Suzy Menkes: Surf and turf at Place Vendôme
With an evening of festivities at the Place Vendôme, high jewelry encroached on haute couture's turf during the collections season. And "turf and surf" - including all kinds of flowers, insects, fish and crustaceans - was the creative theme.

The clothes make the 'Gossip Girl'
Merchants, designers and trend consultants say that "Gossip Girl," which is in summer reruns on the CW network before returning Sept. 1, just in time for back-to-school shopping, is one of the biggest influences on how young women spend.

Zipping up luxury in denim
Shirts and shoes, jackets and jewels, dresses and purses - and of course jeans - are available in a mass/class fashion partnership between the Swedish company Acne Jeans and the luxury brand Lanvin.

Sugar plum Valentino
As the models stepped out delicately in the fairy-like dresses, with light layers creating sculptural ovoid shapes, Alessandra Facchinetti's first couture collection for Valentino was loyal to everything the fashion house has stood for

Jean Paul Gaultier's Cage aux Folles
The fluorescent laser beams that raked over the finale of Jean Paul Gaultier's show Wednesday marked a sweet moment for fashion and for the designer, who broke out of his Cages aux Folles to create an exuberant and exceptional collection.

Givenchy displays a raw romanticism
It is dark and elusive, but the raw romanticism of Riccardo Tisci is starting to create a powerful, modern image for the house of Givenchy.

Chanel plays pipes, turning tiny tubes of tulle into couture
For all the pretty, light-handed elegance of a rare pink dress with flattened pipes crossing the bosom, overall the collection designed by Karl Lagerfeld seemed heavy and even weird.

Christian Lacroix's beetle juice
With embroidery crawling up a stockinged ankle, a carapace of encrusted wool and a chiffon dress in the iridescent blue-green of beetle wings, Lacroix created his fantasy world outside the salon and in a garden of creepy-crawly delights.

Armani Prive: Giving women what they want
Armani has balked in previous seasons at concentrating his couture on his claim to fame: softening the androgyny of the pantsuit and bringing peace to fashion's gender warfare. But that was the spirit of this Privé show, with its artfully mismatched tailoring, the fabrics veering from male to female.
- Russian revival at Irfe

Anne Valerie Hash: Cultivating a look
It was a fertile moment at the Anne Valérie Hash show and not just because the inspiration for the collection was the erotic orchid.

Has Carla Bruni's spirit saved couture?
In the shadow of the death of Yves Saint Laurent but in the sunshine of a stylish first lady, the Paris couture season opened on Monday. And a vision of veiled flesh seen through silhouettes from couture's golden age was a triumph of light-handed seduction at Dior.

Volume and graphics bring nonchalance to menswear
As Paul Smith and Dior Homme closed the menswear season, accessories and sharp tailoring had come to the fore.

No (fashion) country for old men -- Raf Simons, Givenchy, Lanvin
A scattering of old men - like an elegiac reference to an aging baby boom generation - have been appearing throughout the long weekend of Paris menswear shows. But for all the nobility of these elder statesmen (usually of the arty kind), the focus of the 2009 season has been on virility and red-blooded masculinity that inevitably fades with age.
- Martin Margiela, Rick Owens, Adam Kimmel, Viktor & Rolf and more

Comme des Garcons partners with Louis Vuitton
The French luxury brand and the rebel design house will collaborate on a Tokyo popup store. In addition to the Comme and LV shows: Yves Saint Laurent, Junya Watanabe, Dries Van Noten, Jean Paul Gaultier and Number (N)ine

Yohji Yamamoto: Playing with size
Size was the starting point of the Yohji Yamamoto menswear collection, according to the smiling designer, but he wasn't just referring to his choice in models (who came in all shapes, sizes, colors and ages) but to the clothes as well.
- Véronique Branquinho, Kris Van Assche, Thierry Mugler

Style on the ice: Hockey player interns at Vogue
A New York ice hockey player interns at Vogue magazine.

Pope doesn't wear Prada
The devil may wear Prada - but the pope does not.

Fashion all part of the game at Wimbledon
It felt more like a day on the catwalk than the opening of the world's most famous tennis tournament -- but fashion has always been an integral part of Wimbledon with its strictly enforced "predominantly white" dress code for players.

Britons shunning the shops
Fewer Britons visited retail outlets in June, the fifth drop in six months, as soaring fuel prices deterred shoppers from driving to stores, the research company Experian Group said.

U.S. teens skipping $50 jeans
The financial pressures of adults are finally catching up with American teenagers. Since summer jobs dried up, gasoline prices topped $4 a gallon and parents ran out of spare cash, teens have had to cool it on spending for clothes.

Online fashion retailer Asos reports steep rise in profits
Nick Robertson, ASOS chief executive, said the company was seeing no sign of the slowdown being experienced by store groups and was expected to overtake Next to become Britain's biggest online clothes retailer in its current financial year.

