Flying to Delhi to lose the belly

A lifelong quest to lose her dangerous excess weight is leading one Nelson woman to have bariatric surgery in New Delhi. Naomi Arnold reports.

This December, Michelle Allwright will be on Dr Randeep Wadhawan's operating table in New Delhi, having more than half her stomach stapled up, cut off, and pulled out through small holes in her skin.

The Richmond woman has had it with diets, points, plans, good intentions, hope, and failure.

The vertical sleeve gastrectomy she will have in India is her only solution now; and once it's done, there is no going back. She will return home just in time for Christmas.

Allwright's grandmother put her on her first diet in the early 1970s, when she was 12. Named The Microdiet, it consisted of milkshakes and powdered soup. "It was disgusting, and I don't imagine any 12-year-old would find that remotely filling," she says. "It was awful. And it just went downhill from there."

Of English stock originally, Allwright, and countless others of her generation, ate dinner to a backdrop of stories about the Depression and how she must clean her plate at every meal.

"I come from a family of good food, good times, and not in small doses," she says. "I was definitely brought up on too much stodge and dripping. Dripping sandwiches, for God's sake. I mean, they're yummy, with lots of pepper and things - but ..."

As she entered her teens she was wearing clothes bearing the same number as her age: size 16 at age 16, size 18 at 18. Today, she weighs nearly 150 kg and wears a size 26. You're morbidly obese if you have a BMI of over 50; Michelle's is 51. A healthy BMI is between 18.5 and 24.9.

"You get to a point where it's like: A BMI of 51? Hello? There's two of me now, and that's ridiculous," she says. "I'm 41."

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At an event recently, she ran into an acquaintance who had the same procedure in the same hospital with the same surgeon. The woman was unrecognisable; over about 18 months, she had dropped from a size 18-20 to an 8-10.

Allwright would not qualify to have the taxpayer fork out for her operation, and doesn't have the money to have it done privately - up to $35,000.

Organised through medical consultants Forerunners, the total trip is costing her just under $10,000. "One good thing is I won't be eating anything so that should bring the prices down," she jokes.

Her GP at home in Nelson warned her of the general risks of the procedure, but told her to go for it if that was what she wanted.

Medical tourism is big business in India. "You're treated like royalty," Allwright says with a wry laugh. "This is their business. We are the princes and the princesses that are keeping their economy afloat. It's as simple as that."

Her laparoscopic surgeon, Dr Wadhawan, is the director of Fortis Hospital's department of minimal access, bariatric, and gastrointestinal surgery.

He has performed more than 30,000 laparoscopic surgeries in his 21-year career, and patients from other countries include the United States, Canada, the UK and Germany, Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ghana, South Africa, Congo, Iraq, Kuwait, Dubai, Oman, and Australia.

The department performs between 150 and 200 bariatric procedures every year.

Allwright is comforted by being able to Skype him from New Zealand to find out more about what will be happening to her on his operating table.

"God, could you do that in New Zealand? Not a hope. Imagine that! You can actually have a conversation with your surgeon."

Dr Wadhawan said that about 20 per cent of his patients are foreigners, and the number of New Zealanders he's performed the surgery on would be "in the double digits". He says it's a low-risk procedure that sees most patients losing a third to half their excess body weight within a year.

After a pre-op diet of high-protein shakes, Allwright will leave New Zealand on December 13, spending a night in The Stay Inn. The bed and breakfast, which is 10 minutes' drive from the hospital, specialises in pre- and post-op stays for Westerners.

On her first day she'll undergo a slew of testing, and the following day will have the one-hour procedure.

She'll stay in hospital a further three days, ingesting only liquids, and after a leak test she'll be free to travel. She'll follow a post-op eating plan for six weeks, ingesting only soft foods and eventually move back to normal eating.

The only difference will be that her stomach won't be able to hold much more than half a cup of food.

Allwright and her husband Tony Fowler's three teenage kids have been supportive. "They've seen me struggle psychologically and emotionally and they're all in," she says. "I wasn't sure how they'd react, but it was sweet."

She can't walk far, and has developed skin issues and lower back pain. A family holiday in Melbourne for her 40th saw her struggling to keep up.

"I know I was restricting them from having more fun," she says. "That's where I'm at now. I can't imagine where I will be in 10 years."

She's never got to maintenance stage with her weight, and never remembers not being aware of it.

"You go through stages of going ‘I don't care about my weight, f***the world, but the reality of that is you'll probably put on 5-10kg by saying that," she says.

"Then you go ‘Look at the mess you've got yourself in now'. It's exhausting.

"All diets work," she says. "I'm not a complete fool. But can you maintain them? Are they part of your lifestyle? Can you get to the point where you can live normally? It needs to be sustainable, and you just get this yo-yo. It's not sustainable, you do fall off the wagon and it goes on plus a bit. That's the trap."

Her husband says the surgery is an investment in her future - one he's been watching her struggling to change for years.

"As long as she's happy," he says.

The surgery is a "tool" for her, she says. "It's not a magic bullet. You still have to exercise and all the rest, but it's the best tool I can find for me that's a permanent solution."

