Ana Bia and Alessandra from a Halloween party...also Jeisa, Izabel G, Renata Maciel and more can be seen in more party pics featured in Ale's site




It looks like the US version of the 2006 Sports Illustrated swimsuit calendar has Daniela Sarahyba (IMG) on the cover...C Murphy got the title she wanted ("swimsuit covergirl") so no need to further torment the buying public...
Miuccia Prada, beloved by editrixes and fashion "journalists" worldwide, thankful for all the freebies they get (isn't that called "payola" in other business sectors?) spoke to the Sunday Times - she was asked about models...
Q: What do you look for in a model?
A: "It is unnatural for me to choose the girls and I don't enjoy it. I hate the idea of judging a human being in that way, I find it very embarrassing. The moment they enter the room I decide whether they are right for the show because it is their personality that has to strike me first. I'm looking for the woman who can represent my idea better than any other."
Poor Carol Trentini is reportedly one of the mods whose "personality" Miuccia doesn't like, that very first moment she appears in front of her - as for the rest, she generally trusts a certain London character who admitted that he gets "goosebumps" from "the beauty" of Gemma W and Co...

Pirelli 2006

The new Pirelli calendar is out - all I can say is that the hip snapping duette manage to make female nudity look boring. At least they shot on location, rather than the usual "high fashion" studio setting...apparently the French Riviera was chosen to "evoke Newton-like moods". I assume they refer to Helmut Newton. Jennifer Lopez, Gisele Bundchen, Guinevere Van Seenus, Kate Moss, Karen Elson and Natalia Vodianova are featured. That's about it.

US Vogue readers...

It's a well-known fact - the trailer-trash crowd that's the mainstay of the NYC fashion industry loves US Vogue and detests all its competitors...but the clueless often assumed that actual US Vogue (paying) readers must be very chic and wealthy, if they can afford the fashions and other haute stuff found in the mag...not quite... (from AdAge)

...In Touch Weekly has surged to the top of the celebrity weekly category in terms of average household income, according to the fall 2005 report from Mediamark Research Inc. In Touch readers have an average household income of $66,180, topping rivals like Wenner Media’s Us Weekly ($65,169) and Time Inc.’s People ($63,364) for the first time.
It also surpasses household incomes for readers of well-regarded and widely-read titles like Martha Stewart Living ($65,995) and Conde Nast’s Vogue ($60,432) and Glamour ($55,260)...

In fact, US Elle readers have far higher income than Vogue's - whose average reader was once described as a "thirtysomething racy NYC divorcee with 2.5 kids" ... I guess divorce payments have gone way up, since the median income of US Vogue readers used to be closer to $50,000 last time I checked...

October was a good month for several US fashion mags, compared to last year - did AW's rag perform well? You guessed right..

InStyle's ad revenue was up 30.7% to 45.66 mil and Elle's 27.1% to 33.17 mil, very close to Vogue which made 36.97 mil, a 13.6% increase...respective ad page increases were 26.1%(InStyle), 22.1%(Elle) and 1.9%(Vogue)...only W and H Bazaar did worse.

Conrad Black is indicted in the USA...in addition to being a major neocon supporter, his UK Telegraph newspaper is known as the mouthpiece of the London vogueys (the Conde Nast empire is run from London, the NYC lackeys just follow orders) while his "outspoken" fashionable wife, Barbara Amiel, is a close friend of A Wintour...

"...U.S. prosecutors announced criminal fraud charges on Thursday against Conrad Black, accusing the ex-publisher of looting his now-shrunken media empire, once one of the world's largest.
The Canadian-born Black, a flamboyant conservative who is a member of the British House of Lords, was accused of siphoning off money from his former newspaper empire through a scheme that impacted both his publishing company, U.S.-based Hollinger International Inc. , and Toronto-based holding company, Hollinger Inc.
...Black's insolvent holding company, Ravelston Corp. Ltd., was also charged earlier in relation to the $32 million that Black, Radler and other executives were said to have siphoned off from the sales of hundreds of small U.S. newspapers and publications between 1999 and 2001. The executives are accused of disguising the bonuses as non-compete payments to evade Canadian taxes.
Black's newspaper empire, which sometimes served as editorial platforms for his conservative views, began to crumble in November 2003, when he and Radler resigned from Hollinger International after an internal investigation uncovered unauthorized payments. Hollinger International's new management, which sold off flagship titles like Britain's Daily Telegraph and the Jerusalem Post, accused Black and Radler, a Canadian who lives in Vancouver, of operating a "corporate kleptocracy" that drained hundreds of millions of dollars from the company.

How kleptocracies benefit "high fashion" - Barbara Amiel, Black's wife, and where some of the stolen money went...


Hollinger International has sued Black and others for $542 million, and Hollinger Inc., which publishes the Chicago Sun-Times, has sued Black, his companies and allies for at least $534 million.
In a separate civil case, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission accused Black, Radler and Hollinger Inc. of having "cheated and defrauded" Hollinger International shareholders. In October, FBI agents seized nearly $9 million from the sale of Black's Park Avenue apartment in New York, on the grounds that they were accumulated as part of a fraud scheme..."

