Diane Von Furstenberg and Liz Claiborne were inducted into the Fashion Walk of Fame yesterday. DVF used the opportunity to raise concerns about zoning changes in the Garment District. “As president of the it is the hope that the city, the designers, the landlords, the unions and the factories can come together soon and help this district not to disappear — to secure a plan to keep some manufacturing in the Garment District as it is the foundation on which American fashion was built. Let’s always be together and try to find solutions together,” von Furstenberg said.

Speaking of Liz Claiborne, the apparel giant is said to be reviewing its foreign sourcing, a sure sign of tough economic times. Many global apparel brands are beginning to pull back their direct sourcing operations from India. What does that mean in shorthand? Good times for third party management firms Li & Fung and even tougher times for firms that wish to continue sourcing on their own. Or you can source online!

Red and blue state collide and thus fashion gives us purple

In collaboration land, DKNY is teaming up with Chandon to create a 20th Anniversary bubbly for the brand. Look for it at Fashion Week in September. Mmmm!

Coutorture ecommerce favorite eLuxury has a new CEO. David Asher, who also will serve as chief executive officer, starting Aug. 11. He replaces president Ann Hepler, who is leaving to pursue other interests. In other ecommerce news, Rugby is finally going online just in time for back to school.

We might be on a bit of an estrogen overdrive thanks the menswear being shown in Milan this week. This is making us exceptional prone to cooing over the silliest of girly accoutrements. Community member Fashionation has an entire post about bows that set us over the edge of feminine sanity. She has an entire collection of bows for her hair that just made us squeal like schoolgirls. But its not all giggles and tea time, serious fashion designers like Diane Von Furstenberg have been showing bows in their resort collections. Thus in the spirit of being a girl we have picked a few bow accessories for your enjoyment and a little video ditty to express just how pleased we are to be the fairer sex!

The maxi dress is the older sister of the bubble dress. Both dresses were flavors of the month last summer in what felt like an endless season of cheap and easy to wear fashion that didn't ask much of the wearer or her pocket book. And yet the maxi-dress always felt like she had a little more staying power than her kid sister.

The allure of the maxi-dress isn't as simple as the bubble dress. The cute and obscuring bubble dress was the sartorial equivalent of the one hit wonder. But the maxi dress hints at so many possibilities and we don't just mean what is under the folds of fabric. It suggests a certain kind of life with leisure time, extraneous bank accounts, and a lack of concern for dirtying the fringes with concrete sidewalks (or the boardwalk). The maxi dress is casual and yet with its length it goes formal in a wink, something the bubble dress never did manage.

And we clearly aren't the only ones wondering if the maxi dress deserves another summer in our closet. Community member Margarite Elaine has tips for wearing the dress (for short girls like two of our editors she recommends having them stop just above your ankle) in any situation or on any body. But the real proof? Six of the bloggers at our DVF X Bloggers fashion shoot chose to highlight a DVF Maxi Dress including The Daily Obession, SheFinds, See Pretty Things, Shopalicious, The ShoeBlog and Clothes Pin.

The streetwear symbol for collaboration involves combining two names with an "x" as a signifier that two brands joined forces for a creative project. Often it is the collaborations that bring out the best from each side, highlighting the strengths of the players while creating something that is greater than the sum of its parts. It is the "x" factor of unique teams coming together to do something great. It is this spirit of collaboration that inspired us to host a photo shoot with iconic womenswear line Diane Von Furstenberg and the Coutorture community.

Thus it seems fitting that we call the Coutorture community's collaborative photoshoot with Diane Von Furstenberg DVF x Bloggers. After an agonizing process of slimming the potential list of collaborating blogs to ten (though we shot eleven as our intern Maleeha The Shoptometrist got in on the fun) we brought Shopalicious, Fops and Dandies, The Shoptometrist, See Pretty Things, Clothes-Pin, Eyeshadow Government, The Daily Obsession, SheFinds, The Fashion Bomb, The ShoeBlog, and Fashion Indie.

Ten bloggers arrived at Diane Von Furstenberg's 14th Street Meatpacking District store to discover a full crew of professional photographers, models, makeup artists, hair stylists, sales women, publicists, creative directors, and a few interactive agency types from Morpheus Media (the collaboration may have been our idea but Morpheus helped bring it to fruition) ready to help the bloggers play.

And play we did as bloggers dressed, styled, and modeled (and ate and drank) to their hearts content. Every blogger looked fabulous in the diverse number of outfits their educated fashion minds gravitated towards. It was a true testament to the project's aim, to bring the personality of the bloggers to DVF and the integrity (and, we must say, wearability) of the brand to the bloggers.

We hope you will enjoy the results and take the time to peruse the many galleries, write ups, links and Shopstyle Spreads we will be posting through out the next few days to help celebrate this phenomenal creative collaboration.

The Daily Obsession had one word for our Bloggers X DVF shoot:aaamazing!

Franky we think the Daily Obsession is pretty amazing themselves. Carolyn, the group blog's author, has been an exceptional community member within Coutorture. She and her co-authors helped host a Blog Talk Radio session on teamblogging with us just a few weeks ago. And her community spirit showed right through at the event as she cheered other bloggers on, helped people pick clothing, and even teamed up with The Shoeblog for a two blogger photo! She is a blogger that makes us proud to do what do we do.

It was definitely one of the most unique events I've ever been to and made us bloggers feel really involved and appreciated in the fashion community. Everyone was so professional and friendly and it was really amazing how much effort went into the evening.

As for the clothing- can DVF do any wrong?? Every item that everyone put on looked fantastic! Sometimes when I think I can't wear bright colors or prints, I go to DVF and let her prove me wrong. She truly designs for every woman.