Clarins family to buy out minority investors
The family that owns the French skin cream company wants to pull it out of public trading.

The Birkin and Hermès
What would you do for a Birkin bag?

The clutch, in the light of day
Thanks to a whole slew of designers - from Yves Saint Laurent to Sonia Rykiel and Michael Teperson to Belen Echandia - the clutch purse is moving from an evening standard to seeing the light of day.

Jelly brand molds Brazil's footwear style
Cheap, cheerful and totally disposable, the plastic jelly shoe is about as ubiquitous as footwear gets. And in Brazil, it's Melissa that dominates the market.

David vs. "David": The battle below the belt in men's underwear
The David vs. "David" standoff marks the moment that underwear has come out of the drawers and off the shelves to become, to men's fashion, the female equivalent of the handbag. It is an accessory - and even a necessity - that can be turned into big bucks.

In London, a rocking celebration of jewels
London Jewellery Week was kicked off with spectacular celebrations and included works by Zaha Hadid and Prince Dimitri, while Nadja Swarovski was bringing on the bling at Runway Rocks.

Fulco di Verdura: The elegant beguiler of stars
A friend of Cole Porter, discovered by Coco Chanel, the Palermo aristocrat Verdura was the favorite jeweler in a gilded circle that included Greta Garbo, Katherine Hepburn and the Duchess of Windsor.

Will diamonds lose their sparkle?
With the specter of recession haunting the global economy, is the market for luxury gemstones feeling the pinch?

Padua's goldsmiths: modern masters of form
Over six decades, a school of goldsmiths in northern Italy has created original and important pieces of jewelry works based on Renaissance principles of geometry.

Li Edelkoort: Assessing the impact of a design icon
As Li Edelkoort announces her resignation from the Design Academy Eindhoven, her former students and colleagues contemplate her influence in the school and the world of design.

Can Fuller be rehabilitated as a 21st century design hero?
Hailed as a visionary by the hippie movement and dismissed by some as an eccentric, R. Buckminster Fuller is the subject of an exhibition opening Thursday at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.

Martí Guixé: Snacking on wit, feasting on radical concepts
Guixé uses his design skills not simply to create objects and spaces, but to shape the way they are consumed and perceived.

Whatever 'design-art' is, it's thriving
"Design-art" is a commercial phenomenon, not a cultural one. It's a label adopted by auction houses in the hope of flogging limited-edition furniture for higher prices than it would muster if relegated to the unfashionable category of "decorative arts." And it has been very effective.

In the world of watches, the line between the sexes is blurring fast
Once upon a time, timepieces with complications were for men only, but the limited edition Diane from Harry Winston seeks to change that.

"Star Trek"-styled watches flash digitally coded time
Tokyoflash Japan creates watches that are meant to be watched, not just looked at. Started in 2000, the company says it is trying to make objects that revolutionize the way time is perceived.

Applying color with steely abandon
Taking inspiration from the traditional cloisonné technique of enameling used to decorate watch dials, watch designer Alain Silberstein has developed a unique method of coloring his steel watchcases, which are proving popular with Russian and Japanese collectors.

Richard Mille breaks fresh ground with new high-technology timepieces
Coinciding with the Salon International de Haute Horlogerie in Geneva, Mille is introducing a glittering homage to Boucheron, in honor of the Parisian jeweler's 150th anniversary, and a modern interpretation of a classic pocket watch.

Urwerk's 'most complicated' watch to be unveiled in Geneva
The youthful principals of Urwerk, Felix Baumgartner and Martin Frei, will present their new watch, a combination of futuristic and artisanal features called the UR-202, on the fringes of the Geneva Watch salon next week.

Viktor & Rolf build a doll house
"The House of Viktor & Rolf" is an exhibition by the Dutch design duo dominated by a large doll house filled with miniature versions of 15 years of fashion. It is also a fashion moment of pure enchantment.

101 secrets (and 9 lives) of a magazine star
After years of raising the profiles and circulations of magazines like Us Weekly and Star by emphasizing celebrity news and gossip, Bonnie Fuller is going out on her own.

Versace to design a new Lamborghini
Versace has agreed to design the interior of a limited edition Lamborghini car and its accompanying accessories like gloves and bags in the latest collaboration between the two luxury brands.

Fashion designers honor their own
The CFDA awards, marking their 26th year, have come to be an intersection of celebrities and fashion insiders.

Garden is a seedbed for Dr. Hauschka cosmetics line
Dr. Hauschka cosmetics born in a German garden

Americans pull back from expensive plastic surgery
Plastic surgeons are increasingly competing with other specialists, and even non-specialists, for a finite pool of beauty clients.

Never too young for that first pedicure
Cosmetic companies and retailers increasingly aim their sophisticated products and service packages squarely at 6- to 9-year-olds, who are being transformed into savvy beauty consumers before they're out of elementary school.

Bringing a sense of soul back to Estée Lauder
Aerin Lauder brings family sensibility to the beauty company founded by her grandmother.