Things have gotten so glum over at 4 Times Square that S.I. has hired Michael Sheehan, a crisis manager to try to turn around not only the press on the beleaguered publishing house, but also the spirits of those who still work there, according to the NY Post’s Keith Kelly.

Just to put this in context, Sheehan was the guy AIG went to during its troubled times, and he’s even coached presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

The idea apparently came from Lucky publisher Gina Sanders, who also happens to be married to a Newhouse (Steven) after she noticed that morale was at an all-time low. Well, obviously. I mean they’ve laid off almost 500 people and closed six magazines. Everyone knows the glory days are gone and there’s nothing fun about that.

We’re just wondering what Sheehan will bring to the table to make the media, advertisers and employees change their doomsday mentalities. We hope it’s more akin to the re-positioning of Barack or Bill, because we still don’t have many warm and fuzzy feelings for AIG.

This past weekend, Teen Vogue hosted a Fashion University event for their readers who were eager to learn the ins and outs of the business.

Not only were they given the rare opportunity to visit the magazine’s editorial floor and famed fashion closet, but they also got the chance to sit down with designers like Richard Chai, Philip Crangi, and Thakoon Panichgul. In a discussion moderated by Amy Astley, Thakoon shared stories about his rise through the ranks of the industry and gave pointers to the many aspiring designers in the audience.

You may already know that his Fall 2005 presentation was the most buzzed-about of the season, or that his most famous customer is Michelle Obama. But here are some things you might not know about the designer. I definitely didn’t.

I need Style.com like I need my morning coffee.

But I’ve been clicking on Vogue.com more and more lately, in part because I’m anxiously awaiting obvious changes and excited for Condé Nast to really truly enter the digital age (I’d never actually say that out loud), but also because it lets you see a totally different side of Vogue’s editors.

Hamish has his sphere and Candy has her cast, but some features, like Meredith Melling Burke’s Most Wanted, feature a rotating cast of Vogue-ettes listing their current favorite things.

Sometimes there’s a theme, like Devon Schuster’s wedding or Jane Aldridge’s shoes and sometimes there’s not. Like this week’s list, from features associate Stephanie LaCava, is basically because she has ridiculously great style. She’s mixed Proenza shorts with Topshop boots and a Band of Outsiders toggle coat; it’s fun to see the thought process behind style we consistently admire.

Surprisingly, Vogue.com’s the best place to go if you ever forget that even the most major fashion people have a sense of humor.

Say What Alber: Remember when Alber told The New Yorker he’d never do a diffusion line? And then when he did do a diffusion line? Someone did and someone asked and he just couldn’t handle it. {ElleUK}

On McQueen: Try to break up your Sarah Mower with other important critics. Like Hilary Alexander’s Alexander McQueen review; it’s twice as long and has a video of the show (since Lady Gaga killed the initial live stream for most of us). {The Telegraph}

The Fat Lady Is Not Singing Yet: It’s still unclear how many more names will be added to the 180 that already lost their jobs this week at Condé Nast. How un-fun are those flights back from Paris going to be? {NY Observer}

They All Fall Down: We’re rather partial to the “Drop It Like You’re Hot” but what’s your favorite Falling Model dance? What would have happened to me if I ever tried to put on those McQueen shoes defies all known categories. {The Frisky}

Dream Team: Donatella Versace tells Chris Kane that “insatiable curiosity and a love of experimentation” set British designers apart. She also talks music, Gianni and being a diva. {TimesUK}

Burgled: Someone robbed the Michael Kors store on Prince the night before last at 5:30am. He distracted the security guard at the Apple store before breaking iinto Kors’ store and stealing $13,000 worth of merchandise. We understand loving clothes, but stealing from Apple might’ve been more lucrative. {Villager}

Do You Have IT?: Refinery29’s on a mission to help you be a fashion darling, or at least determine if you have what it takes to be in the running. They’ve followed up their successful sartorial flow chart with this. Click to find out if you’re the next Harley. {Refinery29}

Come Again: There is a “scarfigan” for sale. We don’t know if Missoni named it or Net-a-Porter, but we want it so we can say “scarfigan” everyday. {Net-a-Porter}

John Koblin over at the Observer has what I consider to be a great and quite amusing piece on the ever-changing corporate culture over at 4 Times Square.

Graydon’s now eating in the cafeteria! It’s hard to find a seat in our in-house spot designed by a world-renowned architect! There’s no more shrimp at the salad bar or Orangina in the fridge!

