I go to Peru several times a year not only to work on my knitwear, shoe, and belt collections, but to eat amazing food, see the vibrant and charming city of Lima, and visit with many fantastic people. This is a short trip for me. It is usually several weeks, but as we are nearing fashion week, I had to come down to try and do some face-to-face persuading and encouraging.

August 5

I arrive in the early a.m. and go straight to my friend Caroline’s apartment in Barranco, which is a gorgeous old neighborhood on the seaside. When the main part of Lima was 30 miles or so inland, Barranco was the resort destination for well-off Peruvians, so there are many gorgeous old buildings overlooking the high cliffs onto the Pacific. On display in Caroline’s apartment are amazing embroideries from the Peruvian mountains that are used in ceremonial dances. You can see the incredible handwork capabilities and traditions of Peru represented in these few items.

I catch a quick nap and then spend the day picking out yarn colors and meeting with different knitters, both machine and handknitters. They’re proud of their work, but hurry up guys, we need them finished so we can ship, Barneys is waiting!

That evening, we go to an art opening at a lovely neighborhood gallery called Lucia de la Puente and then later to Juanito for a few Chilcanos (Pisco and ginger ale). Juanitos is an ancient bar in the main square of Barranco. The grandpa proprietor sits at the bar while his sons race around serving drinks and ham sandwiches to the loyal customers, the artistic and literary communities of Lima.

August 6

Caroline is an amazing hostess and major connoisseur of the exotic fruits and vegetables available in the markets. Her morning fruit smoothies rival any I’ve had. From her roof terrace, where we eat our morning fruit, you can see giant bougainvillea, which are everywhere along the rooftops of Lima.

After an hour ride into the desert, we arrive at one of my shoe factories, where we check on production, pick leather colors, and hand over additional Spring designs. We spend most of the day there, reviewing details and capabilities and putting orders in for the runway sandals.

August 7

Since we have the knitters and shoemakers working on new designs, we give them a day to make advances and head down to the beach (called El Silencio) for the afternoon. Our excuse is that the light is better for looking at yarn colors.

Katie Holmes is often accused of copycatting Posh Spice’s style, but when it comes to denim, apparently she prefers to steal a trick from Becks. To wit: David Beckham has been making a habit of wearing PRPS’ Impala jean, and lately, so too has the lady Holmes—straight from the men’s department. Soon, however, female fans of PRPS’ retro denim will be getting a version of the Impala made just for them. The brand is debuting its womenswear collection this fall, and PRPS founder and designer Don Harrell fully expects the boyfriend-y Impala to emerge as the label’s knockout cut. "Women have been seeking out the men’s version," he notes, "so we decided we’d do an identical pair. The only thing I changed was the rise; we made it a little tiny bit shorter, so they slouch right." Harrell is fanatical about those kinds of details—the Virginia native is a vintage-car fiend and drag-racing fan, and he gathers much of his inspiration for the damage on his denim at the strip. "I go every weekend and watch the guys who work on the cars. Oil stains, tears, blots of antifreeze, very authentically American degradation. I take pictures, and mail them off to my factory in Japan."

—Maya SingerPhoto: Courtesy of PRPS

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

The Mets fired coach Willie Randolph last night, and sports people are reeling. From what we can tell (though really, we’re not so up on our sports metaphors), this would be something like Chanel asking Karl to leave and then hiring an underling to do his job.

It’s bigger than Canal Street. Apparently everything sold in China is a fake.

Mary J. Blige is “blessed,” and she feels for you. Go on, let her buy you some Diane von Furstenberg.—Alison Baenen

Photo: Phil Loftus/Capital Pictures/Retna Ltd.

June 19

Seminyak, Bali. When you get invited to a wedding in Bali, you don’t think twice about it—you go. That’s exactly what I did when my friends David Jacob and Amanda Griffin asked me to join them for a weekend on this magical island. I stayed in Seminyak, by the beach. This area has great shops and really good restaurants. I had a tasty nasi goreng for lunch at Made’s Warung, then hit some of the fabric stores. Fortunately, the words for expensive and inexpensive are the same in Indonesian as they are in Filipino, and I came home with a quite a number of ikat scarves and batik sarongs. Sunset at Ku De Ta is a must. This is Bali’s answer to Café del Mar in Ibiza. Cute Euro and Asian crowd; groovy, chill sounds by a DJ; and potent cocktails equals a really good party.

