It-girl darling and fashion wunderkind Zac Posen is growing up gracefully–and so is the woman for whom he designs.

[I'm] creating a collection that feels youthful but is not about being focused toward young people. I really wanted to create a collection that had age diversity, so we could get daughters, mothers and grandmothers into it. This is about the beginning of building a new lifestyle.

At the March 2 launch of Z Spoke, his new line of utilitarian, minimalist sportswear characterized by edgy detailing and bold primary colors, Posen chatted with Gambit about the challenges and rewards of designing for women of diverse ages, sizes and income levels.

Look for the next issue of Gambit’s CUE, on newsstands Tuesday, March 23, for a full write-up of the interview.

Couturious is a recently-launched website that allows one to play with paper dolls on a grand scale: instead of raggedy newsprint cutouts, you can outfit your choice of gamine, computer-generated babes in the latest pieces by Yigal Azrouel or Cynthia Rowley. Fledgling stylists, shopaholics and chronic procrastinators select from an extensive, pixillated wardrobe to experiment with proportions and color, coming up with various flattering combinations like “Safari Barbi” or “Jetsetter.” I call this look Crackhead Chic.

Crackhead Chic (CC) inherits Heroin Chic’s greasy, cigarette-burned mantle: it allows those of us who prefer to eschew showers, square meals and the sun to affect the pretense of being fashionable.

The CC look was pioneered by Marigny resident Jane Stubbs in 2007. “From far away, sometimes you can’t tell if someone is a hipster or a crackhead,” Stubbs says. “It seemed like hipsters were starting to take on some of the fashion idiosyncrasies that happen when somebody is not quite in touch with reality because they are under the influence of a substance.”

In CC’s case, form follows function. Note my model’s layered look: a staple of CC. Layering is essential when you’re bone-thin and sleep-deprived; the cardigan handily doubles as a pillow when it’s time to crash. A haphazard, asymmetrical updo is appropriate for panhandling or a meeting with your P.O., and skipping the shampoo for a few days only heightens its casual, just-rolled-out-of-my-inflatable-mattress appeal. Lastly, a fluffy pair of mittens keep self-mutilation at bay when the dreaded opiate itch sets in.

Crackhead Chic: from conception to Internet phenomenon (you can post your creations on Facebook, by the way) thanks to Couturious.

Here’s a reason to go to Metairie: Saints wide receiver Robert Meachem will appear at the Lakeside Mall Macy’s (3301 Veterans Memorial Blvd.) on Monday, Feb. 15 at 11 a.m. The first 300 people to purchase $40 or more in licensed championship apparel at the department store will have the opportunity to meet Meachem and receive autographed commemorative medallion beads. If last night was any indication of the crowd Saints players can draw, you might want to get there early.

The trope of the Saints’ phoenix-like rebirth finds perfect symbolic expression in the Fleur de Brees: a salvage art sculpture rendered from black and gold found objects.

The Fleur de Brees, a 10-inch by 8-inch spinoff of the popular Fleur Debris sculpture line Heather Mattingly launched four years ago, coruscates with broken gold jewelry, Mardi Gras beads and other flotsam and jetsam endemic to the streets of New Orleans.

“I fill it with all kinds of salvage, scraps and found objects, everything that’s rusty that I pick up on the streets,”  Mattingly says. “I drag a magnet around and pick up bottlecaps, broken costume jewelry, doubloons–anything I can fit in there.”

Mattingly is taking orders for the Fleur de Brees or other custom orders now and can be reached at 570-0404 and nolasalvage@yahoo.com. Or check out her craigslist ad.

Have you ever gazed at the impassive beige porcelain of your toilet and thought, “Gosh, I wish this tank was more interesting. Somebody ought to put a design on it. Something like a hamster playing in marbles!”

Somebody did. The Wow Toilet, a clear toilet tank, accommodates a range of specially sized posters featuring images that run the gamut from festive (Christmas tree) to menacing (white shark). With its water-conserving dual flush valves, the tank cuts the cost of water bills and, at $89.95, could potentially pay for itself. Which means you’ll have plenty of money left over to customize your Wow Toilet with pictures of your friends or, more appropriately, nemeses (Indianapolis Colts, anybody?).

Questionland is a new place for Gambit readers to ask questions, get answers, and share your infinite knowledge with the New Orleans community.

Where is the best place to go for a birthday dinner?

Where would you take a crazy friend coming to town?

Where is the best place to watch the Superbowl besides Miami?

Gambit has our answers- but now we want to hear yours!

Coming soon: Prizes for the best questions, and the “know-it-all” who answer the most in a time period.

So ASK. ANSWER. And feel free to let your curiosity carry you away.

Feet First (4119 Magazine St., 899-6800; 526 Royal St., 569-0005) has partnered with Soles 4 Souls for a shoe drive to benefit Haitian men, women and children affected by the earthquake. Shoes in any condition are needed to protect the feet of earthquake survivors from rubble, broken glass, twisted metal and other debris. The Feet First team says the need for shoes is urgent, and no shoe will be turned away. For more information, call 899-6800 or email mail@feetfirststores.com.

Tickets for Chocolate Sunday, a chocolate sampling event and fundraiser for public broadcasting station WYES-TV, are on sale now at Blue Frog Chocolates (5707 Magazine St., 269-5707). Tickets for the event, which runs from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 31 at the UNO Lakefront Arena (6801 Franklin Ave., 280-7171), may also be purchased online through Ticketmaster at www.wyes.org, at the UNO Lakefront Arena box office, or by calling WYES-TV at 486-5511, extension 200. Tickets are $30 when purchased in advance, $40 at the door.

