• Twilight clothing is happening — it's only surprising it took so long. The duds go on sale at Nordstrom in October. Selina Khan, on the right, looks like she just doesn't care about Edward or Jacob, bless her heart. [People]

• Amazon.com is acquiring Zappos.com. The cost? $847 million. [NYTimes]
• Wonder Woman Lynda Carter will be live in person at Talbot's for Fashion Night Out, a night of special sales and events designed to encourage consumers to shop at the start of New York Fashion Week. Carter will be at Talbot's Madison Avenue store to promote her new CD, "At Last." [WWD]
• Meanwhile, France is one step closer to allowing shops to open on Sundays after the bill was narrowly approved by the senate. Mon dieu! [WWD]
• Barney's New York took down a disturbing window display that featured bloodied mannequins, posed as though they were struggling against assailants. And here we thought Simon Doonan's judgment was impeccable in all things. [NYDN]
• The actress Melissa George has invented a new product which she calls "HemmingMyWay." Geddit! The Grey's star, along with her business partner Kara Harshbarger, plans to sell clear adhesive strips with snaps affixed that allow a wearer to quickly adjust the length of her pants when she changes from flats to heels. Look, it even has a Facebook page! [WWD]
• Amy Winehouse's father wants her to license her name to a perfume house for £500,000. [Telegraph]
• And Lily Allen is doing a line of jewelry. "I love jewelry, always have done," explains the pop star. [Vogue UK]
• A 1994 Arte documentary about Yves Saint Laurent, Tout Terriblement, is being released on DVD. [WWD]
• In London next Thursday, a Chanel-themed flash mob has been announced. Anyone wearing Chanel, or Chanel-esque outfits should meet like-minded sartorial souls at St. Pancras International Station at 6 p.m. [UK Elle]
• 19-year-old Georgian Sean O'Pry topped Forbes' list of the highest-earning male models. There are pictures. [Forbes]
• Retail executives' pay fell last year. The 10 top-earning executives compensation packages decreased by 9.4%. [WWD]
• Could Fabiola Beracasa really be developing a reality show in the style of Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations, where she flies around the world looking for...unusual fashion? [P6]
• Daniel Vosovic, Santino Rice, Korto Momolu, Sweet P, Jeffrey Sebelia, Uli Herzner, Mychael Knight and Chris March are the designers returning to Project Runway for a second helping of Tim Gunn's soothing drone and Heidi Klum's adenoidal exhortations. Project Runway: All-Star Challenge will be broadcast as a two-hour special before the show's sixth season premiere. All we want to know is whatever happened to Andrae? [People]
• Jeremy Scott is yet another designer heading to London Fashion Week this fall. Though based in Los Angeles, Scott normally shows in Paris. [WWD]
• MAC cosmetics is ending its sponsorship of fashion week, and instead holding its own competing roster of shows at Milk studios in Chelsea. Proenza Schouler, Erin Fetherston, and Alexander Wang have already committed to slots in the lineup. [NYTimes]
• Alex Wang on his day off, according to his friend Ryan Korban: "We do a lot of driving around - he loves driving. So we drive out to Brooklyn and just kind of cruise around. He's always got the music blasting and he's singing. It's surprising, but he's a really good driver. He's screaming and the music is to the max and he's drinking an iced coffee, but he's completely steady." [W]
• Esteban Cortazar is out at Emanuel Ungaro, WWD is reporting. The young Colombian designer had clashed with the house's management over advertising and the brand's direction; his collections met with mixed reviews, and at last month's resort show, the Ungaro CEO refused to say if Cortazar would be kept on. No successor has yet been named. [WWD]
• The quirky downtown gallery Partners & Spade got written about in the Times. Oh well — nothing good lasts forever. [NYTimes]
• Ozwald Boateng, the Ghana-born, London-based all-round spectacular menswear designer and tailor, made two suits for President Obama and hand-delivered them to the American ambassador to Ghana during the president's recent visit. If Obama wore Boateng's suits, nobody would call him frumpy, ever. [WWD]
• Another story about Crocs and what they mean. [LATimes]
• The New York Economic Development Corporation-run industry site NYCFashionInfo.com, which collates insidery arcana like designer showroom contacts and market week dates, might start accepting advertising and publishing more "lifestyle content" because it only attracts 2,000 visitors a month. [WWD]
• Apparel sales in England in the month of June rose by 1.2%. [FT]
• Skechers lost $5.9 million in the second quarter. The result was actually better than analysts had expected. [WWD]>

