District L

“I feel like the elephant in the room”- Dasha Zhukova, on the industry's reaction to her recent appointment as editor-in-chief of Katie-Grand-a-thon POP.

Hell no.

Ever since Dasha Zhukova, terminally nouveau-riche girlfriend of Roman Abramovich, was appointed editor-in-chief of POP Magazine after the departure of Katie Grand and almost the entire staff (who swore to follow her to whatever corner of the earth she might taken them- in this case straight to Conde Nast to spearhead new publication LOVE), rumors began popping up that Daphne Guinness would be a part of the "advising board", or more appropriately the "official hand-holding committee", working with Dasha on getting the new issue out.

Daphne Guinness wants you to know that this is not true; in a flurry of statements released within the past few days, Daphne has confirmed that she will play no part in the new POP under Zhukova. The de rigeur interpretation of this sudden defensive bout is that Guinness is trying to distance herself from a potential trainwreck. Frankly, we can't blame her- how will POP ever be the same without Katie?

As she told freelancer Derek Blasberg in a phone interview, “I would like to emphasize that I’m completely neutral here—I’m a free agent! Fashion is my family and I love everyone just the same." This was followed shortly thereafter by a blog post on Starworks that said “it was so FUNNY to read on the web that I am on the new board of POP Magazine with Dasha Zhukova and my friend Ashley Heath. It was flattering but not true I am afraid. It came as a complete surprise. A complete misunderstanding! That is the nature of the web.”

It looks like Dasha will have to make do with the team of freelancers Bauer Media had to pull in to replace the elite Katie-squad that upped-sticks straight to LOVE.