>> Burberry has been agressively pushing the bounderies of Internet marketing, but with Christopher Bailey's attention diverted, is it to the detriment of the clothes?

After last season's hit collection, Cathy Horyn writes of Bailey's Spring 2011 offering: "This was not Christopher Bailey’s best collection." She continues: "I also kept thinking that the collection lacked feeling — unless you count the pain of the models who cast off their raunchy heels on the runway. The last model toppled over a few yards from the backstage area and had to scramble back up. When I think of all the great collections that Mr. Bailey has done for Burberry, they’ve all been characterized by a sense of emotion that he was willing to put out there. It wasn’t all crass e-commerce." The Spring 2011 show was screened in real time at 25 Burberry stores, livestreamed online and selected outerwear and handbags were made simultaneously available on in-store iPads for purchase, with orders to be delivered in seven weeks time.

WWD agreed with Horyn: "Bailey skidded, at times, into dangerous territory. The biker jackets paved with spikes and studs were overwrought, and there was nothing elegant or fresh about those flashes of python on trousers, dresses, and jackets."

WHICH Vogue writer told a blogger "Tough sh*t!" when she pleaded to share her seat at the Burberry show?  The blogger was relegated to the photographer pit.

WHICH tarnished fashion golden boy was flown to London specifically to host a party, which he only attended for exactly seven minutes?

WHICH up-and-coming American model fixed her own makeup in a porta-potty before a big London show, because she thought the makeup artist had made her "look old"?

WHICH former fashion director would call publicists to her rescue if someone was sitting in her aisle seat?  She Flip cams everything, but now that she's in the second row, those aisle seats are the only way to record with a clear view.

>> For her final Spring 2011 New York Fashion Week video installment for The Cut, Sara Ziff — whose documentary, Picture Me, is out in New York theaters now, talked to Amy Lemons, who started modeling at 13 and was on the cover of Vogue Italia (left) at 14 — "I had just gotten my braces off." Lemons recalls of a few years later: "They told me I needed to only eat one rice cake a day, and if that didn't work, only eat half a rice cake a day. My agent told me that. I was 17, they were telling me to be anorexic, flat-out. At the shows there were girls eating cotton balls, these young girls, 16, would dip [a cotton ball] in juice, eat it, and you wouldn't eat for five days after it. The level of the money that you're making, you can't say no. It's like, 'Well maybe I might get really sick for a little bit from the cotton ball or whatever, but I'm going to be able to pay for my family.' I mean, some of these girls it's like, do or die." Another model, Vanessa Perron, pipes up in the video: "I got told to get liposuction by the owner of an agency." [The Cut]

>> Katie Grand is known for cultivating unique model casts — last season at Giles and Louis Vuitton, both of which she styles, there was a proliferation of Victoria's Secret models on the runway. And while she brought back some of those "curvier" girls for Giles again this season — Alessandra Ambrosio, Ana Beatriz Barros, Anne Vyalitsyna, Noemie Lenoir, plus Sports Illustrated models Jessica Hart, Abbey Clancy (who is pregnant), and Julie Ordon — also peppered in were Agyness Deyn, who shaved her hair into a mohawk for the show, Amber Le Bon, British model and TV presenter Kelly Brook, and 71-year-old Veruschka, who closed the show.

Grand is working with Giles Deacon on his debut collection for Emanuel Ungaro this season — so surely the cast will be special for that occasion — although the only hint that came is not model-related: Deacon is working with edgy London label Sibling on knits for the show. And as for Vuitton, all Grand would say was: “[Marc Jacobs] said, ‘I’ve got all these beautiful clothes for Vuitton — what on earth are we going to do with them?’”

>> Since Frida Giannini took the helm back in 2004, Gucci has been criticized for being too commercial, even earning comparisons to Zara at one point. The label's chief executive, Patrizio di Marco, who joined the company at the beginning of last year, agrees: "Gucci was going too mass-market, too commercial, too much on opening price points."

While having less expensive, aspirational products boosted Gucci's sales for several years, the brand had hoped to hit €3 billion ($3.9 billion) in sales by 2011. Last year, sales were €2.27 billion. Di Marco blames the fact that buyers for Gucci's own stores (which account for 70 percent of the brand's sales) were choosing cheaper, logoed items over Giannini's designs, causing her designs to be lost and an erosion of the brand's exclusivity. During the slump, aspirational purchases also slowed sharply, resulting in Gucci being hit harder than Louis Vuitton or Hermes.

So di Marco has set out to elevate the brand and shed it of its cheapening image. The brand's Spring 2011 collection focuses on "sophisticated seduction" and marks the debut of a new line of heritage-inspired handbags drawing from the brand's equestrian history. "Every single brand in the universe, especially in this industry, is talking about heritage — even when there's no heritage, no history," says di Marco, who noted that he supports Giannini's use of archives for inspiration. "Some designers say, 'The archives are old and I know best. That's the most pretentious attitude possible. This company is about icons."

He added that Gucci will place less focus on the cheaper "GG" monogram canvas bags, which saturated the market previously, and more emphasis on its new offering of "vintage" bags such as the New Bamboo bag, an updated $2,000 version of a 1947 bag with a bamboo handle, and the $3,000 New Jackie leather bag, which takes its inspiration from a purse made famous by Jackie Onassis. Gucci store buyers have also been given strict guidelines on what they can choose for their boutiques — instead of so many logo bags, prime positioning and focus will go towards the new heritage-inspired products.

>> Is Madonna's new movie W.E — a romantic comedy about King Edward VIII and his affair with American divorcee Wallis Simpson — going to have a Steven Klein look to it? Madonna co-wrote and is directing the film, which stars Abbie Cornish, Richard Coyle, Natalie Dormer, and Oscar Isaac, and last week on set in Brooklyn she was spotted chatting with Klein, spurring rumors that he may be playing an advisory role. The two do have a long history of collaborations, after all. Meanwhile, Arianne Phillips, who worked on Tom Ford's film and also has a long-running history with Madonna, is acting as costume designer. [Fashionista]