Vinoodh Matadin

>> Emmanuelle Alt's first Vogue Paris cover — for April 2011 — came out last week, with Gisele Bundchen photographed by Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin in a white Dolce & Gabbana dress — a dress that has also been recently featured on the covers of Vogue Spain and Germany. Is Alt planning to go the supermodel route again for May, her second cover? Apparently she recently styled Kate Moss in a haute couture editorial for Vogue Paris's May issue — shot by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott in London. It seems unlikely that the shoot wouldn't come with a cover deal, and Moss is, after all, among the coterie of Alt's favored models. [Telegraph UK]

>> Emmanuelle Alt made her front row debut as Vogue Paris editor at Alexis Mabille's couture show this morning. Alt's name appears on top of the magazine's masthead starting with the April 2011 issue, which will feature Gisele Bundchen on the cover, photographed in St. Barts by Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin. However, it apparently won't be until the August 2011 issue that the magazine completely reflects Alt's new direction. [WWD]

>> Stefano Pilati has an appreciation for things like Pee-Wee Herman, Glee, Rihanna, and LCD Soundsystem (which now provides music for Yves Saint Laurent's shows), but he also knows how to get serious. Yves Saint Laurent's sales have gone from nearly $100 million in losses to a profit, he tells W's February 2011 issue — not that it's been easy.

Because the label's founder so transcended fashion, Pilati says, he feels obliged to design to a higher standard — creating collections to build a woman's wardrobe over time rather than capturing a moment. His debut Yves Saint Laurent collection, he explains, “was the first time in my career that I didn’t think about a theme, when I started to think about something that could be timeless. I said to myself, You need to be relevant to a different level now. You can’t be only ‘I like red, and clogs instead of moccasins.’”

Working at Yves Saint Laurent has also made Pilati think about more than just the clothes he wants to create. "I’m not a businessman,” he says, “but I’ve become one by necessity.” It's routine for fashion brands to give accessories prime real estate in their ad campaigns — because handbags and shoes account for such a large percentage of their businesses. But Inez van Lamsweerde, who photographs Pilati's YSL ads every season with her husband, Vinoodh Matadin, says: “In the beginning, we almost had to beg him to put a bag in the picture. He said, ‘No, with this dress, you would not wear a bag — that’s not chic; that’s not how it works.’” Pilati has learned since — the latest Saint Laurent ads show Arizona Muse, bag in plain view.

When Pilati is asked whether he wishes he had a business partner counterpart like Pierre Berge to take all the commercial aspects off his hands, he replies: “It would be fantastic to be purely creative. Still, you want to walk in the street and see people wearing your clothes, and to do that you have to direct your creativity. So you already fulfill a part of what we think about as marketing from a commercial point of view. Giving the pantsuit to women — that was creative and instinctive, but it was also supported by the fact that women needed it, and, Berge or no Berge, Saint Laurent was the one who did it. The role of Berge, or today of the CEO, is to create a structure that can help your objective and sell the idea.”

There have been rumors about Pilati's standing at the company, but YSL CEO Valerie Hermann describes her relationship with Pilati as “a nice tension.” They have “constructive confrontations,” she says, but: “I’m learning from what he’s saying and listening with respect. What’s most important is that we always agree about where we want to go with the brand, and the confrontation is about how to get there.”

Pilati breaks his relationship with Hermann down as thus: "The roles are by nature split in the sense that the CEO has to respond to a group with numbers and performance and budget and business plans, while the creative director is almost at the service of the CEO. In those days, Saint Laurent was doing the tuxedo, and Berge helped him sell it. Now we live in a moment when we need to thank the CEO. I’m doing the bags, I’m doing the shoes, I’m doing the satin dresses, I’m doing the tuxedo, but if the performance of the brand is good, it’s because it has been managed well, and that includes managing the creative director.”

>> Designers appearing in their own fragrance ads is no new concept — Marc Jacobs did it recently for Bang, and Yves Saint Laurent did it back in the '70s for YSL Pour Homme. But the latest to be captured — for Jimmy Choo's first-ever fragrance — is Tamara Mellon, in the campaign shot by Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin. [The Cut]

>> After seasons and seasons of supermodel faces — Christy Turlington, Claudia Schiffer, Daria Werbowy, Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss — Stefano Pilati has chosen a new face for Yves Saint Laurent's Spring 2011 campaign: that of Arizona Muse (she also happens to be a Spring 2011 Prada face). In the first image released, Muse wears the dress she wore to close the house's Spring 2011 show, and Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin captured her in the gardens of a 1930s villa in Marrakech's Palmeraie resort, true to Yves Saint Laurent's Moroccan ties.

UPDATE: More images from the campaign can be seen here.

• Kanye West is reportedly having Christophe Decarnin custom-remake a portion of the Balmain Fall 2010 collection, "specifically seventies-centric pantsuits, cutaway coats, and gilded jeans," for an upcoming tour [Hint]
• According to a Conde Nast source, there will most likely not be another Fashion's Night Out fashion show next September [Fashionista]
• On 2010 Vogue covers (American and international), Natasha Poly was the most frequently used model, Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin were the most frequently used photographers, and Dolce & Gabbana the most frequently used designer [Fashin]
• Bryanboy says he makes more than $100,000 per year from advertising on his blog and charging fees for appearances [The Cut]
• Marilyn Minter shot Jimmy Choo's 15th anniversary ads, marking her first luxury campaign, below [Elle]

• Liya Kebede's film Desert Flower, in which she plays Somalian model Waris Dirie, finally has a release date is the US: March 18. Kebede is currently filming two more movies, Black Gold, with Antonio Banderas, Freida Pinto, and Mark Strong, and Le Marsupilami et l'orchidée de Chicxulub, with Gerard Depardieu and Julie Delpy [The Moment]
• Pierre Hardy just opened his first US store in New York, which has been two years in the making; it features black leather floors — “It’s same as the soles of the shoes, so it feels very good on bare feet when you’re trying on," the designer explained — and an exclusive Skyline heel ($1,540), based on the Manhattan skyline [Racked NY]
• Jane Mayle's limited-edition Holiday Kamikaze Love collection is now available online, with shoes and bags coming soon [Mayle]
• Yasmin Sewell, who left her position at Liberty earlier this year, has reportedly joined the team at Lauren Santo Domingo's online venture, Moda Operandi [@_BoF_]
• Vogue's bookings editor Valerie Boster shares one week of her outfits, which include an Isabel Marant fur coat, an Urban Outfitters thermal she bought in high school, and a croc tote she had custom made in Thailand [Vogue]
• Tanga Moreau, who once had a five year exclusive contract with Ralph Lauren — one of the highest paid of all time — is experiencing a comeback at age 32. She also suffers from a genetic malformation which causes cysts inside her spinal cord: "When they get too big, they explode and cause nerve damage. In 2004 I woke and I couldn't move. I was kind of paralysed. I spent two years in and out of hospital recovering. It could happen again any day" [Telegraph UK]