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New York is triumphant, Gisele disappointed: The Giants walked away with a new Super Bowl ring last night. But for the legions of fashion fans tuning in last night, it was the halftime show that was the main event. Madonna delivered a rousing (if potentially lip-synched) performance that incorporated plenty of old hits, including “Vogue,” “Open Your Heart,” and “Like a Prayer,” along with her new single, “Give Me All Your Luvin’,” for a ten-minute-plus medley that ended with a full-on gospel choir. Along the way, LMFAO, Nicki Minaj, M.I.A., and Cee-Lo Green all made appearances. (M.I.A. even managed to elude censors to give the finger to the live television audience.)

And the wardrobe? Courtesy of stylist and costume designer B. Akerlund, who worked with Madonna on videos including “Celebration,” “Jump,” and “4 Minutes,” they incorporated an Egyptian goddess’ store of gold headdresses and jewels and a dash of Versace-inspired Greece. Her three looks all came courtesy of Riccardo Tisci for Givenchy Haute Couture: to begin, a gold cape hand-embroidered with gold metal, studs, crystals, and lined in leopard-print chiffon; in the middle sections, a black minidress in silk cady with leopard-print cape in silk charmeuse (also hand-embroidered) and hand-studded python belt with removable flaps (above); and to close, the long black coat in silk cady with hand-embroidered sequins and micro pearls. (Sketches of all three looks are below.) Tisci also created her gold metal hat, also hand-embroidered with crystals, and her nappa leather gloves. In a statement, the designer said, “People say everything has a limit, but limits do not exist with Madonna.” (Twitter seems to concur: The site reports that her performance garnered an average 8,000 tweets per second for five straight minutes.) Madonna accessorized with 19.6 carats of white gold and diamond earrings by Bulgari. Her hair was styled by Andy Lecompte and makeup by Gina Brooke.

The rest of the evening’s fashion credits continue to roll in. Madonna’s “Music” backup dancers wore Jeremy Scott for Adidas; Nicki Minaj wore a headdress by Erickson Beamon.

Photo and Illustrations: Courtesy of Givenchy

It was Stockholm’s unlikely style icon Lisbeth Salander, or rather the first actress to bring her to life in the original The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo film series, Noomi Rapace (pictured), who kicked off the city’s fashion week Monday morning with a ribbon-cutting ceremony. Rapace attended shows throughout the week, and on Tuesday night, at the just-opened Burberry store, she told us she had just come from the Dagmar show, where Salander was cited as an inspiration (the modernist artist Sigrid Hjerten was the other) for the collection. The three Dagmar sisters are known for their knitwear, but this show brought their label to a new level. For every sweater in a deep plum, there were long silk dresses with high slits secured by zips, and right after the cream chunky Aran knit came a top and track-style pants in a black velvet devoré animal print that made everyone lean forward for a closer look. It appeared again on a dress and alongside the lace-effect knit patterns on a couple of short dresses at the end—Dagmar was the highlight of the day, if not the week. More than one editor placed a personal order after the show—we overheard one of them saying, “I want to be a Dagmar girl” at the end of the presentation.

The rest of the week flew by, perhaps a sign that when casual cool is your brand’s DNA, a full-on show may be a stretch. Then again, you could drive everyone to a hangar space outside the city and show bras on top of cutoff tees (à la Cheap Monday) or throw balloons, confetti, and winking models high-fiving each other on the runway (like Odd Molly), but perhaps that’s not advisable without a heavy dose of Meadham Kirchhoff irony. Jewelry designer Maria Nilsdotter put on a small presentation at the Story hotel for her Swedish folk tale-inspired collection of silver pieces with spikes, and Ida Sjöstedt showed her hand-stitched gowns in the Clock Suite of the Berns Hotel. These more intimate spaces turned out some of the most promising offerings. With that, Stockholm fashion week closed Wednesday night, as temperatures dropped to -13 degrees C (8 degrees F), just in time for everyone to hop over to Copenhagen to begin a new round of shows. —Kiki Georgiou

Photo: Ian Gavan / Getty Images

For her debut capsule collection for French brand Faith Connexion, Annabelle Dexter-Jones didn’t have to look far for inspiration—she dug through old family photos of she and her siblings wearing their private school uniforms. “They are all clothes that you didn’t want to wear as a child, but you want to wear now,” she explains of the collection. The 25 pieces, including bow headbands, straight-leg jeans, a classic little black dress, and a red raincoat, are complete with a special “Annabelle” label designed by Dexter-Jones’ other half, André Saraiva. Here, a sneak peak at the actress in the design studio putting it all together.

