy is dating the British model Sarah Ann Macklin. Macklin is something of a muse to designer Matthew Williamson, whom she charmed during a night of drinking:

  "We started catching up, and we just get on really well. We were talking and drinking lots of Champagne, then he started telling me about this massive film, XV, for his 15th-year anniversary, and how he really wanted me to be a part of it. So we started working together really closely. Any opportunity to wear his dresses, I will."

  [WWD]

• Robin Givhan — who, in her position as the Washington Post's fashion critic and, more recently, at the Daily Beast, has written more (and more inanely) about Michelle Obama's "style" than anyone other than (maybe) that obsessive chick behind the Mrs. O blog — is crying uncle. And oh boy, it's fucking rich:

  [S]omewhere along the way, the attention lavished on the first lady's wardrobe became indiscriminate. Rather than debating whether a garment was appropriate for an occasion — a legitimate conversation, considering her position — or the possible effect it could have on the economics of the fashion industry, the conversation turned flaccid and banal.

  It took on a Hollywood tone. People wanted to know what she was wearing, not because it signified anything, but simply because it was on her back. What did she wear to the last White House Correspondents Dinner, to the Congressional Black Caucus Gala, to the most recent campaign event in Virginia? To the debates? There was an avalanche of obsessing, admiring, and gushing. Every garment is not symbolic. Every dress is not fraught with meaning. But the conversation yammered on even though there was nothing of substance to say. At first it was fun. Then it became a habit. Now, it's just a bore.

  You don't fucking say. [TDB]

• François-Henri Pinault, the head of PPR, has prevailed over the California commissioner of insurance in a lawsuit stemming from the 1991 sale of a life-insurance company with a portfolio of junk bonds to French investors. Rich people make their money in such complicated ways. [WWD]
• Editor Of British Vogue Reads Too Much Into Common Footwear Choice:

  The delicious point about white shoes - any white shoes - is their utter devil-may-care impracticality. There is nothing of the everyday about a pair of brilliant white patent shoes, shining like diamonds on dirty London pavements. [...]

  In my opinion, a light-coloured shoe is too obvious in the summer. They become more desirable in the autumn, when white leather carries a whiff of rebellion into the short days, an all-important insouciance about the wind, rain and the dark nights ahead.

  Of course, for years white shoes — like white vans — have suffered a bad press. But it's the hint of bad taste that is an intrinsic part of its charm.

  [Daily Mail]

• Paul Smith is launching a collection of t-shirts inspired by items from David Byrne's archive of Talking Heads-related tour passes, photographs, art, and so forth. [WWD]
• And now, a moment with Ivanka Trump. Ivanka, what provides insight into people?

  "Golf provides a lot of insight into people. I use it a lot for business. It gives me the opportunity to spend four hours with somebody and see who they are."

  [WSJ]

The Victoria's Secret fashion show tapes tomorrow, and Women's Wear Daily sat in on one of the last rounds of costume fittings. This is what was going on:

Jewelry designer David Mandel was creating a four-foot Diamond Back python in a myriad of brightly colored Swarovski crystals and vintage crystals from his personal collection. Key accessories were snake eyes from a taxidermist. "Metal doesn't drape....I'm literally sculpting with stones, and sometimes I have to solder pieces in midair to get the right angle," said Mandel, as he popped a snake eye into its socket. He turned around to show another costume for the Angels in Bloom segment, which will feature scores of hothouse flowers such as an oversized hibiscus embedded on a lavish multicolor costume. [...]

Miranda Kerr had just finished her fitting in an emerald-green velvet bodysuit encrusted with Swarovski crystals and dyed-to-match feathers for the Circus segment. Cameron Russell stepped out in the Swarovski anniversary piece in fantasy platforms by Nicholas Kirkwood. She wore what appeared to be well more than $5 million in jewels by London Jewelers, including a 16-carat diamond ring.

The show will feature 65 costumes, 28 of which have Angel wings. And last but not least, some people named Justin Bieber, Rihanna, and Bruno Mars will perform live. The whole shebang will be broadcast on CBS on November 29.

Also among the show's confirmed cast? Alessandra Ambrosio, who (as previously reported) will be wearing the $2.5 million diamond bra. Fellow Brazilian Adriana Lima was also spotted coming in for a fitting. So is Hilary Rhoda, who Tweeted a photo of herself at the gym in preparation for her turn on the runway. And British models Cara Delevingne and Jourdan Dunn, each of whom will be making her Victoria's Secret debut.

Behind The Scenes At Victoria's Secret [WWD]

The Denver-based boutique and online retailer Goldyn recently sent its fall lookbook to a variety of bloggers. The lookbook featured two models posing in front of teepees, while wearing Plains Indian-style headdresses (along with Helmut Lang sweaters, Cynthia Vincent dresses, and T by Alexander Wang dresses, of course). Even leaving aside the issue of appropriating Native American culture and textiles in general, many Native American people find the appropriation of headdresses particularly offensive — both because of the way it promotes the stereotyping of Native cultures and because headdresses have deep spiritual and cultural significance. They aren't worn by just anyone; they are earned. Appropriating these powerful symbols of Native American culture just recalls the myriad other ways that Native Americans have been victimized over the centuries in the good ol' U.S. of A.

Chicago fashion blogger Meagan Fredette found the Native American cultural appropriation — which seems to be a fashion trend that just will not die — irritating, and wrote Goldyn to say so.

Fredette's email read, in part:

As a half-white female, I don't know that it is my place to comment on issues surrounding Native peoples. But since this landed in my inbox, I do feel compelled to speak up (while acknowledging that I do come from a place of racial privilege). Additionally, marginalized people should not have to bear the sole responsibility for speaking up against their oppression; as white people, we should listen to them and help educate others about their concerns when we can, as best we can.

