Actress Helen Flanagan (formerly of Coronation Street, where she played Rosie Webster) is the top-placed Briton on FHM’s Sexiest 100 Women list, thanks to reader votes. Mila Kunis topped the poll, voted via fhm.com, followed by Rihanna. Flanagan found herself in third place in the list of international celebrities.
   Rounding off the top ten—and showing how FHM’s largely British reader base often voted in their own—were Michelle Keegan, Kelly Brook, Kaley Cuoco, Pixie Lott, Kate Upton, Cheryl Cole and Georgia Salpa. Tulisa Contostavlos just missed out on a top-10 placing, in 11th.
   Our colleagues at ITN caught up with her in a very low-cut black gown at the party announcing the list, but presumably the volume prevented Flanagan from hearing the first questions posed to her.
   Once tuned in to the interviewer, the 22-year-old Mancunian actress got through her questions more quickly.
   Flanagan says that she has an obsession with Angelina Jolie and also regards eighth-placed Kate Upton as being sexy.
   She also notes that she is ‘socially shy’ and would prefer a gentleman with manners to a ‘bad boy’.
   Flanagan leapt from 47th place in last year’s poll.
   The full list can be found at www.fhm.com/girls/100-sexiest-women.
   Our second video features Emily Atack, Keeley Hazell, Jorgie Porter and Laura Whitmore.

Actress Sonam Kapoor is the cover girl for the fifth issue of Notch, a free lifestyle and entertainment magazine that can be downloaded via Kindle, Ipad, Android and its own website at www.notchmag.com.
   Kapoor was reportedly happy to be a cover girl for a digital publication: ‘The world has shrunk because of the internet and social media. Everything goes viral these days,’ she said in a release from Notch.
   On her industry: ‘I think the boundaries of international or national cinema doesn’t exist anymore. Everybody is working everywhere—technicians come from abroad, technicians go overseas from India. It is the age of world cinema now and if there’s an opportunity with a good script and good role, I don’t mind doing any role in any language.’
   She is right about those boundaries disappearing: Kapoor was in New Zealand for the Abbas–Mustan brothers’ Players, which we reported on during its first day of filming, and at Cannes for the Film Festival in 2011.
   Joining her in the fifth issue are Sridevi, Amitabh Bachchan on working in The Great Gatsby remake, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Deepa Mehta on making Midnight’s Children, Sabyasachi on his collaboration with L Capital, two-time Academy Award winner A. R. Rahman, and Olympian Milkha Singh.

Since it’s awards’ season in Hollywood, celebrity hairstylist David Babaii has been hard at work again, this time working on Nicole Kidman.
   At the Producers’ Guild Awards (top), Kidman had a fringe and a half-up, half-down do. Babaii used IT&LY Hairfashion’s eco-friendly, cruelty-free Purity Design Line. He began with blow-drying, with a mixture of IT&LY Pure Water Drops and Pure Fluid Experience. Then, using a medium round brush, he created the soft curls and fringe. He swept the hair to one side for the side part for the fringe, then back-combing the crown and drawing the sides into a pouf at the back. He used the Pure Water Drops for the soft curls at the back and the nape, before finishing with IT&LY Pure Definition Hair Spray for misting.
   At the Screen Actors’ Guild Awards (above), Babaii gave Kidman a straight look. A small amount of IT&LY Pure Water Drops were warmed in his hands before it was applied to her hair. After drying her hair, he used a large, round brush to straighten. He sectioned her hair first, into top, sides and back, first drying the nape area. He created a centre part and finished with the IT&LY Racing Red Professional one-inch digital iron.
   Meanwhile, to those of you following us on RSS, Tiffany Fernando was at BMW’s Ladies’ Press Day and improved her confidence behind the wheel thanks to the experts. You can read about her experiences here. Publisher Jack Yan, meanwhile, interviewed Miss TEEN 2012 Aleisha Robertson (right), one of the first New Zealanders to win an international beauty pageant title in years. Is the tide turning positively for pageants in New Zealand?

