loose threads

Hearst Is Reportedly Looking to Buy Elle; Ferragamo Wants You to Monogram Your Stilettos

• Hearst is reportedly interested in buying a controlling stake in Elle, whose current owner, the French conglomerate Lagardère, announced that they’re exploring partnerships with other magazines. [Fashionologie]

Salvatore Ferragamo’s Red Carpet project allows shoppers to design their own shoes by choosing from six styles and 23 colored satins. They’ll also have the option of monogramming them. [WWD]

Maryna Linchuk pats her head with some fake gold hands on the cover of Turkish Vogue’s December issue, which was photographed by Ellen Von Unwerth. [Design Scene]

• Natalie Portman wore one of Lanvin’s sold-out H&M dresses at the Gotham Independent Film Awards. [SheFinds]

• Kirsten Dunst is auctioning off her favorite purse — a navy Sofia Coppola for Louis Vuitton handbag — stuffed with designer beauty products (unused, we hope), an Isabel Marant wallet, and a Bulgari ring, to benefit children’s charity Art of Elysium. [Page Six/NYP]

• Everyone is buying outerwear, thanks to plunging temperatures. [WWD]

• New York Times critical shopper Cintra Wilson visited Soigne K, a new boutique devoted to Indian designers, where she was puzzled by the window display. “On one side: clumpy matte-gray sequined leggings. On the other side: a geometrical minidress that I thought had been ingeniously wrought out of tri-colored lentils as a kind of post-colonial dialogue of equilibrium, perhaps describing a parity of esteem between lentils and sequins. (The ladies in the shop laughed their asafetidas off about that one. No, they’re just beads, they giggled, as I skulked oh-so-blondly over to a rack to try to find a funeral pyre to throw myself onto.)” [NYT]

• Christian Louboutin had a party at Provocateur to celebrate being named “Person of the Year” by Footwear News. He almost cried while giving his acceptance speech, explaining, “I’m sorry, French don’t do speeches.” [Page Six/NYP]

Maison Martin Margiela is decorating the Maison Champs-Elysées hotel in Paris. [WWD]

• Cathy Horyn visited the Beijing couturier Guo Pei. [T Magazine Blogs/NYT]

• American Apparel’s ads are illustrated now. [Copyranter]

Hearst Is Reportedly Looking to Buy Elle; Ferragamo Wants You to Monogram Your Stilettos