I knew exactly who I wanted to interview for my first Life With column as I soon as I got the job here at Fashionista, my old friend Elizabeth Kiester (pictured here with one of her besties, Loven.) I’ve been very blessed in my 11 (gasp!) year career in this business to be able to work with some amazingly talented and wickedly smart and funny people. Eliz pretty much tops that list. And I was lucky enough to get to work with her twice, at Jane and YM.

But it’s not because she’s my friend that I wanted you all to meet her. She truly has had one of the most interesting careers in fashion—going from magazines to trendspotter for A&F to creating collaborations with Stella at LeSportsac.

As of late last year, she is a full-fledged designer, selling her wares at her incredibly colorful store, Wanderlust, in Siem Reap, Cambodia. Yep, Cambodia.

Unfortunately, a trip to Cambodia isn’t exactly in the Fashionista budget, so I talked to Elizabeth via email about how she ended up where she is today and how a life in fashion in Siem Reap is so very different from the one she used to live in New York.

Monday, we’ll chat more about what’s selling out in her store, what she misses most about New York, where Wanderlust is going next, and how to rock 5 inch Marni pumps in a Cambodian village.

Gap is making kids’ clothes with Stella McCartney.

Aside from their CFDA initiatives, the San Francisco-based company has avoided the designer collaboration craze as much as Stella’s wholeheartedly embraced it.

The Brit’s done a one-off for H&M, an exclusive for Net-a-Porter (which included a few children’s pieces), and designs for Adidas and LeSportsac. The collection, which also includes baby clothes, launches at the end of this year.

She told WWD, “I believe that this one-off collaboration will be a great way for customers to be able to participate in the Stella McCartney brand. I believe that kids’ clothing should be more accessibly priced, which is particularly important at the moment, given the current climate.”

We predict a massive line of petite women shoving their bodies into size 14 t-shirts at Gap Kids come the debut.

Chanel just unveiled a new line of bags and accessories under the label Chanel Unlimited.

The bags are made of a “glossy gray canvas material.” Though our first thought was, “These are totally Karl’s answer to Prada’s nylon bags. But worse, because they’re plastered in not just one, but many logos.”

You can have hobos, clutches, mini and maxi bags, even a large garment bag littered with words like “Coco,” “Paris,” “31 Rue Cambon,” and of course, “Chanel.” They feature “exquisite details” like inside pockets, leather reinforcements and invisible zip fastenings. Details that are, you know, so hard to find in other purses.

So essentially, they’re like LeSportsac with Chanel price tags.

Karl, how could you condone this?

—HAYLEY PHELAN

We’ve been documenting the return of the 90’s (backpacks, Chloe’s OC line, crop tops) with genuine fervor lately, and we have another one to add to the list -

Stuffed animal bags.

Yesterday, we spotted an otherwise chic woman lingering outside Cafe Gitane on Mott Street. She was an otherwise normal-looking person except that she had a dog-shaped purse under her arm. Not a fuzzy wuzzy kind of pup, more like a taxidermic-looking version that we really did mistake for a real - albeit completely stiff - dog that she for some reason was carrying on her shoulder with a strap.

We had kind of a funny discussion about animal backpacks in the office not too long ago, an offshoot of a Clueless discussion. Did you used to have one? Would you wear one? What if it was a bunny, like Stella’s for LeSportsac? But we had no idea this look had taken to the streets.

Has anyone else seen this?

[Semi-related note: We went to see The Wackness yesterday, mostly because we were curious to see what MK would look like with dreads (overstatement - more like messy braids), and it was amazing, mostly because we have never missed the 90’s more than when we left our seats. Olivia Thirlby wore kinky hair and door knockers, and we have to say, it didn’t look Lily Allen so much as just what we thought “cool” was in 4th grade. Summer 2008 style inspiration?]

We got into a little scuffle with our favorite (ok, our only) Fashionista contributing editor, Josh Madden, when he showed us the Ezekiel tote on the right.

We said, “Omigosh, they stole the Damier Speedy from Louis Vuitton! That’s so wrong!”

He said, “But Ezekiel is a skater brand for sixteen year old girls. They can’t buy a Louis. So why shouldn’t they have this?”

We said, “Because they should have a Le Sportsac or a Gap or a Banana Republic, like we did when we were in high school.”

He said, “But this is so much cuter. And Le Sportsac is overpriced.”

We said, “But it’s kind of against the law. And maybe if you colored all over it with paint pens, it would be better…”

And that was pretty much it. The Ezekial bag sells for $44 (also overpriced, Josh!) and the Speedy is $650 at eLuxury, which - trivia - is the only authorized online site to sell Louis Vuitton.

We’ve never been huge fans of LeSportsac. We’re a little too girly and we never really understood the price point.

But we previewed their new line by Stella McCartney, master of mass-market collaborations, and it’s surprisingly cute.

The color palette is pure Stella; deep purples matched with dusty rose and silver hardware. For a minute we thought we’d accidently stumbled into her Adidas showroom, but the bags manage to be both sporty and practical without actually reaching “athletic”. The shapes are traditional LeSportsac, from toiletry cases to full blown luggage.

But the real reason we’re into the line? The rabbit backpack. It’s the same shape as the Jeff Koons jewelry with which Stella accessorized her Spring ‘06 collection, and the playful pattern is going to match perfectly with our own bright and solid color plans for spring. The bag was initially designed for kids, but Stella smartly decided to include it in the main collection.

We’ll be doing the same.