FASHION Magazine

Check out our favourite red carpet couples »

Hollywood seems to have been struck by Cupid’s bow lately, with many of our favourite leading ladies and men hooking up, shacking up and hopefully not breaking up. Earlier this month, Gossip Girl/O.C. mega-duo Leighton Meester and Adam Brody made their first appearance as a married couple, making our ultimate Josh Schwartz fantasy come true. Meanwhile, fellow Gossip Girl star Blake Lively and her husband Ryan Reynolds could teach a course on how to look hot on the red carpet with your significant other. Their on-point style, loving glances and intimate body language always make for some adorable photos.

Gone are the days when celebrities and designers were just, well, celebrities and designers. Now with every celebrity endorsement comes with a prestigious title—one that we’re used to being associated with helming a major fashion house—the creative director.

While we can’t be too certain what part of the process these celebrity endorsements play other than lending their face or fame to the product, it has become increasingly common for musicians, actors, and designers to add a creative director title to their CVs (aka their Wikipedia pages). With the recent news of Alicia Keys becoming the Global Creative Director of Blackberry, and today’s announcement of Marc Jacobs as the newest creative director of Diet Coke—succeeding Jean Paul Gaultier—we’ve decided to take a look back at some of the weirdest and flat out funniest creative directors to date.

See our list of top 10 strange celebrity creative directors »

THIS ISSUE

COVER STORY
Champion diver Alexandre Despatie on his return to Olympic form. »

BEHIND-THE-SCENES
Watch the video of our cover shoot with a Champion. »

LETTER FROM
THE EDITOR
David Livingstone hopes you read this. »

By James Grainger

All the world may be a stage, but there are few players with as much panache and multi-genre presence as Justin Timberlake. Actor, musician, fashion insider (with his William Rast line) and Saturday Night Live favourite, Timberlake’s most endearing role may be that of good sport. Aptly, the 31-year-old is the face of Givenchy’s Play fragrance portfolio, which grows this spring with the introduction of the woody, gingery Play Sport.

What makes a good fragrance?
“A scent shouldn’t be like an attack. It’s weird how a strong fragrance homogenizes personality instead of adding to it.  [Play Sport] was attractive to me because it was clean, fresh and unobtrusive. When you get close up, that’s when you should notice a scent.”

Check out our top 5 hat picks! »

Kate Middleton has won the title of Hat Person of the Year by the Los Angeles-based Headwear Association. Sure, the new honour may not be as revered as that of becoming a Duchess, but Kate won against some stiff competition, so that’s got to feel good, right?

Who were her rival mad hatters? Winning with 91 per cent of online fan votes, she crushed Ne-Yo, Bruno Mars, Justin Timberlake, Rachel Zoe, and… Charlie Sheen? Really? Well, maybe it was an obvious choice.

One week after the news of Alexander McQueen‘s suicide, the Gucci Group confirmed that the designer’s label will continue. GG President and CEO Robert Polet said, “We believe in the future of the brand…Lee was very proud of the people working in his company, and so am I.” [Vogue UK]

Meanwhile the British Fashion Council will pay tribute to McQueen at London Fashion Week, setting up a wall in the main tent where guests can pin notes written to the designer and his family. At the end of the week, the BFC will compile the notes into a book and give it to the McQueen’s family. [WWD]

Burberry is hopping on the social-media bandwagon with their Burberry Prorsum runway show. It will be simulcast live from London Fashion Week at live.burberry.com at 1:30 p.m. EST today. The brand recently launched Facebook and Twitter accounts, and is set to create a site called “Art of the Trench,” where loyal fans can contribute photos of themselves in their classic nova-check coats. [Racked] [YouTube]

Celebrity clothing lines are being hit hard by the recession. Anna Wintour, and we’re sure many others, is pleased by the economic situation, saying it will weed out the weak. “Every D-level celebrity who thought they could make a quick buck by designing a handbag or whatever is going to disappear,” she said. Stars who don’t seem to have staying power (at least in the design world) include Justin Timberlake, Lauren Conrad and Jennifer Lopez. [WSJ]

 

 

There’s a lot of fuss about this humanoid robot model that debuted at Japan Fashion Week. We’re not convinced, though she can probably do a mean Blue Steel. [Yahoo!]

Boy George, beauty star  [Style.com]

The London police say, Hide, ye bankers. G20 protesters are coming to town and will apparently be targeting suit jackets. [Guardian]