In the past French designer Jean-Paul Gaultier has dressed entrants into the kitschiest of all singing contests, Eurovision, in the past but this year he’s taken his involvement to the television screens of the French in a role he’s not quite known for - a television commentator.

Gaultier will be on the screens of French TV channel, France 3, for the finals of Eurovision on May 24. But don’t for a second think he’s doing this for the publicity. He’s a self confession childhood fan of the patriotic singing competition!

“I have watched Eurovision ever since I was a child,” he said. “[Acting as a commentator is] a pleasure and almost a childish dream.”

While the French might not be happy about their contestant, they surely must tune in just to hear Gaultier’s commentary on the fashion, if not the music.

For those who don’t quite know what Eurovision is, think American Idol, but pitting European country representatives against each other in a continent wide competition. To give an example of the kitsch factor, Abba entered one year and won with the song Waterloo.

See below for Eurovision 2006 winner, Anna Vissi’s, performance to get an idea of the kitsch factor - Vissi wore a Gaultier designed outfit for her performance.

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Before she was the girlfriend of Johnny Depp, a 19-year-old Vanessa Paradis was the face of Chanel’s Coco fragrance. The French actress played a whistling exotic black bird swinging in a bird cage in Coco Chanel’s apartment.

Paradis worked with Jean-Paul Goude to create the 30-second commercial in which she had to learn to use a trapeze for her role. The contract was said to be worth £250,000 and helped launch her into the pages of magazines all over the world. Not bad gig early on in your career huh?

If Ksubi wasn’t cool enough already, they’re profile are about to get a little big bigger and cooler thanks to news of their collaboration with Pastelle, Kanye West’s fashion label.

The denim boys will create a sunglasses collection with Pastelle with the collection aptly called, Ksubi for Pastelle, the range is set to launch globally in October. Designed by Ksubi co-founder, George Gorrow, the collections centre piece will be a limited edition pair of sunglasses which will retail for about $2,000 - and according to a news report it has already received orders from Japanese buyers, sight unseen.

“I love the sunnies Ksubi has produced over the years, and it’s an honour to collaborate with them on this first instalment of Pastelle frames,” West said. “George is an incredibly talented designer, and I’ve never met anyone who knew more about sunglasses and other cool stuff.”

“At our first design session at Kanye’s place in LA we spent two days talking and going over shapes,” Gorrow said. “He allowed me to push the design but playing on his aesthetic. He’s not afraid to try new things, and I guess that is why he is where he is.”

The pair first worked together when Ksubi created a collection of eyewear for West to wear in 2006 for a series of music videos for the Grammy award winning artist.

In the name of rasining money to raise the profile of the struggle in Darfur, Nadia Plesner, a painter, worked with Designers for Darfur to creat an image of a Darfur child in the style of Paris Hilton - complete with handbag that looks very similar to a Louis Vuitton monogram bag and a little dog.

Needless to say Louis Vuitton is not happy. They asked Plesner to “cease and desist” in February saying: “We cannot help noticing that the design of [your] product includes the reproduction of a bag infringing on LV’s intellectual property rights.”

But she hasn’t ceased and has since been slapped with a lawsuit.

“She used the accessories to show that this is what the world is paying attention to,” argued Malcolm Harris, creator of Designers for Darfur.

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If you thought the top models in Gap’s spring 2008 campaign was quite a coup, check out this list of names who will appear in their Fall 2008 Icons advertising campaign:

• Catalina Moreno (actress)
• Clemence Poesy
• Cecilia Dean (Visionaire founder)
• Chanel Iman
• David Benioff (screenwriter)
• Edgar Ramirez (actor)
• Liv Tyler
• Catalina Moreno (actress)
• Georgina Chapman (Marchesa designer)
• Ginnifer Goodwin
• Hugh Dancy
• Leigh Lezark
• Ryan McGinley (photographer)
• Scott Schuman (the man behind The Sartorialist)

Now, if only we could get some eye candy by getting a look at the Hugh Dancy pictures. Who knew Georgina Chapman would pose for Gap. One would have thought she wouldn’t normally go near the store, unless of course there was something in it for her… like a Marchesa for Gap collection?

One can dream.

As Billy Idol sang, it’s a nice day for a white wedding, so today is an good as any to talk about Kate Moss playing a virginal bride for Agent Provocateur.

As the blogosphere revealed a few weeks ago, Kate Moss was being photographed by Nick Knight for her latest film series for Agent Provocateur, the first of which will launch tomorrow. Kate was chosen to play the virgin bride while Jake and Dinos Chapman (English conceptual artsist) will be introduced into the pivotal roles of the vicars performing the service.

Over the next few nights, ShowStudio will release a series of Nick Knight’s interpretation of Joe Corré’s script in stills and film.

Ohh we can’t wait, but Kate as a virgin bride? Seriously.

It was only a matter of time before Google got fashionable, after all it’s a brand that has transcended into the world of superbrands (i.e. calling tissues ‘Kleenex’ instead of tissue).

Yesterday Google launched a collection of new themes created by leading artists for iGoogle, Google’s personalized homepage, and within the 60+ artists they collaborated with, there are a few top fashion names in there.

The likes of Diane von Furstenberg, Dolce & Gabbana, Oscar de la Renta and Akira Isogawa were asked to create themes, and were joined by the likes of Coldplay, Jeff Koons, Philippe Starck and Tony Burch.

Check out the list of themes here - if you can’t pick just one designer to feature on your Google, the guys have created a sampler theme that rotates through all the themes.

Note that Google didn’t ask Ksubi to create a skin after the boys created a home page that was eerily similar to theirs.

Gossip Girl has seemingly inspired the boys at Dolce & Gabanna with their Pre Fall 2008 ads resembling the cast of the popular teen drama series.

Choosing to go with the usual D&G format of bunching together a group of models, the model castings were rather inspired and included some up and coming modeling names. Australia model, Abbey Lee, who has become a regular in the last season or two at D&G was joined by Giedre, Laura Blokhina, Lyoka Tyagnereva, Martha Streck and male model Valentin Savchenko.

The muted colour scheme of this shoot is all a little too private school for me, while the second lot of images (below) seems to send the boys back to a scary world of pale blue suits.

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Celebrity spawn turned model seems to be the fashion trend of the moment. Just look like Lou Doillon, Daisy Lowe, Coco Summer and Dakota Johnson.

Now there are reports (albeit from the Daily Mail) that the 15-year-old daughter and Courtney Love and the late Kurt Cobain is wanted by Karl Lagerfeld to appear in his next advertising campaign.

“She’s only young, but there’s a lot of interest in Frances,” a friend revealed to the Daily Mail. “She is incredibly pretty and has the most perfect porcelain skin. She and her mother are having talks with Karl about Frances appearing in his next ad campaign.”

But Courtney Love is not loving the idea of her teenage daughter pursuing a career in fashion.

“Courtney is concerned about Frances pursuing a catwalk career at such a young age, so she has been involved in all the talks so far,” the source said.

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