Citroën/Getty Images

The Citroën DS3’s not exactly new any more, and, like cars that have been around for a while, a few limited editions might help to get some showroom interest.
   And since Citroën has always regarded its DS3 as a fashion item, with the media comparing it to the Mini and the Fiat 500 (we’re not exactly sure why—the regular C3 is far more Citroënesque and cute to us), why not subject it to the fashion magazine treatment?
   A few years back, we covered the Citroën DS3 by Orla Kiely, and this time, it’s our colleagues at L’Uomo Vogue who have had a chance to tinker with the model.
   Not just any DS3, but a new cabriolet, which made its début in Milano earlier today, as part of the menswear fashion week.
   The prototype shown here will be sold at auction to benefit Women Create Life, a project developed under the World Health Organization.
   It will also be seen at the Studio Visconti, via Mozart 14, Milano, along with a photo exhibition featuring 100 photographs on fashion, lifestyle and celebrity, including images of Michael Jackson by Bruce Weber, Cindy Sherman by Mark Seliger, Elton John and David Furnish by Steven Klein, Oliver Stone by Francis Carrozzini, Maurizio Cattelan by Greg Kadel, Penelope Cruz and Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs by Peter Lindbergh, and Dustin Hoffman by Tom Munro.
   Thierry Metroz, Style Director of the Citroën’s DS Line in Paris, describes the project’s concept in a release: ‘This one-of-a-kind piece was created through the collaboration between L’Uomo Vogue magazine and the Citroën Style team. It’s a unique version using specific colours and materials both internally and externally, which incorporates the DS line and L’Uomo Vogue’s distinctive elements, inspired by their respective worlds and the latest trends in men’s fashion. The well crafted interior is reminiscent of sports cars from the past, painstakingly made by the Atelier Vanhulle, master craftsmen. Our technicians, specialized in concept cars, lent their experience and time for each component in the interior.’

As The X Factor concept reaches its 10th anniversary (and the New Zealand show Popstars, the grand-daddy of them all, turns 14), the American spin-off seems to have had a hard time holding on to its judges.
   Or, if certain sources are to be believed, reactionary powers-that-be aren’t too happy with show supremo Simon Cowell’s choices, and pushed some of its big names off the show when ratings didn’t jump as they had hoped.
   First it was Cheryl Cole out the door, and now Britney Spears has announced she’s leaving the show after one season as a judge.
   Not only is Spears leaving The X Factor USA, she’s decided to call off her engagement to Jason Trawick, in a statement released by her people to People.
   Spears said in the statement, ‘Jason and I have decided to call off our engagement. I’ll always adore him and we will remain great friends.’
   Trawick stated, ‘As this chapter ends for us a new one begins. I love and cherish her and her boys and we will be close forever.’
   In a separate statement regarding her departure from The X Factor USA, Spears said, ‘I’ve made the very difficult decision not to return for another season.
   ‘I had an incredible time doing the show and I love the other judges and I am so proud of my teens, but it’s time for me to get back in the studio.
   ‘Watching them all do their thing up on that stage every week made me miss performing so much! I can’t wait to get back out there and do what I love most.’
   Spears was reportedly offered US$15 million to join the talent show, which had been created by Cowell.
   Her engagement was originally announced after Trawick’s 40th birthday in December 2011.

Above An earlier photograph of Stella McCartney, receiving the British Designer of the Year Award, presented by Salma Hayek.

At the Elle Sverige gala at Stockholm’s Grand Hotel last night, designer Stella McCartney took home the H&M and Elle Conscious Award, given out to those actively working on sustainability and fashion.
   Hennes & Mauritz, which is the principal sponsor of the gala, sponsors both the Conscious Award and the newcomer award.
   The newcomer award was won by Common Affairs, a Swedish menswear design duo.
   ‘Stella McCartney is a modern woman and designer who shows that exclusive fashion, sustainability and responsibility obviously belong together, and are an important part of a sustainable future for our industry,’ says Catarina Midby, fashion and sustainability coordinator at H&M and a member of the jury for the H&M and Elle Conscious Award. ‘There is a consistent collection and lifestyle, and a clearly communicated vision that inspires her most conscious fashionistas with clothes and accessories that are gentle on animals and the environment, with the highest level of fashion.’
   The newcomer award has been given out since the first gala in January 1998. This year’s prize is Kr 25,000.
   Common Affairs draws on its duo’s experiences at design school in London and working in Paris. ‘Together they create a modern metropolitan collection for men but which girls also like to wear. It is well tailored, simple and minimalist with clear sporting influences, cool and functional at the same time, and Swedish-produced with responsibility for people and the environment,’ says Ann-Sofie Johansson, head of design at H&M and chair of the jury giving out the H&M and Elle newcomer award.

Cheryl Gorski

Above A design from the Missoni 50th anniversary retrospective, which Lucire covered in 2003.

