On the eve of his Chanel Cruise (as he prefers to refer to it) collection in Miami, Karl Lagerfeld sat down with Style.com between fittings to talk about his reading list, decorating projects—and the Anna Wintour shoulder.

How has the idea of resort collections changed?

It’s not Resort anymore. It’s another collection—in the story of Fall, pre-Fall, Paris/London, pre-Spring, Spring—called “cruise.” It’s like a code name, but the thing is that Chanel needs six ready-to-wear collections a year, every two months completely new things at the shops. There are hundreds of shops all over the world that have to have something new all the time or else there’s no reason to go back. Or else you go to a place like Colette where they see 100 labels. If it’s one label, this label needs to have something new all the time.

Why Miami?

The answer is very simple, because apparently [holds up a page from the April 24 issue of WWD showing that Florida is \"the domestic and international destination most booked by travel agents for summer 2008\"]. Plus, you know, there was never a relation between [Coco] Chanel and Miami, so we make one. [We\'re interrupted by the arrival of model Iekeliene Stange in a black-and-peach satin dress with one very special feature, which Lagerfeld then explains.] This is called the Anna Wintour shoulder—it is like the things she had at the Met. It was invented for her.

What are you reading?

“Diva: Defiance and Passion in Early Italian Cinema.” I will show you; you may laugh, but it’s very interesting if you know all about Italian silent movies and the concept. It’s a quite difficult book—it’s not a novel, it’s not a biography. ” Women Who Write” and “Brilliant Women: 18th Century Bluestockings.” Now we have blue tights!

Any summer plans?

I go to Monte Carlo and Saint-Tropez because I have a house there—and you know, [they are] not too far away. I’ve traveled enough this year—going to China twice and all that.

Are you doing any decorating these days?

Yes, I just finished my place on the Left Bank, which will be only in American Vogue and nowhere else. I am shipping my furniture that I collected from my apartment in New York in Gramercy Park and then I’m doing a town house in Paris for guests—but I don’t live there. I’m doing a mix that I’ve never done yet. My private place is very, very, very modern: nothing done before 2000. No art, only glass and light. It’s on the river, but I have to stay away from the windows because the [touring] boats, they [come by and] say, “and here lives Madame Chirac…” Thank God I’m not there all the time. So I bought next door a house, where I can mix eighteenth century with all the things from Art Deco and modern things. Mixing eighteenth century and Art Deco was never done like this. I have beautiful furniture from the eighteenth century: very, very French.— Laird Borrelli-Persson

Photo: Courtesy of Chanel/Photo Karl Lagerfeld 2008

George Balanchine’s impact on contemporary ballet can’t be overestimated, but the rigidity of his teaching is often criticized. Israeli-born and Los Angeles-based artist Elad Lassry’s untitled super 16mm film, which goes on view at John Connelly Presents in New York today, joins the debate on whether Mr. B liberated the medium, exploited his dancers, or did both. In Lassry’s video, New York City Ballet dancers Megan LeCrone and Ask La Cour perform the pas de deux from Balanchine’s 1957 “Agon.” The cameras remain fixed at specific points stipulated in dancer and choreographer Doris Humphrey’s diary of observations, which was published after her death in 1958, as “The Art of Making Dances.” As the two dancers move in and out of the frame, it seems as if Humphrey were a ghost watching the progression of dance under Balanchine.—Ana Finel Honigman

Photo: Elad Lassry, still from “Untitled,” courtesy of John Connelly Presents

The times, they are a changin’. The California Supreme Court’s support of same-sex marriage prompted Ellen DeGeneres’ announcement that she and girlfriend Portia de Rossi plan to get hitched, while in Switzerland, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (we assume the name doesn’t mean they just argue for the hell of it ) ruled that a double-amputee sprinter from South Africa can compete for a spot on his country’s Olympic team. Jonathan Saunders‘ appointment as Pollini’s new creative director isn’t quite as inspirational a development, but it’s exciting nonetheless, especially considering the dwindling job market. Turns out more would-be employees are getting virtual jobs as online merchants in alterna-realities like Second Life. Maybe the Marc Jacobs employee charged with grand larceny should look online for his next shop-boy gig (why he would take cash and not handbags is beyond us, but we’re not criminally minded). What is criminal? Counterfeit handbags—and not just because they’re tacky. A new ad campaign makes the case that buying faux Chanel is a lose-lose proposition.— Alison Baenen

