The weather has us in enough of a crap mood already without having to read news of more layoffs in our world all morning.

Condé Nast’s never-ending month of news we’d rather not hear seems to be drawing from to a close, but it’s not totally over yet. Just yesterday FWD reported that longtime W features director James Reginato had left the magazine with more soon to follow.

Teen Vogue lost a bunch of people on the business side (while editorial was spared) and Details had to let go both its executive editor and its fashion director, Michael Macko. We’ve heard from many over at 4 Times Square that a culture of fear has taken over, and we can certainly understand why. It’s all just a major bummer, even if it is necessary to keep the business going.

“It’s really belittling of the customer to think that anyone from a different price bracket deserves anything less.” —Stella McCartney on her cute designs for Gap Kids in the New York Times. We know what our friends’ little ones are getting for Christmas and Hanukkah this year.

“But Ms. Lohan’s arrival at a 45-year-old Paris house known for $1,500 dresses and a tradition of couture craftsmanship is entirely different, something akin to a McDonald’s fry cook taking the reins of a three-star Michelin restaurant.” —The New York Times’ Eric Wilson in his review of Emanuel Ungaro.

“I know that when shopping for clothing, I’m just not happy unless the décor involves taxidermy chickens dressed in Edwardian formalwear. Maxfield is good enough to provide these…and two other elements that have come to symbolize the mark of true sophistication for me: sex toys and human remains.” —Cintra Wilson in her critical shopper piece for The Times on Maxfield. We too are unsure about whether the store is ‘avant-garde or sexually complicit, capitalist luxury kitsch,’ Cintra.

“You want to be understood by the sophisticated few, but you also have to be more loud, somehow; otherwise, your message doesn’t go through.” —Miuccia Prada in the new Another Magazine via Eric Wilson’s NY Times piece on defining this decade’s style. On a separate note, are we really going to have to call it the “aughties”?

So now we know how Elizabeth ended up owning a store and designing clothes in Cambodia. Next we talk about how she fits into the local community and even more importantly whether or not we’ll be able to get our hands on Wanderlust goodies more readily here in the States.

Plus, we all know that no matter how blissful life can be far removed from the big city, there’s gotta be some things she misses. I, for one, would struggle for quite a while without my regular unhealthy dose of crappy television and require regular care packages of American candy.

Though the idea of managing a possible Maldives location of Wanderlust does not sound like a very bad thing at all.

Here goes part II of our e-chat with Eliz.

“They have no feeling for the actuality of life, no sense of a lived experience, and frankly I’d be worried about getting too close to one of those prickly, encrusted numbers. You might get a rash.” -Cathy Horyn on the dresses at Valentino. Man we wish she blogged every single day.

Not Tweeting: Coco Rocha doesn’t do the Twitter thing. So if you think you’re following her every move, right down to a supposed internship at Vogue, you’re sorely mistaken. {Oh So Coco}

Bare Becks: Mr. Posh Spice unveiled his latest undies ad for Emporio Armani in London yesterday. This is one campaign we will never, ever tire of. {Vogue UK}

Don’t Be Koi: A new “international ambassador” arrives in New York today. It’s a giant fish. Really. {Elle}

BFFs: Marc and Anna Sui chat about tats, Garren and the Motor City. {Style}

Very Shady People: Thursday Styles gets their investigative journalism on…about round sunglasses. {NY Times}

Marvel Comics is releasing a new series of comic books on August 26th that revolve not around the worlds of Spidey and Clark Kent, but models and fashion.

What we know so far, according the NY Times, is that “Models Inc.” will feature a trio of ladies - Spiderman’s love Mary Jane, Millicent Collins or Millie the Model, and Patsy Walker who is also a superhero named Hellcat - working to clear Millie of a crime she didn’t commit, the murder of a set designer.

And their wise leader? None other than Tim Gunn - who gets to wear Iron Man’s suit!

We couldn’t think of a better choice. His calming tones and rational thinking are just what your average model turned world-saving superheroine needs, right?

What other real-life fash characters would you have make an appearance? And what would their powers be?

“So to stir up crowds for the opening, Mr. Green dispatched promoters around the city, offering Topshop totes and gift cards redeemable for up to $500 to anyone who looked vaguely cool.

Thus the crowd at the store smacked of hipster central casting: men wearing skinny jeans and asymmetric haircuts, and wayward Gossip Girl types whose studied dishevelment suggested they were on the walk of shame.” - Guy Trebay, in the Times.

“He’s always asking: ‘Is that new? I haven’t seen that before.’ It’s like, Why don’t you mind your own business? Solve world hunger. Get out of my closet.” - Michelle Obama, on dodging her husband’s inquiries about her shopping, to the New York Times.

There’s an interesting article in the New York Times this week about a study conducted by Duke/MIT professor that may color the ongoing fakes debate.

The basic idea behind Professor Dan Ariely’s study, Faking It: The Psychology of Dishonesty and Counterfeits, is that if you do it once (buy a knockoff), you’ll do it again, and it doesn’t just affect your style but your behavior as well. “The effect on morality, people don’t anticipate,” says Ariely. Harsh? Yes. So let’s take a look at the experiment:

Ariely took 250 people and split them into groups of two, giving each one the same pair of “designer” sunglasses. He then told one group their new sunnies were faux, and the other group that theirs were real. Everyone was then given the same math test. Out of those who were wearing the counterfeit glasses, 60% cheated on their test. But for those who were sporting the real deal, only 20% stooped to cheating. (And this was just one of a few different mini-experiments he used to gather his data.)

We’re not sure of all the details (Did any of the subjects know each other? Was one group younger than the other? Were these experiments conducted multiple times each, or just once? etc), but the main question remains: Does buying a Canal Street fake Fendi mean you’re more likely to cheat on anything from a test to a boyfriend? Or does this seem like a bit of a reach?