Allwright is entertaining and self-deprecating, but she admits she's nervous about people's reactions when she reveals her story. Since she has told a few people about her plans, she's had several approach her on the sly to find out more. Because being fat and not being able to do anything about it is quite normal in New Zealand. The obesity rate is rising steadily over the past 15 years, from 19 per cent in 1997 to 28 per cent in 2011-12. Sixty-five per cent of adults and a third of our children are obese or overweight.

Despite there being no cost-effectiveness studies on publicly-funded bariatric surgery in New Zealand, American studies have found the initial cost of surgery was completely recovered in two to five years.

University of Otago professor Andre van Rij, a bariatric surgeon at Dunedin Hospital, says weight-loss surgeries are much more accepted today than they have been in the past.

"The ministry is taking it more seriously, doctors are more aware of it, and are sending their patients for more surgery than they were 10 years ago."

For the morbidly obese, and particularly those who are diabetic, "it's the only option".

He points out that even if morbidly obese patients are placed on a very tight, supervised dietary programme with psychological support, the chance of them losing weight are about 5 to 10 per cent.

"These operations do some remarkable things in the body in stopping people feeling hungry. It's one of the hardest things in dieting."

The operation was low risk in the right setting, though he cautioned that those having the procedure performed privately overseas did not have the follow-up care they would receive in New Zealand, and subsequent issues would fall on taxpayers.

"When something goes wrong or they need extra attention or encouragement, they're sent back to public hospitals."

Wellington bariatric surgeon Richard Stubbs has been performing the procedures longer than anyone in the country, and agrees that surgery is the only way that people with major weight problems are likely to get a solution.

"If somebody's looking for a real answer, they need surgery," he says. "The problem in this country is that the public system is not delivering much in the way of surgery and this is pretty much confined to diabetics or those with a lot of troubles."

Conversely, he believes the best candidates are people who don't have those problems. "They're younger and have more of their life ahead of them and more of their life they can change."

However, he says people who travel overseas for major surgery take a risk of major complications. "People who travel overseas are going to sometimes get caught out, and if they do, they're going to get caught out pretty badly," he says. Major abdominal surgery has the capacity for people to become "seriously unwell", and he says that although the standard of medical care in India can be extremely high, there are also vast differences in the delivery of health care between hospitals. He's also wary of Indian hospitals advertising to first-world patients to make money off them.

"I would discourage it. On the other hand, I understand the desperation people feel."

Although it's a large chunk of change to pay, she feels lucky to have the support and funds to go through with it. Both she and Fowler come from lower socio-economic backgrounds; she was a minimum-wage caregiver for years, a solo mum with three kids. Fowler was an electrician and retrained as a pilot, and Allwright went back to school at 37 to enable her to take up her position with Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology as an applied business tutor.

"It wouldn't have happened 10 years ago. I feel lucky that I'm in the position I am, that we've worked hard for what we've got, and the opportunity has arisen."

Fairfax spoke to a 35-year-old Waikato woman who had the same procedure in the same hospital three years ago.

Arriving in India was a big cultural shock - and so was the hospital, she says. "They have an international patients' department but you're put in a room with six or seven others - there's no privacy. But the medical system, even if it was differently run, was superb.

"I was thinking: ‘Am I getting scammed, is this dodgy?' But the whole procedure was fantastic. The doctor was really good; he has done a lot of surgeries over there, whereas a lot of our doctors here haven't done a lot of them."

She also says she felt supported by the hospital in arranging follow-up care if it was needed, but she did not have any complications.

Since then she's lost 50kg, dropping from 116kg to around 65kg, and has become more confident. She's particularly enjoying being more active.

"It's changed my life in many ways," she says. "If you've never been overweight you don't realise how tiring exercise is on your body.

"People think ‘Can't you go for a walk?' but you get so tired, dragging around an extra 50kg on your body every day."

Her energy levels are "through the roof" and she loves going out. "Before, I was too paranoid or embarrassed. I didn't want to venture far from the house. Now I'm out everywhere."

She can eat anything she wants these days, but less of it - for breakfast on the day she talked to us she had a piece of toast and a poached egg. "Once you go through something like [surgery], you do change your eating habits. A few people have had it and put the weight back on. But because you have an eating problem, you have to use the surgery as a major tool. It's not a miracle solution. It is all about moderation, it really is."

Allwright is looking forward to having a body and brain that no longer treats food as a drug.

"All that counting, the portions, the food, feeling hungry, emotional eating - it's all gone," she says. "What a relief. Imagine that. I don't know what it's like, but that's what I'm looking forward to - not having that as the foremost thing in your head every day, every hour you're awake."

She won an award at work this year, and last Christmas a relative asked her if she ever patted herself on the back and congratulated herself for doing well.

"I said no. Because this is the one thing I can't do. Academically, I'm fine, I've got a degree. But this is my mountain. It's the one thing I can't beat. And it's the one thing I want to beat."

Westfield partners with Dion Lee, Romance Was Born and We Are Handsome

The three Australian designers will receive support from Westfield.

