Conde Nast

Photo: findafascinator.com

Fascinators Banned from June’s Royal Ascot: The Royal Ascot in Britain is cracking down on fascinators, cleavage, and, well… crack. A new, more clearly stated dress code is now officially in place for the event in an effort to swing it from chavy to classy: Strapless tops and above-the-knee hems are banned. Fancy fascinators will only be allowed in the grandstand areas; whereas the royal enclosure (aka the big boy seats) will allow only hats and headpieces that cover at least 4″ of the head at the base. Look out for K-Mid sporting the latest fad, hat-hair. {Fashion Foie Gras}

Justin Bieber Goes Brunette: Speaking of Duchess Kate: Clearly the latest casualty of the “Kate Middleton Effect,” baby Biebs has hit the brunette bottle. Now he’ll definitely be taken more seriously as an artist. Definitely. {US Weekly}

Just How Does Sarah Jaxheimer Do It? She has a cool group of friends, her hair is always shiny and awesome, and she dated the boy Taylor Swift crushed on in junior high. Check out Pop Dust’s exclusive and insanely hilarious interview with the elusive Sarah Jax, who may or may not be the mean girl in all of Swifty’s sad songs. {Pop Dust}

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Marilyn Monroe Photo Exhibition At Milk This Week Only: On November 10-12, Milk Studios is holding a 62-photo exhibition of Monroe that traces her transformation from coy child to bombshell. It includes iconic images as well as never-before-seen shots, such as a stunning shot of her in this backless Dior just six weeks before she died. Think of it as your My Week With Marilyn preview. {WWD subscription required}

Watch: SNL’s Hilarious Kardashian Wedding Spoof: This is the best thing, ever. SNL parodied the Kardashian-Humphries divorce, with Kristen Wiig as an attention-whore Kris Jenner and Andy Samberg as a caveman Kris Humphries. Go. Now. {Hulu}

Chanel Iman and Kanye Are NOT Dating: Iman told Us Weekly, “Rumors are rumors. Everyone’s going to have something to say,” claiming they’re “just friends.” Boo. That was a fun rumor while it lasted. {The Cut}

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Conde Nast is ready for their close-up. With circulation numbers down (except for at Vogue) and ad sales still struggling, the storied publishing house is looking to cash in elsewhere: The TV and movie biz.

WWD reports that Conde Nast has launched a fully-fledged entertainment division and has already named Dawn Ostroff as president. As former president of the CW and UPN, Ostroff is responsible for bringing us such gems as America’s Next Top Model and The Vampire Diaries.

While it’s clear the new entertainment division will be responsible for developing, creating, producing and distributing original television, film and digital initiatives, little else is known about what specific projects may be in the works. “It could mean films, it could mean documentaries, it could mean television shows, it could mean digital series or digital content, it could be digital channels,” Ostroff told WWD. “And it could be across all platforms: Cable channels, cable broadcast networks. It ranges across the board.”

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New Fashion Week calendar shakeups are forcing fashion capitals to battle it out.

Earlier this season, reports surfaced that regular fashion week schedule conflicts were causing problems (or “model crises“) for London Fashion week, with models not making it to London or being summoned to Milan early. While it seemed London Fashion Week’s fate was the least certain, Milan is also now in trouble with Condé editors threatening to skip it altogether because of a broken pact.

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June Ambrose is Getting a VH1 Show: The stylist to Jay-Z and Alicia Keys will get her own show in early 2012, but don’t expect a Rachel Zoe copy; she’ll dress her big clients but also give style and brand advice to emerging talents. {Stylelist}

Your Exclusive Prada Bag Is Actually Made in India: Prada used to source their materials from India and ship them to Italy, but now they’re cutting out the shipping costs by making them at the source and then charging more for the cheaper-made piece. They’re reasoning? The “Made In India” label is exclusive. {Racked}

Lady Gaga Sued Her Own Fan Site: Gaga’s team sued the operators of LadyGaga.org (est: 2008) claiming they “intentionally registered the domain name to capitalize on Lady Gaga’s fame.” But the site doesn’t actually make any money, only gives love to their Queen, so the courts ruled against it. Odd for someone who claims to love her fans so much, don’t you think? {Styleite}

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Hannelli Mustaparta Stars In Net-A-Porter’s Fall Ads: The stylish blogger joins Annabelle Dexter-Jones, Atlanta de Cadenet and Shala Monroque for the sale site’s “real people” campaign. {WWD}

