The Lanvin store, reported to open in September, is actually open already—albeit without electricity or air-conditioning. Hasn’t seemed to stop the determined Upper East Side ladies, who’ve already been spotted shopping by candlelight. [Racked]

Just in case you were still waiting on that invitation: “No, I am not getting married,” says Marc Jacobs. [Vogue U.K.]

A sad spot during a festive week: A memorial for Alexander McQueen has been scheduled for September 20, to take place during London’s fashion collections. [WWD]

Miranda Kerr’s racked up another high-fashion campaign for Fall (Jil Sander, left), and a new husband: She and Orlando Bloom secretly wed last night. Sneaky! [Fashionologie]

Animal activist Stella McCartney is one step closer to her dream of getting the bearskin helmets off of the Royal Guards: The designer met with Her Majesty’s minister for defense equipment yesterday with a proposal for an ethical alternative. This is the woman who made pleather accessories chic, so we’re pretty sure she can do anything. [Vogue U.K.]

Photo: Willy Vandeperre/Courtesy of Jil Sander

There’s east London’s now-trendy Shoreditch and then, a bit north and even farther afield, there’s Dalston—that’s where Christopher Kane keeps his studio, and where, last night, he gathered the troops for his annual, much-anticipated birthday party. The neighborhood, like Kane himself, is moving from up-and-coming to arrived. And where else can you find a great gay bar (the Dalston Superstore, last night’s venue), a 24-hour hamam, and excellent Vietnamese restaurants?

His party is very much a family-and-friends event—Kane, his mom, his aunts, and his sister and business partner, Tammy (pictured with Christopher, left), are legendarily close. His friends are, too: Lulu Kennedy and Louise Wilson both came to raise a glass, and Chris’ bestie, the award-winning hairdresser Gary Rees, even flew in from Scotland for the day. “I wouldn’t miss this for the world,” he said. “Chris has been my best mate forever, and, well, this lot, we just stick together, don’t we all?”

The happy host was graciously tending to his guests, pausing to tell us how busy he was, how much he was loving it, and encouraging everyone to get a drink. He wasn’t the only one celebrating. Tammy was introducing her handsome fiancé, Richard, around to the group, beaming in a rose-embroidered dress from her brother’s Spring ‘10 collection. “It’s very much a new thing, we just got engaged!” she said. Looks like Chris is going to be even busier coming up with a wedding dress.

—Afsun Qureshi

Photo: Anwar Hussein / Wire Image

That’s time you can spare for a gap-toothed rock ‘n’ roll heiress, right? Hudson Jeans spokeswoman Georgia May Jagger filmed a brief new promo video for the label, where she takes time out of her day to writhe around on a couch and get interviewed by Jefferson Hack. Here, Jagger fille talks Hudson’s goods, her ideal day, and reveals her style icon. Hint: The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

If, cruising through the Hollywood Hills yesterday, you thought you zoomed by Minnie Driver chasing after a toddler riding a glittering pony, well, you did. Driver, the kid, and the pony (Buttons) were all guests at Liberty Ross’ afternoon tea party in honor of Daniella Issa Helayel, who’s launching the tot’s version of her namesake clothing line, Baby Issa. (That’s Ross with Baby Issa-clad babies, above.) The well-dressed under-five set will soon be wearing 100 percent cotton and cotton voile dresses, swimsuits, and trenchcoats. Hollywood types like Monet Mazur, Ione Skye and rocker hubby Ben Lee, and Vanity Fair’s Krista Smith brought their fashion-forward kiddies to peruse the goods while DJ Brett Anderson worked the turntables—the party being, she discovered, more of a challenge than she’d anticipated. “Finding cool, kid-appropriate music is tough,” Anderson mused. “Like, did you know that “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” is about murder?”