Earlier this month, Vogue's editor-in-chief Edwina McCann launched the Australian Fashion Chamber to foster the domestic fashion industry. And it appears others are also seeing the need to bolster our home-grown talent.

Westfield will provide financial support to Dion Lee, Romance Was Born and We Are Handsome through the sponsorship of their upcoming Mercedes Benz Fashion Week Australia shows. They will also feature in an installation at Westfield’s Sydney and Bondi Junction centres around fashion week.

From August 2014, designers will be able to set up a bespoke temporary retail space in Westfield Doncaster through the InHabit program.

On the partnership, Dion Lee told us: “I am excited to present our Dion Lee [II] collection at fashion week next month, with the support of Westfield. It has also been a great opportunity to partner with Westfield on the Inhabit, a concept that supports Australian designers and innovates the retail experience.”

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A designer mentorship program is also in works, although further details will be released later in the year.

To launch the program, Dion Lee, Romance Was Born and We Are Handsome each feature in a short film directed by Hugh Stewart.

“We’re so pleased to have this opportunity to connect with our customer on a really creative and innovative way,” said Romance Was Born.

We Are Handsome added: "We’re so excited to partner with Westfield, as it will enable us to reach a broader home-grown audience."

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Divergent's Top 5 Beauty Moments

Divergent isn't known for its wild beauty looks (a la The Hunger Games). But that doesn't mean the futuristic sci-fi thriller doesn't have some gorgeous—and sometimes puzzling—ones. These are my favorite from the film, hitting theaters tonight at midnight.

1. That Perfect Bun

Though Shailene Woodley's character Beatrice (Tris) spends most of the film in some form of a messy ponytail, she's introduced wearing one of the most perfect buns I've ever seen—styled by her mother (above). A little height on the top, big full volume in the twist, and not a single flyaway. Maybe her mom secretly moonlighted as a hairstylist.

2. Idiot-proof Tattoos

The futuristic application process in this film is, in a word, awesome. The tattoo artist simply places a template (below) over the skin, covers it in a glowy blue device, then removes it to reveal perfect ink. It completely eliminates the chance for tattoo artist error—which is probably a good thing, considering there appears to only be one woman in the entire society responsible for tattoos, injections, or anything else requiring a needle. And she's not even an Erudite.

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3. Mirror Lockdown

Like I said: beauty isn't a priority in this film. But it theoretically comes into play in a big way, particularly in the Abnegation (selfless) faction, where mirror time is rationed. Tris's mother has to punch in a secret code to push back the cover on their mirror for a 5-second glimpse. "Rules are rules," she says.

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4. Blonde Ambition

Kate Winslet's blonde (below) in this film is so bright, so non-rooty, that it actually seems to absorb, as well as reflect, light. That means for parts of the film, it has a faded pink cast that looks nearly identical to the wigs at the Marc Jacobs Fall 2014 show.

5. False Lashes Slip

Tris's mother (played by Ashley Judd) is a leader in the Abnegation faction—aka the ones with issues about vanity and mirrors. So, imagine my surprise when she showed up supposedly makeup-less, but pretty clearly wearing false lashes. (They weren't super long but would be obvious to any beauty junkie). How she pulled that off without looking into a mirror for more than 5 seconds, I have no idea.

How Catbird Came to Dominate the Cool-Girl Jewelry World

Near the corner of North 5th Street and Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, there lies a special place that is equal parts heaven and hell, especially on Saturday afternoons. Hell, because it’s so packed you can barely move without bumping into someone, claustrophobia issues be damned. Heaven, because it’s filled top-to-toe with the prettiest, daintiest — but not always girly — pieces of jewelry that pull on those “need it now” heartstrings.

Founded by Rony Vardi in 2004, Catbird, which now employs over 30 people, has become the go-to place for cool girls the world over (the company also has a booming web business) for when they want that perfect special ring, pair of earrings or necklace. The store now even stocks a small beauty section, and odds and ends like cashmere beanies and cute little cards.

The store feels like everything has been curated with care and a seemingly sixth sense of what women find covetable. In addition to its in-house line, Catbird stocks gems from equally interesting designers. There are the brand’s calling cards: those first knuckle, or memory, rings that everyone has been wearing the last couple of years — including Hannah and Jessa on season 3 of “Girls,” along with countless celebrity fans, such as Liv Tyler and Michelle Williams (Justin Timberlake is next on the team’s wish list) — but also newer, original creations. Take the gorgeous “Ballerina” collection, which features the prettiest pair of gold earrings crafted from a single bar with a dainty chain that wraps around the back, or the “You Are My Moon and Stars” stackable pendants that have a single initials engraved into them.

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We sat down with the women behind the company — Vardi, along with Leigh Plessner, buyer and general manager — at Catbird HQ, which takes up three whopping suites in a building a few blocks south from the store (including a wonderland of a studio that produces 700 pieces a day, helmed by production manager Candice Lathrop) to talk the secrets of their success. The in-house Catbird line accounted for 9 percent of sales in 2006, jumping to 19 percent in 2010 and clocking in at close to 50 percent in 2013. Here, some business and brand lessons gleaned from the duo.

Just because something doesn’t take off immediately doesn’t mean it won’t eventually have legs.

