“I’m wearing a dress made for me by Orsola de Castro. She is behind one of my favourite labels, From Somewhere, and is totally on my wavelength. Orsola is the queen of upcycling so everything about the dress has been salvaged from the waste bins of some very prestigious labels, no less, so my dress will be made from waste but you’d never know. I’m also wearing ethical pink diamonds from Australia, by Cajella (on loan of course), and my bag has been made for me by Bruno at Roger Vivier from offcuts. It’s really beautiful.”

– Livia Firth, wife of Best Actor nominee Colin Firth, on her elegant eco-pick for Oscar night. Want your own From Somewhere dress at a fraction of the price? Check out the brand’s new collaboration with U.K. discount retailer Tesco.

As a huge fan of the mesmerizing Joan Holloway Harris on Mad Men, I read Christina Hendricks’s cover story for New York Magazine with great interest. And I was particularly struck by the actress’s insight when it came to all the talk about her much-talked-about curves.

Actress Christina Hendricks poses for New York Magazine's Spring Fashion issue, February 14, 2010. (Courtesy of NYMag.com)

“It kind of hurt my feelings at first,” she said. “Anytime someone talks about your figure constantly, you get nervous, you get really self-conscious. I was working my butt off on the show, and then all anyone was talking about was my body!”

I hope if she reads this, she forgives me for rehashing the territory she loathes so much.

I’m amazed that curvaceousness is so revolutionary in 2010 that her considerable talent is eclipsed by her considerable physical assets. Is anyone else saddened by that? Moreover, why should anyone be surprised that curves can be so attention-grabbing and — dare I say — hot?

The answer isn’t immediately obvious. Not to discount Ms. Hendricks’s good looks, but buxom beauties are truly nothing novel. For example, Peter Paul Reubens began painting his famously full-figured women in the late 1500s. Even among celebrities, the admiration for Ms. Hendricks’s most famous predecessor, Marilyn Monroe, has never fallen by the wayside.

All the attention may have more to do with how Ms. Hendricks’s beauty is so far outside the norm of the standard and immediately recognizable Hollywood look that has developed over the last few decades. With her creamy pale skin and contrasting red hair, Ms. Hendricks’s appeal may have more to do with a long-overdue cultural rejection of indistinguishable tan, blonde, and waif-like starlets. She is, for lack of a more precise word, a classic bombshell on par with Bettie Page Jean Harlow.

No wonder Ms. Hendricks has found success in a period piece like Mad Men.

Granted, not all of the commentary has been positive. Perplexingly, most of the criticism of her curvaceousness has come from other women. The comments section of the New York Magazine article yields less-than-charitable takes on her proportions. “If she wants to keep her body out of discussion she should dress less like a playboy bunny [sic],” writes a representative example from a commenter named Chika028.

Why should this be? I assumed that after years of being force-fed the aspirationally thin, consumers of celebrity culture would be more inclined to instigate a backlash. But the argument seems to be that one unattainable body ideal (the ruler figure) is being traded for another (an extreme hip-to-waist ratio).

Here’s a proposal: détente. Cease fire, everyone. Call me Polyanna but there’s room for everyone in the beauty brigade.

We’ve been pretty clear that we think Mad Men’s mesmerizing Joan Holloway is the awesomest character on television (and not just for her fashion sense), but what we’ve come to realize in recent months is that she gets her moxie solely from Christina Hendricks, the actress who portrays her.

Her now-famous curves have had the whole Internet buzzing since she made the Golden Globes’ best-dressed lists, but to her it’s one big mystery:

“It kind of hurt my feelings at first,” she says. “Anytime someone talks about your figure constantly, you get nervous, you get really self-conscious. I was working my butt off on the show, and then all anyone was talking about was my body!” …

As for the body question, she’ll answer it when asked, but mostly it bores her. “It just leaves a bad taste in my mouth,” she says. “Back when I was modeling, if someone said ‘I’m fasting,’ I would say, ‘Can’t we talk about something else?’”

We say good for her for not engaging the debate. The media obsession is what it is, but more important than her bust or hips is the head on her shoulders.

American figure skater Johnny Weir has reported that he won’t back down to demands that he lose his costume trimmed with fox fur for his Olympics routine, even though he’s been the subject of death threats in recent weeks.

In his trademark flamboyant style, Weir invited extremists to bring it on:

“All these crazy fur people definitely changed my mind. Security wise, staying in a hotel would be very difficult,” Weir told reporters after turning up for an 0800 news conference sporting a striking red and white silk scarf looped around his neck and with his nails manicured. “There have been threats against me. Threats of harming me personally and I didn’t want to get hurt. So I decided to stay in the village and my team has made it as comfortable as possible. …

“There was a lot of attention put on a tiny piece of fur,” said the 25-year-old, the 2008 world bronze medallist. “While I do understand anti-fur activists views about fur and the fur industry, they aren’t part of my life.

