Bend it Like the Other Beckham: Heidi Mount plays Posh Spice in this on-line only editorial from V. Though “chasing her kids all day,” really? {V}

Not So Fast: Gen Art, the nonprofit organization known for supporting emerging designers (including at points Zac Posen, Sari Gueron and Phillip Lim) is having serious financial trouble. This tipster says, “Gen Art deserves to die.” {Gawker}

Biba-licious: Biba’s up there with Halston as one of the brands we can’t quite keep track of. It’s just been announced that online retailer Marisot will launch Biba for fall using inspiration from past collection. Um, okay. {VogueUK}

Made Over & Under: Trinny and Susannah, the British makeover artists extraordinaire, are coming to America. Actually, they’re already here, taking Eric Wilson shopping and plucking poor souls out of Times Square and into Zara, including one woman who’d never heard of Elle MacPherson. {NYTimes}

It’s hard to believe that the term “fast fashion” wasn’t even in our vocabulary just a few years ago. Stores like H&M, Zara and now Topshop - which operate on a business model based on getting new shipments in stores and in front of our grabbing hands more often than Little J changes her lipstick - have totally changed the way most people (young people) shop, making retailers like Gap and J.Crew seem boring because they only get the regular number of shipments in per year.

According to the AP, at least two brands - American Eagle and Abercrombie + Fitch, are planning on getting more clothes in at a much faster rate starting this month: AE plans on getting new shipments every two weeks, and A+F plans on shorter lead times, too.

So is more clothes at a faster rate the key to the return-shopper’s heart? We think it has more to do with what you’re buying and where - After all, how many versions of the ribbed gray tank top does A+F think a girl really needs?

Zara’s penchant for specific runway trends is usually safe from our Adventures in Copyright-prone eye.

Just this month, we’ve spotted Alaia-inspired shoes, Prada clutches, Christopher Kane skirts and Anya Hindmarch bags. But the Spanish chain doesn’t sell online and we feel creepy taking pictures in the dressing room even though photographic evidence is essential. So thankfully, they built a head-to-toe Stella McCartney Spring 09 look and stuck it in their Lexington Avenue window.

You could say it’s look 14 from Stella’s Spring collection, minus the sequin leggings. But the jacket in Stella’s look 14 is a bit slouchier and more sheer than Zara’s pink boyfriend blazer. In which case, you could go to look 10 and throw that jacket over the long and loose sequin tank/dress from look 14. Ta-da! You have your very own Stella McCartney outfit for about the cost of one Stella bra.

Still, Stella would never stick those shoes on the bottom.

Reminder: The new Zara store opens on 5th Avenue at 42nd Street today!

This is good news because:

1. We love Zara and this one’s gigantic - actually it’s the biggest one in the city.

2. A stable diet of sophisticated Zara and beloved vintage will see you through the worst of times, fashion times at least.

3. It’s right on Bryant Park. Which means that if you fall and trip and rip your skirt walking into the tents - does that only happen to us? - you only have to make it to the other side of the park and across the street to snap up a brand new navy wool mini.

So jump for joy, or do whatever it is you do when you get really excited, and we’ll see you there in February.

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.

Everyone’s talking about Zara - Hayley got a new dress, I got a winter coat and now they’ve overtaken Gap as the largest fashion retailer in the world.

The Spanish chain’s profits increased by 9% while Gap’s fell 10% in the first quarter according to the Guardian. Blame’s fallen on the American consumer for cutting back on spending - but shouldn’t some of it be placed on the Gap, too?

While Zara’s devoted itself to absorbing high fashion runway designs and interpreting them for the masses with an incredibly fast turnover rate, Gap’s flailed its image all over the place - Euro designers, capsule collections, the all-American Patrick Robinson - to no avail. Their profits might increase the week their new white shirts hit the racks, but that customer won’t return until the next special collection - they’ll probably be at Zara instead.

Why did I buy my winter coat full price from Zara two weeks ago? Because I know it’ll be gone by the end of the month, replaced with some other diluted Rick Owens interpretation. Meanwhile, Gap’s overproduction means that if I like something, I can wait months with the guarantee that it will go on sale for a fraction of the price (good for me, bad for Gap) - but the bigger problem might be that I don’t like anything.

If Gap wants to cater to a jeans and t-shirt customer, then do that, without mixing in Pierre Hardy shoes and ThreeAsFour dresses, but if they want to cater to a customer who cares about Philip Crangi and Rodarte, do that. They’ve overreached, leaving their customers, and apparently their own brand strategists, quite confused.

Zara picked a customer early on and continues to target her while opening almost 4,000 stores internationally. If Gap wants their crown back, they better start paying attention.

Television star Alexa Chung has an interesting project in the works.

It seems that Alexa’s feeling major guilt over some Primark purchases and wants to do like a True Life: I Slave for 15p an Hour for Channel 4 in the UK.

Alexa says that she loves “affordable fashion but I’m questioning the real price of £2 T-shirts and £8 dresses…I wanted to experience the reality of conditions in some of the Asian factories that supply our retailers - and it’s an eye-opener.”

So she’s setting up a sweatshop in London’s Covent Garden, and making a group of fast-fashion lovers work sixty hours over five days to give them just a little taste of what it must be like to live and work in Houjie.

And of course, to make every Zara shopper on the planet feel like a criminal.

Obviously there are some big differences between working in a sweatshop for reality TV versus working in a sweatshop to support a family, but hey, it’s a step, no?

For those of who you worship Agyness Deyn, your taste has just been venerated. For those of who you are sick to death of her, well, we hope you’re not going to shop at a Zara anytime soon.

The Daily Telegraph reports that Adel Rootstein, the British mannequin company, has designed an Agyness model to launch in a Dusseldorf branch of Zara before being released in Zara’s worldwide.

With this deal, Agyness joins the ranks of Twiggy, a former Adel Rootstein mannequin herself, and kind of one-ups Kate Moss, who was rejected by the late Adel Rootstein herself for being “too short.”

Aggie is reportedly hanging on to just one life-size doll of herself - maybe to send down the runway on skates to pick up a little extra cash?

We hope the Zara window dressers are smart enough to not put the Agyness mannequins anywhere near the windows - she’d be a prime steal for those smash-and-grabbers…

[PS If you can’t get yourself to a Zara, or if you just can’t wait, you could always wear Agyness’ likeness on your back - is this girl a phenomenon or what?]

So when is TopShop coming to America? September!

According to WWD, the location is confirmed as 478 Broadway in Soho (right by us!). If the mega-space does well, there will be two more Manhattan stores probably within a year. And if those do well, TopShop will roll out in other American cities- think San Francisco, Atlanta.

For Americans, the worst thing about TopShop has always been one of its selling points, that if you want to shop there in person, you have to go overseas. We always thought this lent the brand a certain exclusivity- we all know when something is hard to get it only makes us want it more.

While we like the idea of TopShop opening near people who would never otherwise see it, we still feel like this might be a Catch 22. We’ve all been complaining for years that TopShop should open stateside, but will we still be head over heels when it shares the same sidewalk as Zara and H&M?