>> Fashion houses tended toward casting celebrities or established, "pretty" faces for their Fall 2009 campaigns, and it sounds like despite the fact that the Spring 2010 runways were flooded with new faces — because so many established models were sitting it out — Spring 2010 campaign season will bring more of the same.  In an interview published today, Nick Knight tells the Independent UK:

"My aim has always been to push at the boundaries of what is and isn't beautiful. Instead of our perception of beauty opening up, it's becoming more narrow all the time. To make money, the industry is increasingly catering to the lowest common denominator and, as far as the people who run the big companies are concerned, anything even slightly out of the ordinary frightens people. But anyone with a brain knows that it is the quirkiness and imperfection in a person that attracts other people. That is completely obvious to human beings; it's just when it gets to a corporate level that it all falls apart."

So what of those new faces? »

>> Flats Get the Anna Wintour Seal of Approval? —Vogue has started pushing for a flats comeback — Andre Leon Talley posted a pro-flat treatise last month, and days later the staff gushed over oxfords — but when Anna Wintour starts wearing them to events in place of her usual Manolo Blahnik heels — like the slides she chose for the 2009 Hampton Designer Showcase over the weekend — it's worth taking note. We know from The September Issue, that if Anna wants jackets, designers and retailers give her jackets; surely the same can be said for flats. [Chic Report]

>> Is fashion finally getting sick of the shoe silhouette that has so pervaded the last few years — the painfully high heel?  Carine Roitfeld, notorious for her pro-heel stance, was snapped recently at a luncheon in Cannes wearing flats; Francisco Costa shod all of his Cruise 2010 models in brogues and flat boots, and Vogue's Mark Holgate noted at yesterday's Cruise 2010 Yves Saint Laurent presentation that even "the house that started the platform craze is coming down off them."

Today, Andre Leon Talley dedicated a whole Vogue Daily post to the phenomenon, observing that at a recent Alexander Wang Cruise 2010 appointment, "Meredith Melling Burke . . . walked in off the elevator in a beige 3.1 Phillip Lim chesterfield and beige trousers tucked into an impeccable black pair from Miu Miu — that were completely flat! A sign of things to come?"

He's not finished »

>> THE ZEITGEIST —Cathy Horyn just posted an insightful state of the union-type speech that she made a few nights ago, focusing on fashion and some of the economic challenges facing the industry.  Among the highlights: "'Green fashion' will become more and more important, and young consumers in particular will expect to see innovation and experimentation in this area . . . I am somewhat surprised that a big luxury group has not had the foresight to create a separate eco-brand of high-quality garments, with a casual yet sophisticated aesthetic. We’ve seen a number of niche labels, but not one that draws on the brand power and advertising reach of a luxury group." Perhaps that is precisely what LVMH has in mind for new investment Edun? [On the Runway]

>> THE ZEITGEIST —The It Brit invasion continues, and though all the naysayers were poised to boo Eliza Cumming's April 2009 Vogue Italia cover, the visual treatment has turned them into a crowd of believers — perhaps just this once.  While Eliza is climbing the fashion ranks, two other It Brits are about to hit the mainstream by way of MTV.  Daisy Lowe just signed to do a fly-on-the-wall documentary series of her life, and Alexa Chung is moving to New York, hinting that she'll be continuing her TV career stateside, with rumors placing her in the hands of MTV.  Sounds like the network looking for their next Lauren Conrad in the British sector, now that she's said she's moving on. [Models.com, Daily Mail, Grazia]

>> For Spring 2009 more than ever, brands stuck with campaign models who guarantee a sell — supermodels like Gisele Bundchen and Kate Moss for Versace or Claudia Schiffer for Yves Saint Laurent, Daria Werbowy for Roberto Cavalli — or the classic blonde hair-blue eye combination that Toni Garrn and Anna Maria Jagodzinska's campaign sweeps represented.  Also of note for the season, Prada and Balenciaga's decisions to go with big groups of models — eight and ten, respectively.