The scene in Ross’ sunlit backyard resembled something out of a G-rated La Dolce Vita. In addition to Buttons, there was the requisite Crumbs cupcakes spread, a manicure station (where Decades’ Cameron Silver was spotted), a temporary tattoo booth, a pillow-strewn fort, and scores of Baby Issa-wearing children prancing about. “This is nothing like my childhood parties,” said Driver as she watched a three-year-old get a tattoo of an anchor. “The most we ever got was an above-ground pool and some charred hot dogs.”

—Evelyn Crowley

Photo: Andreas Branch / Patrick McMullan.com

Hermès: getting down with the kids. The august label—which usually prefers to keep its own counsel—is launching an exclusive collaboration with Colette this fall. What’s more, it’s jazzing up one of the most classic offerings in its repertoire: le carré, or silk scarf. Bali Barret, Hermès’ artistic director of silk—yes, they have one of those—designed a series of exclusive new designs for the scarves, in bold contrast colors and mash-up pattern prints. All the better to proclaim (as the collection’s title has it), “J’Aime Mon Carré.” They’ll be available from September 27 to October 16 at the Paris boutique, but if you can’t wait, www.jaimemoncarre.com launches later this summer, to document carré events and trace scarf lore at a series of events staged from the Czech Republic to Australia. And speaking of getting down with the kids—the house even commissioned photographer Matt Irwin to travel to four cities (New York, London, Paris, and Tokyo) to capture the scarf in situ for a carré ‘zine.

—Rebecca Voight

Photos: Courtesy of Hermès

Oscar season is still months away, but Robert Duvall has already been getting Best Actor buzz for Get Low, in which he plays a grizzled loner who comes out of the Tennessee woods to plan his own funeral. But at last night’s Cinema Society screening, the 79-year-old actor was plenty sociable. “Once you get a hermit out, before he goes back in sometimes, they’re very talkative,” he joked. Duvall’s a farm man himself—he owns one in Argentina—and though he threw on a jacket for the premiere at Tribeca Grand, back home, he told us he favors jeans and carpincho boots at home.

His co-star Sissy Spacek, it turns out, is also a dress-down kind of gal. She may have rubbed elbows with Calvin Klein and Rachel Roy at last night’s screening (which was co-sponsored by Sony Alpha Nex), but back in Virginia, she explained, she lives life at a different pace—and in a different dress code. “Often times when I get up in the morning, because there’s nobody around, I just stay in my pajamas and start my chores,” she said. “Sweeping the porch, feeding the fish, feeding the dogs, making my shake.” She may be country-wise, but she’s got city wiles—she outlasted almost the entire crowd at the after-party at the Soho Grand.

—Darrell Hartman

Photo: Clint Spaulding/Patrick McMullan

Designers design. Photographers photograph. Models model. That much—in broad strokes, at least—is clear. But what about the artists, technicians, and industry insiders, often unpublicized and underappreciated, who help to get clothes and accessories made and shown? Call them Behind-the-Scenesters: people who shape our experience of fashion but never take a bow on the catwalk or strike a pose for the camera. Without them—from pattern-makers to production designers—the show wouldn’t go on. And in a new series, Style.com sits down with a few of these pros to find out, basically, what they do.

Mary Howard is the set designer on virtually every key fashion photographer’s speed dial. She’s the consummate background professional, literally—she creates the mise-en-scène of a shoot. Howard (left works regularly with Steven Meisel, Annie Leibovitz, and Steven Klein, among others, and her sets range as widely as her collaborators’ styles. She does dazzlingly elaborate (Leibovitz’s 2008 Wizard of Oz shoot starring Keira Knightley), and she can make a set virtually invisible, too (Meisel’s Spring ‘10 Prada campaign.) On any given day, you can find Howard mottling the gray backdrop at a studio shoot or packing up a selection of Art Deco lamps headed off on location. Here, she talks to Style.com about working with the masters, how much stuff is too much stuff, and learning when to leave the bobby pins in.

