Audrey Tautou reunited with Amélie director Jean Pierre Jeunet to star in an Orient Express-themed Chanel No. 5 ad, which took three weeks to shoot. The reel started up May 5.

In some perfect fashion synergy, Liya Kebede and J. Crew are at work on a creative partnership. Liya will become the first model to lend her services to an entire catalog, front-to-back, and the company's children's line, Crewcuts, will stock pieces from the model's kids' line, Lemlem. Liya launched Lemlem in 2007; it's handmade in her native Ethiopia from cotton.

W, Glamour, T The New York Times Style Magazine and Vogue are among the fashion magazines nominated for prizes at this year's National Magazine Awards. Whoever thinks Vogue is generally excellent  or that Glamour's essays are praiseworthy  is smoking something epic.

More from Jil Sander, on her new role with the Japanese streetwear brand Uniqlo: "We are living in a small world today. People are in easy contact with each other. There is a new collective feeling of democracy. You can sense it everywhere. It is a wonderful challenge to dress this new world as attractively as possible. I am thinking of clothes that are comfortable for everyone, beautiful and not expensive. I am convinced that there can be luxury in simplicity. One glass of water doesn't equal another. One may just appease the thirst, the other you may enjoy thoroughly. In Japan, people know about this difference. Details are everything here. The challenge for me is to establish premium quality in a democratically priced brand: Quality for everyone."

Prada's favorite architect, Rem Koolhaas produced the brand's spring look book. (Which, in further proof that falling on the runway doesn't have to hurt a model's career, features Katie Fogarty, one of the girls who fell so spectacularly during the brand's spring show last September.) Koolhaas' offering fits with the trend of ever more bizarre look books  there's a classical theme, with models Photoshopped to look like crumbling statuary and other weird and wonderful effects.

This is what L.A. fashion week has been reduced to: "model-actress Molly Sims donned a bright cranberry colored one-shouldered dress custom-designed by Kevan. Hall for the event and decorated with real, freeze-dried cranberries to promote a new cranberry body wash by Dial."

André Leon Talley still bothered to show up. Or was his trip just in honor of the fact that he can only freely indulge in fast food when Anna's safely in another time zone? Someone spotted the Vogue editor-at-large eating at the airport Chili's.

L.A. kid Chanel Iman's new gig as a special correspondent on the revived House of Style might be a bridge to other slashy things.

But is Chanel prepared? She admitted to only YouTubing a few minutes of old host Cindy Crawford's footage since getting the job. "There's Cindy, and ... I forgot the other girls' names! But I know there's more. Cindy was the only one I found on YouTube when I did my research," said the model, unpromisingly. She also gave a false birth year in the same interview. Alas, I know very well why even a girl born in 1989 might start shaving a tad off her age in this industry.

Matt Tyrnauer, the Vanity Fair writer who directed the new documentary on Valentino, The Last Emperor, says that when the designer and his partner, Giancarlo Giammetti, first saw his film, they "freaked out." And tried to have scenes removed, despite having the fact that Tyrnauer held full creative control. But now, having seen audiences react positively to the portrait, they have come to appreciate Tyrnauer's efforts.

That much hoped-for bail-out of the Italian garment industry looks like it will indeed come to pass: industry minister Claudio Scajola resumed his talks with industry heads last night. Italy exported $35 billion worth of fashion goods in 2008, making it the world's second-largest apparel exporter, and the center of manufacture for nearly all high-end handbags and shoes. The Italian fashion industry employs some 800,000 people.

Perry Ellis failed to meet even lowered expectations for the quarter, announcing a loss of $22.3 million, mainly due to write-downs.

Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, paid $933.6 million in bonuses to about 1 million of its hourly staff yesterday, or about two-thirds of its total workforce. The bonus pool was increased by 46% on last year's. Occasionally a man does bite a dog, I guess.