June 20

Ubud, Bali. I hired a driver for the day to head over to Ubud to check out the rice terrace. On the way, I took photos of village women preparing for a ceremony and men in their sarongs. All that mix of pattern and color is so inspiring. Had lunch at the famous hole-in-the-wall Ibu Oka restaurant (Anthony Bourdain swears by their babi guling suckling pig dish). Had a Balinese massage at the Four Seasons and stayed for a sunset snack. This hotel has the best bar ever. It has 30-foot ceilings and overlooks a river and mountains—and seating is arranged so everybody has a view. Breathtaking! I caught a Kecak and fire dance performance held inside a torchlit Balinese temple. It was so dramatic and hypnotic. This is one thing you don’t want to miss while in Bali.

Nicole Kidman, in an unmistakable bid to out-baby-name her ex, welcomes daughter Sunday Rose. Suri never sounded so uninspired.

Forget the gripping social commentary, “Gossip Girl” is apparently all about the clothes. And here we thought it was about the acting.

With this ring: Lindsay Lohan gets new bling from GF/BFF Sam Ro on her 22nd birthday. And the publicity machine rolls on.—Alison Baenen

Photo: Denise Truscello/WireImage

“I guess this is one of those situations where great word of mouth cuts both ways,” mused designer Eric Niccoli of Orthodox last night as he watched the crowd jostling to get inside the packed after-party for his men’s fashion week show. Cutting Niccoli’s way: His fête at Lower East Side club 205 was the must-do of the evening. Cutting the other way: The party, co-hosted by Oak, proved so popular that the open bar ran out an hour into the shindig, and downstairs, DFA DJs Jacques Renault and Justin Miller were contending with some moshpit-like conditions. Niccoli couldn’t have been more pleased—not least about the fact that so many of the revelers were women. No, it’s not like that: Orthodox’s hotly anticipated debut collection for girls hits stores next month, and if the scene at 205 last night is anything to go by, ladies eager to get their hands on Niccoli’s shrunken leather blazers and low-slung tapered trousers should heed the advice on the party’s invite: Show up early.—Maya Singer

Photo: Courtesy of Orthodox

“Leaving Las Vegas” director Mike Figgis has turned his eye to fashion, kind of, with a short film and photo installation piece, created in collaboration with photographer Massimo Vitali. It’s called “Piazza di Spagna,” and it was shot on location in Rome. Featured actress Katie Saunders plays four different characters, two of whom are exaggerated fashionista types. The other two characters, by contrast, are a starry-eyed tourist and an up-to-no-good ne’er do well. Style.com caught up with Figgis at the film’s premiere at London’s Somerset House last night, which was attended by Jimmy Choo, Agent Provocateur founder (and Vivienne Westwood scion) Joe Corre, Serpentine Gallery co-director Hans Ulrich Obrist, “The Wire”’s Dominic West, and designer Agnès B., whose company underwrote the project.

How did you and Massimo Vitali meet and how did you decide to collaborate on this project?

The common denominator was our producer, Vito Di Rosa, who’s someone I’ve worked with and known quite a long time in London, but who is Italian. I happened to say to him one day, “I’m a big fan of this photographer, Massimo Vitali,” and he went, “Oh, he’s a friend of mine. You should meet him, you guys would get on very, very well.” So we had a meal and then we had a conversation: It would be really nice to do something together. And then Agnès B. came onboard as our financial producer. And that’s really how it all began.

In the piece, there is a little bit of a focus on fashion. There are two characters in it that you describe as “fashion victims.” What is it about that place (the Spanish Steps) and fashion and people displaying themselves that drew your attention?