So, Mary: In one sentence, what do you do?
I call myself a set designer for print. Could be editorial, could be ads. In movies, they call someone like me a production designer; in fashion, the name “set designer” has stuck but it doesn’t entirely describe the job. There’s a lot of art direction involved; it’s not just about picking out a rug. But I guess if I have to boil down my job description to one sentence, I’d say—I create the world around the girl. I don’t have anything to do with the model, but I shape the physical environment that surrounds her and help the photographer and the stylist and everyone else involved with the shoot tell the right story and make the girl pop.

Why do you think the fashion industry has shied away from the title “production designer”?
I think some of it has to do with the fact that this is still an emerging field. It barely existed when I moved to New York; it wasn’t until recently that my studio even began getting credits in magazine. I work quite a bit with Grace Coddington at Vogue, and she’ll tell stories about sending her assistants out to just, you know, grab a chair. Or the photographer would send his assistant out to pick up props.

How did you get into set design?
I grew up in New Orleans, and after I got my MFA, I went back down there to build Mardi Gras floats. Then I came to New York City and built floats for the Macy’s parade. I was always making things—I’d make props for Saturday Night Live, for instance. Eventually I began working with a set designer—this was about 20 years ago, and it’s possible that she was the only one. We began working with Richard Avedon, and that led to other photographers and editors seeking us out. Then I went out on my own. Honestly, I feel like a grandma in this field.

What’s an average workday like for you?
I think that, like a lot of people in fashion, I do what I do because there isn’t really “an average day.” There are days on set, and there are prep days that involve a lot of thinking or researching or pounding the pavement looking at stuff. So there’s a routine, but the work itself is so dependent on the assignment—if I’m working with Annie, her process is totally different from, say, Steven Meisel’s process.

How so?
Annie sees it all in her head. I’m there to coax out the vision. Like, the yellow brick road on the Wizard of Oz shoot—Annie decided she wanted it to look like the Appian Way, a golden brick road with lots of moss. And then my job was to execute that. Whereas other photographers want to see everything; they want lots of options. I’ll send over a ton of images that seem to describe the world they’re talking about, from film stills to pictures of tables, and then we go back and forth, refining and refining and refining.

How much stuff do you usually bring to a shoot?
I’m comfortable with one cube truck’s worth of stuff per shoot. Even on a really elaborate shoot, I tend to feel like more than that is a recipe for trouble. By the time you’re getting on set, you should be confident enough to have, say, two sofas, not 30. You do need the options, of course; you’re really not going to know what works until you’re in the space and the set is lit. The sofa you liked going in may not work, as it turns out. And then, if you’re really pressed, you have to know your resources, so you can run out and find the right thing at the last moment.

Not that I’m asking for trade secrets or anything, but where do you find your props?
Everywhere. I’m a big flea market fan—you’d be amazed at how well a dirty old chair will show up in a photo. I’m actually wary of using things that are too new and too pristine. That said, many of the furniture stores in New York are willing to rent, and we’ve got relationships with pretty much all of them. And there are the prop shops, too. You have to be careful there, though—in New York, there just aren’t that many prop rental houses, and you wind up seeing the same props over and over again. Like, a few years ago there was a particular chair that was getting shot a ton. Clients recognized it when it came in.

You say you’re wary of things that look too new and too pristine. Why?
I want the final image to be believable. Even the really elaborate stuff I do with Annie, where she’s creating a whole fantasy world, it has to feel real in some way; specific. It’s like, Irving Penn had this thing—sometimes he’d be shooting and bobby pins or safety pins would be on the floor, and he’d say, leave it. Don’t make it too clean. When you let things be a little off, you’re allowing some reality in and it gives the image texture. I like to do wrong things. If I’ve got a statue on a table by the girl, I don’t face it to camera, because then it looks staged. The walls shouldn’t look like they’ve just been painted, even if they have been. And we try to fabricate as little as we can.

Do you prefer working on location, given all that?
I can do either. I studied painting, I love to paint a backdrop, and I’ve got a whole studio so I can build sets. I like making things. I can make a wall look however we want it to look, but there’s a certain weight that a real room has that you just can’t re-create. That said, there are times when it’s better to be on a set. It just depends on the job.

