Spring 2011 London Fashion Week

Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss Rumored to Have Fallen Out; Plus, Naomi Talks to Interview October 2010 About Being "Controversial"
Kate Moss

Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss Rumored to Have Fallen Out; Plus, Naomi On Her "Many" Mistakes

>> Naomi Campbell is celebrating 25 years in the business this year, and Dolce & Gabbana threw her a party to honor the occasion during London Fashion Week.
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>> Naomi Campbell is celebrating 25 years in the business this year, and Dolce & Gabbana threw her a party to honor the occasion during London Fashion Week. It was noted that Kate Moss, in attendance just down the road at a Longchamp party, didn't stop by. Moss also didn't appear at Naomi's 40th birthday party this year, spurring rumors that the two have had a falling out. Apparently Moss was rude to guests at a charity show Campbell organized earlier this year, and Naomi still hasn't forgiven her. According to one source: "Kate was a little worse for wear that night. Naomi wasn’t impressed. She wants to dedicate herself to good causes and there’s some feeling that Kate drags her down."

As Naomi Campbell says in Interview's October 2010 cover story, she's not one to get along with everyone: "I mean, look, I’m controversial. It’s not that people don’t know who I am . . . If people want to work with me, then they want to work with me. If they don’t, they don’t. You also have to create your own things. I’ve had my own perfume now for how many years? I’m doing my twelfth perfume and I’m with Procter & Gamble. If something doesn’t come your way, then you find another way. I was brought up with a very broad mind. I am a woman of color and I will always be proud of that. I also know that I will always have to go that extra 10 miles. And that’s fine. I’m okay with that. I’m okay with doing the extra 10 miles . . . My whole career is a challenge. I’m a challenge."

However, when she's hit with adversity: "I don’t get depressed. When I feel an attack, I withdraw. I disappear, I replenish, and then I come back. I’m not going to wallow in self-pity and not live my life. There are always going to be some falls in life for everybody, no matter what career you have. You have to roll with the punches and keep going."

She also offers a mea culpa: "Listen, I make many mistakes. Many mistakes. I’m not a perfect human being. I have to learn from my mistakes. And a lot of the ones I’ve made have been public. So I always get nervous when people speak about something that sounds like a role model, because I don’t know if I’ve been a great role model myself. I don’t think I have in certain aspects of my life . . . But I’m trying to do better. I admit to my mistakes. I admit to the things that I’ve done wrong. I admit it. But I’m trying to do right by myself and my life now."

Heidi Mount's Husband, Shawn Mount, Faces Rape Allegations
London Fashion Week

Heidi Mount's Husband Faces Rape Allegations

>> Heidi Mount's husband, 30-year-old hairstylist Shawn Mount, was accused by an unnamed 24-year-old model of sexually assaulting her in a hotel room during London Fashion Week.
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>> Heidi Mount's husband, 30-year-old hairstylist Shawn Mount, was accused by an unnamed 24-year-old model of sexually assaulting her in a hotel room during London Fashion Week. Mount, who has worked for Vogue and on Ralph Lauren ad campaigns, was in London styling models for runway shows. He was arrested on suspicion of rape on Sept. 21 and released on police bail to work at Milan Fashion Week. He has not been charged, although investigations are continuing; sources indicate that Heidi knows the accuser and was in Milan at the time of the alleged attack. She and Shawn have been married since 2007 and have a 3-year-old son together. [NY Post, Daily Mail]

Are Sponsorships Ruining Creativity at London Fashion Week?
London Fashion Week

Are Sponsorships Ruining Creativity at London Fashion Week?

>> When Alexander McQueen was showing in the mid-'90s, he had Trino Verkade telephone three florists to wrangle heather and thistles for his Highland Rape show and then convince Liberty to mail the invitations for another one of his shows.
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>> When Alexander McQueen was showing in the mid-'90s, he had Trino Verkade telephone three florists to wrangle heather and thistles for his Highland Rape show and then convince Liberty to mail the invitations for another one of his shows. “Honestly, I was trashy in the way I got money,” Ms. Verkade says. “It was also a time in London when everything was depressed. We were young.”

Now, however, sponsorships and corporate awards are more prevalent in London than anywhere else, and "most young designers, the thinking goes," writes Cathy Horyn, "couldn’t afford the costs of exposure without them." But, she continues, "the new generation of designers, while not exactly having it easy, has certainly been exposed to the system of sponsorships. And you wonder if it’s good for creativity . . . That almost childish refusal to take full responsibility for how their work is presented — as Mr. McQueen and [Hussein] Chalayan did [in the '90s and early '00s] — also seems to retard their creative powers."

