Impish, shrimpish model, Audrey Marnay got much less/more than she bargained for when she signed on to shoot the Spring '11 Longchamp campaign with Patrick Demarchelier.  Allegedly, fellow shrimp model and former face of the brand, Kate Moss, became so enraged at the idea of being replaced by Marnay, she contracted famously foul tempered thug and hitwoman Naomi Campbell to "get rid of 'er". After negotiating payent in "big, shiny diamonds; not those fucking dirty ones that South African bloke gave me", Campbell put her evil plan into action. Following a hearty breakfast of cigarettes, crunchy cellphone-parts and a recently employed Latina maid, Campbell boarded "Uncle Phil's" jet for the 5 day flight to deepest, darkest Papua New Guinea - location of the Longchamp shoot.  Upon landing, Campbell went right to work - burning villages, throwing flat screen televisions at the local tribespeople and bribing and berating cannibals to do her evil bidding.  The cannibals leapt at the work, delighted to be paid in "extremely rare and valuable dirty stones".  In rapid succession, Campbell's cannibals snatched Marnay from the hair and makeup trailer, gnawed off both her feet, stuck her upright in a dug out canoe and set her adrift with nothing but a Longchamp handbag (stuffed with tissue paper) and a thoroughly pissed off look on her face.  But every cloud has a silver lining.  On the way to the New Guinea airport, Naomi's armored tank was forced off the road by a rival cannibal gang and she was roasted on a spit and eaten.

But now it seems my luck has turned.  It all began last week when my stockbroker called with congratulations – needless to say, his first ever.  The J.Crew stock I’d asked him to purchase years ago had finally paid off.  J.Crew and Mickey Drexler had officially sold the company to a buyout firm for $2.8 billion dollars, a happy event that increased my personal wealth by tens of hundreds of dollars!

With Mickey Drexler personally gaining a reported $300 million from this deal, it’s inevitable that other companies have begun to look eerily similar to J.Crew of late.  Ironically however, the very originators of the look are doing the best imitation of all.  

This refreshing dose of irreverence is brought to you by the genius marketers at 42 Below.  

After a six year absence from the field, Mr. Ford catapulted himself back to the top by employing one of the oldest marketing tricks in the book.  In a week of instant, constant, unremitting access he did the unthinkable and the brilliant.  He withheld all photos, relying instead on descriptions (i.e. words) alone to give each outfit magic.  God love him.  By denying entrance to all but house photographer, Terry Richardson, Mr Ford not only created the most talked about, least seen show of the week (only 130 guests were invited), he also taught every marketer and his Mother (that’d be me) a deft lesson in how to create desire. No doubt every outfit he showed is already spoken for sight unseen.  

Annoyingly the pant suit doesn't come in a 40 long. 

NYT's Cathy Horyn's contraband picture of Beyonce, fresh from the Tom Ford runway.

The picture of Rihanna on the cover of this month’s Elle must make women feel really despondent.  It pretty much says it’s no longer enough to just be beautiful, talented and lusciously curvy.  Now you’ve also got to be a shape-shifting contortionist with a waist the same width as your head.  The poor girl’s right shoulder appears dislocated (don’t try that at home, ladies).  Her ravishing figure has been reduced to an indeterminate series of flat planes and awkward angles (again, don’t try this at home).  And her hips…well, what woman in her right mind needs those?  Which brings me to the villain of the piece - Photoshop.

While fashion editors, designers, advertisers and advertising standards organizations huddle in far flung places to debate what constitutes Photoshop abuse, many in the retouching community seem to be merrily abusing it in whole new ways. We're talking missing limbs and navels,  and folds of fabric masquerading in plain daylight as a penis. Yes, you can see it all (and more!) on the holy grail of Photoshop disaster blogs, the aptly named photoshopdisasters.com. (Thanks for the tip, J.P.)  

Here’s a little something to tide you over ‘til you get there.

I was standing at the corner of Houston and Lafayette last week - site of a longstanding BP station - when I looked up to see iconic BP logo splattered with what looked like raw sewage.  Camera-less and phone-less at the time (yes, I'd been mugged) I vowed to go back to the same location the next day and record the defaced logo for posterity, and more immediately this blog posting.  When I returned, the oily, red-brown sludge had been completely wiped off and the sunny green logo was beaming away as if nothing had ever happened.  It won't be nearly that easy for BP to erase the damage they have inflicted.  Their logo will forever be covered in mud.

On the same subject but a completely different note, the brilliant raconteur, writeur and window dresseur, Simon Doonan wrote a cover story for The Daily Beast over the weekend about how the oil crisis might best be handled. Exhibiting his signature wit and a blatant lack of logic, dazzling Doonan posits that the mess in the Gulf would have been cleaned up by now if "the coolest black drag queen on the planet, Dorian Corey" (since deceased) had been in charge.  Read on: http://tinyurl.com/282jxdo

One thing I’ve learned during my 1,000 years spent in the trenches of advertising is there’s a fine line between romancing the product and bullshit.

LVMH got busted crossing their little toe over that line last week when the U.K.’s Advertising Standards Authority banned two Louis Vuitton print ads on the basis that they misled consumers into thinking its products are made by hand.  Their handbags are almost entirely sewn by machine.  In the offending ads, female artisans (one of whom looks suspiciously like Natalie Portman) fold the leather of a wallet and hand-stitch the handle of a handbag in gorgeous Vermeer-lit photographs. I actually like these ads a lot, despite the arduous copy.  “What secret little gestures do our craftsmen discreetly pass on?"  "Let's allow these mysteries to hang in the air”.  (Somebody, call my fabulous English agent and quick!) Telling a heritage story is a smart strategic way to add real value to a $5G handbag in these (almost) post recessionary times.  If they’d considered a discreet disclaimer, they could’ve gotten away with it.  Something like:

Objects in this ad appear much more hand made than they actually are