Posts for August 13th 2012

Link Time

Vogue's Spirit Parisienne, the Man Repeller's Shoe Closet, and Louis Vuitton's Olympian

Those stories and more in our daily news roundup.



Those stories and more in our daily news roundup.

  • After a year-and-a-half as editor in chief of Vogue Paris, Emmanuelle Alt has introduced a redesign that features a renewed focus on the magazine's status as the only Vogue title that represents a city, not a nation. "It's the concept of the 'Parisienne.'" she said. "The 'Parisienne' is a girl who makes people dream worldwide, rightly or wrongly — a girl who represents a particular style, a taste, an allure." [WWD]

  • "Ultimately, shoes are just a really fun mode of escapism for a woman," said Man Repeller Leandra Medine on a tour of her shoe closet. "The higher the heel, the more fantasy is put into the shoe." [Footwear News]

  • Louis Vuitton cast Michael Phelps — now the world's most decorated Olympian — in its newest ad campaign, photographed by Annie Leibovitz. [Just Jared]

  • Meanwhile, Chanel Iman is the face of Amazon's Fall 2012 campaign, seen below. [Modelinia]

  • New York Magazine's fashion blog today debuted a new look that takes "a cue from the beauty of print fashion magazines with a totally new design." [The Cut]

  • Choupette Lagerfeld is quickly gaining a name for herself in the modeling industry. "I think she has a very bright future," says V magazine editor Sarah Cristobal, who cast the cat in her September issue alongside Laetitia Casta. "She's going to have an everlasting career." [BuzzFeed Shift]

RIP

Legendary Editor Helen Gurley Brown Dead at Age 90

Helen Gurley Brown, the longtime editor in chief of Cosmopolitan and groundbreaking author of Sex and the Single Girl, died in New York on Monday.

Helen Gurley Brown, the longtime editor in chief of Cosmopolitan and groundbreaking author of Sex and the Single Girl, died in New York on Monday. She was 90 years old.

"Helen Gurley Brown was an icon. Her formula for honest and straightforward advice about relationships, career, and beauty revolutionized the magazine industry," said Hearst CEO Frank A. Bennack Jr. in a statement. "She lived every day of her life to the fullest and will always be remembered as the quintessential 'Cosmo girl.' She will be greatly missed."

Brown edited Cosmopolitan for 32 years and wrote books on everything from sex, love, and relationships to money and success. She was also widely admired for her sharp wit. In 2007, when Vanity Fair asked which historical figure she identified with most, Brown replied, "Cleopatra. She was a good boss and had a good love life."

The same, undoubtedly, can be said of Brown. See a sampling of her seemingly endless supply of quotes and witticisms, below.

    "Nearly every glamorous, wealthy, successful career woman you might envy now started out as some kind of schlep."

    "You cannot sit around like a cupcake asking other people to come and eat you up and discover your great sweetness and charm. You've got to make yourself more cupcakable all the time so you're a better cupcake to be gobbled up."

    "Good girls go to heaven; bad girls go everywhere."

    "One of the paramount reasons for staying attractive is so you can have somebody to go to bed with."

    "Never fail to know that if you are doing all the talking, you are boring somebody."

    "My success was not based so much on any great intelligence but on great common sense."

    "You can have your titular recognition. I'll take money and power."

    "I address everybody as 'pussycat,' but nobody minds, and it's a nice term of endearment."

    "There has been lots of copying — look at Glamour. I used to have all the sex to myself."

    "The message was: So you're single. You can still have sex. You can have a great life. And if you marry, don't just sponge off a man or be the gold-medal-winning mother. Don't use men to get what you want in life — get it for yourself."
2012 Olympics

British Gold: Models Take the Stage at Olympic Closing Ceremony

Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell, Georgia May Jagger, and a slew of other famous British models turned the London Olympics closing ceremony into one of the world's most-watched runway shows Sunday night.
Supermodels at Olympics Closing Ceremony in London 2012

Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell, Georgia May Jagger, and a slew of other famous British models turned the London Olympics closing ceremony into one of the world's most-watched runway shows Sunday night. The models — each clad in different metallic gold designs from some of the best designers working in London — were wheeled into the ceremony inside billboard-sized photos of themselves while David Bowie's song "Fashion" filled Olympic Stadium. The images were stripped away to reveal the live models, who walked to the center of the field to glitter and pose in front of the very global audience for a few moments before walking out.

"It's such an amazing platform for the brand, having billions and billions of people watching," said Christopher Kane, who spent some 80 hours working on the coat and pants Stella Tennant wore during the ceremony. "That's another reason why I wanted to do something different, instead of a dress."

Sam McKnight, who worked on the models' hair, observed that the closing ceremony "was about British icons, not just athletics." Jourdan Dunn, who walked the runway in a dress by Jonathan Saunders, called the evening the "highlight of my career so far." Karen Elson said she couldn't "begin to express how much I love Naomi, Kate, Georgia," and the other models who walked with her. Makeup artist Val Garland called the fashion portion of the show "the best moment ever!"

Alexander McQueen, Burberry, Erdem, and other British fashion houses also created outfits for the occasion. A look at who wore what here in the gallery.