What’s the biggest misunderstanding people have about what you do?
I think that a lot of people don’t comprehend that there’s set design even when the set is barely there. Sometimes what I’m doing is taking away. Sometimes I’m on a very basic, gray backdrop job that just isn’t working, and I’m the one suggesting, let’s have the model lean against a ladder, instead of sitting on a stool. Or I’m throwing a rug down, to bring in some color or some dimension.

What’s your favorite part of what you do?
I love seeing what everyone else brings to the shoot. As the art department, we’re the first ones in and the last ones out, and there’s always this torturous part at the start of a shoot day when the set is pretty much built and the photo assistants are starting the lighting, and the clothes have arrived, and the girl is hidden away in hair and makeup, and I’m wondering, is this going to work? I’m just one piece of the puzzle. It’s not until the second photo of the day that you begin to see it all come together. I dream about that moment—the moment the set comes alive.

—Maya Singer

Prada Fall ‘10 campaign. Set by Mary Howard.

Lanvin Spring ‘10 campaign. Set by Mary Howard.

Alberta Ferretti Fall ‘09 campaign. Set by Mary Howard.

Photos: Courtesy of Mary Howard (portrait); Courtesy Photos (ad campaigns)

MObama hosted a party for this year’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Awards at the White House, honoring the year’s best in design (though the fashion design award winners, Kate and Laura Mulleavy of Rodarte, didn’t attend.) The FLOTUS wore Isabel Toledo for the occasion. [WWD]

Balenciaga’s Fall campaign is out, and the multi-girl spreads star reigning catwalk queens Freja Beha Erichsen, Mirte Maas, and Valerija Kelava, but also gorgeous-as-ever Stella Tennant and Karen Elson (pictured). Who’s your favorite? [Fashionologie]

Taylor Momsen fired her stylist. Now she’s got nobody but herself to blame for those raccoon eyes. [NY Mag]

Alexander Wang is known for his downtown-NYC cool, so when he began the trunk-show circuit—heading first to Canada’s Holt Renfrew—he boxed it up and brought it along with him. Or, we should say, tented it up. Wang’s been traveling with a custom-made tent, complete with fluorescent lights, TV screens, and inflatable furniture to replicate his Tribeca studio. [WWD]

A new Web site, SixItemsOrLess.com, encourages users to wear a combination of only six items every day for 31 days. We’re all for getting back to basics, but this is one fad diet we’ll be passing on. [NYT]

Photo: Steven Meisel/Courtesy of Balenciaga

L.A.’s been receiving a steady stream of Euro imports this week. Mulberry’s Emma Hill blew into the Chateau Marmont on Tuesday for a dinner and pool party, and last night at the Chateau, designer Vanessa Bruno and friends were fêting her new West Hollywood store—her first in the U.S. The shop, which will carry Bruno’s collection, accessories, and Athé diffusion line, doesn’t open officially until August 5, but a few high-profile fans can barely wait. “I’m so excited that she’s opening in L.A. I can’t even tell you,” said Kate Bosworth. “She’s so connected to wanting to bring out confidence and inner beauty. It’s a passion of hers and exciting for all of us.”

Around her, Angelenas like Tara Subkoff, Liberty Ross, and Atlanta de Cadenet and fellow Frenchie Julie Delpy sipped Champagne and cocktails. The dress code of the evening? Bruno, of course—”I’m actually wearing one of her skorts tonight—and I’m feeling it,” Rachel Bilson said. Even the guys got in on the act: Stylist George Kotsiopoulos showed off a bowtie that designer Magda Berliner had fashioned for him from a Bruno lace wrist gauntlet. “Men are lucky that way,” he said. “We could be in rags, but you put on a tie and you’re set.”

