My Pic of the Day

Michelle Obama Appeared on The View in Shiny Cream Pleats

Michelle Obama appeared on The View yesterday wearing a cream V-neck sweater and a silky fan-pleated skirt. She added a touch of color to the look with large jade-green teardrop earrings.

Sarah Burton Said to Be Among the Top Contenders for Dior

While LVMH's Bernard Arnault has insisted that Dior is in no hurry to name Galliano's successor, his advisers have reportedly submitted a list of suggested candidates. According to Women's Wear Daily, the list includes: Riccardo Tisci, Tom Ford, Hedi Slimane, Olivier Theyskens, Nicolas Ghesquière, Alber Elbaz, Haider Ackermann, Prabal Gurung, and Sarah Burton.

Many of these names are already widely regarded as likely choices, like Elbaz, Theyskens, and of course Givenchy's Riccardo Tisci, who was falsely rumored to have accepted the position last month. Tisci is said to be the favorite of Delphine Arnault, Bernard's daughter and the deputy managing director of Dior.

A more surprising name on the list is Sarah Burton, who until now has not seemed a likely choice because of her dedication to Alexander McQueen, which by all accounts she has masterfully helmed since her predecessor's death. Apparently Burton's chances of being offered the job would skyrocket if she were to dress Kate Middleton for the royal wedding, according to WWD:
Yet if Burton were to succeed in dressing Kate Middleton for her April 29 marriage to Prince William — something she and the company insist they are not doing — her chances would greatly improve. 



According to a source, Bernard Arnault is transfixed by royalty, and would be keen to launch Dior alongside the next-generation couple, just as Princess Diana helped catapult the image of the brand in 1995 when she toted a Lady Dior bag and, a year later, donned a midnight-blue, bias-cut Dior gown by Galliano to attend the Costume Institute gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

So, yet another reason to keep an eye on our handy royal-wedding countdown! Meanwhile, Dior's in-house design team is being overseen by Bill Gaytten, who worked beside Galliano since the eighties. They are reportedly finishing up the label's resort collection and have commenced work on the much-anticipated couture collection, which will show in July.

Loose Threads

• Cynthia Steffe is expanding Seamline Cynthia Steffe, the label’s line of lower-priced dresses, this fall.

• Fashion designer Bijan Pakzad died on Saturday, having suffered a serious stroke two days earlier. He was 67.

• Isabeli Fontana covers the latest issue of Spanish Vogue, shot by Greg Kadel.

• Vera Wang unveiled her seven-dress collection of bridesmaids gowns for David's Bridal, which will hit stores in June as part of her White by Vera Wang line for the chain.

• Angela Lindvall has a new jewelry line in collaboration with John Hardy. Her second, it’s called Hijau Dau and features recycled sterling silver in the designs.

• Here are more photos of new mom Miranda Kerr in bikinis.

• Michael Kors designed a bag and named it the Joan after his mother and muse.

• Nicole Richie owns over 200 pairs of sunglasses and considers them to be “fun masks.”

• Catherine Malandrino’s collection in collaboration with Lacoste is now available.

• Kate Moss stars in a bizarre ad for a Chilean fashion label in which she’s on a date with a guy wearing a giant rabbit head.

• There’s an Anna Dello Russo Barbie doll, clad in a specially made Dolce & Gabbana outfit and, of course, oversize sunglasses.

• Coach has reissued a selection of its classic handbag designs for Net-a-Porter.

• Some retailers are now charging money for customers to use their fitting rooms.

Beauty Marks

FRAGRANCE
• Naked soapy models frolic in the new ad for Tom Ford's Neroli Portofini fragrance, which is expanding into bath products.

• Kimora Lee Simmons has a new fragrance out, called "Baby Phat LOVE ME."

MAKEUP
• François Nars is releasing a book this May. Titled Makeup Your Mind: Express Yourself, it's a photo-heavy and illustrated guide to makeup tips and transformations.

NAILS
• Rachel Zoe lists her five favorite all-organic nail polishes, after becoming a convert to "eco-chic" beauty products during her pregnancy.

• Here's "Yellow Brick Road," the bright Deborah Lippman nail polish shade Lady Gaga wore to the Grammys.

SKIN
• Brent Ridge and Josh Kilmer-Purcell, the founders of the Beekman 1802 skin-care line, have a new set of emollient lotion sticks, each called a "Stick of Butter." There are four, one for each season of the year.

HAIR
• Drew Barrymore is the latest celeb to experiment with hair dyed red.

Loose Threads

• Natalia Vodianova has a pillow fight with teen stars Chloë Moretz, Elle Fanning, and Hailee Steinfeld in a new Bruce Weber editorial for Teen Vogue.

• Marni is launching a childrenswear collection next week, an extension of the label’s Editions lines.

• A rumor on Fashin offers more details on the fall 2011 Louis Vuitton campaign: Mert & Marcus reportedly test-shot six girls, including Candice Swanepoel and Daphne Groeneveld, but supposedly picked only one girl to be the solo star.

