>> Stefano Tonchi, who officially starts as W editor on April 12, was scheduled to go on trial yesterday in Beverly Hills for a DUI, Gawker reports. Last January, Beverly Hills police stopped Tonchi for a "routine traffic violation"; when Tonchi refused a breathalyzer test at the scene, he was arrested when he failed a battery of field sobriety tests.
Police filed a single misdemeanor DUI charge against Tonchi last February, and he was arraigned last March, but trial was delayed for over a year while the defense filed several motions to suppress evidence. Tonchi's attorney confirmed to Gawker that a plea was worked out shortly before trial was to begin yesterday morning — the DUI charge was dropped and Tonchi was allowed to plead to only the initial traffic violation, failure to stop at a limit line. Tonchi himself did not appear in court.
Peter Copping's First Nina Ricci Collection for Spring 2010: The Reviews Are In
>> To an audience of only 75, Peter Copping sent out his first runway show at Nina Ricci in the salon above the brand's Paris store. Copping, who spent the past twelve years at Louis Vuitton, took Ricci to a much more feminine, commercial place than previous Ricci designer Olivier Theyskens. “I like wearable clothes,” he told WWD. “I’m not necessarily into being too avant-garde . . . whenever we did more feminine-based collections [at Vuitton], the sales were always incredible in the stores as opposed to the more austere or hard-edged things."
The Spring 2010 show was about all about the house’s “signature codes” — bows, lingerie, lace — Copping said, and he's keen to add capsule lines of lingerie and wedding dresses soon. So what's his verdict? Hilary Alexander called the collection "charming," T staffers were fans — Anne Christensen deemed it "very pretty" and Armand Limnander "lovely" — and Elle's Joe Zee, too, was won over: "I'm not usually a fan of romance (clothes that is) but Peter Copping's Ricci debut was a slamdunk in romance. Sweet but not saccharin."
Some, however, seemed more hung up on the switch to commerciality: Los Angeles Times's Booth Moore noted, "Olivier Theyskens' Nina Ricci was all vision; Peter Copping's is all saleable product." Suzy Menkes commented: "[It] is not necessarily a bad thing for a house [to be very commercial] . . . but Mr. Copping, having staked out his pretty girl territory, needs to take her to a newer place." And Style.com's Sarah Mower is holding judgment: "At first sight Ricci is now in a safe pair of hands but the jury's still out till next season."
