YSL's latest ads are out, and they follow suit with the brand's supermodel-centric spreads from seasons past. For FW09, Stefano Pilati once again enlisted the help of photographers Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin as well as famous face Christy Turlington. Seeing as in the last few years YSL's ads have featured the likes of Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss, and Claudia Schiffer, it appears the French fashion house has officially been bitten by the supermodel comeback bug. However, rather than feeling dull as a result of the familiarity of the mannequins in question, the pared-down ads are charming as ever.

In seasons past, numerous designers have forgone traditional collection presentations in favor of short films or multimedia installations -- and the trend has only gained steam given the recession's recent squeezing of fashion houses' resources. So it's not exactly a shock that heavyweights like Alexander McQueen and Stefani Pilati of YSL are sitting out SS10 presentations (which just wrapped in Milan and kick off in Paris today) this season, and instead supplying films in place of shows. McQueen enlisted fashion photog David Sims to help him create a film about a tortured artist (in some frames clad solely in tightie whities), and, though it's obviously intended to disturb, the end result feels more like The Strangers than The Shining.

On the coattails of the launch of his menswear for women collection called Unisex, YSL's Stefano Pilati is dipping his sartorial toes into the eco-friendly fashion pool. Come June 8, the French fashion house will introduce New Vintage, "a capsule line of classic Saint Laurent pieces (the bustier dress, the tailored jacket, the trench coat) cut from the unused cloth of past collections," says the New York Times' Karin Nelson. The collection will be sold exclusively at Barneys (and is surely at least in part the brainchild of Julie Gilhart, Barney's revered buyer notorious for her eco-friendly fashionable pursuits).

On the eve of Christie's three-day auction in Paris that started yesterday, collectors and critics said it could perhaps be the last great art auction and that sales will determine the future of future auctions. Chicken littles freaked out, saying "the event epitomizes the excesses of the art world" at a time galleries are closing and museums are struggling. Well, they were wrong. If sales from the first day are any true barometer, the art world is alive and well.

When you combine two nichey industries that are already sinking spectacularly because no one's got any green left to buy high art or high fashion, you can't expect miracles. But you can expect such a move to lift the sagging fates of arty pursuits. Which is why the landmark Christie's auction this week could cast a glimmer of hope on the recession-mauled visual art world. Between them, late iconic clothier Yves Saint Laurent and his partner Pierre Bergé amassed a prolific collection of Impressionist and Modernist paintings over the course of 40 years. Consisting of works by Picasso, Berger, and Matisse, the 733-piece auction is being singled out as "the sale of the century" and is expected to net just under $450 million.

Just in time for New York Fashion Week, Yves Saint Laurent is opening a Manhattan pop-up shop on Great Jones Street (open thru February 21). The pop-up shop-during-Fashion Week phenomenon is nothing new. Bland will be opening temporary boutique digs on Canal Street, while West Street will host a two-day preview sale of Alexander McQueen’s new line for Target, says the New York Times. What’s interesting about YSL’s temporary digs is that they’ll house the French fashion house’s new "Unisex" collection.

● Pin-up queen Bettie Page died yesterday of pneumonia at the age of 85. Her memory will survive in the thousands of images that Irving Klaw and Bunny Yeager took of her. Here's a video of Bettie doing what she did best. [Reuters]
● Eight hundred of Yves Saint Laurent's most prized art possessions and collectibles will be sold at auction at Christie's in February. The lot, which includes two Qing-dynasty heads (considered stolen by the Chinese government) is expected to fetch upwards of $400 million. [Vanity Fair]
● It's rumored that singer Beth Ditto will be the first cover girl of Katie Grand's new magazine Love. [Grazia]

Having completed its three-month stint at Montreal’s Fine Arts Museum, the traveling exhibition Yves Saint Laurent, Eternal Style is off to San Francisco. Housed in the M.H. de Young Museum through March 1st, the show includes nearly 125 awe-inspiring Yves Saint Laurent outfits, groups of which are divided according to palette, theme or inspiration. I was lucky enough to catch the exhibition in Montreal late this summer, where iconic YSL garments were on display, as was old footage of runway presentations and plenty of back story behind the genius of the Algerian born, French based fashion designer.

George Carlin, stand-up comedy icon, died of heart failure in Los Angeles last night, furthering an odd phenomenon I’ve been noticing in June of 2008—the death of icons. The month began with fashion divinity Yves Saint Laurent dying of brain cancer on June 1st. The next day, Bo Diddley, a key figure in the American blues and rock n’ roll movements, died of heart failure. The fashion and music worlds are suddenly left without two of their greats.

A full house of celebrities, designers, and politicians attended the funeral of fashion icon Yves Saint Laurent today in Paris. Among them was legendary French actress Catherine Deneuve, looking properly mournful yet luminous. In sympathy, the windows at the YSL store on New York's 57th Street are bare of goods.