The premise of the article is that Alice Waters, the Queen of Green and the earth mother of the food revolution, is experiencing an unfair backlash. But, says Namkung, she doesn't deserve it, because the good she's done outweighs any sanctimony.

The hard words comes as a result of Waters' recent appearance on 60 Minutes, in which her passion for organics for all brought tears to her eyes. She's been vocal, lately, too, in her support of an organic garden at the White House - calls which have been heeded. In response, apparently Anthony Bourdain said, in an interview with DCist,

Alice Waters annoys the living s%#* out of me. We're all in the middle of a recession, like we're all going to start buying expensive organic food and running to the green market. There's something very Khmer Rouge about Alice Waters that has become unrealistic. I mean I'm not crazy about our obsession with corn or ethanol and all that, but I'm a little uncomfortable with legislating good eating habits.

In response, NPR (et tu, NPR?!) critic Todd Kliman was emboldened to denounce Waters' movement as somewhat intransigent: "Waters, like a lot of radicals, believes the movement will never end. She simply can't see that the revolution she helped lead has calcified into something doctrinaire and even repressive, not liberating and uplifting." The only other critic I could find (by searching "Alic Waters, smug" and "Alice Waters, annoying"), a food blogger, explained his aversion thusly: "I've been unsympathetic to Alice Waters in the past, if only for her California sanctimony, and the effortless, tendentious ease with which she conflates her own fame with the cause of sustainable food."

While this hardly constitutes a full-scale denunciation - Bourdain's in the business of stirring the pot with iconoclastic fervor, after all - it's also true that such criticism would have been unthinkable a few years ago. To criticize Alice Waters, after all, is tantamount to criticizing puppies; what's not to like about organic food, small farms, good nutrition for children? As Victoria Namkun avers, the food revolution would not have happened without Waters. And the increasing availability of affordable organics can be laid directly at her door. The charge brought against her is generally an oblivious elitism that displays a lack of knowledge of the real priorities and opportunities of everyday people. And it's true both that Waters lives in a mecca of the movement she spawned and that her acolytes are not, as a rule, impoverished: to the extent that "good eating" has acquired the taint of moral superiority, the movement is indeed problematic. But can Waters be blamed for this?

In a sense, Waters seems to be falling prey to the pitfalls of any radical who is around long enough. She's damned for a single-minded commitment that now seems simplistic; at the same time she's criticized for an elitist complacency. On the one hand, some of the criticism is surely contrarian, pure and simple: Waters is one of the few sacred cows we have left to us (an organic one, to be sure), and as one with a particularly earnest and rabid fan base, probably an irresistible target for troublemakers. There are those amongst us who can't tolerate the existence of bedroom saints, and maybe they're right. I'd regard Waters' recent challenging not as problematic but as necessary and important; even a sign of her importance. She created a movement, and like a culinary Dorothy Day, she's stayed true to its principles. This is, perhaps, as it should be, and what she should be revered for; it's also what needs to be challenged, discussed, analyzed, evolved, rethought if necessary. What's the point of founding a philosophy if it doesn't spawn new ideas? So where Namkung says "give Waters a break"; I say she can take it.

Let's Give Alice Waters a Break [Huffington Post]
Alice Waters Was a Foodie Hero. Now She's the Food Police. [NPR]
Alice Waters Finds Someone Even More Annoying in Lesley Stahl [The Feedbag]
Chewing the Fat: No Reservations' Anthony Bourdain [DCist]

• Nadya Suleman was on Dr. Phil's show yesterday via telephone, talking about why she fired her baby nurses:

"Myself and my nannies felt extremely uncomfortable. I personally felt like a stranger in my own home. I felt as though every time I tried to hold the babies, feed the babies, they would be observing and they were waiting for me to make a mistake." Hmm. Probably true. [E!]

