That trench coat project Scott Schuman was working on?

It’s Burberry’s new website, TheArtoftheTrench.com and we’ve already spent too much of our morning clicking from trench to trench. Scott’s shot men, women and kids around the world in their Burberry coats, whether classic, navy, red or green and they’ve built an entire site from the images.

The Kooks play in the background; viewers are invited to comment, share, like etc. A navigation bar lets you choose images by weather - wet, bright, cloudy - by gender, by style - belted, unbelted - or you can click freely.

You’re welcome, of course, to submit photos of yourself wearing your Burberry trench and it might just land on the main site. They’re hoping users will create profiles and libraries of their favorite trenches, for a very specifically themed Facebook-like site.

Will it work? I love trench coats, but I don’t know who needs a profile to keep track of their favorites.

photo courtesy The SartorialistA Friend In Need: Which is better? Adrien Grenier on the Sartorialist? Or Adrien Grenier labeled ‘Friend’? Either way, the combination of that face and Scott’s camera is fantastic. {Sartorialist}

Teenage Wasteland: We would have paid so very much money to witness one Madonna’s early (as in childhood) performances of “Baba O’Riley”, complete with midriff top and body paint—so very SS10. {RollingStone}

Wannabe: So it’s not exactly hard-core fashion news, but we like to include all things that sort of involve a Beckham, which this does. There may be a Spice Girls musical in the works. To which we say, hell yes. And zigazig ha. {JustJared}

Chicest in All the Land: We definitely can’t argue with Inès de la Fressange being named the most chic woman in France. Oh, to live in a country where Carla Bruni-Sarkozy is at number five. Sigh. {Telegraph}

Because Fashion Week brings out the best in them.

Pucci’s Upswing: Anna Dello Russo must’ve made Peter Dundas’s day. She wore his green and white cut-out sequined long sleeve mini, dare we say it, better than a model ever could. And thank you Tommy Ton, for all the angles. {Jak&Jil}

Color Me Crazy: We dare you to read a single post of Garance’s and not want to hug her. She may be the nicest person on the street style circuit (and really they’re all nice), which is why everyone’s smiling and glowing when she snaps. These pictures make us want green, now. {GaranceDoré}

Peeps on the Street: Remember Balenciaga boy? Phil Oh managed to catch him on the only day of London Fashion Week that he wasn’t rocking his Louis Vuitton bunny ears. Yeah, we were jealous. {StreetPeeper}

I got to Marc at 7:45 - the earliest I’ve ever been in my entire life.

There was a line for ticket holders and a line for not ticket holders. I’m not sure what happened to the latter because my ticket was turned over, flipped upside down and the beefy security guard even read the serial number. Once inside the boiling hot white box I was told a) the girls were painted white and b) Lady Gaga was definitely coming.

I stationed myself behind Katie Grand, Juergen Teller and Jefferson Hack (down the row from Rachel Zoe and across from Anna and Bee) and soaked in all their British (and I guess German) brilliance. At 8:03, Perez Hilton was still by his lonesome and the two conspicuously empty seats were filled with Madonna and Jesus. PR’s panicked, “Lorenzo swore he’d take care of it!”

Iris Strubegger opened in a charcoal coat belted over something cream with a very white face and very Geisha shoes. Ruffles followed on suits, dresses, skirts, bags, scrunchies, they came in tulle and wool and cotton and anything else. Karlie wore a military coat, Stam rocked a black cut-out jacket and Vlada had her bra on the outside. The show ended with a series of beautiful dresses, hand beaded white over nude tulle and cream ruffles edged in black all over slightly loose nude mesh leggings.

Lorenzo and Gaga did show up about twenty looks in. Photographers went nuts, do we photograph the clothes? Madonna? Gaga?

Clothes please.

Garance Doré posted this picture on her blog on Thursday, with the title, “Don’t Tell Me You Don’t See It!”

She’s referring to the new, blonder bits in her always gorgeous curly hair after undergoing a particular varnish treatment, but what you can’t say you don’t see is the giant diamond on her left-hand ring finger.

The next day, Scott Schuman posted this picture on The Sartorialist and called it “Garance Doré in Full Summer Beauty” — the ring’s still there, just tucked under her hand.

A few commenters on both sites have spotted the ring, but we’re still waiting for a proper announcement so that we can start imagining the most fashion-obsessed wedding ever - photographed by Tommy Ton maybe?

I’m sad I went on a celebrity/model/actress collaboration rant the other day; I should’ve saved my speech for this.

In February, we mentioned Hilary Duff was designing a line for DKNY (home of Rachel Bilson’s line, too) under the name Femme. The one image, of her in a fringed tee and leather vest wasn’t awful, though wasn’t groundbreaking.

