Paris Haute Couture: Dior spring/summer 2012

Bill Gaytten's Dior couture collection was great: is he the man for the top job after all?

BY Lisa Armstrong

Could it be that Dior's nervy, indecision of last year was really an example of old fashioned measured strategy? If so, it may be paying off. The collection that acting creative director Bill Gaytten just showed was a class act by any standards, and particularly so when it followed on the wobbly heels of Versace's Vegas showgirls and Alexis Mabille's riff on the Smurfs earlier in the day.

If Gaytten's 40 outfits lacked obvious Oscar fodder, then so much the better. These were clothes for real clients: gorgeous slim-line chiffon and organza dresses in damson, beige or black, with pleated, stand-away, "crumb-catcher" bodices and embroidery, subtle beading and lattice-work pin-tucking. The full-skirted versions, with their shawl-collared, waist cinching organza jackets were showier, but a no less wearable option come the cocktail hour.

The occasional drop-shouldered, half-sleeved jacket in black or taupe croc-stamped leather, worn with leather, elbow length gloves and patent or tulle court shoes with Lucite heels toughened things up nicely and a scarlet and white houndstooth pencil skirt with peplumed organza blouse could be just the required update for Cameron Diaz, who watched from the front row.

While Gaytten's first couture outing last summer looked strained, this was confident and polished, with plenty of challenges for the ateliers to sink their needles into - and pointed references to the golden days of Dior. The Bar jacket, but a little exaggerated and all of it sheer and ethereal as a dream - which is when half the inspiration came to him, ante-bellum ruffled, strapless ballgowns included.

"It's meant to be x-ray Dior, " he said afterward. "All the structure of iconic Dior, thanks to lots of fittings, but all of it see-through." Clearly this was no rush job. The pintucking on a single skirt took three days."I haven't slept for weeks," he reported cheerfully. "It's been a lot of waking up at 3 am."
He must be on good vitamins because he seemed remarkably relaxed. Surely it's time to close the deal on what is proving the longest job application in history? "No comment."
But are they going to give him the gig?" No comment." Is he working on the next couture collection? "I'm working on the next five".

Meanwhile, outside a chic French blogger worked her new Gaytten-era Dior bag - utterly plain and unembellished, it's the most modern item they've produced in years.

Paris Haute Couture: Versace spring/summer 2012

Eight year wait over as Versace make a triumphant return to Paris Haute Couture.

That smash hit collaboration between Versace and H&M last winter is still having reverberations. The influx of cash must have been handy and the affirmation that Versace is still a relevant name to the public at large will have been welcome to a house that hasn't always been surefooted in its product strategy. But most of all "it made me realise i had to come back to Paris to show that Versace is a couture house" said Donatella Versace backstage this morning.

It has been almost eight years since Versace last performed on the couture high wire, although the atelier remained open to private clients throughout. Returning to the spotlight now might seem a perverse act - but only if you haven't been parsing the business pages diligently.

Those luxury brands who are sticking to their guns and doing what luxury is meant to do - coddle, mollify and reassure the insulated super-rich - are thriving . "The world needs glamour," added Versace, "and I missed couture".

And she's well placed to provide it; just 15 looks, but each a corseted, beaded, embroidered, sculpted monument to what Versace called "glamorous warriors," although with her accent, it sounded at first as though she'd done a brief for glamorous lawyers.

In many ways it was classic, well trodden Versace territory, but the limited colour palatte - steel grey, fizzing sulphurous lemon, tangerine and one solitary bustier dress in gold leather that was laser cut into delicate lace tracery and worn by a fierce looking Arizona Muse - made it look tough and modern. Perspex panniers on the orange dress brought to mind Christopher Kane - no bad thing.

But did i say modern? Only up to a point. Tightly bound and shod in the highest, spikiest, backless gaiter-boots, the models were very movement-challenged, especially when it came to marching down that photogentic flight of gold metal stairs. By the end they'd evolved a sideways crab-step of dubious elegance. But come Oscars - and that's surely where these are heading - these dresses just have to look good straight on. Job done.