The use of the headdress, poorly-rendered war paint, and teepees in your look do not add any significant creative aspects in your lookbook - these symbols are too loaded with history to ever be considered something other than what they are. By devaluing these symbols into fashion accessories (on white models, no less), you have effectively presented an unfortunate stereotype of a culture that to this day, continues to endure hardships that you and I will never know. That fact is very important! White people have historically treated Native Americans with absolute cruelty, what could possibly give us the right to steal what few traditions they have left? It is not "exotic" or "edgy" or "ironic". You are not "paying homage" to their history. You are making a racist mockery of their culture. And for what? To sell some Helmut Lang sweaters?

Please consider these articles, written by Native writers, on this very topic:
http://nativeappropriations.blogspot.com/2010/04/but-why-cant-i-wear-hipster-headdress.html
http://apihtawikosisan.tumblr.com/post/17269241821/an-open-letter-to-non-natives-in-headdresses

The response she received from Goldyn founder and owner Vanessa Barcus was as follows:

Dear Meagan,

I was forwarded your email by Courtney, our Director of Marketing and PR, and was absolutely saddened by your interpretation and judgement of our recent lookbook shoot. I am so incredibly sorry that you felt we were mocking Native American culture; this could not be farther from our intentions, which I will explain below. Please do not be so quick to make conclusions or negative judgements of others, however, without knowing our own background or context.

These were not fake tipis or a fake landscape made as a "set" for our shoot... We shot our lookbook in our home state of Colorado at the Plains Conservation Center, which is a non-profit that is south east of Denver, which educates children and the public about Native American culture and causes. Our thinking was, why not take advantage of the fact that Native design is so trendy in fashion right now, and utilize that in order to help promote this non-profit and bring awareness to actual Native causes that people can donate to. We worked with the PCC on the shoot and it's concept, and we sent out PR on their behalf - that was essentially the trade arrangement we made with them. They were very happy to have the support and were incredibly kind to us in return.

Additionally, one of our main staff who helped conceptualize the shoot and who was there on location is half Cherokee. I myself absolutely love and adore Native American culture on a very real level, and have practiced certain aspects of Native American religion since I was young. My mother actually runs a non-profit that provides assistance to impoverished members of the local Native American community in Boulder, Colorado, and so I grew up around friends who were of Native American descent my whole life. I loved the idea of honoring this culture in our shoot because it rang a very deep, personal bell with me. If you find this insulting that I, as a Caucasian woman, would revere another culture that I feel a connection to, then I am sorry you have such a negative, non-inclusive perspective.

In short, our intention was to honor and pay homage to the culture in a very real way, not in a way that was meant to be exploitative or hokey. I can understand if you are upset that a white model was wearing a headdress, and if this in particular was what offended you, I do apologize. That is a touchy thing, which I understand, however let me further explain the art direction/higher-level concept behind the whole shoot in defense of that choice.... The concept for the shoot was 'early homesteaders meet Natives on the plains, in a re-imagined, fictional time period that has elements of both past and future,' as a representation of the fact that modern American culture is a melding of many different cultures. As such, our female model played the part of both sides - Caucasian homesteader, and Native American. Again, this was not meant to mock or create a caricature, but rather pay homage to the plains on which our store actually sits, and the mixed cultures from which it came.

In any event, once again I apologize if our shoot offended you. Please know that our intention was only to honor the culture and to even help promote its causes in a very real and authentic way. Hopefully you can choose to be open-minded and culturally inclusive enough to see that.

Best,

Vanessa
—
Vanessa Barcus
Owner/Founder
Goldyn :: ShopGoldyn.com

Barcus' response is almost as tone-deaf as her store's fashion shoot.

Because Barcus brought it up, I reached out to the Plains Conservation Center to get their take. Melanie Zeitler, the PCC's director of development and marketing, said in an email that the Center had not, in fact, been told about the concept prior to the shoot:

We opened-up our site free of charge to Goldyn, but we were not at all involved in any of the details in organizing the specifics of the shoot. We are very careful to show reverence for and are continually deeply concerned about how we teach of the cultures of the short-grass prairie. By no means would we have endorsed anything offensive towards any cultural group. I believe the store's intentions were wholly good, but perhaps they were naively unaware of how some of the images might be reviewed by others. We did not see the images before they were printed.

Zeitler added that as far as she is aware, "The store is deeply apologetic for offending anyone," and will be taking the offending images off its Web site.

UPDATE:

I just heard from Courtney Parker, the director of marketing and public relations for Goldyn. Parker wrote in part:

Goldyn has released the following statement in regard to this: "We are deeply apologetic if any images from our recent lookbook photo shoot were construed to be culturally insensitive. Our intentions could not have been farther from this, and came from a positive place. We had hoped that working with the Plains Conservation Center would help to build awareness for this local non-profit; we did not intend to hurt or offend a culture for which we have a deep respect and admiration."

We mean this from the bottom of our heart. No one involved ever intended to hurt, offend, disrespect, mock or insult anyone. We have removed the images from our website and will not be using them moving forward.

She also added that the female model used in the shoot is "half white and also half Cherokee."

Monday Eyeroll [Updated] [Latterstyle]

Last night was a time of high emotional dudgeon. All that anxiety as we awaited the outcome of the U.S. presidential election, followed by the news that Obama had won a second term in office. If you're teenaged billionaire Peter Brant II, the Greenwich-raised son of paper magnate Peter Brant and supermodel Stephanie Seymour, you don't exactly welcome that outcome. If you're teenaged billionaire Peter Brant II, you exchange snarky text messages about Romney's defeat with your friend Andrew Warren, who describes himself on Twitter as "NYC/HAMPTONS" and says the election is going to make him "poor" now, obviously. And Andrew jokes about how at least women will still have rights, except, "oh wait I don't care." And you, Peter Brant II, joke about having "a contingency plan: Kill Obama, hahaha." Hahaha!

Then you screenshot that charming display of wit and trenchant political analysis and post that shit on Instagram.

Photo and comment thread screencapped from Statigram (you must be logged in and approved to follow @peter_brantii to view it); the part where Peter Brant II tells a commenter to jump off a cliff is particularly lovely. Peter Brant II's Instagram account is now private but as of this morning the photo had not been deleted.

