off the record

4 Photos

Cover

Style.com Hits ‘Print’ Again

In the second issue of Style.com/Print, the Fairchild fashion site’s semiannual magazine, Chanel creative director Karl Lagerfeld reserved his trademark trash talk for a woman who can’t tweet back: the late house matriarch, Coco Chanel.

Mr. Lagerfeld blamed her late-career decline on her belief, in the 1960s, that jeans and miniskirts were “vulgar.”

“The collections from the mid-’60s to the ’70s were quite ecchh,” he told the magazine. “Then they had 10 years of respect, for what it’s worth, then the rest is … me.” Read More

Menace to Society

Outfit by Holy Tee, Skybox by American Express, posture by years of bad habits

Menace to Society: Please Don’t Feed the Models

I used to think Fashion Week was fun. This was years ago, when “the tents” referred to actual tents. Back in the day (it must have been, oh, 2008) my friends and I would try to talk our way into Tommy and Oscar shows and blog about the experience. It was surprising how often our feigned frustration—“What do you mean I’m not on the list? Please call Eric and let him know that we’re here”—would get us in.

I’m still not sure if there was an Eric, but somehow he always came through.

Now, older and wiser and having recently embarked on a journalistic mission to embed myself among the social elite, I have actual invites (22, to be exact), a fresh Anna bob and a mission, should I choose to accept it, to treat Fashion Week not like a joke, but like a job.

Which is a lot harder than it looks. Read More

Carine Roitfeld at her book signing

Former Vogue Paris Editor, Carine Roitfeld, to Become a Grandma

Carine Roitfeld had big news for us Friday. We chatted with the former Vogue Paris editor as she signed copies of her new book, Irreverent, at Marc Jacobs’s cleverly but obviously named Bleecker Street bookshop,  Bookmarc. Much to our surprise (and delight), the beaming Ms. Roitfeld spoke exclusively to The Observer, revealing that next year she is to become a grandmother. Read More

Party Circuit

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Seth Weisman, Joseph Altuzarra

V Magazine Hosts the Black and White Ball

As Fashion Week draws to a close, the A-list of the industry gathered last night for V Magazine‘s Black and White ball. Guests partied at the top of the Standard Hotel, many (though admittedly not all) dressed in the evening’s thematic color scheme. Carine Roitfeld, Theophilus London,  Prabal Gurung, Linda Evangelista, Cynthia Rowley, Read More

Ad Sales

French Vogue Plumps Up for 90th Anniversary

Carine Roitfeld’s is putting out a plus-sized issue of French Vogue for October, which marks the magazine’s 90th anniversary.

Ad pages for are up nearly 100 percent over October last year if you count the 276 pages of advertising and 104 pages of congratulations from designers in this year’s issue. According to Memo Pad, Read More

Gossip Girls, Geldof, Graydon Converge at Gypsy-Inspired DVF Show

Diane von Furstenberg‘s afternoon show yesterday drew the usual glamorous crowd–though several audience members were spotted drinking Peroni beers right from the bottle, tac-ky!

Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter sat next Valentino’s Giancarlo Giammetti who sat next to actress Candice Bergen and her daughter, Chloe. Daily Beast editor Tina Brown was right across the aisle. Read More