Paris Haute Couture: Chanel spring/summer 2012

Karl Lagerfeld looked to the skies for Chanel's couture show in Paris this morning, with an elaborate show staged in a Chanel-branded aeroplane.

BY Lisa Armstrong

France may have lost its triple A credit status, but the country has a new luxury national airline, albeit one that's currently piloted by a designer and staffed by models. Don't bank on it ever taking off on time.

It took builders five days to construct the Air Chanel plane - set, deep in the bowels of the Grand Palais. While other designers are scaling back drastically, withdrawing altogether or exploring the "show-sentation", with varying degrees of success, Chanel's finances cascade into its couture.

They'll be tweeting about that plane for days, along with the Alice Dellal-inspired, gravity defying hair - which allows Karl Lagerfeld to concentrate on largely gimmick free clothes. Not that Lagerfeld can't do jokes, but Chanel is one house to which the couture clients still flock for wardrobe staples - in as far as any couture clients ever flock.

I walked in behind one: a slim woman in sparkling Chanel tweeds, garnished with a tan coloured crocodile Birkin and a headscarf. She doesn't want hilarity with her couture, she wants classics, which is largely what this flight's menu offered.

"I didn't want to make it too literal, " said Lagerfeld backstage. "If you look at what air hostesses really wore back in the '60s, it wasn't that great".

The references may have been light, but short-sleeved, slim tweed dresses, just above the knee, block-coloured and with rouleau necklines, were imbued with the aerodynamic neatness of old airline uniforms - an impression reinforced by the strappy, mid- height glittery court shoes.

Along with all the other houses, Chanel is clearly no longer in the business of selling much couture daywear. The main focus was on cocktail and full-blown evening dresses. These were lovely, as Chanel's couture eveningwear invariably is - and somewhat familiar. That means bead smothered bodices and the "evening" suit, a full-length slim skirt, in filmy chiffons or sequined boucle with a matching cardigan-jacket that's emerging as a favourite nighttime look in Paris this week.

Blue - the colour of sky - was the favourite hue, in all its shades from chalcedony to Pan-Am and midnight. Bags were replaced by ubiquitous pockets - some of them built-into the drop waistbands.

As Coco realised back in the '30s, pockets are key to achieving a slouchy, laid back look. And planes, as far as Lagerfeld is concerned, are a handy aid to relaxing. "I love flying. It's the one time I can escape. I don't have to talk; everyone around me is watching screens. I can be alone. It's perfect". Assume he is not flying Easyjet.

Paris Mens Fashion Week: Berluti

At last: a grown-up mens fashion show full of grown-up men's clothes

Instead of teenagers stomping up-then-down a catwalk in attention-seeking, never-to-be bought snoods, skirts and suchlike, Berluti's first menswear collection was shown on adult men aged 25 to 72.

They sat or stood still, playing chess, chatting or reading, so that onlookers could inspect at their leisure the work of Alessandro Sartori - poached by Arnault from the Italian tailoring company Zegna to become Berluti's designer - at close quarters.

That inspection revealed confidently conservative classics - long overcoats, tailored denim and cashmere, leather patched bomber jackets - that were fashioned (by painstakingly applying hand-stitched flexible insertions between shoulder and armhole) to give a lean, fitted silhouette without restricting movement.
The bags, belts and sundry accessories were made of the same lustrous, hand-burnished leather Berluti uses for its fantastic shoes, and the clothes tinted in their trademark rich burgundy and bottle green tones.

The clothes are luxurious, but practical: an oversized, cashmere coated parka treated with Teflon to make it water resistant. "We want the man to look beautiful, better and masculine but to have freedom to move," said Sartori. "We want to have our own style and we have found the silhouette that we want."
Expensive? The clothes most certainly will be when the line is rolled out in Berluti's retail network, which is to be doubled in size to about 70 outlets this year and will include an in-house Berluti shop in Harrods.

