>> New York Fashion Week is less than a week away, and the tidbits are flowing freely — a compilation of the highlights from the past couple of days:

Double (or Triple) Duty Presentations

• Gareth Pugh confirmed that he will be showing a video directed by Ruth Hogben on Sept. 13 to "set the mood for [his] catwalk show that will take place as usual in Paris." After the private showing, he'll screen the short film in public nearby — get your name on the guest list via MAC's Facebook page. [Style File]
• Temperley London is taking their interactive Spring 2010 multimedia presentation on the road for the second time, starting in New York Sept. 15 before evolving in format for London Fashion Week and then again in Paris, where it will become an exhibit.  The film aspect, plus stills and a behind-the-scenes cut will be readily available online on Temperley's new website.

First look at Yoko Ono for threeASFOUR, and Karl Lagerfeld's attendance status answered »

>> Milla Jovovich Marries Over Weekend —No confirmation on Marc Jacobs's secret wedding that was supposed to happen this weekend, but Milla Jovovich and her fiance of six years, director Paul W. S. Anderson, took the plunge in a ceremony at their Beverly Hills home Saturday. Jovovich wore a Temperley London column gown and later changed into a minidress she created with former Jovovich-Hawk design partner Carmen Hawk. [PopSugar, People, Style File]
*image: Flynet

>> Soon after Maybelline announced it would be be taking over from five-year Bryant Park cosmetics sponsor MAC, MAC — presumedly, as New York Times' Eric Wilson put it, tired of having to share "a rather circuslike stage with other sponsors who were competing for attention, sometimes including makers of doughnuts, cameras, toilets and Big Macs" — announced that it would be producing the tentatively-titled MAC and Milk Fashion Week with Milk Studios at the same time as the traditional New York Fashion Week.

The event can be seen as either a complement or a competitor to Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, but on the record, anyway, there seem to be no hard feelings.  Milk Studios founder Mazdack Rassi says of the initiative: "This week is not an alternative show space, it's a way of cultivating designers and helping them come up with new ways of selling their clothes."  And Zach Eichman, a VP of IMG Fashion, which produces the shows at Bryant Park, told the New York Times last week the company welcomed the MAC and Milk event and that bus service between shows would be available when possible. “We can’t do every show in the tents. We hope they will be successful.”

Alexander Wang will be there, so will Preen »

>> THE MODELIZER —A year ago, WWD reported that one-third of the New York shows didn't employ models of color, but according to Jezebel's calculations, spots given to models of color increased six percent this season.  Among those shows with the highest diversity: Oscar de la Renta, Victoria Beckham, Tracy Reese, Sophie Theallet; those using no models of color included: Julian Louie, Koi Suwannagate, Temperley London, and Vera Wang Lavender Label. [Jezebel]

*image: source

>> Designers may be pulling their belt tighter this Fashion Week, but hardly any are pulling out of the rat race altogether — the attention is too valuable. "You kill a thousand birds with one stone, because you get that many people there in an hour and you're getting one message across to them," says Scott Sternberg of Boy and Band of Outsiders. "They're writers and photographers and culturally indulgent people with loud mouths."

Instead, designers are saving by hosting presentations instead of runway shows (Monique Lhuillier, Temperley London, and Carmen Marc Valvo), inviting fewer guests (Marc Jacobs and DKNY, who's slicing her usual 1,000 down to 400), sending email invites instead of by mail (nearly everyone), or showing fewer looks to save on fabric and sample-making costs.

Two models, 15 looks, and a free space to show it in »