Suzy Menkes

Turns out Suzy Menkes isn't the only person with thoughts about all the bloggers and street-style stars armed with cameras outside fashion shows. In Take My Picture, a new minidocumentary created by Garage Magazine, a variety of people in the fashion industry — from critics and stylists to designers and even bloggers themselves — address the phenomenon.

Tim Blanks is perhaps the most vocal person in the video, even though he says he initially found it "charming . . . for so many different kinds of people to be so enthusiastic about fashion." Now, he's just had enough.

"It's empowering, but it's empowering in the way that reality TV has been empowering," Blanks says in the video. "It makes monsters. It doesn't make gods; it makes monsters. It's coarsened, but that's always the process, isn't it — with everything? You can't think of any leap forward that didn't at some point become a parody of itself. But then what happens next?"

And while some of the people in the video agree that the throngs of people outside shows have gotten to be a little too much, others defend street-style photography and the growth of blogging as having redeeming qualities.

"Of course now it's one of the strategies," says Vika Gazinskaya, an oft-snapped Russian designer who first started showing her brand in 2007. "And as I always say, it's a great opportunity for young designers who have no budget for advertising. It's the best way, of course."

A look at what others from the industry, including Tommy Ton, Susanna Lau, Phil Oh, and Hanneli Mustaparta had to say on the matter in the video below.

Consider it a master class in how to start a media firestorm. Suzy Menkes's recent T Magazine essay about the changing nature of Fashion Week has elicited passionate responses from the people she fingers as the cause of that change: bloggers.

And how could it not?

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

• Andrew Allen and Georg Petschnigg used their app Paper by Fifty Three to sketch moments from WWD's CEO Summit, like Karl Lagerfeld's Q&A with Bridget Foley. [WWD]
  

• Will Gemma Ward return to modeling? [Perth Now]
  

• Jason Wu won't accept outside investors anytime soon: "I've always grown based on whatever I can afford," Wu said. "I know what I'm spending. It's my money. It's kept me quite realistic in what I can do." [Washington Post]
  

• Anna Sui resurrected a floral pattern originally used in her Spring 2009 collection for her luggage collaboration with Tumi. [Teen Vogue]
  

• This year's Oscar nominees have been announced. [BuzzSugar]
  

• Damien Hirst's signature polka dots adorn the statuette he designed for the 2013 Brit Awards. [Vogue UK]
  

• Daniel Vosovic's target demographic is "the whiskey-drinking perfectionist." [Fashionista]
  

• Dolce & Gabbana's Spring 2013 video captures the ideal Sicilian Summer holiday. [AnotherMag]
  
  

Those stories and more here in our daily news roundup.

• The Municipality of Florence will award Suzy Menkes the Fiorino d'Oro — an award for contributions to the city — during the upcoming Pitti Uomo men's trade show. [WWD]
  

• If rumors are to be believed, Vogue has tapped Beyoncé for its March 2013 cover. [HuffPost Style]
  

• Over 100 retailers, including DVF, Helmut Lang, Marc Jacobs, and Tory Burch, are offering postholiday markdowns on select merchandise. [Racked]
  

• Many retailers hope their new promotions will make up for a lower-than-expected holiday shopping numbers. [WWD]
  

• In related news, Maison Martin Margiela has relaunched its website. [MMM]
  

• It's official: Terry Richardson is making a documentary about Lady Gaga. [Fashionista]
  

• Phillip Lim's pop-up store in Hong Kong, which opened its doors last week and will stay open for 10 months, is the brand's first temporary space in Asia. [3.1 Phillip Lim]

Photo courtesy of Maison Martin Margiela for H&M.

>> Right here, in our daily news round up.

>> Gareth Pugh has come a long way from living in a squat house in 2005. The road hasn't been an easy one, however, he tells Vice in its new Style Issue: "We didn’t sell anything from the poodle or gimp shows — nothing until the fourth or fifth show. My first show was such a last-minute thing. I was only really thinking about the show and not selling stuff afterward. But once you start showing, you’re on the treadmill and have to carry on." Even a couple of years ago, he says, "There was a point, right before a show, when I barely had enough money to get my team over to Paris."

