Amazon

Shopbop has revealed plans to start a menswear retail website early next year that will cater to the "cool" guys who are underserved by the current spectrum of men's sites.

A Shopbop spokeswoman told WWD that the site would be "both approachable and serve as a destination to educate and engage guys on fashion and style. While others are serving the fashion converted or the super straightforward, we believe there is an opportunity to serve the guys who live in between these polarities.”

The menswear blog Fourpins broke the news when it discovered a listing for a men's divisional merchandise manager on the Shopbop careers page. The listing describes the target customer as "modern, cool guys who are looking for the fashion that works in his individual style." This means offering an "appropriate mix of designer" options, with high-end contemporary labels and premium denim brands sprinkled in. WWD nodded to Rag & Bone and Alexander Wang as brands that could possibly be featured on the site, so it wouldn't be surprising to see brands that operate in the same forward-thinking ethos, like A.P.C., Mark McNairy, Levi's Made and Crafted, BLK DNM, and John Varvatos, in the mix.

But whatever the site's offering will include, that Shopbop is starting a men's site speaks to its parent company Amazon's desire for a greater market share in the fashion space. Amazon recently started featuring high-fashion model Chanel Iman in its seasonal campaigns, and this month the company announced that it would set up a 40,000-square-foot fashion studio in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Photo via Alexander Wang

Those stories and more in our daily news roundup.

• Erin Heatherton and Leonardo DiCaprio have called it quits. "There's no bad blood," the source said. "They still care about each other a lot." In the 10 months they were together, the duo weren't photographed together much, but they did vacation in Australia late last year. [Us Weekly]
  

• French actor Gaspard Ulliel has been cast as Yves Saint Laurent in a biopic that will be directed by Bertrand Bonello. The yet-to-be-named film apparently does not have Pierre Bergé's approval, but another YSL film about Bergé's relationship with Saint Laurent, directed by Jalil Lespert, does. [Vogue UK]
  

• Karl Lagerfeld will release a line of watches, priced between $150 and $595, on Feb. 28. [Design Scene]
  

• Producers for the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, which is being held in a National Guard building in New York this Wednesday, helped the Guard respond to Hurricane Sandy by letting the guardsmen use their generators and rented space and even setting up an Internet connection. [Fashionista]
  

• British label Ossie Clark is set for a comeback. It's been renamed Ossie Clark London, and its first new collection — with pieces priced between $80 and $300 — will appear in 45 Debenhams stores across the UK starting in February 2013. [Vogue UK]
  

• Amazon is setting up a 40,000-square-foot fashion studio in Brooklyn's Williamsburg neighborhood, where it will shoot clothing for its main website as well as for online retailers Shopbop and MyHabit, which it also owns. [Racked]

• Amazon wipes a woman's Kindle with no explanation? — Geekosystem
• Smartphone thefts are the new purse-snatching — Newser
• Whoa! Amazon cloud outage takes down Airbnb, Reddit, and more — CNET
• Do we really need an iPad Mini? — ReadWriteWeb
• Is any logo cool enough to withstand Comic Sans? — FWD
• Three science fictions that are now reality — Cracked
• Surprise! The Fujitsu Floral Kiss laptop is for women — GizmoDiva
• Why Randi is the Zuckerberg you should watch — Yahoo! Shine

Amazon is the ultimate online shopping destination that sells pretty much everything you can think of, ranging from books to furniture. The appeal of the digital superstore is simple: it's a one-stop shop with fast delivery options and many discounted items. To make the most of your Amazon shopping experience, follow these tips:

• Freebies: Take advantage of the free eBooks you can download from the Kindle store, and if you're an Amazon Prime member, remember to borrow books from Amazon's lending library. The library has over 145,000 titles you can borrow.
• Used items: The online retailer has a good selection of used goods that you can buy from third-party sellers. Save on the item you want by checking out the used options. Be sure to pick the Amazon reseller carefully and factor in the shipping costs to the total.
• Consider Amazon Prime: If you buy a lot of items from Amazon, you should consider their $79 a year membership called Amazon Prime, which gives you free two-day shipping and access to freebies like the lending library and free streaming of movies and TV shows. This would be worth your money if you find yourself often opting for the fastest delivery options or if it will cost more for you to go a brick-and-mortar store to buy the item.
• Share Amazon Prime: If the cost of Amazon Prime is too high, split the cost by sharing the service with others. You can add up to four "household" members by following these instructions. Amazon doesn't define what a "household" member means, so it's left up to your discretion.

Read on for more.

Not to be outdone by its touchscreen brethren, the entry-level Kindle also received a makeover this morning at the Jeff Bezos-hosted Amazon press event. This Kindle is nearly the same as the previous generation including a six-inch screen, weight of 5.8 ounces, WiFi connectivity, and free Amazon Cloud service. The 2012 Kindle claims new fonts, crisper text, a 15 percent faster page turn, and a lower price — $69. Available to order online today, the Kindle ships Sept. 14.

Want a Kindle with more features like a backlight? Check out the latest Kindle Touch models also announced today.

Source: Instagram User gadgetreview

After days of speculation as to what new product Amazon had up its sleeve for today's LA press conference, the reveals are pouring in, starting with a backlit ereader called Kindle Paperwhite. Sharper with a higher-contrast display than the Kindle Touch, the new device uses Amazon-made Paperwhite technology, a blend of adjustable back lighting and traditional e-ink with a capacitive touchscreen display.

Despite the constant light use, Amazon claims the 7.5-ounce Kindle Paperwhite touts an eight-week battery life from a single charge and measures 9.1mm thick. A small text addition in the lower left corner estimates how much reading time is left in a chapter or the entire book based on a user's reading speed.

This Kindle model continues to use the X-ray feature first introduced with the Kindle Touch, showing relevant information on the page such as dictionary and Wiki entries. The Paperwhite also takes a page from the Kindle Fire with a cover mode homescreen, to swipe through the library without scrolling to a menu. The Kindle Paperwhite WiFi model is $119, and the 3G version, which requires no data contract or plan, is priced at $179. Preorders start today, and both Paperwhite models will ship Oct. 1.

Not to be outdone by its touchscreen brethren, the entry-level Kindle also received a refresh and lower price point today.

Those stories and more in our daily news roundup.

• After a year-and-a-half as editor in chief of Vogue Paris, Emmanuelle Alt has introduced a redesign that features a renewed focus on the magazine's status as the only Vogue title that represents a city, not a nation. "It's the concept of the 'Parisienne.'" she said. "The 'Parisienne' is a girl who makes people dream worldwide, rightly or wrongly — a girl who represents a particular style, a taste, an allure." [WWD]
  

• "Ultimately, shoes are just a really fun mode of escapism for a woman," said Man Repeller Leandra Medine on a tour of her shoe closet. "The higher the heel, the more fantasy is put into the shoe." [Footwear News]
  

• Louis Vuitton cast Michael Phelps — now the world's most decorated Olympian — in its newest ad campaign, photographed by Annie Leibovitz. [Just Jared]
  

• Meanwhile, Chanel Iman is the face of Amazon's Fall 2012 campaign, seen below. [Modelinia]
  

• New York Magazine's fashion blog today debuted a new look that takes "a cue from the beauty of print fashion magazines with a totally new design." [The Cut]
  

• Choupette Lagerfeld is quickly gaining a name for herself in the modeling industry. "I think she has a very bright future," says V magazine editor Sarah Cristobal, who cast the cat in her September issue alongside Laetitia Casta. "She's going to have an everlasting career." [BuzzFeed Shift]