Updated May 17, 2013, 12.09 p.m. GMT with Italian TV report on Thursday’s incident involving Gandy and Le Bon’s Jaguar XK 120


Tullio M. Puglia

Jaguar is participating in this year’s Mille Miglia from May 16 to 19, 2013, fielding a total of 24 cars, including six from Jaguar Heritage Racing.
   Its team includes Le Mans winner Andy Wallace and Alex Buncombe, and luminaries such as Olympian Sir Chris Hoy, Michael Quinn, three-time Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis, actress Hannah Herzsprung, models David Gandy and Yasmin Le Bon, and Salvatore Ferragamo, the grandson of the famed designer, with whom he shares his name.
   The heritage models are three XK 120s and three C-types, while Jaguar will also field modern F-types, Lucire’s Car to Be Seen in for 2013.
   On the first day, Gandy and Le Bon, co-drivers of an XK 120, were pushed off the road by another competitor, but have begun again at the starting line on May 17. A brief Italian news report is embedded at the end of the article.
   Jaguar has previewed this year’s Mille Miglia with a short film, shown below, featuring Gandy, Le Bon, Buncombe, Murray Walker and, famously, Sir Stirling Moss and his 1952 co-driver Norman Dewis.
   Ferragamo is the Jaguar F-type’s Italian ambassador, a duty he also has with Relais & Châteaux worldwide. He was presented with an F-type 3·0 V6 S at the Castello di Gabbiano, in Mercatale Val di Pesa, near Firenze. His co-driver for the event is Michael Quinn, grandson of Jaguar founder Sir William Lyons.
   Bentley, meanwhile, says it will field two 4½-litre Supercharged Blowers, dating from the 1930s.

Tullio M. Puglia

Updated with video on May 16, 2013, 12.21 p.m. GMT


Ian Gavan/Wireimage

Top celebrities, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Cara Delevingne, Sonam Kapoor, Lana Del Rey, Nicole Kidman, Zhang Ziyi, Georgia May Jagger, supermodel Cindy Crawford, Fan Bingbing, Inès de La Fressange, Isla Fisher, singer Florence Welch, designer Jean-Claude Jitrois, Freida Pinto, Ludivine Sagnier, Julianne Moore, Bai Ling, Lady Victoria Hervey, Phoebe Price, Lorie, Paz Vega, Frédérique Bel, Elizabeth Debicki, Zhang Yuqi, Mallika Sherawat, Josephine Jobert, Tanya Dziahileva, Vahina Giocante, Aurelie Filippetti, Clotilde Courau, Michel Piccoli, and Hayley Roberts and David Hasselhoff—the Hoff himself—attended the 66th Cannes Film Festival opening gala at the Théâtre Lumière.
   Swedish appliance manufacturer Electrolux, meanwhile, hosted the Festival de Cannes’ opening dinner, with award-winning chefs Anne-Sophie Pic (three Michelin stars) and Bruno Oger (two Michelin stars) at the Electrolux Agora Pavilion for the third consecutive year, treating guests to a four-course meal.
   The 2013 adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby was the first film to kick off the events at Cannes. The movie, directed by Baz Luhrmann, stars DiCaprio and Fisher.
   It is one of 20 films in contention for the Festival’s top prize, the Palme d’Or, competing with Behind the Candelabra, a bio-pic about Liberace, and Only God Forgives, starring Ryan Gosling, among others.
   The 2013 jury is headed by Steven Spielberg and includes Nicole Kidman and Christoph Waltz.

Ian Gavan/Wireimage

Swedish brand Lindex, owned by the Stockmann group in Finland, has launched the last part of its summer 2013 campaign, starring Penélope Cruz.
   The first part, which broke on April 15, saw Cruz in Hollywood mode, playing on her Oscar-winning persona. The second part of the campaign, announced at the end of April, had the actress in a relaxed home environment.
   The third and final part conveys a beachy, outdoors feel as Lindex pushes beach tunics, striped tops, shorts and maxi dresses.
   They hit Lindex stores, on- and offline, on May 20.
   In a release, Nina Starck, design manager at Lindex, says, ‘This is “the” holiday collection! We have continued the popular modern preppy style with a playful twist for our Holly & Whyte collection this summer. And I am convinced that it will be just as well appreciated by our customers as the earlier collections from Holly & Whyte.’
   The colour palette includes white and navy, along with red, green, orange and neon colours. Stripes and paisley patterns also feature, according to the company.
   Cruz won an Academy Award for best supporting actress in the 2008 Woody Allen film, Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Lindex currently has around 400 stores, including in Russia and the Middle East.

