We’ve been far too selfish in grieving Luella.

We completely forgot having announced, just the day before, that Liberty had invited her to decorate their holiday windows and curate an in-store pop-up shop.

She was supposed to have a Christmas grotto complete with cider and Santa and full priced merchandise which would be a fantastic step for Liberty’s let’s-recruit-the-young-hip-fashion-kids movement, except for the fact that now anyone can head over to Mayfair and buy everything half price from the Luella boutique.

We love Luella (surprised?). But is it possible she didn’t know she was folding just twenty-four hours before she did? Because if she did know, and she let Liberty revolve their holiday plans around her, well, yikes.

The world’s gone crazy since Luella lost her backing on Tuesday.

There’s a #saveluella campaign going strong on Twitter, even Alexa Chung’s weighed in, a Save Luella group on Facebook and, unless it’s our imagination, we saw more Luella out and about last night than we have in a while.

But the only way to really save Luella, and who knows if it’ll even work, is to buy Luella, a thought becoming more and more realistic as prices get lower and lower on Luella.com. We’re still obsessed with her SS09 collection and most of it’s more than half off.

There’s also a bunch of coats, random accessories and Giseles for under $500. So break your no-shopping-recession-fast and let Luella know how devastated you’ll be when she’s gone.

All those perfect polka dot dresses? The punchy bows and tulip silhouettes from Luella Bartley’s SS10 collection? They basically don’t exist anymore.

The label’s ready-to-wear producer Carla Carini closed last month, unexpectedly, which put a stop to all SS10 production. Whether or not that’s worse than this morning’s news that Luella’s lost their licensee, too, we’re not sure.

Club 21, which has licensed the Luella brand for almost seven years, is done investing in Luella (the brand) and it will stop trading.

The designer told Vogue UK, “This is a very disappointing situation for everyone involved with the brand…It is upsetting not to be able to protect jobs in this difficult economic climate. I love the Luella character and hope that after we have survived this challenging time the Luella girl can have an exciting future ahead of her.”

So if you’re on her side of the ocean, get thee to Luella, before it’s too late. We’ll have to settle for pouting.

Whether you’ve started working Bing Crosby onto your iPod or you’re firmly clinging to fall, you can’t ignore the holidays, and they’re coming especially quick this year.

We spotted red and green decorations on Broadway a week ago, and with last week’s word that John Galliano’s working on Claridge’s Christmas tree, it’s officially time for holiday news. Today, Vogue UK reports that Luella Bartley’s taking over Liberty of London.

She’s designed and directed the window decorations and will open her personal Christmas grotto with a cider and candy cane-filled party tonight featuring what we’ll bet is this year’s first appearance by Father Christmas. The in-store shop will feature “kitsch gifts and trinkets,” as well as some Luella.

Meanwhile, stateside, we’ll go another holiday season without a Luella stockist in sight.

If Liberty and Target pair up, like they’re rumored to, the world of mass collaborations will reach an insanely new transatlantic high.

Both stores, one the epitome of London cool and the other the epitome of American mass consumerism, have enlisted creative superstars to work on their projects for the past few years.

Liberty’s hosted Ronnie Wood and Luella Bartley while Target’s longer list includes McQueen, Proenza, Erin Fetherston and Luella. So when they join forces, we can’t even imagine what’ll happen - though visions of liberty print rompers and swimsuits for less than $30 are already dancing in our head. Between the two of them, we’d almost expect the whole world to show up in Liberty prints next summer.

WWD thinks the rumor will come true in spring and that there’ll be accessories, too. May we please have a Target now?

There’s a little gem tucked into the new Lula - well there are actually a lot of gems but we’re sharing this first:

An interview with Luella Bartley reveals that she’s working on her pre-Spring collection - her first ever pre-collection and an indicator, to retailers, that she’s thinking more seriously about the commercial prospects of her brand.

While runway shows breed excitement and creativity, it’s the pre-collections that actually do best with customers which is why Resort and pre-Fall have become so important the past few seasons. They give designers a chance to transition into new seasons and new ideas without a major production.

