This is cool. You can buy it but you can’t wear it - sorry.

Colette Nº9″ is available at www.colette.fr

• ‘Steven Meisel has focused his star-making lens on Kamila Filipcikova, shooting her for a second consecutive Italian Vogue cover’ (above). reports NYmag.
• ‘Christian Lacroix is lending a creative hand to La Redoute for a second season. The designer’s spring/summer 2008 campaign with the French fashion catalogue, once again starring Lily Cole, will be online from March 10′. reports WWD
• ‘Donna Karan plans to auction off more than 2,000 of her belongings, gathered over 35 years, for charity, in a huge warehouse sale. In among these are shoes, handbags, jewellery and racks of couture gowns that the designer has been hoarding over the years. The sale, will raise money for Karan’s Urban Zen program - an initiative the designer started last year to raise awareness for the causes dear to her heart’. reports WWD.
• ‘Having honed their design skills with their two fashion lines The Row and Elizabeth and James, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen are to channel their extensive knowledge of fashion into a new coffee table book entitled Influence.Featuring fashion world favourites such as Christian Louboutin, Bob Colacello, Terry Richardson and Jack Pierson, as well as exclusive photos of the twins by Rankin, the book will be published by Penguin this autumn’. reports WWD.
• ‘The Chanel Carousel caused many jaws to drop and many front-rowers to fantasize about its contents." Though by definition carousels spin round and round, Lagerfeld is sending his on a journey around the world. The Chanel Carousel won’t be disassembled and stored; instead it’s headed on a global jaunt with Chanels mobile art exhibit’. reports Vogue.co.uk

• ‘Chanel’s Mobile Art exhibit landed in Hong Kong yesterday(pictured left), housed in a white Barbarella-esque structure, set against a backdrop of skyscrapers. Twenty exhibits, by prominent international artists, were each inspired by the house’s iconic 2.55 bag. The audio-visual experience starts on a mosaic floor of giant camellias, under clouds of crystal prisms by Italian and Taiwanese artists Loris Cecchini and Michael Lim. Onlookers may pen their desires on rice paper and tie them on Yoko Ono’s Wish Tree before leaving. In April, Zaha Hadid’s collapsible ‘Art Container’ sets sail for Tokyo, before hitting New York, London (Summer 2009), Moscow and Paris’. reports WWD
• ‘Lou Doillon, has presented her line for Lee Cooper in Paris the super-high waisted denim range for the famous jeans brand has had fashion editors raving. "I asked people what they look for in jeans and they always say a pretty bum and nice legs. So that is the silhouette I created." Doillon also revealed that she is about to start working on a new Indie film, adding that the entire movie will be shot in a house on the edge of Paris. Lou Doillon for Lee Cooper is available in Harrods from March’. reports WWD
• ‘Hussein Chalayan is the new creative director for Puma. He is responsible for designing, creating and developing the brand’s fashion collections while Puma has also acquired a majority stake in the designer’s fashion label’. reports WWD
• The Chloe Sevigny for Opening Ceremony lookbook is online: www.openingceremony.us
• ‘Few accomplished surrealists produce images as disarmingly disorienting as the fashion spreads Sølve Sundsbø has shot for publications such as Pop, Visionaire, W, Vogue Nippon and advertising campaigns for Yves Saint Laurent, Hermès, and MAC. "Saturated”, is Sundsbø’s first solo exhibition in the U.K. at London’s Spring Studios, he presents 12 images from his iconic oeuvre of glossy oddities on view through till March 20. (pictured left)’ reports Vogue.co.uk
• ‘Stella McCartney sent fashion editors a set of undies from the designer’s recently launched lingerie line. The panties are trimmed in dainty lace and the days of the week are delicately embroidered on the front’. reports Style.com
• Karen Walker has released a diffusion label aptly named ‘Hi There’ there. The line delivers her fresh signature style with affordability being the main contender. Prices start at a very reasonable $79.95 and is available in 24 Myer stores Nationally.