With Fall 2009 campaign season under way, it sounds like at least a couple of brands have decided to break from that latter part of last season's formula — Wayne Sterling of The Imagist reports:

"It is too early to say and too tenuous to reveal who's holding/confirming what these days but rest assured it is the striking and the extreme that seem to be filtering into the next phase. Among the buzz I picked up by some art directors is a disenchantment with the 'multiples' ideal, that concept of an army of models rocking as many of the looks from the show as possible while waving as many possible it-bags as can be crammed into a double page. Two VERY big brands have already gone 'Only Girl.'"

The most likely candidate from that description of packing the models in seems to be Prada — so does that mean Prada is one of those already-decided brands, and Miuccia's current favorite exclusive Ymre Stiekema is going to finally get a main season campaign under her belt?

Who else is already being pinpointed? »

>> THE ZEITGEIST —Alexandra Shulman recently said that she looks to the recession to bring forward new design talent — last time around we got Alexander McQueen and John Galliano — and today, Cathy Horyn asserted that "the recession could turn out to make designers better designers.  Fashion houses, anticipating reduced orders, cut out the theatrics as they sought to appeal to a relatively new demand in luxury fashion: value.  By the end of the shows, retailers were praising the level of craft and fabric research — and complaining when it was obscured, as at Chanel, by French-maid ruffles. Out of necessity, a lot of designers put on smaller shows. It meant that they couldn’t flub a seam." [NY Times]
*image: source

>> An in-house team has produced the last two Halston collection since Marco Zanini left, but the search is still on for a creative director.  Sources say that young London talent Marios Schwab might be the man — he's apparently been in talks with the brand — but Bonnie Takhar, Halston CEO, wouldn't confirm anything. “We have been looking at all options in the market, but we have made no decisions.”

If Schwab were to take the job, would he be required to shutter his eponymous label?  Increasingly, brands are looking for devoted creative directors who don't have to split time between labels; in fact, a lot of brands are digging up designers who have never helmed a label before: Vionnet just hired Prada alum Rodolfo Paglialunga, Nina Ricci is supposedly going with Louis Vuitton-trained Peter Copping, Valentino recently promoted accessory designers Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli, and Chloe decided on alum Hannah MacGibbon.

Hiring designers: it's not what it used to be »

>> THE ZEITGEIST —Having a camera-toting entourage seems to be in vogue this season: Coco Rocha had an E! camera crew following her around in New York, Jessica Stam led MTV News around backstage at Anna Sui, Anna Wintour, who was joined by 60 Minutes's Morley Safer at Ralph Lauren and more recently, Dolce & Gabbana, is still filming for that video profile, and now Carine Roitfeld is being followed by a CNN crew in Milan and Paris for a Revealed show, to be aired after the Paris collections. [WWD Twitter, CNN]

>> Besides the obvious runway trends that have emerged — cut-outs, metallics, thigh-high boots, emphasized shoulders — we're seeing something else: designers are sending out a substantially less gowns down the runway.  Now we're talking designers who dabble with gowns, not whose livelihoods depend on the red carpet — see Monique Lhuillier, Badgley Mischka, and their ilk — but Rodarte, who usually end their collections with a trio of three gowns, chose to bypass that segment for Fall 2009, sticking to minidress silhouettes all the way through.

Max Azria, who usually does at least three full-length dresses for Herve Leger, didn't have one hem below knee-length for the Fall 2009 collection. Diane von Furstenberg, who showed four floor-sweeping frocks for Spring 2009 and five for Fall 2008, had one singular gown — the last look — for Fall 2009.  Erin Fetherston, known for her proclivity for long, flowy dresses, had at least seven last season; for Fall 2009, there was one.  Matthew Williamson produced seven gowns for Spring 2009 and four for Fall 2008; this season, he went down to three.  Narciso Rodriguez didn't do any for Fall 2009; the list goes on.

So is it because we're maxed out on maxi dresses?  Because a long dress takes more fabric and therefore is more expensive to produce?  Because separates will likely sell better?  Because gowns just look too extravagant in these pinching times?  Whatever it is, we could be seeing a lot more cocktail-length dresses on the red carpet if this keeps up; that or, the gowns will all have to be custom.
*image: source