Beginning with this spring's collection, Rachel Roy will be working with U.S.-based Fairwinds Trading to create jobs for women in Africa. As part of the initiative, Roy will add to her Rachel Rachel Roy collection items which have been handcrafted in Africa by female-owned businesses.

For spring 2010 that means handbags produced in Tanzania with indigenous textiles and beaded jewelry handmade in Rwanda—both for sale at Rachel Roy's website and at Macy's.

Flotea Masawe, owner of Marvelous Batik, who produced the aforementioned Rachel Rachel Roy handbags, recently said to WWD, “We used Kuba cloth from weavers in the Congo and crafted the clutch in Tanzania before sending it to the U.S. for Rachel’s final touches. This clutch really has created a chain of women in three different countries who linked together to help alleviate poverty by providing employment and economic opportunities for African women.”

Roy is doing her part, and all we need to do to support her and Fairwinds Trading is to shop. Now that should be easy enough.

(Below) a friendship bracelet from Rachel Rachel Roy and Fairwinds Trading.

Source: Getty

Francisco Costa's womenswear collection and Italo Zucchelli's menswear collection will both be streamed live during New York Fashion Week on the brand's website and official facebook page simultaneously.

The men's fall 2010 runway show will be live on Sunday, February 14 at 2PM EST, and the women's show will air live later in the week on Thursday, February 18 at 3PM EST. Calvin Klein joins Marc Jacobs (which airs February 15 at 8PM EST on MarcJacobs.com) in major fashion houses to broadcast NYFW shows via live streaming video.

>> Marc Jacobs's longtime business partner Robert Duffy joined Twitter on January 29 — catch him while you can, he says he's only Twittering until Feb. 16 after the Marc by Marc Jacobs show.  In the week or so he's been on the social network, however, Duffy has shed a lot of light on upcoming projects at the company — as well as his business philosophy. For instance:

Duffy went to Los Angeles last week to work on an undisclosed movie project.

"Working on a movie project in LA. Also helping to edit a photo book about all the people that work with us. It's amazing! . . . The kids I work with all over the world are the most inspiring ever! So a book is being done on them. Working title 'the men and women of mj.'"

Will Marc join Twitter again? »

>> Devi Kroell and Lanvin Now Share an Investor —The Bartel family, founders of Travelzoo, who last November took a 12.5 percent stake in Lanvin's parent company, has been revealed as Devi Kroell's silent investor.  Bartel quietly took a stake in Kroell in 2008, allowing the designer to open boutiques and expand her product range; she's also holding her first runway show Feb. 15 during New York Fashion Week.  Bartel reportedly doesn't have the intention of building a fashion conglomerate, but has looked at investment opportunities in Christian Lacroix and Jil Sander in recent years. [WWD]

On Gary Graham's fall 2010 inspiration board—Native American photographs and David Bowie's 1970s mug-shot.

Burberry plans to live stream its London Fashion Week show in 3-D.

Most of the fashion industry throws around terms like "sustainability", "ethical", and "eco" without having a clue as to what they mean.

Ann Dexter-Jones launched collection of rock-inspired ID bracelets at Edon Manor.

New York gets closer to the arrival of its first Isabel Marant store.

Donatella Versace thinks the current crop of runway models are boring robots: "Now we need something. We need a special personality. We need to feed the egos of these girls. Somebody like Kristen [McMenamy] who had a huge ego. Beautiful."

Andre Leon Talley had Ralph Rucci custom make 13 capes for his judging season on America's Next Top Model.

Source: Kelly Stuart/ELLE.com

>> Tyra Banks first approached Andre Leon Talley to be on America's Next Top Model eight years ago. “At that point," he told WWD, "I said no because it was the beginning. I was thinking I wanted to see where it goes.” Fast forward to 2010 and cycle 14 of the show, which premieres March 10 on The CW, with Talley on the judging panel:

I felt maybe I could contribute something to it that had not been on the show. I just felt that it was a way to step out of the box and associate myself with a very important American success story, a very important brand — Tyra Banks.

How does Anna Wintour feel about all this? »

>> Burberry Fall 2010 to Be Streamed in 3-D —Avatar influenced the couture designs of Jean Paul Gaultier and Valentino a couple of weeks ago, but it was the technology — not the aesthetic — of the film which affected Christopher Bailey.  While the rest of London Fashion Week is being streamed in 2-D, Burberry will become the first brand to livestream its show in 3-D — to select guests in New York, Paris, Dubai, Los Angeles, and Tokyo, who will view the show in custom screening spaces designed by Bailey himself. For at-home viewers, the Feb. 23 show will also be projected in 2-D via live.burberry.com.

>> Last night, in honor of two new graduate degrees at Parsons which she helped initiate, Donna Karan sat down with FIT's Valerie Steele for a little chat before a sold-out audience in the school's auditorium. Karan, who has also been a major proponent of updating the fashion schedule, explained how she proposes the changes be made:

It's very simple, we just stop. It is not nuclear science, it's really simple.  We deliver Fall clothes in August like back-to-school, we change the calendar, we go to stores and say, 'Okay, no more getting Fall clothes in July or June so they're on sale in September when the weather hasn't changed. We have to go into a system where we're talking in-season. It's the way we eat, it's the way we dress, it's the way we think. We've conditioned the consumer to buy on sale — I don't want to buy it full price because I can buy it on sale . . . We've turned our business into the white sale business.

"We have to learn restriction »