So now, the ad campaign’s out, shot by Scott Schuman naturally, and for the first time, we believe the celebrity wearing the outfit physically designed the outfit.

But really, Scott would never shoot that on the street, Hilary Duff would never wear it (she looks miserable!) and more importantly, the customer interested in purchasing something designed by a former Disney star doesn’t want a cocoon, right?

We’re banking on the fact that it’s just styled to get your attention and the whole line doesn’t actually look like it’s trying to explore some avant-garde aspect of otherwise commercial fashion, because what’s in that picture is not what this flailing industry needs.

“I’m pretty good at the sex. And pretty good at picture taking. That’s about it. Garance is pretty happy. And the hotel-room neighbours are pretty pissed. You can write that; that’s totally fine with me.” —Scott “The Sartorialist” Schuman, in Canada’s Globe and Mail via OMGblog.

The m&m is Britt; the Grateful Dead is the Imaginary Socialite

Mr. Schuman is across the pond, shooting around France and Italy, and we’re in l-o-v-e with this all-gray Parisian he posted yesterday.

We’ve been noticing a lot gray around the streets of New York ourselves, and think it’s a great color. For us, light gray, light brown and white are very summery - exuding calm and relaxing vibes. But we’ve never seen it put together head-to-toe quite as well as this woman did it.

A monotone ensemble requires careful planning. Not all shades of the same color look good together. And unless you buy all the different pieces at the same time, it could get difficult to mentally match your shades.

And bloggers take one more step up the fashion food chain.

Holt Renfrew, the Canadian department store, will pay tribute to a handful of fashion’s most famous online personalities including The Sartorialist’s Scott Schuman, BryanBoy and Jak & Jil’s Tommy Ton in their new window displays.

Creative director John Gerhardt’s orchestrated the entire thing without any input from the bloggers themselves - just inspiration from their sites and their voice. So we’re guessing layered prep a la Band of Outsiders with a bright scarf for Scott (and a bike of course), an explosion of Balmain and Givenchy for Tommy and just something major for BryanBoy.

We can’t wait to see the windows come Friday (because someone will send us pictures, right?) and we probably would buy anything straight out of one of Scott or Tommy’s gorgeous images, but we can’t help but wish Gerhardt had actually enlisted the bloggers’ help with the project.

While the London Topshop is in a tizzy over swine flu, the New York Topshop is giving out gifts!

Well…not exactly, but the store will be loaning out bikes from June 20th to the 27th and as far as we’ve heard, they’re free.

Topshop is showing some love for the city by helping to encourage city slickers to stay fit and have fun. While there probably won’t be a lot of actual commuters standing around at Topshop waiting for a bike to head to work, we’re hoping the New York biking trend will keep on growing to keep our city cleaner (fuel emission wise) and less congested.

We’ve been skeptically and cautiously wondering how easy biking in heels and a dress is for some time now, thanks to Scott, so maybe it’s time to give it a try? But we will definitely be sporting a helmet, and thankfully Topshop will provide you one along with the bike.

In case you needed an excuse to whip out a new (or old) pair of bike shorts…

—AMANDA JEAN BOYLE

We’ve been running around Soho today - interviewing Life Withs and looking at apartments - and there’s major fashion action on this sticky sweaty day.

Scott Schuman’s shooting for a foreign Vogue on Greene Street between Prince and Spring. The models are looking rather goth, one’s even carrying a skull and the other has an umbrella atop her head and Chanel bag in hand. No sign of Garance, though we know she’s in town for tonight’s Women in Style party (which we’re actually really excited for).

Meanwhile, Rachel Zoe’s teetering around. We spotted her leaving Intermix in the widest pair of bell bottoms we’ve ever seen, a cropped patent leather biker jacket and major black frames.

That is all.

Ever heard of Arnhem? It’s a perfect summer vacation destination for the fash-obsessed this year.

The Dutch city is hosting The Arnhem Mode Biennale. It’s their third one, but it’s bigger and better this year and from the photos we’re betting that it’s going to be very exciting, with big brands such as Viktor & Rolf (alumni of the city’s art academy), Balenciaga, Calvin Klein and others like Klavers van Engelen (his work is pictured) having donated pieces to the show.

Apparently, the whole city gets behind the production. And it’s always exciting to see places other than the big four of fashion getting in on the action.

It makes us wonder, what other cities—European, American, Asian or otherwise—are poised to work their way up to major global fashion recognition and love, and more importantly, what their staying power will be. Scott Schuman and Garance both made trips to Sydney and Melbourne last month. TMagazine did a beautiful shoot combining Spring looks and the city of Chicago for their Spring 09 Travel Issue. Mainland China’s on the move, and Hong Kong is already a powerful fashion capital.

Variety is what makes fashion, or any art, interesting and engaging. Every city has a unique personality, and we want to see more of them contributing and flowing into the beating heart of the fashion world.