Editorial Musical Chairs: Fact: WWD reports that Chris Dixon, design director for New York mag, is going to Vanity Fair. Rumors: Brides VP and publisher Carolyn Kremins might go to another Condé mag and EIC Millie Martini Bratten might exit the company, while Lucky VP and publisher Michelle Myers might be ousted by Bill Wackermann, their executive VP who also heads Glamour, W, Bon Appétit and Details. {WWD}

Models Don’t Really Make Much Money: A former model speaks out about the inconsistent pay and difficulties faced by unknown models who don’t land Victoria’s Secret contracts or Vogue spreads. {NY Times}

From Runway to Rack–How Department Store Exclusives Happen: Big retailers usually ask designers for exclusive colors or cuts from their runway looks– here’s how they make their wares stand out. {WSJ}

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Condé Nast UK’s London Fashion School for Fall ’12: The Condé Nast College of Fashion & Design will offer students a year-long Vogue fashion foundation course and 10-week intensive courses. Susie Forbes, editor of Easy Living, will serve as principal at the fashion forward uni. {WWD}

Stella McCartney Turns 40: London’s Fash Pack was out full-force for the designer’s 40th last night. Gwyneth, Kate and Kate Hudson got glam (and a bit tipsy) with Kate Moss and Tom Ford in the historic Apsley House by Hyde Park. {Telegraph}

Michelle Obama Honors Top US Designers at White House: The First Lady hosted a lunch for winners of the National Design Awards, with designer J. Mendel honored for his exceptional work in fashion. Obama faves Jason Wu and Prabal Gurung were amongst the honorable mentions. {Telegraph}

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It’s not exactly a secret that Conde Nast has been a little late to the whole Internet thing. Look no further than the fact that their most famous fashion title–Vogue, in case you weren’t sure–only got a dot com a few years ago. So it makes sense the famed publisher is trying to make up for lost time.

Today Conde Nast launched new social media tool “Social Sidekick.” The in-house developed tool works as an aggregator for most-shared content from W, Style.com, Glamour, Self, Teen Vogue and Lucky. It sounds sort of fancy but all it actually means is that on those sites there will be a window at the bottom of the page, which splashes out popular content from the aforementioned sister sites–basically, it’s an aggregator like any other aggregator on any other site. It’s not a bad idea–especially from the advertising perspective–but it’s certainly not groundbreaking, or as Business Insider says, “It’s nice to look at, but it won’t make a big difference to the bottom line.”

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Things have to get really bad at your media job before you decide that hitting send on a dishy and potentially damaging email about your place of work to Gawker is a good idea. So it seems that things are pretty bad at Glamour. And stinky.

A tipster sent the following email to Gawker yesterday:

For years, the ladies’ room of the 16th floor of Glamour has had a mystery shitter who has left enormous packages in various toilets and appeared to purposefully not flush. Despite signs ranging from laminated “please remember to flush” posters and haikus of middling wit being taped inside each stall, the mystery shitter continues to shit, a silent, odiferous protest against a work environment that regularly keeps staffers there past midnight-3 a.m. nights are not unheard of.

This is totally gross and all, but also happens everywhere. We heard it happens at Teen Vogue too (is this a problem at Conde? What’s cooking in that famous cafeteria?), and I even heard tale of poo on the floor of a magazine that shall remain nameless that was then dragged into the newsroom.

Poop stories aside, the real scandal lies in the confession of how shitty (in the non-literal sense) things are inside Glamour HQ, Conde’s shining star in ad revenues and circulation. The tipster goes on to recount how staffers are totally miz at Glamour and doing happy dances when they leave for lower paying jobs:

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Fashion Is Fun

After 36 Tweets, @CondeElevator Calls it Quits

Thursday, Aug 11, 2011 / 2:45 PM

We’re #sorry too, mystery tweeter. Read more »

In case you haven’t heard, @CondeElevator is an anonymous Twitter account that chronicles the most ridiculous conversations overheard in the Conde Nast building’s fabled elevators. From lowly interns to infamous editrixes, no one is left out and the account already has over 55,000 followers and counting.

When we first heard about this Twitter spy, who is presumably a Conde Nast employee, we thought it was a pretty risky move–there was no way the higher ups at Conde would be pleased about this. However, the publishing company has recently spoken out about the account and their feelings about an employee putting their shit on blast may not be what we’d expected.

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The Condé Nast building is a place of great mystery and power. It also has a legendary cafeteria, and the elevators are an infamous hive of activity and gossip.

We have no idea why it took so long, but some genius started a Twitter account called @Conde Elevator to chronicle all the convos that take place in the storied elevators. We applaud the brave soul who started it and sincerely hope that s/he does not get canned.

There are only 13 tweets on there so far, but it already deserves its own “Ten Best Tweets” list. So here they are, in no particular order:

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