“I love the fact that different girls, known and unknown, are wearing my clothes and feeling comfortable and confident,” said the guest of honor. “L.A. is a melting of all different types of girls. There’s a real Americana, Californian spirit here.” The real Californians—new and native—tucked into strip steak and halibut and then, at the end, birthday cake—Bruno, it turned out, had more than one reason to celebrate.

—Victoria Namkung

Photo: Stefanie Keenan / WireImage / Getty Images

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Mad Men returns this Sunday on AMC, and to celebrate the much-anticipated return of Don, Betty, and their martini-swilling cohorts, AMC and Banana Republic hosted a splashy Hollywood premiere last night at Mann’s Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. After a word from creator Matthew Weiner—no cell phones and no giving away plotlines; “I really don’t want to see it on the front page of The New York Times,” he explained—the lights dimmed and we were in Mad world. And after the credits rolled and the guests headed for the Chateau Marmont for the after-party, we still were. There were all the period touches: cigarette girls, a jazz quartet, and, of course, stiff martinis. The only slightly jarring bit was the cast—Jon Hamm, Christina Hendricks (in Dolce & Gabbana), and Elisabeth Moss (in Oscar de la Renta)—stripped of their sixties accoutrements, appearing in twenty-first-century dress. But then, show-vs.-life confusion is par for the course. “People sometimes come up to me and say, ‘you’re so much prettier in real life,’ ” said Moss, who plays no-nonsense career girl Peggy Olson.”I’m not really sure how to take that, so I just politely say thank you.”

The following afternoon, Mad Men mania continued: Banana Republic hosted a lunch at the Sunset Tower Hotel in honor of a video blog collaboration between its creative director, Simon Kneen, and the show’s costume designer, Janie Bryant. The short videos, which feature Kneen and Bryant chewing the sartorial fat and discovering a shared love of menswear, will go up on AMC’s Web site this Sunday. They’re part of BR’s “Mad About Style” campaign, which includes a casting-call opportunity for customers to win a walk-on part on the show. Over chicken paillard and watermelon sorbet, Bryant revealed that some of the Mad Men wardrobe pieces are actually direct hand-me-downs from her mother and grandmother. She also attempted—without much success, as it turned out—to single out her favorite character to dress. “Rachel Menken. I also loved Bobbie Barrett. And Trudy, Joan, and Peggy. And of course Betty. Oh, don’t make me choose!”

—Evelyn Crowley

Photo: Jeff Vespa / WireImage / Getty Images

There are plenty of reasons to love Jordan Silver, the encyclopedic owner/proprietor of Silver Lining Opticians. One very good one is that he owns and runs Silver Lining, one of the finest spots in town to get impossible-to-find glasses from any and every era. (He supplies Bergdorf Goodman, and Jay-Z himself has been known to buy a few ultra-expensive pairs there.) Another is that he couples that eyewear knowledge with a nearly-as-great knowledge of pop culture. So not only does he have two colors of the granny-fab pair of vintage Dior specs above, he can also offer what may be the mother of all fashion credits: that they’re the style of choice for the, Lucille Bluth, the Medea of Los Angeles, from the dearly departed series Arrested Development (below). If that’s not a good reason to read his blog, I’ve never heard of one.

—Matthew Schneier

Photos: Courtesy of Silver Lining Opticians (glasses); Fox TV/silverliningopticians.com (still)

I’ve been crazy for gingham lately, and I’m not alone. Take Isaac Mizrahi. As he told us at his Resort presentation, gingham “is like a solid with a lot of personality.” The usual country red and royal blue ginghams have their place, but they don’t feel as fresh to me as the soft, floaty grays (and their near cousins, washed-out blacks and even watery blues) that have been cropping up everywhere, from street-style blogs to runways. There’s something so much more ethereal about the silvery tones, almost neutral; they’ll transition seamlessly from summer sun to the fall wardrobe. I love how Harper’s Bazaar Australia’s Christine Centenera pairs her gray gingham skirt with nude colors, or how the models Tommy Ton captures throw it on over whatever they’re wearing (pictured). Karl showed some lovely gingham looks at Chanel’s big Resort bash in Saint-Tropez, too, and Eva Mendes is a fan—she wore Dior’s version to the premiere of her movie The Other Guys in Cancún.