Photo: Courtesy of Faith Connexion

For the last short film she shot for designer Vanessa Bruno, Kate Bosworth bent over backwards—literally. She scaled 40-foot fir trees, rode horses, and did backflips, all in the name of Lov (that’s the short’s title, naturally). For their latest collaboration, Moonlight, directed by Stéphanie Di Giusto (who also did Lov), Bruno keeps the moment going, walking on ceilings, riding motorcycles through the desert, and living in an illusory house. One can only imagine what she’ll be doing for the next one. Moonlight debuts below.

Photo: Courtesy of Vanessa Bruno

Giorgio Armani has signed on to design and furnish apartments for the World Towers residential complex, set to be unveiled in 2012, in Mumbai. The upscale complex (complete with custom Armani Casa furniture) will reportedly include a 117-story skyscraper, making it the largest residential tower in the world. [WWD]

Before the Princess Diana exhibition, featuring 28 of her famous dresses, goes on display at Kensington Palace in March, it will first make a stop at the Mall of America in Minnesota. The exhibition opens tomorrow. [Vogue U.K.]

As a tribute to the late costumier Eiko Ishioka, Nowness unveiled unseen images of the costumes she created for the new film Mirror, Mirror. Ishioka famously made Oscar-winning pieces for Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula, outfitted Grace Jones for her 2009 Hurricane tour, and oversaw the costumes for the 15,000 performers in the opening ceremony of the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics. [Nowness]

Dazed Digital met with a few of Central Saint Martins’ most promising M.A. students to find out what they have in store for their presentations on the opening night of London fashion week. Meet Timur Kim, Craig Green, and Mei Lim-Cooper. [Dazed Digital]

Carine Roitfeld stuck to using “real people” (as opposed to models) for her guest-edited issue of Vman, due out February 14. The exception: the bonus pinup girl calendar, shot by Willy Vandeperre, featuring “supermodels and Victoria’s Secret Angels, 12 of the planet’s most celebrated creatures.” Roitfeld dressed the girls, including Joan Smalls, Miranda Kerr, Adriana Lima, and Karolina Kurkova, in an assortment of Victoria’s Secret lingerie and customized pink American Apparel jackets. Style.com has the exclusive first look at the full calendar. Here, a few of our favorite months. —Kristin Studeman

Come Monday, watch out for Jason Wu all over lower Manhattan. The designer is set to paper downtown guerrilla-style with his Willy Vanderperre-photographed images, starring Julia Frauche wearing his fifties couture-inspired shapes from his Spring ‘12 collection. Before you spot them on the street, Style.com has the exclusive first look at the poster (above).

CFDA Menswear Designer of the Year Michael Bastian has collaborated with Barneys on a fully outfitted suit collection. The line will feature slim, modern tailoring ideal for an emerging market of young professionals who want to avoid an “anonymous baggy ‘going to work’ suit.” Pieces, available online and in Barneys stores, will be priced 20 percent lower than Bastian’s namesake line. [Michael Bastian]

Ralph Rucci is opting for private showroom meetings rather than a runway show this season. His sister and communications director, Rosina Rucci, stated that his time slot, conflicting with the Tommy Hilfiger show, was not a factor in the decision. Chado Ralph Rucci was scheduled to show on February 12. [WWD]

Diane von Furstenberg’s new Spring ‘12 campaign recollects work by Surrealist artists Salvador Dalí and Magritte. The campaign places models in desert landscapes, obscured by a mirror covering the face. Von Furstenberg is known to be a collector of the late Dali’s art. [Telegraph]

The Hyères International Festival of Fashion and Photography has announced its ten fashion design candidates for the 27th annual competition. From April 27-30, the global group of designers from Estonia to Argentina will showcase their work to a panel of judges, presided over by Yohji Yamamoto. Hyères is known for embracing emerging avant-garde talent—last year’s jury consisted of Raf Simons, Christopher Kane, Proenza Schouler, and Style.com’s Tim Blanks.
[Hyères] —Alexander Englert

Filson’s fashion moment just got extended—the 115-year-old outdoor clothing company from Seattle, known among the style set for its canvas and leather totes, has tapped Richard Chai as its new creative director.

