There are only 8,000 each for him and for her of the Diesel Fuel for Life Special Edition bottles, launched December 2007—and if you search, you may still be able to find some at ‘exclusive sales outlets’. We had to mention it since we think this is the coolest looking bottle for the first part of ’08.

   Meanwhile, photographer Matthew Plummer went along to the Little Brother show in Wellington, New Zealand and took some catwalk shots—we really loved these since they aren’t your ordinary “photographers’ pit” stuff. Some of Matthew’s work will be in the next print edition of Lucire.
   Speaking of the next print edition, Elyse Glickman has an interview with very hip, celeb-favourite LA label Hale Bob—and it was interesting to note that there has been African inspiration there. It’s evident in one of the collection photographs: embellished, raw and stylish. This pic probably won’t run due to space reasons, so here’s a chance to enjoy it now.

    Finally, in terms of happenings for our team, hop over to the beauty pages: our Mari Johnson has been to the Qua Bottle Lounge in downtown Austin, Texas—read about her experiences here.

Online today: a preview of the H&M summer 2008 range (left), which the company says is inspired by hot, exotic locations such as India and Africa.
   This is clearly in the Zeitgeist: the same week we receive Peter Alexander’s latest catalogue (below), which has an African-inspired collection. There’s something about Africa this summer, so let’s hope that translates into awareness of the continent’s issues that we, as a planet, can help with.
  Speaking of exoticism, we do have our special on Katherine Mansfield, the famous New Zealand author—and possibly its ‘first fashionista’, online, for those who missed it earlier this month. The exhibition of her property—including her clothing, perfume bottles and jewellery—is still on in Wellington, and we highly recommend a visit to understand the New Zealand fashion character.

Click on centre of image to play

World-renowned burlesque performer Dita von Teese and Cointreau, the famous French orange liqueur, hosted a lavish debut party in New York for their first collaborative effort, the Be Cointreauversial Show at the Angel Orensanz Foundation at 172 Norfolk Street.
   Over 500 guests turned out including Jason Lewis, Russell Simmons and Porschla Coleman, Nacho Figueras, Andrew Buckler, Adam Lippes, Liz Goldwyn, Hope Atherton, Tara Subkoff, Dylan Lauren, Catherine Malandrino, Nicole Miller, Dayssi Olarte de Kanavos, Kelly Killoren, Aimée Mullins, Simon Hammerstein, Jill Zarin, Countess Luann de Lesseps, Jazleen, RuPaul, Zaldy, Kai Kühne, Casey Spooner, Susanne Bartsch, Traver Rains, and Richie Rich.
   Party revellers sipped Cointreaupolitans and Cointreau margaritas before being treated to the highlight of the night, the reveal of the Be Cointreauversial Show. Strutting on stage in her crystal-encrusted costume, designed by Catherine D’Lish (made of 350,000 Swarovski crystals and weighing approximately 75 lb) she posed and pranced before plunging into a Martini glass. She dazzled the crowd with a performance that proved to be a dizzying blend of grace, wit and pure femininity. The show ended in a brilliant blaze of violet light as Dita took a sip of the new cocktail, the Cointreau Teese, and winked at the crowd. Waiters then made their way into the crowd with trays of the new violet coloured cocktail.
   The show was conceived by Dita as an evocation of the Cointreau world. Cointreau and its unique ‘French touch’ has thrived for more than 160 years without changing anything, from the shape of its legendary bottle to its delicate and instantly recognizable orange flavour. It was only natural to join the iconic image of Cointreau to the world of Dita von Teese and her carefully crafted character, a blend of retro and modernity mixed in with the ultimate feminine freedom of thought.
   ‘With this performance, I wanted to express the sensual and delicious first sip of a Cointreau cocktail while sparkling with the essence of the Parisian history of the liqueur,’ said von Teese.

This Mini Cooper S Clubman was my set of wheels when in Auckland. A great little car, and thanks to Piers, Kelly and Grant for their help at BMW. And thanks in addition to Kelly for sending back my Italian Job CD, which I left in the CD player. A full review in an upcoming Lucire.

Each time we put out a Lucire in print, regardless of country, I wonder: do the folks in the countries (such as the UK) where the magazine is not available know what some of the layouts look like?
   This time around, Laura and I decided we would do a 52 pp. downloadable PDF, containing some of the pages, for those who can’t get Lucire where they are. And for those who can, such as in New Zealand, the downloadable PDF contains some extra pages, and even an article that we’ve earmarked for issue 26. There are two more pages for a shoot; in fact, there’s one shoot in there by Hannah Richards that you won’t have seen at all.
   It’s almost full circle: I remember putting together a 52 pp. PDF in 2003 as a L’Oréal New Zealand Fashion Week special in the pre-print days. It was hugely successful, and was used extensively by New Zealand Trade & Enterprise to market Kiwi designers offshore.
   Readers unaccustomed to the print Lucire might know we have pretty outstanding journalists among our team based on the longer articles that appear online. But you don’t get to see the fun we have with the look, and the PDF addresses that.
   We also thought we’d champion some of our advertisers as an extra thank-you.
   Since the book is 200 dpi and 13 Mbyte, it was better stored on a free service. Head over to Rapidshare, where you can download the issue 25 supplement, as we call it, free. There may be a small delay for the free service but we think it’s well worth it.

