>> It's no secret that Gucci creative director Frida Giannini likes Rome, where she grew up, and music from the likes of Prince, Madonna, and Franz Ferdinand. Those are two of the twelve things she tells Elle Decor's February/March 2011 issue (out Feb. 8) she can't live without . . . but what about some of the less obvious things she listed? Among them: the seaside ("When I want to escape, I take my German shepherd, Gunner IV, and go to my beach house in Sabaudia, an hour from Rome"); hot dogs in Central Park ("I can eat four at a time, with lots of ketchup"); Agent Provocateur lingerie ("I wear a lot of black, which can look severe. Lingerie lets me play with my secret side"); pilates ("I do it early in the morning; I feel less guilty for the rest of the day"); and pasta with fresh tomatoes ("Don't forget the basil. So good and so healthy").

>> Contrary to popular opinion, Amy Astley says, she didn't work under Anna Wintour when she was editor at House & Garden (HG, as it was called then). In fact, she only met Wintour the day the magazine was shuttered: "So I get the call the day HG closed, would I go and see Anna, and I said sure, of course . . . and they were like, ‘Today, right now.’ And that’s how I learned how Vogue operates — I was like, ‘Can I do it tomorrow? I have to get my outfit together!’ And HR was like, ‘No, she’s ready for you now, right now.’ So I toddled up there in my little Agnes B. T-shirt and my brand new Chanel ballet slippers that cost, like, a week’s salary." She was hired as beauty associate at Vogue and promoted soon after to beauty director: "I stayed at Vogue for nine years — I did four test issues of Teen Vogue, I edited Index — and I didn’t think Conde Nast was going to launch Teen Vogue, so I got pregnant for the second time, and Anna and Mr. [Si] Newhouse called me in. I was nine days away from giving birth — I was so fat. I had gained, like, forty pounds . . . I was huge! And they said, ‘We’re going to launch Teen Vogue, and we want you to edit it.’ I literally gave birth to my second child Ingrid as the magazine was being launched, so she and it are the same age — eight. I was 35 at the time." [Into The Gloss]

>> It's been almost a year since Balenciaga banned Carine Roitfeld and the entire Vogue Paris team from attending its shows and pulled advertising from the magazine — reportedly over some issues related to Balenciaga's samples — but it seems that Roitfeld and Nicolas Ghesquiere may have reconciled. They were spotted having drinks at L'Hotel together last Wednesday. [DFR]

• We saw LOVE's new cover with Kate Moss and Lea T. kissing last week; now the second cover, featuring Justin Bieber shot by Terry Richardson, has appeared [@THELOVEMAGAZINE]
• Andre Courreges and his wife and creative partner, Coqueline, have sold their company to two investors, Frederic Torloting and Jacques Bungert, who run the French division of advertising agency Young & Rubicam. Coqueline has been running the design house since Andre retired from fashion in the mid-'90s [WWD]
• After months of rumors, February's Vogue reports that Theory CEO and Rag & Bone investor Andrew Rosen is about to sign a deal with Proenza Schouler; and Meredith Melling Burke, not Candy Pratts Price, is reportedly overseeing Vogue.com [Fashionista]
• Yesterday during a DLD Conference panel, Natalie Massenet talked about her plans for Net-A-Porter Live, a platform on which Net-a-Porter customers will be able to see who’s online and what they put in their baskets in real time; “We want to start a conversation between them,” she explained [DLD Conference]
• Naomi Campbell is headed back to court this Thursday over a breach-of-contract lawsuit; the contract, which involved promoting a perfume called Cat Deluxe with Kisses, was signed 12 years ago [The Cut]
• Prada could make a final decision on their IPO by the end of the month [Bloomberg]
• Alejandro Ingelmo is aiming to introduce handbags and accessories into his collection for Spring 2012 [Fashionetc.]
• Anna Wintour, Steven Klein, Donna Karan, Daphne Guinness, Ingrid Sischy, Sandy Brant, and Vera Wang all attended the elaborate 21st birthday party Calvin Klein threw on Friday at Indochine for his boyfriend, Nick Gruber [NY Post]
• Tanner Hall, the film co-directed by Diane von Furstenberg's daughter Tatiana von Furstenberg and starring Rooney Mara, just scored a distribution deal and is expected to be released at the end of this year, around when Mara's upcoming film, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, debuts [Deadline]
• Libertine is headed back to New York Fashion Week this February, minus a partner and with a new direction, says designer Johnson Hartig: "It’ll be different in that once Cindy [Greene] and I separated, I stopped using placement prints — I mean literal images — and it’s become more abstract. And there’s going to be a lot more color. I haven’t met a color I haven’t liked this season" [Fashionetc.]

>> Emmanuelle Alt made her front row debut as Vogue Paris editor at Alexis Mabille's couture show this morning. Alt's name appears on top of the magazine's masthead starting with the April 2011 issue, which will feature Gisele Bundchen on the cover, photographed in St. Barts by Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin. However, it apparently won't be until the August 2011 issue that the magazine completely reflects Alt's new direction. [WWD]