Click here for a few of our favorite gray ginghams, and a couple of girls who wore it best >

—Marina Larroude

Photo: Tommy Ton

After a tiny bit of neighborhood-preservation controversy, Rag & Bone’s new shop—its fourth in Manhattan—is set to open in the old Café Colonial space at 73 E. Houston Street this Friday. The new space will house the label’s lower-priced lines for women, Rag & Bone/KNIT, Rag & Bone/JEAN, and Rag & Bone/SHIRT, and, as enticingly, the first separate space dedicated to footwear. The Rag & Bone shoe shop is accessible through the ready-to-wear shop, but also boasts its own entrance for footwear fanatics. It’s a worthy spotlight to an underappreciated category for the brand. And, for those still keening over the dearly departed Colonial, in a back alcove, in memoriam: one of the café’s logo-inscribed window panes, a tribute to the former occupant.

Photo: Courtesy of Rag & Bone

At long last, Lanvin is opening its own Manhattan flagship. As usual, there’s no putting it better than Alber Elbaz: “It’s about time,” he said. Hear, hear. The new store bows on Madison and 68th Street in September. [WWD]

Perhaps not as eagerly anticipated: Betty White’s clothing line. Can’t blame a (Golden) girl for riding the wave of her surging popularity. [WWD]

The rainmaker, according to Dolce & Gabbana? David Beckham. “Things really started to change in men’s when we started to work occasionally with David Beckham. He was the channel we needed to speak to men,” Stefano Gabbana told the L.A. Times. (And speaking of the Dolce boys, they’ll be on CNN’s Revealed tonight.) [LAT via Vogue U.K.]

Christian Lacroix’s new creative director, Sacha Walckhoff, says he’d be open to doing a fast-fashion collaboration with the likes of Target or H&M. Sounds good to us, but my God, what would Patsy and Edina say? [NY Mag]

Erin Wasson x RVCA? Let’s make that Erin Wasson, ex-RVCA. The model and the surf-and-skate brand have apparently terminated their partnership. [Fashionista]

Photo: BBC / Ronald Grant / Everett Collection

It’s a near infallible axiom of fashion that if John Galliano sends it out, it’s more likely than not to kick off a trend. So when the Fall ‘10 Dior show featured riders on the runway, no surprise, a few months later, to find equestrienne-inspired gear here, there, and everywhere. No horsewoman skills necessary—rest assured, these barn-ready, covetable Celine boots for Fall look just as good on the pavement. And for more of the equine looks we’re in the mood for these days, check out our new roundup.

Celine high Chelsea boot, available at Barneys New York, www.barneys.com.

Photo: Courtesy of Celine

If you’re one of the Brazilian supermodel’s cadre of devoted fans, you already know today is her 30th birthday. (If you’re a reader of our sister blog, Beauty Counter, you already know what to get her.) But we’d like to take a moment to spotlight the extraordinary achievements of the catwalker’s long time in the spotlight—not the countless editorials, ad campaigns, covers, tributes, marriage rumors, baby-bump watches, and all the rest, but the good old-fashioned stuff the Internet was created for: the YouTube videos. Click below for a few of our favorites. The girl’s done a lot in a mere three decades—shilled for Mac, gone Fellini-esque for Dolce & Gabbana in one of the great fragrance spots of recent memory; hell, even met Brüno. And that, as we all know, is when you’ve arrived.