I know, it’s mind-blowing the things people are having to deal with over there. But such is life in a shitty economy. The manner to which they have become accustomed makes every shift feel so much more massive. And of course, there will surely be many more substantive changes when the McKinsey consultants have turned in their final analysis.

As one source in the story said, “That whole feeling of working here and it being cushy and other people loving it and being jealous? That’s kind of gone now.”

Baby Kate: We love taking a walk down Moss memory lane. Sweet lord is that first Corinne Day cover stunning. We almost forgot how much we loved it. And we can only imagine the trouble these two got into after this picture was taken. {Vogue UK}

Secret Society: Apparently the A-Gays over at Condé have banded together. They have a name: The Majority. And are even considering a philanthropy. I’m officially obsessed with this frat-tastic endeavor even if it’s starting to give me Pi Phi flashbacks. {Daily Intel}

Twi-Hard: Embarrassing or not, it’s hard to pass up an opportunity to reference Twilight. Especially when it crosses over with the modeling world in the form of Noot Seear. She’s in New Moon and also shares our Saved By the Bell obsession. Enough said. {Style File}

Yikes: I’m slightly scared even linking to this story, but what the hell! Richard Tyler made Scientology uniforms. They’re pretty damn creepy and I’m sure typing these words makes me thetin-heavy. Please don’t come try to clear me, Tom Cruise. {Gawker}

“High-level editors at Condé Nast said that a decision by the company to hire the consulting firm McKinsey & Company to review how things are done at the magazines — presumably with the objective of improving efficiency and saving money — has made staffers nervous. ‘That sent shudders, of course,’ an editor said. ‘It’s the fear of the great unknown: What if their consultants really question the culture we live in at Condé Nast?’” - Cathy Horyn on the changing times at 4 Times Square and how The September Issue will be a reminder of much happier times. They’ve already lost their newspaper subscriptions and receptionists…whatever could be next?

We just read over on The Cut (via Ad Age) that men.style.com will close come October once Si Newhouse et al establish stand-alone sites for both Details and GQ. Many of the staffers will thankfully head over to those two sites.

This is supposed to be part of the plan to give each title at 4 Times Square its own site which, you know, makes a lot of sense. But why the heck it’s taking them so long is another matter.

Style.com is in the clear at the moment, but we wonder for how long. WWD reported this morning that consultants from McKinsey & Co. have been hired by the publishing giant to “realign Condé Nast to be a successful business in an emerging economy that is now predicted to be painfully slow in recovering” according to CEO Chuck Townsend.

No area of the company is off limits and we’re betting that the web (long a thorn in Condé ‘s side) will be much discussed.

Cover Boy: GQ and Bruno…together at last. We would have killed to be on that set. {NY Post}

Who’s the Fairest of them All? Vanity Fair’s trying to figure out who the best looking man is. We hear our favorite polo player, Nacho, is pulling away from our favorite vampire, R Patz. May the best man win. {Vanity Fair}

Who Wears Short Shorts? Well, maybe they weren’t all that short but Alex Wang rocked some at the CFDAs. In a shocking twist, Marc wore pants. {StyleFile}

TMI: We now know more about the self-proclaimed world’s first supermodel than we ever cared to. {Jezebel}

Cape Marriage: Despite internet rumors to the contrary, MJ says he and Lorenzo are still doing the “I dos” in Provincetown. {FWD}

When Vivienne Westwood sent a model down her SS09 runway in those Union Jack shorts, we felt like we needed fancy boxers.

Then Teen Vogue featured ruched cotton shorts in a March editorial. They came in striped blues and reds, like bloomers, but with nothing over them. The credits listed Brooks Brothers so we went to the store and scoured the site until we realized the models were just wearing men’s boxers probably sewn by a handy Conde intern.

And today we saw these Current/Elliot shorts on Shopbop - basically fancy boxers even if they’re called “distressed denim.”

But we found a pair of pre-sewed-to-look-like-bloomers this weekend and no matter what we tried them on with - silk tank, plaid button down, white t-shirt - they still just looked like boxers. And while we’ll wear pretty much anything at least once and we obviously work in an office lacking any sort of dress-code, the idea of going out in men’s underwear just feels awkward, no?

Fact: Conde Nast, the publishing company of Vogue, Teen Vogue, Glamour, Allure, and so many more, is a subsidiary of the media company Advance Publications, which is owned by the Newhouse family.

Fact: Advance Publications has just instituted a pension freeze and mandatory ten-day unpaid leaves for employees at all of their daily papers outside of Michigan (think The Star-Ledger, The Staten Island Advance, The Times-Picayune, etc) due to the drop off in advertising revenue.

