>> Christopher Bailey likes to think of himself as a "home bird": he's at ease mulching — "the smell of manure makes me happy" — barbecuing, or watching TV with "soup on my lap," he tells the New Yorker in their September 14 Style Issue.  But he's also the creative director of three-billion-dollar company Burberry.

Bailey is anti-elitist, the New Yorker writes.  He "came from a working-class background in Yorkshire" — his father was a carpenter, his mother dressed windows for Marks & Spencer — and one of his main goals for Burberry is to be "friendly and warm and embracing." He continues: "I think there's an expectation that all fashion companies have to be cold and austere and arrogant, and I just think there are other ways of doing things." 

He loves chocolate »

>>  Alber Elbaz's recent Fall 2009 runway show for Lanvin won stellar reviews, with many deeming it one of the best collections of the season; but after perusing Ariel Levy's profile of the designer in The New Yorker's Style Issue this week, we know that at the end, he was backstage with his director of communications, Hania Destelle, worrying. "After every show, I say to Hania, 'They hated it.'"  But that's just the beginning of the anxieties for Alber, whose mind seems to be equally split between creating and worrying.

He fantasizes about being skinny.

Looking over the menu one morning at the Carlyle Hotel, Elbaz said, "Should we be good today or bad?  Maybe we start good and get bad later."  He ordered the fruit salad.  He wanted the pancakes.

Elbaz thinks it's a very big deal that he is overweight. Asked what he imagines life would be like if he were thin, he replied, "Amazing," with real conviction.

Part of the problem is that he stress-eats.

He brought a bowl of fruit and put it on the table in front of the architects.  "The stress starts and we start to eat."  Elbaz sat down, put his head in his hand, and moaned. "I'm depressed," he said, and started peeling a clementine.

He even considers leaving fashion . . . »

>> After that rampant Marc Jacobs marriage rumor that made major Internet waves last month, we finally have confirmation that it didn't happen. In The New Yorker's Sept. 1 issue, Ariel Levy's profile of Marc bluntly states: "Last month, Page Six misreported that Jacobs had married Martone."  So, no marriage, but there is plenty of other insight to be had about Marc's relationship with Lorenzo Martone, his new "addiction," and all that attention he's been getting. 

Lorenzo was upset about all the tabloid coverage their relationship gets; Marc told him to "man up" and ignore it.

"Last Tuesday, [Page Six] had me making out with my ex-boyfriend Jason Preston at Pastis and bad-mouthing someone I went out with for four days. Well, first of all, I did not bad-mouth the person I went out with for four days, second of all I was not getting back together with Jason Preston, and, fourth—or first!—of all, I wasn't even in the city of New York on that Saturday! I was in Paris, France. My current boyfriend said, 'Marc, you know I don't believe it, but so many people have asked me about it.' I was, like, 'You put me on a plane Friday night! How can you be listening to this?'"

Instead of cocaine or alcohol, the gym has become Marc's addiction.

"Everything is beautiful at the gym, everyone looks amazing.  You just think it's like one big healthy circus going on out there: the bodies are great, people are jolly, and, even when they're complaining about how strenuous it is, there's, like, a kind of very good, positive, we're-all-doing-something-good-for-ourselves . . . And it's two and a half hours that I'm not smoking. I am a true addict in that whatever makes me feel good I want more of, whether it's good for me or not."

Anna Wintour sounds off on Marc! »