• Scott Campbell has tattooed Marc Jacobs more than 30 times. The pair share a matching “bros before hos” tattoo. Classy.

• A couple of options for Rachel McAdams’s cover of the June Elle issue leaked onto Twitter.

• In celebration of her 70th birthday, Grace Coddington reserved the whole of NYC restaurant Indochine.

• David Gandy is on the cover of the new issue of Chinese GQ Style.

• Zac Posen is designing the wedding dress for Mark Ronson’s fiancée, Josephine de la Baume.

• Harper’s Bazaar’s Annabelle Neilson remembers Alexander McQueen in an essay in this month’s issue of the magazine.

• Gabe Saporta says that he and Erin Fetherston are always indulging in bouts of PDA.

• An English artist is producing cross-stitched versions of British Vogue covers.

• Billy Reid’s wardrobe staple is a well-tailored navy blazer. (He says a great classic always wins.)

• It turns out way more than three people were prepared to get Ecko tattoos for a 20 percent discount on the brand’s merchandise. So far, the total is over 30.

Michael Bastian Thinks More Dudes Should Get Pedicures

The designer has done a capsule collection of flip-flops for Havaianas, but he thinks men should wear them only if their piggies look nice. Which means that some professional sloughing might be in order: "It's a tricky shoe and it's a bit of a lightning rod. People have very strong opinions about it. I feel like it's less to do with the flip-flop and more to do with people's emotional feelings about men showing their feet, but the main rule is if you're gonna wear a flip-flop, you've gotta keep your feet in good shape. Even if that means a full-on pedicure, you gotta do it. Wearing flip-flops is a privilege, not a right."

Introducing: Junderpants!

You know, like the jorts you wore in high school, only... stretchier. And, in this case, presented on a dude

Beauty Marks

MAKEUP
• Frida Gustavsson covers the new issue of Chinese Vogue with bright red lips and bright blue eye shadow.

FRAGRANCE
• Joan Rivers stays fresh onstage thanks to a preshow spritz mix of vodka and water, which she sprays on her clothes and under her arms.

• Vincent Cassel stars in a new black-and-white ad for Yves Saint Laurent's La Nuit de l'Homme fragrance.

• Carmen Marc Valvo is working on a fragrance.

SKIN
• Chloë Sevigny has collaborated with Kiehl's on a limited-edition skin-care product, Rare Earth Deep Pore Cleansing Masque, which features white Amazonian clay. All profits from the sale of the masque will benefit the Waterkeeper Alliance charity.

HAIR
• Whitney Port has dyed her hair reddish.

• Also in celebrity hair: Jim Carrey has a new mohawk.

WWD Analyzes How Wealthy Chinese People Shop

The fashion industry's fascination and treatment of the Asian market is reaching new levels of "really?" Sure, it might be useful to many fashion executives and brand managers who subscribe to WWD to have an American analysis of the shopping habits of China's nouveau riche. But it's also kind of strange — the way that all-Asian model fashion editorials are strange. They're not a species of zoo animal that needs to be isolated for research and gawking purposes, but on with it: WWD followed a group of Chinese millionaires and billionaires on a shopping trip across the States stopping in New York, Boston, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles. Much of what they say about them can be said of any tourist group — they gravitate toward certain brands and buy what they know, not brands they don't. Sometimes — get this — they don't remember the brands they bought. Brands they love include Louis Vuitton and Coach. Coach employees know that Chinese customers who come into the store are likely to buy things, just as Abercrombie employees here probably know European tourists are also likely to buy things.

The buying habits of this particular group were hardly unpredictable. Anyone can understand an affinity for outlet malls. Or this:

In Boston, the second stop, the group didn’t go shopping. In Las Vegas, they shopped at Caesar’s Palace and once again hit up Vuitton.

Or this:

While L.A. was widely perceived to be cheaper for luxury products compared to New York, the least amount of luxury shopping was done there.

So New York is the best place in this nation to shop. Who would have guessed?

Loose Threads

• After a lengthy absence from modeling work, Agyness Deyn is back in an editorial in May’s issue of British Vogue.

• A shopping center in England held a promotion over the weekend where the first 100 female shoppers to arrive wearing only underwear received a £100 gift certificate (about $165) for use in any of the mall’s stores. Of course people participated.

• Victoria’s Secret has a new collection of bridal-themed lingerie.

• Lea Michele, Amber Riley, and Dianna Agron share the cover of this month’s Marie Claire. All three also have alternate solo cover shots.

• Apparently you can now buy Calvin Klein underwear from a vending machine.

• Yoox.com has a collection of T-shirts personalized by designers like Ann Demeulemeester, Martin Margiela, and Antonio Marras that will be for sale from tomorrow with proceeds benefiting the Red Cross’s efforts in Japan.

