Andrew Rosen

• The CFDA and Ebay have tapped over 90 designers, including J. Mendel (left) and Prabal Gurung, to design tote bags for its third "You Can't Fake Fashion" initiative. Look for the totes exclusively online on March 18. [Harper's Bazaar]
• Diane von Furstenberg and Andrew Rosen are teaming up to host Open Market, an evening of food, cocktails, and fashion to benefit the Meatpacking District Improvement Association. [Style.com]
• The Great Gatsby is set to open the Cannes Film Festival, which kicks off on May 15. [The New York Times]
• Simon Doonan attributes his signature sense of humor to his upbringing: "It's a big part of being English — not taking things too seriously, debunking things." [The Business of Fashion]
• Elle Macpherson has gotten engaged to longtime boyfriend Jeffrey Soffer. [Page Six]
• GQ Deputy Editor Michael Hainey has an affinity for artful prose: "I've always wanted to be a poet. That's how I started writing," he said. "Poetry teaches you to sort of crystallize your thinking." [MR PORTER]
• Jenna Lyons has 289 pairs of shoes — or as she refers to them: shiny ponies. [POPSUGAR Style & Trends]
• Disneyland Paris will hold a fashion show to celebrate its 20th anniversary later this month, featuring designs from the likes of Alber Elbaz and Philip Treacy. [Vogue UK]
• Will we see another Tom Ford movie hit theaters soon? [Telegraph]

>> Theory founder Andrew Rosen led a group of 20 investors in a deal that was finalized Friday, giving them ownership of a stake in Proenza Schouler. WWD reports that the group invested between $10 and $20 million in exchange for a minority stake equal to that held by Proenza Schouler's management. By comparison, Permira bought a 45 percent stake in the label — which it no longer holds — in 2007, for $3.7 million.

Apparently little of the new cash will be going straight to Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez; they are said to have passed up opportunities for a bigger payday in order to maintain more control over the label.

So where is the money going? It's speculated that before the designers venture into new tiers — like, say, a diffusion line — they'll focus more on accessories, retail, e-commerce, and potentially denim (they have collaborated with J Brand in the past). Earlier this year, Proenza Schouler CEO Shirley Cook also suggested that they've been considering a fragrance launch.

>> As suggested, after more than a year of negotiations, Permira has finalized the sale of its stake in Proenza Schouler to a group of investors that include Theory founder Andrew Rosen and John Howard.

According to a statement from Proenza Schouler, the new partnership is a "recapitalization" of the label and will allow it "to enter a new phase of development.” Valentino Fashion Group (which is owned by Permira and bought the 45 percent stake in Proenza Schouler in 2007 for $3.7 million) will keep a minority share in the new partnership.

“We are thankful to VFG for giving us a start, and allowing us to get where we are today,” Jack McCollough, Lazaro Hernandez, and Proenza Schouler CEO Shirley Cook said in a joint statement. “There’s so much we’d like to accomplish and have found the perfect complement in John and Andrew to help us realize our dreams.”

Rosen and Howard, meanwhile, jointly commented: “When we look at the current state of American fashion, we see the next generation focused in the advanced contemporary space. We believe that the Proenza business is the future of American luxury, and uniquely poised to compete in a global marketplace, which is currently dominated by European designers. In infusing this brand with our resources and experience, we will position this business to achieve its full potential."

This is a personal investment for Rosen, who also hold similar investments in Alice + Olivia, Gryphon, and Rag & Bone.

>> Between Alexander McQueen committing suicide last year, John Galliano's drunken, anti-Semitic outburst, and Christophe Decarnin being sidelined for depression treatments, many are starting to wonder if the fashion industry and its current pressures — particularly the demand for more and more collections, released faster and faster — are to blame for designers spinning out of control. Karl Lagerfeld, Michael Kors, and more address the issue:

Karl Lagerfeld: “I see designing, running a company, like a high-level athletic activity. I don’t want to hear anything about the fragility or any of those things. If an athlete is too fragile to run, he cannot run. And this is exactly the same. You don’t accept this kind of business if you’re too much of an artist. I believe in discipline, so I’m not the right person to cry about weakness and things like this, but maybe I’m not human.”

Marc Jacobs: “You don’t think bank tellers have problems? You don’t think people in the middle of the suburbs have problems? Blaming is such a complete waste. I mean, it’s so pointless. To say, you know, my mother was absent and therefore I ran amok, it’s ridiculous. It’s a self-destructive nature, it’s a mental, physical and a kind of spiritual malady . . . people who are happy and healthy and spiritually well don’t do things to hurt themselves.”

Yves Saint Laurent's longtime business partner Pierre Berge: “I have a lot more sympathy for people who have to take the train to work every day. What a load of nonsense! No, no, no. Designers are artisans who are extremely privileged to have a poetic profession. They are not artists. We have to stop saying that they are.”

Marc Jacobs's longtime business partner Robert Duffy: “You cannot blame the industry. The majority of actors are not drug addicts, the majority of designers are not drug addicts.”

Theory founder Andrew Rosen: “I don’t see fashion as an industry being ahead of the world in terms of this issue. It’s a devastating and unfortunate condition that happens in every walk of life. It doesn’t make it better or OK, it’s a devastating illness to all those around it. Drug addiction, and addiction in general, is unfortunately part of society today. Maybe because we’re so close to our industry, we feel it more. Whenever it happens, it’s horrible.”

Michael Kors: "No question . . . I mean, I forget what season I’m in sometimes. I think every designer in today’s world, I don’t care whether you’re a designer who makes clothes that are phantasmagorical or very pragmatic, you have to figure out something that can ground you and bring you back. Whatever it is, if you go to the gym too much or you travel too much, you’ve got to have time to escape. I always tell everyone the crazy conversation I’ve had forever with actors, if they do two films in a row, and they’ve lived these characters and they’re on the set away from their friends and family, but then they take a year off. What are designers supposed to say? 'I’m tired. I’m not doing fall. Wear last year’s clothes, and maybe get some new nail polish.' It’s endless."

Photographer Mert Alas: “I’m the kind of person that I live under pressure, but I enjoy the pressure, so it very much relates to your own personality. Of course we’re all under pressure. The bus driver is under pressure. But, you know, it’s how you come out of it. If you can make good fun with it, pressure can be enjoyable.”

New York Times's Cathy Horyn: "For designers already at big houses, the pressures must reach absurd levels . . . Many people in professional and creative fields are under intense pressure, but for designers that pressure is manifested on the runway. The problem goes beyond having to produce multiple collections a year; it’s the nearly brutalizing feeling that something new and relevant must be communicated each season."

Co-President of PR firm KCD Ed Filipowski: “As a publicist, I have also taken on many times the role of ‘fashion therapist’ to my clients. Globalization, digitalization — the speed and scope of our work — has added a tremendous amount of pressure not only to the creative field but everyone in this industry. I would venture to say we are all doing at least twice as much work twice as fast as we were five years ago.”

• 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.]

>> Andrew Rosen, who has invested in Rag & Bone and Alice & Olivia and hired Olivier Theyskens at Theory, was rumored to be circulating an investment in Proenza Schouler back in March. Not much has been heard about it since, but last night at Fashion Group International’s annual Night of Stars awards gala, Eric Wilson reports: "There was a little intrigue in the audience. Among the guests at the Proenza Schouler table, where [Jack] McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez sat with Anna Wintour between them, was Andrew Rosen, the Theory executive, who has reportedly expressed interest in taking a stake in the company." [On the Runway]