Quick Takes: Thierry Mugler taps Lady Gaga’s stylist
Paris-based fashion house Thierry Mugler has tapped Lady Gaga’s stylist, Nicola Formichetti, as creative director for its women’s and menswear labels.
The label said Monday that Formichetti, who is also fashion director with Vogue Hommes Japan, is to begin with the fall-winter 2011-12 collections.
Formichetti, a half-Japanese, half-Italian 33-year-old, replaces Spaniard Rosemary Rodriguez.
Formichetti will oversee Mugler’s head women’s designer Sebastien Peigne, formerly of Balenciaga, and head menswear designer Romain Kremer, who also designs his own signature label.
—Associated Press
Neil Young plans reunion
Neil Young will reunite with Stephen Stills and Richie Furay for a pair of performances as Buffalo Springfield for Young’s annual Bridge School benefit concerts in Northern California, with lineups that also include Pearl Jam, Elton John and Leon Russell, Elvis Costello, Lucinda Williams and others.
According to Young’s management, the reunion of the ‘60s country-rock band will feature Young, Stills and Furay as an acoustic trio, given the Bridge School’s history of unplugged performances by all participants. The group’s other two original members, bassist Bruce Palmer and drummer Dewey Martin, died in 2004 and 2009, respectively.
Springfield will top the bill both days of the Oct. 23 and 24 shows, which generates funds and awareness for the school’s programs aiding severely physically handicapped students.
The Bridge School shows will again be held at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, near Concord, Calif. Tickets go on sale Sunday on Ticketmaster.
—Randy Lewis
Columbia gets Rosset papers
Columbia University has acquired the papers of publisher and 1st Amendment crusader Barney Rosset.
The New York school announced Monday that its Rare Book & Manuscript Library would be home to Rosset’s letters, manuscripts and other documents.
The 88-year-old Rosset fought successfully for the uncensored releases of such racy classics as D.H. Lawrence’s “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” and Henry Miller’s “Tropic of Cancer.”
—Associated Press
Oprah gives audience a trip
They shrieked, they gasped, they cried, they hugged — and that was before Oprah Winfrey’s studio audience got a trip to Australia.
Winfrey kicked off her 25th and final season of “The Oprah Winfrey Show” Monday with promised surprises. After teasing the 300 audience members with a suggestion she might take them on a trip to New York, Philadelphia or Los Angeles, she said her last season merited something bigger.
“So I started to think about where would I most want to go,” she said over the din of an audience that suddenly understood they were going somewhere far away. “Maybe I should take you all with me to the other side of the world. We’re going to Australia,” Winfrey shouted.
With that, a mock-up of a Qantas Airways jet rolled onto the Chicago stage, its door opened and actor John Travolta, who also flies airplanes, stepped out dressed as a Qantas pilot.
Winfrey, who opened her 19th season six years ago by giving out cars to everyone in her studio audience, will take this group in December on a seven-night trip.
—Associated Press
Vatican library will reopen
The Vatican’s Apostolic Library is reopening to scholars Sept. 20 after a three-year, $11.5-million renovation to install climate-controlled rooms for its precious manuscripts and state-of-the-art security measures to prevent theft and loss.
The library, started by Pope Nicholas V in the 1450s, houses one of the world’s best collections of illuminated manuscripts. It includes the oldest-known complete Bible, dating from about 325 and believed to have been one of the 50 bibles commissioned by Emperor Constantine, the first Christian Roman leader.
—Associated Press
Finally
Acting teacher: Lisa Gay Hamilton, currently appearing in the TNT series “Men of a Certain Age,” is joining the faculty of California Institute of the Arts in Valencia as an acting teacher in the School of Theater.
