>> Jourdan Dunn, Sessilee Lopez, Chanel Iman, and Arlenis Sosa Pena reunited a year after the all-black issue of Vogue Italia to shoot the September 2009 cover of i-D under a railroad arch and next to a go-kart track in East London.

Jourdan is pregnant (she's due in December — with a boy, according to Sessilee) and chats with i-D about how she may be out for a season, but doesn't plan on leaving the scene.  As for the father of her child, who she's generally very private about: "My boyfriend didn't even know I was a model when I started going out with him and we've been together for three years now. It's hard, you never really know whether people want to be around Jourdan or Jourdan Dunn, and he's been there from when I was just Jourdan."

Edward Enninful, who styled the shoot — which can be seen here — calls Jourdan "reserved" in the video below, but she's very outspoken when it comes to her work: "There are loads of black models working and the idea that there's only a few of us, or four of us, to let in as top models at any one time is just bullsh*t. It creates an unnecessary competition when we should be standing together."

Chanel chimes in: "It usually takes an ethnic girl — I'm not saying black, I'm saying ethnic, let's make that clear — twice as long. We've gotta work extra-hard to stay in the game and stay with the girls who do well but aren't ethnic.  Some girls can skip seasons, but us ethnic girls, we cannot skip a season because that'll kill us."

Video: Straight from the i-D shoot! »

>> Karl Lagerfeld Likens Favorite Male Model Baptiste Giabiconi to Gisele Bundchen—WWD thinks the athletic male model is making a comeback.  Karl Lagerfeld weighs in: “I think after the ugly skinny boys of Hedi [Slimane’s] days . . . some ‘beauty’ was needed, but new beauty." Baptiste Giabiconi, who is peppered all over Lagerfeld's recent editorial and advertising work, Karl likens to “a boy version of Gisele [Bündchen]: skinny, skinny but with an athletic body — good for clothes and great with no clothes.”  Even Naomi Campbell, according to Lagerfeld, was envious when she met Baptiste in Moscow recently — she told him: “It’s not right: We all have defects. You have none.” [WWD]

>> Victoria Beckham recently let her Giorgio Armani contract expire so that she could focus more on her beauty and fashion lines; she's said to be showing her Victoria Beckham Collection — which Roland Mouret has assisted her with in the past — at New York Fashion Week again for Spring 2010, but this weekend, she's releasing a short film featuring her Fall 2009 collection (with Mouret's sharply tailored handiwork visible) online.

This is her second foray into the fashion promo film arena — her first effort, for Spring 2009, came out at the end of last year.  The new short, "Swings," features eight models, perched on rope swings, moving in unison — plus a cameo by Beckham — and was filmed in a single take in London last month.  Matt Jerrett directed and Beckham's (and Mouret's) backer, 19 Entertainment, produced.  The film debuts Sunday on BergdorfGoodman.com, to promote Beckham's appearance at the New York store during Fashion's Night Out Sept. 10, and DazedDigital, which has the UK exclusive, is posting the full film Sunday at 3 pm UK time.

UPDATE: The video! »

>> Isabeli Fontana Lands Louis Vuitton Cruise 2010 Campaign — Catherine McNeil was photographed back in June for Louis Vuitton's Cruise 2010 lookbook, but it's Isabeli Fontana who landed the campaign.  She was in the Hamptons for the shoot yesterday with Patrick Demarchelier and stylist Carlyne Cerf de Dudzeele, who has recently been bringing her taste for logos to the pages of Vogue Paris. [Louis Vuitton Twitter, LiveFashionWeek Twitter]

Andre Leon Talley talks Uggs and Golden Girls.

NYFW tidbits: Elise Overland's inspiration, Zac Posen's change of venue.

Temperley to launch a second more affordable line for Spring.

Cathy Horyn discusses Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen.