But if tasteful, discreetly opulent anti-bling really is the new in-thing for the cashed-up overclass (and let's hope so), then the newly-expanded Berluti is well set to help LVMH's financial miracle continue.

David Beckham's whole new ball game

As his footballing career nears extra time, David Beckham has a new goal in his sights: turning himself into a one-man brand.

BY Luke Leitch

Subjected to an intense round of underwear interrogation, David Beckham becomes ever-so-slightly uncomfortable. The famous, tattoo-etched Beckham arms that were previously at rest on the table between us rise edgily upwards to facilitate pensive strokes of the Beckham stubble. He tweaks at his hitherto undisturbed beanie, and the gold Rolex chronograph pinched from his wife's dressing-table this morning glints in the midwinter Los Angeles sunlight.

'Briefs,' he ventures, 'are what I mostly wear. When playing, definitely.' Boxer short-wise, he confesses admiration for those that Mark 'Marky Mark' Wahlberg once modelled for Calvin Klein. However, he concurs that too much material in the leg can spark unwanted in-trouser rucking. 'Which is why it's good to wear them at night. I prefer to wear the briefs during the day.' The Beckham voice rises a semi-desperate semi-octave. 'But everyone's different!' Remorselessly, we continue, contemplating a selection of thigh-fitting, boxer-meets-budgie-smuggler hybrids (the label says 'Trunk Briefs').

These come in two styles, one offering a buttoned fly, the other a supportive pouchy arrangement. This offers optimal comfort but - how to say it chastely? - reduced egress. 'I probably prefer the pouch to the fly,' Beckham says, 'personally.' A pause. Then he cracks. The brow ruefully crinkles, and sinks towards his hands. 'What I just said! "I prefer the pouch"!' Britain's pre-eminent sporting hero of our time adopts an own-goal slump. From behind her BlackBerry, his personal publicist Jo Milloy says via a sigh that she can see the headline now.

This magazine, however, will not flinch from forensically questioning David Beckham about his underpants. Nor indeed his vests, pyjamas or long johns. For this - as it has been sternly, repeatedly, nay contractually stipulated - must be the main topic of our conversation today.

From February 2, David Beckham's underpants can be your underpants too, for a trifling £7.99 (briefs) or £9.99 (boxers). That is when they and the rest of his 'bodywear' range go on sale in every one of the Swedish fashion retailer H&M's 1,800ish stores in 40ish countries worldwide. And unlike H&M's usual popular but purposefully fleeting fashion collaborations with Marni, Versace, Karl Lagerfeld and their ilk, this is a long-term partnership. Beckham and H&M (there is no hint of Californian softening to Beckham's Estuary 'haitch and emm') have signed a rolling, to-be-renewed-biannually contract that is expected to last at least half a decade. While his remuneration has not been made public, Beckham will certainly not have come cheap.

Whatever the price, however, H&M may well have pulled off the most fruitful fashion transfer of the season. The 'bodywear' collection was originally planned as a stand-alone, self-produced product by Beckham and his advisers. It was, Beckham says, 'all ready to go' when he and his business partner, Simon Fuller, first revealed their plans for an underpants start-up last May. Not only were the designs finalised, so too was the all-important sell: the label and packaging.

Co-designed by Beckham and Alasdhair Willis (the husband of Stella McCartney and a consultant to Adidas, one of Beckham's long-term sponsors) this label - the branding that appears on the waistband of all the underwear - is rather restrained. Exactly the same as the label on his perfume, it says 'David Beckham' in block capitals, with the end of each word partially obscured by a white, circular elision. 'We came up with a few ideas, then this,' Beckham says. 'It's like a hole punch. Some people say it's a bit like a football, but I tried to stay away from that - it's a whole different thing. I wanted something that people would know was me, but for people who did not want David Beckham splashed over their underwear. Which some people don't, I'm sure.'

