Versace goes from private jets to helicopters

As if private jets, Lamborghinis and luxury hotels aren't enough.....Versace and Augusta Westland are working in collaboration to design and produce prestigious and exclusive interiors for helicopters. Versace was the first Maison to bring to the aeronautical arena its very own distinctive glamour and exclusive lifestyle image in form of interior design for private jets. Helicopters is a natural extension within the Versace world of luxury.

Is Reese Witherspoon the next Beauty Queen?

Could Estée Lauder be on the verge of signing its second Oscar winner? According to industry sources, word has it that the beauty giant is in talks with Reese Witherspoon about becoming the newest face of Estée Lauder, joining an illustrious roster that already includes Gwyneth Paltrow, Liya Kebede, Carolyn Murphy, Elizabeth Hurley, and, most recently, Hilary Rhoda. The 31-year-old actress and mother of two, who won an Academy Award in 2006 for her role in Walk the Line, is rumored to be in the elementary stages of discussion, with the source adding that there is no concrete contract just yet.
Witherspoon recently agreed to be dressed by Nina Ricci’s Olivier Theyskens for all formal public outings, and reportedly has a deal to wear Van Cleef & Arpels jewelry on the red carpet exclusively.

Apax eyes Adidas

Private equity group Apax Partners is believed to be keen to buy a large stake in sporting goods giant Adidas. Such an acquisition could even lead to a full-scale bid for the company. The news follows in the wake of PPR's acquisition of 27 percent of rival Puma. Apax was said to be preparing a tender offer to shareholders of Adidas, at €50 a share, reports the FT. The private equity firm is looking to acquire 25 percent of the company, which is valued at over €9 billion.
Only recently, Adidas was the subject of takeover rumours when it became apparent that a mysterious suitor was building a stake in the company. When it emerged that billionaire entrepreneur Mike Ashley was acquiring stock under his own name, the unrest settled. Industry experts do not believe he will make a bid for the company, particularly because of its high market capitalisation. Nevertheless, interest in the company has not waned. Rival private equity groups are also said to be eyeing Adidas, although a succesful tender offer from Apax may limit competition. Adidas is attractive to potential bidders because it is still vulnerable after its purchase of Reebok two years ago as it tries to integrate the two businesses. Furthermore, the company employs relatively few people in Germany, leading experts to believe that a takeover attempt from Apax would not be objected to.
Although neither company would comment on the news, a source close to Apax said that the firm was looking to build a stake in the German sporting group. Apax has been on an acquisitive streak in the retail sector. Last year it acquired the Tommy Hilfiger fashion group for $1.6 billion.

Max Mara launches bridal wear

Italian fashion house Max Mara is venturing into bridal wear. The collection will consist of 20 to 30 different styles in a range of three colours – white, ivory and pink. The dresses will be accompanied by veils, stoles, costume jewellery and footwear, all of which are produced in-house. Styles in the first collection include empire-waist dresses, halter-necks and straight sheaths in chiffon, taffeta and duchesse satin. Prices will range from €600 to €1,500.
The same team of designers that works on the line of cocktail and evening gowns has designed the bridal collection, which will hit about 50 Max Mara stores and a select number of multi-brand stores in Italy, France, Germany Greece this month. If the trial run is a success, the brand will roll out the complete collection worldwide. “We are responding to a specific request by our customers,” a spokesman said of the decision to introduce bridal wear. The company prides itself on offering its clients options for every occasion. “Bridal wear was still a big gap.”