“As a young designer in New York, we get approached with so many opportunities to collaborate, and sometimes they work—and sometimes they don’t. With Filson, [initially] I just wanted to do some outerwear for my specific collection this season,” Richard Chai tells Style.com of his new partnership with the brand, announced this morning. “Then I was talking with Filson’s CEO and he asked if I would be interested in coming on as creative director—it was all very seamless.”

Chai’s first efforts with Filson, a capsule collection of six jackets and three bags, are set to debut next week at his Lincoln Center runway show. Chai, a longtime wearer of Filson, says, “The core of Filson is hunting and fishing and it’s really practical—it’s amazing when you see how the outerwear is constructed and how it functions,” says Chai. “As a designer, it’s amazing to take that look and reinterpret it to something more fashion-oriented.” Chai did that by adding some of his signature accents to their classic duffel bags and bomber jackets, refabricating them with wool and black stripe fabric. The aim, for this extended partnership, is to land this more fashion-forward Filson collection in specialty boutiques and luxe major department stores.

“Spring ‘13 is what we are working on next, and it’s really about rounding it out and making something that feels more cohesive as a collection,” says Chai, who plans to filter in shirts, pants, etc. next. “It’s going to be a whole new world of Filson.” —Kristin Studeman

Many people did a double take when Prabal Gurung’s Spring ‘12 campaign, featuring a barely recognizable Candice Swanepoel, made the rounds earlier this week. Gurung’s go-to team, stylist Tiina Laakkonen and makeup artist Hannah Murray, transformed the South African model for the sensual shoot with photographer Daniel Jackson, showing off the designer’s Nobuyoshi Araki-inspired collection. Here, an exclusive Style.com behind-the-scenes look at how it happened. —Kristin Studeman

With Valentine’s Day approaching, we’ve been reflecting on our favorite fashion couples. Because when it comes to dressing, a pair of style aces is always better than one. Naturally, power duos like Brangelina or Miranda Kerr and Orlando Bloom made the cut; those genetic jackpot winners could make even burlap sacks look good. Still, you won’t find most of our matchups in the pages of Us Weekly. Model sweethearts Sheila Marquez and Christian Brylle look like they share a single closet. And we love Leelee Sobieski in a suit of her husband Adam Kimmel’s design. But André Saraiva and Annabelle Dexter-Jones take our top honors for their coordinating varsity jackets and jeans.

CLICK FOR A SLIDESHOW, and tell us who’s the best-dressed twosome. —Brittany Adams

The Resort season found YSL’s Stefano Pilati in a nautical mood. So when the label commissioned Maciek Kobielski to shoot an atmospheric video for the collection, the coast is just where he went. Kobielski shot Eniko Mihalik in Cannes for the sultry new spot, debuting exclusively on Style.com.

The early bird catches the worm—that saying was certainly appropriate this morning when, before rush hour, a crowd of industry insiders flocked to the Museum of Arts and Design for breakfast to fête the winners of the 11th annual Ecco Domani Fashion Foundation awards. The birds? Designers Tim Coppens, Sunhee Moon’s Sunhee Huang, Titania Inglis, Eighteenth’s Alexa Galler, Haus Alkire’s Julie Haus and Jason Alkire, Correll Correll’s Vera and Daphne Correll, and Dezso’s Sara Beltran. The proverbial worm? $25,000 grants to fund their Fall presentations at New York fashion week, starting next Thursday.

“This is not something I would typically do on a Wednesday morning,” mused Coppens, who launched his menswear collection in April. “I was surprised to win, but it feels really good.” The judges, including former Barneys fashion director Julie Gilhart, Gilt Man’s Josh Peskowitz, and Paper’s Kim Hastreiter, were all on hand to congratulate the recipients. “We all know how hard it is to get a solid footing in this business,” Peskowitz told Style.com. “This industry requires new people to be able to put forth new ideas, and having this award ensures that process continues.” Meanwhile, retail guru Gilhart bestowed some words of wisdom to the newly coronated designers. “Show up and bring something different to the table,” she advised. Adding, “This is not an award that is about lights, camera, action—it takes time.”