Louise Wilson, the influential director of Central Saint Martins's master's program, says: “There is this omnipresent support here in England, and I’ll tell you what it’s done. There’s no risk. I think this generation has never chosen how they want to show.” Instead, the young designers rely on spaces financed by the likes of Topshop, and Wilson thinks they are not “looking for solutions to their own problems.” Chalayan agrees: "[Young designers] “are concerned about what the City thinks” — meaning potential backers and sponsors.

Are Christopher Bailey and Burberry Becoming Too Concerned with Their Online Push to Concentrate on the Clothes?
Burberry

Are Christopher Bailey and Burberry Becoming Too Concerned with Their Online Push to Concentrate on the Clothes?

>> Burberry has been agressively pushing the bounderies of Internet marketing, but with Christopher Bailey's attention diverted, is it to the detriment of the clothes?
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>> Burberry has been agressively pushing the bounderies of Internet marketing, but with Christopher Bailey's attention diverted, is it to the detriment of the clothes?

After last season's hit collection, Cathy Horyn writes of Bailey's Spring 2011 offering: "This was not Christopher Bailey’s best collection." She continues: "I also kept thinking that the collection lacked feeling — unless you count the pain of the models who cast off their raunchy heels on the runway. The last model toppled over a few yards from the backstage area and had to scramble back up. When I think of all the great collections that Mr. Bailey has done for Burberry, they’ve all been characterized by a sense of emotion that he was willing to put out there. It wasn’t all crass e-commerce." The Spring 2011 show was screened in real time at 25 Burberry stores, livestreamed online and selected outerwear and handbags were made simultaneously available on in-store iPads for purchase, with orders to be delivered in seven weeks time.

WWD agreed with Horyn: "Bailey skidded, at times, into dangerous territory. The biker jackets paved with spikes and studs were overwrought, and there was nothing elegant or fresh about those flashes of python on trousers, dresses, and jackets."

London Fashion Week

Blind Items To Close Out London Fashion Week

WHICH Vogue writer told a blogger "Tough sh*t!"
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WHICH Vogue writer told a blogger "Tough sh*t!" when she pleaded to share her seat at the Burberry show?  The blogger was relegated to the photographer pit.

WHICH tarnished fashion golden boy was flown to London specifically to host a party, which he only attended for exactly seven minutes?

WHICH up-and-coming American model fixed her own makeup in a porta-potty before a big London show, because she thought the makeup artist had made her "look old"?

WHICH former fashion director would call publicists to her rescue if someone was sitting in her aisle seat?  She Flip cams everything, but now that she's in the second row, those aisle seats are the only way to record with a clear view.

71-Year-Old Veruschka, Pregnant Walk Abbey Clancy Giles Show During Spring 2011 London Fashion Week
Louis Vuitton

After Veruschka at Giles, What Does Katie Grand Have in Store Casting-Wise at Louis Vuitton and Emanuel Ungaro?

>> Katie Grand is known for cultivating unique model casts — last season at Giles and Louis Vuitton, both of which she styles, there was a proliferation of Victoria's Secret models on the runway.
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>> Katie Grand is known for cultivating unique model casts — last season at Giles and Louis Vuitton, both of which she styles, there was a proliferation of Victoria's Secret models on the runway. And while she brought back some of those "curvier" girls for Giles again this season — Alessandra Ambrosio, Ana Beatriz Barros, Anne Vyalitsyna, Noemie Lenoir, plus Sports Illustrated models Jessica Hart, Abbey Clancy (who is pregnant), and Julie Ordon — also peppered in were Agyness Deyn, who shaved her hair into a mohawk for the show, Amber Le Bon, British model and TV presenter Kelly Brook, and 71-year-old Veruschka, who closed the show.

Grand is working with Giles Deacon on his debut collection for Emanuel Ungaro this season — so surely the cast will be special for that occasion — although the only hint that came is not model-related: Deacon is working with edgy London label Sibling on knits for the show. And as for Vuitton, all Grand would say was: “[Marc Jacobs] said, ‘I’ve got all these beautiful clothes for Vuitton — what on earth are we going to do with them?’”