Local Whole Foods Market stores (3420 Veterans Memorial Blvd., Metairie, 888-8225; 5600 Magazine St., 899-9119) have partnered with a number of nonprofit agencies, including Doctors Without Borders and the American Red Cross, to provide disaster relief to Haiti. Shoppers can donate any designated amount when they check out at Whole Foods Market registers.

Seven new signed first-edition books are now available at Garden District Book Shop (2727 Prytania St., 895-2266), including The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova and Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier.

Kids in grades kindergarten through fifth grade can participate in The Esplanade’s (1401 W. Esplanade Ave., Kenner) annual Shoebox Float Contest on Saturday, Jan. 30. Floats will be on display Monday, Jan. 25 through Monday, Feb. 15 during mall hours, and the winners (and gift card recipients) will be announced on Saturday, Jan. 30 at 3 p.m. Those interested in participating can call 468-6116 for more information .

There was always that kid in school, the kid whose idea of a Valentine’s Day gift wasn’t exactly a construction paper heart espousing saccharine sentiments. Instead, she spray-painted dead praying mantises, coated them with glitter and slid pastel candy hearts between their serrated forelegs. Quite possibly, Alicia Devora, creator of these quaintly offbeat Valentine’s cards, was such a child once.

“My cards are not for everybody,” Devora says. “My biggest seller of all says, ‘Sorry I got drunk.’”

The tiny, macabre worlds Devora depicts in her cards are populated by nuns clutching giant corn dogs, medieval gentlemen showing off rockets and monkeys presenting elaborately wrapped gifts. Her line of Valentine’s Day cards is sweet enough to charm even the most bitter Cupid-phobe and novel enough to satisfy the tastes of barely reformed arts-and-crafts weirdos.

“I make cards out of stickers, and if I cannot find the stickers to buy, then I make stickers,” says Devora, whose hobby-cum-cottage industry began after a $200 shopping spree in the sticker aisle of Michael’s Arts & Crafts during her Katrina evacuation. “I actually have a sticker machine. When I work on cards, I cover an 11-foot table with thousands of stickers, and I play with them. I hold all the pictures together and try to figure out what would go with what. I have a lot of fun.”

Devora’s cards are for sale at the Freret Street Market (unless it’s raining; moisture wreaks havoc on her cards), Pack Rat Shipping and Lucky You! A restorer of textiles by day, Devora works ’round the clock making stickers, painstakingly cutting them out by hand and arranging them into odd little tableaus.

“I do my best work in the middle of the night,” Devora says. “If [a card] makes me laugh at 3 a.m., I know it’s a good one.”

With their wicked orange fangs, beady eyes and appetites for destruction, nutria have all the makings of a super-villain. So it’s usually easy to overlook the swamp rat’s one redeeming quality (and indeed, in Louisiana, its original raison d’etre): thick, plush pelts.

Fifteen designers will change that when they showcase ratty couture during the Righteous Fur Nutria Design Challenge Fashion Show. This “nutria-palooza,” as nutria tooth jewelry designer and Righteous Fur mastermind Cree McCree calls it, features a virtual smorgasbord of nutria-centric performances  and activities designed to raise public awareness of this “guilt-free” fur. Screenings of Miss Pussycat’s “North Pole Nutrias” and Ted Gesing’s “Nutria” open the evening, followed by interpretive dances and poetic tributes to Louisiana’s most notorious rodent. Cellist Helen Gillet performs in a nutria fur bikini alongside the Mystic Herd of Nutria drum corp, while a bevy of models showcase the latest in nutria fur fashion.

Featured designers include Avant Garbe, Bayou Salvage, Calamity, Defend New Orleans, Julie Ebel, Dana Embree, Jennifer Floyd, Carolina Gallop, Darlene Hargreaves, Howlpop, Gail Kiefer, Oliver Manhattan, New Orleans Magpie, Valerie Massimi and Tatyana Meshcheryakova and Jose Luis Rodriguez. A portion of all proceeds will go to the Barataria-Terrebonne Estuary Foundation’s coastal restoration efforts.

Righteous Fur Nutria Design Challenge Fashion Show
Fri. Jan. 8
Marigny Theatre & Allways Lounge, 2240 St. Claude Ave., 218-5778
Tickets $10 at the door; $15 for reserved tables and VIP seating.

It’s safe to say that a vast majority of shoppers no longer recoil when Christmas trees take root in department stores as early as October. We’ve grown inured to the sight of cobweb-shrouded skeletons rubbing shoulders with rosy-cheeked Santas. We may grumble about the way holidays bleed together, but it’s not like there aren’t benefits–I would buy candy corn and Cadbury eggs year-round if given the chance.

But Mardi Gras’ temporal boundaries have always been sacrosanct. Extend your Fat Tuesday reveling to the wee hours of Ash Wednesday and you’re likely to get a face full of cold hose water. Wear beads in public during Lent and be pegged instantly as a tourist (or, if you’re especially unlucky, mugged). Which makes the following display an all the more egregious example of seasonal collision:

Yes, that is Santa achieving lift-off from a virtual king cake metropolis. Three Kings Day is still a fortnight away! Who nibbles king cake with their egg nog?  The stomach clenches (and the coronary arteries stiffen) at the thought. But my fellow shoppers blinked nary an eye at the sight of this display. Have we grown that numb?

“It’s a holiday thing,” a shopper explained as she loaded a king cake into her cart. “I’m in town for the holidays, and I want to get some king cake before I leave.”

One can hardly fault that rationale. Still, there’s something primally disconcerting about seeing Mardi Gras’ purple, green and gold sharing real estate with Santa’s red and green. At the risk of sounding curmudgeonly, I’d like to point out that transplanted king cake fiends can order their fixes year round from Gambino’s and Haydel’s.

If that doesn’t curb the tide of pre-Epiphany king cake sales, perhaps a fleet of volunteer firemen with water guns will. Shoppers, you have been warned.