FASHION Magazine

Well, we’re sure the Dowager Countess will have her knickers in a knot over this one. The U.K. production company Carnival Films—which is responsible for the creation of our latest TV obsession Downton Abbey—is taking legal action against PBS for selling unofficial Downton-inspired jewellery (named after the characters!) on their website.

The jewellery line looks more Downtown Alley if you ask us, with a lackluster collection of pearl drop earrings, brooches, and an English crown service tea set that would no doubt have Granny stamping her cane around like nobody’s business.

A Carnival Films spokesman announced, “We did not authorize the sale of Lady Mary jewellery. Our lawyers have been in contact with PBS in order to remove these items from sale,” and rightfully so, since Carnival Films and the show’s creator, Julian Fellowes, will not receive any profits from the sales (and probably don’t want to be associated with the cheap knockoffs).

The collection was removed from the PBS website on Tuesday afternoon.

What’s our favourite androgynous model Andrej Pejic to do after ruling the runway, posing in push-up bras, and landing our February cover? Why, a fragrance campaign, of course! It seems the beauty, who is giving the ladies and gents of the runway a run for their money, has no signs of slowing down. He may soon be the fresh face of a perfume.

A French TF1 Channel called Sept a Huit aired a taping of behind-the-scenes action with Pejic, documenting the model in fittings and rehearsals for Jean Paul Gaultier’s Fall 2012 menswear show and Michalksy womenswear show in Berlin, in which the commentator exposed via voice-over that Pejic “will sign, in several weeks, his first contract to lend his image to a major perfume brand.”

Which campaign will the fashion chameleon grace? No word on the label quite yet.  However, Pejic’s affiliation with Gaultier makes us wonder if he’s a candidate for the (mens? womens? unisex?) fragrance.

Then again, Pejic was featured in the (always edgy) Marc by Marc Jacobs Spring 2011 campaign which was a brilliant fit, (Dakota Fanning better cling to her Lola bottle!) and Louis Vuitton still hasn’t announced who will be the face of its new fragrance. The options seem endless for fashion’s latest obsession.

We may not know much about the campaign yet, but we do know one thing: Pejic is bound to produce stellar pictures (as always) and we’ll be waiting on the edges of our seats to see them!

Good news for gentlemen everywhere—the British Fashion Council has announced the creation of a new menswear fashion week. Dubbed London’s “fashion long week(end),” the new shows will run for three days starting June 15 and also precede Milan and Paris men’s fashion weeks every January and June.

The planning committee, run by GQ editor Dylan Jones, has been under pressure to re-establish British menswear—the fashion long weekend’s previous incarnation as a one-day event lost buyers and press because it overlapped with the first day of Milan womenswear collections. This year there may still be some timing conflicts: the debut shows are expected to be a big to-do, as they’ll fall smack dab in the middle of the London 2012 Olympics hullabaloo.

From starlets to harlots! Karl Lagerfeld’s latest project with alleged former French escort Zahia Dehar is likely to cause quite a stir. Lagerfeld has taken it upon himself to shoot a look book for the upcoming lingerie line of the scandal-ridden “designer.”

For those unfamiliar with Dehar, designing lingerie is not her only love—she also seems to have a thing for French football players. She was the source of much uproar in Europe back in 2010, when it was discovered that she was involved with three prominent footie players for the nonchalant rate of £2,000 per night. (Oh, and she was also underage at the time.) Sacrebleu!

The latest trend to compete for the attention of your ladybits is the somewhat horrifying but entirely amusing “Foxy Bikini,” available at New York’s Completely Bare salon. And it should come as no shock that Real Housewives of New York-alumna Cindy Barshop, the creative genius who brought us last year’s vajazzling “trend,” is behind this furry invention.

For an easy $225, Barshop’s staff will wax you fur-less and then re-fur you with a hot pink vintage (uh?) fox-fur merkin. Despite the obvious obstacles, such as putting on pants and taking a shower, Barshop told Fashionista, “I’ve been in the business for so long that I think it’s going to be big for everybody.” Questionable.

Girl wonder, Tavi Gevinson, is making waves after calling out the fashion industry for being hypocritical. In a recent interview with the BBC, she discussed her emergence on the scene, the reaction to it, as well as her current position as editor-in-chief of the online magazine Rookie.

Amongst shared tidbits about glitter, Sassy magazine, and the Internet’s world-wide educational reach, she talked about her appearance at New York fashion week at the age of 13. “People were confused about my being there for a few reasons. One was that I was a blogger. The word itself, blog—it’s kind of an ugly word. […] And so I think people were confused and angry that someone younger than them had kind of figured it out.” She continues: “They would talk about how inappropriate it was for someone my age to be at fashion week, but this is coming from an industry that fetishizes youth.”

While watching the two minute–long video, you’d probably think, “Wow, she’s all grown up,” but isn’t that the thing with Tavi? She’s always been grown up, or at least wise beyond her years. She’s just swapped the blog for the BBC, and the oversized glasses for a thick cat eye. While she may eventually cringe to have had her teenage transformation on display, we’re sure happy to have her as a beacon of intelligent youth to lead us into the future.

When we first reported in October about the Miuccia Prada and Elsa Schiaparelli exhibit to open at the Met, our minds went wild with thoughts of how the institute would connect the two. Well, Miuccia Prada is now raining on our little trompe l’oeil parade.

