grace coddington

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

• Miuccia Prada's sketches of the dresses she designed with Baz Luhrmann for The Great Gatsby have been released. This is the third time Prada has worked with the director; their most recent project was the 1996 film Romeo & Juliet. [Telegraph]
• Move over, eBay: there is a new generation of online resale sites hitting the Internet. [Business of Fashion]
• Downton Abbey's Michelle Dockery says that her character, Lady Mary Crawley, influences her personal style. [InStyle]
• Mark your calendars: the Valentino Spring 2013 couture show will be live streamed this Wednesday at 12 p.m. EST. [Valentino]
• Newly relocated John Galliano isn't wasting any time hitting New York's fashionable haunts: he was recently spotted having lunch at Sant Ambroeus with Grace Coddington. [Page Six]
  

• André Leon Talley loves that Michelle Obama is a first lady who isn't afraid to put her hair up in a ponytail. [Vogue]
• Cara Delevingne and Mark Ronson were just a few of the guests spotted at Georgia May Jagger's haunted 21st birthday party. [FabSugar UK]
• Nina Garcia will debut her style makeover web series, Decoding Style With Nina Garcia, tomorrow on Aol on Style's YouTube channel. [Racked]

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

Grace Coddington isn't keeping quiet about what she thinks of Alexander Wang replacing her friend Nicolas Ghesquière as creative director of Balenciaga.

Coddington, who said last month that she hoped Ghesquière wouldn't "just give up and walk away" from fashion, has added her voice to the chorus of people commenting on Wang's new job. She told The Huffington Post that she's optimistic about the future of the house. She also shared her thoughts on Ghesquière's possible future plans, and on whether John Galliano will ever make a comeback.

On Wang designing for Balenciaga: "I'm sure Alexander Wang will do really well. He's very well-liked. It's an incredibly difficult thing to take over for Nicolas because there are all the old fuddy-duddy people like me digging their heels in. But you've got to embrace it — it's happened. I'm sure the Gucci people thought long and carefully, they didn't just pull him out of a hat. And he fit all their criteria."

On whether Wang can really replace Ghesquière: "Don't think of it as the same house as it was when Nicolas was the creative director; that's everybody's mistake. Don't think of it as a replacement for Nicolas, because it isn't. Alexander has a whole different agenda. He's a very confident young man, he's cute-looking, girls love him, he's an 'It' person and he makes very affordable clothes. I haven't spoken to him, but he can only do what he can do. He can't be somebody else, and he certainly can't be Nicolas."

On Nicolas Ghesquière's next steps: "He will bide his time and come back. He's too brilliant to just disappear. He's very passionate about what he does. He's not caught up in fashion and celebrity at all. I don't think he's going to go off and become a sculptor like Helmut Lang, either."

On whether Galliano can come back to the industry: "I hope he will return, but I don't know. That's a tough one to get over. That's tougher than the Gucci people thinking they want a change of face. I love John; I think he's brilliant. He certainly intends to come back — when he's ready."

Your daily news roundup.

• In celebration of Cyber Monday, Ferragamo has not only relaunched and redesigned its website, but it has also issued a special line of Gancio bags to shop. [Fashionologie Inbox]
• Christopher Bailey cites Apple as a source of inspiration for tech-minded brand Burberry. "They're incredibly consistent," he said. "I love the fact that it is a world that you enter where you get immersed in their point of view." [The Telegraph]
• Runway to Win, Anna Wintour's fashion-based presidential fundraiser, brought in $40 million for the Obama campaign. [Business Week]
• Jaeger has appointed a new head of womenswear design. [Vogue UK]
• Mick Jagger's costumes for The Rolling Stones' 50 & Counting tour were made by none other than his longtime partner, L'Wren Scott. [WWD]
• Leandra Medine says she would like her upcoming book to be titled Don't Worry I'm Wearing Overalls. [Guest of a Guest]
  

• Instagram's influence on fashion may be expanding past trend forecasting. [NY Times]
• Grace Coddington sat down with Sarah Mower to discuss her just-released book, Grace: A Memoir. [Vogue UK]
  

• It turns out Paul Solomons is not heading to Cosmopolitan after all. After initially accepting Joanna Coles's offer, Solomons has ultimately decided to stay at British GQ. [WWD]

Grace Coddington, Hamish Bowles, and Andre Leon Talley have all penned a book or two — but their boss, Anna Wintour, says she never will.

