Fashion News Alert: Kirsten Dunst Lands L’Oreal, Mindy Kaling’s Elle Cover, and Chalayan Collaborates with Vionnet

It’s been a long time coming, but Mindy Kaling has finally scored her first major fashion cover. Long admired for her work on the NBC sitcom The Office and Fox’s The Mindy Project, Kaling will join three other top television stars—Amy Poehler, Zooey Deschanel, and Allison Williams, all featured on their very own covers—for Elle’s annual February Women in TV issue. Kaling has also gained a reputation for being a stylish comedian based on some of the great garments she has flashed on The Mindy Project and on her own blog.

The issue hits newsstands on January 14.

Kirsten Dunst’s new role

We all loved Kirsten Dunst in Spiderman, Marie Antoinette, and The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. However, in 2014 Dunst takes on a new role, the face of L’Oreal Professional.

Dunst will be the first-ever face of L’Oreal’s professional hair care line.  In 2014, Dunst will launch several products for the hair care line including the Wild Stylers from Tecni.Art, Beach Waves, and Absolut Repair Lipidium lines.

“I feel very close to L’Oréal Professionnel,” Dunst told WWD. “The brand is strongly connected to fashion, and I admire its commitment to innovation, constantly creating new professional services and products to achieve the most on-trend styles.”

“She has a strong personality and makes her own choices. Her great professionalism and commitment to excellence make Kirsten one of the [most] talented actresses I have ever met. She has the perfect attributes to embody the new values of L’Oréal Professionnel,” explained Anne-Laure Lecerf, international managing director of L’Oréal Professionnel.

Vionnet expands into the avant-garde

French iconic fashion house Vionnet has announced that avant-garde fashion designer Hussein Chalayan as the new designer of its demi-couture collection. Vionnet’s demi-couture collection, now in its third year, mixes the accessibility of ready-to-wear with the brilliance and technical acuity of couture.

“Chalayan is one of the most creative and provocative designers working in fashion today,” says Vionnet chairman and creative director Goga Ashkenazi. “I have always been intrigued by his conceptual approach and the fearless way his work travels outside the traditional confines of fashion. It is an honor for me to work with someone I admire so much.”

One of France’s oldest fashion houses, Madeleine Vionnet founded her fashion house in 1912. Inspired by modern dance pioneer Isadora Duncan, Madeleine Vionnet was known as the “Queen of the bias cut.”  In the 1930s, she dressed Katherine Hepburn, Marlene Dietrich, and Greta Garbo.

—William S. Gooch