Luisaviaroma for Unicef presents "Pug dogs for happy kids"
Courtesy of Luisaviaroma

Italy's most fashionable retailer LuisaViaRoma has teamed up with toymaker Steiff and Unicef to create a collection of cute toy pugs dressed by some of the best fashion designers out there. The one of a kind collection includes designs by Roberto Cavalli, Francesco Scognamiglio, Giambattista Valli, Versace and Emilio Pucci among others.
Starting today auctions for the fashionable pugs will take place every week for the next 6 weeks with all proceedings going to Unicef to support disadvantaged children.

Kicking off this amazing initiative are the pugs wearing Balmain, Mary Katrantzou and Valentino. Click HERE to bid for this week and see the rest of the incredible collection Steiff and LuisaViaRoma have put together!

Style.com, Vogue.com

I have been keenly watching all the videos from this year's CFDA / Vogue Fashion Fund. I love the fact that they've created several episodes where they talk to this year's nominees but also to the judges. It's really interesting to hear both sides.

I don't want to get into my predictions just yet but I will say that, at least for womenswear, Joseph Altuzarra is one of my favourites. I love him at the beginning of the last video (which you can see here) where he escorts Anna up the stairs to his studio. I've thought he's such a talented designer ever since his first collection for FW09.

However, I will play the superficial character and say that the highlight of the video for me was actually Joseph's Schnauzer puppy wearing a custom made anorak inspired from one of this FW11 looks. I loved what he did with anoraks for this season but I must say I like it more on the pup.

Style.com, LuisaViaRoma

One of the things that used to drive me a little crazy when Project Runway started about 9 years ago was how unaware all the designers were of what the big names were doing on the runway. This, of course, is arguably a good or bad thing –the way I see it, you need to know what the competition is doing.

During this new season of the show we've already seen some clear references to other designers, especially McQueen, which keeps coming up on the judges' comments too. In last week's episode the only similarity between the contestants' work and the high fashion runway was the picture of an angry dog that served as inspiration for one of the dresses.

The final result was hideous but it seemed interesting to me how the girl who painted the picture, whose Christopher Kane dress made it evident that she knows fashion, might have been somehow influenced by Riccardo Tisci's f/w11 Rottweiler menswear collection.

I also loved Viktor in one of Prada's famous s/s11 shirts. It was about time some of the designers started dressing well because I will never understand how you can make beautiful things if you can't start with dressing yourself well.

Read the interview with Riccardo Tisci by Donatella Versace and see the rest of the pictures here.

[Interview]