That is certainly true for industry veteran Huang, who has been working on her collection for the past 15 years. “I started crying when I heard the news,” Huang admitted. “I tried to launch the line several times, but it was difficult financially. This is the third time and I feel like it’s the start of my career.” —Nicole Berrie

When he’s not in the city, Yigal Azrouël lives a laid-back, short-board surfer lifestyle. He rides waves on Mexico’s Baja coast, chills out by the Mediterranean in his native Israel, and skips down to Costa Rica for sun, surf, and sand. So, understandably, his offshoot contemporary line Cut25 balances city style (little leather jackets and blazers) with weekend relaxation (easy draped sweaters and wispy scarves). It’s a cocktail that works. On Friday, the line is expanding via its first standalone retail store on Grand Street. “I love the location,” he said over the phone. “The east side of Soho has a really cool vibe, between the stores and galleries. I love Saturdays surf shop and there’s Opening Ceremony, Jil Sander, and Derek Lam.”

Good neighbors always help, but so does family. Azrouël collaborated with his nephew Dror Benshetrit on the interiors of the 1,400-square-foot space. “No one knows me better than Dror,” Azrouël said. “It’s not like I have to even think about it, because he’s already on the same page. He’s my best friend.” The final design includes bleached wood, distressed steel columns, and striking geometric forms that double as sculpture and merchandise space. Speaking of the stock, the designer has created exclusive pieces for the store and curated a fun selection of special collaborations and books. And that’s all before fashion week, which has kept him plenty busy with his eponymous collection. “I come in early,” he said. “Then I don’t even know what time I leave the studio. I don’t even want to look at the clock.”

Cut25 opens Friday, 129 Grand St., NYC. —Bee-Shyuan Chang

“Up until six months ago, I thought OpenSky was an airline,” CFDA CEO Steven Kolb admits. For those in the same boat, OpenSky.com is actually a new e-commerce site that offers members (sign-up is free and open to anyone) access to a virtual cabinet of celebrity and expert curators. Members to the site choose the experts—spanning fields from fashion to design to food to fitness and including Julianne Moore, Carolyn Murphy, Lori Goldstein, and more—that most appeal to them, and can then shop items said experts curate for the site. Starting tomorrow, you can count the CFDA among them. As part of a new initiative, OpenSky members will be able to buy exclusive accessories from CFDA members including Diane von Furstenberg, House of Waris’ Waris Ahluwalia, Albertus Swanepoel, Selima Optique, and Fallon’s Dana Lorenz.

“We wanted to start with accessories since American accessories are the best and they never get the spotlight they deserve,” Kolb explains. “But ultimately it is the CFDA’s dream to sell something from all 400 CFDA designers.” Until then, designers like Swanepoel, a milliner, are enjoying their moment in the spotlight. “It is amazing exposure for my small brand,” he says. “I do not currently have e-retailers on board, so this is a first for me.” Here, in this Style.com exclusive video (above), Swanepoel talks about the four exclusive hats he made for the program. —Kristin Studeman

Steven Meisel shot the Spring ‘12 Prada ad campaign in the most sensible place for the hot-rodding, fins-and-taillights collection: a gas station. Now here’s your first look at the accompanying video campaign, with Natasha Poly, Elise Crombez, Guinevere Van Seenus, Meghan Collison, Ymre Stiekema, and newcomer Katryn Kruger all strutting their stuff. Baby, you can drive my car.

Jonathan Saunders is this year’s winner of the prestigious BFC/Vogue Designer Fashion Fund. Saunders will receive a cool £200,000 prize along with a personalized business mentoring program. Saunders beat out the likes of Peter Pilotto, Mary Katrantzou, and Richard Nicoll for the award. [Vogue U.K.]