He's being Roy of the Rovers post-match modest, here. The evidence is that many people do want David Beckham splashed all over their underwear, so to speak. His 2007 contract as the face (and the rest) of Emporio Armani's underwear range reportedly more than doubled sales of these pricey Italian pants. 'After that, I knew it was the right thing to do. As soon as I finished with Armani, I started thinking about having my own line. It is difficult starting your own brand and being successful in the underwear business, but what we had with Armani was amazing.'

Within 48 hours of declaring their intention to get into pants, Beckham and Fuller were contacted by H&M, which declared an interest in buying the concept. That irritating word 'bodywear' has been appended to the collection because it does stretch a little beyond the underwear zone; those waffled, knee-patched cotton long johns are particularly nice. 'They're very old-school,' Beckham says. 'Not many people wear them - some people think they're ugly, which is odd - but they make me think of James Dean.' The pyjama bottoms and grandad tops are soft cotton that come, like the rest of his collection, in grey, black or white. And the ribbed vests, he adds, 'are pretty standard wifebeater vests.' Ah, the wifebeater. What an interesting name for a garment. 'It really is,' he says. 'I couldn't get used to it.'

The timing of this H&M deal means it is far more than just another commercial gig for Beckham. It comes as he straddles the most significant fault line of his career - the transition from world-famous footballer to world-famous former footballer. 'To be coming close to the end of my footballing career and to have another thing going on, something as big as this, it's exciting.' Or, as Simon Fuller said when the H&M deal was announced, 'it marks an important step in the evolution of David's journey from sporting hero to entrepreneur and icon.'

Beckham is 36. His five-year £20 million contract with LA team Galaxy ended in November. When we meet just before Christmas there is paper-talk aplenty of one last, short-term league hurrah in France for the Qatari-owned Paris Saint Germain. 'I'm going to need long johns if I go to Paris,' is all he'll venture. 'It's a little chillier there than it is here.' No need though: at the beginning of this month the Paris deal evaporated, and he later signed a new two-year contract with Galaxy.

But it is sport's greatest global audience - the Olympic audience - that seems the most likely recipient of Beckham's final footballing set-piece. He has been semaphoring his inclusion in the Team GB football squad (for what is, in four-nations FA terms, a troublesome distraction - albeit a high-profile one) for months now, and does so again today. 'I want to be involved in the Olympics. And I don't want to be a coach, I want to play. Everyone knows how passionate I am about playing for my country, so I'd be very proud to do it in the Olympics. Especially as it's in a part of London where I grew up… I would look back and think, "Wow, I did that."'

Olympic competition would boost Beckham's post-footballing profile, adding yet another swath of international eyeballs to his roster. Yet Beckham's post-football incarnation as a one-man brand will materialise not solely thanks to his footballing profile. Brand Beckham is based on a part-spontaneous, part-crafted spectrum of mass-market appeal. 'People obviously firstly associate me with the football. But there are other aspects of my life that people are interested in. I think people don't just want to buy my underwear because I'm good at football... people are interested in my life and this' - that Rolex glints again as he waves at the clothes in front of us - 'is part of it. It is part of me.'

The first one-man-brand qualification possessed by Beckham is that he's very handsome, damn him. Women and men alike, whether they see him as an object either of desire or aspiration, have long engaged with the Beckham cheekbones and six-pack.

The second crucial qualification that Beckham possesses is his willingness to play with those looks. The fundamental Beckham smartness, he says, set in early. His ascent to designer of wifebeaters began as a diner at Beefeater (it would have been the one in Ponders End, near Chingford in Essex, where Leytonstone-born Beckham grew up). When the family ate out, 'I would want to wear a suit.' These suits, he suspects, came mostly from C&A because that is where his nan worked.