The works in “Arctic Hysteria: New Art From Finland,” now on view at New York’s P.S. 1, are marked by a dark, eccentric humor. Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen’s “Complaints Choir in Chicago” elevates griping into grandiose four-part harmony. Anni Rapinoja’s “couture” pieces feature shoes, coats, and hats made from reeds, pussy willows, and other leaves, mimicking patterns found in nature. One video, by Tea Mäkipää, presents the landscape from a camera affixed to a reindeer’s antlers (above), while the Pink Twins’ videos examine human perception through the use of digitally manipulated source material—like satellite pictures from NASA—and electronic music. “The sensibility is very informed, very reserved,” explained co-curator and P.S. 1 Director Alanna Heiss at the opening reception last night. “It’s beautiful and extraterrestrial.” We spoke with the Pink Twins’ Juha and Vesa Vehviläinen, who were in New York for the first time. “People look at patterns and images and say that this reminds them of something, which is central to the way our minds work,” Juha said. “We try to activate those connections.”— Blythe Sheldon

Photo: Tea Mäkipää, “My Life as a Reindeer,” 2008, still image from video installation. Courtesy the artist. Photo: Vesa Ranta.

According to Joan as Police Woman’s Joan Wasser, pretty is the new black. And sincerity is the new irony. And accessible is the new indie. Wasser’s not being glib; far from it. Though she launched her career contributing vocals and violin to such abrasive bands as Those Bastard Souls and the Dambuilders, Wasser has mostly made a habit of turning up wherever the loveliest music around is being made—lending a hand to Rufus Wainwright, say, or joining Antony’s Johnsons crew, or starring as the subject of then-boyfriend Jeff Buckley’s ode, “Everybody Here Wants You.” Or, more recently, debuting her own album of sui generis, torch-inflected, subversively beautiful tunes. Real Life was released last year to reviews that would make a lesser woman get a little big in the head, but Wasser’s been a supporting player in the music scene for long enough to know better. (Humility is the new rock-star attitude.) “I’ve worked for a few genuine stars, and mostly those people are great,” she says. “But of course, the moments that leave the deepest impression are the ones where I was like, I would never treat anyone that way. So I try not to.” The new Joan as Police Woman LP To Survive lands on record store shelves today; here, Brooklyn-based Wasser tells Style.com why soul is the new punk.

There are so many influences operating in your music, it’s hard to find a language to capture it. How do you describe your sound?

I’ve always found it pretty much impossible to describe my music; I’m too close, you know? But there was this one review in The Observer, in London, and I like it so much I’m thinking about adopting it as my shorthand. He said I sounded like—wait, you know what, I’m going to find it and read it to you.

So you do, in fact, read your reviews.

Oh, yeah. I mean, Real Life, that was a record where I felt like I was testing myself as I wrote, entertaining different aspects of my taste and my songwriting sensibility, but the response I got to that record let me relax a little more into my own thing. Does that make sense? It’s like, I could let the songs take me where they wanted to go, because I wasn’t constantly worrying, is anyone going to get this? OK, I found the quote. Ready?

Shoot.

According to The Observer, Joan as Police Woman “is what Chopin would sound like now if he was a modern-day multi-instrumentalist with a passion for Al Green and a voice like Roberta Flack.” I was like, cool, I’ll take that. Is it weird I just read that to you?

Not at all. Do you listen to a lot of soul music? It seems like the one sound that’s not on your very long résumé.

It’s my favorite. My favorite-favorite. That music comes from such a deep, honest place. I mean, now and then I like to listen to some lighter stuff, too, but mostly I want to listen to, like, Donny Hathaway. That shit is just undeniable. And I learn from that, I do. When I first started writing songs, I’d use all this poetic imagery, metaphors and things, and it’s been a process of stripping that away and just getting down to the feeling. You listen to a great soul track, and you realize—when you’re in the feeling, there’s no time for metaphors, there’s no time for, ‘oh, the sky is blue.’ It’s ‘baby, baby, don’t leave me.’ Because if baby does leave, that sky won’t be there tomorrow. It doesn’t matter.

You started your solo career relatively late. Was it something you were always planning?