The sporadic but well-received Comme des Garçons by the Beatles collection will return for another installment later this month. On February 17, CDG stores and Dover Street Market will release the merchandise—a green apple-printed backpack and two tartan shirts. Prices range from $395 to $860. [Hint]

Actress and musician Charlotte Gainsbourg sat down with Nownesss to discuss her forthcoming album, Stage Whispers. Gainsbourg describes her creative process, growing up as the child of Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin, and being the muse of Balenciaga’s Nicolas Ghesquière. [Nowness]

Alberta Ferretti will be the next designer to create a collection for Macy’s contemporary Impulse department. Available April 17, the line is inspired by the Amalfi Coast and will consist of “light summer clothing that evokes the spirit of my beautiful country,” Ferretti tells WWD. The collection of about 30 pieces will range from $49 to $119. [WWD] —Alexander Englert

“As a model, I used to go to the most exotic locations—in the depths of Kenya, Brazil, and India,” model-turned-photographer Astrid Muñoz told Style.com last night. “When the shoots were finished and everyone went back to their hotels, I stayed behind with my camera and took pictures. Then I built a dark room in my flat and since then, I have been totally taken over by photography.”

At London’s Jaeger-LeCoultre Bond Street boutique last night, a crowd of friends and family, including Clive Owen, Natalia Vodianova, Charlotte and Andrea Dellal, Anouck Lepère, and Poppy Delevingne, came by to take a look at her first London exhibition. The sepia-toned photographs depicted gauchos and horses in the Argentinean outback. That was no coincidence. Munoz’s current partner is Eduardo Novillo Astrada, an Argentinean polo player and ambassador of Jaeger-LeCoultre.

Guests crammed into the tiny shop to celebrate the work, featured in the latest Jaeger Le-Coultre publication, Yearbook Five. “The photographs are absolutely riveting; they capture the vibe of that region so well—she genuinely has an eye,” said Vodianova. But for Muñoz, whose work on the gauchos will be released in a forthcoming book, it is not just Argentina that inspires her: “For me, the more remote a location, the more difficult to get to, the better,” she said, freshly back from the Amazon jungle, where lunch was bugs and crocodiles and where the hotel room was a hammock strung on to a tree. “The most incredible subjects to photograph are in the most inaccessible places. And trust me, I will get to as many as those places as I can.” —Afsun Qureshi

New York-based designer Gabby Sabharwal sings the same tune as most women when it comes to shopping for swimwear: “I find it stressful—the fitting rooms have those weird lights, there’s always those annoying stickers in the suits, and I could never find anything that fit me correctly,” she tells Style.com. “The ones that did fit would be too skimpy. I thought, ‘I can’t be in front of my dad or my boyfriend’s family in this.’ “

Her solution was to found her own collection of printed swimsuit separates, Giejo, to address these concerns. All her tops and bottoms are sold individually, for mix-and-match effect. “Girls today mix high and low, and with my swimwear you can do the same,” the designer says. “The biggest thing is you don’t want to see yourself on the beach and have other girls in the exact same thing—this way that won’t happen.”

Giejo is Sabharwal’s first foray into the world of design, after years of working as a fashion publicist. Despite her lack of formal design training, she found her work experience was on her side. “Working in PR, I was always nervous that I wouldn’t be taken seriously because I didn’t have a full design background, but everyone and all of the designers were so encouraging and wanted to help make it happen,” she says. Tucker’s Gaby Basora was particularly encouraging. So were retailers. The debut Giejo collection hits stores, including New York’s Creatures of Comfort and L.A.’s Madison boutiques, in late February, and an exclusive collection for Barneys New York, made up of Aztec and floral prints, arrives on the retailer’s shelves in late spring—just in time for beach weather. —Kristin Studeman

Joan Smalls and Saskia de Brauw aren’t the only models playing gymnast these days—the male models for Calvin Klein Bold mounted the parallel bars in just their underwear for the brand’s new Steven Klein-lensed campaign.

“I have always liked gymnastics and I give the people that do it a lot of credit because they make it look so easy, but it’s actually really hard,” Matthew Terry, the label’s 20-year-old new underwear model, tells Style.com. “It was one heck of a workout doing some of the poses they wanted.”

Here, catch Terry and his sexy cohorts, Arran Sly, Chris Garavaglia, and Myles Crosby, in action in these exclusive behind-the-scenes photos from the Joshua Tree shoot. An unreleased image of Terry from the campaign is below. —Kristin Studeman