>>Those stories and more in our daily news roundup.

• R.J. Cutler, the documentarian who directed The September Issue, is working on a fashion film based on Fabulous Nobodies, the chronicle of an '80s Manhattan nightclub hostess written by former Vogue Australia Editor-in-Chief Lee Tulloch. The screenplay is ready, and Cutler's goal is to start filming by this Fall — now all he needs is a "stylish twentysomething actress for the lead role" and he'll be set. [The Cut]
• Fashion designer Victoria Beckham debuted a new haircut this week, chopping off her long locks in favor of a just-below-the-shoulder-length cut. Beckham tweeted a picture of her freshly shorn hair on the floor of her salon this weekend with the message "Chopped it off!" and paparazzi captured her summery new 'do shortly thereafter. [Stylelist]
• Filming has begun on the new Sex and the City prequel show The Carrie Diaries, and AnnaSophia Robb — the actress playing young Carrie Bradshaw — has been spotted toting around a paint-splattered handbag emblazoned with her character's name. One of the first episodes is said to include a shopping trip to Century 21. The show will air on the CW this Fall. [The Fashion Spot]

Yves Saint Laurent at his final couture show in 2002.

>> Pierre Bergé, who lived with Yves Saint Laurent for almost 50 years, says new YSL designer Hedi Slimane is in for an uphill battle — but Bergé believes Slimane is ready for the task.

Bergé told T Magazine that filling Saint Laurent's shoes is "a great problem, very complicated, to recreate the work of a genius. Like trying to rewrite Faulkner," Bergé said. "To put your stamp on the name of Yves Saint Laurent requires someone who has talent, conviction, rigor, a demanding nature and a great sense of color."

And Slimane, who was announced as the successor to former YSL creative director Stefano Pilati earlier this month, has that — or at least Bergé thinks he does. He called Bergé "a man of talent who can preserve the genius and legacy of Yves Saint Laurent."

Bergé is currently in Denver, CO, exhibiting some 200 of Saint Laurent's finest pieces at the Denver Art Museum. The retrospective will only show in Denver and will run through July 8.

>> H&M, the Swedish company known 'round the world for its well-priced fast fashion, is said to have a much more luxurious — and much more expensive — line of clothing in the works.

Swedish financial newspaper Dagens Industri reported Friday that the company would expand into new territory with a clothing label designed by Behnaz Aram, the head designer at H&M New Business. The New Business concept oversees brands like Cheap Monday and Cos, which makes the highest-priced clothing the company currently sells — but the new venture is rumored to be "even more expensive and luxurious than Cos," according to the Dagens Industri story.

H&M spokeswoman Charlotta Nemlin told WWD Monday that new ideas are "a natural part of our work. However, there is nothing new that we can [talk] about for the moment."

But if the brand isn't going to create luxury fashion in-house, it certainly aligns itself with designers and brands who do. H&M has collaborated with everyone from Karl Lagerfeld to Marni's Consuelo Castiglioni, and celebrities like Michelle Williams and Kristin Davis have been seen wearing dresses from its Exclusive Conscious collection on the red carpet. H&M's main business isn't in luxury fashion, but adding a luxury line wouldn't be a stretch.

>> Those stories and more in our daily news roundup.

• In a tongue-in-cheek reference to the unknown thief (or thieves) who stole his Spring collection samples, Marc Jacobs posted a wanted sign in the window of his Mercer street store. The sign cleverly points out the fact that no one has been able to determine who stole the 46-piece line, but notes that "the thief is still at large and is now considered dressed to kill." It's also been made into a $28 t-shirt. [Racked]
  

• Jean Paul Gaultier doesn't really like technology, and only uses his iPhone for texting. "It's just non-stop. I like to think alone with my brain and not over-communicate," he said. If that's what enables him to focus on creating such beautiful clothing, who are we to judge? [The Cut]
  

• Gwyneth Paltrow's Oscar dress selection process was a labor of love, but she and her stylist Elizabeth Saltzman only picked the dramatic white Tom Ford gown and cape she wore a week before the show. Saltzman was able to make a decision so close to the event because of her tenure in the industry. "The politics, especially when it comes to this event, can be rough if you don't know the players," she said. [Stylelist]

>> Karl Lagerfeld didn't pull any punches when asked how he felt about a recent Newsweek column suggesting he was "overrated" and spread too thin.

A reporter asked Lagerfeld during a press conference in Tokyo on Friday about his reaction to the Robin Givhan article in Newsweek this January. Lagerfeld downplayed the credibility of the story by calling the publication that printed it a dying news source.

"First of all, Tina Brown's magazine is not doing well at all . . . She is dying," he said. "I'm sorry for Tina Brown, who was such a success at Vanity Fair, to go down with a sh*tty little paper like this. I'm sorry."

In response, Newsweek released a statement to Fashionista which runs through empirical evidence to the contrary, claiming that the magazine is thriving under Brown's leadership.

"In the past year since Tina Brown took over as editor in chief of Newsweek, newsstand sales have increased 30 percent year on year, advertising pages have seen a 27 percent increase for the first quarter of 2012, we have over 2.2 million people engaged in our social media communities and perhaps the most telling indicator of the renewed vitality of Newsweek, subscription renewals, in a consistent state of decline since 2005, rose by 3% last year."

Whether or not those figures will change Lagerfeld's mind about the story is debatable.

>> Carine Roitfeld is set to return to the magazine industry later this year — and while she isn't saying too much about what her new book will look like, she did reveal a few bits of information that confirm it will be very, very different from French Vogue.

Roitfeld told WWD that she was leaving an assortment of Chanel parties in Tokyo to head back to New York to work on the new title. While she didn't say what the name of her publication will be, she did say that the first issue will come out in September and that the magazine will only be published twice a year. Roitfeld also said that it would look more like a book than a regular glossy, and that it won't have a traditional "front of the book" section. The focus of her pages will be "fashion with a lot of freedom."

These clues lend credence to the rumor, reported by Grazia this week, that Roitfeld is working with the publishing house that produces Visionaire (the annual art and fashion album), V Magazine, and V Man. Since leaving her post as editor in chief of French Vogue in 2010, Roitfeld has collaborated on projects for V, and WWD reported last month that she'd been "seen a lot in the company’s offices recently."

>> Those stories and more in our daily news roundup.

• Grand theft fashion! Police are on the hunt for a "chic, well-dressed woman" they believe is responsible for the theft of a $17,000 handbag from the Ralph Lauren women's boutique on New York's Upper East Side. The bag, a version of the Ricky bag made from African crocodile skin, went missing last month. Anyone who might know its whereabouts is encouraged to call the NYPD Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS. [Styleite]
• Aliza Licht, the publicist who tweets from @DKNY, sent out over 1,100 missives on the social networking site in February. That's nearly three times as many tweets as the second biggest users of Twitter in the fashion industry — Kate Spade and Betsey Johnson only sent around 350 tweets in the same month. Only. [The Fashion Spot]
• Giorgio Armani took some flak for sending out an email announcement of his new Sense of Being campaign, which depicts British Olympians wearing his sportswear alongside inspirational messages, about a minute before Stella McCartney unveiled her uniforms for the British Olympic team. The jury is still out on whether or not you can actually steal someone's thunder via email. [The Cut]
• Mischa Barton is adding clothing to her line of products. She's had her own line of handbags since 2008, but her line of clothing and accessories, called Mischa's Place, started selling online today. [Stylelist]
• Longchamp, the French handbag company that makes the ubiquitous nylon-and-leather handbags, announced today that it's going to start selling shoes to complement those bags this Summer. The shoes, which range in price from $285 to $735, will be available in July. [Fashion Etc.]