And while we love, love, pretty much everything Luella Bartley makes, it’s always been a bit commercially difficult. This pre-spring collection she’s working on could finally be the way to get her clothes to America (without Net-a-Porter’s help).

Accompanying Ellen Von Unwerth pics of her regular Spring 09 collection - after the jump.

The only reason one wakes up at 7 am after two hours of sleep on a gloomy London morning is for Luella.

Her show was held at the Flower Cellars in Covent Garden which sounds pretty but is actually the same dungeon-like space Fashion Fringe was held at this past fall. It was an appropriate venue for her edgier, grown-up school girl collection.

Fall 09 comes dressed in tweeds, retro sweaters and covered with over-sized hooks and eyes. The party dresses shone, of course, in chunky sheer and metallic stripes. Each model had her own hair-do (so Marc, again) and cutesy hair accessories in typical Luella style. There were shiny patent trenches and totes, layered chiffon prints and slouchy, skinny jeans.

Starlets love their Luella but this time around a London friend had to point out Girls Aloud members and Skins actors - though I got Peaches and Erin O’Connor on my own.

And this might be the first of Luella’s collection that Erin can actually wear.

The next Fashion Week rumor will be a good one, we swear,

Because we just got word that Ali Michael’s sitting this one out, too and next to Marc’s cutbacks and Abbey’s knees and Alex’s lack of parties, well, this is just depressing.

Lucky for Ali there’s no surgery on the horizon. In fact, if we had to guess/hope what’ll keep the major model off this season’s runways we’d bet on a cosmetics contract or something equally exciting.

Is it too much to hope she makes a cameo at Luella? Because Ali and Luella go together like peanut butter and marshmallow fluff…

We reported a few days ago of the magic that is the Luella Magazine. America is going wild about it, London is insane and Vogue is constantly trying to find out the latest.

I can exclusively reveal that not only is the magazine definitely happening, but also that Jourdan Dunn really is the cover girl! And just for an extra Friday treat I think we should take a look, don’t you?

The first issue should be out this Spring and will probably follow with an Autumn/Winter, making the Luella mag a bi-annual.

More details to follow, very soon…

ps Keep your ears open because these “bright young things” are everywhere. New York, Paris, London - it could be your best friend, your work mates or even your mum!

—BR(IT) BOY

Here’s a fun rumor coming in from London:

Luella the movie already exists, but now Luella Bartley is making some sort of magazine.

The coolest designer we know is casting Bright Young Things in downtown New York for various editorial photo shoots, to be done on location at rich kids’ Manhattan apartments.

A former Teen Vogue employee is styling, and that’s really all we know, because London is five hours ahead of us and they haven’t emailed us back yet.

But as long as we’re on the subject:

Jourdan Dunn on the cover!!! Please?

So, you think we’re obsessed with LOVE?

Maybe.

But only because we’ve been obsessed with POP since we went to London sophomore year of college and spent too much money on mind-blowing magazines.

Since then, we love all things Katie Grand. And while we can’t wait for LOVE’s debut, it’s with great sadness that we mull over her final, Drew Barrymore-covered issue of POP.

Her last letter from the editor, in which she talks beginnings, highlights and ends, after the jump.

Last night, Luella Bartley took home Designer of the Year at the British Fashion Awards (kind of like the British CFDA awards) in London, which is fitting since each of her recent London Fashion Week collections have been standouts and favorites of just about everybody who’s seen them.

Best model? Jourdan Dunn.

Perhaps an upcoming campaign is in order?

We hope so. The full list of winners, after the jump.

Between the end of my Fashion Week duties and my chunnel train to Paris, I had approximately twelve hours to enjoy London.

Without the mental capacity to enjoy a museum, I spent three hours wandering Hyde Park, one on Portobello road, (which produced a vintage Louis trunk for just under £5,000), one hour controlling myself in Topshop, thirty minutes trying on Vivienne Westwood at Selfridges, (where, by the way, they hang Hussein Chalayan on the same rack as Alex Wang - strange, no?), and a few rapturous minutes in Luella’s shop, because I most definitely cannot do that stateside.

