Barbadian beauty Rihanna is now the official face for the Gucci charity campaign as part of their association with UNICEF. RiRi has moved up in the world since her first endorsement deal, and she knows it!

The LA Times published an article the other day about how rock stars are beginning to all look the same, and after a quick survey of many of today's top artists, we have to kind of agree. While we've spent many hours lamenting over how derivative and boring mainstream pop music is these days, we hadn't really taken notice of how conservative rock stars were dressing.

Where's the sex? Where's the wild hair? Where is the leather? Visionaries and rebels are few and far between in today's music scene. Instead of setting the rules for fashion, like many of their predecessors, most of today's music talent look like they're taking their cues from display windows at the mall. From John Mayer to Fergie, most of them look like they're heading to a photo shoot for one catalog or another -- and in a very real way, they are.

Did we fall asleep and dream ourselves back into the 90's when Claire Danes was the envy of teenage girls for kissing Leo DiCaprio in Romeo and Juliet and hanging out with dreamy Jordan every day on My So Called Life? We're not sure, but apparently Miss Danes is still celebrity enough to land a huge contract with Gucci.

Fashion and music have gone hand and hand since as far back as we can remember.

Dame Vivienne Westwood helped usher in the punk style that is still very popular in the UK by dressing the Sex Pistols and Adam Ant; Jean Paul Gaultier outfitted Madonna in those now infamous cone-shaped bras for her world tours, and as of late, Gucci's Frida Giannini has been taped to design 20 different looks for Lenny Kravitz's upcoming 'Love Revolution' European tour.

Recession, schmession. We're not tightening our belts for any looming economic downturn.

Er, rather, we're not tightening the straps on our handbags.

When it comes to handbags, some of us seem to live in an alternate universe where there is no such thing as "budget." Forbes has picked out this (and next) season's "It" bags - those bags for which we won't be shy about taking out a second mortgage on our homes.

As the end of days draws closer and closer you probably find yourself wondering what you should wear. Is it formal? When the chemical warfare starts will the mall stay open? These are important questions, and that's why Diddo Velema has created this conceptual art project using Gucci and Louis Vuitton. There's got to be more to the final countdown than the Final Countdown, right?

Just like the bottles of water, rolls of toilet paper and case of Spam you have stashed in the basement, a gas mask is an important part of a well-stocked apocalypse survival readiness kit.

The thing is, you can't stay underground forever, eventually the Spam will gel beyond means of consumption and at some point you'll run out of shows on the TiVo. That's when you need to don your gear and head to the surface to see if anything besides cockroaches and Starbucks survived. Grab a raid latte and show all the mutants how to look fabulous.

It looks something like this:



Oh, and if these aren't enough, there's always this.

Designer Gas Masks is a conceptual art project. The masks are not real commercial products!
They are designed to be displayed in magazines and exhibited at galleries. They are not for sale.

[via Format]

There's a new Gucci on the job. Although, she's not technically allowed to use the fashion giant's name. Gucci has been known to take legal action against family members who try to use the name to start their own brands. Alessandra Gucci will be creating a new line of designer alligator handbags, calling it AG. What are Alessandra's qualifications to design purses? Well, she has a degree in economics, and ummm, her last name is Gucci. Works for me.

AG will feature three styles, all made by artisans in Tuscany. There will be a pink, a blue and a jungle bag, each named after a member of the Gucci family, her father, Maurizio Gucci, her grandfather Rodolfo Gucci, and of course, Alessandra herself. Do you notice someone missing from that list? Yep, Alessandra's mom didn't get the nod.

There's actually an interesting back story on that...

Patrizia Reggiani, Alessandra's mom, had Maurizio gunned down after the two divorced. Seriously, it was an arranged murder. Patrizia got her henchmen to kill him in '95. But she's a sly one. The Italian police didn't catch up to her until two years after his death. When they finally got their act together and went to go take her into the slammer, she was arrested wearing a fur coat. It's like I always say, once a fashionista, always a fashionista. Patrizia was known for once telling people, "I'd rather cry in a Rolls-Royce than laugh on a bicycle," so is it really surprising that she wanted to go to jail dressed to impress? A women has to have her priorities straight! And things just got worse. In 2000 she tried to kill herself in jail but the suicide attempt was a failure.

I was going to say that this family's history would make a great soap opera. But, it's already a book -- The House of Gucci: A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour and Greed. If the story is already a book this means it's only a matter of time before it becomes a movie. Personally, I think Meryl Streep as Patrizia would make for a great fashion forward villain, don't you agree?

[Via WWD and CNN.]