Suit-wearing was a habit cemented at Beckham's first club, a local youth team named Ridgeway Rovers, for whose under-10s Beckham scored more than 100 goals. The coach, Stuart Underwood, insisted on smartness. 'He would always want us to wear a shirt and tie on the way to the game. Some kids hated it, but I loved it. And at Manchester United [Beckham signed as a schoolboy on his 14th birthday] Sir Alex Ferguson always had us in blazers and a tie. It was really regimented, which I loved. That's why when we go for lunch over here - not many people dress up for lunch in LA - I always wear a shirt, a suit, something smart.' This feels, he says, part of his Englishness.

Fashion-wise, Beckham's development from hair-gel-heavy, suited-and-booted ball-bender to bona-fide sartorial experimenter commenced in 1997 when he fell for Victoria Adams, the also-Fuller-managed Spice Girl turned fashion designer (sales: £28 million in 2011). 'When I met Victoria,' he says, 'I got confidence.' He is unrepentant about that sarong. It was Gaultier, he has got it in blue and brown as well as the original black and he still wears them when on holiday. 'If I like something, I'm going to wear it - it doesn't matter what people are going to think of me.' This fearlessness extends to various heavily oiled, lightly clad fashion shoots over the years. 'I've never been averse to doing, not stupid things, but pushing it a little.'

The H&M television ads, which will air from February 2, he says, are in the 'pushing it a little' category. 'Seeing the video I thought, "Millions of people are going to see this. And, it's, ummmm, me, on a turntable, spinning, in my underwear."'

The oft-rebranded hair is set at present in what has been described as a 'side-sweep': longish, side-parted and a little bit retro. 'Very Mad Men,' he agrees. 'I do like Mad Men.' Just days ago he was on the verge of shaving it all off ('going for the skinhead again') but Victoria staged an intervention. 'She said, "It looks so good at the moment. Don't do it." I was like, "OK."'

Under sustained questioning, Beckham insists there is no Wayne Rooney post-op scenario festering under that beanie. 'Someone said I'd had a hair transplant. There's definitely nothing wrong with doing that, but I don't think personally I would. If I do start showing signs of going bald, then I will shave it off. I've still got hair. I'm still fighting it!'

A further facet of Beckham's mainstream appeal comes from his qualifications as a family man. He speaks fondly - if a mite ruefully - of Victoria's Birkin bag collection, and proudly of her excellence as a fashion designer. He never goes to the shows, he says, because 'she gets unbelievably stressed, so I stay out of the way. And I think if I was at the show it might distract slightly from what she does.' So instead he watches them at home, online, with Brooklyn, 12, Romeo, nine, and Cruz, six.

He melts when discussing his baby daughter, Harper, and says that watching his sons grow up is 'Great, but scary. Scary because I can see Brooklyn getting different interests. Wanting to go out with his friends, wanting to talk about girls, growing up into a young man. But I must admit I would rather it be three boys than three girls.' When asked why, he looks suddenly steely. 'Well, by the time Harper is a teenager she's going to have three older brothers that are going to be, well, men.'

As the tabloids would have it, Beckham has a gang of celebrity pals. He becomes star-struck only when discussing the Duke of Cambridge - with whom he plotted England's failed 2018 World Cup bid (Russia won it). Prince William, he says, 'is an extremely charming man. For a person of such a young age he has an aura. He's got the charisma of a king. He walks into a room, and everyone knows he's there. Not because he walks in shouting about it, but because he oozes that charm.' Mid-bid, he recalls, 'My mum texted me. She said, "I can't believe that you are sat between the PM and the future King of England."'

