This is the time for year-end lists and reflection, and when it comes to fashion, we always look forward to what Cathy Horyn has to say. The Times published a slideshow today of what Cathy Horyn has deemed the top fashion moments of 2011 (check out our own list here) and believe it or not, she didn’t like everything.

Her top 10 list, in which she gives her take on what she felt were the biggest fashion moments and events of the year, includes the Alexander McQueen Met exhibit, Sarah Burton’s royal wedding designs, John Galliano’s fall from grace, as well as some less obvious choices such as a dress Giovanna Battaglia wore to Cannes, Olivier Theyskens’ success at Theory and, weirdly, Pop Phones: landline-style handsets that you attach to your cell phone with a cord. Apparently they’re a thing and editors were using them in the front rows? She also nails into the redundancy of 1920s-inspired clothes on the spring runways, justifiably praising Prada and Balenciaga for going against the grain:

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Dear Jackie,

I’m still pissed that you called Rihanna the “Ultimate Niggabitch.”

I know, I know, why can’t I get over it? The editor, Eva Hoeke, resigned and issued two sincere “apologies.” Well, you see, the thing is, your flippant use of the word is pretty fucked up. Especially when I read that Hoeke initially tried to brush off the debacle on Twitter as being a joke, a “slang word” that is supposedly used by us in the United States.

I’m not sure where she or you got your information from, but you’ve clearly been shown through social media backlash that you were wrong: it’s not a joke, it’s not “slang” that we all use. Actually, I take that back. I do know where you got this idiotic idea:

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While Anna Wintour was in Tokyo to promote Tokyo’s Fashion’s Night Out, she addressed some controversy that followed an editorial in Japanese Vogue that featured Japan’s minister of government, Renho, in one of Japan’s parliament buildings. Apparently Renho took flak from lawmakers over the location of the shoot. She told the Wall Street Journal:

When women are in positions of power, and they’re featured in a women’s magazine like Vogue…they tend to be incredibly unfairly criticized. It’s an incredibly old-fashioned approach. Just because you’re in a position of power, and you look good and you enjoy fashion — does that mean you’re an idiot, or that it’s not seemly to be in a woman’s magazine? If a man is in GQ, they don’t get the same kind of criticism.

Our first reaction? Yes, right on Anna! It’s true–why should women be viewed as less serious or powerful or good at their jobs just because they look good doing them?

But then we considered the women in power that Vogue chooses to profile in its pages: Queen Rania of Jordan; First Lady Michelle Obama; controversially, Asma al-Assad, the First Lady of Syria; Sarah Palin. They’re all really pretty.

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There’s no doubt about it: With the advent of street style blogs like The Sartorialist, Tommy Ton for Style.com, the Street Peeper and Altamira NYC, the landscape of Fashion Week has changed. With fashion editors’ and stylists’ outfits now being meticulously covered, what goes on off the runway has nearly eclipsed the collections.

Anyone who’s recently attended fashion week–or hell, anyone who’s been on the internet in the past year–will notice that the frenzy surrounding street style during fashion week has reached a fever pitch. Swarms of photographers crowd around the latest street style It-girl, angling (and sometimes shoving each other) to get the best picture. Unknowing tourists stop in their tracks, staring agape at the spectacle–some even start taking their own photos, thinking it must be a celebrity. Industry wannabes, dressed in over-the-top fashions, walk by “casually,” desperately hoping to catch the eye of a photographer.

Fashion week used to be a civilized industry event. Now it’s become a media circus, with both established editors, actresses and unknowns going to crazy lengths to get their fifteen minutes.Teen Vogue‘s Mary-Kate Steinmiller, who is street style fodder herself, told us, “I think everyone (yes, myself included) is guilty of what I like to call ‘peacocking’ and ‘baiting the razzi.’” Other editors have admitted to us that they’ve spent weeks prepping for the event, meticulously planning each outfit. One told us that she would change mid-day if she felt her outfit wasn’t up to snuff.

This deliberateness has surely had an effect on the authenticity of street style photography.

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We have to hand it to Crystal Renn, who remains resolutely calm in the face of constant body scrutiny. Today’s ridiculousness? She’s featured on Vogue Italy’s website shooting an ad campaign for high-end plus-size designer Marina Rinaldi with fellow “plus” model (and new mom) Kate Dillon. Flip over to the Daily Mail, and she’s featured at the Metropolitan Opera opening night as (their words) “now virtually unrecognisable from her days of ‘big’ modelling.” Sigh.

We reached out to Crystal‘s rep, but she’s not commenting on her weight anymore. We can’t really blame her. Here’s the thing. Weight fluctuates, and what you wear and how you’re photographed can add or subtract ten pounds. But that isn’t even the point.

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Oh man, we really, really hope we can stop writing about “sexy” children soon.

The Daily Mail reports that on a recent episode of Toddlers & Tiaras a four-year-old contestant sported prosthetic boobs and a padded butt, which she promptly wiggled and shimmied on stage for a Dolly Parton routine. Interestingly enough, the costume was inherited by her mother, who also wore it when she was a toddler and competed in beauty pageants.

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Cathy Horyn, the New York Times style critic, is one of the fashion industry’s most respected (and, it must be said, feared) writers. Many have felt the lash of her sharp tongue, and her more negative reviews have resulted in a ban from more than one designer’s show, including Georgio Armani. Not everyone can take the heat, including Lady Gaga, who directed her third installment of “From The Desk Of Lady Gaga,” published on V Magazine’s website this morning, at Horyn’s acerbic pen in what she calls an address of “Extreme Critic Fundamentalism.”