Vardi: I was wearing my first knuckle ring around for years, since the late ’90s — it was toe ring that I bought in the East Village. I got some compliments on it — it seemed like such a simple thing. But, as it turns out, making simple bands is not simple at all. It’s a lot more complicated than you think to make something that’s delicate but strong that still looks good in all different sizes…. I remember talking to someone who worked in the store who knew a lot of about jewelry — one of the floor girls, Maggie, who started to make the line. I was like, “I just want some bands — just make some bands.” That really did not take off — we had them for forever.

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Plessner: I think it was a slow burn. I remember the first time I met Rony was at a tradeshow in 2004 — I had a stationery line [before I worked at Catbird] and I was selling to her — and I remember she was wearing the knuckle ring. I was transfixed and had never seen anything like that. So I think it was a slow burn of people coming in and noticing all the girls in the store were wearing them and then it just flipped to people seeking them out. I remember one time, a grandma from Ohio came in a bunch of years ago to get one because she had seen them, and that was sort of the moment for me when I was like, “OK, this is a thing.”

Sometimes not knowing the end goal can get you where you want to be.

Vardi: I was a graphic designer and seamstress before I came here [Vard is from New Jersey], but I went to school for pre-med. I was sort of a lost soul — a happy lost soul, but… And then a tiny shop opened up near my old apartment in Williamsburg on Metropolitan, it was sort of a downtrodden block. I sort of had this idea of having my own ongoing project. I thought a store would be a really great way to do that. I had saved a whopping $16,000 dollars and opened it with that. And someone had given me really good advice a long time ago which was, “If you want to open a store just do it and let it take its own shape.” You don’t necessarily know what it’s going to be, which was really true, because it really did change over time. The first store had a lot of clothing — clothing and jewelry. The second store opened in 2008, and there was an overlap of about a year of when there were two stores. In 2009 I closed the shop on Metropolitan, and then I concentrated way more on the second store, which was only jewelry and lifestyle and gifts and stuff. The thought behind that one was the space was so tiny, I couldn’t possibly imagine what else you could sell in there!

Every small business has to start somewhere.

Vardi: For the first Catbird designs, Leigh or I would come up with an idea — we were really, really limited. We had one person making stuff in her house, so we’d be like, “Can you make that?” and she’d be like, “Well, I can make three of them.”

Plessner: It sort of toggled back and forth — we had Maggie who had worked in the shop and she was pretty much working full-time exclusively for us, producing the alphabet collection and then the classic hammered memory rings, which were our first of that kind. And then we had Claire Kinder who, in addition to working in the store and producing her own line, was also producing pieces for us and managing the little outsourcing we would do to the jewelry.

Vardi: She was sort of our next step in trying to grow the line and to have the jewelry sort of semi in-house. We had the apartment upstairs from the store for a while and we set up a studio and sort of ran the web business from up there — it was really cobbled together. And the production was so few pieces per week. Every idea you had, you’d be like, “Well, I’ll pencil that in for later.” Then we finally got a studio, not the one in this building, and we set up offices for us guys and there was a little bench for Claire and she would work there for us, but it was so noisy. And then I hired Candice and that’s when we started building the studio — moving from space to space until, four spaces later, we’re here.

The best ideas are often vague at first.

Vardi: The concepts for the jewelry generally come from the two of us. They usually start very vaguely.

Plessner: A lot of times, it’s such a vague idea. Like, one time, I can’t remember where Rony was — I think she was on a boat trip or something — and she emailed me and said, “I had a dream about a ring called the “Dark and Stormy,” and so sometimes it starts with a shape or a name or a kernel of an idea. And then we rope Candice in.

Vardi: She’s like our secret weapon. we had all these thing, delicate rings and this was Leigh’s brainstorm — the Threadbare ring, which are probably our best-sellers — I think they started with a name.

Plessner: I wanted them to be even skinnier than the classic hammered. I wanted the threadbare to be just a whisper, like this tiny flash of gold.

Have a unique point of view.

Vardi: We deal pretty much exclusively with solid gold, and the idea of that is, small pieces in solid gold are accessible. You can wear them every day. You don’t have to take them off, you can sleep and shower in them. So you can really have it be this sort of informal luxury, this everyday treat that you buy yourself either to commemorate something or not — maybe it’s just because you’re feeling great. And it’s not a throwaway piece. I have a lot of jewelry at home and I feel like it’s going to be there forever — it’s not some mass brand thing that might be really cute but will either break or change color, and certainly not going to be handed off to my kids. And I think the idea of having something that’s really legitimately heirloom-quality, even a teeny tiny ring, but that you can wear comfortably every single day, is to me personally really appealing.

Plessner: Something about our line that’s important to me is that you can incorporate it with whatever you already own. If you’ve been handed down something that’s really beautiful, you can put a threadbare next to it. Or, if you want to start [your own collection], this is a $44 access point into this world. I have this vision of — in a bunch of years — a little girl opening up her mom’s jewelry box and finding those teeny knuckle rings and putting them on. That to me is really special. It has longevity to it.

