Busy busy. After recently debuting shoes for his eponymous label, Narciso Rodriguez is adding yet another title to his ever growing resume: fashion advisor for Banana Republic.

The brand announced today that Rodriguez will begin the newly created gig Aug. 20 and will work closely with Simon Knee, the brand's creative director and vice president, on the Fall 2013 collection. "Narciso's expertise will be a great complement to Simon's strengths and to our incredible design team," Banana Republic's president, Jack Calhoun, said in a statement.

Anna Wintour says she wasn't surprised when the printers called and asked whether her very first cover of Vogue in Nov. 1988 was a mistake. That cover, which featured model Michaela Bercu photographed by Peter Lindbergh in a beaded Christian Lacroix couture jacket and a pair of Guess Jeans, was — in Wintour's words — "so unlike the studied and elegant close-ups that were typical of Vogue's covers back then, with tons of makeup and major jewelry."

"I couldn't blame them," Wintour wrote. "This one broke all the rules. Michaela wasn't looking at you, and worse, she had her eyes almost closed. Her hair was blowing across her face. It looked easy, casual, a moment that had been snapped on the street, which it had been, and which was the whole point. Afterwards, in the way that these things can happen, people applied all sorts of interpretations: It was about mixing high and low, Michaela was pregnant, it was a religious statement. But none of these things was true. I had just looked at that picture and sensed the winds of change. And you can't ask for more from a cover image than that."

Photo: Michaela Bercu photographed by Peter Lindbergh for the Nov. 1988 cover of Vogue.

Those stories and more in our daily news roundup.

• After a year-and-a-half as editor in chief of Vogue Paris, Emmanuelle Alt has introduced a redesign that features a renewed focus on the magazine's status as the only Vogue title that represents a city, not a nation. "It's the concept of the 'Parisienne.'" she said. "The 'Parisienne' is a girl who makes people dream worldwide, rightly or wrongly — a girl who represents a particular style, a taste, an allure." [WWD]
  

• "Ultimately, shoes are just a really fun mode of escapism for a woman," said Man Repeller Leandra Medine on a tour of her shoe closet. "The higher the heel, the more fantasy is put into the shoe." [Footwear News]
  

• Louis Vuitton cast Michael Phelps — now the world's most decorated Olympian — in its newest ad campaign, photographed by Annie Leibovitz. [Just Jared]
  

• Meanwhile, Chanel Iman is the face of Amazon's Fall 2012 campaign, seen below. [Modelinia]
  

• New York Magazine's fashion blog today debuted a new look that takes "a cue from the beauty of print fashion magazines with a totally new design." [The Cut]
  

• Choupette Lagerfeld is quickly gaining a name for herself in the modeling industry. "I think she has a very bright future," says V magazine editor Sarah Cristobal, who cast the cat in her September issue alongside Laetitia Casta. "She's going to have an everlasting career." [BuzzFeed Shift]

Helen Gurley Brown, the longtime editor in chief of Cosmopolitan and groundbreaking author of Sex and the Single Girl, died in New York on Monday. She was 90 years old.

"Helen Gurley Brown was an icon. Her formula for honest and straightforward advice about relationships, career, and beauty revolutionized the magazine industry," said Hearst CEO Frank A. Bennack Jr. in a statement. "She lived every day of her life to the fullest and will always be remembered as the quintessential 'Cosmo girl.' She will be greatly missed."

Brown edited Cosmopolitan for 32 years and wrote books on everything from sex, love, and relationships to money and success. She was also widely admired for her sharp wit. In 2007, when Vanity Fair asked which historical figure she identified with most, Brown replied, "Cleopatra. She was a good boss and had a good love life."

The same, undoubtedly, can be said of Brown. See a sampling of her seemingly endless supply of quotes and witticisms, below.

"Nearly every glamorous, wealthy, successful career woman you might envy now started out as some kind of schlep."

"You cannot sit around like a cupcake asking other people to come and eat you up and discover your great sweetness and charm. You've got to make yourself more cupcakable all the time so you're a better cupcake to be gobbled up."

"Good girls go to heaven; bad girls go everywhere."

"One of the paramount reasons for staying attractive is so you can have somebody to go to bed with."

"Never fail to know that if you are doing all the talking, you are boring somebody."

"My success was not based so much on any great intelligence but on great common sense."

"You can have your titular recognition. I'll take money and power."

"I address everybody as 'pussycat,' but nobody minds, and it's a nice term of endearment."

"There has been lots of copying — look at Glamour. I used to have all the sex to myself."

"The message was: So you're single. You can still have sex. You can have a great life. And if you marry, don't just sponge off a man or be the gold-medal-winning mother. Don't use men to get what you want in life — get it for yourself."

Those stories and more in our daily news roundup.

• Marchesa will introduce its first fragrance, the seductively named Parfume d'Extase, at Sephora in September. The rock crystal-shaped bottle comes in two sizes that will retail between $60 and $85, and a roll-on version of the scent will sell for $25. [Elle]
  

• Calvin Klein's ex-boyfriend Nick Gruber says the designer has been "supportive of my sobriety" and happily reports that he is "clean on drugs and alcohol." Klein sent Gruber to a rehab facility after he was arrested for cocaine possession in April. [The Cut]
  

• Kirna Zabête's highly anticipated clothing line for The Shops at Target will be in stores on Sept. 9, but photos of the offering have appeared online. [FabSugar]
  

• Gia Coppola is intent on making a name for herself as a fashion-film director. "It's cool because it’s a new way to show clothes and see how they move, plus you have a little story, so it adds personality," she says. "And it's helpful when companies are open to letting you do what you want." [WWD]
  

• Lou Doillon's busy acting, modeling, and singing careers have meant that she hasn't "had a real love life," she says. "I've never had someone living with me in my house. I guess that would consume a lot of time." [WWD]
  

• The recent economic downturn has pushed sales of clothing down and sales of accessories up — which has also meant an increase in the number of fashion students majoring in accessory design. [The New York Times]
  

• For the first issue of Opening Ceremony's magazine OC Annual, Bruce Weber shot Gaia Repossi doing yoga in front of a bus. [Fashionista]
  

• Jonathan Saunders has had a successful Olympic season: his clothing was featured in the games' opening ceremony, worn on the cover of British Vogue, and spotted on the back of Samantha Cameron, the wife of UK Prime Minister David Cameron. [Vogue UK]
  

• Kate Moss, Sienna Miller, and Keira Knightley all donated shoes to be auctioned off for the Small Steps Project, which raises money to provide clothing and food for children who work in landfills. [Vogue UK]