When arranging this interview we pressed our best to fix the location for Beverly Hills, chez Beckham, just down from Jay Leno and Tom Cruise. They weren't having it. Yet this gleaming white Sunset Boulevard office suite overlooking Los Angeles' low-rise panorama seems just as fitting a spot. For it is from here, in Simon Fuller's headquarters, that Beckham's progress along the footballer-to-fashion journey metaphor is being so very carefully shaped. Asked what he plans to do post-football, he mentions his work for Unicef: 'I take that part of my life very seriously.' For himself, he says (repeatedly), he wants to 'be successful.' Yes, but as what? 'I want to be a successful businessman. It's as simple as that.

Sorry ladies, those boob jobs are just too low-rent for high fashion

With more than 9,400 women undergoing boob jobs last year, are the fashion pack one step ahead of this growing trend?

BY Lisa Armstrong

Finally: a body ishoo that can't be blamed on fashion. Amidst the furore about toxic implants comes a surprising statistic from the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (no more jokes about that BAAPS acronym please). 9,400 British women underwent operations to augment their boobs last year, to which the rational response is, why so few? In Venezuela an estimated 35,000-40,000 have them every year.

Idealised images of hourglass women have been blasted at us since Reubens. In the 1950s, the biggest movie stars in the world looked like bosomy, blow-up dolls compared with today's wispy cigarette placebos. Top models however, have, apart from a few notable exceptions, never been pneumatically dramatic. That's because more than concupiscence or conventional prettiness, more even than youth, catwalk fashion favours an elegant, etiolated line. Being mainly spherical - at least they were the last time I looked, although with today's cut-price surgery you never know -boobs are not compatible with lines of any sort. From Twiggy to Kate Moss, flat has been where it's at. Look at Prada. Regardez Armani. Big bazookas there are none. The front row might indulge in subtle (and not so) doses of Botox and fillers. But when it comes to breast enlargements it prefers to hypothecate its budget elsewhere - probably on a bag enlargement. Boob jobs may have become upward mobile, socially speaking, but starlets perching on the front row, inflated breasts winched into swooping décolletés, still look as physically out of place as bawdy barmaids at a eunuch convention. All who enter the kingdom of fashion understand this sooner or later, which is why the last time you saw Victoria Beckham's enhanced orbs on prominent display was before she launched her classy clothing line. The moment she decided to become a Serious Designer, the boobs had to be put on a leash.

Inevitably there has been some capitulation in high fashion to the buffet of surgery now available. In the early 90s, the rise of drag queen culture, ostensibly a joyous liberation, began to exert a not entirely positive influence on mainstream fashion. Then, in the early noughties, a naughty school-girl reflex, combined with fashion's natural impulse to colonise the ugly, the tacky and the scary meant that an influential group of stylists and photographers, including Terry Richardson and, to a point, Carine Roitveld started exploring some of the conventions of pornography. Porn-chic was born - can't you just hear Diana Vreeland's bangles and cuffs rattling as she ricochets around her grave? While much of the stuff in the glossy fashion magazines was meant to be tongue in cheek or, that other get out of jail free card, thought-provoking, the satire sailed high over the hair extensions of that growing legion of followers who interpret every last bit of mischief making in fashion as a literal commandment. Thou shalt be as thin as a wire coat hanger, with the breasts of a teenage boy's Baccardi fuelled fantasies, even though thin and bosomy is like asking for desert and pasture on the same farm. And while thou art at it, thou shalt teeter around in hooker heels with Rapunzal hair down to your waist.

Haute fashion treated porn like an amusing feral creature in a petting zoo and eventually the feral creature bit it in the padded and uplifted rear. Yet even though a few catwalk models have had discreet implants (unthinkable a decade ago) for the most part, fashion treats body parts like expendable accessories - one season breasts are in, the next it's bums - it tends to cater to these requirements with scissors (tailoring, padding and, this year, peplums) rather than the knife..

