WWD.COMWWD, TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2009 19

FASHION SCOOPSTHE GREEN TEAM: “Oh yes, I’ve worn Topshop — the men’s clothes — and the women’s clothes, too,” deadpanned David Walliams during Sir Philip Green’s cocktail party to celebrate 25 years of London Fashion Week on Sunday night. Walliams, who regularly cross-dresses on “Little Britain,” admitted he’d donned the frocks as part of a comedy sketch for Topshop employees. Green’s moveable feast, where guests included Kate Moss, Dinos Chapman, Vivienne Westwood, Stephen Jones, Christopher Bailey, Eva Herzigova, Thandie Newton, Antonio Berardi, David Bailey, Simon and Yasmin Le Bon, and Celia Birtwell, featured dinner at the Ivy and an after party where Bryan Ferry performed a raucous live set, complete with dancers clad in sparkling minidresses. “They were kind of funny — but it worked,” joked Sting’s daughter, Kate Sumner. The crowd at it up: Moss rushed to the front to dance with Bella Freud, while Naomi Campbell hung back and grooved with Tina Green. “I’m drunk,” joked Thakoon Panichgul. “And I’m loving hanging out in London, and seeing the shows here.” Earlier that evening — when the Champagne had just begun to flow — Londoner Alexa Chung reflected on life in New York. “They are so f---ing serious there!” said the MTV presenter. “London is a much more relaxed — and amateurish — city.” Simon Cowell, meanwhile, who’s set to launch a TV entertainment business with Green, was flying the flag for the British on Sunday night. Cowell, who has his suits made by Savile Row tailor Richard Anderson, said his personal style icon is David Niven: “He was a man’s man.

FASHION POLITICS: “I am soooo psyched! There’s a Lowry at the top of the stairs — the most beautiful one I’ve ever seen,” marveled Christopher Bailey from the hallowed halls of 10 Downing Street — the British Prime Minister’s office and residence — during a party Friday night to kick off London Fashion Week. Ever the culture vulture, Bailey was referring to a painting by the British painter L.S. Lowry, one of his all-time favorites. Meanwhile, guests including Henry Holland, Gareth Pugh, Roksanda Ilincic, Stephen Jones, Osman Yousefzada, Clare Waight Keller and Maria Kastani eyeballed the portraits of Queen Elizabeth I and other British icons during the cocktail hosted by Britain’s First Lady Sarah Brown and

Maggie Darling, wife of Alistair Darling, Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer. “We’re in the house of power,” said a wonder-struck Yousefzada. “It’s a totally surreal experience.” Indeed, Matthew Williamson posed for a quick photo in front of the prime minister’s front door, prompting some guests to speculate what Britain might be like with a designer at the political helm. “Well, it would certainly be a more colorful country, wouldn’t it?” said Joseph Velosa, Williamson’s business partner, with a sly smile.

CRITIC’S CHOICE: Daniel Lalonde, fashion critic? The president and chief executive officer of Louis Vuitton North America took a spin outside his regular job description on Thursday night by judging young fashion design students at Parsons The New School for Design at a competition called Reconstruction. Vuitton donated older ready-to-wear samples designed by its creative director and Parsons alum, Marc Jacobs. Ten teams of two students created conceptual looks based on historic silhouettes, using the samples with only a day to get it done. “I came to do the easy job,” said Lalonde of his judging. “The creativity, originality and execution are wonderful.” On the panel with Lalonde were Harold Koda, curator in charge of the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Esquire fashion director Nick Sullivan; stylist Robert Verdi, and Sugar Vendil, founder and artistic director of the Nouveau Classical Project. Min Sun Kim and Lydia (Yeo Chung) Kim’s dramatic evening gown with men’s wear elements and a hand-painted hemline was judged the best. The winning students each won $2,500 and an invitation to visit the Vuitton Paris headquarters. All entries will be on view until Sept. 25 at the school’s Fifth Avenue location and will be worn by the Nouveau Classical Project for an Oct. 2 performance at The New School’s Tishman Auditorium.

MADE MY DAY: Tehama, the 13-year-old apparel line cofounded by movie star Clint Eastwood and Nancy Haley, has been

acquired by Nacabi Inc. for an undisclosed sum.

Headed up by Steven Banks and Gordon Peters, Nacabi plans to take Tehama’s distribution international to specialty retailers. Tehama will be headquartered in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., with operating offices in Denver and Toronto. Susan Shade will continue as president of the golf division, Anne Ingham will oversee design and Jamie Meyer will continue as director of operations. The sales force will remain as is, and deliveries for fall 2009 and spring 2010 are said to be on track.

H2O PLUS: De Beers group managing director Gareth Penny takes center stage at the United Nations today to discuss the diamond-mining giant’s corporate role in climate control. Penny is one of a series on executives from around the world speaking about different aspects of what their corporations do for climate change. “It’s important for the diamond business that consumers know how we mine diamonds,” Penny told WWD. “We are making sure that we do not waste any water and that we have stepped up our programs.” De Beers, which mines diamonds in arid parts of Botswana, South Africa, reuses and recycles water, which is used to help unearth rough diamonds from deep in the ground.