Click to enlarge

Tory Burch is now countersuing her ex-husband and former business partner, Chris Burch. The Burches still each own 28.3% of the Tory Burch company, and the alleged similarities between that brand and Chris Burch's more recent retail venture, C. Wonder, are the focus of the dispute.

Chris Burch sued Tory Burch last month for "tortious interference" with his business and breach of contract, alleging that his ex-wife had tried to hamper his relationships with suppliers.

In her just-filed counterfuit, Tory Burch is alleging that Chris Burch violated his fiduciary duty to the Tory Burch company and that for a period of over two years prior to announcing his plans to launch C. Wonder, Chris Burch "repeatedly asked for and was given full complete access to competitively sensitive information about the company and its best-selling products." She argues that C. Wonder copied not only Tory Burch's designs and aesthetic, but store architecture and interior design, down to the rugs and wall treatments. Developing. [WWD]
The judge in the case, Leo Stine, seems to fancy himself a comedian. Here are some things he said about the scheduling of the trial, John Cheever, and the WASP-iness (or otherwise) of the participants:

"I didn't see any reason to burden anyone's Hanukkah, New Year's, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Festivus with this preppy clothing dispute."
"Real WASPs actually don't go and pay full Polo price. They don't pay full Polo price at Macy's. No way. They actually will find a bargain. That's how they got to be, you know, WASPs. When Tory Burch became popular, no one said, ‘Oh, my gosh, this is the newest thing that ever happened.'"
"I've been deep in it, in an autumnal Cheever phase. I've been reading all kinds of Cheever. I'll have to just keep that up through the — through the case. Have you read your Cheever lately? You know who he is? I mean, it's — you know, and ‘Mad Men' will be coming back at some point in time. I think if you read Cheever, go see the new Virginia Woolf revival and watch ‘Mad Men.' We'll be all geared up and in the mood for this sort of drunken WASP fest. Are they WASPs? Are the Burches WASPs? Do we know?"

Basically, Leo Stine is Fran Lebowitz on Law & Order. Which was actually a documentary. [WWD]

• Some of Lady Gaga's costumes are to be auctioned off, so if you want to buy that metal mask she wore in the video for "Bad Romance," now's your chance. [Vogue UK]
• Costume designer Jacqueline Durran studied 19th Century couture dresses by Charles Frederick Worth and 1950s garments by Jacques Fath and Cristóbal Balenciaga at the Met's Costume Institute while working on Anna Karenina with Keira Knightley. Durran and the director didn't want the movie to be a straight period piece, so she combined 1870s skirt silhouettes with some elements of 1950s bodices. [WWD]
• Brooke Shields' mother and longtime manager, Teri Shields, has died. She was 79. [NYTimes]
• Carine Roitfeld said at a public interview with PS1 museum's Klaus Biesenbach that if she could choose any name for her profession, it would be "dreamer." Joked the former editor of Vogue Paris, "It's very difficult when I fill out immigration papers and they say, ‘What is your job?'" She also said that she hopes Balenciaga picks a designer who is as "young and fresh" as Nicolas Ghesquière was when he joined the house as an associate in the mid-90s, rising to creative director in 1997. [WWD]
• Roitfeld also clarified her new role as an editor for Harper's Bazaar. She will not report to Glenda Bailey, or any other editor-in-chief, but instead will work to come up with fashion editorials independently, and then they'll be offered to all international editions of the magazine. Hearst pursued her for over a year before she agreed to take on the at-large role. "I'm always independent. No boss," said Roitfeld. [WWD]
• European Union scientists want 100 allergens added to the list of ingredients cosmetics and perfume manufacturers must disclose on their packaging, and want 12 substances banned outright. Perfumes that currently include some of those allergens include Chanel No. 5, Angel by Thierry Mugler, and Shalimar by Guerlain. Cosmetics companies are obviously fighting the proposed measure. [Telegraph]
• Snooki, eager as ever to exploit the window of fame that is swiftly closing with the cancellation of Jersey Shore, is selling a bunch of crap with her name on it on HSN. There's a perfume called Snooki Couture, but sadly none named Where Did We Go So Wrong As A Culture? [WWD]
• Rumor has it Erdem Moraglioglu is under consideration to be the creative director at Schiaparelli when it relaunches next year. [Grazia]
• Derek Lam and his business co-founder Jan-Hendrik Schlottman just bought their company back from Labelux, which took a majority stake in 2008. The deal's price tag was not disclosed. [WWD]
• Meanwhile, the family that owns 28% of Lacoste is considering selling its stake to the Swiss concern Maus Frères. Maus says the deal would value the company at around $1.3-$1.6 billion. [WWD]
• Racked asks the obvious question in the wake of the news that Iman cosmetics is launching a BB cream for women of color: why the fuck aren't other cosmetics brands doing the same? Bobbi Brown, Stila, Smashbox, Garnier, and Too Faced have all brought BB creams to market — and heavily promoted them as magical miracle wonder-products — but don't have any shades for dark-skinned women. [Racked]
• Nordstrom will offer selected merchandise from all ten finalists in this year's Council of Fashion Designers of America/Vogue Fashion Fund competition as part of a new Fashion Fund Shops thingamajig. [WWD]
• Vogue Hommes Japan is folding after four years of publication. Condé Nast is instead putting its resources into GQ Style Japan. [Nicola Formichetti]
• Dominican apparel manufacturer Grupo M is expanding its operations across the border in Haiti to take advantage of advantageous economic opportunities (like an expanded free-trade program) in the wake of the earthquake. It currently employs around 9,500 Haitians, mostly making jeans and t-shirts for brands including Banana Republic, Old Navy, Hanes, Lucky Brand, and Donna Karan. The company also says that it is the only apparel factory in Haiti that is unionized. [WWD]
• M.I.A. spoke at PS1 in New York City and used her laptop, revealing her desktop to the world. There were several folders labeled "Versace Prints," "Bootleg Versace," and "Versace Outlines," and the singer confirmed she is working on a collaboration with the brand. [Spin]
• Sales across all brands at L'Oréal rose year-on-year by 11.8% during the quarter just ended. Revenue was up by 4.6%, to $6.91 billion. [WWD]
• Macy's net income rose year-on-year by 4.3% during the quarter, to $145 million. [WWD]
• Burberry posted a 27.5% year-on-year drop in its profits during the last six months, to $134.3 million. But revenues rose by 6.4%. The decline was due to costs associated with one-offs, like the fees paid to terminate its perfume license agreement early and bring the fragrance division in-house. Excluding those items, pre-tax profits actually rose 7.3%, to $274 million, beating analysts' expectations. [WWD]

