• Avril Lavigne's Abbey Dawn clothing line premieres. It's like a five-year-old Scottish pirate designing for Hot Topic. [World Of Wonder]
• "Insiders tell Page Six [Sarah] Palin has a secretive circle of stylists who dress her for events...One source familiar with Palin's primping posse told us, 'They do not want the American public to know that Palin is using stylists or that she is paying for expensive clothes this early on in the campaign.'" [Page Six]
• Barbie will be showing on the Fall runways. A miniature runway?!?! [Fashion Week Daily]
• In addition to the systematic extinction of pants, LiLo would like to devote her energies to bag design. "Maybe a collaboration. The ultimate would be to do a purse for Chanel. They're so classic and they last forever and it'd be a really cool thing to have my name on," she says. [NY Mag]

• Even though like every store in the world is in trouble, etailing booms. We blame PayPal. It's like pretend money! [WWD]
• Zappo's is apparently as fixated on employee satisfaction as customer happiness: When the company takes on new hires, it gives them intensive training. "Then, about one week in, Zappos makes what it calls 'The Offer,' telling newbies, 'If you quit today, we will pay you for the amount of time you have worked, plus a $2,000 bonus.'" [Business Week]
• It's a goal: a Serbian tailor wants to make the world's biggest trousers. 100 guys will fit in them, although I guess that means, like, inside the pockets. [Reuters]
• Elle MacPherson has been taken to task for letting her young son (helmeted) ride on the handlebars of her bike in London (caught by paps, obvs.) She has not been taken to task for naming him Aurelius Cy. [Telegraph]
• Slumping Gucci names new CEO. [WSJ]
• Although they say it's so the old one could "pursue other interests." [Reuters]
• Dorian Ho pioneers home-grown Chinese couture. [Reuters]
• Shocked by the cheap unisex uniforms female prisoners are forced to wear, Stockholm design students have created a new uniform for Swedish inmates. "As an added bonus...the new clothing is designed to expand easily when women gain weight. Many inmates were ampthetamine users on the outside and put on pounds quickly off the drug." [UPI]
• A Tommy Hilfiger exec cops to stealing $19 million. [WWD]
• Natalia Vodianova’s French Shalimar ad is just as steamy as that Eva Mendes CK one, possibly NSFW. [NY Mag]
• British designer Giles Deacon's fashion week muse? Pac-Man, obvs. [Reuters]
• Christopher Kane's? Planet of the Apes. [Fashionologie]
• Emma "Hermione Granger" Watson does her first Vogue shoot! "I was terrified of ripping, getting mud (as we shot outdoors), cake, a prop, or anything on the dresses!" [NY Mag]
• The brand that made Katie Holmes's mom jeans, Prps, is emboldened to expand stateside. No, really, it's okay. [NYDN]
• Thank God. Shu Uemura brings the fake lash bar to Australia. [SMH]
• All the "Fashion Capitals" hammer out some kind of weird fashion week scheduling treaty. One hopes, at Versailles. [Reuters]
• Possibly at the cost of London's "ethical fashion" component. [The Guardian]
• Can't really work up much interest in stylist Philip Bloch's "feud" with some Glam God contestant. [Page Six]

• Lindsay Lohan has turned down a $700,000 offer to pose topless in Playboy. Since we already saw her nipples in New York magazine, what would be the point? [Page Six]
• Meanwhile, there's a truce in the Lohan fam: Michael is actually saying nice things about Dina! And mom, dad and all the kids will allegedly all be together for the final service for Lindsay's grandfather, who died last week. They'll scatter his ashes in a Long Island harbor. [E!]
• You know how Sarah Palin was on the cover of Us? Apparently the magazine "lost thousands of subscribers in the first 24 hours" following the printing of the issue. [MSNBC]