Kate Moss is the new face of St Tropez, the self-tanning brand, leading its first global advertising campaign.
   Two shots have been released: one of Moss in a white, one-piece swimsuit, and another in the nude.
   The campaign will be in print and online, and appear in point-of-sale materials from summer 2013. St Tropez is also encouraging users to use the hashtag offtosttropez on Twitter for a prize draw, which will include a holiday.
   The company has also issued a how-to video on how to get Moss’s tan in the campaign. Says Nichola Joss, St Tropez’s global tanning and skin-finishing expert, ‘To achieve Kate’s pool-side bronze for the shoot, the St Tropez Self Tan Bronzing Mousse applied with a St Tropez Applicator Mitt gives a natural-looking, streak-free result with a flawless finish. St Tropez Powder Bronzer perfects the look with a beautiful contoured effect and enhances the natural shape of Kate’s body.’
   The iconic supermodel says she has used the St Tropez brand since its inception.
   Michelle Feeney, CEO of PZ Cussons Beauty, the owner of St Tropez, said in a release, ‘As a global beauty brand with a heritage in tanning, St Tropez is now in 18 countries and women from Rio to LA are seeking the benefits of safe tanning. Kate’s fashion icon status is important to us but now her growing number of beauty campaigns proves that her appeal as a beauty icon resonates with confident women across all age groups globally.’

BFAnyc.com for the Metropolitan Museum of Art

The talk today at Lucire was the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s annual costume gala, and who was the best and worst dressed.
   Our friends at ITN had a slightly different view to us, as we felt that Kim Kardashian let the side down with an unflattering floral-print dress. There is great maternity wear out there, but Kardashian’s look didn’t do it for us.
   We’re not sure how her dress was punk, which was the theme of this year’s gala, Punk: from Chaos to Couture.
   Beyoncé wore a gown with a flame motif and a long train by Givenchy, but we wouldn’t class that as the worst. Since largely every celebrity there was a punk poseur rather than an exponent of the movement, we thought it was a good interpretation of the theme while staying true to the red-carpet looks of previous Met galas. There was a sense of the DIY nature of punk even if her gown was put together by Riccardo Tisci.
   Taylor Swift was am ITN favourite with her J. Mendel black silk crepe gown and crystal neckline.
   However, our favourite was Sienna Miller. Miller wore a Burberry gown and studded leather jacket, and had studs in her ears and her hair. She expressed the punk spirit the closest, according to Lucire fashion editor Sopheak Seng.
   Sarah Jessica Parker, another favourite of ours, wore a Giles Deacon gown, a mohawk by Philip Treacy and Christian Louboutin boots, but managed to flash her knickers—as did Madonna in a plaid Givenchy jacket.
   Lucire also rated Rooney Mara donned a half-sheer Givenchy, while Christina Ricci properly went punk with a Vivienne Westwood plaid gown and Harry Winston jewellery.
   Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour wore a pink floral Chanel gown.
   Others were less punky and missed the essence of the roots of punk. Miley Cyrus and Anne Hathaway sported new blonde hairdos. Cyrus wore Marc Jacobs, while Hathaway, in Valentino, said she was inspired by Debbie Harry.
   Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and Katie Holmes got ITN’s thumbs-up, with Holmes in a Calvin Klein halter dress by Francisco Costa. Jennifer Lopez appeared in a Michael Kors sequin-embroidered gown.

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.

As expected, H&M and Beyoncé have released their video jointly promoting the fashion brand and her latest music, entitled ‘Beyoncé as Mrs Carter in H&M’.
   The video follows the star’s release of a teaser promoting her Mrs Carter Show World Tour, which kicks off this month. It was first posted on her YouTube channel.
   The 90-second advertisement features Beyoncé in various swimwear and sundresses, beautifully photographed, showing off her figure as well as H&M’s summer styles.
   The advertisement was directed by Jonas Åkerlund, and complements the print campaign shot by Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin in Nassau.
   Beyoncé moves to the sound of her song, ‘Standing on the Sun’, which will be available worldwide and via hm.com from May.
   Donald Schneider, creative director of H&M, summarized the campaign when we published the news last month: ‘H&M’s summer campaign starring Beyoncé is an epic fantasy, with glamour, drama and also a sense of paradise. It was amazing to watch her on the shoot make it all look effortless—a quality that makes her such an icon for women around the world. The campaign is the essence of Beyoncé, and also the essence of H&M this summer.’
   Ann-Sofie Johansson, head of design for the retailer, noted, ‘There’s the perfect bodycon dress, as well as a flowing sundress that makes a real statement. And of course there are the bikinis, especially the fringed bikini. What makes these pieces even more special is that Beyoncé herself had input into the design, and they are full of her own personal style.’
   The collection is available from May.

April 25: Beyoncé releases ‘Beyoncé as Mrs Carter in H&M’—see her new video here

H&M’s latest spokeswoman, Beyoncé, has teased her Mrs Carter Show World Tour with video clips.
   A month ago, Lucire revealed that the music star would be the Swedish retailer’s latest model. Since last year, most likely thanks to the influence of its creative director Donald Schneider, H&M had connected itself successfully to major music acts. First it was Lana Del Rey, and now it has tied in with Beyoncé’s latest world tour.
   The campaign features ‘Beyoncé as Mrs Carter in H&M’, and now Beyoncé has revealed more details of the tour itself.
   The video shows her in multiple costume changes, including glittering catsuits, as well as scenes atop a piano and flying on a trapeze. She performs ‘Halo’, ‘Run the World (Girls)’ and ‘Love on Top’.
   Sixty-one shows are planned for Europe and North America (detailed on her website, along with ticket purchase links), so the ‘world’ aspect of the tour is not entirely accurate. Beyoncé’s promotional team is offering tour exclusives, ticket pre-sales and VIP packages as part of the tour for those who wish to provide their personal details to join her ‘Beyhive’ blog.