“People are getting really excited about social media without really asking themselves if there is any reason to really get excited.” —The founder of Paris-based consulting company, Luxe Corp in The New York Times on fashion’s internet clusterfuck.

Foreign Explanations: Of all the nutty fashion people, explaining Olivier Zahm to the unsuspecting masses is most entertaining. If the post itself doesn’t make you giggle, the comments definitely will. {Gawker}

Royal Snap: Kate Middleton’s taken a job assisting photographer Nikolai von Bismark while Prince William takes royal tours to Australia and New Zealand. It’s not her first fashion job; she was an assistant accessories buyer at Jigsaw in 2006. {DailyStar}

Posh Model: In other British tabloid news, Victoria Beckham and Simon Fuller are allegedly developing a plan for a modeling agency. We’d crack a joke, but we actually love her collection, so we’ll wait and comment post-launch. {DailyMail}

Valley of the Dolls: Ruth LaFerla profiled Mattel’s new Fashionista Barbies (no relation), this weekend. The thought of “aspiring primary-school Rachel Zoes” is surprisingly disturbing. Its makers say the dolls are suited to this economy and promises they won’t be driving limos anytime soon. {NYTimes}

Forget the latest phone technology or Prada pumps, Anna Wintour got politics for her birthday yesterday.

American Vogue’s Editor-in-Chief was named to President Obama’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities. She’s joined by a handful of ‘private’ citizens including Sarah Jessica Parker, Edward Norton, architect Thom Mayne and former New York City Ballet dancer Damian Woetzel.

The committee, which works with both the National Endowment for the Arts and for the Humanities, works to achieve “economic revitalization through the arts” and guarantee the arts don’t become an afterthought in America.

We love Anna and we love the arts and we hope time in Washington (if this involves time in Washington) inspires her to get a bit more creative in New York.

Best Of: Now that Fashion Month is actually and officially over (too many forgot about Giles yesterday), the best of the month’s fashion’s been rounded up for your viewing pleasure and consequent envy. {Style}

Watch Out: Just in case you were trying to ignore her, two days after Becka Diamond was named NylonTV’s newest host, the actress is Who What Wear’s Girl of the Month - a coveted title that means she’s not going anywhere. {WWW}

Real or Rubbish: There’ve been a few whispers suggesting that once Condé Nast finishes their 25% cuts, they’ll bring Elle on board from Hachette. In that case, does Condé own every mainstream fashion magazine? And imagine a holiday party at which Katie Grand, Anna Wintour and Joe Zee all answer to the same boss. {FWD}

Two days after Nicole Phelps’ positive and curious review of Yohji Yamamoto’s spring collection, the house has filed for bankruptcy.

She wondered whether or not the designer was scaling back; he invited less people, kept the clothes commercial and put all of his avant-garde might into the hair and makeup instead of the pieces that need to sell in stores. Today it turns out she was right to worry.

Though the company’s debts total $67 million, Japan has a specific corporate rehabilitation law that’ll allow the company to continue functioning, and Yohji to continue designing, while dealing with the bankruptcy proceedings.

In other, much, much happier bankruptcy news, it sounds like Lacroix’s been rescued. Sheikh Al Hassan bin Ali Al-Nuami, the nephew of the emir of Ajman, presented his offer, which makes Lacroix a minority shareholder, to Paris’ commercial court and is expected to be a success. The court makes their final decision at the end of the month.

Fingers crossed Yamamoto gets a similar happy ending.

Yesterday, the Federal Trade Commission ruled that bloggers must disclose any sort of payment for any sort of product reviewed or discussed on their blog.

It’s something I’ve tried to do, though we’ve never had an official policy on Fashionista. We get a fair amount of free stuff over here, in fact we probably get a handful of packages each week, but we only really post product reviews once obsessed, like with my new James Twiggy jeans, or confused, like that Lancôme vibrating mascara primer. More often than not, products come after we write about something we’ve discovered and fallen for on our own, as a thank you.

The New York Times wrote, “the move suggests that the government is intent on bringing to bear on the Internet the same sorts of regulations that have governed other forms of media, like television or print,” as if it’s a compliment; blogs are suddenly legitimate.

Which is great. Except that print publications, at least the ones we pay attention to, aren’t held to the same standards.

“But it was less a revival than a remix — in the way that postmodern artists like Rei Kawakubo and Martin Margiela have done so well and that Marc Jacobs makes so palatable: mixing those historical references like samples of songs that you know well to create something new and surprising out of the predictable.” —Stefano Tonchi’s brilliant, and articulate, summation of London Fashion Week on The Moment.

“Karl Lagerfeld’s boudoir show for Fendi made you think a giant pair of old pantyhose had fallen over Milan.” —Cathy Horyn talks Milan, which she didn’t particularly enjoy, in The New York Times.

“That studio had no heating and sometimes no light in the middle of winter, with us piling on jackets, hats and gloves and straining our eyes while stitching toiles by candlelight,” Anna Heinrup recalled. She was not describing the working conditions of Dickensian London, but her last job as an unpaid design intern for an up-and-coming London designer.” —A scary New York Time’s story on the perils of fashion, particularly design, internships.

