• Marc Jacobs' wedding to Lorenzo Martone, which the designer says will happen "soon," is going to have a ridiculously exclusive guest list. Not a single friend or family member will be getting an invite, since it's just going to be the two of them. [Cut]
• Project Runway finally returns to the air on Thursday evening. So will the Lifetime iteration be the same show you remember from its run on Bravo? Not so much, it seems. [NYDN]
• Meanwhile, Nina Garcia will be making an appearance this fall on the new CW series, The Beautiful Life. [FWD]
• The website and schedule for Fashion's Night Out is now online. The retail pep rally, which goes down on Sept. 10, will include Anna Wintour and Michael Kors signing t-shirts at a Macy's in Queens, believe it or not.

• Not to be outdone by Gwyneth Paltrow and her GOOP newsletter, Rachel Zoe is launching a lifestyle e-newsletter of her own tomorrow. [RachelZoe.com]
• Is Kanye West designing a line for the Gap? That's the rumor. [Cut]
• Thom Browne has had a rough time recently, but it looks like that may be all behind him. Japan's Cross Company has taken a stake in his company and plans to help him expand. [Style.com]
• It looks like the fashion set will be dividing its time between the tents in Bryant Park and Milk Studios this coming Fashion Week. [Fashionologie, FWD]
• Gisele Bundchen is lending her voice to a new children's cartoon. She'll play Gigi, "a supermodel by day, environmental superhero by night." [Elle]
• Ready for retailers to start Christmas promotions? No? Too bad! [WSJ]
• Related: Retailers have gone discount-crazy, as you may have noticed. [NYT]

• The latest ad campaign for Chanel handbags, shot by Karl Lagerfeld himself, features a very Holly Golightly-looking Lily Allen. [Pipeline, Cut]
• A new front-runner has emerged to possibly take over struggling Christian Lacroix. This time it's Italian retail giant Borletti. [WWD, AFP]
• More trouble for American Apparel and its founder Dov Charney? An anonymous store manager reports Charney has been busy firing employees "he deems unattractive." [Gawker]
• Amber Valletta is the latest supermodel to launch a clothing line. [Cut]

• Christian Lacroix saved? Possibly! Although Lacroix is keeping mum, a bidder for the struggling fashion house may have emerged. [WWD, Reuters]
• More depressing news about the state of the retail: Manhattan's vacancy rate is 6.5% and rising. [NYT]
• Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen are on the list of the 31 new inductees into the Council of Fashion Designers of America. Like, congrats! [FWD, Cut]
• Hermès reports sales were up 12% during the second quarter. If you've continued to shop there despite the downturn, don't pat yourself on the back. Credit the strong sales of Kelly purses in Asia. [BN]
• It's bad news all around for fashion magazines this September. Ad pages in W are down 53% from last year; Allure has witnessed a 52% drop-off; Vogue is down 37%; and Elle has experienced a 21% decline. [AdAge]
• Rumor has it reality TV star/train wreck Susan Boyle is posing for a Harper's Bazaar photo shoot. The good news? She won't be on the cover. [DM]

[Italian "Vogue" editor Anna Piaggi arrives at Paris Haute Couture Fashion Week for the Christian Lacroix show; image via Getty. Incidentally, I also liked this image today, from Piaggi's home country.]

• In the market for a $40,000 dress? Better jump on a plane to Paris. Haute Couture Week kicked off today. [AP, Vogue UK, Independent, FWD]
• The situation at Christian Lacroix, which filed for bankruptcy a few weeks back, is getting bleaker by the day: The company may be reduced from 124 employees to 12 if a buyer doesn't materialize soon. [WWD, Cut]
• The JCPenney at the Manhattan Mall opens in a mere 25 days. Don't forget to update your cousins in Omaha so they can mark their calendars. [Racked]
• Roberto Cavalli claims he never pays attention to costs ("I don't know anything about the financial crisis"), thinks Dubai is "a city for the future," and says all he really wants is to be loved. So, yes, he's human. [Times UK]
• Elle's Joe Zee is now tweeting, just so you know. [Twitter]

• Courtney Love may be incapable of paying her AmEx bill, but that isn't stopping her from launching her own clothing line. Coming soon: "cotton ribbed body suits" and "cashmere harem pants." [Grazia, SW]
• Emma Watson is the new face of Burberry. [Vogue]
• Bee Shaffer may be attending posh parties at the Venice Biennale right now, but she's also job hunting at the moment, in case you weren't aware. Then again, she's also interested in studying acting, so she may just do that instead. [FWD]
• Five months after he was kicked to the curb, Fabien Baron is returning to Interview as the mag's editorial director. [WWD, FWD]
• Now's the time to hit up Save Fashion; the festivities end on Friday. [Pipeline]