Backstage Photos from London Fashion Week Spring 2011: Christopher Kane, Erdem, Giles, Matthew Williamson, Topshop, Mark Fast
Matthew Williamson

Models Backstage at London Fashion Week: Neons at Christopher Kane, Coco Rocha at Giles, and More

>> Alessandra Ambrosio has taken a couple of turns on the Spring 2011 catwalks — the latest was at Giles, where she wore her bread and butter: a bikini.
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>> Alessandra Ambrosio has taken a couple of turns on the Spring 2011 catwalks — the latest was at Giles, where she wore her bread and butter: a bikini. "I wake up and read [show stylist] Katie [Grand]'s message on my phone — 'Are you okay wearing a bikini?'" she told The Cut. "I had to think second thoughts about what I was going to have for breakfast. [But] I'm like, 'I guess.' Because I'm Brazilian and I do Victoria's Secret, it wouldn't be polite to say I'm not okay. As long as it's not a G-string, I'm okay. I'm a mom now: I can't [do G-strings]." See Ambrosio, Jessica Stam, and more doing the backstage thing during London Fashion Week — we've got snaps from Christopher Kane, Erdem, Giles, Mary Katrantzou, Matthew Williamson, Marios Schwab, Mark Fast, Peter Pilotto, Pringle of Scotland, Richard Nicoll, Jonathan Saunders, Topshop Unique, and Vivienne Westwood.

Photos: Greg Kessler

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Gucci Rumored to Have Stolen Some of Burberry's Spring 2011 Models; Burberry Face Nina Porter Falls on Runway
Burberry

Rumor: Gucci Prevents Models From Walking Burberry; Plus, a Burberry Face Falls on the Runway

>> Although the big Spring 2011 Burberry model story includes Burberry face Nina Porter's much-Tweeted runway fall while closing, industry insiders are buzzing about something else.
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>> Although the big Spring 2011 Burberry model story includes Burberry face Nina Porter's much-Tweeted runway fall while closing, industry insiders are buzzing about something else. According to rumors, last night, Gucci demanded all girls cast in their show fly into Milan, pronto. That means Burberry's usual all-star London lineup — Freja Beha Erichsen and Lily Donaldson among them — were already gone; Burberry did nab Jourdan Dunn and Lisanne De Jong, however.

Photos of Sarah Jessica Parker, Anna Wintour, Naomi Campbell at Alexander McQueen Memorial Service
Sarah Jessica Parker

Kate Moss, Anna Wintour, Naomi Campbell, and More Gather at Alexander McQueen's Memorial Service

>> Friends and family — among the 1,200 guests were Kate Moss, Sarah Jessica Parker, Naomi Campbell, Daphne Guinness, Hamish Bowles, Karen Elson, Stella Tennant, Hussein Chalayan, Roland Mouret, Antonio Berardi, Philip Treacy, Francois Henri Pinault (whom McQueen called Henry), and Stella McCartney — gathered this morning at St. Paul's Cathedral in London in honor of Lee Alexander McQueen, who took his own life in February.
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Photos of Sarah Jessica Parker, Anna Wintour, Naomi Campbell at Alexander McQueen Memorial Service

>> Friends and family — among the 1,200 guests were Kate Moss, Sarah Jessica Parker, Naomi Campbell, Daphne Guinness, Hamish Bowles, Karen Elson, Stella Tennant, Hussein Chalayan, Roland Mouret, Antonio Berardi, Philip Treacy, Francois Henri Pinault (whom McQueen called Henry), and Stella McCartney — gathered this morning at St. Paul's Cathedral in London in honor of Lee Alexander McQueen, who took his own life in February.

Shaun Leane, Suzy Menkes, Annabelle Nielson, and Anna Wintour all spoke at the 70-minute memorial service, with Wintour recalling McQueen's tendency for last minute cancellations and his "often savage tongue": "He never appeared much at ease with himself, and he didn't care about the politics of fashion. The world that he loved was inside the atelier . . . He showed us everything was possible; dreams could become reality." Bjork gave a performance of Billie Holiday's "Gloomy Sunday" dressed in an angelic McQueen costume, and afterward, as guests dispersed, the National Youth Pipe Band of Scotland played the theme of Braveheart on their bagpipes.

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Giles Deacon Rumored to Be Showing at New York Fashion Week
New York Fashion Week

Giles Deacon to Show in New York Next Season?

>> Preen, William Tempest, Jenny Packham, and Peter Jensen all brought their collections from London to New York Fashion Week; now industry rumors say Giles Deacon will do the same.
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>> Preen, William Tempest, Jenny Packham, and Peter Jensen all brought their collections from London to New York Fashion Week; now industry rumors say Giles Deacon will do the same.

The newly appointed Ungaro designer shows his eponymous label today, "But it may be his last time in London," says a New York events producer responsible for recruiting UK style stars. "He really wants to come to New York, he just needs the right space and the right sponsor — and he's very close to getting that."  Meanwhile, London is getting something else from Giles: Another round of his collaboration with New Look, which just hit shelves this week.