Oscar De La Renta

>> After last week's rumor suggesting that Google is launching ecommerce on Wednesday, a few clarifying details have come up: the initiative Boutiques.com is actually a curation of virtual boutiques; visitors won't be able to purchase directly from Google but rather, will click through to a brand's online store or an online retailer like Saks, Net-a-Porter, or Barneys to purchase the item.

There are at least 19 designers, including Oscar de la Renta, Tory Burch, Cynthia Rowley, Marchesa, Isaac Mizrahi, Tracy Reese, Prabal Gurung, and Erin Fetherston, who have been invited to set up virtual stores on the site. There will also be curated boutiques selling looks worn by celebrities and influencers like Lady Gaga, Victoria Beckham, Emma Watson, Anna Wintour, Rachel Zoe, and Michelle Obama. Sarah Jessica Parker has been asked to set up her own personalized shop, and a handful of high profile bloggers are also said to have been invited to curate their own boutiques in exchange for a low five-figure payment.

The idea is to have any user be able to do the same — create and share their own personalized boutique with items, brands, and looks they prefer. Elements of entertainment, gaming, and social media are also planned.

>> Jason Wu may be making Lindsey Wixson's prom dress, but Karlie Kloss wore Oscar de la Renta to her homecoming dance in St. Louis over the weekend. She Tweeted of the occasion: "high school homecoming dance tonight with the girls! :) decked out in my gorg odlr gown..so excited!" But Kloss revealed in an interview with E! News last week that she has career plans other than wearing designer dresses: "Going to medical school . . . some day, I'll get there." [@karlie_kloss, YouTube]

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>> Just yesterday, Oscar de la Renta's office was celebrating Anne Hathaway on the November 2010 cover of Vogue in one of his gowns. Today, they're fighting off rumors about the designer's health.

Word started circulating during New York Fashion Week last month that de la Renta, 78, is ill and may have to give up the reins to his company. He was recovering from hip replacement surgery and well enough to walk out and wave at the end of of his show, but Page Six quotes an insider saying that since then, "Oscar is in the office taking meetings, but is weaker and takes naps to rest. There's speculation that staff and designers have recently been hired to prepare for a possible future with Oscar taking a lesser role." A de la Renta spokesman fires back: "Oscar happily is enjoying excellent health. He's putting in a full work day every day. Any new hires have nothing to do with the design process, and there is no plan whatsoever to even think of replacing him as the creative head."

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