• Proenza Schouler has launched a $600 PS1 wallet to match their PS1 handbag. If that's out of your price range, try Target's accessories section.

• Here are photos and the interview that accompany Reese Witherspoon’s new Vogue cover.

• Neiman Marcus’s Nick Wooster on how men should keep on top of their wardrobe’s turnover: “There's nothing more depressing that opening a drawer and seeing a yellowed t-shirt, so I think that you need to keep on top of your personal effects.”

• This month’s Burberry ad campaign features actors Sophie Kennedy-Clark and Matthew Beard.

• Here’s behind-the-scenes video from Karl Lagerfeld’s commercial for Magnum ice cream starring Rachel Bilson.

• You can now buy the harness from Lanvin’s 2011 collection for $1,300. Yay!

Garance Doré Has Some Questionably Not-Nice Things to Say About Fashion People

Garance Doré took to her blog today to translate the often-baffling language of the fashion industry, where people are always discussing delicate topics like weight and plastic surgery without, well, actually talking about them. For example, per Doré:

This sweater? Oh, I borrowed it from my daughter. = And that’s how skinny I am.
Oh, I didn’t recognize you! = You did something?
She do something, you think? = Facelift?
Right now I’m on this fresh fruit juice cleanse and I’ve such incredible energy! = I’ve gotta drop five pounds before fashion week.

It's sometimes hard to tell exactly what Doré means in her entries (much of her blog is translated from French), but this could be interpreted as a jab at Lauren Santo Domingo's Twitter feed: "If I were an elegant lady in my early 80′s living, say, in Dallas, this would be the best blow-out ever = My name is Lauren Santo Domingo and I know exactly how to talk to my hairdresser. And I share it with my followers!" And there's a pretty blatant dig at the end of the post, although no one is explicitly named. "I’ve had the same haircut for 55 years now, and I don’t think I’ll be changing anytime soon. = I’m so important, I’m like my own brand. And I’m my own logo. No no no, shhhh. Relax. I’m not for sale: I work in fashion." Who could she possibly be referring to?

Beauty Marks

MAKEUP
• Arizona Muse is the face of Yves Saint Laurent's new "Pure Chromatics" ad campaign.

• Two British advertising-practice agencies have released new guidelines designed to limit the number of misleading makeup adverts by limiting the amount of retouching allowed to enhance the product in question.

• If you've always wanted to know what's in Glee star Heather Morris's makeup bag, well, today is your lucky day.

FRAGRANCE
• Fergie is launching her second perfume in partnership with Avon. Following her debut scent, Outspoken, the new fragrance is called Outspoken Intense.

• There's a new fragrance based upon the scent of bacon, for those times when you want to smell like a greasy deli.

HAIR
• Jennifer Garner sold homemade scrunchies with her roommate while at college. They'd offer one for $3, but two for $5.

• Taylor Swift doubles as a hairdresser while on the road with her stage team.

SKIN
• There are two new self-tanning lotions debuting this month as part of St. Tropez's Skin Illuminators line. The new shades are Rose and Rose Gold.

PLASTIC SURGERY
• You can now have plastic surgery to make your ears look all pointy and elvish. The procedure costs only $600.

Loose Threads

• Elie Tahari is launching a stand-alone jewelry line, T by Tahari. The designer revealed the news on ABC’s The View, where he also told Whoopi Goldberg he’d like to design a line of sneakers in her honor.

• Here's a first look at the furniture that Christian Lacroix designed in collaboration with Sicis, an Italian brand best known for making mosaics.

• Bottega Veneta has created a short film, called Viaggio Notturno, about people checking into a luxury hotel with their Bottega Veneta luggage and accessories.

• Model Heidi Mount called NYC police on Tuesday night claiming her husband, Shawn Mount, had threatened her with a knife.

• Here’s a short film starring Julia Restoin-Roitfeld and her boyfriend, Robert Konjic. They kiss.

• Giambattista Valli has designed the label for a jar of caviar.

• Christian Louboutin's shoe sketches will be woven into a capsule collection by knitwear designer Bella Freud this fall.

• Valentino reshowed its fall 2011 collection in Hong Kong in front of the brand’s flagship store, which was covered in ruched gold fabric for the show.

• Bergdorf Goodman will feature in a documentary film directed by Matthew Miele.

• While launching a new Tommy Hilfiger handbag, Renée Zellweger changed her outfit four times.

• Giorgio Armani designed all the clothes worn by Cate Blanchett in newly released film Hanna.

• Cynthia Vincent is branching out with a homeware line.

• Stella McCartney’s husband, Alasdhair Willis, has caused controversy in the U.K. after claiming the couple have no choice but to privately educate their children because the British state school system is not good enough.

• Kimora Lee Simmons bought Gianni Versace’s old bed at an auction.

• Agyness Deyn and Henry Holland will be running the London Marathon next weekend for charity.

• The total cost of fur products purchased in 2010: $14 billion.