Conde Nast is privately owned, so they have no shareholders to swindle - they do their small-scale (compared to Hollinger) swindling by taking advantage of their monopolistic position in the NYC media sector to the benefit of their "contractors" and "major advertisers"...

First VS show backstage pics show Isabeli, Ana Beatriz, Carol T, Raquel Z, Yfke, Oluchi, various Russians (two from Kazan, one from Perm), Inguna, the "top 5", an "Andi", the wrong Bianca and at least two totally unsuitable but "hip" faces...

Isabeli and Ana Bia, pic taken around 5:13pm NYC time...



The show was over by 6:30pm - pics from the catwalk...

Mobile phone stuff...

Have a mobile phone with a mini- web browser (wap, i-mode, whatever) and want to burn some money? If you give this address:

http://winksite.com/FVsite/newmods

..and click on the "Blog" link in the main menu, a feed of this actual blog (text only, sans chat boxes) will appear on the mobile's tiny screen !!! I am impressed...
Notice - in the example of how the thing will appear on your mobile screen, just above the chat boxes on the right - that you can post "Field Reports", so now you can report your model sightings even when away from a PC...

People who do not enjoy the protection of Conde Nast can find themselves in jail for making intimidating phonecalls and engaging in "obstruction of trade"...
As for the alleged "blacklisting" threats - it's certainly not a novel concept for S Meisel and other Conde Nast "contractors"...

I am afraid Tanya Korsakova won't be in the VS show...oh well...

Although head Vogue-ette Anna Wintour has previously made light of her ex-assistant Lauren Weisberger’s best-selling roman a clef, we hear the Devil may care after all. Sources say Wintour has been doing everything in her power to ensure the film version of The Devil Wears Prada fizzles—even threatening to blacklist some of the fashion world’s biggest names if they agree to do cameos.
When Wintour got wind that producers had been recruiting major designers for walk-on roles, sources close to the film say she unleashed a flurry of phone calls intimating to the aspiring thespians that they’d be persona non grata in the pages of her high-end glossy if they participated.
Most of the designers bowed out, we hear, with the notable exception of Valentino—who made good on his promised cameo despite having born the brunt of Wintour’s discontent. (A rep for Valentino said she was unable to comment on his partcipation in the film or the drama we hear it caused at his offices.)
Of course, it wouldn’t be the first time Wintour has used her perch to punish Hollywood for depicting her world in a less-than-flattering light. When esteemed director Robert Altman was filming his 1994 fashion-world satire Pret-a-Porter, Wintour teamed up with Fairchild Publications founder John Fairchild to wage war on the production, intimidating would-be walk-ons and banning their respective publications from the movie.

Michele Alves was on FTV, showing the highrise Sao Paulo apartment she shares with her best friend - which turned out to be...Fabiana Tambosi !!! Michele said she plans to work for another three years and also go back to school - not to study civil engineering again, but maybe journalism...

Raica is in the new Rosa Cha campaign, while Ana Beatriz does Aqua De Coco



Sue their ass - Miuccia is told to pay damages...
"PRADA has been ordered to pay £16,000 in compensation after a woman was injured when the heel of her boot snapped. Rossana Salvini, 42, rejected the Italian fashion house's initial offer of £150 and took the issue to her local civil court in La Spezia in northern Italy where Judge Alberto Carvino ruled in her favour. He said that an "air bubble within the heel had prevented a nail from connecting the heel properly to the sole". As a result, Salvini says life can never be the same. "I didn't get it caught in a drain or a crack in the pavement," she says. "It just simply collapsed and I fell to the ground. From there, that's where my trouble started with the ankle and my foot. As a result of what happened I have had to forget skiing, the gym and high heels. I'm not the same woman." Prada apologised for the incident and keenly reminded its customers that this was a one-off..."
She thought she could get away with the sort of money her galpal AW paiys models for editorial work...

This dude needs a nosejob...from an older Sisley campaign...Ana looks amazing here

Not much happening - Conde Nast rags are hyping Katie like crazy - even Vanity Fair jumped into the act...will that convince Cruella Wintour to finally put Katie on the cover page? S Meisel isn't all that excited about her either...
Meanwhile, Katie is reported to have hired two "minders" to help her stay off drugs...I guess their job is to smack her when she starts making coke lines...
VS show coming up, Carol Trentini and Izabel Goulart are the new names so far, plus the three big Brazilian fashion model contest finals are close...

Raica is now regularly mentioned in the Brazilian celeb columns - in the pics below, Raica, Marcelle Bittar, Leticia Birkheuer, Michele Alves and Isabeli with beau attending the party for the launch of the TV series "Belissima" in SP - Raica also was one of the mods in a posh Rio event taking place in a golf club - bottom left pic...