It’s not the new Knight Rider (which returns on NBC this year), but Max, a talking, black 1964 Volkswagen Käfer—Beetle to Anglophones—which will front a campaign for Volkswagen of America launching today called Das Auto.
   Max will interview, in a talk show setting, supermodel Heidi Klum, TV personality David Hasselhoff—who should have no problems conversing with a black car—actor and director Leonard Nimoy, NASA astronaut Richard Searfoss, music-sharing innovator Shawn Fanning, and former basketball coach Bob Knight.
   Volkswagen wants to stress not its premium image as it has done of late, but its impact on popular culture through the message, ‘It’s what the people want,’ tying in to the origins of its name.
   The campaign breaks on TV, online, and in print, as well as on social media channels.
   Tim Ellis, vice-president of marketing at Volkswagen of America, says, ‘Max personifies Volkswagen’s past, present and vision for the future. Through him, we will reconnect with American consumers and let them know how Volkswagen understands and responds to what the people want.’
   The American public will first meet Max in a series of teaser ads in major market daily newspapers that will seed him and introduce his knowledge of what the people want. To complement the print ads, an interactive polling program will simultaneously roll out on vw.com. A collection of 30-second television spots will follow throughout April.

This photograph was shot for a motoring-and-travel story about the South Island, New Zealand in Lucire no. 26, but it’s one that won’t run in the print magazine as the quality’s not up to scratch. The light is far too strong, but I like the concept: the new Renault Clio meets an old Renault Dauphine. We have no idea which Renault fan in the Otago region put his or her rusting Dauphine on top of a container but it juxtaposed with the new Clio well. I did great mileage in the Clio as part of an extended road test from Christchurch to Dunedin and back, which readers will see in a future issue.

While Samantha Potes is covering Toronto Fashion Week for Lucire (welcome back, Samantha!), we did receive a release about Kolor Shades from Canada. They’ve just had their opening party in Toronto and sent us some great images from their shoot.
   They’re very youthful and apparently these are the latest styles in eyewear, though older readers may see that it’s a case of the cycle swinging around again, albeit with a late 2000s’ bent. There are more women than men pictured, but Kolor Shades does sell men’s and women’s versions.

This was a nice email to get today:

Our editors recently reviewed your blog and have given it an 8.0 score out of (10) in the Entertainment category of Blogged.com.
This is quite an achievement!

http://www.blogged.com/directory/entertainment

We evaluated your blog based on the following criteria: Frequency of Updates, Relevance of Content, Site Design, and Writing Style.
After carefully reviewing each of these criteria, your site was given its 8.0 score.

We’ve also created Blogged.com score badges with your score prominently displayed. Simply visit your website’s summary page on Blogged.com:

http://www.blogged.com/blogs/lucire.html

   This explains the extra link in the sidebar to Blogged.com as of today—and we’re grateful that this relatively young blog has received some acclaim. We checked and the top blogs in our section are in the high eights (Blogged.com gives tenth scores). Thank you, Blogged.com, and thank you, Lucire readers—if no one was popping by we wouldn’t bother. Blog and audience help each other.

The state visit of President Nicolas Sarkozy of France to the United Kingdom has started off on a positive note, if the fashion media there are any indication.
   First Lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy was dressed in a Christian Dior grey coat (that grey—the one the fashion house itself made famous) with matching beret, accessorized with a black belt and black gloves. She wore black pumps to lessen the 4 in height difference between her and her husband, but also to avoid towering over her hosts, as she may be taller than HH the Duke of Edinburgh.
   The Times made some reference to Thunderbirds’ Lady Penelope but summarized that Mme Sarkozy had, overall, succeeded in a more demure, safe look. Compliments could also be found from editors at Harper’s Bazaar UK and British Vogue, with the fashion magazines drawing comparisons with Jacqueline Kennedy.
   There had been reports that Mme Sarkozy had met with Christian Dior’s English-born designer John Galliano to plan the wardrobe over the last few weeks.
   Her official wardrobe also includes an evening gown by Jean Paul Gaultier. M. Gaultier had also designed her wedding gown.
   HM Queen Elizabeth II wore a mottled fawn coat with dark brown trim and a dark brown hat trimmed with fawn-coloured feathers.