>> The CFDA has been busy lately, discussing the possibility of sponsoring sample sales for designers who don't have enough resources to do it on their own, commissioning books — including a fashion-related cookbook, and announcing an upcoming three-year partnership with Mattel.  But Monday night, we'll learn which of the 2008 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund nominees will take home top honors, $200,000, and business advice, who will score one of the two runners-up titles and the $50,000 that comes with them, and who will try again next year.

The first award was given in 2004, with top honors going to Proenza Schouler; since then, Trovata (2005), Doo.Ri (2006), and Rogan (2007) have taken the top prize, and the likes of 3.1 Phillip Lim, Philip Crangi, Rodarte, Thakoon, Derek Lam, and Thom Browne have all been runners-up.  Without doubt, the winner generally has name recognition — and is in favor at Vogue — but tends to not be the biggest name in the group (i.e. Rogan over Phillip Lim last year).

So who will take all? »

»Gemma Ward's movie The Black Balloon is coming to "key US cities" in October [Variety]

»Bee Shaffer works out with a trainer at Equinox Soho [FWD]

»Diane von Furstenberg is using Andy Warhol prints in a capsule collection of swimsuits and coverups [Fashionista]

»Giorgio Armani has set off the animal rights activists in Italy [The Cut]

»Vogue Paris and Vogue UK like to use the same cover models, front and back [Fashionista]

»Derek Lam, Tod's still love Gwyneth Paltrow [PopSugar]

»Grey Ant, Spring & Clifton collaborate with Urban Outfitters [Nylon, Flickr]

»Behati Prinsloo shops where she's paid [FAD]

»Cindy Crawford hung on a yacht with George Clooney, her husband, and Bono in the south of France this weekend [PopSugar]

»Vogue Italia is rumored to have Linda Evangelista, Guinevere van Seenus, and Karen Elson lined up for their August 2008 issue [TI]

»Derek Lam sells a majority stake, is ready to go big [The Cut]

»Daphne Guinness is shooting with Steven Klein for the September 2008 Vogue Italia couture supplement [Chic Report]

»Tom Ford doesn't like people filming his new house being built [Fashionista]

»Vogue Paris' Geraldine Saglio! [The Sartorialist]

»Toccara Jones in Vogue Italia July 2008 [TFS]

»Oddly, Elie Tahari went with Erin Wasson and Terry Richardson for their Fall 2008 campaign [Fashionista, TFS]

»Style.com is expanding with a new beauty site [Fashionista]

»Lily Cole blogs? [Catwalk Queen]

»Edita Vilkeviciute for Fall 2008 Etro [TFS]

»Anna Wintour curtly addresses the likelihood of a Vogue reality series [The Cut]

»Topshop owner Sir Philip Green is already looking for more potential Topshop sites in Manhattan [WWD]

»Nicole Kidman: Confirmed for the July Vogue cover [FWD]

»Simon Doonan recounts his insulting comment to Andre Leon Talley at last week's CFDA Awards [NY Observer]

»Speaking of ALT, he confirmed that the Vogue caricature bought for him is currently being framed, and then will go in his office [WWD]

»Preview of Pringle, Derek Lam, Bill Blass, and Behnaz Sarafpour's Resort 2009 collections [WWD, WWD, WWD, WWD]

>> At last night's CFDA-hosted "Beauty of Health" discussion, Michael Kors, Coco Rocha, and casting agent James Scully all stepped up to the plate to address the waning weights of models. 

Kors threw in a designer's perspective, suggesting that his peers should "stay away from child-size clothes unless [they're] designing for children," and pointing out that when designers offer such small sample sizes and celebrities starve themselves to fit into them, their super-skinny aesthetic has a far-reaching impact on the general female population.  He also advised agents to only send the most suitable girls to castings:  “Sending a girl when there's little chance of her being booked throws a 16-year-old into a tizzy.  The odds of a girl being booked for my show and Rick Owens’s are slim.”

Next up to the podium was Coco Rocha, who just like Natalia Vodianova and Ali Michael before her, admitted that the job comes with some very unhealthy habits.  Two years ago, she weighed 108 pounds (at 5'10"), and yet people were stilling telling her "you need to lose more weight.  The look this year is anorexic.  We don't want you to be anorexic, we just want you to look it."  Even crazier, an agent once advised her to throw up after meals. 

Eventually, she submitted to the pressure.  "Last season I took diuretic pills. Once I took so many on an empty stomach that I was doubled over for hours. That's the last time I ever did something so terrible to my body."  She asked designers to provide healthier food at their shows — "No one wants to be caught with that photo 'Model Eats Cake'" — and to make their fit models, and therefore their sample sizes, bigger — models are humiliated when zippers won't zip up at castings. 

Finally, casting agent James Scully advised insiders to consider the weight of their words.  "Let's stop treating models like greyhounds we plan to shoot after a race. We have to remember we are dealing with real people who have real feelings."

Francisco Costa, Georgina Chapman, Keren Craig, Donna Karan, Richard Chai, Marcus Wainwright, David Neville, Derek Lam, Doo-Ri Chung, Diane von Furstenberg, Phillip Lim, and Anna Wintour, plus several other Vogue editors, were all in attendance at the event — which leaves quite a few American designers unaccounted for.  But as Michael Kors pointed out, designers aren't the only people responsible. "The next one we need to do is about skinny people who work in fashion: editors, buyers, stylists. That’s called ‘Why Does This Sample Fit Me?”

*images: source