Things can be “organic” and still succeed without major marketing dollars.

Plessner: I think a lot of what we’ve done has been a really organic process, like the stacking rings. I remember we did an event with Warby Parker last March, and there was this woman trying stuff on and her boyfriend or husband looked at us and was like, “Who’s the marketing mastermind behind all of this?” And we were like, “What are you talking about?” And he’s like, “Who thought of stacking rings?” And it was such an organic thing — when you work around this stuff and you have access to it, you get a little greedy in a good way, and you just want to keep putting them on, so that’s sort of how the stacking happened.

Collaboration is key.

Plessner: I think the importance of working collaboratively and closely together cannot be underplayed. Over the time that Candice has worked here, she really understands our aesthetic and also understands our language. So there are certain key words that we’ll say to her that she just completely understands what it is that we’re talking about. We also really love to hear input from our jewelers. They’re the ones who are working intimately with these pieces all day, and we’ve gotten amazing feedback and have put stuff into production from their prompting. The “Lovecat” ring is a good example. It had been on our production list for I don’t know how many years, we just couldn’t figure out the right way to make it happen. And so we put it out to our jewelers and they all came back with an amazing array of pieces. And that’s how the “Lovecat” ring was born.

Vardi: There are a lot of brains in here that you can sort of pick — there are 30 people who work at Catbird, so we can really ask all of them. Leigh and I pretty much run everything by Correy [Law, the brand's public relations and social media guru] and just show everyone and see if they have the same emotional reaction that we had. And then you make a bunch and test them and see how people at the store react.

Be your own customer.

Plessner: We test-drive all of own pieces. We all wear them and we have rejected plenty of ideas and plenty of models because they just weren’t going to stand up.

Growth can be a slow process, and that’s OK.

Vardi: When it comes to business advice, I would say two things that go hand-in-hand: Let it have legs. Let it grow organically and naturally and don’t try to create things that there’s no other need for. I always think that a good business path is a nice, easy slope. You don’t want super-crazy, jagged lines — it’s just too hard to manage. And also you’re driven by the natural progression of things. Also, one stipulation about working here is that if you’re not happy and you don’t want to be here, then you really shouldn’t be [here]. It’s a good vibe and people work hard but are interested in growing but at that same pace where you can sort of manage it from all levels — your customers can be happy, your employees can be happy.

Accept (and work within) your limitations.

Vardi: The times that we’ve had bigger mistakes than others are, say, when we’ve forced the studios hand like, “We need this immediately.” And we’re either not ready for the customer response and we make them and they’re not strong enough, or whatever… So now, when Candice says, “That’ll be four weeks,” we’re like, “OK, we’ll just wait.”

Plessner: It’s very hard to be patient, but it’s very important. And I think also, while we’ve used the word “organic” a lot, I think there is control — to not let things just happen, to assess what is happening around you. And I think it’s important to have a dialogue with this thing that you’ve made once it’s not longer yours. We want to make people happy. And I think social media is a really invaluable tool in gaining insight into what it is that really excites people.

Never underestimate the contributions from your customers.

Plessner: We just released our new solid perfumes that work in tandem with our candle line, and that completely grew out of people asking [for them]. Since day one we were getting requests for our Tarot Deck scent, so we finally have that. And I think the “You Are My Moon and Stars” collection is a really great example of customer requests — we had the alphabet rings and earrings, but alphabet necklaces were the one thing that we were being repeatedly asked about. So Rony and I really struggled for a long time because there are so many people who are doing those — and who are doing them so well — we were like, “What is our take on it?” The moon and stars were not an instant answer but when we finally came to it, it was like, “Ahhh, that’s why we’ve been waiting all of this time.” And it was a direct response to customers.

Don’t follow traditional retail models if they’re not in line with your brand.

Vardi: We don’t do sales. We price stuff fairly and a sale is like — talk about marketing genius — we just price things at a totally normal, fair markup. We don’t jack it up. Sales happen when a big store has massive amounts of stuff they want to get rid of. Our stuff isn’t trend-driven. Like, we didn’t overbuy sweaters and then it didn’t snow and now we need to sell them. We make everything ourselves so we don’t overstock ourselves. Though every once in a while we’ll have a tiny promotion for a really short amount of time on some specific stuff. But we just don’t do high-pressure, not in-store — not as a general concept — we just don’t.

Naomi Campbell on Career, Children, and That Ring of Fire

“You know what? I’m blessed: I’ve been working with people who I’ve been working with since I was 16. Why would they want me still?” exhaled Naomi Campbell at SiriusXM’s midtown center yesterday afternoon. She was talking with her longtime friend and mentor Diane von Furstenberg, who was quick to reply, “One of the reasons they want you is precisely that you are the woman that you were.” There’s no denying that at the age of 43, after twenty-seven years in the business, Campbell is (and always has been) exactly what she represents herself to be—no apologies, no facades. Her reality-TV project, The Face, returns to Oxygen tonight (the reason for the radio time), and in the midst of all the press and ongoing paparazzi chaos, she continues to serve as an advocate through her work with Diversity Coalition, Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund, and others. Of course, Campbell still hits select runways and pages—experiences she draws upon as she coaches the young models of The Face. Of her most recent FW14 appearance at Philipp Plein’s flame-engulfed, cowboy-themed show, Campbell told, “I saw backstage how the safety people were there, so I understood they had it all worked out—but to feel that heat…I’ve done a few [risky things for fashion], like being on a crane. [But this time], I was more worried about the audience: Are they going to get up and run?”