See the Anna Wintour interview
It’s a year old and still compelling viewing.

The Sartorialist
It’s the video! How nice to see the face behind the camera.

Different Like Coco (Hardcover): Elizabeth Mathews (Illustrator).
“As it turns out, Coco Chanel is a terrific subject for a picture-book biography. A poor, skinny orphan, she brightened her colorless convent childhood by sewing dresses for her dolls. She also dreamed big dreams. Once she was on her own, she turned her tailoring talent into a career as a dress designer. Coco, who was sticklike rather than shapely, designed dresses for figures like hers. Soon, her clothes were being snapped up, and thanks to her enigmatic personality and sense of style, she became a celebrity. Matthews’ writing style is right on the mark, as breezy and appealing as Coco herself. Wisely, the author frontloads the book with stories of Coco’s disadvantaged youth, have immediate pull for readers. This rags-to-much-nicer-rags story is much worth reading”. chic
$12 www.amazon.com (Candlewick, 2007).

The Christmas List
Be Dazzled! Norman Hartnell: Sixty Years of Glamour and Fashion; Michael Pick
“Norman Hartnell (1901-1979) was a uniquely British genius. For nearly sixty years he was a major personality in the world of fashion. By the mid 1930s, Hartnell’s meteoric rise to fame resulted in London becoming a centre of style that closely rivalled Paris. Known for glamorous evening clothes, Hartnell augmented his early design successes by creating a series of stunning wedding dresses for his younger society clientele. His bridal extravaganzas culminated in the romantic 1947 wedding of Princess Elizabeth to Prince Philip. While Hartnell clients included members of the English upper class as well as the best-known stage and film actresses of the time, it was his royal patronage that assured him a place in history. The famous White Wardrobe created for Queen Elizabeth (and photographed by Cecil Beaton) in the late 1930s changed her image forever; the extraordinary coronation robes designed for Elizabeth II in 1953; and the sublimely simple wedding dress he made for Princess Margaret .” lovely.
$180 www.amazon.com (Pointed Leaf Press).

No shopping this week! Please don’t cry. Because you can now go and see FiFi in action! She is jetting around the country presenting Westfield’s What’sWhat Fashion with Trinny and Susannah..  clickhere: www.whatswhat.com.au

Now straight from the front row in Paris and Milan:
Prada: Suzy Menkes- I.H.T.
"As the models walked down the steep runway in dresses as dark as pitch, just a nude-toned neckpiece suggesting something edgy underneath, the Prada collection seemed a world away from last season’s subversive flutter of fairies.
Then came the first shot of arsenic and old lace: the lace worked in flowers, crunchy or transparent, with the kicker in the sexual charge coming literally from underneath in the case of transparent panels showing and revealing clinging underpants and alabaster white thighs.
Or there were the more familiar Prada tricks, like bra straps closing a dress over a pristine white blouse or shoes bandaged to the foot as leather petals like torn skin covered the toes.
"I still don’t understand why I like lace - but it is such an accompaniment of women, through childhood, marriage and being a widow," Prada said backstage. She admitted that innocent white lace was not part of her fashion vocabulary. Sky blue and a flash of bright orange was the farthest the designer got from the boudoir glamour of beige lace or the mysterious darkness of a very merry widow, whose bag was even made of lace flowers.
It was a remarkable show, powerful in its presentation as the models descended the ramp, but above all original, inspiring and intensely Prada in its mix of the prim and the perverse.
You could imagine a provincial wife dressing for cocktails in a gilded lace suit, the skirt - like all the hemlines - decorously over the knees. But there was a strong subversive element, from a cotton shirt with a breast-plate front to a nude body suit that filled in the space between different lacy pieces. As if in a Fellini movie, there was a clerical hint to the buttoned-up collars and a sense that Prada was unleashing on the fashion universe both a lace revival and erotic dreams."