Much to our chagrin, the Vogue editor in chief says she won't follow the footsteps of flame-haired Coddington, who's just released her own memoirs. Wintour doesn't keep a diary, "Nor will I ever write a book," she told The Telegraph.

"It's a big thing," Wintour said of Coddington's book. "She's given so much to this magazine — she's one of the great unsung heroines of our business."

But she says while Coddington deserves the recognition, Wintour's not interested in celebrity for herself as much as she is in "trying to show a world to my readers that they will be as excited about as we are." Read on for more of Wintour's thoughts on Vogue and the future of fashion.

On her hiring practices: "I look for strong people. I don't like people who'll say yes to everything I might bring up. I want people who can argue, and disagree, and have a point of view that's reflected in the magazine. My dad believed in the cult of personality. He brought great writers and columnists to the Standard. I try to do that here, too."

On who should helm Balenciaga and Schiaparelli: "It is important always to have really original talent. There are lots of good designers that make attractive clothes and make women look beautiful. But at the same time one doesn't want to lose the idea that there is someone out there who can change the way you look at fashion. The way, going back, that Armani did, that Galliano did, that Alexander [McQueen] did."

On how Michelle Obama has also impacted fashion: "Look back at the history of first ladies and you'll see they wore a good suit or a ball gown. Now we have someone who wears J.Crew or Thakoon or Azzedine Alaïa: a gamut of different designers. She has changed the way American women see fashion."

Those stories and more in our daily news roundup.

• To celebrate the release of her book, Grace: A Memoir, Grace Coddington will field questions from Vogue's Twitter account (@VogueMagazine) tomorrow, Nov. 20. [WWD]
• The iPad is becoming the key to luxury ecommerce success. [WWD]
• British designer Emma Cook's whimsical collection of apparel and home decor for Topshop will be available Dec. 6. [Elle]
• See by Chloé design director Laure de Sade has left the company. It is not known what her next move will be. [Vogue UK]
• Chris Burch, founder and CEO of Burch Creative Capital, has announced that he is slowing down the development of two nascent brands to focus on growing his other labels, C. Wonder and Monika Chiang. [WWD]
• Stella McCartney has designed a White Ribbon badge to run during a two-week campaign for the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women on Nov. 25. [Vogue UK]
• Hugo Guinness says that humor is his main source of inspiration for his artwork, which is currently being featured in a line of accessories for Coach. [FashionEtc]
• Anna Karenina costume designer Jacqueline Durran says 1950s couture inspired the movie's costumes because it has "a stark, architectural approach which doesn't involve a lot of surface detail but at the same time captures a kind of romanticism." [Fashionista]
• The Maison Martin Margiela for H&M collection hasn't sold out yet. [Racked]
• Jordi Constans is the new CEO of Louis Vuitton, replacing Yves Carcelle. [WWD]
• Vanessa Steward's second capsule collection for A.P.C. will expand into the company's bread and butter: denim. [Style.com]
• Iris Apfel's personal style mantra is "more is more and less is a bore!" [Fashionista]

Could Nicolas Ghesquière be thinking about a hiatus from fashion? Grace Coddington has seen more than one brilliant design career put on pause — or worse, come to an end —and hopes the same thing won't happen to her close friend Ghesquière, who's leaving Balenciaga at the end of the month.

"John Galliano, whom I adored — gone; Helmut Lang, major talent — gone," said Coddington in an interview with The New York Times. "Hopefully Nicolas won't just give up and walk away. He's too good, too strong, too brilliant, too passionate."

Coddington said she rode out the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy with Ghesquière at the Carlyle Hotel, where a number of industry names stayed after the storm. Perhaps Ghesquière let something slip while Coddington and her cats "sat with him" in his room there?

Whatever Ghesquière has planned, Coddington has added her name to a star-studded list of people who want Ghesquière to stay in fashion. Earlier this month, Karl Lagerfeld said that it's "not a bad idea" for the designer to start his own line.