Balls and briefs

It's been an interesting week for fashion, and we're not even mentioning Paris, writes Sue de Groot

Who is Jason Wu?

Jason Wu was just 26 when the First Lady wore his gown to Barack Obama's first inauguration ball in January 2009. It catapulted him from obscurity to instant fame - the day after the ball, his website received four million hits. This week, Michelle Obama again wore a Wu gown to the ball after her husband was inaugurated for his second term, and now the designer probably needs an extra server.

Four years ago, Wu broke his predecessor's run - Oscar de la Renta had dressed every First Lady since Jackie Kennedy for the ball. De la Renta has subsequently been publicly disapproving of Michelle Obama's occasional preference for non-US designers, such as Alexander McQueen. Sour grapes, perhaps?

Wu, however, is an American citizen. Born in Taiwan, he emigrated to Canada at the age of nine and moved to the US to pursue fashion.

When the first lightning bolt struck, Wu was as surprised as De la Renta (but much happier). He hadn't met Michelle Obama and had no idea she'd chosen his dress out of the pool requested from designers.

"I was just at home with some friends, having a pizza, watching television," he told reporters afterwards. "Then the president's wife came out and she was on the screen and it was my design and I just dropped everything. I remember saying, 'that's mine'. It was unbelievable. I was screaming, excited, jumping up and down. In the middle of it all, my parents called from Taiwan because they'd seen it, too. It was like a dream, except not a dream in a way because I could never have dreamt something like this would happen."

And now it's happened twice.

Born to be wild

Model Elizabeth Jagger, 29-year-old daughter of Mick Jagger and Jerry Hall, has been a very busy Lizzy. In October, she posed naked with a dead yellowfin tuna as part of Greta Scacchi's FISHLOVE campaign (it's about protecting fish, not being carnal with them).

Last week she caused even greater hilarity by launching Wrangler's "anti-cellulite" jeans, which allegedly contain moisturising and slimming ingredients. Then she slipped into South Africa to film a campaign for Austrian lingerie brand Skiny. The British tabloids dubbed her Thin Lizzy when these photographs (see above) appeared on Monday, saying she'd lost too much weight.

This may be due to those anti-cellulite jeans, but it's more likely a result of her dominant Texan genes. Imagine if she'd inherited her dad's puny structure instead of her mother's giraffe legs. As it stands, one could call her Jerry-built.