>> Joseph Altuzarra's show is one of New York Fashion Week's most in-demand tickets — but the label is not just hype; the designer takes care of business, too. The young Altuzarra brand, which was originally financed by $200,000 from the designer's father, Philippe Altuzarra (he heads French operations for Goldman Sachs), turned a profit last year, taking in some $4 million in sales and leaping from three stores and 80 pieces to about 30 stores and 1,800 pieces.

Altuzarra's mother, Karen, is a former investment banker and acts as the label's CEO, but she is quick to note that the designer can keep up when talk turns to balance sheets: “When I tell him we’re doing cash-flow projections, he knows what I’m talking about.”

But Altuzarra has had his setbacks — he was considered the favorite last November for the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund award, but it instead went to Billy Reid. “I was sad,” Altuzarra recalled. “But I learned from the experience.” He now knows he might not always be the favorite: “I’m comfortable with the idea that I’m the flavor of the moment and that in a couple of years people might not think I’m cool anymore.”

But that doesn't mean that words don't affect him. “I don’t read blogs anymore,” the designer noted. “[They] can be really cruel. Do I want to read, ‘I don’t get the hype about this guy,’ or, ‘This is the ugliest collection I have ever seen?' For me to say I don’t care would be hypocritical. I do care.”

>> After three years of dating, Garance Dore and Scott Schuman are making it official — residentially official, anyway. Dore received her visa last month and has recently moved into a prewar Greenwich Village loft with Schuman, on West 10th Street. “I don’t make sacrifices,” she says of her move. “There is no, ‘I leave everything for my man.’ I just do things when they make me feel good and they feel right." But: “I wanted to be with Scott," she says, adding: "I never felt at home in Paris.” [NY Times]

>> Since her collection's inception, Victoria Beckham has hosted her fashion show presentations in intimate settings, narrating each look. Same goes for L'Wren Scott, who has for many seasons kept her presentations intimate enough to simultaneously serve a lunch. And over a year ago, Marc Jacobs downsized his fashion show invites from 1,400 to 500. But after Tom Ford trumpeted the merits of an intimate show last fashion week, some think a change toward smaller shows is in the air.

“He [Ford] shook up the industry,” said Paul Wilmot, a fashion publicist whose firm handles the Oscar de la Renta and Bill Blass shows. “And if somebody says they weren’t influenced, that would be a lie.” James Laforce, who handles shows like Vena Cava, notes: “I’ve heard plenty of people saying, ‘Let’s do a Tom Ford kind of thing.’ They are asking themselves, ‘Is more really more, or is more watering down our influence?’” And KCD's Ed Filipowski, who produces shows for Alexander Wang, Phillip Lim, and Jacobs, agrees: “Intimate is a word that’s definitely in the air."

It's true: a spokesman for IMG, which produces the Lincoln Center shows, says that there has been an increased demand for the smaller Lincoln Center venues like the Box, at 250 seats, and the Studio, which seats 500.

Altuzarra has invited a third fewer guests than last season — less than 300. “In this day and age when there are so many shows, everything gets so much coverage through live streaming, Twitter and the blogs,” Coline Choay, the label's director of publicity and marketing, notes. “You want to make the live show experience special . . . Intimacy, exclusivity and a chance to see the clothes: those are our priorities. We like exposure, but we want a more controlled exposure.”

However, in some cases, the move to intimacy could be a more amenable front for financial constraints. Publicist Vanessa von Bismarck, who handles shows for the likes of Edun, Erin Fetherston, and Suno, says that financial pressures caused some of her clients to go for a smaller production: "They just don’t have the money to put on a big show.” And as Filipowski pointed out: “In reality, we’re not seeing big changes in the size of the shows.”

>> Don't expect to see an APC show on any Fashion Week schedule — last night, the brand's opinionated founder Jean Touitou explained why: "I'm sorry to say there's too much corruption involved in Fashion Week. I won't take part in it. My days are very full doing what I'm doing. I don't want to deal with model agencies. Power conversations with model bookers makes me sick. Those people, they talk to you as if you've known them for 40 years, but you don't know them at all." Plus, he says: "I do not belong to celebrity culture. If people only knew what actresses are paid to sit in the front row at the shows in Milan or Paris, they would want to kill somebody. If they only knew 10 percent of what's going on, like brands that give bags away to young actresses and tell them to go in that restaurant on that day and leave the restaurant at 15 past 2:00, and hold the bag up for the paparazzi that will be there. This is a fact." He gives Chanel as an example of this practice: "If you're a young actress, it's now expected that once you start making it you'll receive a bag from Chanel. It's become a rite of passage. And it works, it's huge publicity for them. But at some point what's sad about it is that the very famous Chanel bag 2.55 — which I really love, my grandmother had one and my mother had one — is all over the place. I can't look at them anymore." [Hint]

