Last night was the second time this week we found ourselves in the car park at Selfridges.

On Sunday, Yasmin LeBon hosted the Really, Really Great Garage sale to raise money for Mothers4Children and last night, Vivienne Westwood showed her Anglomania collection to everyone from Tracey Emin, Rosemary Ferguson and Little Boots to Julia Restoin Roitfeld, Yasmin Mills and Lady Victoria Hervey. Daisy Lowe stomped down the runway as she’s prone to doing in an eye-popping, colorful Masaai warrior look - the collection’s recurrent theme.

The whole Survivor-esque thing felt quite timely, given that Londoners are still reeling from the Luella news, but Viv was not discouraged, “It’s a bit of a cull, innit? May be a good thing, she may just come out bigger and better. Tell an English bird she can’t do and she will come out stronger - trust me!”

Which darling, well-heeled blogger posted this on her Facebook page, “there’s Lacroix and then there’s Luella…tragic about Lacroix :( makes me happy for my Lacroix stash I have in the garage…but Luella imo is the fucking worst?”

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.

Proenza-envy: Kristen Stewart’s roaming the world with two heartthrobs and she’s wearing new Proenza. If we were sixteen we’d be green with jealousy over the former, but we’re positively devastated over the latter.{NYMag}

#saveluella: We wish we’d thought of this first. The Guardian’s Fashion Statement column’s composed an Ode to Luella. It says, “Luella, we will miss / The frills / The spills,” and more. {Guardian}

Shop Someone Else’s Closet: Nikki Laura, one of our favorite still-standing neighborhood boutiques, finally got online this week. She stocks Grey Ant and stingray clutches from Khirma Eliazov that we’re obsessed with. {NikkiLaura}

I Wanna Be A Super-Robot: Time’s released their list of the 50 Best Inventions of 2009; it includes a fashion robot. She’s 5’2” and 95 pounds, which sounds like Daphne Guinness’ proportions, not Lily’s.{Time}

For Serious: Selfridge’s is having a garage sale, except instead of old Easy Bake Ovens you can buy Gwyneth’s Balenciaga and Liz Hurley’s Helmut Lang. {StyleFile}

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.

The whole world weighed in on Lindsay Lohan and Estrella Archs’ SS10 collection for Ungaro.

Except Emanuel Ungaro himself. The founder’s kept quiet since he sold the house in 2004, but yesterday, at a film festival outside of Lisbon, he was quite blunt, “Lindsay Lohan’s collaboration was a disaster.”

“I am furious but I can’t do anything about it,” he told the Independent, adding that his vision “is in the process of losing its soul…That happens to a lot of designers. We were the creators and patrons, responsible for the creation and destiny of our houses. But when we gave up our houses, we gave up our souls.”

We can’t imagine the man ever coming to terms with heart pasties stamped with his name, but as the outcry over the collection settles down (or had until now), we wonder what happens next? If no one buys the collection, stores or customers, how long does it take until CEO Mounir Moufarrige gives up?

More importantly, if another Ungaro collection sees the light of day while Luella doesn’t, we predict a massive fashion temper tantrum.

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.

You already know how much we love the schoolgirl braids and pigtails that made their way down the runways for SS10. But the girly trend didn’t stop there. From flowers at Chanel, bows at Luella and Vuitton, sweet barrettes at Phillip Lim, and pretty headpieces at Peter Som, sweet hair accessories are definitely having a moment too.

We love a low-maintenance way to do a little something extra with the hair. And none of these are too precious or sugar-coated that a grown lady can’t pull them off. Phew.

Makeup for spring is almost always lighter and dewier than its fall counterpart. But one of my favorite trends so far is the use of pastel and Easter egg shades, but in a totally non-precious way. I’m not usually one for light purples, pinks, blues, and greens in beauty. But I’m truly starting to think about them in a new light.

Hints of the purple hair streak trend had already popped up in editorials before Jack and Lazaro sent them (and green too) down the runway at Milk. The shimmery mix of shades at Derek Lam even feels slightly rock star, in a Jem and the Holograms kind of way. And the robin’s egg blue at Luella is simply cheeky and downright fun.

I’ve only just now switched into my dark and moody fall black and bordeaux phase (current obsession: MAC Resolutely Red) but I’m already excited to try something outside my normal comfort zone this spring.

Also, does this trend not have Drew Barrymore’s name written all over it?

Morning.

It’s the first day of Fashion Week here in London, but here’s a sneak peek of next week’s Luella collection, which I’ve (magically) already seen:

Black & Gold

Military

Lots of big bows (obviously)

I don’t want to spoil the show, so the only other thing I’ll say is that it is good.

Yours,

—BR(IT) BOY

But if you’re itching for Luella right now, you may have missed during the week’s swirl that some key Spring 09 pieces are up on Net-a-Porter.

Who knew the industry would turn to men’s fashion in the face of financial catastrophe?

The past few months have seen shifts toward menswear from everyone from Christophe Decarnin at Balmain to Alexander Wang to Gareth Pugh, all of whom should be very refreshing after this season’s rather dull showing.

But thanks to London Fashion Week, we won’t have to wait quite as long. The British Fashion Council’s added thirteen new menswear designers to their Fall 09 schedule next month. The week - or in this shortened case, five days - usually ends with the TopMan show on the last morning and any other menswear can be found in the exhibition tent or tossed on the runway within a women’s show, but this time around they’ll be singled out and hopefully, paid attention to.