Belle du Silence - Silent Beauty

"I am a master at reading lips," says Brenda Costa, who has just shot the latest L'Oreal campaign in Paris and is currently in London to shoot a new set of ads for Jasmine de Milo. The Brazilian Premier model is deaf, and takes instructions on shoots by making hand signals and reading lips. "For sure, it can be very difficult, but I deal very well. I consider myself very professional and, thank God, I've never lost any job. I have a great relationship with photographers and they always love me! We overpass any difficulty." Costa then decided to pen a book about her experiences in the fashion industry. "In the very beginning, I used to feel a kind of bad preconception of who I was because I was deaf, from producers and from other models. As time passed, I've set my own standards in the fashion market and now I'm welcome everywhere I go. I think it's very important to transmit to people my life experience. This book is all about my life and I intend to show how positive I am - and how positive all of us can be. I want to send this positive energy to deaf people everywhere. We can reach our dreams, we just need to be strong." Belle Du Silence is published by Michel Lafon Editions.

No collaborations for Armani

Giorgio has always liked luxury, and his latest Armani Casa range is a testament to that. He also expressed his distaste for high street collaborations with celebrities at Milan's Salone del Mobile opening. "H&M is fantastic, but this kind of strategy is depressing because it plays with people's sense of inadequacy, treating customers as schmucks because they need the endorsement of a high-profile person to feel worthy," he said. Not that the designer is averse to budget retailers - he admits that most of his yacht is furnished with one particular yellow and blue logoed Swedish firm: "Ikea is exceptional and I sometimes imagine a category of products within my Casa line that will still give emotions but are less costly." The made-to-measure furniture is specifically aimed to mirror that offered by his new bespoke tailoring and his Prive couture collection - with regards to both service and price point. "In furniture, too, there is glamour and luxury that must be apparent, so that it differentiates itself - and justifies the price tag," he added.

Hello Boys

Her image has stopped traffic, when she was modelling the wonderbra for the "Hello Boys" campaign. Her body has made headlines. She has been a sex symbol since the 1990s, but now Eva Herzigova is working a hot new look, the pregnant look. She is 7 months pregnant by her long-term boyfriend, Italian entrepreneur Gregorio Marsiaj, and she couldn’t be more thrilled. She’s round and proud.

“I’m just so happy. I want to be pregnant for the next 10 years,” she declares with a beatific smile. Pregnancy, she says, has changed her life. “I feel so powerful. You have no idea. But it’s an inner power. You are so content with just being. That’s how it is. I feel so confident about my body. I feel so potent. You feel like you have your mission, and it’s empowering.”
Today, she could hardly be more glowing with good health. “I gained 10 kilos and I’ve just finished my sixth month,” she boasts. She attributes this to a new-found craving for cakes, biscuits and all things sugary-sweet: “I have developed a taste for sweets. I never liked chocolate before.”
Pregnancy hasn’t slowed down her career. If anything, she is using it as an opportunity to celebrate her new shape. She announced her condition by doing a Demi Moore and appearing seminude on the cover of Italian Vanity Fair. “Many times,” she says, “women disappear when they become pregnant. They start to hide and feel like they don’t want to be seen. I think that’s wrong.”
“Modelling was a great school,” she says. “I’ve learnt so much; I’ve travelled the world. But now I feel like my life is less about me and my career. I don’t want to become Mother Teresa, but I feel as if I could do something for others. Being a mother, it makes you relate to people. I’m not just a model any more, I’m more of a person.”

Zac Posen goes lyrical

Pretty boy Zac Posen is in the wrong career. At least, if his dresses weren't so utterly gorgeous, he should seriously consider becoming a professor. The long words he uses to describe his collection are impressive, to say the least: "I think of myself as a cultural receiving dish for mass culture: I am reactionary to pop culture. I have not yet done a 'themed derivatives' collection - last season was more about the form and construction of the clothes. It was all about stealth design. By that I mean a hard, structured exterior to represent futurism, austerity and robotics, but underneath is a need for the super-feminine, the sexual and procreation." Speaking at the V&A's cocktail reception to launch New York Fashion Now, an exhibition showcasing the best of Manhattan's established and up-and-coming talent, Posen rubbed shoulders with Betty Jackson, David Furnish, Mrs. B and Suzy Menkes as he wandered around the garments on display, arm in arm with his friend, Jan de Villeneuve. So what does London mean to the man who right now rules America's red carpets? "It's a huge part of my heart. I studied at Saint Martins so it's good to be back. London is such a huge force in international fashion right now, pushing the new and the young. I was once asked to put a piece in the V&A's permanent collection, so it's an honour to have more of my designs displayed here for this exhibition. There's something about England I love - I spent the weekend with the de Villeneuve's in Kent sitting in their garden. Horticulture here beats America hands down - and the Sunday lunches too - I love that you sit down at one and don't leave the table until eight in the evening."