• Lily Allen's suffering from a major hangover and some regret after drunkly swearing on stage at the GQ Awards. Her Facebook status is "dying inside" and she wrote that she "feels like killing" herself, although that part has since been removed. Free champagne is a blessing and a curse. [Daily Mail]
• Leighton Meester and Blake Lively of Gossip Girl: Guest stars on 30 Rock this fall. Apparently Liz Lemon was a mean girl in high school! [EW]
• Heidi Montag: "I'm waiting for my Barbie Doll. That's what I want next." Spencer Pratt: "We just talked to Mattel yesterday, and we are already working on our own Ken and Barbie." That sound you hear: Thunderous hooves, as the Apocalyptic horsemen approach. [Socialite Life]
• Romeo Beckham is The Dark Knight. [The Sun]
• Balthazar Getty and Matthew Rhys, who play brothers on Brothers & Sisters are not speaking to each other, and it's Sienna Miller's fault. Naturally. [E!]
• Hayden Panettiere, 19, is moving into her own house in West Hollywood. But! Her beau, Milo Ventimiglia, is upset because he thought they were moving in together. Turns out she's wary of Milo, who keeps talking about marriage. A source says: "She's not even old enough to have a drink, so she's not even thinking about settling down." [Star]
• Whoa, there's a feud between Alec Baldwin and Greg Garcia, the exec producer of My Name Is Earl. Alec can't understand why they'd do a one-hour episode of Earl: You've got to be fucking kidding me," he says. Garcia says Alec sounds like a "psychotic narcissist." [Page Six, Defamer]
• This story about Jennifer Aniston is titled: "Did Brangelina Spoil Jennifer For Other Men?" Here is an actual line from the article: "When it comes to men, Jen’s radar seems hopelessly broken, leaving her prey to the serial-shagger charms of men such as [Paul] Sculfor, who is now cosily loved up with Cameron Diaz, and [John] Mayer, who has been involved with a string of other celebs including Jessica Simpson and Jennifer Love Hewitt." [The Sun]
• Amy Winehouse ordered 48 bottles of Jack Daniel's. For a weekend gig. [The Sun]
• Kim Kardashian is helping sister Khloe with Celebrity Apprentice. First assignment: Lunch with Omarosa. Uh-oh! [Page Six]
• Tension in New Kids On The Block? Seems like Donnie won't hang out with the other kids or play their reindeer games. [Page Six]
• Richard Branson says, "The best way to reduce your carbon footprint is not to fly at all. But that's not realistic. You can't walk to England." He has a solution, of course: "Fly Virgin. One hundred percent of all profits from all our airlines are reinvested into finding a cleaner fuel solution. We had an experimental 747 that ran on coconut oil… but it took 150,000 coconuts for one flight. So now we're looking at developing fuel from algae. If you fly Virgin, you'll support this cause." [Rush & Molloy]
• Rachel Weisz was voted Hollywood's hottest babe — in a poll of 4,000 lesbians. [The Sun]
• Actor Joe Pantoliano, aka Ralph Cifaretto on the Sopranos, was at the RNC lobbying for his charity, No Kidding, which deals with brain disease. Joey Pants sufferers from clinical depression. [Page Six]
• The court case between Matt LeBlanc and his former business manager has been settled. You can click to see the court papers or think a happy thought about butterflies, and I suggest the latter, because the papers are a yawn. [ET]
• One year after vowing never to perform on the MTV Awards again, Kanye West will close the show's 25th annual ceremony in Hollywood on Sunday. [Reuters]
• Christina Aguilera will also perform at the VMAs. [Daily Star]
• Don't hold your breath for U2's new album: It's been pushed to 2009. Bono says the band has 50 or 60 new songs to consider for inclusion. Decision time. [Reuters]
• The dude who robbed Kiki Dunst's hotel room last August is getting four years in jail. Maybe that's why his MySpace has Jewish prayer music on it? [Gothamist]
• Ciara: Naked on the cover of Vibe magazine. [Concrete Loop]
• Akon performed in South Africa last week and when one of his female fans embraced him, he violently elbowed her off the stage. [Molly Good]
• Anthony Edwards will appear on the final season of ER, but Dr. Mark Greene is not back from the dead: He'll be in flashback scenes. [AP]
• Are you the Gatekeeper? Columbia Pictures is working on a new installment of Ghostbusters. [LA Times]
• An L.A. businessman is suing Gene Simmons over an Indy Racing League deal. [E!]
• "It's going to stop one day. It's not that you fall. It's just one day there are new people, and, you know, the opportunities aren't what they once were. It happens to everybody, man. I prepare for the worst. I think every show I do, I realize I could get booed off the stage and they could throw tomatoes. Hey — Michael Jackson, man. One day you're Vanilla Ice and the next day you're…Vanilla Ice." — Chris Rock on his career. [Page Six]
• "I live in Costa Rica, way off the grid. We live off solar power, with no car, and no telephone. I'm nothing like my character. I'm more into the environment." — Perrey Reeves, aka Entourage's Mrs. Ari Gold. [Rush & Molloy]
• "I didn't really have any expectations. They say it gives you a little more juice for the first year and that's it. It certainly didn't help me get this movie made." — Helen Hunt, on life after winning an Oscar, and her directorial debut, Then She Found Me, in which Salman Rushie has a part as an obstetrician. [Guardian]
• "The corsets were very restrictive. The worst part was after lunch because they don’t help your digestion." — Keira Knightley on burping her way through The Duchess. [The Sun]
• "I don't always love kids. Sometimes I absolutely loathe them. Children are just people who haven't lived very long yet. I'm predisposed to be affectionate if someone’s smaller but if they're loathsome in the first five minutes, they're loathsome.” — Colin Firth. [Daily Express]
• "I had sex if I had the energy. I wasn't one of those guys who believed in the myths about the guy losing his chi. The fact is that if you are riding your bike six, seven hours a day, you are not a sex champion. You're just not. You have fatigue, low testosterone and a lower libido. But you know, I never got any complaints." — Lance Armstrong to Men's Journal. [Page Six]