Style.com’s gathered all your favorite, and all our favorite, fashion twitterers in one place for the week. From WWD to Derek Blasberg, from The New York Times to Refinery29 (& us!) - life just got a little bit easier.

“On the way down I stopped in the fragrance room and sampled the Laguna Beach body mist. It smelled like Jolly Ranchers being breathed on my face by Hayden Panettiere. Here the store also sells its California fragrance, which is spritzed on the mannequins every hour; it’s a noxious concoction that, I assume, is distilled from mink sex glands and the tears of broken-hearted teenage girls.” —From Mike Albo’s brilliant review of the new Holister store, in The New York Times

“I think most women have their own personal paper bag hierarchy. The really good ones are for holding personal belongings, the ordinary ones are for holding groceries, the cute ones for using as gift wrappings, etc.” —Akiho Mizuta, one of many women in Tokyo who have traded in designer handbags, for paper shopping bags from designers and upscale boutiques. One girl even irons hers.

“J. C. Penney has always trafficked in knockoffs that aren’t quite up to Canal Street’s illegal standards. It was never “get the look for less” so much as “get something vaguely shaped like the designer thing you want, but cut much more conservatively, made in all-petroleum materials, and with a too-similar wannabe logo that announces your inferiority to evil classmates as surely as if you were cursed to be followed around by a tuba section.” —Cintra Wilson in The New York Times.

“Naomi was the first. She was the great ambassador for all black people. She broke down all the social barriers.” - Halston to the New York Times in 1974 regarding Naomi Sims who died this weekend and was considered by many to be the first black supermodel. She was a huge part of the “Black is Beautiful” movement and you can find two images of her in the current “Model As Muse” exhibit at the Met. Read the Times full obit here.

Karl’s New Toy: Meet Baptiste Gianconi, Karl Lagerfeld’s newest muse/boy toy/model friend/Sebastian. He’s cute! Hope the other boys play nice. {Perez}

Wowsers: Poor Mischa. Though she’s the first person we’ve ever heard actually say, “Chlo-ay.” {HandbagTV}

Interns Away: The Moment, The New York Times’ T Magazine’s style blog, needs fall interns. Wish we could do it. {TheMoment}

Style Me Nice: While in LA, I developed some major girl crushes. Nicole Chavez’s stylist picks for WhoWhatWear combine two, or three, of them. {WWW}

“She recalls a recent dinner with a male fashion designer where, she says, he commented: ‘Us men designers, we make costumes. Women designers make clothes.’ ”

—Diane von Furstenberg in The New York Times. As for the man, guesses?

Oh Hello: Ed Westwick’s celebrity crush is Scarlett Johansson. He also likes low-top sneakers and laments the fact that Chuck Bass has a billion dollars and he doesn’t. {NylonTV}

Drama Feed: Dolce & Gabanna’s AW09 campaign features lots of models, lots of Marilyn dresses, lots of fur and lots of dresses that we’d really love to have (especially if they come with one of the male models.) {Models}

Strap This: According to Garance, because according to the Italians, everyone needs a little strapless dress this summer, worn with flats during the day. This, we love. {Garance}

So What?: There’s a dude from Kentucky who diets so that he can walk for Cavalli and Co. He only eats twice a day. Mon dieu! {NYTimes}

Donatella Versace threw a lavish dinner party in Milan last night at the close of a very brief and very sobering Men’s Fashion Week. She told The New York Times that the world will re-discover its love of excessive luxury in no time.

While she holds her breath, we’re going to enjoy the ways in which the fashion industry repeatedly comes together to help out the struggling. Like Elie Tahari partnering with the CFDA to rotate jewelry designers in his East Hampton shop this summer.

Kara Ross, Me & Ro, Stephen Dweck and Subversive’s Justin Giunta are among those with mini pop-ups in the Tahari store, complete with signs in the windows, for two weeks at a time from July 1st through September. Each will make personal appearances, too.

Tahari told WWD, “I wanted to show my support for the fashion industry by giving these designers a platform from which to raise the awareness of their brands and be seen in a highly trafficked environment such as the Hamptons.”

“Look at the shoes that we wear on a daily basis! I think one of the reasons that fashion editors and fashion people have reputations for being so mean is because their feet are killing them all the time. They’re just irritable because of that, even though they all swear up and down, “Manolos are really comfortable!” I don’t buy it. —T editor Alix Browne in Corduroy magazine.

That Girl: So Juliette Lewis might not be starring in that Erin Fetherston flick, but red-haired Columbia kid and musician Reni Lane is. {Nylon}

Chanel-o: Karen Elson’s already shot Chanel’s Cruise ads with Baptiste Giabiconi and Karl behind the camera. She’s got the wig, the high waisted not-pants and the jewels. We’re jealous. {Modelinia}

Goodie-Nude-Shoes: Around this time of year we consistently wish we could change the shade of half the shoes in our closet from black to nude. So for your shopping wish list, enjoy. {FabSugar}