Protection doesn’t come cheap these days… Louis Vuitton-inspired condoms have been unveiled for $68 a pop.

The condom wrappers are printed with Louis Vuitton’s iconic brown monogram, and the condoms are embossed with the ‘LV’ logo.

Perhaps to the disappointment of fashionistas looking to get it on though, they’re not officially endorsed by the French fashion house.

Artist Irakli Kiziria collaborated with Design Provocation to create the condoms for World AIDS Day in December.

However, after a picture of one of the condoms appeared on Huffington Post in February, word spread like wildfire and soon after ‘Louis Vuitton Condoms’ was trending on Twitter.

A spokesman for Louis Vuitton declined to comment on the Louis Vuitton condom craze.

Check out the Louis Vuitton condom in the video below:

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A celebrity fashion designer from the English town of Amersham is creating the world’s most expensive black diamond dress.

Valued at £3.5 million, the ultimate ‘little black number’ was designed by 30-year-old Debbie Wingham.

The dress will be unveiled at a charity fashion show at The Dorchester Hotel on May 12 before going on ‘tour’ by private plane to The Monaco Grand Prix, Cannes Film Festival then back to Harrods in London.

Debbie was recently living in Los Angeles and boasted an order book including such red carpet clients as Kate Winslet and Hilary Swank. But after meeting her future husband, she moved back to England and her career took second place to motherhood.

“Now Scarlet is nine months old, I feel ready to get back into the fashion world,” Debbie said.

“The actual design and where I am working on it is top secret. It will feature 50 of these rare two carat stones with a large five carat as the centre piece, which are housed in a safe.” she added.

The design, which took three years to plan, was an initiative to raise money for SportAid – a charity which supports young athletes.

As a self-taught seamstress with no formal training, Debbie felt she could identify with these youngsters.

“I started in the fashion business at 11 years old selling clothes to the sixth form girls at my school. I never had any financial backing so know what a struggle it is to follow your dream,” she said.

She got her big break in the fashion world at just 19-years-old when one of her dresses was worn at that year’s BAFTAs and was singled out by the media.

“Suddenly everyone was asking who I was and where I had trained!” she said.

Vogue has the exclusive rights to photograph the world’s most expensive dress.

“I treat every customer as a celebrity and love giving ladies a touch of red carpet glamour by making them the perfect dress,” Debbie said.

“They send their drivers to collect their dress and fly back with it.”

Each of her unique, hand-finished dresses can cost upwards of £500.

Royal wannabes are thrilled with the news that Kate Middleton’s engagement blouse is back in stock at British clothing store Whistles.

Bride-to-be Kate Middleton wore the cream silk blouse – aptly called ‘Kate’ – in her engagement portrait with Prince William.

Since the original blouse Middleton bought from the Whistles’ 2008 autumn collection was purchased on sale, it was no longer available in stores, making it almost impossible for Middleton copycat fashionistas to track down.

But due to the public’s increasing demand to look like the fashionable princess-in-waiting, the store has decided to re-release the blouse.

Apparently having royal fashion taste comes at a premium though: the 100 per cent silk ‘Kate’ blouse, embellished with a delicately woven frill detail at the front, was originally priced at a reasonable £95, but the price has now been increased to £125.

Hollywood actor Sylvester Stallone has announced he will be launching his own line of clothing and accessories based on his hit Rambo and Rocky films.

The ‘men’s lifestyle brand’, called simply ‘Stallone’, is expected to be launched in 2012.

The Sly Inc. brand will also feature eyewear and fragrances.

In an interview with Men’s Week, Stallone said: “Rocky, at the end of the day, is a love story, while Rambo showcases the other side of masculinity, he’s a loner.”

The line will aim to appeal to both ends of the spectrum; holding something for “the rebel and the gentleman.”

Michael Henry, a retail executive backing the enterprise, said the lines will target the “guy’s guy.”

“‘Stallone’ means a good guy,” Henry said. “He stands up for what’s right and he’s masculine … we see Sylvester Stallone as a cultural icon. He has the ability to take classic looks, update them and make them cool.”

“I want clothing that will be appropriate to my generation or the generation before,” Stallone said.

Stallone’s step into the fashion world was apparently inspired by his weight loss for his reprised role in the Rambo film franchise.

The now 64-year-old first starred as John Rambo in 1982 aged 36, and returned to reprise his role in 2008.

He added: “I’ve lived a life where I know what has worked and what hasn’t worked. Clothing is the first step to building a character.”

A ‘capsule’ line of jeans, t-shirts and basics will kick off the new ‘Stallone’ line, with the intention of expanding into fragrance, eyewear, athletic clothing and underwear later on.

British supermodel Kate Moss delighted her fans when she appeared at a Boots store in Oxford Street, London yesterday to launch her sixth fragrance – ‘Vintage Muse’.

The 36-year-old spent an hour at the store signing bottles of the new fragrance and meeting fans who had queued outside to meet her.

Moss also judged a style competition to determine who in the crowd had the best ‘Vintage Look’, with the winner taking home £500 worth of shopping vouchers.

‘Vintage Muse’ marks the supermodel’s sixth scent, having launched her fragrance franchise in 2007 with the original ‘Kate Moss’ perfume.

Moss, who was recently awarded the best-dressed woman of the decade title by US Vogue magazine, wore a simple black T-shirt tucked into skinny jeans, a bouclé jacket, and platform, suede boots for the fragrance’s launch.

Shoe-lovers in London can finally stop checking their Blackberries and iPhones for status updates after one lucky fashionista won the race for a pair of free Jimmy Choo trainers.

Tina Saul, who has been following the trainers for the last three weeks on Foursquare and Twitter, managed to bag them for herself, beating hundreds of other competitors to the chase.