If you were fortunate enough to spend your formative years in Britain in the 70s and 80s, an era which we can now see was a blissful sliver of history: post corset and the broken doll aesthetics of the 60s but not yet manacled to the current obsessions of unyielding muscle tone, ageless ageing and eternal skinniness, then you may well sail into your dotage not caring about wrinkles, sags and less than pneumatic breasts - or at least not caring enough to jeopardise your health and finances by doing anything serious to arrest them.
But if you're growing up surrounded by images of human Barbies; if you're a woman making a living on television or, increasingly, any area of public domain, it's not so easy to remain impervious to the new expectations, however unrealistic.…Still 9,400 women is hardly an epidemic, even if the numbers are growing each year (an estimated 20,000 Brits travel abroad for work of some kind or other, lipo usually, or face lifts). Some of the increase may be down to repeat custom. Danielle Lloyd, the Wag accused of racist bullying on Celebrity Big Brother, has just announced with impeccable timing, that she's going in for a celebratory second, post-baby boob job.

Sophisticated women may roll their eyes at Lloyd's antiques, and then find themselves sneaking a look at their own body in the mirror. Self-esteem, that most fragile of human glands, in the name of which so much "self-improvement" is carried out, can be as elastic as a wag's skin. It starts out requiring only a decent hair-cut and the occasional new outfit to keep it feeling chipper, and progresses to demanding a complete body transplant. But only in some cases. Aren't we lucky we're British?

How to get ahead in modelling? It's all about social media, darling

Social media is giving a voice to top models who have built their careers as pretty, non-speaking faces - but getting their facts wrong can cause their high cheekbones many blushes.

They'll tweet what they had for breakfast, post behind-the-scenes photos on Tumblr and use Facebook to cultivate "friends" around the world. Tech-savvy fashion followers are eating it up, gaining entry to a world that is so often behind velvet ropes.

"I realised there was an audience interested in what I had to say, not just the images from my work," says model Coco Rocha, who alternates personal posts with a more businesslike platform to highlight brands and magazines she's shooting for as well as her charitable causes - such as helping raise money for communities in earthquake-striken Haiti.

At 23, Rocha is no longer the new girl in town, but her fan base of more than 200,000 Twitter followers and 66,000 Facebook friends gives her "longevity," she says. "Because I have a voice and I'm sticking to having that voice, I feel like I have extended my career."

Name recognition increases a model's value, believes Sean Patterson, president of the Wilhelmina agency. Models who become celebrities, online or otherwise, might even help reverse the trend of movie and pop stars with "relatable" personal stories taking the A-list advertising jobs and magazine covers that used to go to models.

Models with an online following can also create extra buzz for brands they represent. "I imagine, for example, that Victoria's Secret likes that Doutzen (Kroes) has so many Twitter followers and that she tells them, 'Watch the Victoria's Secret show I'm in at 9pm," Patterson said. In addition, social media lets models show the interesting lives they lead off the runway, and it's a way for chatty, likable personalities to shine.

In the 1990s, Christy Turlington, Cindy Crawford and Linda Evangelista were household names, but they didn't get to create their own personas the way Rocha or Kroes do today. The public got to know those supermodels in gossip columns and paparazzi photos; this newer generation posts notes about their yoga poses.

"I started out doing all this as a fun thing by myself," said Kroes. "My big thing was how I could give back and how I could tell people I was involved in charity, but then I figured out how it all fits together: I realised I could build my own profile."

Liane Mullin, co-founder of Modelinia.com , notes that models have a lot of credibility when it comes to posts about "fashion, beauty, fitness, nutrition and food. That's what they're experts in. If they recommend a mascara, they've had it put on them 10,000 times, and I've never worn that much mascara myself, then I trust her opinion."

Models also tend to be very active online once they start. "They're traveling all over the world, sometimes with people they don't know, and they're lonely at times. Social media keeps them company and connected," says Mullins.

When news broke of Brazilian model Alessandra Ambrosio's second pregnancy, the Victoria's Secret pin-up took to Facebook to post picture showing her daughter stroking her swelling stomach on the beach to confirm the rumours.