Now that the presidential campaign is over and we can all get back to the hard work of joining together to make America a better place drinking, there's a lot of unsold official licensed campaign apparel (not pictured — these shirts are from Urban Outfitters) to be dealt with. While Obama merch is apparently a strong seller in any season, Brand Romney is not expected to hold much appeal:

"Romney stuff was harder to move," says Bob Levine, marketing director for Madco Printing & Advertising, a St. Louis printer that sold about 400 of its $30 T-shirts to the Romney campaign in Missouri. Now, he says, they may go for much less. "I don't see a major market for this stuff," he says.

Not even among ironic hipsters?

Campaign apparel is typically recycled for its fiber content or dumped on poorer countries. At least, that's what happened to 150,000 McCain/Palin t-shirts after 2008:

By Christmas, many Latin Americans may be sporting Romney gear, says Alan Garada, president of World Trade, a merchandise recycler and reseller that four years ago sold overseas about 150,000 unused McCain-Palin T-shirts donated by the campaign.

[Bloomberg Businessweek]

• Vivienne Westwood says, again, that she is not a feminist. Why not? Because women in "the privileged world" don't, in her opinion, need to be.

  "Another reason is because I live in the privileged world I would never accept the idea that somehow I am a victim of society. Just by being born a woman!" But she definitely feels that "women in — other cultures, let's call it — should be supported. And in our culture if they are somehow in the position of victims. But I think men are victims just as much really and I think in our society it would be really scary to be a man."

  The designer also says she'd like to live at least another 10 years, so she can begin seeing the effects of climate change (an issue she is passionate about talking to reporters about). And also so she can learn Mandarin. "I want to learn to speak Chinese and practise Chinese calligraphy because I think it must hold the secret of the universe." [Telegraph]

• Kate Upton campaigned for her uncle, Michigan Republican congressman Fred Upton. Upton retained his seat, winning 54% of the vote. [WHTC]
• The Wall Street Journal's Christina Binkley has identified a "new" "trend" in footwear: the "power flat." What, pray tell, is a power flat? Well:

  A flat shoe offers speed, better balance and comfort. "We have these lives that are complex and busy," says Brooke Jaffe, fashion director of women's accessories at Bloomingdale's. "We walk all day. And there's an expectation that you'll look polished."

  One quality power flats share: They look like if they were used to kick someone — it would hurt. Pointy toes, metal toe caps and embellishments, including spikes, are some of the details that give these flats power. They also call attention to themselves with strong colors, shine or vivid patterns like leopard.

  So, um, your basic well-made, low-heeled non-ballet-flats you can wear to work or party in. Hello, we've been wearing those for years; we always just called them "good shoes." [WSJ]

• U.K. residents, rejoice: you, too, can now buy the Kardashian Kollection at Dorothy Perkins stores. [WWD]
• Karlie Kloss cut her hair into a bob for a Vogue shoot. [Style.com]
• A reporter asked Marc Jacobs C.E.O. Robert Duffy how married life was treating him — Duffy married boyfriend Alex Cespedes in 2010 — and received this correction:

  "I'm getting a divorce," Duffy snaps. [...] "You're the first journalist I've told. You can tell everyone I'm very happy. My daughter and I — we're doing good."

  Also, like everyone else on earth who has taste, when Duffy re-reads Hemingway, "which I was really into when I was a teenager, and now I read it and think [screws up face], 'why was I into this?!'" [Telegraph]

• "I talk about fashion all the time," says dude-who-plays-a-sport Victor Cruz. "A lot of guys [in the locker room] say ‘Shut up about this fashion stuff.' But I love looking good, I love feeling good in my clothes. So fashion is a big deal to me." [InStyle]
• Carine Roitfeld says that Karl Lagerfeld was once arrested on his way to her costume party for violating the French ban on wearing burqas and other face-covering garments in public:

  "Karl Lagerfeld decided to come to my ball in Paris [for French Vogue's 90th anniversary] dressed in a burqa so he wouldn't be recognized ... he was arrested outside," she said, "so he didn't come to the party, but there were three our four people that came dressed as Karl Lagerfeld, so it made up for it in a way."

  [TDB]

• The house of Vionnet changed hands in the wake of the departure of its creative directors, Lucia and Barbara Croce. Goga Ashkenazi, who acquired a majority stake in May, has purchased the remaining outstanding shares from Matteo Marzotto. Ashkenazi, a Kazakhistan-born socialite who has been romantically linked to Prince Andrew and who made her fortune by being a mistress of the Kazakh dicatator's oil-baron son-in-law, named herself creative director of the brand. [WWD]
• L'Oréal just opened its 43rd and largest-ever factory. Located west of Jakarta, the $128-million-dollar, 730,000-square-foot facility is the first building in Indonesia to be LEED-certified. At full capacity, workers there will make 500 million units per year. [WWD]
• Liz & Dick costume designer Salvador Perez, Jr., says that the wardrobe budget for the T.V. movie was only $155,000. That had to stretch to cover over 100 extras and Lindsay Lohan's 65 costume changes in her role as Elizabeth Taylor. Perez says:

  "I've been in the business a long time, and I basically asked everyone I knew for a favor. There was no way we could have afforded to have some of that stuff made—the jewelry, the furs. People had a passion for the project and wanted to help. I had the jewelry re-created by this company Skinny Dog Design Group, and 14 Carats Beverly Hills, and they did it for me at cost. The furs came from an archive in Beverly Hills, too. You have to use the authentic thing, I mean the movie is about Liz and her glamour so how can you skimp on that? If I had not gotten the discounts, if I had to pay for everything, it would have been half a million dollars."