Prada is not enthusiastic about sharing the spotlight with Schiaparelli, to say the least. She complained to WWD, “It’s too formal. They are focused on similarities, comparing feather with feather, ethnic with ethnic, but they are not taking into consideration that we are talking about two different eras, and that [Schiaparelli and I] are total opposite […] I told them, but they don’t care.”

Different eras? Sure. Total opposite? Not entirely. Both experiment(ed) with Surrealism, escapism, fantasy, and visual trickery. To boot, both could easily be considered the artistes of their era. From where we sit, the Met exhibit sounds promising enough, and we can only hope that Prada has a change of attitude before the start of the exhibit on May 7.

Last night’s dazzling starlets were sky high in Jimmy Choo and Christian Louboutin at the Golden Globes, but when it came to the after-parties, most swapped their skyscraper heels for more comfortable footwear so they could dance the night away.

The Descendants star Shailene Woodley was one of the many to do a quick switcheroo at the Warner Brothers and InStyle after-party, and she looked picture perfect from head to, well, ankle. Her feet? That’s a whole other story. The 20 year old certainly turned heads, thanks to a very bizarre footwear choice: a pair of athletic toe shoes.

Ever wonder what a vampire (lover) smells like? Or an awkward 21 year old? Well, Balenciaga has announced today, that our favourite lover of a bloodsucker, Kristen Stewart, is the face of their new fragrance.

K-Stew’s claim to fame is, of course, the Twilight series, and we’re sure devoted twi-hards will be running to get a bit of Bella Swan come the perfume’s release—but the creative director of Balenciaga, Nicolas Ghesquière, does not mention her appearance in the famed film in his statement explaining his choice. Instead, he talks about her lesser-known roles in Panic Room and Welcome to the Rileys. We’re with him so far…

The ingénue dishes to WWD: “The brand is just cool. That’s the way it is. I feel drawn to it. It provokes on a number of levels. It isn’t afraid or contrived. It hits a very cool balance, always. Always pretty undeniable.” Cool? Maybe. Muse-worthy? Not so sure.

What do we know about the “cool” fragrance? Not much, just that the name is yet to be announced. The scent is expected to launch this fall, just in time for the final installment of Twilight: Breaking Dawn, Part 2. What a coincidence.

Green is the new black. At least according to Chanel, Gucci, and the nine other stellar brands that have all pledged to create eco-friendly designs for this season’s red carpets.

It’s all part of Livia Firth’s (otherwise known as Colin Firth’s wife and the luckiest woman in the world) Green Carpet Challenge (GCC), an initiative she started with journalist Lucy Siegle two years ago. Since then, the movement has garnered some serious support from fashion heavyweights like Frida Giannini, Franca Sozzani, and Tom Ford.

Starting with the Golden Globes this Sunday, the designers will create gowns, accessories, and suits conforming to the GCC’s design principles. As to who will wear what, everything is very hush-hush. Firth, however, has announced that she will be wearing a Giorgio Armani creation made entirely from eco-friendly fabrics.

During the past two award seasons, Firth has only worn environmentally friendly gowns on the red carpet—including a repurposed wedding gown and a cocktail dress made from scrap fabric. Perhaps the most famous of them all was a gown made from her husband’s old Tom Ford suits. Yes. Please.

Pictures of Firth’s dresses along with the other eco-friendly creations will be available on vogue.com starting January 15.

What do you get for the girl who has everything? Well if you’re Kim Kardashian and the girl in question is Kate Middleton, you get her a pair of shoes that you a stylist made.

Kardashian has taken it upon herself (or her members-only shoe site, ShoeDazzle) to create a personalized pump “just for Kate” in honour of Kate’s 30^th birthday.

The Duchess pump, as it is so uncleverly named, is inspired by Kate’s timeless style. According to Kim, the “classic quilting and graceful silhouette” make this the perfect shoe for a princess.

Graceful silhouette? General consensus is that Kate wouldn’t dare put her ladylike feet in these hidden platforms. Instead, she tends to favour sleeker pumps with sensible heels.

This all begs the question: did Kim really design these with Kate in mind or was this just a PR move to garner some attention for her site? Hmmmm.

Wowza! Katie Holmes is looking like we’ve never seen her before in ads by luxury jewellery brand, H.Stern. The usually demure (and somewhat eerily modest) 33-year-old actress and mother proves that she has still got it (or at least finally found it), sporting H.Stern jewels, wind-swept hair, kohl eyeliner, and not much else.

Sprawled on the beach and draped in regal jewellery, the drop-dead gorgeous Scientologist (there’s something we don’t say everyday!) glares intensely into the camera. We’ve got to ask, is anybody really noticing the jewellery?

The ads are currently running in Israel, but will grace America with their presence this fall.

THEY SAID:

Celebuzz: “In case anyone was wondering, yes, Katie Holmes has still got it.” [CELEBUZZ]

Global Grind: “We wonder what the Church of Scientology will have to say about Katie Holmes’ steamy new H. Stern advertisements.” [Global Grind]

E! online: “From stunning to sizzling! We get to see a whole lot more of Tom Cruise‘s better half. Make that sexier half!” [E!online]