• Rihanna seemed to have a lock on an upcoming Vogue cover. But that was before nude pics of her appeared online and now Anna Wintour won't return her phone calls. At least that's the rumor that is now circulating with the tabloids. [The Insider]
• Pics of the fashion set at Saturday's polo match on Governors Island. [WWD, Vogue UK, Marie Claire]
• Karl Lagerfeld headed to Moscow last week. He wasn't impressed by the food or the men, although he did find Naomi Campbell's beau "quite stunning." [Cut]
• Bid farewell to the giant DKNY billboard on Broadway and Houston. [Racked]

• Forbes's annual list of the highest-paid models is online and poor Gisele Bundchen has taken a blow: She's only made $25 million over the past year, down from $35 million the year before. Heidi Klum and Kate Moss were both up for the year, however, so it isn't all bad news, thank goodness. [Forbes]
• Speaking of Gisele, she is not pregnant, at least according to husband Tom Brady. [Us]
• Christian Lacroix's fashion house filed for bankruptcy in Paris today. [NYT]
• Project Runway will be the same show it's always been when it finally returns to the air later this summer. [Cut]

High-end fashion houses selling the most unnecessary of luxury products at outrageous prices: might the collapse of the global economy give them some troubles? Yes, it turns out. Bad troubles.

Jamie-Lynn Sigler is 28 today. Fox News chief Roger Ailes is turning 69. Chazz Palminteri is 57. Jasper Johns is 79. Former Secretary of State Madeline Albright is turning 72. Current Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius is turning 61. The founder of Essence Communications, Ed Lewis, is 69. Sportscaster Dan Patrick is 53. Ahmet Zappa is turning 35. Brian Eno is 61. Former football player Emmitt Smith is turning 40. Learning Annex founder Bill Zanker is 55. And actor David Charvet, better known as the father of Brooke Burke's kids, is 37. Weekend birthdays—including that of Edgar Bronfman Jr. and Charles Kushner—below.

• Were you looking forward to that Kate Moss cookbook that was rumored to be in the works? It ain't happening, according to her rep. [SW]
• Topshop is scouting for a second location (possibly near 34th Street), and Nordstrom is looking to crack the Manhattan market. [NYM]
• Simon Doonan on Michelle Obama's edgy fashion choices last week: "What's next? Lady Gaga zippers on the eyes?" [NYO]
• The owner of Christian Lacroix is in talks to sell a stake in the company. [WSJ]
• Designer Samantha Pleet has a fashion-centric reality show in the works. And Bee Shaffer was approached to do a show, too. [Pipeline]
• Spa Week runs from April 13 to 19, if you're interested. [Metromix]

• The premiere of the new Valentino documentary last night attracted the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow, Claire Danes, Madonna, and Anne Hathaway, although the big topic of discussion was the designer's collection of pugs—Milton, Monty, Maude, Margot, Maggie, and Molly. [WWD, BB, SW]
• So, like, what's the deal with Valentino's tan? Don't ask Matt Tyrnauer, who followed the designer around for years to make the doc: "He does have that Mediterranean skin, but beyond that, I'm not sure." [NYM]
• Project Runway finalist Kenley Collins was arrested today for assaulting her fiance with their cat. We're not sure what means either. [NYP]
• CNN's profile of French Vogue's Carine Roitfeld is now online. [Fashionologie]

• Malia is totally into "pleats and pared-down things," but is not a "huge fan of sparkles." Sasha, on the other hand, totally adores "bright colors and sparkly things." Could America's first daughters be any cuter? [WSJ]
• IMG would really love it if Michelle Obama turned up for Fashion Week next month. [SF]
• The mood was not very cheery at Men's Fashion Week in Milan, reports Guy Trebay, who says designers appeared to be reacting to the downturn "by staging a mass memorial for themselves. [NYT]
• Rumor has it 60 Minutes is planning a story on Anna Wintour. [NYM]
• Is Barneys' parent company putting the retailer up for sale? [BN]
• A sneak peek at Scarlett Johansson's new ads for D&G makeup. [SW]
• Not surprisingly, Jason Wu's website has been flooded with traffic. [FWD]
• Christian Lacroix's fab Paris apartment is up for sale. [Fashionologie]
• Sad and very disturbing: Brazilian model Mariana Bridi had to have her hands and feet amputated due to a life-threatening blood infection. [NYDN]

Dressing Michelle Obama for her husband's inauguration on January 20th will be one lucky fashion designer's dream come true: As images of the Obamas are beamed to every corner of the globe, her outfit will become instantly iconic. A long list of famous designers submitted sketches to WWD of the dresses they'd like to create for Mrs. O, and we're guessing they all spent a good deal of time thinking through every last detail. One thorny matter they all seemed to struggle with: what color to depict Michelle's skin. As you'll see from the gallery above (click here for a larger pic), some designers, like Monique Lhuillier and Rachel Roy, opted to entirely side-step the historic fact that our new First Lady will be African-American by not breaking out the brown pencil at all. A couple of people, including Carolina Herrera, contented themselves with a few vague tawny strokes, while others (Lacroix, for example) were apparently so delighted to finally get to use their darkest sketch marker that they went a little, um, overboard. One thing almost everyone agreed on, though? That Michelle has the waist of a 12-year-old girl.