>> She didn't name names, but it was fairly clear that Franca Sozzani, in a blog post last month, was criticizing one of Carine Roitfeld's last issues of Vogue Paris — the December Tom Ford guest-edited issue. In a more recent interview, Sozzani said, “Honestly, I don’t think a stylist has a vision for a magazine.” Both Roitfeld and her fashion director — and now new Vogue Paris editor — Emmanuelle Alt are stylists.

Sozzani wasn't the only one who wasn't feeling that Tom Ford-edited December issue — people in Paris speculated, Cathy Horyn reports, that it triggered Roitfeld's undoing. Roitfeld last month told Horyn that her bosses received complaints from advertisers over the Ford issue. “I was killed for that,” Roitfeld added. “You know, it’s difficult to try to do something new each month.”

According to several close to the matter, Roitfeld offered to resign when the issue of her management came under question (she was frequently out of the office on shoots). She could have been bluffing, but her resignation was accepted. When asked whether her frequent office absence was a contributing factor, Roitfeld admitted: “Maybe, maybe. Everybody has an opinion. Before, it wasn’t a problem, and anyway the magazine was doing very well. It’s difficult to work with a big team. Maybe it’s good I go back to my roots.”

But she says she doesn't regret resigning: "I’m very sad, but in a way I’m very happy, too. I don’t want to get old in this golden cage. I’m very punk in a way.”

Apparently she and Alt no longer speak, however, and neither would say why. Alt, who is attending New York Fashion Week for the first time in years, notes: “I don’t look back and see clouds anywhere. Carine is someone who needs to be free. She’s the rebel of the class. She hates authority. She dealt with it for years but . . . ” The magazine was profitable and experienced a 40 percent leap in circulation under Roitfeld's tenure.

>> Haider Ackermann has flown under the radar for a number of years, but in the past few months particularly, it feels as though he's crossed a threshold. In November of last year, Karl Lagerfeld named Ackermann as the designer he'd like to see take over from him at Chanel; Ackermann was reportedly being scouted by Yves Saint Laurent CEO Valerie Hermann at his October show; and Vogue chose to dress Lady Gaga in Ackermann's dresses both on the magazine's March 2011 cover — a major coup — and inside. As Ackermann tells longtime supporter Tilda Swinton in Interview's February 2011 issue, he's feeling the love: "You know what? I feel like I’m going through such a delicious phase of my life at the moment. It’s nice to feel desired — and I do feel desired work-wise but also privately . . . You know, we all want to be desired. So it feels very good. You know, I really like to take the time to build things slowly and surely — to get more grounded. But it never felt for certain, like, 'One day people will listen to me!' It was more like, 'Perhaps I’ve got something to say.' So it feels fantastic." [Interview]

>> MAC & Milk, the downtown centralized New York Fashion Week venue alternative to Lincoln Center, is expanding its venue offering as it heads into its fourth season. Until this season, all shows have been centralized in the Milk Studios building, but through a partnership with The Standard Hotel, MAC & Milk will have a satellite venue at the hotel's High Line Room in the Meatpacking District, set to be used by up and coming designer labels like Study NY, Bensoni, and Honor.

“We have a new lineup with some new designers, as well as a satellite operation at the Standard Hotel for presentations and shows, including some new emerging designers, which is a new dimension,” John Demsey, group president of Estee Lauder and MAC, said. “We have expanded the geographical territory of using the Meatpacking District.” Mazdack Rassi, creative director of Milk Studios, added: “It’s a community idea as well."

MAC & Milk is working on 20 Lincoln Center shows, 39 staged at MAC & Milk, and 32 off-site shows in total for the Fall 2011 season. And there may be even more big changes by next season — IMG Fashion, which currently has a five year contract to host Fashion Week at Lincoln Center, is rumored to be in talks with MAC & Milk about a partnership that would see IMG help run MAC & Milk in future seasons. Both MAC & Milk and IMG declined comment on the matter.