GREEN WITH ENVY: Yasmin Le Bon has become the latest model to hop on the designer bandwagon — and into Sir Philip Green’s fashion stable — with a collection that’s just bowed at Wallis, part of Green’s Arcadia clothing empire. Le Bon rounded up family members, including husband Simon and daughters Amber, Saffron and Alice, and pals Kelly Hoppen, Lisa Bilton and Tim and Malin Jefferies to celebrate the launch at the Sanderson Hotel last week. “I think I might have a Diana Ross moment later on,” said Le Bon, mulling changing from a petrol-blue silk blouse and leather trousers into another look she designed. Green, who cast an approving eye over the collection — which includes a navy military coat, floor-length evening dresses and a velvet tuxedo suit — said, “Yasmin is elegant, classy and gets it.” Le Bon already has some competition for the key looks. “There are so many pieces I want to steal,” said Le Bon’s model daughter Amber. “I’ve already got my excuses planned: I’m going to say the pug ate them.”

LONG WAIT FOR FAST FASHION: Brooklyn shoppers will have to wait two years for the mega H&M store, which is coming to the Fulton Street Mall in Brooklyn. The 30,000-square-foot, bilevel store is being built from the ground up by developer Albert Laboz of United American Land and was originally slated to

open in 2010, but construction delays due to its proximity to a busy subway station is pushing the opening back to fall 2011, said Laboz at a preview for the new Esquire Signature Space in the Soho Mews residential building, another Laboz project. Once it opens in the new glass-sheathed building, H&M will provide a second major anchor, after Macy’s, to the outdoor pedestrian mall, which draws 100,000 people a day to its 225 stores. H&M will be attached to an historic Beaux Arts building at 505 Fulton Street that Laboz is now marketing to other trendy retailers, with the anticipated exit of the dowdy Conway discount store from the space. “Taken by itself, Brooklyn is the fourth-largest city in the U.S. and it is very underserved by retailers, and fashion companies are realizing that,” said Laboz.

FAST AND FURIOUS: “Secretly, I would like a director to fall in love with me, and give me a small part in a film. I want them to teach me,” said Natalia Vodianova after a celebratory vodka shot with

husband Justin Portman at the Groucho Club. “I love [Quentin] Tarantino, but I heard he will torture you. Danny Boyle would be my perfect director,” she mused Saturday night at the after-show party Browns Focus hosted for Mark Fast. Guests including Alice and Charlotte Dellal, Jay Jopling, Kate Sumner, Tinsley Mortimer and her beau Prince Casimir Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn gathered at the private members club in Soho to listen to a set from DJ Alison Mosshart. “It’s a cool, Seventies rock ’n’ roll, Surrealist, Charles Manson style mix,” said the Kills singer as she took to the decks. Fast, meanwhile, admitted Tilda Swinton and Beyoncé Knowles are on his wish list of celebrity patrons, although fashion isn’t the only thing on his mind right now. “I’m looking forward to going home to Canada,” he said. “I actually get the best ideas driving on the highway, because there is nothing to see — it’s like a blank canvas.”

ANSWERING A CALL: British artist Tracy Emin took time away from her canvases to pop into Vivienne Westwood’s after-show party Sunday in London. “I don’t really have time to be out: In six weeks I have an exhibition at my gallery in New York,” referring to the Lehmann Maupin gallery. Her new works, she said, “will be similar to my line drawings.” Revelers also included Pixie Geldof, who walked the runway for Westwood earlier, and model Tarifi, who was to participate in an installation being video taped by Nick Knight. “I am going to be sitting in a large transparent box, answering phones,” laughed Tarifi, who also just wrapped a John Richmond campaign.

CROCODILE ROCK: Christopher Kane fans crowded outside Topshop’s Oxford Circus flagship in the early hours of Friday to get their hands on the designer’s latest collection, Christopher Kane for Topshop. The 39-piece clothing and accessories collection is Topshop’s largest designer collaboration to date, and features sleeveless dresses printed with a giant photo of an open-mouthed crocodile, and embellished knitwear. “I want a crocodile dress,” said Janis McNie, 20, who works at Browns in London. “I prefer the cut of the armholes of the Topshop dress to his mainline version.” Prices range from 30 pounds, or $49, for a black scarf embellished with crystals, to 150 pounds, or $245, for a black eyelet baby-doll dress. A spokesman for Topshop did not provide first-day sales figures, but said 75 percent of Topshop’s online sales on Friday came from the new Kane collection.

DOUBLE TROUBLE: Move over Madame Tussaud. This week Debenhams, the British department store chain, has lassoed some of fashion’s greats for the windows of its Oxford Street flagship. Mannequins meant to look like Anna Wintour, Suzy Menkes, André Leon Talley, Grace Coddington, Victoria and David Beckham and Anna Piaggi look chic — and suitably intimidating — as they sit

in a front-row lineup. Two other windows depict life backstage at a fashion show and a VIP after party. The windows are a tribute to the 25th anniversary of London Fashion Week. Debenhams estimates 5 million people shop on Oxford Street each week.

ON THE ROCKS: Actress Tamsin Egerton, star of the British television series “St. Trinian’s,” and guests including Alex Pettyfer, Jamie Bamber, Harry and Luke Treadaway, Georgia Groome, Tolula Adeyemi, Robert Konjic and Noelle Reno were on hand to fete the opening of the pop-up Emporio Armani Caffe at St. Martins Lane Hotel on Thursday night. Egerton, who said she is filming a movie called “4321,” which comes out in January and costars Emma Roberts, admitted she’s a sucker for comfort food. And there was more than enough of it making the rounds: Guests grazed on canapés of Parma ham with figs, char-grilled roast vegetables, riso al salto giallo and vodka-based cocktails. The space remains open until Sept. 22.

A window display from Debenhams on Oxford Street.Sarah Brown and Christopher Bailey

Eva Herzigova and Naomi Campbell

Kate Moss and David Walliams

Tracy Emin

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