Franca Sozzani

Those stories and more in our daily news roundup.

• Franca Sozzani has been named the goodwill ambassador for Fashion 4 Development, a program that works with the United Nations to encourage leaders in the industry to work on sustainable development initiatives. [WWD]
  

• Newly appointed Vogue Australia editor Edwina McCann says there's a lot to live up to in her new position. "I've had to go and completely re-buy my dog walking gear, which is ridiculous," she says. "I've never felt that pressure before." [Catwalk Queen]
  

• Lana Del Rey is rumored to be the new face of H&M. News reports on Friday said the singer was shooting a campaign for the brand in New York, but reps for both parties kept mum. [Styleite]
  

• Talk about fast fashion: the time it takes Zara to create new product is "as short as two weeks from an idea in a designer's head to a garment on a Zara store's shelf." [Slate]
  

• On the flipside, Mary Katrantzou says she isn't able to do Resort collections because her intricate prints take too long to produce. "We worked out that it takes on average four days to create a print, and we create about 40 prints a collection, so we need 160 days — that's eight months for one person, four months for two people," she said. [Vogue UK]
  

• Prada partnered with artist Vahram Muratyan on a line of t-shirts (above) based on the Parallel Universes GIFs he created to commemorate the brand's Fall 2012 campaign. [High Snobiety]
  

• M Missoni launched a Facebook page this week. [M Missoni Facebook]

>> Get caught up on all of those stories and more in our daily news roundup.

• Did Vogue Italia Editor-in-Chief Franca Sozzani get marred and not tell anyone about it? The magazine's website posted a scan from the Ugandan newspaper Red Pepper, which pictures Sozzani sitting next to oil magnate Charles Mbire. The paper referred to Sozzani as Mbire's wife, but Sozzani said the newspaper had bad intel. "The marital status I prefer is being single," she said. [Vogue Italia]
  

• Supermodel Elle Macpherson turned 48 today — and she still looks better than most people do at 24. [The Fab Life]
  

• Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana have landed cameo roles in director Woody Allen's new film To Rome With Love, which debuts April 20. Penelope Cruz — the film's lead actress — will wear pieces from the duo's Spring 2012 collection in the film. [The Cut]
  

• André Leon Talley has been off the airwaves since leaving the judging panel of America's Next Top Model, but soon he'll be back. In a new Bravo reality series — currently titled Fashion Stories of NYC — Tally will supervise competing teams of "emerging designers striving to build a business in New York City, which remains the heart of the fashion industry." [Fashionista]
  

• Vogue UK Editor Alexandra Shulman has written her first book. Her new novel, Can We Still Be Friends, is about three pals who went to college together in the '80s, and afterward have to deal with what the real world does to their lives and their relationships with one another. [Fashion Etc.]

>> Those stories and more in our daily news roundup.

• Franca Sozzani defended Vogue Italia's recent Haute Mess spread against accusations that it was racist, saying that it was not her intention to cause controversy with images of candy bars pasted into models' hairdos. "A racist image, I really do not understand," she said. "I went through the pages so many times. Like when we did the Black Issue, everybody said that we did that on purpose because Obama was the person chosen to go to the White House, and if you just think one second, not more than one second, you can see that to make a magazine like what we did for the Black Issue, it takes six months [to do]. … What do you answer? They don't know what it means to work at a magazine. That's it." [The Cut]
• Menswear designer Simon Spurr left his eponymous fashion label last week without explanation. "At this moment, I'm not at liberty to say anything about what's gone on," he stated in an email. His unexpected departure came just a week after being nominated for the CFDA's menswear designer of the year award. [WWD]
• Despite a statement from Vogue to the contrary, rumors have persisted that current cover girl Jennifer Lopez will be performing at the Met Gala this May. She's been a regular attendee of the event in the past, and with the added attention of being on the magazine's cover this Spring, the idea that she'll perform makes sense. Wait and see. [Fashion Etc.]