• Rihanna and Chris Brown are indeed "taking a break." "Jay-Z told Rihanna she needs to cut things out with Chris, at least in public," says an unnamed source. Yes! Good idea! [MSNBC Scoop via Us Weekly]
• Chris Brown was supposed to have a "private court meeting" Monday, but it was canceled. [E!]
• Kate Moss went to an East London tattoo parlor and got a bunch of piercings in her ear; she now has six holes in one lobe. Newsy! [Daily Mail]
• Jennifer Aniston's hoodie is out-of-control, but an effective way to keep your face out of the paper. [Daily Mail]
• What do we think about Julianne Moore playing Hillary Clinton in a new flick? She doesn't really look like HRC, but JM can pull off anything. [NY Daily News]
• Sparkly vampire down! Robert Pattinson was smacked in the head by a sign on the set of New Moon. [Socialite Life]
• This story about Bruce Willis hand-picking his new wife at a casting call ignores the fact that the woman has emotions and thoughts of her own. She didn't have to go out with him. [Page Six]
• Coco Arquette, 4, daughter of David Arquette and Courteney Cox, is considereing modeling. [Mirror]
• Jennifer Hudson is scheduled to tape her American Idol performance today; the appearance will air on an upcoming ep. [Yahoo News via AP]
• Prince Harry went to some kind of "rave for posh people" wearing pink nail polish and a black wig. While there, he chatted up his ex, Chelsy Davy. Reunited and it fees so good? [Daily Mail]
• Here's a picture of Sarah Jessica Parker's stunt double, and that stunt double's underwear. [Daily Mail]
• Cops say that three-car-crash involvng T.R. Knight was caused by T.R. Knight. [E!]
• Juicy and delicious: The feud between Antony Bourdain and Rachael Ray has been taken down to a simmer, now that Bourdain found out RR likes the New York Dolls. We writes: "I don't know whether to go out and shoot a puppy, or send Rachael a fruit basket." [Gatecrasher]
• Gloria Vanderbilt, aka Anderson Cooper's mother, has an erotic novel called Obsession. Awesome or awful? [EW]
• Freida Pinto's been cast in a Julian Schnabel film; she's also shooting a Woody Allen flick in the summer. [Page Six]
• Cameron Diaz has been cast in Swingles, a romcom with "a 21st century When Harry Met Sally vibe." Here's a guess: She'll be goofy and giggly, and dance. [Hollywood Reporter]
• U2's massive new stage setup is something called "The Claw." It looks like an alien invasion, but it's supposed to bring the band closer to the crowd. [Rolling Stone]
• Flight Of The Conchords: The Movie? Maybe! [Mirror]
• Veronica Mars movie? Nope. [NY Mag]
• Josh Schwartz, the dude behind Gossip Girl, Chuck and The OC, has a new web series called Rockville CA: Two hipsters spend their nights at an LA rock club; each ep features performances by up and coming bands. [USA Today]
• Denise Richards got the boot on Dancing With The Stars. [Yahoo News via AP]
• Josh Groban's rep wants you to know that Josh and Katy Perry are friends but not, repeat, NOT a couple. [People]
• Star Jones has a new blog, in case you're dying to know about the scar on her chest or her thyroid. [E!]
• The rumor about Parks and Recreation being meh could be circulating because gossip columnist Nikki Finke hates NBC's Ben Silverman. [NY Mag]
• Michael Jackson would like to enter his London concerts riding an elephant, thank you very much. [Mirror]
• "Jade Goody and Princess Diana had so much in common." Pardon? [Daily Mail]
• Finish your Kirk chairs: Sunday's episode of Family Guy reunites the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation. [e!]
• Fred Astaire: Secretly racist? Sigh. [Page Six]
• Blind item! "Which hot actor is clueless about his GF's cocaine addiction? His lady waits until he's off promoting a film before throwing wild drug bashes at their home." [Gaetcrasher]
• "He is hilarious to me. I just got it. Every time I drove to record his voice, I was excited about coming up with this funny stuff to say. I felt like I accomplished something, making a movie kids like that is as hilarious as anything that is out there. [But] I did a meet-and-greet with kids after the premiere in Australia. I realized kids just don't like Seth Rogen. I scare the (bleep) out of them. Maybe it's my laugh or that I'm a big, hairy guy. They just don't like me." — Seth Rogen, on playing B.O.B. in Monsters Vs. Aliens. [USA Today]
• "He stinks. I mean, it's awful. He never showers, and it drives people on the set crazy." — an insider on New Moon actor Robert Pattinson. [Perez]