What’s your favorite, less obvious, fashion city?

—AMANDA JEAN BOYLE

Funny Face: Can someone who know something about beauty tell us how to get that perfectly red-rimmed eye without looking diseased? Thanks. {TheMoment}

Already Wins: Andre Leon Talley helped Marisa Tomei decide on a “lemongrass” Madame Gres toga-like dress for next week’s Met Ball. This will be in our top five. {VogueDaily}

And He’s Back: Christoper Kane’s doing Topshop again - this time bigger and better with shoes and bags added to the range. Guess that explains his New York presence earlier this month. {Grazia}

Last fall, we told you Scott got a book deal. And just now, the real details are starting to emerge:

The book’s coming out under Penguin, it’s call The Sartorialist, will sell out in days. More interesting: It’s getting its own pop-up shop in Colette - The Sartorialust - which will include racks of accessories (“great pyjamas, great suspenders”) to go alongside stacks of his tome.

Also possibly in the works: A certain shopping “deal” and a style guidebook a la Tim Gunn.

Is Scott the fashion world’s next mega-brand? We don’t know, but the best part of his profile in the Times UK this weekend? The fact that he wouldn’t shoot a girl’s outfit because she was wearing Uggs.

Discuss!

UPDATE: You may have noticed some changes in the above story - Scott’s assistant says that the only part of the Times story (in terms of business deals) that’s fairly certain is the pop-up store, which is slated to open up in Colette (other locatiosn are not definite quite yet). Who says newspapers have fact checkers?

To: Tips@Fashionista.com

From: LineSyp@Fall09.com

I was standing in line for Preen, when Kanye asked/had to ask Scott to shoot him and his entourage.

So they went outside and Scott shot them and then they went back in and exchanged numbers.

Thought you might like to know.

D

We witnessed a small exchange between Kanye and Scott outside of Band of Outsiders earlier today. Kanye strutting up to Scott, Scott not caring, then Kanye tapping Scott on the stomach like old friends. Still, no shot. For the record, Kanye was carrying a large camo duffel bag.

It was only a matter of time before we made it to a show with Kanye, right?

He rolled up at 11am sharp with an entourage of five boys and a hot girl, embraced Scott Schuman, got introduced to Garance and lingered for photo ops. I was waiting in line to get into Preen, with my pounding headache and a large Americano, and I’m pretty sure he gave my knee-high red suede boots a second look - that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Inside the Altman building, the audience unanimously agreed we missed Preen’s regular Espace venue and Faran declared, “Kanye’s so not the celeb sighting at this show.”

“Oh really?” I asked.

“Nope. Check out Philip Green.”

So I did. I said, “Hi Mr. Green. My name’s Britt and I write for a site called Fashionista.com. We’re huge fans.” (If he doesn’t actually read us, he’s very good at pretending.) “So what can you tell me about Kate’s new collection?”

“Nothing. But you can ask my guys, they’re all here,” he laughed.

“But it’d be so much better to hear it straight from you,” I prodded.

“Sorry kid,” he winked.

Ouch, especially considering Anne Christensen’s actual kids were playing on the plastic-covered runway. Anyway, this kid took her seat and watched Preen’s unusually colorful Fall collection parade by. There was fur, more cut-outs and some very strategically placed pockets atop Karlie KIoss’ nipples.

Meanwhile, one lucky member of Kanye’s entourage got to sit smack in the middle of the Vogue-ttes - click through for priceless, “What the fuck is going on?” faces.

The first person I saw while climbing the stairs to the Band of Outsiders presentation was Garance Dore (she’s like the female Scott Schuman, basically). Then, I saw Glenn O’Brien, Editorial Director of Interview, and Lauren Santo Domingo, and realized that Band has somehow upped its buzz in the past couple seasons.

And it’s understandable. The clothes are both precious and wearable, a balance everybody wants but few designers seem to get, and the collaboration with Manolo Blahnik for shoes was incredible - think boxing sneakers manipulated into open-toe stilettos that actually work, especially with thick, cable knit socks.

Of course, it was hard to pay attention to the adorable presentation - models posed in fake telephone booths, on bare mattresses, with a rope ladder leading to nowhere, etc - with Kanye West quietly perusing the space with a relentless reporter shadowing his every move (this guy even waited for him when he tried to cut off the conversation by using the restroom).

But we guess it isn’t a Band of Outsiders presentation without some kind of celebrity presence.

Today, the Sartorialist tells us something we already knew:

That he got a book deal.

And now, the details:

The tome comes out this September, just in time for a pre-Fashion Week launch party we’re sure, and it’ll consist of “500 pages of images with a little writing.”

Also, Penguin’s releasing the book in paperback, a special request from Scott so all his readers could afford a copy.

Aww.