Well, it’s very visually engaging, number one. And it’s also something that’s so much a part of our lives now with fashion TV and all the rest of it, so that fashion has become such a big cultural event, much more so than it ever was before. And so I quite liked the idea of pushing the boundary a bit, because normally we just see that character on a catwalk or something like that. Then, I needed to come up with four characters for the one actress, so those were two of them—very contrasted—and then two other characters. So, I just thought that would work quite well, given that it’s also a visual piece; it?s not dialogue based like a normal film.

At one point in the film, Katie Saunders walks past that line of exclusive boutiques (Dior, YSL) that leads off the Piazza and you actually see a couple of women who look like her character, watching her…

I loved it. I mean I loved the fact that all those beautiful little ironies were present in that one little area of Rome. You have the fashion street, very high-end, and then you have the more funky side streets, and then you have this huge meeting place for the world’s tourists, sitting almost on a stage. I felt that that was potentially really good material for ironic coincidences; also as something for the actress to play off of in each of those different characters.

The top of the Spanish Steps, in front of the Trinità dei Monti, is prime advertising real estate. What do you think of the way that advertising images have become so much a part of classical sites around the world?

I’m not crazy about it. I mean, there’s so much advertising now at the Cannes Film Festival that you can’t see Cannes anymore. For the duration of the festival, everything is covered, like in Los Angeles, with billboards and now electronic billboards as well. I think it’s a shame. I think there should be some kind of curb on it.

A lot of this piece also has to do with digital cinema and photography and what they can do. Digital cameras have made everything from Facebook to amateur online porn possible. Do you get the feeling that we’re being overloaded with images that many times are meaningless to everyone other than their creators?

Yes, but there’s nothing you can do about it. The genie’s out of that bottle. And it creates its own genre of disposable imagery, low-end imagery. It has a nasty side to it, which is a kind of vindictive, gossip element, but at the same time there are little pearls in it as well. As ever, great stuff will emerge and be seen as separate from that kind of general mess, if you like. Nah, it doesn’t worry me; it’s just the way it is.

What’s the overarching message of this piece?

No message. It’s two artists observing.—Nicholas Boston

Photo: “Piazza di Spagna” by Mike Figgis and Massimo Vitali at Somerset House, London

Victoria

The photo booth set up downstairs at the entrance to Donatella’s palazzo on Thursday night was so distracting we almost forgot why we were there: to attend an intimate soirée to toast glamour, celebrity, fashion, and all that is Versace. On the top floor, the Queenz of Noize were spinning some seriously good eighties tracks. After a good boogie, it was time to gate-crash the exclusive dinner downstairs. We found Patrick Dempsey. Minus his protective entourage, he was a sitting duck for our questions. We honed in. So, now that you’re working with Versace, are you more careful about the way you dress? “I’m a guys’ guy,” he replied. “But now that I have been given this opportunity with Versace, I will definitely think more carefully before I dress, because I represent…” Then everything went blank. We can’t remember another word he said. We turned to Mario Testino, who’d been present, for help. “Ah,” he said with much amusement. “Patrick is so handsome, so alluring, that my female assistants had exactly the same problem.”—Jasmine Serrurier

Photo: ©Guindani/Massè/Tomà/SGP</p

With Christies and Sotheby’s doing steady business here, and both the Guggenheim and Louvre primed to set up sister spaces in the United Arab Emirates, Dubai’s two main fairs are quickly joining Frieze, Basel, and the Armory as mandatory stops on worldly artgoers’ calendars. Art Dubai is the more mainstream of the two, while the Creek Art Fair, which is organized by the influential XVA Gallery in one of the city’s oldest traditional building complexes, is more vibrant and intimate. On the roster this year are talks by Rem Koolhaas, Reza Derakshani, and other notables on topics such as censorship, collecting, and construction, as well as screenings of classically controversial films like “Lolita,” “Trainspotting,” and “Blue Velvet” (on tonight: Josef von Sternberg’s “The Blue Angel”). “It is so relaxed, yet so alive,” Dubai-based art advisor Maryam de Richard said when we asked her about the region. “People think everything is so conservative here, but it isn’t. This atmosphere is the real Dubai.”—Ana Finel Honigman

Photo: Ana Finel Honigman