Last week Richemont, the company that owns brands like Cartier and Montblanc, bought the remaining 67 percent stake in Net-a-Porter, valuing the company at $533 million. Net-a-Porter founder Natalie Massenet, who stays on as CEO, is thought to have made around $76 million from the deal. But who is Natalie Massenet? A woman with a very good idea, leading what seems like a charmed life. The daughter of a Chanel model, Massenet grew up in Paris and L.A. and now lives in Notting Hill, London with her French hedge-fund manager husband and their two daughters. They have homes in Somerset and Paris and vacation in Ibiza. Also, she believes in the self-help book The Secret.

The hooplah over curves has led to some changes in runway and editorial castings. More realistically sized models are landing work that might have a few years ago gone to a 16-year-old waif. But it's unclear if these are fleeting changes or true signs of a new era for fashion in the new decade. Designer Francisco Costa of Calvin Klein and Maria Cornejo revealed they're hungry for change in a panel discussion with the Washington Post's Robin Givhan on Friday. Costa said he had been afraid of changing the casting direction for his runway shows, since Calvin Klein himself "started" the "waif movement." But he's trying to turn the tide, which is why for his fall 2010 show, he cast models like 39-year-old Stella Tennant and 43-year-old Kristen McMenamy.

Designer sweatpants hit the runways of Alexander Wang and Isabel Marant a couple of years ago. They've since appeared on the runways of Bottega Veneta ($290 to $360), Michael Kors ($995, but they're cashmere), and rag & bone ($255), and made a strong showing for both the spring and fall 2010 seasons. The Wall Street Journal, which has just gotten wind of this trend, is dubious, asking, "Sweatpants with stilettos?" Yes, sweatpants with stilettos.

It's not a perfect trend, but so few are in their incarnation. One trend analyst pointed to leggings. When they came out, everyone thought only fashion riffraff would wear those, and then they became absolutely huge, and prices easily soared to four figures for the best buttery-leather pairs. In the past five years, the paper might have asked: "Leggings with mesh panels?" "Booties with open toes?" "Florals for fall?" Now we can definitively say yes, yes, and yes.

Though Alexander McQueen had reached many emotional low points in his career, his closest friends never would have suspected to receive word on February 11 that the designer had hanged himself in his London flat. Trino Verkade, his first employee, and Sarah Burton, his only design assistant, headed to his apartment after receiving a hysterical call from his housekeeper, picking up his close friend Shaun Leane along the way. Leane had known McQueen for twenty years, and spent many nights out drinking with him, where an idea for a collection would be born as a sketch on a bar mat.

Personally, Mr. Leane didn’t believe that Mr. McQueen was dead at age 40, and in that way, though goodness knows he had seen the hurts pile up at his friend’s door. It wasn’t any wonder he always moved to another house after a breakup, Mr. Leane said later.

... He told Ms. Verkade and Ms. Burton that the Spanish-speaking housekeeper must have been misheard. “It’s just a scare. He’s going to be all right.”