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Cavalli Picks Four Beauties to Replace Kate Moss

Filed under: Apparel

Italian designer Roberto Cavalli has chosen four top models to replace Kate Moss (right) in his new Fall/Winter 2008-09 ad campaign. The campaign, to be shot by Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin, is inspired by one of our favorite movies, Luchino Visconti's 1963 Il Gattopardo ("The Leopard), based on the book by Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa.

The movie, set in Sicily in the 1860s, stars Burt Lancaster as an Italian prince struggling to maintain a dying aristocracy, Alain Delon as his dashing nephew, and the beautiful Claudia Cardinale as Angelica, daughter of a rich former peasant who represents the new social order. Cavalli has chosen models Isabeli Fontana, Angela Lindvall, Raquel Zimmerman and Frankie Rayder to play the parts of Cardinale and the movie's other beauties in the ads.

"I've always been aesthetically fascinated by this film," Cavalli tells Women's Wear Daily. "I also find Il Gattopardo, a story that's based on the idea that 'the more it changes, the more it stays the same,' a good metaphor for fashion. In the campaign, the heroine - a sort of new Angelica - dances in the wilderness while a fire rages in the background; she represents the force of everything that is new, yet in the end she dresses like a romantic debutante." We think Fontana for one is perfectly cast as she bears an uncanny resemblance to Cardinale.

Birthday Parties for Mini Haute-Couturiers

Filed under: Events, Holiday Guides, Preferred

Why wait for sweet-sixteen to give your little girl an enviable birthday to remember? What better a gift for your mini-Manhattanite and aspiring Muiccia, than the "Fashion Design Party" offered by luxury NYC toy store, FAO Schwarz. On the day of the party, your daughter and nine of her dearest will work with real fashion designers in the private party room at FAO's flagship store on 5th Avenue, to create their own original apparel and handbag designs which will later be professionally manufactured. Just when the buzz dies down at school about how chic and exclusive the party was, eight weeks later, they return to the store for a fashion show and apres ice-cream party. The young designers work the runway as models for their original creations, for a packed house of fifty guests. This is sure to generate enough personal PR at school to keep her in the upper echelons for good. (Or at least until high school!) With a price tag starting from $25,000.00, call me extravagant, but I think it might be worth it considering the going rate for that priceless look upon her face of sheer parental adoration!


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