Ho hum, the UK Advertising Standards Authority has banned an American Apparel ad that ran in Vice magazine for being too much like child porn. Can you imagine anything more cliché?

Pacing American Apparel CEO and full-grown adult Dov Charney is denying our tipster's report that he's been purging his stores of "ugly" employees. But hey, would it kill you ugly people to be fashionable, at least?

• The latest ad campaign for Chanel handbags, shot by Karl Lagerfeld himself, features a very Holly Golightly-looking Lily Allen. [Pipeline, Cut]
• A new front-runner has emerged to possibly take over struggling Christian Lacroix. This time it's Italian retail giant Borletti. [WWD, AFP]
• More trouble for American Apparel and its founder Dov Charney? An anonymous store manager reports Charney has been busy firing employees "he deems unattractive." [Gawker]
• Amber Valletta is the latest supermodel to launch a clothing line. [Cut]

Here's a shocker: According to a tipster, American Apparel's pervy madman CEO, Dov Charney, is demanding the firing of employees he deems unattractive and thus detrimental to the "AA aesthetic," as he feels they may be hurting his bottom line.

Because Dov Charney is a hero to immigrants, The Man is all up in his business, trying to point out nitpicky technical "violations," like the fact that 1,800 of his employees are illegal. Jeez.

Dov Carney is an entrepreneur who takes "classic, everyday American items" like t-shirts and "makes them sensual." Now he's determined, in this hilarious parody video anyway, to make middle America sexy, just as he did with "skinny dork" hipsters.

We already know more about Michael Wolff than we'd frankly like to, so his disclosure today that pervy American Apparel founder/pornographer Dov Charney recently hit on his daughter in Union Square just creeps us out.

After all that trash talk, American Apparel has agreed to give Woody Allen $5 million for putting his picture on their skeevy billboard. Pussies!

The intimate details of Woody Allen's love life will not be made public, after all. The filmmaker filed a $10 million suit against American Apparel a few months ago, claiming the apparel company had tarnished his rep by featuring him on billboards in New York and LA without his permission; American Apparel vowed to fight the suit and threatened to delve into Allen's personal life at trial in an effort to prove his image had already been marred by scandal. Now the whole mess is about to disappear: This morning American Apparel agreed to pay Allen $5 million to settle the dispute, which Allen claims is the "the largest reported amount ever paid under the New York right to privacy law." [Reuters, AP]

• Spring sales normally begin around Memorial Day. They're starting much earlier this year, although retailers would prefer if you called them "promotions," okay? [NYM]
• The ridiculously delayed sixth season of Project Runway—which Lifetime CEO Andrea Wong is ridiculously describing as "fashionably late"—will debut on August 20. [THR]
• What does Kate Moss do with her old Topshop dresses? She hands them off to her poor assistant, naturally! [Grazia]
• The shoot for Prada's fall ad campaign took Steven Meisel four days to complete and required the presence of a live horse. [FWD]
• Arnold Scaasi, best known for dressing Abigail Fillmore for her first public appearance as first lady in 1850, is the latest designer to complain about Michelle Obama's wardrobe. [WWD, Vogue UK]
• Is Rachel Zoe looking for an assistant on Craigslist? Possibly! [CL via Racked]

American Apparel Has Gone Too Far [Consumerist]

Nobody would be surprised if skeevy American Apparel boss Dov Charney and nebbishy, schoolgirl-stroking Woody Allen turned out to be the same person. So naturally they're in court, accusing each other of the same things.

"Dear Mr. Charney," begins the most misguided letter ever from a third grader to someone she looks up to. What are they teaching in the schools now, porno sex for the kids?

• A camera crew followed Rachel Zoe around during Paris Fashion Week, which means the second season of her Bravo reality show is headed your way. [FWD]
• Dov Charney's cash-strapped American Apparel is selling 18 percent of the company to a private equity firm to pay down some of its debt. [BN]
• The hat Aretha Franklin wore to the inauguration in January? More than 5,000 orders have been placed since then. At $179 a pop, no less. [NYT]
• Video of Karl Lagerfeld at Paris Fashion Week. [NYM]
• What's Sofia Coppola up to these days? She's directing perfume ads for Dior, that's what. [NYT/The Moment]
• Marc Jacobs and Lorenzo Martone are on their way to Brazil for a little post-fashion season R&R, in case you're interested. [FWD]
• LA Fashion Week begins tonight! [Racked, Stylefile]

You might think that American Apparel would thrive in the recession, with their affordable clothes and dirtbag-embracing ads. But you'd be wrong, since an investor just rescued them from defaulting on a loan.

Tomorrow is American Apparel boss Dov Charney's 40th birthday. Last night for an orgy with 17 year-old runaways in leotards before it's officially creepy! [Copyranter. PS Dov our bday party invite(???)]

Simple patriotic pornographic clothing firm American Apparel is beset by trouble! Now the SEC is investigating the company. Because of fishy leaked emails. Which we have for you, below!

Having famously "plowed through" San Francisco's eligible bachelorettes, Digg founder Kevin Rose went L.A. for his most recent paramour, Shira Lazar. Who is this Web-video wannabe with links to Dov Charney and Julia Allison?

• The City debuts tonight on MTV! New York has details on the goings-on behind the scenes and what Olivia Palermo is hoping to gain from the spotlight: "Like, maybe I'll start a jewelry line,” [NYM]
• Is Christina Aguilera planning to design a collection for Topshop? [Mirror]
• With holiday sales the worst in 40 years, analysts are predicting 73,000 stores may close in the first half of 2009. [Bloomberg]
• Erin Fetherston may have a hotel project in the works. [HC]
• Tom Ford and Judith Leiber have new Rodeo Drive stores planned. [WWD]
• Chanel is cutting 200 jobs. [Guardian]
• The new parent company of Bill Blass says it's planning to revive the brand's high-end collection within "9 to 12 months." [WSJ]
• Dov Charney's American Apparel has another legal mess on its hands. [WWD]

Everyone was so confused by Portfolio's November Dov Charney cover, which featured the splayed-leg American Apparel founder instead of the financial doom that the mag was built to address.