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The conversation with Von Furstenberg touched on everything from Campbell’s early ambitions (“I wanted to be a dancer and travel the world. I wanted it to be spontaneous—I was 6.”) to the state of diversity in the industry (“Are we making progress? We’re definitely making progress on the ad campaigns. On the shows, especially in England, it could be a lot better. We do not want it to be a trend. We want it to be consistent.”). She discussed what’s left to be done: more advocacy, Saturday Night Live, and a child (“With or without a man! I’m gonna damn well try,” exclaimed Campbell.). And she related what keeps her going: “I do pray. And I am nervous, because I don’t ever want to feel like, I am the best. I can do it with my eyes closed,” she said. “I think my nervousness and my fear are what keep pushing me to strive to be better as a person in what I do—that’s why I still enjoy what I do.”

After the show, Campbell revealed a few Fall ’14 thoughts to Style. “I loved the new Alaïa presentation. Miu Miu was great,” she said. “And I loved Dolce & Gabbana—the fantasy of Little Red Riding Hood. I loved it! I think everybody’s going back to doing their fantasies. I love fantasies. It’s nice to dream.”

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Stacy Keibler finds love after Clooney

George Clooney's ex-girlfriend Stacy Keibler has found wedded bliss with another man.

The 34-year-old actress, who split from George last summer, wed Jared Pobre in an intimate beach ceremony Saturday in Mexico.

"My happiness is indescribable! Marriage is the ultimate bond of love and friendship. It means putting all your faith and trust into a person that you can't help but believe is your soul mate. Someone who has all of your best interests at heart; someone handpicked for you, to help you grow and be the best person that you can be. Jared is all of this for me," she told the magazine.

The wedding was reportedly a surprise to those attending.

According to People, Stacy and Jared had been planning the ceremony for months and had invited close friends and family to join them on vacation before sharing the happy news.

"We both felt strongly that our 'love day' should be intimately special, and that's exactly what it was," the couple said.

"It was a blend of romance, tranquility, natural beauty, bonding and overwhelming love."

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Stacy split from longtime boyfriend George Clooney last July after two years together.

She reportedly started dating longtime friend Jared last fall.

This is the first marriage for both Stacy and Jared, the 39-year-old is the chief executive of a private interactive firm called Future Ads.

Seemingly eternal bachelor George was meanwhile married to actress Talia Balsam from 1989 until they divorced in 1993.

He has previously romanced model Lisa Snowden and Italian actress Elisabetta Canalis and most recently was linked to British lawyer Amal Alamuddin.

Rumours the two are dating first started in October, when they were seen dining together at London's Berners Tavern.

George denied the reports at the time and in December he told W magazine that when it comes to the love of his life, "I haven't met her yet."

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Nicolas Ghesquière Debuts Louis Vuitton Collection

On Wednesday morning, the last day of Paris Fashion Week, a throng of attendees arrived at the Cour Carrée of the Louvre a half-hour early to wait in line for Nicolas Ghesquière’s debut collection for Louis Vuitton.

For many in the crowd, it was the return of the prodigal son after his sudden and bitter departure from Balenciaga and its parent company, Kering (then called PPR), and a year and a half of wandering in the fashion wilderness.

“It’s a very exciting day,” Anna Wintour, the Vogue editor, said a few minutes before the show. “You can feel the energy in the room.”

The elaborate sets favored by Marc Jacobs, Mr. Ghesquière’s predecessor as artistic director of Louis Vuitton, were nowhere to be found. Instead, Chloë Sevigny, Kate Mara, Catherine Deneuve and Cindy Sherman were faced with plain benches in a steel-sheathed show space. At the soundtrack’s first drumbeat, the metal shutters clicked open, and for the first time since Mr. Jacobs created ready-to-wear for Louis Vuitton in 1997, a new light streamed in.

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It was a given that Mr. Ghesquière’s debut would be closely watched by editors, even at the very end of the monthlong collections marathon that had taken them from New York to London to Milan and finally to Paris. Besides bringing Mr. Ghesquière back into the fashion fold, the hiring of the 42-year-old designer was one more gauntlet thrown in the competitive fight between LVMH and Kering, the two dominant names in global fashion.

It also continued to elevate the profile of Delphine Arnault, the executive vice president at Louis Vuitton and the daughter of the LVMH chairman, Bernard Arnault. She is said to have personally recruited Mr. Ghesquière (along with the designers Nicholas Kirkwood and J. W. Anderson) to LVMH, and is increasingly tipped as one of her father’s potential successors.

After the show, which included wearable A-line skirts and cropped sweaters, shiny high-waist pants and Chelsea boots, the crowd was not disappointed. (Neither, apparently, was the Twitter universe; more than 4,000 tweets about the show were posted over a three-hour period on Wednesday morning.)