>> Vogue Italia editor Franca Sozzani took home the grandest honor France has to offer on Wednesday when she was inducted into the Legion of Honor — and she chose a distinctly Italian dress for the occasion.

Sozzani donned one of the black-and-gold embroidered dresses Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana sent down the runway during their Fall 2012 show, and allowed French president Nicolas Sarkozy to affix her new legion pin to it in the ceremony this afternoon. She follows in the footsteps of American Vogue's editor Anna Wintour, who wore a Chanel couture suit that had been on the runway less than 24 hours before her induction ceremony last year. But even if Wintour hadn't won the award, Sozzani would still be in good company. This year's other inductees included actress Michelle Yeoh and pianist Aldo Ciccolini.

The newly knighted editor told Interview in a recent profile that she's successful because she's always had the freedom to experiment and do what she wants to do with her magazine.

"Everybody can give me their suggestions, but at the end, the final risk is mine because it's my name on the magazine. So I only do what I really feel. Everybody tries to influence you, of course . . . I listen, but I must go my own way."

>> Franca Sozzani, who publicly stated her allegiance to John Galliano right after he was fired from Dior in February, hasn't changed her tune: “Hire back John Galliano."

She continues: “Look. I understand their point of view [at Dior]. I understand they couldn’t just say, ‘Bad boy! We forgive you! Come back!’ But it’s really a pity. And I will never believe he believed what he said. I think he was drunk and alone in a bar. When people go crazy, they go crazy. It’s a human case, it’s not political or religious. He didn’t kill anyone!”

She also gives an opinion on her former Vogue colleague Carine Roitfeld, who she says was “very good at building up her own image.” Sozzani suggests that Roitfeld forgot she worked for Conde Nast and became too interested in having her picture taken. “I’m not a celebrity, I’m an editor,” Sozzani says. “If you feel that to be the editor of Vogue you have to be a celebrity, something is wrong in your life.”

>> Franca Sozzani is putting her money where her mouth is with Vogue Italia's June 2011 cover. After devoting a special section to "curvy" women on the magazine's website (of those highlighted she recently said: "Why should these women slim down? Many of the women who have a few extra kilos are especially beautiful and also more feminine"), Sozzani has cast a trio of plus-size models for the magazine's latest cover. No Crystal Renn, the current "plus-size" model du jour, in sight — instead, Steven Meisel shot Tara Lynn, Candice Huffine, and Robyn Lawley in black and white, marking the first time plus-size models have graced the magazine's cover since the days of Sophie Dahl, circa 2000. [Models.com]

• See Marchesa's new Spring 2012 bridal collection — InStyle
• LA hot sale: Anthropologie jewelry trunk show — Refinery29
• Global style: the jet-set jeweler — Vogue Daily
• Reed Krakoff's treadmill is a catwalk — Interview
• Enter Prabal Gurung's Spring color blocking contest — Prabal Gurung
• Franca Sozzani on having separate pages for ‘black’ and ‘curvy’ Vogue readers — The Cut
• Bottega Veneta "Nero" crocodile soft clutch: clutch it if you can — Bag Snob
• Crystal Renn gives you permission to talk about her weight — Jezebel

>> Franca Sozzani recently explained why Steven Meisel has shot every Vogue Italia cover since 1988: "I needed to have a consistent, recognizable look to every cover. My idea was that even if you took the word “Italia” off, you know what Vogue Italia is. Many magazines don’t seem to have a connection between one cover and the next, and it becomes hard to tell them apart. Especially today — images can be printed in such a high quality, but that also flattens them out, in a way. There’s a similar problem in fashion. Everyone can buy clothes — the most accessible clothes are not of the best quality, but unless you look at the label, you don’t know who it’s by. It’s this kind of oversaturation that makes me believe we are on the brink of another huge change." Sozzani also believes that putting resources into the Vogue Italia website has paid off for the magazine: "The website is doing a great job because it functions as a teaser for the magazine. September, October, and November our sales were up 27 percent, and this is because of the web. Everyone has this idea that online will kill print, but it’s not true. Like everything else, it depends on how you do things." [Models.com]