“I actually ended up running after the Jimmy Choos, which was quite amusing,” Saul said in a statement.

The CatchaChoo race offered contestants the chance to keep a free pair of the shoes, which are beloved by celebrities, if they could figure out where they were in London according to clues left on social networking sites Twitter, Facebook and foursquare.com.

A picture of the shoes was taken in a location publicised on Foursquare, where a company representative waited for a short period of time with the shoes on display.

For Saul to win the shoes, she had to race to the location, approach the representative and say: “I’ve been following you.”

The competition began on April 19.

A spokeswoman said CatchaChoo could be on the move to another major city.

Phillips-Van Heusen (PVH), owner of the Calvin Klein label, has agreed to buy fashion label Tommy Hilfiger from London-based Apax Partners in a $3 billion cash-and-stock deal to boost its presence in Europe and Asia.

The deal will make Phillips-Van Heusen one of the largest suppliers of menswear to U.S. department stores, and will keep Hilfiger founder Tommy Hilfiger in his role as principal designer for the popular clothing line.

It will also will add yet another high-profile name to PVH’s current portfolio, which includes the likes of Izod and Calvin Klein. PVH also distributes menswear under such renowned labels as Kenneth Cole New York, Michael Kors, Donald Trump and DKNY.

The deal would mark an end to London-based private equity firm Apax’s plans for an initial public offering for the iconic fashion brand which it had bought in 2006 for almost half the price at $1.6 billion.

“The deal certainly makes sense and that can be seen from PVH’s share price. A lot of people out there see that although it is quite a costly acquisition, they are still getting it at quite a low price,” IBISWorld analyst Toon van Beeck said.

Tommy Hilfiger has spent the last few years trying to repair the damage caused by shifting its focus to a more mainstream group of buyers. The brand suffered years of sales declines after its logo-heavy designs helped make it a staple of urban streetwear, but alienated more affluent customers. Now, the company is expanding more quickly abroad than in the United States.

“It’s an opportunity to really revamp Tommy Hilfiger, which was such an iconic brand in the 90s and has somewhat died,” van Beeck said.

Phillips-Van Heusen will pay $2.6 billion in cash and $380 million in common stock for Tommy Hilfiger.

Hannah Cooper, the 20-year-old daughter of a lucky couple who won a £2.5 million jackpot three years ago, has used the inspirational win to design a dress that looks a million dollars — because it’s made of a million pounds.

She decided to print £20 bank notes on to silver silk — after asking the Bank of England for permission.

When the dress was finished, Hannah sat down and counted how much money was on it and found it came to over £1m.

She said: “Everyone knows that my family won the lottery and people always ask me about it.

“So I decided it would be fun to make a dress out of money. I had to get permission first because it is illegal to copy bank notes.

“But they were fine about it – although I did have to scale them down.”

Hannah, who is studying fashion at the University of Wales in Newport, added: “It was a lot of fun to make and the dress really does look expensive.”

Nothing says glamour quite like a piece of clothing designed by the likes of Hubert de Givenchy and Valentino – and then worn by style icon Audrey Hepburn.

And now that timeless glamour is up for sale to the highest bidder, with some of the actress’ most famous dresses being auctioned next week in London and 50 per cent of the proceeds going to The Audrey Hepburn Children’s Fund and Unicef.

There are more than thirty of pieces for sale, dating from the early 50s to the late 60s, including clothing, accessories and personal letters written by Hepburn during the period. Also included in the sale is a wedding dress she never wore, made for her marriage to James Hanson - which Hepburn called off weeks before it was set to take place.

After she had called off the wedding, Hepburn asked that the dress be given away “to the most beautiful, poor Italian girl you can find – someone who couldn’t ever afford a dress like mine” and the recipient – Amabile Altobella – wore it and kept it in her family until it was tracked down by the family of the dress’ creators, the Fontanas, in 2002.

Auction experts predict the sale could raise in excess of £100,000, because authenticated Hepburn pieces are rarely available on the open market. The pieces are currently part of a touring exhibition in Sotheby’s New York and Paris and will be exhibited at La Galleria, Royal Opera Arcade on Pall Mall, London on December 6 before being sold on December 7 and 8 at the same venue.

The red carpet was ablaze last Sunday as a host of celebrities set the trend by glamming it up in red gowns at the 61st Emmy Awards in Los Angeles.

Blake Lively from Gossip Girl, Hayden Panettiere from Heroes, Debra Messing from Will & Grace, and Toni Collette – who won her first Emmy on the night for her role in the comedy series United States of Tara – were among the female celebs who opted to step out in various shades of crimson on awards night.

But although red was the colour of the night, pale and nude tones also played a starring role – echoing the trend for muted tones that have recently been emerging on the spring/summer 2010 catwalks – with Drew Barrymore, Rose Byrne and Cat Deeley all glowing in muted gold and rose tones. 
 
And it wasn’t just the ladies who went for a splash of colour at the 2009 Emmy Awards. Even some of the men at the ceremony chose to punctuate their suits with a dash of colour. Actor Alec Baldwin, nominated for best actor in a comedy for his performance in 30 Rock, sported a lavender tie, while actor Terry O’Quinn, from hit series Lost, wore a yellow tie to match wife Lori O’Quinn’s yellow gown.

“Black and white is pretty boring,” O’Quinn said.

“I think we’re evolving sartorially.”

Fashion director for InStyle magazine, Hal Rubenstein, described the evening’s tone as smart, but not overtly glamorous.

“There was a lot of smart, sleek, colourful looks, but not over-indulgent. Fashion isn’t in that kind of extravagant place right now,” Rubenstein said.