In the shop, I found two perfectly dressed salesgirls, racks of covetable, witch-like clothing, a ribboned bag I might defect for and the poster at left.

Ms. Bartley’s proudly displayed the Evening Standard news banner announcing her own shop raid on the wall of her store’s back room.

Oh Luella, we love you so.

Reasons why Luella Bartley’s show wasn’t just special, but one of the best this season:

1. Breakfast and glitter and the fact that it was in The Crystal Palace. See Teen Vogue for details.

2. Models. It was the first time I’d seen Raquel Zimmermann walk a show. A little birdie told me it’s because Luella’s making a Raquel bag for next season. Also, Ali Michael and Jourdan Dunn got to wear pink and purple prom dresses and well, that’s brilliant.

3. The PR girls. In New York they all wear black, which means the sight of that H&M or Zara dress makes you sick by the end of the week. At Luella, they all wear Luella, which makes you want to listen to all their silly orders.

4. The clothes. The shoes. The bags. The hats. Whoa. Everything was so Luella. There were florals and ruffles and bows and hearts and yet, it was all a little bit punk rock. We need it all - and we’ll be DIYing those head pieces the minute we find a fabric store in Marylebone.

5. The crowd. It was a party the way Charlotte Ronson was a party. There was cheering, sitting on laps, oohing, aahing and a general lust pulsing through the benches.

We all fell in love, and it’s only Day Two.

Have you ever heard that saying, “champagne taste on beer money?”

We think that must be tagged on the wall of the Urban Outfitters meeting room, because they keep getting normally high price-commanding designers to make cute and (more) affordable versions of their aesthetic for their stores.

First, it was Bing Bang with Bee 23, in stores this Fall. Then, they announced a cheaper range from Erickson Beamon, available right now in the UK.

And now? A line from Luella, in UK stores this month (and hopefully in US stores soon after), which already seems to resemble Luella’s regular accessories range also in stores this month.

Vogue UK tells us to expect “paisley print prom dresses, gypsy embroidered shirts, striped Ts and studded clutches,” but we’re betting there’ll be some stiff navy blazers with notched collars and bright yellow piping (maybe with studs for cufflinks) in there, too…

MAC is teaming up with Ungaro’s Esteban Cortazar for fall.

It’s the second “from the runway” collaboration for the make-up giant, after partnering with Alexander McQueen last year. (They don’t count Heatherette because their make-up wasn’t based on anything runway related.)

The Ungaro colors, set to debut this fall, will feature a “softer palette of delicate shades of pinks, blues and lilacs” said MAC make-up artist Sharon Dowsett, “It’s a colorful collection but very transparent so you don’t have to worry about overdoing it.”

Sounds pretty, but we still don’t understand limited edition designer make-up. Unless Pat McGrath’s in your bathroom every morning, armed and ready with liquid eyeliner, you’re not going to look like you walked off a Parisian runway, no matter whose designs inspired the color on your lids.

Still, if we had our pick, we’d love to see someone partner with Luella - can you imagine the pink lipsticks and glitter eyeshadows?! Maybe Stila can give her a call once their Marchesa shades sell out?

Luella just released some images from her new accessories range hitting stores this July.

The super-girly vibe seems like a little bit of a departure for the slightly punkier designer, but we think we know how this one happened -

Not even one month after Gossip Girl’s British debut, and we’re already previewing the denouement of a sure-to-be-worn by Lily Allen Leighton-look in Vogue UK.

Or could we be looking at a very logical product placement option for GG?

Way to strategize, Luella!

Sonia Rykiel beat Luella Bartley and Chloe as our favorite collection of the season. Why? Because she somehow chucked both Tinlsey Mortimer and Courtney Love on the runway, as incarnated by Siri T. and Heidi Mount.

Close and shocking second place: Chanel.