  Of Lohan, Perez says, "She definitely had a lot of opinions." Working with her was sometimes difficult: "It was a whirlwind tornado trying to get Lindsay to just sit, but once she did, she was great." [Glamour]

• Someone named Julianne Hough now has a shoe line. [WWD]
• Nike appears likely to find a buyer for the Cole Haan brand this week. The company is in talks with two private-equity firms: TPG Capital and Ajax Partners. The sale price is put at around $500 million. [WWD]
• Hermès says its sales rose year-on-year by 24.2% during the quarter just ended, to $1.06 billion. [WWD]
• Yoox's profits grew year-on-year by 72.7% during the quarter, to €1.2 million. Sales also increased in the retailer's native Italy. [Reuters]
• Macy's net income was up year-on-year by 4.3%, to $145 million, beating analysts' expectations. [WWD]

Andrej Pejic, when asked about the outfit he planned to wear to go to the races in Melbourne, Australia, replied that he would wear a hat by local milliner Kerrie Stanley that he described as "a tribute" to Princess Beatrice's infamous Philip Treacy royal wedding day uterus-hat. But Treacy himself is the "International Style Ambassador" for the event, and he would be attending personally. Would he be offended? What was this "tribute" hat, anyway? Was it in good taste? The organizers were suddenly very concerned about Andrej Pejic's hat! Within hours of the news breaking, the organizers reached out to Pejic, his agents, and the sponsors of the pavilion that had invited the male model to put the kibosh on the planned hat. It wouldn't be appropriate, organizers feared. They asked Pejic to wear a different hat.

So Pejic wore a different hat. And everything was okay that day; horses trotted, ladies mingled, jockeys wore funny shirts, money was wagered, lost, and won — and all around Melbourne town life went on much as it had been before. That is actually the end of this story, every stage of which was chronicled breathlessly by the Australian press. (Also, Australian press? Not really cool to call someone "Femiman" in a headline, but having done it, extra uncool just as a matter of, like, syntax/word repetition to again use "femiman" in your frigging lede.) Here is a picture of Pejic, the backup hat, and his mum. [The Age, @Andrej_Pejic]

• Salma Hayek is adding nail polish to the array of products made by her cosmetics company, Nuance. The actress said she got the idea from her daughter, Valentina. "She's obsessed with nails and nail colors. I wanted to get [the formula] so it wasn't very toxic and so you can put it on your children." [WWD]
• It feels just last week we learned about "BB creams," those all-in-one supposed wünderproducten that are like foundation (but lighter!) and moisturizer (but not greasy!) and blah, blah, blah. Well, now the cosmetics industry would like to sell you a thing called "CC cream" — Color Correction or Complexion Control cream, depending on whom you ask. CC cream is apparently just like BB cream, only better. We think we'll wait for creams DD-ZZ and then make a truly informed choice. [WWD]
• Fashionista asked some of the models in the Victoria's Secret fashion show who they wished could "see them now." Karlie Kloss wishes it was that boy she asked out in 6th grade:

  "I asked a boy out, I remember, in 6th grade, and I had the biggest crush on this boy. And that's bold! Like, for a girl to ask the boy, that takes guts! I put my heart on the line, I put myself out there, and he shot me down! So yeah, I hope he's watching the show and says ‘well dang, I should've dated her in the 6th grade!'"

  Jourdan Dunn:

  "Um, everyone! I want everyone from my school, from high school, who called me ‘chicken legs.'"

  Those answers are almost as petty as our response to the same question would be; how refreshingly unpolitic. [Fashionista]

• Justin Bieber, who performed during the show's taping, apparently spent the day hitting on the models and asking for their numbers. His efforts yielded little in the way of results. Why wouldn't any of the Victoria's Secret models just take a chance? Now they'll never ever ever know. Seriously, they could be chillin' by the fire while we eatin' fondue. (Okay, we'll stop now.) [P6]
• Guess is launching a new perfume called Girl. [WWD]
• Public-relations executive Lynn Tesoro has filed a lawsuit against Marie-José Susskind-Jalou, the publisher of Jalouse and L'Officiel, and her daughters Jennifer Eymere and Vanessa Bellugeon, in connection with that incident in September where Eymere slapped Tesoro over seating arrangements at the Zac Posen show. Fire marshals had removed 60 seats from the show just before guests began to arrive, leaving the designer's front-of-house crew scrambling to reseat all the invited guests. Eymere told the press the next day:

  "It was a small slap. It was not strong. I didn't hurt her, it was just to humiliate her. She humiliated my mom, and I humiliated her in front of her crew. Voilà. I just said at the end, ‘Now you know you don't fuck with French people.'"

  Tesoro's suit includes charges of battery, libel, assault, and slander. [WWD]

• Karl Lagerfeld said the following at a party for a photography book dedicated to the black Chanel jacket:

  "Black is a very becoming color on most people, always elegant," he said, winking behind his velvety black sunglasses. "Black is beautiful, as they used to say in America."

  Karl Lagerfeld is actually just trolling us all. Oh, and don't ask Haider Ackermann whether he is in talks to take over at Balenciaga — please:

  "No, please, please, please," he winced. "I'm enjoying Karl tonight."