Lanvin: Sarah Mower- Style.com
"If there is one collection that encapsulated everything that’s best about Fall—and gave it a high degree of personal expression—it would be Alber Elbaz’s for Lanvin. You want the simplicity of a stark, covered-up, carved-out silhouette? It’s here. You’re craving a dose of multifaceted opulence with it? That’s here, too. And what about a sexy, simple evening dress powerful enough to force you to spend, no matter how much? Look no further.
In one way, Elbaz’s collection was a feat of technical genius. He’d started off by making fabric out of strips of grosgrain ribbon, winding hundreds of meters of the stuff around the body to make shapely dresses, blouses, and skirts—a step on from the free-flowing plissés of his Summer collection. What makes him so special, however, is the humility and realism of his focus. Instead of getting lost in the detail, he said, "Part of a designer’s job is to be pragmatic. Not to be ashamed to think about making life easy for a woman."
The result was a tour de force of innovation and simplicity sparkled up with the most outrageously excessive jewelry—door knocker-sized crystals, slabs of gilt, giant cuffs. Every calibration of usefulness was represented, from plain wool work-ready day dresses and pantsuits through knockout fur and patent coats, asymmetric body-molding cocktail options right up to blindingly brilliant dresses made of vertical ribbons loaded with gold sequins. In a season when so many have anxiously cast around for what women will want in a recession, Elbaz has intuited the best answer of all: Give us restraint, give us pragmatism, but never slam the door on the possibility of utter gorgeousness."

Yves Saint Laurent: Emma Lundin- Vogue UK
"Futuristic model robots and stiff, elegant uniform clothing was the order of the day at Yves Saint Laurent’s autumn/winter 2008-9 catwalk show in Paris.
The models – sporting cropped black wigs, burgundy-black lips and slim line glasses that completely covered their eyes – looked like members of a very fashionable army, while the clothes were beautifully tailored with clear lines, incredible silhouettes and plenty of origami folds.
Building on the fashion house’s strong Eighties legacy, the trousers were slightly too short (a trend for the season – YSL’s Stefano Pilati wasn’t the only designer to make the cut just above the ankle, but one of the most successful to do so), and the oversized, tailored tweed jackets and the asymmetrical biker jackets will surely become must-haves next season.
Contrasts were apparent in more than a few outfits – a white shirt with a conservative collar had origami-inspired, oversized sleeves and was worn with an asymmetrically cut black skirt, while a yellow satin dress with a clean and classic design had a black midriff and a masterly engineered fold down the front, and a pair of baggy sequined trousers (not too dissimilar to the ones once favoured by MC Hammer) were worn with a transparent beige shirt.
The odd spark of colour – yellow and bright blue – made the detailing obvious, while the Eighties theme was broken by a Seventies style skirt ending mid-calf and worn with a black, slightly transparent, tight polo neck jumper, giving it a slim and sexy feel. As the for the accessories, we have a feeling that we’ll see plenty of the wide belts cinching in the waist of jackets and dresses, and the brown croc boots with incredibly high platforms and super skinny stiletto heels. Front row followers, including Julianne Moore, Kanye West, Mario Testino and Jefferson Hack, looked very pleased with Mr Pilati’s performance."

Watermelon Salad with Halloumi Cheese and Mint

Who would have thought? Watermelon and halloumi, but this little salad is an assult on the senses!

Serves 30 models, 6 fatties or 4 gourmands

4-5 cups of ripe cubed watermelon, seeded
4 spring onions
60 grams halloumi cheese
3 full sprigs of mint, leaves roughly chopped
2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar
3-4 tablespoons of olive oil
salt and a generous amount of pepper

• Dig watermelon out of the fridge.
• Yell at George Clooney to turn off the cricket.
• Ask him to cut up and de-seed watermelon.
• You can chop up the halloumi and even give it a quick fry if you so desire.
• Pour a wine.
• Take off YSL platforms then sit down.
• Pull off leaves from mint.
• Mix olive oil and balsamic.
• Throw it all in the bowl.
• Add lots of pepper.
• Toss the salad, then George Clooney.
• Delicious.