Ariely’s study basically asserts that buying a fake is a slippery slope, kind of like the gateway drugs from DARE. They can be cheap, they can be easy, and nobody pays attention to anti-counterfeiting ads anyway. But does it mean something more about you if you partake?

-CARSON GRIFFITH

“Fashion may be frivolous and superficial and often cruel. (When she met Karl Lagerfeld, Ms. Ditto explained, he uttered a lot of “fat-phobic” remarks.)” - On the meeting between a new front row fixture and The Kaiser, in the Times.

Did the Times just confirm Peter Copping’s appointment to Nina Ricci?

The speculation surrounding Olivier Theysken’s departure from Nina Ricci has been accepted as fact, even though no official announcement from Puig Group, Nina Ricci’s parent company, has been made. But what every front row gossip wasn’t totally sure about was who exactly would take Olivier’s place.

Peter Copping seemed the most likely contender, especially after he supposedly put in his resignation at Louis Vuitton at the beginning of the year, after having met with Mario Grauso, Puig’s president. But now, Eric Wilson’s gone ahead and stated that Olivier will be “replaced by Peter Copping,” which pretty much sets it in stone - obviously, Eric knows something nobody else does (at least not officially).

So who’s taking Peter’s spot as women’s studio director at Louis Vuitton? And how long before Olivier comes out with his own label?

With the ongoing LOVE affair and a couple Fashion Weeks now behind us, we almost forgot that the magazine industry is dying.

Today’s dose of print reality comes via the Post, who are reporting that T:Style, our favorite section of the Sunday Times (when it’s there), has been scaled down from fifteen issues per year to just twelve.

Coming down to the frequency of a normal monthly magazine may not sound so awful, but consider that T:Style is practically the last part of the Times that guarantees total fashion coverage, as opposed to the Styles Section, which revolved around GOOP this past weekend.

We’ve looked at the schedule for next week so many times, we practically have it memorized. So we’ve definitely noticed just how many young designers have managed to hold down spots on the matrix, and today, we learned about a couple of the ways they’ve been making it happen.

First, the Times reported that the Duckie Brown show found solace in a new sponsor - McDonald’s. So in addition to hot guys and turtlenecks backstage, we can also expect tons of McCafe coffee and maybe some McSliders (if those don’t exist, they should).

And now, we just heard that Telfar, the Liberian prince / New York designer is hosting a public benefit tomorrow night to (hopefully) raise enough cash for his show, currently scheduled for Friday the 13th. Telfar himself will act as one of the rotating Dj’s (full party details after the jump).

We expect to find out next that Parsons kids are receiving show-funds for graduation presents - “Now don’t touch this account until you’re 25 and have a slot in the Tents!”

Back in November, when word first got out that Mayor Bloomberg would be proposing a tax on plastic grocery bags, we wondered if the city would realize it might be worth it to stick it to retailers, too.

And yes, it did - The plastic bag tax, which was officially proposed last week, will cover plastic bags of any kind - even at restaurants and department stores like Macy’s - which will cost shoppers five cents per bag unless they’re armed with their own stash of totes (or, presumably, plastic bags they’ve saved from prior trips).

So, if you want to step into H&M for some unplanned shopping after work, you’ll have to be ready unless you want to pay up (obviously this is easier if you drive everywhere, but city dwellers might find the idea of having to have a bag with you wherever you go pretty annoying).

But we’re wondering - Is a charge of five cents really revolutionary? Would you really say to yourself, “Oh man, a nickel? Let me go back five blocks to my apartment and get my tote from its spot on the door handle - This trip could cost me fifteen cents total!”

Do you think Mayor Bloomberg’s bag tax will really stop people from using plastic bags? Or will the tax just raise tons of money for the city, without any real environmental effects? Or, in a dramatic plot twist, will retailers simply offer shoppers paper bags instead, rendering the Mayor’s money-raising effort useless?

Lincoln Center for New York Fashion Week Spring 2010? …

Over the weekend, you may have read about Lucky magazine’s new iPhone application, Lucky at Your Service, a shopping feature that allows readers to locate the exact location of any item featured in the March Lucky, complete with a customer service center that will text you with notifications like, “Your Chloe dress is now set aside for you at the Soho Bloomingdale’s.”

So far, the service is free and you can only locate items featured in the March issue. But in the future, Lucky wants to offer users the ability to search for items in upcoming issues, too, which has us wondering:

1. For how long can this service co-exist with the magazine itself? Why pay for the print edition when everything in it will be available in your phone, and with the added bonus of being able to automatically pin point where that perfect pair of booties is hiding?

2. There’s no way this can be free for too long - We picture Lucky at Your Service becoming a hit with Lucky readers (the same people who pay to read a catalog - though, full disclosure, we think there’s nothing to get you in the mood for Fall fashion like the September Lucky) which would pretty much make the print edition useless, probably within a year.

So, does Lucky realize this? Absolutely. We think this is the smartest method to fighting folding - while preserving your brand image, too - we’ve seen so far.

For the past couple years, former art student Dana Veraldi, of Deer Dana, has been making shirts featuring the faces of well-known fashion people, and it’s sort of become a game to guess who’s next.

So far, she’s caricatured Vogue’s Andre Leon Talley and Hamish Bowles, “social” Genevieve Jones, Olivier (both Theyskens and Zahm), Agyness Deyn, along with quite a few more.

And next? Bill Cunningham, the Times’ fashion photographer since sometime in the 70’s. The shirt will be available on Dana’s site, and we bet if enough people wear it around to Fashion Week, Bill might even do a round-up of his fans in the Sunday Times.