>> New York Fashion Week is a little less than two weeks away, and the tidbits are flowing freely — a compilation of the highlights from the past couple of days:

• Juergen Teller is meeting Cathy Horyn for a free, open to the public, discussion about his work at New York's Visual Arts Theater Sept. 12, 7 pm [On the Runway]


• Zac Posen explains his move from the big Tent at Bryant Park to a smaller Altman Building show for 400: “For this collection, an intimacy between model, clothing and audience could only be achieved in a smaller space. I really enjoyed the experience of a more intimate show after Pre-Fall 2009, followed by our successful Resort 2010, which was held at my downtown atelier." [WWD]

Who's Kate Lanphear styling? »

>> Caroline Trentini, Alana Zimmer Do the Chop —Right in time for New York Fashion Week casting, a couple of runway mainstays have altered their look; undoubtedly there are more to come.  Caroline Trentini went for a set of eye-grazing blunt bangs, and although details are unclear, Alana Zimmer apparently "chopped off all her hair." [Models.com, Fashionista]

>>  Andre Leon Talley, self-professed "big proponent of the man-bag" and owner of a custom-made Diane von Furstenberg caftan, is also a big proponent of shopping high and low, he tells Time Out New York: "You cannot live your life in the elitist world of fashion and not step out or you’re disconnected. You have to realize that fashion is not the endgame. I started wearing Uggs two years ago. It’s a cozy shoe. Also, they’re only $98."  In fact, at home, he wears "Juicy Couture shorts, a Ralph Lauren polo shirt and Uggs."  But don't expect him to wear Crocs. "I draw the line at Uggs."

He took up horseback riding and tennis after Anna Wintour prompted him to lose weight, but isn't afraid to split a chocolate creme brulee "just for a taste!"  When Time Out asked him if he though of the Vogue offices as "a mecca of skinniness," he responded:

The Vogue offices are full of what I call very annnnnnnngular women wearing stilettos, and maybe that’s just the consciousness — that people think that they need this look when they work at Vogue. But Grace Coddington does not fit that mold and she’s elegant. Look at Michelle Obama, she’s the most fashionable woman in America. But she’s not a fashion plate.

Golden Girls is "one of the greatest shows ever" »

>> Amber Valletta Doesn't Want to Play the Girl Next Door Any More— Amber Valletta's fashion line with Monrow — of which she says "I didn’t just sign off on [the pieces], I went in and designed them" — comes out in November, but she's also got two movies in the can: Gamer, in which she plays a wife and mother trapped in a virtual-reality social-networking game opposite Gerard Butler, and The Spy Next Door, a family film with Jackie Chan out next year.  She tells V61 — for which Hedi Slimane photographed her — of her acting: "Now I know I don't want to be pigeonholed as the girl-next-door.  There's nothing wrong with the girl-next-door, but I'd like to be the psycho killer and the warrior princess and the sex bomb and do serious material like [David] Mamet or Shakespeare." [Telegraph UK, V]

>> Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen captured the hearts of fashion obsessives through The Row from the first collection — but who could have guessed that they would also win the heart Cathy Horyn, who prides herself on picking apart Riccardo Tisci at Givenchy, another industry favorite?

Horyn blogged about her interview with the Olsens yesterday, and today comes her article, in which Jim Gold, chief executive of Bergdorf Goodman and Barneys fashion director Julie Gilhart both deem The Row "perfect": Gold because The Row "offers the perfect blank . . . so many designers are intent on the next great trend that some of the basics are neglected" and Gilhart because of the timing — more and more women are looking for high-quality, classic pieces.  They probably also like that they never have to put The Row on sale, since the line doesn't go out of style.

The majority of The Row's customers are 35 to 60, Ashley says, adding that the line will break even this year. Annual sales are expected to be 30 percent, and total sales are estimated at $10 million — for comparison's sake, Alexander Wang just told W his business is around $20 million, which W called "small."  The Row is produced entirely in New York, with mostly Italian fabrics, and is designed with a precision concerning proportion — a black blazer, for example, has a high armhole, Horyn writes, "because the Olsens liked the way Paris couture jackets fit, with high armholes and narrow sleeves that make your arms look even skinnier and longer."  Neither of the Olsens are interested in staging a fashion show.

No tank tops for Mary-Kate »