Fact: Magazines, including Conde’s, aren’t doing so well on that front either, losing a minimum of 20% of ad pages for the month of April, which indicates a steep slide from already less-than-thrilling numbers (Vogue carried 42% fewer ad pages than from the previous April).

So how long before the major cutbacks at Advance’s papers hit their glossies? …

Ingrid Sischy and Sandra Brandt just got named International Editors of German and Russian Vogues.

The duo’s already been contributing to both Spanish and Italian Vanity Fair since they launched last September, and Ingrid’s been a contributing editor for Vanity Fair US since 1997. The Conde Nast press release says, “Ingrid and Sandy are a unique journalistic team, full of ideas and with strong ties to the worlds of Hollywood, fashion and the arts.”

That dose of Hollywood might be perfect for Vanity Fair but it’s fashion they’ll need to keep up with Aliona Doleteskaya at Russian Vogue. Which we guess explains their much discussed presence and frantic note-taking in almost every front row in Paris.

As for sharing their handful of international jobs, we wonder what would happen if one was sent to German Vogue and one sent to Russian - does splitting them up dilute their genius?

Last year, Conde Nast announced a company-wide 5% budget cut and cancelled their usual holiday party at the Four Seasons, and a lot of people hoped that would be the end of it.

But on top of yesterday’s memo from Conde’s CEO Chuck Townsend sent out to employees to politely remind them to watch their spending (ie, Please don’t send your intern to Starbucks four times a day), comes word from WWD that the company’s publishers have all been asked to draw up reports on how they could potentially cut another 10% from their budgets for 2009.

Furthermore, the Post claims that Hachette, publisher of ELLE, is looking to move their offices to the Financial District, the older, downtown area of Manhattan with tons of empty commercial space and much cheaper rent, indicating that the company is looking to pull way back, too.

So what does it mean if some of the publishing world’s biggest names are planning major pullbacks before the first quarter is even through? …

When you walked into the Shipley & Halmos show, there was a collective cry of, “Wait, we have to stand?” and “Where’s the presentation?”

It was, in fact a zig-zag runway show. The boys made the same collection about four times in different color ways. There were very Betty Draper high-waisted, cropped, skinny pants made of crisp silk in turquoise, black, pale pink. There were cut out shoulders, like at Charlotte Ronson, and lots of silk layering over turtlenecks.

Philip Crangi’s delicately strung chain and bar jewelry was the highlight. His silver necklaces, belts and earrings were perfect.

Not so perfect were the Conde girls bashing their very important boss loud enough for the models to hear backstage.

What do Iggy Pop, Iris Strubegger and Agyness all have in common?

LOVE.

They’ve all been chosen for previews / ads of the new magazine everyone can’t wait for, released today via the LOVE blog that finally leaked some good images.

We’re loving the Britney-ish wig on Iris, but here’s another thought:

Do you think Katie will have a nameplate style necklace of the LOVE moniker made and make people wear it in photographs? There’s something about that logo that automatically takes our mind to jewelry…

Undoubtedly, you heard about Dating a Banker Anonymous yesterday.

Now, can you spot the ex Conde girl in the group?

If you’re anything like us, many fourth-grade afternoons were spent discussing hairstyles seen in Teen magazine, and pretending you were actually going to do all those at-home beauty spa treatments (this is more than a decade before Teen turned into Star-lite) performed by the fresh-faced models you totally thought you were going to look like once you hit junior high.

So we’re a little sad to learn that Hearst is folding Teen (along with Teenmag.com) to “focus” on Teen’s slightly trashier big sister, Seventeen.

Now with CosmoGIRL! also out of the picture, that pretty much leaves Teen Vogue and Seventeen to duke it out for the teen market.

To: Tips@Fashionista.com

From: LittleJ@seemail.com

Regardless of what Condé Nast is saying about Men’s Vogue continuing to publish, I received a post card offering to transfer my subscription to Condé Nast’s Portfolio or to receive a refund on issues remaining in my subscription.

I just called to request the refund and was told I’d receive a check for $15 in 3 - 4 weeks.

Hm…

To: Tips@Fashionista.com

From: Gossip@Whirl.com

From what I hear (and you didn’t hear this from me), Men’s Vogue was saying it was going to go down to a few issues a year, but from what I hear, it’s going to be done in about 3 - 4 issues.

Yikes!

So basically, no one will know whether the magazine’s done for another year and half or so, officially making this the most drawn out rumor ever…