In Serious Eats' "Chewing the Fat" feature, the latest installment features maverick chef and tall drink of water Anthony Bourdain talking sex. Which is great, except he talks it with Mario Batali, whose orange crocs you can just sense lurking under the table as he pontificates about how “there’s a couple of ways of making someone happy by putting something inside of them." In fact, if we had to make a list of people we wouldn't want to ever see talking about sex, Mario Batali would be right up there with Alan Greenspan and Dakota Fanning. And as if the idea of the crocs on a nude Batali wasn't quite enough, he talks about sex in this gross, knowing, smirky way that's kind of left a frozen expression of horror on our collective faces. Bourdain, however, is typically louche. Which is to say, watch it.
Mario Batali & Anthony Bourdain Talk About Sex And Now My Vagina Is Confused [Serious Eats via Best Week Ever]

Maybe it's just me — and I'm already anticipating the hate comments I will get about this — but something about a man refusing to eat meat seems sort of...sissy-like. I realize it's probably cultural brainwashing, but when I hear the phrase "male vegetarian", I picture a dude with matted dreads and a patchouli stink who cries when a tree is felled. In short: I picture a hippie, and I cannot hold with hippies. Take the male vegetarian and Florida real estate agent quoted in the Times, Ben Abdalla, 42, who says he prefers to date fellow vegetarians because meat eaters smell bad and have low energy." Anyone using the word "energy"? Definitely a hippie.

To be fair, these are not entirely fair assumptions about men who shun meat. But they are real. An (admittedly old) study commissioned by the Vegetarian Times conducted way back in 1992 found that "of the 12.4 million people who call themselves vegetarian, 68 percent are female while only 32 percent are male." (We're looking for more recent statistics.) And the women at Feministing, in fact, have an fascinating post about a set of new Maxim-like PETA ads which assert that (in their words) "it's okay to buck the stereotype of Real Men Eat Red Meat, because here are some naked ladies to reassure you that you're still a superhetero manly man!" (Plus, there's an entire book called The Sexual Politics of Meat by Carol Adams, which apparently intertwines feminism and vegetarianism. Go figure!)

I also polled the other Jezebels, and honestly, most are a little prejudiced against the idea of a male vegetarian. Moe admits that she's "prejudiced against sissies but would date a vegetarian... only if he wasn't a sissy about it though. Like, no freaking out about chicken boullion or whatever." Tracie says she converted a vegan to a full blown flesh-eater: "My ex was a vegan for 10 years when we met and I used to use eggs and chicken stock in recipes after a while and not tell him. Then I got him to eat fish and now he eats steak like every day. I changed him for the better." And Jennifer? She says, she's only gone out with one vegetarian in her lifetime. "I met him at yoga class," she says. "He was a sissy. Hence the reason we only went on three dates. That and he was a really bad kisser."

Then you have someone like my brother, who only ate meat and potatoes growing up, and is now married to a vegetarian. She won't cook meat herself, but she is never judgmental about it when my brother orders a burger, proving that love can conquer carnivorous instincts. Question is, how much of a dealbreaker is a person's issues with food? And how often do people put aside major dietary differences for true romance?

I Love You, But You Love Meat [New York Times]

Related: The Sexual Politics Of No Meat [Feministing]
The Gender Gap: If You're A Vegetarian, Odds Are You're A Woman. Why? [Find Articles]