“It was very him, it was very Nicolas,” said Ms. Sevigny, who favored Balenciaga in Mr. Ghesquière’s early days there. “I was curious with how he was going to fit into the Louis Vuitton world, if he was going to have to bend at all. He didn’t. He kept really true to his voice and infused it with Nicolas.”

As might be expected, Ms. Arnault seemed pleased with what she had just seen.

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“He’s a genius,” she said after the show, making her way through a scrum of backstage well-wishers. “So amazing.”

Mr. Ghesquière, perhaps the most respected designer of his generation, had left a conspicuous void in the world of fashion since his abrupt and unceremonious exit from Balenciaga, his home of 15 years, in November 2012. His tenure at the house was unquestionably influential. Tom Ford has said that he “single-handedly resurrected” Balenciaga, and entire blogs sprang up to slap his copycat peers on the wrist, reminding them that Balenciaga Did It First.

Mr. Ghesquière did not shy away from reminding them, either. The soundtrack for the Vuitton show included “Copy Cat” by Skream, which begins, “Oh come here, copycat! You’re my puppet, you know I love it!”

“We thought the lyrics were a bit sharp, but it’s Paris, baby,” said the D.J. Michel Gaubert, who selected and mixed the music for the show.

Nicole Phelps, the executive editor of Style, said: “Certainly there are designers who belong to the Balenciaga school, who grew up when he was running the place and took their cues, obvious and subtle, from him. I think Alexander Wang and the Proenza Schouler designers were at the perfect age to be looking at him. He was their god in a way.” (Mr. Wang ultimately succeeded him as the designer of Balenciaga.)

Continue reading the main story Mr. Ghesquière’s departure from Balenciaga was marked by unusual viciousness. After months of silence following his exit, Mr. Ghesquière gave an interview to a new British fashion magazine, System, in which he was not kind to his corporate bosses at Balenciaga, which is owned by Kering. In the interview, Mr. Ghesquière said that he “began to feel as though I was being sucked dry, like they wanted to steal my identity while trying to homogenize things. It just wasn’t fulfilling anymore.”

The company reportedly fired back with a lawsuit that said he violated their separation agreement, and sued Mr. Ghesquière for a reported 7 million euros, about $9.6 million. (His collaborator, the stylist Marie-Amélie Sauvé, is also said to be named in the suit.) Oral arguments are expected to begin in July.

Mr. Ghesquière’s move to LVMH and its star property, Louis Vuitton, was the hire heard round the fashion world when it was announced last November. Despite the lingering uncertainty of the suit, Mr. Ghesquière received a hero’s welcome from the editors massed in Paris.

“I think it’s been remarkable how much we’ve missed him,” said Anne Slowey, the fashion news director of Elle. “The last time I got this excited about a show was when YSL had his retirement.” That was in 2002.

“I think Paris has felt a little emptier,” said Nina Garcia, the creative director of Marie Claire.

Designers, too, acknowledged his absence. Several, including Jean Paul Gaultier, Azzedine Alaïa and Mr. Anderson, attended the show. “I think he puts things into perspective and kind of stimulates an industry,” Mr. Anderson said.

Mr. Jacobs, over the course of 16 years at the house, wrote the book on fashion at Louis Vuitton, which he created for the first time when he was appointed. He turned a historic trunk maker into a globally relevant fashion brand, complete with It bags, celebrity campaigns and a must-see fashion show. But Michael Burke, the chief executive of the 160-year-old company, allowed that the company’s point of view under Mr. Jacobs was “not as focused as it needed to be.”

“What Nicolas is going to be doing is creating a more focused vision of who the Vuitton woman is,” he said in an interview at the label’s Rue du Pont Neuf headquarters. “That’s going to be his challenge. This is something that Marc was less focused on. Marc was more focused on the moment, not on defining a more timeless woman. Literally a few days before the show, he could completely change his mind because it was not of this week. Nicolas does not work that way.”

For his part, Mr. Ghesquière “saluted” the legacy of Mr. Jacobs in a letter, printed in English and French, left on every seat. (Mr. Jacobs was invited to the show but did not attend.)

Asked if a move away from the capriciousness of fashion might have negative consequences for a business built on a constant supply of new ideas, Mr. Burke said: “If you know how this psyche of the luxury client works, the answer is clearly no, the opposite. The luxury client does want a clear point of view from the brand, and the luxury client does want to have a long-term relationship with the house. That does require taking a stand and saying this is who we are, and this is who we’re not.”

What Louis Vuitton is, in large part, is a leather-goods company, and one of the most profitable luxury brands in the world, with profit margins approaching 40 percent, according to Forbes. “The vast majority of the business is in leather handbags and leather accessories,” said Luca Solca, a luxury analyst at Exane BNP Paribas.

Ready-to-wear has historically been less visible off the runway. A common complaint about Marc Jacobs’s ready-to-wear collections was that they were hard to find at Louis Vuitton stores; according to various analysts, ready-to-wear makes up only a tiny fraction of Louis Vuitton’s sales. To those women for whom Balenciaga by Nicolas Ghesquière was an unofficial uniform, that’s a dispiriting thought.

