John Galliano

All the news bits fit to print, here in our daily roundup.

• Newly installed French President Francois Hollande has stripped John Galliano of his membership in the French Legion of Honor. Galliano was awarded the honor in 2010 but was dismissed from his post at Dior for making anti-Semitic comments in Paris early last year. [The Cut]
  

• Andy Warhol's artwork and eye for color combinations have been incorporated into a Holiday collaboration with Nars cosmetics. Sephora will launch an exclusive run of the products on Oct. 1, and department stores and other specialty stores will get their products on Nov. 1. [WWD]
  

• Stella Tennant models because she hasn't found anything better to do. "I said I wasn't going to model after having my son," she says. "Now I just think, 'Fine, I enjoy the people a lot.' And I haven't found a better part-time job." [WSJ. Magazine]
  

• Lululemon has sued Calvin Klein for creating a pair of trousers that infringe on the patent it holds on v-shaped waistbands in yoga pants. [Racked]
  

• A Brian Atwood ad featuring Candice Swanepoel and a team of half-naked male models writhing around a darkened apartment has been banned from the billboard above Atwood's Madison Avenue store in New York City. [Modelinia]
  

• InStyle fashion director Hal Rubenstein has taken on the new role of editor at large. The change follows rumors that Rubenstein was trying to find more time to devote to personal projects. [WWD]

If rumors are to be believed, John Galliano may be joining Hedi Slimane as a resident of Los Angeles in the near future.

According to a story in The Hollywood Reporter, a kilt-wearing Galliano was seen lunching with Katherine Ross — a former public relations executive for LVMH who now works as a consultant for Balenciaga — in the City of Angels late last month. The next day, he was overheard telling friends that he and his partner Alexis Roche — who worked as a style consultant at Dior during Galliano's tenure — are looking for apartments in Los Angeles, intimating that Roche wants to start a career as a celebrity stylist.

Roche's Twitter account was silent for most of July and as of yet has not offered any updates relating to the rumored move. In March, LA-based jewelry designer Markus Molinari tweeted at Roche, saying that it was "GREAT seeing you and John and that little dog of yours at lunch!" In April, Galliano was spotted breaking bread with Grace Coddington in New York, and just last month he was seen meeting with Anna Wintour in Paris during Couture week.

In June, Slimane announced that he would design Saint Laurent Paris from the city, where he's lived for several years.

Those stories and more in our daily news digest.

>> After over a year of searching for a creative director to replace John Galliano, Dior has finally selected Raf Simons to lead the storied French fashion house.

Simons, who was recently ousted from the director's chair at Jil Sander, will pick up the reins at Dior this week. The house will make the official announcement on Wednesday, and Simons will present his first collection for the brand in July during Paris's Fall 2012 haute couture shows.

Simons's selection makes sense — his final collection for Jil Sander featured clothing that experimented with couture techniques and drew on midcentury silhouettes, rendered in Dior's signature reds, beiges, and pale pinks. It lent credence to the idea that Simons was auditioning for the role — or was at least being considered for it — but media speculation pointed more directly at other designers, like Marc Jacobs and Haider Ackermann.

But Simons will be a fresh start for a house that for a long time was led by a isolated artist. Cathy Horyn noted that Simons is the opposite of Galliano in his approach to creating fashion — an idea the designer echoes. "I'm someone who takes responsibility," he said. "I'm not an isolated person. The more I connect to people, the more I have the feeling that things work."

The job became available in March 2011, when longtime Dior creative director John Galliano was fired for making a string of anti-Semitic remarks in public. Bill Gaytten, Dior's studio director, has been filling in for Galliano in the interim. But Simons wasn't a candidate until October or November of last year, when he began meeting with Dior CEO Sidney Toledano and LVMH chairman Bernard Arnault about the job.

Simons hasn't started designing his first collection for Dior yet, but he said he is looking forward to the challenge of interpreting the house's history for the 21st century.

"Mr. Dior was very innovative during a short time span. And it was in the middle of the 20th century, a period I am very interested in, whether it’s linked to fashion, architecture or art," he said.

>> Because there wasn't enough speculation about the Dior job already, fashion news minders have honed in on a Haider Ackermann quote that suggests he wants to take over the reins at the storied French fashion house.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Ackermann revealed that he has his eye set on not just one creative director's chair, but two.

"There are two houses I would be interested in," Ackermann said. "Two where I feel there is shared sensibility, and I could bring something else of myself to the house, which isn't expressed in my own line."

Ackermann declined to tell FT which houses he was talking about, but did admit that his dream is to work on a couture collection. He's been rumored to be in the running for the Dior job since the house's last creative director, John Galliano, was fired last March, and Karl Lagerfeld told Numero in 2010 that he wanted Ackermann to succeed him at Chanel.

Ackermann says no matter which job he does next, he's prepared for the pressure. "This is fashion, it's not surgery," he said. "It's a job; a job with a lot of dreams woven in."