Fashion News: Kate Moss Turns Designer

Talk about solidifying a comeback! Briefly embattled supermodel Kate Moss has signed a long term contract to create a fashion collection for British retailer Topshop. What a change from a year ago when clients were dropping her in droves. Moss is now bigger than ever, and her collection will make its debut in Topshop stores and online for Spring 2007. Now that Topshop chief Sir Philip Green has settled claims to the company's name, he has resumed searching for a U.S. flagship location for the company, and we can hope for a little Kate for ourselves by Fall 2007. The last person who signed such a deal based solely on her stardom as a model was...Kathy Ireland for K Mart? Please, by all means, correct us if we are wrong.
Topshop Kisses Kate: U.K. Retailer to Launch Fashion Line by Moss (WWD)

Rising CFDA Award-winning menswear designer Thom Browne, he of the shrunken jackets and highwater pants, will design an exclusive collection for Brooks Brothers. The line will include men's and women's clothes as well as accessories. Browne will be the first "guest designer" for what Brooks Brothers calls "a laboratory for guest designers chosen for their forward thinking vision and youthful application of fashion trends". The 50-piece capsule collection will be available next Fall in their stores across the U.S. and internationally. more designers will follow as Brooks Brothers continues to broaden their offerings from the classics that made them famous.
Brooks Brothers Launches Laboratory for Fashion Designers (PRNewswire)

Reinvigorated London-based designer Roland Mouret has joined forces with The Gap for their (PRODUCT) RED line which will benefit The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. He will design 10 dresses to be sold exclusively at Gap stores in the U.K. and France starting Nov. 7 through the end of the year. This will be the first offering from 19RM, Mouret's partnership with "American Idol" producer Simon Fuller. Sadly, the collection is not yet slated to be available on this side of the Atlantic, so you'll just have to go to London for the Holidays.
Mouret For Gap (Vogue UK)

And we were consumed with Fashion Week when this happened, but as we speculated earlier, Nina Ricci has confirmed that Olivier Theyskens, ousted Rochas designer, will take over the creative reins of the fabled label starting with the Fall 2007 collection. Look for Ricci to be the label to chase after come 2008.