Reports from Venezuela indicate that Vittorio Missoni, his wife Maurizia Castiglioni, two friends, whom Italian media have identified as Elda Scalvenzi and Guido Foresti, and two crew have gone missing after their plane disappeared from radar on Friday morning. Search and rescue operations are continuing. The reports have been confirmed by the Missoni company.
   The plane, a Britten-Norman BN2 Islander, disappeared in the area the Los Roques archipelago. Its last known position was 18½ km south of Los Roques.
   The Missonis were in Venezuela on holiday. Family members have gone to Venezuela to await news, say Italian media.
   The Missoni company was founded in 1953 by Ottavio ‘Tai’ and Rosita Missoni, the parents of Vittorio, Angela and Luca, who now run the firm. Vittorio manages the business’s commercial and manufacturing side. It has sales of around US$100 million annually.
   The company celebrates its 60th anniversary this year.
   Five years ago, an aeroplane carrying eight Italian passengers disappeared in the same area, with the wreck never found.

Top The new look for Lucire’s web edition home page. Deeper and cleaner than before. Since this screen shot was taken, we’ve made even more improvements.

Leading a redesign is always exciting, especially when there are more quiet news days at this time of the year.
   If you’ve surfed through our home page, or if you’re a Lucire Facebook fan who got word of it in one of our statuses last night, you’ll notice we are phasing in a new look. Only a few pages have it at the moment—we want to iron the bugs out and get feedback before it appears more widely—but we thought we had better get a few pages looking “more 2010s” and give you the sort of reading pleasure you had when you first visited the Lucire website in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
   The changes are numerous, but here are the highlights:

• first of all, we’ve made it easier for you to share to your social networks, and made those sharing buttons bigger if you’re browsing on a smaller screen. We haven’t optimized the feature pages for mobile yet, but the new look will make its way to these news pages, which, as many of you know, are. We’ll go from there;
• bigger type. As screen resolutions improve, the sizes we had specified type at in the 1990s and 2000s seem rather small. So we’ve addressed that;
• bigger pictures. It’s a recognition of better bandwidth these days. However, we haven’t forgotten that a lot of the planet isn’t on broadband, so we’re glad to note that the basic HTML files for the new pages are actually smaller by 1 to 2 kbyte and we’ve optimized the images for downloading where we can;
• fewer ads. We know they can be annoying. With the new look, we’ve largely retired the 160 by 600 skyscraper size. We’re hoping that despite fewer ads, you’ll be encouraged to visit more, so what we make from advertising should balance out;
• comment forms. Finally! While you’ve always been able to send your feedback, and comment on news articles, we haven’t built in any forms for individual feature stories. That will change with 2013 stories going forward;
• and, on the home page, an animation! This is just us having fun. But we think you might like the top stories in a slideshow. It’s nothing new for a lot of our competitors, and we’re playing catch-up there. Now that we have caught up, we hope you like the first five we’ve chosen.

   In addition to the home page, the ‘Volante’ index page has changed to the new look, as have two articles: Sarah MacKenzie’s 2013 BMW X1 first drive and Elyse Glickman’s 2013 Chicago dining guide.
   There are other little changes, such as the disappearance of the callouts, or pull quotes, and much more noticeable ‘continued’ links for multi-page articles. The links to Digg have gone, too.
   We’re still considering whether to remove the descriptions of each article from the home page, leaving only a byline, to make the look even more streamlined.
   It’s a familiar feeling. At the end of 2002, a similar redesign helped usher in the New Year for Lucire, with the first article on designer Megan Tuffery and her residence at the time, Bruxelles. Until then, there were some lavishly designed stories, and ‘Megan Tuffery’s Brussels’ was created to partly standardize the Lucire look and bring in some more lessons from print. Looking at the page now won’t be entirely representative, since it links to a stylesheet that has since been edited. However, if you do, think of much lower resolutions and much narrower browsers—1,024 by 768 pixels was the norm—if you want to re-create the effect.
   Interestingly, this latest redesign may be the first where web and cellphone viewing habits have driven the thinking more than old media.
   Back in 2002–3, that new look was also considered clean—but such is the nature of technology and changes that things get added, cluttering things up. We wonder how long the 2013 look will remain before it, too, needs a serious overhaul. Two years? Less?
   For now, please enjoy our latest efforts—and look forward to these news pages eventually following suit!—Jack Yan, Publisher