Names haven’t been released yet, but we promise to cover them with as much dedication, if not enthusiasm, as we do Luella.

After months of up-to-the-minute reports of the latest economy-induced fashion catastrophes, we all need a good dose of Isaac Mizrahi.

WWD takes an in-depth look at his Liz Claiborne kick-off - his first collection for the brand lands in department stores next month - and he couldn’t sound more optimistic. Behind the beloved, bubbly personality lies a brilliant businessman who’s revolutionized fashion and whom we can thank for the Proenza, Luella, Erin Fetherston (for Target) hanging in our closet.

He’s prepared to do for Liz and her customer what he did for Target, “I’m trying to shift the paradigm once again…There’s this whole other cultural thing that’s taking place before our eyes, and it’s only accelerated because of the terrible economic thing we’re going through. It’s like, I believe firmly in the middle now.”

Will it work? We’d guess yes. A preview of his Spring collection accompanies the story and we’d wear every single piece, with the exception of a dress or two and the shoes. Styled differently, sure, but we’d wear it, our moms would wear it, our grandmas might even wear it and we’re pretty sure that’s what Liz Claiborne’s all about it.

Meanwhile, tucked into the article is this juicy quote from Karl Lagerfeld on Isaac Mizrahi: “Oh, he’s just too good at promoting himself.”

Pot, meet kettle.

Or the more appropriate question is, “Will you wear spring’s head gear?”

The runways have been inundated with hats. Catherine Holstein wrapped whole sweaters around the heads of her models. PPQ added I Dream of Jeannie-like toppers to their ruffly dresses and Luella splashed retro veiled hats and riding caps across her floral outfits.

We think some, like the sweaters at Holstein, might look super cool on the runway but stop short of realistically working on a regular girl’s head. Same goes for the PPQ hats - they’d induce a giggle or two at the even the most wacky New York party. And the swim caps at D&G - are they serious?

Luella’s little hats, while cute on Ali, Jourdan et. al, are the kind of thing we want to rock when we’re eighty-year-old eccentric ladies with a murky fashion past.

Right now, we’d love one of the sun hats from Trovata and Nicole Farhi, or even a mini Mary Poppins hat from Marc. And we’d obviously rock the giant bobby pins from Basso & Brooke, but we’re not even sure those are for sale.

If you don’t usually wear hats, will this spring’s wide selection make you change your mind? Or is this a look better left to runways/editorials/ads/models rather than mere mortals?

***Please forgive the word “yesterday”, our timing is a little off. Thanks.

We love when we can look at something and know exactly where the inspiration came from, especially when we know it has something to do with Blair.

The first major example happened when pictures of Luella’s new accessories range were first out. Then we saw these Blair bow earrings on Fred Flare. (These are just two examples among many, by the way.)

And now, Marc Jacobs is cashing in on the look with his range of Faux Bow accessories.

We know these designers (and so many more) are inspired by the GG character the way sixth-grade girls were inspired by Cher (raise your hand if you tried to convince your mom to buy you thigh-highs), but they sometimes miss the mark - plastic? She would never.

Marc’s come the closest so far - a $70 barrette seems right up her alley. But tortoiseshell? Please.

To be honest we were sort of waiting for this moment.

Ever since Luella’s eclectic punk Spring 08 show, the collection has been making ripples through retail stores. First, there was the resurgence of floral ra-ra skirts, and the prominence of cat-eye glasses, then the sudden popularity of neon Docs. So it really came as no surprise when Topshop put up this replica of Luella’s yellow and black batwing tee.

Besides the label, we really can’t tell what the difference could be between the two - both feature black batwing shapes of exactly the same size up against the same shade of yellow. And between the rest of Topshop’s collection (read: floral ra-ra skirts, neon doc martens, punked up prom dresses), the London shop seems to be taking a lot of ‘inspiration’ from Miss Bartley.

Then again, we’re not exactly sure if Luella can claim rights to a superhero symbol that’s been around for decades…Still, she got there first this season.

— HAYLEY PHELAN

It’s been more than a month since the Met Ball (you know, the super-hero bash with the widely ignored dress code), which was months after we’d already been seeing superhero and comic book themed collections popping up everywhere from Luella to Iceberg.

But, honestly, who’s wearing this stuff?

We’ve yet to see anyone walking down Prince with Wonder Woman-sized cuffs or Catwoman-like glasses from Linda Farrow, and since the wannabe trend is getting rather stale, we doubt we will anytime soon.

The fashion planet toted superheroes and comic books as the season’s biggest inspiration, from high up on the runway down to Topshop, which even created a special collection of starred rain boots and Superman logo pajamas and undies. And they’re still trying to push it further - witness the Comic Relief roundup in the new July ELLE.

We actually find comic book prints and Spidey-webs fun and they bring us back a few years. We wouldn’t mind a cute Batman watch or even a tank with BAM! written across it. But we wouldn’t take it much further - you know, like into Jeremy Scott’s territory.

So what do you think, would you wear Spiderman’s web or maybe Wonder Woman’s crown? Or is this one of those trends that fell straight off the runway?

—KYLE HAYES