A Date with Kate

I know you guys are tired of Kimberly Stewart, so let's talk about someone we haven't posted about a hundred times.....Kate.
Christie's will auction rare and unseen portraits of Kate Moss next month, with some photographs expected to raise over £22,000 each. One unpublished black and white photo taken by Corinne Day at a Croydon quarry when Moss was just 16, is expected to sell for £6,000. The infamous Day shot of the model in a pink tank top and black pants, standing up against a white wall decorated with fairy lights, is expected to go under the hammer for at least £7,000. Other nude portraits and fashion shoots with renowned photographers Irving Penn, Albert Watson and Chuck Close, will no doubt fetch an even higher price. "She is a cultural icon and arguably the most influential model of our day," said Christie's head of photography, Yuka Yamaji. The auction takes place on May 31.

Aniston and Dunst wearing Haute Couture

The world of Haute Couture got a rejuvenated boost over the weekend thanks to Jennifer Aniston and Kirsten Dunst, both of whom donned masterpieces from French couturiers for their stunning red carpet walks—proving that couture can range the gamut from casual elegance to jaw-dropping high-fashion. Aniston, in Los Angeles for the 18th-annual GLAAD Media Awards, where she received the Vanguard Award, kept her loose, carefree look streamlined and comfortable in Chanel’s black silk embroidered dress from the Spring/Summer 2007 couture collection, which she paired with Azzedine Alaïa heels. Karl Lagerfeld calls the number “Brins de folie” to detail the craftsmanship of the dress, which is made of wisps of organza rolled by hand and then sewn onto tulle as embroidery.
Nearly 5,500 miles away, Dunst dazzled at the Tokyo premiere of Spider-Man 3 in a long draped, powder pink chiffon gown from Christian Lacroix couture. While her cast mates remained sedate in conservative black, Dunst took cues from the master designer’s recent floral-inspired show, as she glided down the red carpet, oversized peony accent in tow. This isn’t the first time the actress has donned fail-safe Lacroix for the world to see—she wore his dresses at a Chanel-sponsored screening of Marie Antoinette last September in L.A. and at the Elizabethtown premiere at the Deauville Film Festival in 2005. “This summer’s couture collection is a kind of floralia mixing with Botticelli wrapped, draped, pleated, fluid, and flowerish frocks with neo-classic ancient and renaissance columns,” says Lacroix. “Plus, the color is very much like the one of the peony or some blossoming cherry trees.”

Do ya think I'm sexy?

Hmmmm maybe not, dunno if the whole secretary sex appeal works for you Kim.....Anyway Kimberly Stewart was launching Specsavers annual awards to find the UK’s sexiest spectacles wearers. She defended wearing glasses, claiming they can "give an air of sex appeal and sophistication - even naughtiness" if worn in the right way.
The competition is for spectacle wearers aged between 16 and 30. The winners, who will receive a year's modelling contract, a holiday and beauty products, will be announced on October 9.....

Slagging match

It's not often that one of the biggest names in fashion refers to themselves as a "slag". But that's how Barneys' Simon Doonan did when comparing himself to Kate Moss recently. "She is not a high-born girl," he said. "She's a working-class slag from a crap town, like me!" Talking about the supermodel's KM collection for TopShop, which launches in the UK on May 1 and stateside one week later, the creative director said, "Kate is playing to her strengths here. She has a sphinx-like cool, she's a girl with a genuine mystique. You have to understand the concept of TopShop in Britain - there is really no equivalent here. It has fashion cred, street cred - it cuts across all socio-economic lines. It has a bizarre, democratic cool and Kate is the perfect person for them." Doonan will himself be styling the window displays for Moss' collection, in time for her appearance at the store on May 8.