“One thing that is horrible is when somebody pushes a belief on you like a religion. I was definitely threatened and felt very threatened. People are nuts.

“I’m an easy person to pick on because I’m very open I like fur and I like things that come from dead animals. It’s easy put your cause against an athlete going to the Olympic Games, it’s good free publicity for these activists.

“I’m not a huge politician that gets these threats all the time. I mean I’m a figure skater. It’s not normal to receive a threat that really threatens your life. It’s a very scary thing.”

Mr. Weir’s opinions may be considered outlandish to some, but we have to agree with him that threatening violence — especially given the Olympics’ history of lethal security breaches — is not the right way to confront him on this issue.

And this is actually the second fur controversy regarding the Vancouver Olympics. Read up on the first one here.

Love magazine made a name for itself this month by convincing eight of the world’s most famous supermodels to pose nude on its eight covers — along with their measurements.

Kate Moss's cover for the February 2010 issue of Love magazine. (Courtesy of TheLoveMagazine.co.uk)

Even more controversially, Kate Grand, the magazine’s editor, had this to say to Vogue U.K.: “For this issue of LOVE, we took eight women who are generally acknowledged as the most beautiful in the world, got them to show off their bodies – widely regarded as the most perfect in the world – and photographed them all in exactly the same position for the cover … We did this to show how much they differed physically from one another, which is why we also printed their measurements.”

So she’s saying the issue is about body diversity. But how much do they really differ?

For reference, the largest waist measurement in the bunch was 25 inches — barely filling out a U.S. size 2 in most brands. All of the models have the same toned abs, the same slim hips (all in the 34 to 35 inch range), the same commitment to bikini and underarm waxing.

There’s no denying that these eight women are beautiful, but they adhere closely to the conventional standards of beauty and grooming. Indeed, they’ve even participated in shaping it. Ms. Grand’s assertion that these bodies that are “widely regarded as the most perfect in the world” is a done deal, a self-fulfilling prophecy. As magazine consumers, we are being told what perfection is.

So the question is, Are such magazine covers exploitative? Probably not to the models themselves. A supermodel likely views her measurements like a college graduate views her GPA: merely as information that will help a future employer consider her application for work.

But in the murky world of body image in the media, we can’t help but wonder whether putting a model’s assets out there in mathematical terms could only serve to drive young women — who often aren’t yet secure in their bodies’ uniqueness — to comparison.

These standards run deep in the consciousnesses of young women. Clearly deeply affected by such declarations of what’s “perfect”, 23-year-old reality television star Heidi Montag recently underwent 10 cosmetic procedures in one day in pursuit of a total body makeover. Nothing was left in its original form, or even in the first draft: She had her first set of breast implants replaced with DDD “upgrades,” her nose recut to an even more narrow blade. Liposuction shaped her neck, waist, hips, and thighs; fat was transferred to her lips and cheeks. She even had her ears pinned back, an effect she now proudly describes as “sexy ears.”

Such a dramatic transformation landed her the cover of People magazine, which she used to try to sell copies of her new CD. But consumers didn’t bite; the album sold fewer than 1,000 imprints in the first week. Instead, the public was horrified.

Perhaps the most troubling aspect of a young woman surgically altering every part of her body in the pursuit of perfection is that it is so permanent. Ms. Montag’s tabloid exploits were a source of amusement for awhile, but now that she’s turned a dark corner and subjected herself to life-altering cosmetic procedures, the joke suddenly isn’t so funny. That she required emergency interventions to help her breathe post-op is further indicative of the degree vanity can undermine a person’s well-being.

Ultimately, what responsibility do magazines and television and society have to help vulnerable young women see themselves more clearly? Because it seems obvious the time has come to put less emphasis on the “perfection” label and more on cultivating self-acceptance. That would be the real Love magazine.

Prince Charles is reportedly planning new initiatives to bring wool back into fashion by promoting it as a green alternative to other textiles.

According to Luxist.com:

The Prince hopes his efforts will help make wool more popular once again for both clothing and carpet and rugs. Wool has a bad reputation as being bulky and itchy but the new push for wool plans to highlight the green benefits and beauty of wool compared to synthetic materials. Modern wool fabrics are also sleeker and softer and are being used in more innovative ways by top designers showing up in traditional Savile Row suits but also in wool bags from Marni and trendier pieces from Burberry and Paul Smith.

The Prince has his own organic flock of sheep and is aware of how lowering wool prices have affected farmers. British wool competes with wool from Australia, New Zealand and China among other countries.

In addition to the new label, Prince Charles is planning to help plan Wool Week, which will precede London Fashion Week this fall. Wool Week will be sponsored by British chain Marks & Spencer.