Gaga addresses the “insult vs. insight” of fashion criticism. She asks, “Doesn’t the integrity of the critic become compromised when their writings are consistently plagued with negativity? When the public is no longer surprised or excited by the unpredictability of the writer, but rather has grown to expect the same cynicism from the same cynic?” It’s a fair question, especially in this hyper-scrutinized industry where millions publish their own blogs and lob criticism at designers’ work from a relatively inexperienced standpoint. So while Gaga’s question is certainly valid, taking aim at Horyn, a journalist with years of experience covering the fashion industry for one of the world’s best newspapers, is not.

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This morning one of our favorite bloggers Garance Doré took to her site to discuss her struggles with body image and compared what she calls “New York Skinny” with “Paris Skinny.” While we commend Doré for discussing a topic that’s so often swept under the rug and for being so open (that’s why we love her)–we couldn’t let some of her comments about fashion girls go by without comment: Namely, that all New York fashion girls are scary skinny, and all Parisian women have great body images.

For example: “The women in fashion in New York, they’re not just skinny. They’re New York skinny. New York skinny means thin to the brink, yet muscly from Pilates because it gives you those super long lean muscles.” As a New Yorker who has lived in the city for six years and worked in the fashion industry for most of it, I just want to clarify something: We are not all anorexic. Sadly, like most women in the world, girls who work in fashion do face unrealistic body standards–and sadly, yes, many of women in the industry struggle with it. But I certainly wouldn’t say it’s the norm–or that it’s accepted.

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PARIS–No need to remind you of the ongoing scandal around Thylane Loubry-Blondeau, daughter of French TV celebrity(ish), and her borderline erotic shoot for Vogue Paris. So does it merit the outrage? Or is it merely the continuation of a long French tradition?

Although I live in Paris and Blondeau is of French descent, I heard of the outrage through the US media. The French press had either brushed it off, or reported on “the Americans going hysterical.”

If you contrast the coverage of the same story in the US and in France, it’s almost as if outlets are talking about different photos. Here are excerpts of the same story, one in the New York Daily News, the other in the French equivalent, the Nouvel Observateur:

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The question of who does or does not use a stylist, or who lies about it, is a frequent debate in the fashion world. Recently, blogger/model Emily Sandberg directed fire from her blog, supermodelblogger, toward the practice of putting celebs on magazine covers with a post titled “Sarah Jessica Parker–Not A Style Icon”, in which she claims Parker’s style is the work of “a small army of people”, including Pat Field, not due to good personal style. And if you thought this was just idle chatter from fashion blogosphere, think again: the Daily News‘ gossip column Gatecrasher led with this story today.

Opening with a picture of the August Vogue cover, the post asks,

“How much money do you think the studios paid to put Sarah Jessica Parker on the cover of Vogue? I’ll tell you why I ask, I’d like to know how little Vogue is willing to give Sarah Jessica Parker the credit that Patricia Field deserves. Sarah Jessica Parker is not the fashion icon Anna Wintour and all the other fashion business heads want you to believe.”

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I spent the last two weeks traveling around Morocco and Spain, and unsurprisingly, I saw a lot of fake handbags. Sure, as a New York City resident, I see a boatload of fakes every year. Yet in Morocco I was simply taken aback by the vast inventory–faux LV slippers are de rigueur for locals–particularly for a country with very little advertising on its roadways and through its cities. (Even in Marrakesh you don’t see a ton of signage.) Unlike western nations like the US or Eastern countries like Japan (or even China) there just isn’t any luxury advertising.

But it was in Spain that I began to truly question my conclusions on mass counterfeiting.

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I’m far from convinced that Libélula’s Sophie Cranston is the designer of Kate Middleton’s wedding dress, but let’s speculate. Let’s say that Cranston has been afforded the opportunity to make the most talked about dress since Diana married Prince Charles.

Will this be Cranston’s “Jason Wu moment,” as HuffPo royal correspondent Yvonne York declared? Will fashionites the world over be clamoring to get a piece of Libélula post-April 29?

Hardly. And there are several reasons why.

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The Sartorialist‘s Scott Schuman posted two photos of Milanese fashion blogger Angelica Ardasheva on his site yesterday (thanks to Jezebel for identifying her and her blog). Schuman doesn’t usually post commentary with his images–they speak for themselves. But on this entry he offered these thoughts:

I saw this young lady in Milan several times this past season. She is one of the crop of new bloggers. I loved that she’s a bigger, curvier girl than most of the other bloggers who you see in the press and tend to represent the genre.

The subtle thing she achieves so successfully in these two looks is to complement the sturdy but beautiful shape of her legs with an equally strong shoe. A daintier shoe would be overpowered but these shoes create a beautiful harmony for the lower half of her body.

Commenters seized on Schuman’s descriptors, and 1148 of them have weighed in, most of them expressing outrage or disappointment, like this one:

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When Stefano Tonchi went to W, we had high hopes. The former T editor had a clear vision for the mag that we were excited for him to carry out.

Now we’re just bored. At least with the covers.

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Yesterday Vogue Italia EIC Franca Sozzani took to her blog to voice her thoughts about Galliano’s anti-Semitic tirade caught on video:

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