Barneys

Those stories and more in our daily news roundup.

• Gisele Bundchen celebrates her 32nd birthday today. [W Magazine]
  

• Kate Moss covers the August issue of Harper's Bazaar Ukraine, wearing clothing by Roberto Cavalli and Salvatore Ferragamo in an image shot by Terry Richardson. [Fashion Foie Gras]
  

• Madonna's younger brother Christopher Ciccone will show his first collection of footwear during London Fashion Week in September. Buyers have been told to expect "a welcome reprieve to the often unwearable designs of late." [Vogue UK]
  

• Not to be outdone by Ralph Lauren or Stella McCartney, Salvatore Ferragamo has designed a set of Olympic uniforms for the Republic of San Marino. [The Daily Telegraph]
  

• Is Dame Vivienne Westwood a vain woman? No. "I look in the mirror in the morning, I put my makeup on, and I think about how old I'm getting, and then I forget about it and that's that. I'm just quite happy and satisfied with myself," she says. "Actually, I think I look my best." [Interview]
  

• Those who can't attend the physical Barneys Warehouse Sale (in New York from Aug. 23 to Sept. 3) will be able to shop the sale online for the first time this year. [Racked]
  

• Kate Spade's senior director of creative Katia Kuethe says the brand doesn't need celebrity endorsements. "I think the whole celebrity thing has become very formulaic: the idea of using a celebrity just for the sake of using one," she says. [The Cut]

Amanda Brooks says one woman's blog about country living is what inspired her take a break from working in fashion — but her friends in the industry say they have no doubt she'll be back in the game soon.

Brooks recently told The New York Times that Ree Drummond's blog The Pioneer Woman — which details Drummond's life on a cattle ranch in Oklahoma — gave her the idea to give up her job as fashion director at Barneys last March to take a yearlong sabbatical from life in New York City. "It's the idea of having a career on your own terms, anywhere," said Brooks, who's moving with her family to England for a year. While she's there she'll blog and work on a new book.

Perhaps Brooks's quest for life on her own terms started two years ago, when Diane von Furstenberg wrote the foreward for Brooks's book I Love Your Style, the designer told her, "It's time for you to figure out who is Amanda Brooks. Not Amanda Brooks who works for so-and-so. It’s time to define yourself as a woman." Below, some of Brooks's friends comment on how she's defined herself so far.

Diane von Furstenberg: "When I met her, she was very kind of WASPy and I didn't even think she was that pretty. But I loved watching her grow. She learns, she absorbs, she’s very entrepreneurial and she’s very nice."

Mark Dowley, Brooks's former boss at William Morris Endeavor: "Amanda is a complete person. Because she's so pulled together, she's incredibly disarming, but that can also be very intimidating."

Amy Astley, editor-in-chief of Teen Vogue: "She's a jock. She's the girl who is swimming in the sound in April. She's not a prissy fashion girl at all."

Artist Rachel Feinstein: "Amanda is fearless. If she decides to do something, she isn't worried about what people might think. . . She's incredibly genuine. It's hard for people to realize that someone like her is actually how she is. People want to dislike her because they can’t believe she’s had all this."

Those stories and more in our daily news roundup.

• Barneys unveiled elements of its website redesign on Thursday and will launch the new site's full features on Monday. Next week, customers will be able to "favorite" products — similar to "liking" a page on Facebook — and share their favorites through social media channels. "We are not changing the DNA of Barneys but reviving the way we communicate with customers," said Barneys' chief merchant Daniella Vitale. [Barneys]
  

• Rodarte has partnered with the Los Angeles Philharmonic to create costumes for an upcoming production of Don Giovanni. "The costumes are the kind of thing that you want to lift the music — you don't want to compete or kill it," said Kate Mulleavy. [Styleite]
  

• Istituto Marangoni, the Milanese fashion school where Domenico Dolce learned his craft, is planning to open an outpost in Shanghai. "We are proud to accompany the developing process of the fashion system in China," said the new school's director, Tim Borgmann. [Material World]
  

• A California judge granted class action status to a lawsuit against L'Oreal in which plaintiffs complain the brand didn't warn consumers that its Garnier Fructis Sleek & Shine Anti-Frizz Serum is flammable. Almost 10 million units of the serum have been sold in the United States since February 2008. [Fashion Etc.]
  

• Net-a-Porter has turned out to be a good investment for Richemont, the luxury conglomerate that owns Cartier, Chloé, and Alaia. The brand's sales helped boost Richemont's profits by 43 percent to $1.9 billion in 2011. [Vogue UK]
  

• St. John is looking for a new owner. The American brand, which is known for its suits and which has counted Angelina Jolie and Kate Winslet among its spokeswomen in recent years, has been owned by Vestar Capital Partners since 1999. [WWD]

Photo: Net-a-Porter founder Natalie Massenet during London Fashion Week Fall 2012.

Tomoko Ogura was promoted to senior fashion director of Barneys on Thursday.

A spokeswoman for Barneys told Fashionologie that the position is newly created, adding that Ogura won't replace former fashion director Amanda Brooks, who left the retailer in March. Ogura had been the women's fashion director of Barneys Co-op since April 2010.

In her new role, Ogura will report to Daniella Vitale, Barneys' chief merchant, executive vice president, and general merchandise manager for women's merchandising and Barneys.com.

Photo Courtesy of Barneys.

Amanda Brooks says she'll focus on her writing during her upcoming stay in England.

Brooks broke her blogosphere silence this week for the first time since last February with a post on her site I Love Your Style. In it, she explained that she will be taking a yearlong "creative sabbatical" when she moves with her family to a farmhouse in Oxfordshire, England, this Summer.

"First on my agenda? To get my blog and up and running again," Brooks wrote. "I also have ambitious writing plans for the next year, and you all will be the first to know about them as they unfold."

Since that post went live, Brooks has written one post a day. The most recent one focuses on trench coats designed by Junya Watanabe.

Brooks had been the fashion director of Barneys since February 2011, but she announced she would leave the retailer in March to pursue other opportunities. She released the fashion advice book I Love Your Style in 2009 and launched her blog of the same name in 2010.

>> Outgoing Barneys Fashion Director Amanda Brooks is known for her impeccable style, and the organizational system that helps her achieve it is, well, heavenly.

In a recent interview for The Aesthete, Brooks explained to stylist Annabel Tollman that her closets are organized so that she's always closest to what she wants to wear at the moment. When things go out of rotation, they get farther away from her main wardrobe — and when she doesn't wear a garment at all, it might end up in a version of wardrobe hell. Brooks elaborates:

". . . I have a main closet built into my bedroom that is my current clothing. At the end of the season, if I haven't worn something for a while I have a secondary closet in my bathroom; off-season on one side and then purgatory on the other. If things are in purgatory for a year or two and haven't been worn, then pieces go to the basement, which is the equivalent of hell, or they get given away. I have moods for things in the closet, and sometimes I regret giving things away. I'll find myself schlepping down to the basement and digging through the boxes to find a piece. The things I consider friends are the ones that never leave my main closet."

Brooks didn't speak to her decision to leave Barneys, which she announced last Thursday. But although her job is changing, she told Tollman her style will likely remain the same.

"I return to the '70s more than everything else; classic, and a little bit groovy. A little shrunken stripe with a cap sleeve, some oversize sunglasses, maybe a little flare on my jeans, the bamboo-handled Gucci bag. It suits my body; no boobs, lean hips . . . I feel like some people have a taste for one decade and a body for another. But for me my body and heart are both ’70s, so it's pretty straightforward. I'm a very contemporary creature."