>> INSIDER WIRE —Giorgio Armani is known to be outspoken, and his comments last week in Paris that Rome's Fashion Week "has killed high fashion by showcasing people who didn't merit it" have ruffled a few Italian feathers.  The former chairman of Rome's Fashion Week chastised Armani for "discrediting Italian work at a time of economic crisis for fashion" and suggested that Armani instead unveil his collections in Rome to restore big name power to the city's fashions. [Reuters]
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>> He filled in as chief designer at Bill Blass for the Spring 2008 season before Peter Som took over, and was set to produce the Fall 2009 Blass collection after Som left until things with the label fell apart.  Now former Blass design director Prabal Gurung is striking out on his own with a signature label for Fall 2009, his first show kicking off Fashion Week Feb. 12.  And judging by the pre-show coverage — WWD, Wall Street Journal, Vanity Fair, Fashion Week Daily — he'll do just fine, even in a recession.

Working out of his makeshift showroom — an on-loan studio apartment that belongs to an editor friend — Gurung, who has been selling made-to-measure to private clients for a few years, is putting the finishing touches on his self-funded, twenty-look collection, which he says is all about "well-made clothes": "At Bill Blass, I learned the way clothes are supposed to be made — there are no shortcuts. Just well-finished clothes. That’s the kind of approach I’m taking — it’s not about being trendy."

It helps that he already has the industry support — "It’s been very emotional, the amount of support I’ve gotten, without asking" — and scoring coveted casting agent James Scully and T Magazine and former British Vogue stylist Tiina Laakkonen to cast and style the show, respectively, won't hurt.  Now it's all about bringing that sketch of four of his Fall 2009 looks to life — we'll be watching.
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>> ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL —For the Spring 2009 season, Ryan McGinley did a little ad work — both in front of and behind the camera.  He took Angela Lindvall and Kate Moss down to Puerto Rico to produce Stella McCartney's watercolor-infused campaign, and then posed for Marc Jacobs lensmen Juergen Teller in a bathtub, shoe propped on his knee, as the label's Spring 2009 face (click through for image). [Models.com]

>> Right after his Inaugural Ball coup, Jason Wu reiterated that he was planning on "doing a significant fur collection" for Fall 2009.  He had dabbled in furs before, but a new licensing agreement with Saga Furs allowed him to plan an entire collection: 15 pieces — mainly minks — "that [aren't] just about fur coats, but also fur pieces that blend in with the collection."

By January, with all the publicity Michelle Obama was bringing him, the timing seemed off to go ahead with a full-fledged fur collection — it would be polarizing, to say the least, and might make Michelle shy away from wearing his label in the future — the First Lady doesn't need to add PETA to her daily list of concerns.

After a couple of weeks of letting everything sink in, Wu has decided to postpone the fur collection until further notice.  “As a result of increased interest and demand from our global retailers, we’ve decided to put our fur license on hold and concentrate on our growing ready-to-wear business."

The decision seems prudent, especially since he already had the attention of The Humane Society's fur-free campaign; his Fall 2009 show will definitely be watched, and there's no need to have protesters get all the attention rather than his designs.
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>> THE MODELIZER —Myf Shepherd just finished out her first couture week ever, and it sounds like quite the caper.  She was not only mistaken for Olga Sherer backstage at Dior — they look nothing alike — but she developed a case of sore tongue after eating too many figs backstage at Chanel. [Fashion Schmashion]

>> Mayor Bloomberg has confirmed the reports from yesterday — after IMG's contract with the Bryant Park Corporation runs out in February 2010, Fashion Week will move to Lincoln Center's Damrosch Park beginning in September 2010.

The new venue will provide about 87,000 square feet of space for the shows, compared to the roughly 70,000 square feet available at Bryant Park, as well as more green spaces where "guests will be able to linger and enjoy any number of dining facilities at various price points," and access to Lincoln Center's "iconic indoor locations to be used for special events during the shows."

But Anna Wintour may not approve »

Couture Cult took us through her favorite looks from the Christian Lacroix Spring 2009 Haute Couture show.

The Fashion Bomb clued us in to the first designer to include black models in his runway show.

Catwalk Queen posted the full Pringle Of Scotland Spring 2009 ad campaign.

Butterfly Diary reported on a soon-to-be-released lipgloss that promises fuller lips and weight loss. 

>> INSIDER WIRE —The first preview of Katie Grand's new magazine Love, which makes its debut in just two short weeks — Feb. 19 — has hit the interwebs.  We already have some idea of what to expect from the magazine — Beth Ditto on the cover, Darya Kurovska appearing in two editorials, Lara Stone photographed by Angelo Pennetta — and now a look at Agyness Deyn as the Queen, part of an "Icons" series Josh Olins shot for the magazine.  Not that it was expected to be otherwise, but this is not your typical fashion magazine — Katie told Interview of the first issue: "It's very curvy.  No one is a sample size in the whole issue, and it's not so retouched.  I just wanted to take pictures of iconic people without redrawing them." [Fashionista]

>> Alexandra Shulman, editor of British Vogue who proclaims herself "not a great fashion person," isn't too worried about the current economic downturn. In her sixteen-year tenure, she tells The Independent, she's been there before — in the early '90s.  "I'm not sure if it was actually classed as a recession, or just a downturn, but I remember all the 'For Sale' signs ranked in rows on terraced houses and everything. Certainly we'd lost a lot of ad pages in the previous year, and business for Vogue was a lot tougher than it had been in the 1980s."

She points out, however, that last time around, a lot of good things came out of all the bad.

"At that time a whole slew of new designers bubbled up – like McQueen, Stella McCartney, Hussein Chayalan, Clements Ribeiro.  A new generation came up through that period.  I'm not sure whether it encourages creativity, whether it's because people are looking for alternatives to what's fed to them on a mass scale, whether they are more interested in what's happening on the underground, or what it is, but you do get new names, new businesses, during recessions. Things happen. It can be quite an exciting time creatively. And old names often die."

And she thinks Vogue isn't going to be one of those old names to die.

"We had, up until the end of last year, as good a year as the one before, and that was a record year. That's in ads. Circulation, I think we're going to be 1 per cent down on the newsstand, which compares to other people being 20 per cent down. So we've been really lucky. The first issue we've lost some ads is February. And I'm still waiting to hear about March which is a big fashion special. Nobody thinks it's going to be as good next year as last year, but it's a question of: 'How bad?'"
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