A recent study has found that keeping an active mind with activities like crosswords can prevent dementia. My grandma will be thrilled! • A group of brides are super pissed at a shop owner who went out of business and never supplied them with their dresses or a refund. • Venus Williams is set to write an inspirational book for HarperCollins about memorable advice her coach once gave her. Wasn't her father her coach? And wasn't he kind of an asshole? • A 33-year-old man in Michigan was caught trying to meet with a 14-year-old girl for sex wearing a "World's Greatest Dad" t-shirt. Irony or social statement? • Authorities have found thousands of marijuana plants being grown in a remote part of a Girl Scout camp in Indiana. Thousands of "badge for pot farming" jokes coming to a blog near you!

It was no small feat for the Mattel lawyers to track me down, probably because I had so cleverly in the interim changed my common-law name to "Moe," but after numerous false starts they finally convinced me and seven or eight lawyers to show up in a conference room someplace downtown for a few hours of grilling about a story about which I couldn't have ethically provided any information even if I remembered it, which I of course did not. As we left, my lawyer, the in-house counsel of Dow Jones, marveled at the billable hours that had been assembled for our presence alone. It was enough to fund a reality show-worthy bar mitzvah. And they'd been at this case for years!

Today the case is supposed to go to trial and I am apparently, according to an email from the Gawker office manager, to be there, although I am not, because I don't leave my house to buy toilet paper if there is perfectly decent newspaper lying around, and the thing is going down in California. But it's fascinating to read about the internal memos describing the increasingly heated battles between these two dolls: "The House Is On Fire!" one is titled; fixing the problem will require "grenades."

"Complacency will kill us," the company concluded.

But when you live in a country in which a few sketches depicting dolls with stoned eyes and platform shoes and oversized heads vaguely conjuring anorexia is multibillion dollar "intellectual property" whose protection demands numerous eight figure retainers funding whole divisions of preposterously well-educated legal minds and even holds a few multimillion dollar holiday bonuses in the balance, it's hard to feel anything other than "complacency."