  [WWD]

• Lagerfeld wasn't above speculating about Nicolas Ghesquière's departure, however. "Perhaps Nicolas wants to have his own label, which is not a bad idea," the designer told the press, before addressing the rumor that Ghesquière might be in talks with Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy to back him. "It would not be a bad idea if somebody such as Bernard Arnault would invest in a new label because there are so many old labels [within the LVMH group]." LVMH is a major rival of PPR, the luxury conglomerate that owns Balenciaga. [Reuters]
• Other names tossed in the hat for the Balenciaga gig include Natacha Ramsay, Ghesquière's longtime second-in-command. And Christopher Kane. [Guardian]
• Women's Wear Daily talks to Goga Ashkenazi, the Kazakhistan-born London socialite/investor who has taken over the (recently relaunched) house of Vionnet. "I'm pouring money, heart and soul into Vionnet," says Ashkenazi, who was the longtime mistress of the Kazakh dictator's oil-baron son-in-law (and bore him a child). "It's my passion; I'm the first in in the morning and the last to leave in the evening, I'm entirely hands-on. I'm at my happiest now. I've always wanted to work in fashion and now the pieces of the puzzle are falling into place." Ashkenazi is the creative director of the brand in addition to running the business; she has a design team working under her, and she intends the company to grow by a "humble" 35-40% each year. [WWD]
• H&M remains the world's largest buyer of organic cotton. In 2011, the company nearly doubled its use of organic cotton. [Ecouterre]
• Model Dree Hemingway has a lead role in the new indie film Starlet. She plays a young porn actress who develops a friendship with her 85-year-old neighbor. Hemingway says she doesn't like porn. "I feel very awkward trying to watch it," she says, although she shadowed some porn performers to prepare to play the part. "I was really surprised by them being so normal. They taught me we shouldn't judge people by who they are or what they are." [WWD]
• Senator Claire McCaskill's daughters Maddie and Lily, who earned notice from the fashion press and the Twittersphere for their election-night outfits (which included, variously, a crown braid, red lips, a multi-colored sweater, a buttoned-to-the-top shirt, green-and-yellow nail art, and a taupe dress), seem happy about and a little bemused by the attention paid their style. "I like dressing like a boy most of the time," says Lily. "There is nothing that can't be improved with a bold lip," adds Maddie. When asked about the ultimate icons of sisterly political style known as Sasha and Malia Obama, the two demur. "The Obama girls are flawless and way much cooler than we are," says Lily. Maddie says, "I'd like to think that someday I could be as cool as the Obama girls." [The Cut]
• EBay is reentering the Chinese market in partnership with the company Xiu.com. The domain name will likely be ebay.xiu.com. From 2003-2007, eBay spent around $250 million trying to gain a foothold in China, but was ultimately unsuccessful. [WWD]
• J.C. Penney had another rotten quarter. The company lost $123 million, down slightly year-on-year from $143 million. Overall sales, same-store sales, and online sales all fell significantly, by 26.6%, 26.1%, and 37.3%, respectively. Newish C.E.O. Ron Johnson is still preaching his pricing strategy, which entailed storewide price cuts and an end to permanent "sales." [WWD]
• Richemont, which owns Cartier and Azzedine Alaïa, among other luxury brands, saw its profits rise year-on-year during the last two quarters by 52.4%, to $1.37 billion. [WWD]

Victoria's Secret has apologized for the warbonnet-and-bikini outfit it gave Karlie Kloss to wear during its lingerie fashion show. The company will not feature the look in the televised broadcast:

We are sorry that the Native American headdress replica used in our recent fashion show has upset individuals. We sincerely apologize as we absolutely had no intention to offend anyone. Out of respect, we will not be including the outfit in any broadcast, marketing materials nor in any other way.

Kloss also Tweeted an apology and said that she supported Victoria's Secret's decision. It's not the first time in recent memory that the company has come under fire for racial insensitivity — it had to pull an "Asian"-themed collection that traded in sexualized ethnic stereotypes (including the infamous "Sexy Little Geisha" outfit) from stores after bloggers and the Wall Street Journal's Jeff Yang criticized the concept of the collection. [Fashionista]

Stephanie and I are deeply troubled and upset by our son Peter's posts on Instagram and Twitter after the election. Even though his intentions were in jest, he is responsible for his written words and should have been more careful about how his comments may have been construed. The comments that were made are not politically or morally representative of our family or our values. Each member of our entire family believes that Peter should have serious consequences for embarrassing himself and his family and we plan on implementing these. We all love Peter very much and recognize who he is as an individual but we won't tolerate this kind of behavior toward others. We hope that he learns from this serious mistake, matures, and goes on to make himself and his family proud.

The Twitter account that Brant previously shared with his younger brother Harry is now Harry's alone ("i actually love Obama and have made it clear in the past i think hes pretty groovy," writes the younger Brant brother [for which, sic]), and the @peterbrantii Instagram account where Brant initially broadcast his feelings appears to have been deleted. [The Cut]

• Alleged retail trend: Millennials spurning crappy, disposable, and inherently un-sustainable fast fashion in favor of longer-lasting, better-made, and slightly more expensive basics from established brands like J. Crew and newer (and/or newer-to-the-U.S.-market) names like Everlane and Uniqlo. "There's a whole vast sector of the public that really has been burned out by fast fashion and the novelty and is just very exhausted," says trend forecaster David Wolfe. "There's a great opportunity now for quality basics that are very, very well-priced." Trend forecasters are the main sources for this story, which doesn't actually cite any examples of a fast-fashion company losing revenue, sales, or market share because of this "trend." But it would undoubtedly be better for labor standards, the environment, and the fashion economy if the West — and particularly the U.S. — rationalized its rate of consumption, oh, just a tad. [Bloomberg Businessweek]
• Penelope Cruz has signed a three-year contract to be the face of Loewe. [WWD]
• Never one to be outdone, Naomi Campbell reportedly chartered 13 private jets to ferry guests from around the world to India for the two-day-long party she threw for her billionaire oligarch boyfriend, Vladislav Doronin. Diana Ross performed. [The Vivant]
• This story about the Chanel-owned pricey lingerie/swim wear brand Eres' retail expansion is deeply confusing. The brand spokesperson mentions the company is opening a store in Kiev, then Women's Wear Daily refers to that same boutique as Eres' "second store in Russia," and then the Eres spokesperson makes repeated references to the importance of the Russian market to the brand. WWD, which apparently did npt notice Eres' geographic illiteracy, repeats that the store will be "in Kiev, Russia." There is no Kiev in Russia. Kiev is the capital of Ukraine, which is actually a totally different country. Does Eres think Kiev is in Russia? Does WWD? "Olivier Mauny, managing director of Eres, said the Russian market is ripe with opportunity." Too bad you're not opening a store in the Russian market then, Olivier! But does Eres think it is opening a store in Russia? Calling Kiev, Ukraine, "Russia" given the colonial history between those countries is just awful — and probably pretty offensive to Ukrainians. Who are precisely the people you would most want to become the customers of your new Ukrainian store, Eres. [WWD]
• Daryl K, who closed her New York City store in March and said the brand was "taking a break," is doing a seven-piece capsule collection for Urban Outfitters. [Racked]
• The latest issue of Du Jour, the magazine for the ultra-ultra-ultra-rich, features Nicole Kidman on its cover and a story about Rahm Emanuel inside. [WWD]
• The United Nations has named Livia Firth a 2012 Leader for Change for her efforts to promote sustainability in the fashion industry. [Vogue UK]
• 20 years' worth of Nigel Barker's archived negatives were damaged by flooding during Hurricane Sandy. Barker was able to save at least some of them. "One of the lucky things is, if you get to them when they are wet, you can sometimes save them — it just takes a lot of time and a lot of space," says the fashion photographer and former America's Next Top Model judge. "You want to save the images that became the final ad campaign or were in the magazine, but also pictures of your children, of the first time I met my wife 20 years ago. I photographed her the day I met her, and that picture I sent to my mom and said, ‘I'm going to marry this girl' — and I did." [P6]