No? You know, for a long time, I just didn’t have anything to say. Or, maybe the better way of explaining why it took me so long to start writing my own songs is to say, I got to speak through my violin, and that was enough. And once I began to think, maybe it’s time to start speaking with words, it took me a while to figure out how to frame those words within songs. But I’ve been lucky to work with so many amazing artists, including the musicians who play with me now, because all of those experiences filtered through me and made me ready when the time came to do my own thing. Now it’s like, the music is what comes out of me when I’m searching for a sense of peace.—Maya Singer

Maybe the accusations finally got to them. After all, there are only so many times a designer can hear criticisms of the “recycling,” “overly familiar,” and even occasionally “copying” ilk before he begins to suspect that he might not get away with that “homage” to the sixties again this season. Perhaps that explains the latest trend to come down the fashion pipeline: Reinventing the Wheel. Sleeveless jackets, clutch bags as big as flat-screen TV sets, strange ballet flats that curve like U’s instead of conforming to the usual shoe shape and lying flat—not since the glory days of three-legged trousers, circa London fashion week 1999, have designers demonstrated such determination to coin not just new trends, but whole new kinds of clothes. And while in some cases the squeak of a barrel scrape can definitely be heard, that YSL elongated jacket “sans manches” looks pretty splendid and is ever so convenient for our climatically changed post-global warming world. As proof of its success, forget about searching for pictures of Kate Moss wearing it—Topshop has already knocked out a version. You can’t get more proof of its acceptance into the style pantheon than that, surely.—Hadley Freeman

Photo: Marcio Madeira

Now that Resort’s a full-fledged season, model agents are seizing the opportunity to launch new faces. Here are three that caught our eye this week:

Nineteen-year-old Sam Rayner hails from a tiny town in Saskatchewan. We spotted her at Burberry, but watch out for upcoming appearances in Russian Vogue, V, and Teen Vogue. The fair-haired Canuck, who’s signed with New York Models, has what’s been called one of the best walks in the biz.

Yesterday’s Prada presentation put two fresh faces on our radar: New York Models’ Sigrid and Next’s Myf (for now, both are using their first names only). Sigrid grew up in Martinique and won an Elite modeling contest on the island when she was just 13. Now 16, the ballet dancer is making catwalking her full-time gig.

Myf was discovered just three months ago in her hometown of Cairns, Australia. After walking a full schedule of shows at Australian fashion week last month, the statuesque 17-year-old landed in New York just seven days ago and swiftly booked Prada Resort. Look for her in an upcoming Numéro editorial—and then, we predict, pretty much everywhere come the Spring ‘09 shows.—Romney Leader

Photo: Burberry: Don Ashby. Prada: Kevin Sturman

When Hani Rashid, the founder of radical New York-based architecture firm Asymptote, isn’t designing a building in Abu Dhabi or overseeing the construction of 166 Perry Street, the fabulous new residential building currently rising up on the West Side, he’s organizing exhibitions. Currently on view at Phillips de Pury & Company in New York, “Atmospherics” is a formal investigation of objects being subjected to variables such as speed and movement. As the building blocks for his works, Rashid uses a unique, geometric form called M-Scapes (Motion-Scapes), which straddle the line between object and architecture. “These days,” explained Rashid, “you have buildings that look like objects and you have objects that aspire to become buildings. The most important works of the twentieth century blurred these lines.” Accordingly, the stunning “LQ Chandelier de Pury” begs the question: ornate chandelier or the show’s pièce de résistance?—Karen Bookatz

Photo: LQ Chandelier de Pury in the Exhibition Atmospherics, Hani Rashid at Phillips de Pury & Company, New York, through June 28.

A veteran of both Katayone Adeli and Joie, Sean Barron knows a void in the market when he sees one. And since decamping to Paris for a fashion hiatus two years ago, Barron has been seeing the same void all over. “I just kept thinking, where are the sexy clothes?” he explained at last night’s launch party for his new label, Barron Duquette. As hosts Lisa Salzer and Stephanie Greenfield greeted new arrivals to the lair-like Barron Duquette space in Soho, Barron went on to explain that with “sexy” as his brief, he assembled a design team including at least one pro poached from Lanvin, and developed fabrics such as a clingy blend redolent of Alaïa band dress material, only drapier. “It’s very feminine,” Barron said. “But there are lots of very feminine clothes out there. What I missed, well, I’ll just put this out there: I think women could go back to dressing for men. Just a little bit. Just a little bit more than they have been.”—Maya Singer

Photo: CHANCE YEH/PatrickMcMullan.com

As we reported earlier, couture was supposed to have an unconventional attendant this season: New York Rangers left wing Sean Avery, a fashion fan who spent the first part of his summer interning at Vogue. But Avery has been nowhere in sight. Turns out he was forced to cool his skates moments before leaving for Paris, as he was still in negotiations to renew his contract with the team. It seems, after all, he did still have a day job. “I’m sad,” the Ranger told us from New York. “I spent three days packing.”—Derek Blasberg

Photo: Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images