But now, Pugh is definitely starting to consider the financial aspect of his brand (and perhaps explains why he leans toward short films in place of runway shows): "At the moment I feel very much between a rock and a hard place. People expect an amazing show, but in order to do that in Paris you have to sell a lot of clothes, which maybe means people have to be able to imagine the clothes on hangers."

More from Pugh in Vice:

On why he opened his first store in Hong Kong: "Rick Owens’s wife, Michelle Lamy [Pugh's backer], thinks moneyed Chinese women like to look very chic, like avant-garde punks. I just make more sense over there. In America I’m seen as a little bit niche and weird."

On his relationship with Rick Owens: "I’m closer to his wife, Michelle. He always describes himself as the distant, stern father figure and she is like the overgenerous mother. She’s very critical about what I do, which I like. It’s good to have someone who doesn’t always give you unadulterated praise."

On his strangest fashion industry experiences: "Driving to the Palace of Versailles with Jeremy Scott, Suzy Menkes, Jefferson Hack, and Anouck Lepere was pretty funny. Everyone wanted to see this Jeff Koons exhibition — Anouck tried to climb the fence, Jefferson got into a fight with a security guard, and Suzy Menkes was taking pictures. That was weird. Oh, and the time I’d booked my housemates a holiday in Gran Canaria but got flown to New York to shoot with Mario Testino. I ended up at the Met Ball afterward and found myself having a fag with Christian Slater in the toilets while David Beckham took a piss at the urinal. The toilets there are a real superstar clusterf*ck. I just couldn’t work out why I was there."

On the clothes he wears: "I never buy clothes, so I don’t really have a choice when it comes to what I wear. I am very lucky to be able to pull a lot of Rick Owens and steal some of my stuff from the factory. (I have to steal my own samples [because] I don’t get a personal order quota. It’s a license.) But other than that I buy H&M hoodies and Topshop jeans."

On why he doesn't use much color: "The designs are more about the whole thing rather than the details, and if I were to do the big shapes I do, color would maybe be too much. Pink or red would push it all over the edge."

>> Some rumors have the Dior job signed and sealed — with Riccardo Tisci at the helm — but according to LVMH head Bernard Arnault, as of this morning, no decision had been made about John Galliano's replacement. “We’re thinking,” he said at the Louis Vuitton show. Suzy Menkes reports: "People close to LVMH who chose not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the subject say [Marc] Jacobs is a possible candidate, but he does the Vuitton thing so well that it would be a risk to move him." When asked whether he had designs on the Dior position, Jacobs replied: "No! I haven’t been asked.” [IHT]

>> Of Nicola Formichetti's debut Mugler collection on Wednesday, Suzy Menkes pondered, "But did those outfits really make their mark on fashion?" And Style.com noted of the debut: "It didn't blow you away, either in its affinities to Thierry Mugler's originals or with its future vision." But according to Formichetti, neither are important: “I just wanted to bring the fun back. It’s not so much about the clothes.” [IHT]

>> Earlier in the week, a spokesman for John Galliano's namesake label confirmed that their Sunday show would go on as usual, but now it sounds like there has been a change of plans, after all. A couple of reports have popped up on Twitter that the Galliano show has been canceled, while a spokesperson for the brand told FashionEtc. that the show will go on as scheduled March 6, but "the format has yet to be determined," which makes it sound like the planned runway show has been canceled and will instead be a presentation or showroom visits by appointment.

As Suzy Menkes writes, "The future of the John Galliano brand, which is underwritten by Dior, relies on licenses and barely breaks even financially, is complex. Executives will have to see whether those external partners still want to be associated with a designer whose name has been globally smirched." And the Wall Street Journal adds: "Mr. Galliano's smaller line that carries his own name has remained a small business that depends largely on licenses for such products as perfumes and sunglasses for its sales."

UPDATE: There will be an informal presentation for the Galliano brand on Sunday, consisting of 30 looks that were already completed. “We just felt it wasn’t appropriate to do a classic fashion show,” says Galliano’s spokesman, Alexandre Malgouyres. “But we’re doing John’s collection, for John, so that he returns quickly.” [WSJ]