Fashion

This morning, we had a link to the story about David Beckham’s Super Bowl underwear ad for H&M. Now we have video.

Beckham collaborated with H&M on a line of underwear, which will be launched with a smoking clip of the international soccer superstar doing his best D’Angelo impersonation.

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Photo: Mirrorpix, Splash News / Newscom

From fascinators to cowboy hats, Kate Middleton — the Duchess of Cambridge and most-talked-about bride of 2011 — has worn headgear of every shape and size. Which is why she’s The Headwear Association’s “Hat Person of the Year.” Whoopee? That’s almost as great as being the Queen of England.

While we’re not sure the royals are planning to mark the occasion with castle festivities or some sort of Beefeater revelry, this is quite the publicity stunt for the obscure, century-old organization. The announcement has spawned much more coverage than the Headwear Association has had in a while, to judge by the news section of its website. But, this is the third year for the designation.

The Daily Beast gives the voting process the crooked eye, but The Daily Mail takes the honor much more seriously.

“She has raised the profile, not only of established names like Philip Treacy and Sylvia Fletcher of Lock & Co, but also little-known designers such as Rose Cory and Vivien Sheriff,” the paper writes.

February 5 isn’t just Super Bowl Sunday. It’s also the day that Target makes the Jason Wu for Target capsule collection available. Set your alarm clocks for midnight and let the mayhem begin?

Announced back in October, the date is finally upon us. Every fashion magazine that we’ve picked up this month has a blurb about the release date, so it’s definitely getting the media coverage.

But we wonder if the coverage is because of the excitement surrounding a new Target collection, or anticipation for Jason Wu.

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LaForce, Chung, Blasberg, & Rowley

Last night was the premiere of Project Runway All-Stars, which brought Mondo Guerra and Austin Scarlett back to reality TV. Joy. But also, there was a pre-premiere of a new fashion reality show called 24 Hour Catwalk. Among the judges — co-founder of the firm LaForce + Stevens, James LaForce.

LaForce is joined on the show by host Alexa Chung and fellow judges, designer Cynthia Rowley and fashion editor and author Derek Blasberg.

The show drew comparisons to the Food Network program Chopped on Twitter. Four designers create a garment based on certain challenge criteria that, like Chopped, is revealed after it’s pulled from a basket. After two designers are eliminated, the remaining two create pieces for a fashion show over 24 hours.

We heard nothing about the show before watching it last night (not as good as Project Runway by a long shot, but better than the truly awful Project Accessory). But LaForce did speak with Women’s Wear Daily about the program while hiking in Macchu Picchu (natch).

“I streaked the set in my underwear and orange socks,” he said. “I can’t imagine why that footage ended up on the cutting room floor.”

[image via]

It’s that holiday e-card time of year and Ralph Lauren is trying to make the most (money) out of it.

Ralph Lauren’s Rugby line is offering e-cards that can be customized with messages that you can also shop from. We’ve got a snapshot of a special card that we made at left.

“We wanted a creative way to engage our customers and drive traffic for the holidays through ecommerce, so we created the Rugby MYO Holiday Card,” David Lauren, SVP of advertising, marketing and corporate communications told Mashable in an e-mail. Too much?

Coty, the brand behind some of your favorite celebrity fragrances (if you smell like Tim McGraw right now, you smell like Coty) has chosen Euro RSCG Worldwide as AOR, in charge of corporate communications. Work will focus on global messaging and media outreach.

The press release announcing the win says that other agency relationships won’t be affected by this latest selection. A Euro RSCG spokesperson tells us the company works with a number of agencies that handle the individual fragrances. Coty fragrance brands include those by Sarah Jessica Parker, Halle Berry, Balenciaga, and Exclamation.

Alfred Angelo

The latest Twilight tie-in will fulfill your wedding day fantasy of dressing like a love-struck teen from a YA vampire book series. Joy!

Here’s the Bella Swan wedding dress, inspired by the one Bella (neé Kristen Stewart) wore in the latest Breaking Dawn movie as she walked down the aisle to her undead, glittering vampire groom Edward (a pasty Robert Pattinson).

We understand the tie-ins. This latest movie had the fifth largest opening in the history of the movies. And besides the sales of books and tickets to other movies, it makes sense to give fans other chances to take a piece of the Twilight experience home with them (and make more money, of course).

But these merchandise offerings must make sense and shouldn’t be ugly.

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We have another high/low fashion collaboration on our hands — Versace has teamed with H&M for a capsule collection that will be in stores tomorrow, which is sure to incite a fair amount of frenzy.

This one, of course, follows in a long line of collaborations, most recently the Missoni/Target collection that caused mass hysteria in person and online. Interestingly, given all the consumer interest, The New York Times says that it’s the media attention that really pays off for the retailer side of these partnerships.

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Rather than make its clothing more interesting, Italian fashion house United Colors of Benetton has garnered attention once again by creating controversy with its advertising.

Instead of death row inmates or abortion tools as in previous shock-stunts, the UNHate campaign released this week showcases images of world leaders kissing on the mouth – President Barack Obama and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, for one.

The most shocking of the images, a photo of the Pope kissing an imam, was pulled in response to outrage. It was nowhere to be found on the Benetton website by Thursday evening, but the company had not released a statement about its removal.

The Vatican is expected to sue.

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People love Jay-Z and his Rocawear clothing brand. But people did not like the fact that they decided to co-opt the Occupy Wall Street movement to turn a quick buck on sales of a t-shirt. After appearing for sale on the Rocawear site, the offending garment has been removed.

The t-shirt, first seen on Hova in a photo with Russell Simmons, caused problems when the company revealed that none of the proceeds from the sales of the shirt would go to fund the movement. In a statement, Rocawear said, “Occupy All Streets’ is our way of reminding people that there is change to be made everywhere, not just on Wall Street. At this time we have not made an official commitment to monetarily support the movement.” Well now. At least they weren’t trying to spin it some way or another.

Both Animal NY and the Wall Street Journal Speakeasy blog say they’ve tried to contact Rocawear for a follow-up post-removal statement but haven’t gotten one.