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Naomi Campbell shot by Steven Meisel for Vogue Italia

Iman, Naomi Campbell, Alek Wek, Liya Kebede, Pat Cleveland, Jourdan Dunn, Sessilee Lopez, Chanel Iman, Veronica Webb, and Karen Alexander all in one magazine? Cathy Horyn gives you the scoop on Steven Meisel’s all-black Vogue Italia issue. [NY Times]

Is Essence mag making Michelle Obama a covergirl? [WWD]

Janet Jackson to design lingerie line [WWD]

Greece is for lovers throws gladiator sandals on a leather skateboard. Quirky Mediterranean chic. [Kanye West Blog]

Red carpet star style at the ‘08 BET Awards [Lolo’s Cube]

Balmain goes exotic with influences from Native America and India [Haute Mimi]

The Frisky shows you how to work the airport like a runway and cop Reese Witherspoon’s jet-setter steez [The Frisky]

Photo credit: Pretty on the Outside

The supermodel Naomi Campbell escaped jail today when she was sentenced to 200 hours of community service for kicking and spitting at police officers during a foul-mouthed tirade aboard an aircraft waiting to take off from Heathrow.

A court heard that the 38-year-old screamed abuse at the captain of a British Airways flight after being told one of her bags had gone missing during the luggage chaos at the newly-opened Terminal 5 in April.

Campbell ordered the captain to get off the plane and look for her suitcase, holding up the flight bound for Los Angeles for almost an hour. When cabin crew eventually called police to remove her she refused to get off the plane and accused them of targeting her because she was black.

Campbell, who had pleaded guilty to assault, disorderly conduct and threatening behaviour, was also ordered to pay fines totalling £2300 and £550 in compensation to two police officers and the aircraft captain, Miles Sutherland. She had faced a jail term of up to six months for each count of assault.

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Videos like this make me wish I was alive during the ’60’s…and living in Paris…and friends with Yves Saint Laurent.

This clip from YSL: His Life and Times shows behind-the-scenes footage of Saint Laurent’s pivotal second collection under his own fashion house. After his first collection was met with mixed reviews, the success of his label depended on this presentation to fashion media and society swans of the day — Edmonde Charles-Roux Marie editor-in chief of French Vogue, Louise Bousquet Paris editor of Harper’s Bazaar, and stylish Princess Lee Radziwill née Bouvier (sister of Jackie Bouvier Kennedy).

This 1962 archival footage is super-super rare and shows you how different the (pre-catwalk) presentation of the collections were before fashion shows became so huge and theatrical.

Yves Saint Laurent and sometime-muse Catherine Deneuve

Legendary fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent died at his home in Paris last night. The 71 year old designer had long suffered from poor health and succumbed to complications of brain cancer.

Yves Saint Laurent started his career in the fashion limelight when he took over Christian Dior at the age of twenty-one. He introduced the trapeze dress and put out a couple of headline-grabbing collections before he was drafted into the French army and suffered a nervous breakdown.

Saint Laurent returned to design in 1962, starting his own label financed by companion and business partner Pierre Berger.

Under his own label, Saint Laurent changed the way that women dressed, introducing le smoking tuxedo and safari suits in the 1960’s and revolutionizing ready-to-wear. He was also one of the first to use black models on the catwalk, among them, friend and muse Katoucha Niane who died earlier this year.

Au revoir Yves. You will be missed.

Tune your televisions to BET tonight at 8:30pm, posh peeps!

BET News will be airing Fashion Blackout — a fashion come to Jesus meeting when they “take an inside look at one of fashion’s biggest faux pas: the lack of Black models”.

The 30 minute special is bound to include some words from Bethann Hardison, Tyra Banks, and Iman. But hopefully *fingers crossed*, they get Vogue Editor-at-Large Andre Leon Talley to wax philosophical about why black girls go M.I.A. inside the pages of major fashion glossies.