Model Heide Lindgren wasn't sure about social media at first. She worried about alienating friends and family, fans or potential employers. But when she wanted to promote a pet cause, Models4Water, which supports clean drinking water efforts, doing it online was the best way. It put her in touch with people in the renewable energy industry, pet lovers and fashion fans. From there, she was hooked.

"You can make yourself into more than a model this way. ... It introduces me to a new audience, and it might be more people seeing my posts than something that's in Vogue," Lindgren said. She mentions products occasionally, but not as paid endorsements. She's not sure pitchwoman is the online personality she wants: "I want it to be 100 per cent real."

Kroes said she's still trying to strike the right balance in presenting herself as new wife and mother, celebrity and do-gooder. Sometimes, she slips and sends something personal, not thinking about the thousands of people who might be reading her post. "Sometimes it's scary. I can tweet and 160,000 can see what I'm doing or cooking at home. I forget that because I'm just doing it on my phone, but I'm always trying to reach people in a positive way so I don't think it's a bad thing."

Rocha is posting more than ever, but she's vowing to self-censor a little after tweeting last month from the U.S. premiere of "Iron Lady" that she was excited to see Glenn Close. The movie stars Meryl Streep.
"People tweeted back right away: 'dumb model,' but it was A LOT of people," she said. "When I started, models were booked only for their cheekbones. Now I think I get bookings because people will say they respect me, or we stand for the same things, or they think what I have to say is interesting. It's better to hear that than just, 'You have gorgeous cheekbone structure.'"

Rihanna: She Wears It Well

Singer Rihanna's down-time look is just right for this time of year.

BY Kate Finnigan

Rihanna may be in Los Angeles but last night she wore exactly what I've felt like wearing in London all week.

So it's boyfriend jeans in London, and, apparently, LA. Actually, if I could, I would wear boyfriend jeans all day, every day, whatever the month. My current favourite is Gap's (in play today) but I met someone this morning who was in a very fetching pair by Tommy Hilfiger, which I'm planning to investigate (that means buy). Current/Elliott's The Roller Boyfriend jean is also a goodie. And one of my colleagues works a great look in her Made in Heaven's London Boy jean.

Although at the weekend I like a flat shoe with boyfriend jeans (preferably a brogue and stripey sock combo), Rihanna knows that a heel will lift the sloppiest of denims - not to mention your behind. Her choice of white pointy Louboutins lends her just the right amount of trashy, feminine swagger we should expect from our popstars.

Paloma Faith's dodgy Cirque du Soleil outfit

Has Paloma Faith already stepped out in the worst outfit of 2012? The singer arrived at the Cirque du Soleil premiere in London looking like a member of the cast.

1: She could be some sort of water creature, and the background she's posed in front of only helps bolster this thought. Emerging from a pond of lily pads, she resembles a mermaid who was inspired by Jessica Rabbit for her once-in-a-lifetime night out - but got dragged back to the waterworld by her burgeoning fishtail.

2: Alternatively, she could be one of the Cirque du Soleil cast. From the embellished forehead (more of that later) to the figure-hugging outfit, it doesn't matter if she cant contort herself into the shape of a fork, she could just be an on-stage exhibit.

3: It's no coincidence that she's matching the programme clutched in her velvet, gloved hand: the frock's designer, Alex Noble, revealed on his blog back in December that he was working on a project with the Canadian performance troupe's new show, Totem, hinting that he was designing the dress for "a very well known and talented lady".

4: What is with that forehead make-up? This must be Miss Faith ad-libbing, because Noble's elegant sketch of the gown does not feature face paints… And as if stripes of fuschia, tangerine and gold weren't already enough Paloma thought she needed a slick of orange lipstick…

5: Can we just talk about the dress itself…? It feels like the panels are abstractedly symbolising Paloma's female body parts…

However, there is one redeeming feature to this melee: the intricate gold Dolce & Gabbana hair clips shaped like half moons. Thank God for that.