Brawl Over Doll Is Heading To Trial

• A new study shows that most female child molesters were victims of sexual abuse themselves. • Jordan has charged a man who allegedly killed his sister for having an extramarital affair. • Stephanie Pearl-McPhee calls herself the "yarn harlot" and keeps an eponymous blog about knitting. • Some conservative British politicians want to bar lesbians from receiving IVF treatment unless the potential child would have a "male role model" involved. • In the U.S., paid maternity leave is a luxury, not a right. "The United States provides the fewest maternity leave benefits in both length of leave and paid time off," when compared to nineteen equally rich countries, according to Time. • Overheard at the gay rodeo: "This is an all-American sport, and we are all-American people." • Queen Elizabeth tops the list of Live Science's 10 Most Powerful Modern Women Leaders. Also included: Indira Gandhi, Golda Meir, Angela Merkel, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf.

Mattel is doing everything in its power to fight Barbie's increasing obsolescence. The Wall Street Journal reports that, in order to combat its "rare quarterly loss" — unlike last year, sales of Barbie flattened both inside and outside of the United States — Mattel is ramping up web-related offerings and is going to start charging a small subscription fee for its Barbie Girl website, which offers games, videos, chats and "digital extras". It's also experimenting with more interactive products — which aren't guaranteed successes. According to the Journal, "The recent Magic of the Rainbow, a fantasy doll marketed under the Barbie brand, doubled as a remote control, came with a CD-ROM game and featured wings that fluttered at the push of a button. 'Girls asked — is this a doll?' said [Chuck] Scothon [senior vice president of Mattel's girls division]. 'We put too much in.'"

[Image via Wilde Designs Etsy Shop]

Earlier: New Game Encourages Young Girls To Embrace Their Inner "Bimbo"

• Clothing line Anchor Blue has signed Heidi Montag to be its new face. Because execs want to appeal to a "slightly older" demographic. No, really. [WWD, sub req'd]
  
• Would you like to be Erin O'Connor's escort to a show during London Fashion Week? Well lucky for you she's holding a contest with Vogue UK. To win her hand (or, you know, the seat next to her) all you have to do is compose her a poem. Start work-shopping those dirty limericks here! [Vogue UK]
  
• Thrilling/disturbing news: Steve & Barry's has inked a licensing deal allowing them to create and sell t-shirts bearing images and logos from The Little Rascals, The Andy Griffith Show, The Beverly Hillbillies, The Brady Bunch, The Love Boat, The Twilight Zone, Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, Cheers and Beverly Hills 90210. And if you feel a twinge of sadness that the average Steve & Barry's customer has probably never known the joy of watching an episode of Laverne & Shirley, just think of the poor children in China who will be sewing them. [WWD, sub req'd]

• So the family of the actual Ossie Clark, whose namesake label was just revived during the opening of London Fashion Week, says they never gave anyone permission to use the house's name. And are now taking legal action. Awkward. [WWD, 4th item]
• Talk about expensive shit! Remember those Van Cleef & Arpels-Earnest Sewn jeans we told you about? They retail for between $9,700 and $11,300. Also, they are fug. [Fashion Week Daily]
• "I couldn't fit into my [Bill] Blass sample. I guess it's because I'm not an 18-year-old Russian." Socialite Plum Sykes: just like us! [Fashion Week Daily]
• Ooh la la: Heidi Klum and Seal on the cover of French ELLE! [Sassybella]
• Alessandra Gucci (daughter of dead Maurizio) is launching her own accessories line under the label AG, since the Gucci clan won't let any of its usurping-relatives use the family name to promote their own half-wit businesses. But Alessandra's business sounds less half-wit than most: It's all alligator handbags in pretty colors. And the girl does have a degree in economics, so good for her? [WWD, 2nd item]
• Perry Ellis revenues are down. Insert instinctual defensive remark about the halycon days of Marc Jacobs and his grunge collection. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Jones Apparel also doing not so good. That's a recession for you, folks! [Reuters]
• Liz Claiborne is thisclose to selling off Ellen Tracy to (who else) a private equity firm. The sale will fetch $50 million, which...seems kind of low, albeit to someone who will never see that kind of cash ever. [NY Post]

