Fashion writer Suzy Menkes says that during the Met Ball, Madonna climbed on the Temple of Dendur to get a better view of Kanye West's performance. And that she wasn't wearing any underwear while she did it.
“My lasting memory will be Madonna climbing up the Temple of Dendur to cheer on Kanye,” says Menkes. “And from my privileged position, it was very clear she just had these fishnet hose on and nothing underneath. It was an incredible moment.”
That's kind of appalling, isn't it? The whole climbing on a priceless, 2,000-year-old artifact of the world's cultural patrimony thing. Not the going-commando thing. Madonna can do what she likes with her underwear but LEAVE DENDUR ALONE! [Fashionista]
Abbey Lee got all #punk at the Met Ball after-party and flashed her stomach, on which she'd Sharpie'd "GUN CONTROL." Lee hails from Australia, a country where, in the wake of a mass shooting that killed 35 people, historic gun-control legislation was passed to limit access to firearms, especially the kind of high-capacity semi-automatic guns that the spree killer had used. Gun violence is almost unknown in Australia today. [Front Row View]
Lily McMenamy, the 19-year-old daughter of Kristen McMenamy, nabbed a cover of i-D. Her mother's June, 1993, cover is at left. [i-D]
Kate Moss is now the face of the self-tanning brand St Tropez. [WWD]
• A government delegation from Bangladesh is headed to Washington, D.C., to argue in favor of the U.S. maintaining the South Asian nation's preferential trade status. The status has come under fire within Congress following several notorious industrial disasters — the fire at the Tazreen garment factory that claimed 112 lives last November, and the collapse of the Rana Plaza garment factory building two weeks ago, where the death toll currently stands at more than 900 — as well as numerous other disasters with lower death tolls, and Bangladesh's history of suppressing workers' attempts to organize. Bangladesh is the second-largest exporter of apparel and textiles in the world, after China, and the rag trade dominates the local economy. The loss of preferential trade status, the government says, would threaten that industry and the jobs it supports. [WWD]
• Eight people were killed in a fire at Tung Hai knits, a factory in Bangladesh that manufactured knitwear. Tung Hai group customers include Primark, Zara parent company Inditex, Peacocks, and New Look. [WWD]
• Elizabeth Cline, the author of Overdressed, is among those calling for greater regulation of garment sourcing and labor standards. Currently, most oversight is based on local laws — which are notoriously lax in most major apparel producing countries — and voluntary corporate self-regulation, which lacks transparency and independence. "H&M has an environmentally friendly collection, but why can't I walk into an H&M and buy a product that has a label on it that says it's either made in a living-wage factory or some sort of equivalent to the organic and fair trade standards that are in food?" asks Cline. "That's what we need to see in fashion." [Racked]
• Luxury brand Maiyet, which aims to provide sustainable employment to suppliers in emerging economies, has announced plans to build a new silk weaving factory in Varanasi, India. "What we’re trying to do with this facility is say there is an alternative model to a hyper-exploitative, squeeze-people-for-every-penny approach to apparel production. This is predicated on trying to find ways to add value instead of squeeze out efficiencies,” says C.E.O. Paul van Zyl. “There is a place in every industry for mass product. That doesn’t absolve people who are involved in mass from the responsibility of paying living wages and allowing people to work in humane working conditions." [WWD]
• Racked is doing a series of interviews with the "new generation of young, ethnically diverse beauty editors" who are cropping up at the major ladymags. "As young women of color come into power in the beauty industry, there's an opportunity for assumptions about race, beauty, and products to be challenged in an unprecedented way," says the site. First up is new Glamour beauty editor Ying Chu. She says she's focused on "upping the emotional connection of beauty through storytelling. For instance, 'It's My Thing' is a new essay column. The first one is in the May issue with Susie Bubble riffing on her signature topknot. She's incredibly fun, thoughtful, and creative and I really think our readers will feel inspired by her." [Racked]
• Diana Wang, the former unpaid intern suing Hearst for alleged violations on the Fair Labor Standards Act and New York minimum-wage laws, has had her lawsuit disqualified from class-action status. The judge in the case ruled, citing the Dukes v. Wal-Mart case that ended the gender-discrimination lawsuit against the mega retailer, that the 3,000 unpaid interns who worked for Hearst could not constitute a "class," because all they had in common was...that they were unpaid interns who worked for Hearst. Any intern who wants to re-file as an individual is free to do so, but, notes Reuters, it's unlikely given the low potential pay-out: "Because the plaintiffs say that they were entitled to only minimum wage, any potential payouts to plaintiffs and their lawyers would be based on those low wages." [Reuters]
• Missoni patriarch Ottavio Missoni has died peacefully at home aged 92. [Telegraph]
• Target announced a new upcoming designer collaboration with Phillip Lim, set to hit stores September 15. No images of the collection are yet available. [Target]
• Betsey Johnson's reality show, XOX Betsey, debuts this Sunday night on the Style network. The show examines the designer's relationship with her adult daughter, Lulu, who ends up living in ber building after a divorce. They attend couples' counseling. Cameras also followed Johnson during the period her company went bankrupt and had to shutter all its retail stores, before relaunching as a brand owned by Steve Madden. "With my old company, I called all the shots. I guess I shot a lot crooked because we ended up going bankrupt," says Johnson in the first episode. [WWD]