Giorgio dresses John Legend

John Legend’s music may run the gamut from soul to R&B, but when it comes to his fashion, only one name will do: Giorgio Armani. The designer is outfitting the musician for his North American spring tour promoting his new album, Once Again, which kicked off April 4th in Irvine, CA. and will conclude May 5th in New Orleans, LA. On stage, Legend wears an Emporio Armani wardrobe to exude his casual yet sophisticated look of bomber jackets in grey suede and ivory leather, jacket with faux gilet paired with single pleat tux pant, and denim jeans paired with a camel trench, coat and a black leather motorcycle jacket with all over zip detailing.
When it comes to high-profile functions, this isn’t Armani’s first encounter with the crooner, however. Legend has sported Armani at both the 2006 and 2007 Grammys, a Rolling Stones/Verizon performance, on The Today Show as well as BET’s 106& Park, and most recently in his new video, Heaven. Legend also wore Emporio Armani on his 2006 world wide tour which started on October 27th in the U.S. and then travelled across Europe in December.

Prada dinner kicks off Louis Vuitton cup in Valencia

Miuccia Prada helped rile up the normally quiet community of Spain’s third largest city Sunday, when Prada hosted a kick-off party celebrating the start of the Louis Vuitton America’s Cup at Central Market. Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher, Chloë Sevigny and her brother, Paul, Katie Grand and Ines Sastre were among the attendees who braved the light showers to attend an exclusive and intimate dinner the designer and her husband, Patrizio Bertelli, hosted before the bash opened up to nearly 2,000 guests from all over Europe and the United States, not to mention a bevy of prominent Spanish socialites.
Inside the dinner, Rem Koolhaas’s AMO think tank, in collaboration with Prada, created an installation via a series of private rooms within the party that were wallpapered with a special print. The duo also transformed some of the market vendors spaces for the party, whimsically playing with the existing stalls where truffle-infused mozzarella and pistachio paste—the latter dipped in liquid nitrogen—was served to guests by the night’s caterer, El Bulli.

Lagerfeld muse goes the distance

Karl Lagerfeld’s male model muse du jour, Brad Kroenig, the blonde-haired, hazel-eyed 27-year-old that the Kaiser has photographed for everything from Fendi to Dom Pérignon Rosé Vintage 1996 ads, can now add accomplished athlete to his résumé. Kroenig ran a seven minute-mile pace at Sunday’s St. Louis Marathon, placing an overall 179th place in the 13.1-mile half marathon. “I’m from St. Louis, so I ran the race with a lot of friends,” he said of running his first marathon. “But my legs hurt so bad now!”

Moschino in shades

Moschino SpA has inked a licensing deal to create, develop, and distribute a new collection of Moschino eyewear with Allison SpA. The five-year, renewable agreement will see the production of initial prototypes in August 2007, when 50 exclusive eyewear models—25 sunglasses and 25 glasses—will be presented to the press.
Allison SpA currently manufactures eyewear for brands like Gianfranco Ferré, Missoni, Vivienne Westwood, Dunhill, Mercedes-Benz, and Romeo Gigli. The collection will be characterized by Moschino’s playful graphic icons, starting with the hearts that will be applied to the majority of the models, as well as the peace symbols, question marks, studs, and leopard prints for the acetate frames.

Rod Stewart's daughter speaks out about tiny sizes

You want to see more hot pics of Kimberly Stewart?......Mais bien sur...here goes...This still isn't the Ultimo campaign, but something nice I found on the net. "No one should be a size zero unless they are naturally that size. No one should feel pressure to be unhealthily thin," says Kimberly Stewart.