“I think the next challenge for Vuitton will be to take the ready-to-wear collection, and make sure women all over the world can wear it,” said Natalie Massenet, the founder of Net-a-Porter. “We want to wear his clothes.”

Mr. Ghesquière, asked whether he hoped to turn his focus back onto ready-to-wear as well as onto accessories, said: “I think that’s what I started today. It’s a silhouette now. It’s not only bags or only clothes, it’s a silhouette. It has to be a whole look.”

How that look will be felt off the runway and in the stores remains an open question, all the more so because tension between creative and business interests was a contributing factor in his departure from Balenciaga. (Mr. Ghesquière said as much in his System interview.)

“I think that’s somewhere Ghesquière seemed to struggle,” said Imran Amed, the founder and editor of the industry website The Business of Fashion. “There was that one very successful bag, the Lariat bag. But it’s hard to name a series of products from Balenciaga. The real test for Vuitton will be how they channel the creativity of Ghesquière into desirable products.”

But because of its large catalog of perennially salable bags and leather goods, there’s arguably less pressure on Mr. Ghesquière to deliver a new, instant hit. In fact, Mr. Solca, the analyst, said, “I think what the new designer contributes is creating a buzz and excitement around the brand, but it’s not necessarily material from a business standpoint.”

The buzz Wednesday morning may have been nearly deafening, but (“Copy Cat” aside) Mr. Ghesquière took a more humble tack after the show. The message he wanted to convey with his first collection was the “harmony” between himself and the brand. Vuitton at its core may be about travel (Louis Vuitton himself was a trunk maker, after all), but he has rooted his take on the label close to home.

“It’s just my vision on the extraordinary,” he said. “Sometimes we forget what is beautiful around us. That’s why I wanted the shutters to open at some point of the show, to say, here we are, this is the Cour Carrée du Louvre. It’s a beautiful reality.”

Scroobius Pip: Losing its edge

Getting a tattoo doesn't have to mean a lot these days. I think it used to mean something - it was edgy, a sign of the counter culture. Now it's just ... a tattoo. Nothing more.

The first tattoo I got was on my lower back (like most first tattoos, it's awful). Since then, I've had tattoos done on my lip, chest, side, leg, and arm. Directly after I finish writing this, I'm off to get another one.

My new tattoo is the first one that I'll have on show even when dressed. I guess I've got enough hidden that I feel comfortable to display some.

I'm quite traditional like that. In the old days you'd earn the right to have tattoos on show. Now people are getting their first tattoo on their hands, arms, even their face.

For me, I think it's something you build up to - but then everyone's got tattoos now.

Meatheads, jocks, scientists. There's no specific type of person or culture connected to having a tattoo any more. It's become mainstream, the same as everything else.

I'd love it if there were a backlash, and all of a sudden the rebellious people were the ones who don't have tattoos. But it will probably go the other way.

There's a girl I know who just had a design drawn on and then cut in with a scalpel. I have no doubt it'll look beautiful, she's got real discerning taste, but that seems crazy to me. I'm sure that'll probably be the route now - everyone's got tattoos, so counter-culture will be carving designs into your skin.

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Anything that's cool will be cool for a while and then it becomes normalised.

That doesn't make it sh*t, it just means it wasn't what it was. Punk was punk, but then punk bands started to get in the charts. Rock's the easiest example - it was alternative, but now rock bands are the main pop acts.

I had an ex-girlfriend who was a tattoo artist, and she would refer to people as being "tattoo collectors". I think that's a great way of putting it - it's like collecting art. For me, I collect tattoos for myself, rather than to make any kind of statement. It's why all the ones I've had done so far are covered up - it's nothing to do with anyone else.

I remember there being such an uproar about David Dimbleby's tattoo (the presenter of BBC's Question Time got his first, of a scorpion, at the age of 75), and people saying tattoos could no longer be fashionable.

Why does everyone care so much about what everyone else is doing? It's such a weird preoccupation. I get my work done how I do it, but it doesn't mean the presenter of Question Time shouldn't get a six-legged scorpion. Do what you want to do.

The same goes for Girls Aloud singer and X-Factor judge Cheryl Cole. Her tattoo is amazing. I wasn't that into the placement and the design, but as a piece of work I can't fault it.

But why do we care anyway, what business is it of ours? How regularly were you seeing Cheryl Cole's bum anyway? Your view hasn't been ruined if you don't happen to like that tattoo. It was a view you never had in the first place.

It's weird, tattoos have always been a far bigger deal to people who don't have them than to people who do.

The argument, "how's that going to look when you're 90?" always amuses me. I mean, how's my belly going to look when I'm 90?

How sad is that, living your life in preparation of being 90, sitting around and gradually dying. How's that going to look on your corpse? Let's just worry about what's happening now, shall we?

Anyway, I'm sure within five or 10 years you'll have tattoo removal that's instant. I reckon laser removal companies could be as worth as much as Apple one day.

Laser removal companies, and companies that can remove Instagram filters, so you can have all your photos back - that's the two companies to invest in.