Goth Barbie [Funny Or Die]

Is a "party plane" for blonde, plastic dolls necessarily a bad thing? Didn't your Barbies do much filthier things than have an afternoon cocktail? And why should Mattel think a play set with martini glasses is wrong, if sales are good? Check out the commercial and judge for yourself:

Barbie Shows Bratz Dollz How to Drink In Style! [Packaging Girlhood]
Tax Gains Offset Recalls at Mattel [NY Times]
Check Out Line: U.S. Girls Shun Barbie Again [Reuters]
2008 Barbie 2-in-1 Party Plane & Ship Commercial UK [YouTube]

• Kate Bosworth is the new face of Calvin Klein jeans. Looks good enough to make us forget another girl named Kate who once was the face of CK jeans. [Vogue UK]
  
• In case you forgot, here's what Brooke Shields looked like in her Calvins. [Sassybella])
  
• With nary a girl to dress for red carpet season, Badgley Mischka has made an awards-attending Barbie. [Fashion Week Daily]
  
• Mazel Tov to Stella McCartney, who just gave birth to baby number three, a son, Beckett Robert Lee Willis. McCartney and her husband Aldashair WIllis have two other children and one ex-wicked stepmother. [WWD, 2nd item]

• Tyson Beckford's ego really must be stopped: "What's so great about me is I can call Naomi Campbell and be like 'Yo Naomi, we need you to teach these girls how to walk.' I don't think anybody else in fashion can do that without her charging you a brick. I can do that because I'm her friend...I can call anyone in fashion. I can say 'André Talley, come here'...I can say, 'Hey, André Talley, come hang out with me,' and he'll do that...I can call Ralph Lauren, you know. I can go sit in Ralph's office and put my feet on his desk and say 'Ralph, I need a favor.'" [Fashion Week Daily]
• Our favorite Project Runway judge Nina Garcia: Moved to tears by Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Love in the Time of Cholera, rocks out to Amy WInehouse and James Brown. [The Fashion Informer]
• Now you too can buy your very own spacesuit! [Guardian]
• Want to sell clothes? Or a bologna sandwich? Put Miley "Hannah Montana" Cyrus's name anywhere near an object you need to move off the shelf and it will go flying so fast you'll think you've been robbed. [NYPost]
• Donna Karan's new line of handbags are inspired by the different signs of the Zodiac. "I live by astrology," says Karan. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Glamour editor-in-chief Cindi Leive is just like us: Doesn't call her grandmother enough! [Fashion Week Daily]
• Let this news from Australia be true: Skinny models are out, healthy looking girls are in. [The Age]
• Aspirin + apple cider vinegar = clean hair? [BellaSugar]
• Really expensive handbag line Mulberry is now venturing into the world of really expensive shoes. [Vogue UK]
• Valentino: Getting a medal from the mayor of Paris! Aw? [WWD, 5th item]
• Retailers' profits are sucking big time. [WSJ]
• Bravo's new show Make Me A Supermodel premieres tonight with swank (we guess?) corporate sponsors Mercedes Benz, Alltel Wireless, and Garnier hair products. [MediaWeek]
• Lucky Seattle: Getting 3 new H&M's in the next year! [Charleston Post-Courier]

Q. My 6-year-old daughter is thriving in school, highly artistic and has lots of friends, as well as a strange idea. She stubbornly believes that blue-eyed blondes are the most beautiful people in the world.

I don't understand it. We don't talk much about physical beauty at home but we openly appreciate the differences in others; we give her inclusive books and nonwhite dolls; we avoid Barbie and Disney princess toys and we regularly tell her that she's beautiful (which she is). And still she tells me, "Before I was born, I was an angel, but of course in heaven I had blue eyes and yellow hair."

She not only wishes that she were blond, she frequently draws herself with blond hair and blue eyes and she prefers blond-haired dolls. She even describes people as having clear blue eyes, "solid" dark eyes or eyes that are surrounded by brown rings.

