WWD

LAUREN HUTTON HITS MANGO: It seems fast fashion isn’t just for teenage whippersnappers. At 64, model Lauren Hutton will feature as one of the faces of Mango’s fall campaign, the Spanish high street chain said Monday. Photographer Antoni Bernard has shot the veteran model in pieces including pinstripe shirts, a chunky knit minidress and silk skirts for the campaign, called “We love you, Lauren.” But Mango won’t embrace just one extreme of its customer demographic for fall. Hutton will join twentysomething model Alice Dellal at Mango, who takes a turn as the face of the brand’s denim campaign. — Nina Jones

WILL CARLA SELL?: Vanity Fair is betting its September Style issue newsstand on the cross-Atlantic appeal of Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, shot by Annie Leibovitz at the Elysée Palace and accompanied with a cover line, “The New Jackie O?” Perhaps the question mark is due to the fact that commentators love to anoint another political wife as the new Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis — Michelle Obama, who, like Bruni-Sarkozy, was named to the International Best-Dressed List, also in the September issue. (Obama, dubbed “our commander in sheath” by the magazine, is already in her second year on the list; Bruni-Sarkozy is a first-timer.)

In the interview with Vanity Fair special correspondent Maureen Orth, Bruni-Sarkozy told of showing her husband, early in their relationship, nude photos from her modeling days, to prepare him for any publicity storm ahead. “He said, ‘Oh, I like this one! Can I have a print of it?’” Bruni-Sarkozy recalled.

The interview is timed to coincide with the release of her new album, “Comme si de rien n’était” (“As if nothing had happened”), which could be this summer’s hit. France’s first lady’s third album landed on top of the French album chart after its first week on sale. As of July 19, the singer sold more than 32,000 copies. But even if this last album reaches the 1.2 million her first one did in 2002, it won’t make the former model richer, as all proceeds are going to charity.

Meanwhile, Orth herself, on the “Today” show Monday to talk up her Vanity Fair story, shared a candid moment of media analysis with host Matt Lauer: Tim Russert, her late husband, the much-mourned NBC newsman and host of “Meet the Press,” would have been “so happy” about the number of hits his remembrances got on people.com. Lauer added, “Maureen came up to me at [Russert’s] funeral. You looked at me and you said, ‘Do you believe Tim knocked “The Summer’s Hottest Bodies” off [the cover of] People magazine?’”

Incidentally, Lauer made it back onto Vanity Fair’s best-dressed list, along with stalwarts such as Karl Lagerfeld (quoted all over Orth’s piece) and Carine Roitfeld. Is your head spinning yet? — Irin Carmon