We just saw Nine last night and were swooning in our seats over the gorgeous costumes from 1960s Italy. All that glamour and slinkiness and femininity — meow!

So we were delighted today to find this slideshow entitled “Movie costumes that started fashion trends” on the Los Angeles Times website. Some of them you’re familiar with — Diane Keaton popularizing menswear in Annie Hall, Jennifer Beals’s legwarmers and off-the-shoulder tops in Flashdance, Faye Dunaway rocking the beret in Bonnie & Clyde — but some were surprises. We hadn’t considered that Brad Pitt in Fight Club was the one responsible for bringing back vintage tees and ’70s-era colored leather jackets (particularly among hipster enclaves, the L.A. Times notes), but the timeline fits.

Some of these movies we had completely forgotten about. (Gleaming the Cube and its asymmetrical haircuts, anyone? Time to reorganize the Netflix queue!)

Which of these have at one time or another influenced your personal style?

Cosmetics legend François Nars is known best for his edgy but gorgeous makeup looks and signature cult products — Orgasm blush, anyone? But with the 15×15 Project, in honor of his company’s 15th anniversary, he’s now cultivating his charitable side.

From the project’s press release:

This initiative features 15 celebrity portraits each inspired by a NARS product shade and based on an iconic reference chosen by François (who personally created the makeup looks and photographed every portrait). The portraits appear in the limited-edition book 15X15, now available on www.15X15project.com.

Visit www.15X15project.com to learn more about the project and to purchase the 15X15 book, portraits from the book, and images taken by the celebrities. Proceeds from this project will be distributed among the 15 charities chosen by the participating celebrities.

Those celebrities include socialite Daphne Guinness (pictured above, for Meath Women’s Refuge & Support Services), actress Amber Valletta (for the Friendly House), supermodel Naomi Campbell (for the White Ribbon Alliance), and designer Marc Jacobs (for AmFAR).

The 15×15 Project is entering its final days online — it goes dark on December 12 — so if you haven’t stopped by the website to see these gorgeous photos, now is your last chance!

Lots of brands claim to sell classic handbags, but more often than not, these bags are trends masquerading as classics. After all, how often can a classic really be born?

We feel that the true classics are the ones that have been around for decades and have stood the test of time. So without further ado, we present some of the best “investment purchases” your handbag money can buy:

• The Louis Vuitton Speedy in Monogram Canvas. With its iconic print and sturdy construction, the Speedy has been the LV of choice for the fashion elite since its debut in 1932. Audrey Hepburn carried one — now that’s a pedigree.
• Chanel Quilted Flap. Also known as the 2.55 (after its original release in February 1955), the quilted flap bag was developed by Coco Chanel herself. The flap closure’s interior pocket, legend has it, was designed to hold Coco’s love letters.
• Hermès Kelly Bag. Originally called the “Sac à Dépêches,” the Kelly was re-named after Princess Grace of Monoco famously used the oversize satchel to conceal her pregnancy in 1956.
• Bonnie Cashin for Coach. Bonnie Cashin launched Coach’s women’s accessories line in 1962, laying the groundwork for the company’s ultimate success as a handbag brand. This spring, Coach released the Bonnie Cashin Collection in homage to the late designer, but authentic purses from her era remain among the most desirable of vintage Coach.
• Bottega Veneta’s Intrecciato Bags. Italian designer brand Bottega Veneta has become synonymous with its woven leather bags, but interestingly enough the technique was born of necessity. According to Purseblog.com, BV’s signature bags were developed soon after the company’s inception in 1966, when its artisans discovered their sewing machines could not handle leather. So they began weaving the leather instead.

All of these bags have certain elements in common: a size large enough to carry the requirements but small enough that it won’t be mistaken for luggage; thoughtful placement of pockets and other design details that make carrying everything you need easy; solid construction that holds up with repeated usage; and a shape that doesn’t scream a particular decade. Follow these guidelines in your bag purchases and time will tell you that you have a classic on your hands.

Apologies if we got your hopes up, but last week’s news of a Leona Lewis leather-free fashion collaboration with Stella McCartney turned out to be a hoax.

Not a hoax, however: Stella has confirmed that she and singer Morrissey will be turning out a line of vegan footwear in the coming year.

Morrissey has historically worn leather shoes, despite his vegetarian ideals:

Despite being a staunch supporter of animal rights, the singer was often spotted wearing leather and suede footwear, and once said of his favourite shoes, (a pair of suede moccasins that were a gift from Pete Burns) ‘I find shoes difficult to be ethical about – one just can’t seem to avoid leather. One is trapped, ultimately.’

Admittedly, our favorite shoes are leather too — we have yet to find a synthetic that breaks in so nicely, lasts as long, or feels as comfortable as leather. But best of luck to Morrissey in his endeavor to make that holy grail of vegan footwear.