In the December issue of W, Alex White directed an all-Armani shoot.

In lieu of models, Bookings Editor Rena Lazaros (who narrates this video) cast a variety of artists, hence the title, Armani: United Artists. She gathered dancers, singers, performers and actors to sit for Inez and Vinoodh wearing Armani, Prive and A/X.

The cast includes Hugh Dancy, Susie Bick, Sophie Auster and Peter Sarsgaard, and as usual, a behind the scenes peek - especially one that lets you watch Inez & Vinoodh work - is almost better than the end product.

Next season’s buzz (too soon?) will surely revolve around Marios Schwab’s debut collection for Halston.

But there’s another Brit with exciting news — Richard Nicoll’s just been appointed Cerruti’s women’s wear designer.

The old Italian house, founded by Nino Cerruti (who’s still very much alive) in the late 50s (women’s came ten years later), was helmed by both Armani and Narciso Rodriguez before filing for bankruptcy. Nicoll told WWD that the brand, “has a strong DNA, and the brand speaks to what I do — elegant tailoring.”

He’s signed on to do three seasons, the first will show in Paris this February, and he’ll continue to show his eponymous collection in London.

Everyone’s always mumbling about when, someday, all the young Brits will eventually helm every major fashion house and each season, a step is taken in that direction.

Graeme Black, the Scottish designer who walked away with this year’s Scottish Fashion Award and put in significant time at both Armani and Ferragamo, has just been appointed a “Creative Consultant” for Boss Black, the more formal section of Hugo Boss’ womenswear collection.

Apparently, the only thing that made him stop and question whether or not it was the right move was the idea of once again traveling for work, but he’ll be able to keep his eponymous collection, which Tim Blanks called, “strictly old-school,” while going back and forth to Germany.

Hopefully he’ll bring something new school, and less old-money, to Hugo Boss, maybe even a spark or two?

Black’s first collection for the label will debut next February for AW10.

Bass Alert! We have yet to personally spy our fair Chuck in the ‘hood shooting this season. But thankfully Nylon offers up a scrumptious fix today in the form of a multi-image foreign ad campaign in their Korean edition, with Miss Waldorf of course. Man, we can’t wait for season 3 to start. {Nylon}

Carrie Bradshaw, The Sequel: SJP is back to shooting SATC, complete with a gold metal Chanel clutch. {Jezebel}

Renaissance Girl: Daisy Lowe talks W-burg, her jewelry line, why she likes to look like a china doll, and making toilets. {W}

Ugh. Just Ugh: You know how we feel about Megan Fox, so you can understand how this news makes us horribly distraught. Really, Mr. Armani? Really? {Fashionologie}

Liskula Cohen’s modeled for Versace and Armani and landed international Vogue covers, but recently she’s made less fashionable headlines.

Last year, a doorman smashed her over the head with a vodka bottle and this year she’s sued Google to reveal the identity of an especially cruel blogger. The both tragic and anonymous person used Google’s blogger.com platform to unleash constant rants about the blond’s imagined sexual habits, but argued in court that the words were, “non-actionable opinion and/or hyperbole.”

Many thought Cohen wouldn’t win - after all half of the internet is anonymous - but today a judge ruled that Google must identify the blogger, which means Cohen can officially take that person to court. And where would that court case lead? The anonymous blogger’s lawyer put it best: “The floodgates would be opened if you tried to regulate these very broad, common insults and invective on the Internet. You can be really, really mean to people — you just can’t lie about a set of facts that are provable as lies, and that you knew or recklessly disregarded the truth of.”

Safilo, the Italian sunglasses manufacturer, is looking for its own financial bailout - preferably in the form of a private equity fund.

Safilo makes pretty much everyone’s glasses, from the entire Gucci group to Marc Jacobs to Dior to Juicy to Armani and they’ve racked up about $753.8 million in debt according to WWD. So until they get their cash influx the Italian government is sponsoring a temporary shutdown of four of their factories.

Sunglasses used to be the easiest way for everyone to buy into a designer brand - the thought being that most anyone can scrounge and save $200 to put a little bit of Gucci on their face if they’re that desperate. Which is why when even the smallest labels get bought up by major corporations or gain serious financial backers sunglasses, perfume and accessories become the priority. But, like most luxury goods these days, plastic-frame profits have plummeted and are only expected to get worse.

So the question is, who’s so rich that they can pour almost $800 million into a company that makes $300 sunglasses in the middle of an international economic crisis?

Not too long ago, we started to see David Beckham’s ten-pack all over the place as the body for Emporio Armani underwear.

Now, Vogue UK reports that Becks will be joined in this endeavor by Takeshi Kaneshiro, the Taiwan-born actor who’s been making major waves in Asian cinema since the early 90’s.

With the debut of Emporio Armani’s Fall 08 ads, Takeshi will be the first Asian model to appear in one of Armani’s major ads (let’s not forget Du Juan’s amazing hazy images for Armani’s pre-Fall 08) which means that perhaps the recent uproar over the lack of minority models in advertising campaigns may be at least slightly ameliorated by Armani’s efforts to include models from all walks of life.

Maybe this is the beginning of that final stage of model diversification, cracking the impossible world of advertisements? Let’s hope.

Looks like Matthew McConaughey and Patrick Dempsey have got some competition pushing Dolce and Avon’s colognes -

WWD reports that Josh Hartnett’s been named the face of Armani’s next fragrance, Emporio Armani Diamonds for Men.

The fragrance launches worldwide in August, and Armani’s already talking about a “memorable TV campaign”.

Can’t wait to see him dancing alongside Beyonce, the face of Armani Diamonds for Women.

But more pressing: Does this mean we can expect Josh front row at Armani in September?

Years ago, in that strange and wondrous time called the 80s, mens’ clothing ads were different.

Every man was in an Armani style power suit, presumably on his way to work, and about the age of my dad. Designers were definitely targeting who they thought could buy their clothes, moneyed older men, by featuring them in their ads.

Now, even though the target consumer probably hasn’t changed, menswear ads seem to be going the way of womens’ - that is, featuring too young boys who could never afford the clothes and overly sexual scenes (almost always homo erotic) suggesting that maybe menswear designers think that guys in rock bands can keep them in business.

Even Zegna, that final refuge of buttoned up men in expensive suits, has had an about-face with boys in windbreakers, and one of them is too bashful to tell the other guy he likes him. Z Zegna is expensive Sunday brunch gear for CEOs, not really fodder for a bromance.

There’s just something about a 16-year old boy in Dior Homme that’s a little too jokey for a brand that should be aspirational. Though we’ve been wondering the same thing about women’s ads since forever.

—BRETT KANE