Oscar De La Renta

At Carnegie Hall's 2012-2013 Season Opening Night Gala in NYC last night, Sarah Jessica Parker got an opportunity to show off her always fabulous style sense in a blue printed Oscar de la Renta maxi dress, Manolo Blahnik pumps, and Fallon jewels: this bib necklace ($265), this collar necklace ($375), and this crystal bracelet ($200). Her dress and baubles are not available to buy, but we can get our hands on SJP's Pierre Hardy mini snakeskin clutch ($990), which also comes with a detachable silver chain strap. Pair it with your fancy gowns like Sarah Jessica did or use it to amp up your t-shirt and jeans. It would also look amazing against an all-black look: turtleneck, pencil skirt, and pointy pumps.

Hedi Slimane has added his name to the short list of designers to respond publicly to Cathy Horyn's criticism of their work this season.

Slimane, who showed his Spring 2013 collection for Saint Laurent in Paris on Monday night, tweeted a message titled "My Own Times." The text read in part:

"Miss Horyn is a schoolyard bully and also a little bit of a stand-up comedian. Insiders argue she is an average writer, and a bit provincial, but I disagree, she did some great things. Her biggest achievement so far is a book about Bill Blass, that I haven't read. It might be terrific, and I'll be happy to recommend it, if it helps the sales. . . As far as I'm concerned, she will never get a seat at Saint Laurent, but might get two for one at Dior. She should rejoice. I don't mind critics, but they have to come from a fashion critic, not a publicist in disguise. I am quite mesmerized she did get away with it for so many years."

Horyn was not invited to the Saint Laurent show on Sunday and pointed that out in a post about the collection. She explained her exclusion thus:

"Despite positive reviews of his early YSL and Dior collections, as well as a profile, Mr. Slimane objected bitterly to a review I wrote in 2004 — not about him but Raf Simons. Essentially I wrote that without Mr. Simons's template of slim tailoring and street casting, there would not have been a Hedi Slimane — just as there would never have been a Raf Simons without Helmut Lang. Fashion develops a bit like a genetic line."

Oscar de la Renta took out a full-page ad in WWD to respond to Horyn calling him a "hot dog" in her critique of his Spring 2013 show. In it, the designer asked Horyn, "If you have the right to call me a hot dog why do I not have the right to call you a stale 3-day old hamburger?" Horyn later told us that she was trying to compliment de la Renta "as someone showing off his tricks, like a surfer."

A look at the full text of Slimane's tweet, below.

Those stories and more in our daily news roundup.

• "You may think I am high maintenance, but I assure you, the attention is worth it," Choupette Lagerfeld writes in the infamous diary her two maids keep detailing her every move. "Even my fur balls are glossy." [Grazia]
  

• Lady Gaga has sided with Oscar de la Renta in his tiff with fashion critic Cathy Horyn. "Bravo Oscar," the singer tweeted. "Only you would be so chic as to purchase an entire page in WWD, making statements like a good fashion citizen." [Styleite]
  

• Mugler creative director Christophe de Lataillade has revealed the secrets behind campaigns for the house's iconic fragrance Angel — including the set that nearly burned a model's flesh. [The Cut]
  

• Calvin Klein's ex-boyfriend Nick Gruber has accused the fashion icon of paying private eyes to "stalk" him and his new boyfriend, animator John Luciano. "Calvin can hire goons to follow John and me all he wants — we have nothing to hide. I've moved on. I've never been happier." [Page Six]
  

• Hedi Slimane will unveil his new Saint Laurent Paris store concept when he opens a store in Shanghai next week. The design, involving a lot of dark stone and mirrored surfaces, references the French art deco and Union des Artistes Modernes movements. [WWD]
  

• Versace has opened another store, too — online. Customers in Italy, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France can now buy the house's wares through a new ecommerce site. [Versace]
  

• Net-a-Porter founder Natalie Massenet has been appointed chairwoman of the British Fashion Council, succeeding its leader of five years, Harold Tillman. [The Independent]
  
  Photo via Grazia

Cathy Horyn told us the full-page ad Oscar de la Renta placed in WWD responding to her critique of his Spring 2013 collection — in which she refers to him as a "hot dog" — was the result of one big misunderstanding.

"I used the term in a professional context, as someone showing off his tricks, like a surfer," Horyn said in an email. "I thought an ad was a little over-the-top."

Hotdogging was coined as a surfing term in the '50s and generally described surfing "for flash rather than function." De la Renta's collection had plenty of flash: graffiti embroidery snaked over a lace suit jacket and dress, little cloth-covered beads hung from strings on a cardigan and a full ball gown, and the fluttery effect of one cocktail frock was created by sewing individually cut white flowers with red piping all over a strapless white A-line dress.

The designer's response to Horyn's critique was a little less flowery. The open letter reads in part, "I respect and accept criticism because in many ways it does help us develop; I try to make my work better each time. What I do not accept is when criticism is personal. If you have the right to call me a hot dog why do I not have the right to call you a stale 3-day old hamburger? My advice to you is to abstain from personal criticism. Professionals criticize the clothes, not the people."

Horyn's original critique said, "Mr. de la Renta is far more a hot dog than an éminence grise of American fashion. He opened his lively show on Tuesday with a red latex pencil skirt, a sleek ivory wool pantsuit and dairymaid lace. . . . It was wonderfully cantankerous, a good bit of window-dressing for the gooey stuff that followed."

She may have intended to be positive, but this isn't the first time that Horyn's criticism has gotten her in hot water with designers. Giorgio Armani banned Horyn from his shows in 2008, complaining in a letter to her editor about the "unnecessarily sarcastic comments" on his friends and family at his Spring 2008 couture show and saying that he "rarely found positive remarks" in Horyn's reviews. She's also been banned from shows by Dolce & Gabbana, Helmut Lang, and Carolina Herrera.

In 2010, Horyn wrote quite plainly that Alexander Wang "is not a great designer," but she was still seated at his show the next season.

We've reached out to representatives for Oscar de la Renta for a comment on Horyn's clarification and will update this post when we hear from them. For now, the original full-page ad below.