In Brief: Met Museum Admission Fee Kerfuffle, Swiping at Pictures, Fashionable Philanthrophy

• Elsewhere in museum thievery news, a disgruntled former employee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art who we’ve identified to be Gerald Jones–and who insists to the New York Post that he is not disgruntled but a whistleblower (someone’s been watching Enlightened!)–is speaking out about the museum’s tactics for getting visitors to pay the suggested $25 admission fee. “I arranged for security officers to forcibly remove the museum visitors who demanded entry without paying,” he told the Post.

• How has technology reshaped contemporary life and what does it mean for photography? Curator Christopher Y. Lew considers “Swiping at Pictures” in an online-only essay that accompanies Aperture‘s boldly redesigned spring 2013 issue.

• Fashion powerhouses such as Donna Karan, Michael Kors, and Zac Posen are serious about philanthrophy. Gotham goes inside the minds of “6 Designers Who Give Big.”

• The selection of a new pope prompted Norma Kamali to consider how much the Catholic church influenced her career in fashion. “The tapestries and brocades, the candles, and the bar reliefs, and sculptures, and the holy water. Every one of my senses was a part of the experience,” she wrote of her childhood churchgoing in a recent “Note from Norma.”

• And speaking of fashion influences and pyramid schemes, Vince Camuto has ripped off Valentino’s wildly successful rockstud heel. Camuto’s “Mikhal” model is priced at $118, while the Italian original goes for around $950.

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