Anne Hathaway had to lose weight in order to play Fantine, the consumptive factory worker-turned-prostitute in Tom Hooper's forthcoming film adaptation of Les Misérables. Notice of her transformation has not escaped Vogue magazine, which profiles the actress for this month's cover story and asks all of the important questions, like exactly how many pounds do you lose by eating like a 19th Century French streetwalker with a wasting illness?

To play the role, writes Vogue, Hathaway "had to look simultaneously emaciated and radiant." And also like she was dying of tuberculosis! Here, in the world of Vogue, we have two competing goods: the notion that tuberculosis is self-evidently bad, and that thinness is self-evidently good. So which wins out?

Here are some awkward things the article has to say about Hathaway's body:

• "Hathaway is pale and consumptively thin."
• "[B]ody-fat percentage aside (she lost 25 pounds to play Fantine and remains very thin, though not unhealthy-looking), Hathaway's life seems fuller than ever."
• "Before the start of shooting, she went on a strict cleanse and lost ten pounds, which in the early scenes of the film gives her a gossamer quality."
• "She then took two weeks off and lost another fifteen pounds by following a near-starvation diet, consisting of two thin squares of dried oatmeal paste a day. 'I had to be obsessive about it — the idea was to look near death,' she recalls."

In conclusion? The Fantine Tuberculosis Diet is so hot for fall.

Leap Of Faith [Vogue]

Taylor Swift tells Bazaar that in a relationship, "If I feel too much like I'm wearing the pants, I start to feel uncomfortable and then we break up." She doesn't like to wear the pants. This, in the context of Taylor Swift's unswerving sartorial devotion to dresses, makes perfect sense. The singer adds that relationships should be "equal," but, "It's wonderful to hand over the reins to your boyfriend when you control so much of these big, high-pressure decisions, you know?" [Us]

• Don't like what Kristin Stewart is wearing? Kristin Stewart thinks you are wrong. "I just so wholeheartedly disagree with people who don't like what I wear," the actress tells the Sunday Times. She says she often wears sneakers on the red carpet because she can sign more autographs and meet more fans that way. "If you do everything from an honest...It's all coming from a genuine place." [The Cut]
• Michael Kors is donating $1 million to the American Red Cross for Hurricane Sandy relief efforts. The designer said, "Being a lifelong New Yorker myself, born and bred on the beaches of Long Island, to see this devastation and loss is heartbreaking." Separately, the Council of Fashion Designers of America and Vogue have launched a charity initiative called Fashion For Sandy Relief, which is a series of online auctions for things like a week-long stay at Tommy Hilfiger's house on Mustique and tickets to the U.S. Open with Maria Sharapova. There will also be a big sale of designer goods coordinated by Tory Burch this Friday, proceeds from which will go to the Mayor's Fund. [WWD]
• Irina Shayk's apartment was also damaged during Hurricane Sandy. [P6]
• 23-year-old Dutch model Agnes Nabuurs is also a recent pre-med graduate. "I have seen some live operations, which were awesome," she says. "Brain surgery is insane." [WWD]
• Macy's is the object of a public petition to get the retailer to drop Donald Trump from its holiday ads for the mogul's comments about the U.S. presidential election, his birtherism, and you know, just his general, troll-y Donald Trump-iness. The petitioners also want Macy's to stop selling Trump's fragrance and various licensed apparel products. Over 468,000 people have so far signed. [SignOn]
• J.C. Penney is still hemorrhaging money as it negotiates a change in its business plan, and investors are not happy. Shares in the company lost 12.9% of their value, falling to $17.97, in trading Monday. That's the lowest they've been since early 2009. [WWD]
• Savannah Miller, Sienna's sister, is launching a line at a contemporary price point for the online retailer nelly.com. "Truth be told, I can't justify spending what should be the annual budget for my kids' clothes on one coat anymore," says the former Twenty8Twelve designer. "When I see the work of someone like, say, Mary Katrantzou, I know it's real art and it should be worth a great deal…but I want to make something that people can feel decent about wearing in a recession." [Style.com]
• Land's End is revamping its footwear category, developing a wider range of more fashionable designs (which it will sell for higher prices, starting at around $110). [WWD]
• Karolina Kurkova on co-hosting the new modeling reality show The Face, which is described as being similar to The Voice in format:

  "The show is all about possibility and I love to mentor these girls because so many of them don't have the confidence yet and I remember feeling that way before I was a model, when people made fun of the way I looked. It sounds superficial, but having someone to give you that confidence and tell you that you're beautiful makes a huge difference and makes you work harder."