With a 1" platform, the Gucci Eva Pumps will only feel like a moderate 3" heel, but will give you the long, lean height of a 4" heel. A wing-tip design at the squared-off toe and heel is made of dark plum-colored leather over a black suede upper. The shoes have a thin ankle strap with the signature Gucci horsebit design as buckle to keep the shoes on your pretty little feet. These shoes are made to wear with a menswear-inspired outfit, like a tweed shift and opaque tights.

Available from Bluefly. On sale today for $406.

Can athletic fashion find a home in a luxury goods conglomerate? PPR, the French company that is home to lines like Gucci and Yves St. Laurent has made a bid for a friendly take over of Puma. The NY Times reports that PPR bid around $7 billion on Tuesday for Puma. They have promised to keep chief executive Jochen Zeitz in charge. PPR has acquired a 27.1 percent stake in Puma for 1.4 billion euros ($1.87 billion) and will offer 330 euros ($441) each for the remaining shares for a total of $7.08 billion. Zeitz is set to meet with investors today at Puma's annual shareholders' meeting. In his tenure with the company, Zeitz has taken the company in a more design-heavy direction partnering with designers like Philippe Starck and Alexander McQueen and offering a wide variety of customization options and so the company might actually be a good complement to PPR's luxury labels.

New York is getting ready for its Tom Ford moment. The New York Post reports that Tom Ford will soon open his first store on Madison Avenue. Ford's store will contain his rapidly growing range of eponymous products including fragrances, eyewear and men's clothing. Ford's men's line, which is made by Italian fashion house Ermenegildo Zegna, will also be in specialty and department stores. Ford and his former Gucci compatriot and business partner Domenico De Sole have not shown the men's line yet which of course only serves to heighten the mystery and desire for the products.

Those wishing to play in Ford's paradise better have deep pockets -- he has said that suits will start at $2,500. Will the former creator of sexy lay-about clothing for Gucci be able to create the ultimate power suit? He certainly looked pretty cute at the recent GLAAD media awards, trading his usual open-necked outfit for a bit of buttoned-up sexiness.

Last year, Deidre brought us news of the sleek, sophisticated Prada phone from LG, the first official collaboration between a phone carrier and a designer label. Knowing the way that fashion houses tend to play follow-the-leader, naturally, it was only a matter of time before we started hearing rumors of other fashion-forward collaborations. The first in the rumor mill is the Gucci phone. There isn't much to substantiate the existence of this phone since it's based on nothing more than a couple of photos on Flickr, but wouldn't it be cool if it was true?

Move over iPhone, there's a new gadget in town!

Gucci's man jewelry is for the most part a pretty bland affair, Gucci logo cuff links in a variety of styles, a pair of silver dog tags for someone looking for something a bit showier, elegant cabled bracelets to drape gently against a manly wrist. Exactly the same sort of thing you might see at Tiffany or David Yurman or other upscale jewelers. And then there's this, the Gucci dolphin fin necklace. The necklace, in sterling silver and ebony, sells for $695. I wonder who the target audience is for this one, I think even the dudes at Divester wouldn't be caught dead sporting the Gucci fins.

As a new year begins, I'm always in the mood for all things clean, simple, and fresh. That could be the reason why I fell in love with these Eli & Ra bird necklaces as soon as I saw them.

The sterling silver birds are free to slide along the length of the twig they're sitting on. You can even choose from three different bird shapes, each with their own name. I especially like these necklaces because they're handmade by a husband and wife team along with just a handful of other products. The bird necklaces are available for $70 at Eli&Ra.com.

Via: Design*Sponge

Gucci has a tradition of putting together a special holiday line every year to benefit UNICEF, a group that helps kids in Africa affected by HIV/AIDS. This year's benefit catalog features 15 items, including at least two pairs of shoes and two bags I'd personally love to own.

The prices are a bit higher than usual, but not completely ridiculous, so it's possible to get a great addition to your closet while supporting a great cause and still manage to have enough money left over for your holiday shopping. Or, of course, you could always do some holiday shopping from the benefit catalog, but I just know there's no way I'd be able to wrap these pumps up and give them away once I saw them in person.

Via: Luxist

Style can be expensive -- what with exorbitant prices on designer handbags, shoes, clothes, accesories, not to mention ridiculous prices on department store and other high-end cosmetics. However, that most certainly doesn't have to be the case, if you rely more on "looks" rather than labels.

One good place to fashionably fakeout the designers is on shoes, which don't usually have designer names, logos, or other such branding splashed across them (except for things like Gucci sandals and Burberry rain boots), so no one knows if you're wearing $800 D&G pumps, or a cute pair from Aldo, one of my current favorite shoe shopping destinations. You could spend $995 for a pair of Christian Louboutin Boulogne suede ankle boots, or get a similar pair at Aldo for $119.99. The Aldo ones even have a cute little ruffle.