Photo: Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott for Louis Vuitton

A good reason to fire up the stereo: a new mix CD from Kitsuné, the French fashion-slash-record label, and Ponystep, the East London online mag-slash-phenomenon. That’s a lot of slashes to ask anyone to take sitting down, but Kitsuné—whose subtle, collegiate clothes, lately a sensation in Japan, will hit Opening Ceremony stores for their “France” campaign this year—and Ponystep both know a good party. (Ponystep, edited by the English club king Richard Mortimer, throws some of the best around.) And for the new summer mix, Kitsuné and Ponystep called in a third, equally big gun to do the mixing: Jerry Bouthier, who regularly spins runway tunes for Vivienne Westwood, Jonathan Saunders, Roksanda Ilincic, and Romain Kremer. The result: Roísín Murphy (late of the Viktor & Rolf Spring ‘10 show), Florrie (soon-to-be face of Nina Ricci’s L’Elixir), Norway’s Lindstrøm, Ireland’s Two Door Cinema Club, and more, here and ready to set the ground shaking. B.Y.O. dance floor/catwalk. Crank it to onze!
$8.99, available at www.amazon.com.

—Matthew Schneier

Photo: Steven Torres

Maybe it’s the recent nuptials, maybe it’s all that time spent hanging out chez Armani (she’s the poster girl for Armani Jeans and Armani Underwear and wore Privé to her wedding), but Megan Fox is looking downright classy lately. Exhibit A: Last night’s VH1 Do Something Awards. Fox hit the stage in Azzedine Alaïa (a sentence, frankly, we never thought we’d have cause to utter). She complemented the gorgeous frock with matching Brian Atwood pumps, a glowing Cali-girl tan, and loose, wavy hair—a look that, overall, might’ve seemed too matchy-matchy on someone else, but on Megan totally worked. Is this the start of a new chapter in the Book of Fox? We’re sure to see more cheesecake mag covers in the days to come, but it’s nice to remember that when she wants to, Megan can play the perfect-lady part, well, near perfectly. What do you think? Do you like Fox’s new look, or do you prefer her wild-child stylings?

Photo: Michael Caulfield / Getty Images

Our pal Todd Selby is known for photographing the homes of the rich and stylish, but as of late, he’s turned his lens on a fair number of work spaces, too—his newly published series of artist Tom Sachs’ studio, in particular, is worth a look. Sachs is the provocateur famous for erecting Hello Kitty statues in New York and building his own self-styled space station (complete with Tyvek spacesuits) in L.A., so no surprise he’s got all manner of oddity hanging around his lair. There’s the custom, T. Sachs-embroidered NASA outfit he works in, chairs made of police partitions, and a tape measure labeled “Stanley Kubrick,” but most curious of all, we’d have to say, is the enormous jug of “Prada oil.” (For all we know, 2008 was a good vintage.) Have a look, and if you know any potential uses for Prada oil, please do let us know in the comments.

Lane Crawford, Hong Kong’s must-visit department store, celebrates its 160th anniversary this year. So how better to celebrate than with unmatchable exclusive products from the editors, stylists, and designers it’s wooed over the years? The Burberry trench and the Ming dynasty chair are two of the “heritage” items that will be getting the touch-up treatment—like Anna Dello Russo’s take on the trench, left. [WWD]

What happens when Michael Bastian—one of menswear’s top talents—takes on women’s? As this preview of his women’s collection for Gant (which his publicist and pal Eugenia Gonzalez Ruiz-Olloqui wore to the CFDAs this year) shows, it marries prepster sensibility with a little Monroe glamour. We’ll be curious to see more. [WWD]

The Internet is in an uproar over the name of one of the items from Rodarte’s new cosmetics collection for MAC—”Juarez,” a factory town in Mexico with notoriously high rape and murder rates. The people spoke, the sisters (and their corporate backers) listened: “We recognize that the violence against women taking place in Juarez needs to be met with proactive action. We never intended to make light of this serious issue and we are truly sorry,” the designers said in a statement; the names will be changed before the September release. [Vogue U.K.]

And fire up your iPhone 4 (with its splendid new bumper): New York magazine rounded up the ten best fashion apps, including, ahem, our own. We’re blushing. [NYMag]

Photo: Courtesy Photo