  [Vogue UK]

• Santo Versace's Milan estate — a 22,605-square-foot, four-story villa which also has a 4,758-square-foot garden — is on the market for $62 million. So if you were looking for a second home, now might be your moment. [WWD]
• Michael Kors says a woman building her wardrobe "should take the same approach she takes to guys: There's great fling material, and then there's great husband material! Apply that to your wardrobe and it means invest in the key pieces you'll want to spend time with season after season, the pieces that will help define your style. Don't invest major money in the trendy pieces that will feel old by this time next year. Like dating that guy just for fun-it's not to say you shouldn't do it, just don't sink a lot into it!" [CBS Watch News]
• Architect-to-the-fashion-stars Peter Marino wore his customary leather-daddy gear to receive his Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts medal in Paris. [WWD]
• Prestigious New York fashion school Parsons is adding a satellite campus in Paris. [WWD]
• Retailers are increasingly concerned about "showrooming" — people going to stores to compare products, figure out what they want, and then checking their phones to see if they can find it online cheaper. (Showrooming is otherwise known as "duh" and the people who do it as "smart people.") Also, interestingly, most people who buy things on their mobile phones are not really "mobile" in the usual sense — mobile shopping peaks in the evenings, and 68% of people who shop online with their phones are doing so from the comfort of their own homes, many while in bed or in front of the T.V. [Mashable]
• Calvin Klein threw a party in Beijing with that singer from the Gotye song. [WWD]
• Not including one-off costs associated with the company's I.P.O, Brunello Cucinelli's net profits during the first three quarters of this year rose year-on-year by 25.3%, to $21.7 million. Sales rose 15.2%, to $281.8 million. [WWD]

This Marc Jacobs sunglasses ad is so very clever. Oh, watch and marvel at just how clever it is! If sex sells, and masturbation is sex with someone you love, masturbation ought to sell at least...twice as well, right?

At the Glamour Women of the Year awards, J. Crew's Jenna Lyons thanked her girlfriend, jewelry executive Courtney Crangi, by name during her acceptance speech. This was Lyons' first public acknowledgement of the relationship since she split from her husband last year. "Nothing worth having is easy," said Lyons in her speech, before thanking her son, Beckett, "for reminding me that the world revolves around him every day," and "Courtney, who has shown me new love." Coming out of the closet at an awards show: so hot ever since Jodie did it. [Fashionista]

• Jennifer Lawrence met Anna Wintour at a party and as soon as the editor had left, she exclaimed, "I just met Miranda Priestly!" [P6]
• Nina Garcia has been promoted to creative director of Marie Claire. [@HearstCorp]
• Raf Simons says that while he "respects" John Galliano's skills, he does not think his approach to fashion design is "relevant" anymore:

  "I have so much respect for John [Galliano]‘s technical skill and the fantasy, it's just something that I don't find relevant now, especially when it restricts a woman, because in every other area they have so much freedom."

  [Vogue Australia, via Fashionista]

• The winner of this year's Vogue/Council of Fashion Designers of America Fashion Fund Awards — the competition that has helped launch the careers of Joseph Altuzarra, Alexander Wang, Sophie Theallet, and Proenza Schouler — is Greg Chait of the Elder Statesman. The runners-up are Tabitha Simmons and Jennifer Meyer Maguire of Jennifer Meyer. The emerging brands who were chosen this year to compete for the $300,000 (for the winner) and $100,000 (for each of the runners up) business-development grants were Suno, Wes Gordon, A.L.C., Assembly New York, Giulietta, Illesteva, and Jennifer Fisher. [WWD]
• Burberry's Christopher Bailey delivered a speech at the event where the winners were announced and related this anecdote about Donna Karan:

  "When I was at the Royal College of Art I met this incredible person: Donna Karan. She completely seduced me with the way she sees the world. She stripped naked within about three minutes of meeting, and tried on all my things. That was one of my first big wake up calls to how nutty — and how brilliant this industry is."

  [Racked]

• Taking note of the weird attention paid Anne Hathaway's Les Misérables starvation diet in her new Vogue profile, including the mention that the actress subsisted on "squares of dried oatmeal paste" during filming, Fashionista set about a) figuring out what dried oatmeal paste is and b) making some. Conclusion: oatmeal and water baked in the oven does not taste good, and nor is it particularly nutritious or healthy. Let's hope pasting does not become the new juicing. [Fashionista]
• Harry Winston bought a diamond mine. Obviously. [WWD]
• Lacquerous, a monthly use-and-mail-'em-back subscription service for nail polish, sounds like a great way to pick up nail fungus from a stranger. [Racked]
• Chanel is holding its métiers d'art show in Scotland's Linlithgow Castle. [Telegraph]
• American Apparel had another shitty quarter despite strong gains in same-store sales. The company's net loss grew to $18.5 million, from $7 million during the same period last year. Sales were up 15.1%, to $162.2 million, and same-store sales rose a healthy 20%. [WWD]
• Shoe designer Charles Philip is suing the Gap for allegedly copying his designs. Perhaps helping Philip's case is the fact that Gap named the shoes in question things like the ‘Phillip Moccasin Slipper' and the ‘Phillip Slipper.' [P6]
• Abercrombie & Fitch had a good quarter despite a concerning drop in same-store sales. During the quarter just ended, profits rose year-on-year by 40.5%, to $71.5 million. Sales rose 8.7%, to $1.17 billion, but same-store sales fell 3%. [WWD]
• Ermenegildo Zegna is perhaps the first European luxury brand to explore the retail potential of Africa in a systematic kind of way. Zegna is opening stores in Lagos, Nigeria; Luanda, Angola; and Alexandria, Egypt. It already operates stores in Cairo and Casablanca, and is evaluating locations in Libya, Kenya, and Algeria. Competitors LVMH and PPR have so far been slow to enter the retail market in African countries. [IHT]
• Saks Fifth Avenue has cut its guidance for the fourth quarter because of the impact of Hurricane Sandy on its sales. [WWD]
• Salvatore Ferragamo's net profits rose year-on-year by 8.1%, to $108.4 million. [WWD]