This has been going on since last summer and is increasingly painful to us. I am Caucasian with dark hair and eyes; my husband is Asian and our friends and family span the ethnic-racial spectrum, but we do live in an almost all-white suburb and she has many blondes in her class.

When we ask her why she thinks that blondes are best, she says, "They're the prettiest." When we ask her about her friends with dark hair and dark eyes, she says she likes her Asian friend because of all the things they do together, but she likes her blond friend "because we like to do things, and also because she has blue eyes and blond hair." I try not to show how much this upsets me, but I'm sure she's picked up on it.

I want my daughter to form her own beliefs, but I don't want her to think less of herself or of her own unique beauty.

A: Oh for god sakes, woman, this is a six-year-old you're talking about. Let me tell you a true story: I knew a little girl once who, on her sixth birthday, wished while blowing out the candles that there was no gravity. And breaking the solemn birthday wish vow of secrecy, she told her parents about it, which may be why they never took it particularly seriously when she refused to wear pants or shirts that buttoned in the front, eschewed her mother when she dyed her hair blonde, and drew princesses exclusively with black hair and blue eyes, the combination boasted by her idol Wonder Woman's Linda Carter. This little girl's two best friends were a Japanese girl and a Caucasian girl with blue eyes, but unbeknownst to anyone her secret wish was to somehow combine the two of them together through some feet of genetic engineering to create an Asian blue-eyed Wonder Woman. Ooooooh, genetic engineering — good idea for the seventh birthday wish...

Anyhow, before you die from all the suspense, that little girl was me. And maybe you're wondering if, possessing none of those traits — Asian skin, blue eyes, black hair — I suffered from poor self-esteem. I sure did! And thank the deities; as Roseanne Barr once said of self-esteem, it's the "goddamn root of all evil." Do you have any idea how fucked you'd be if your little Eurasian child knew how fucking drop-dead gorgeous she is? With values like the ones I had a six-year-old, it was a fucking great thing that I personally looked nothing like Betty Rubble or Nancy Kwan or any of my retarded six-year-old beauty ideals. I would have thought I was totally the shit.

Instead I would just stare off into space and imagine what it would be like to have thick black hair and smooth tan skin. Sometimes I would look like Jaclyn Smith, or this pretty Asian shopgirl I'd seen, my mom before the bitch dyed her hair, whatever...

The thing is, around six and a half or seven, the same mechanism starts to go haywire. Suddenly, the same imagination that concocted your daughter's past life as a spokesmodel for Hitler Youth will dare her to wonder what it would be like to be the panhandler or the amputee. If you really want to speed up this process, take her to a Third -World country, maybe even someplace where there are a lot of blue-eyed blondes, like the Ukraine. That can be her Christmas present! She'll never look at her emaciated Barbie dolls the same way!

Ms. Lloyd notes that her daughter goes to "one of those anxiously progressive places in San Francisco" where parents are parents are dismayed to find color-consciousness in their children. Ms. Lloyd finds herself asking, "Why would little Chelsea declare she will be friends only with other little blond girls? Why would three little white boys get it in their brain to exclude the darkest-skinned boy? None of it made much sense."


Ms. Lloyd thinks the interviews of 4-and 5-year olds the researchers conducted aren't very reliable, and she points a finger at the media and toy culture, "that designs too many princesses with alabaster skin, too many handsome princes and superheroes as tall white guys." (If you have a chance, watch the 2006 seven-minute documentary A Girl Like Me. It recreates the "doll test" originally done in the 1940s: young black kids, who, when given two dolls, identical except for skin color, choose the white doll as the "nice" doll and the black doll as the "bad" doll.) To be honest, the Italian study seems problematic anyway you slice it: The researchers presented white children, aged 4-7, with a drawing of a white child and a black child, and asked which one they would prefer to play with. Then they were also asked which child they thought their mother and father would prefer them to play with.

Around 80% of the children said they thought their parents would prefer them to play with the white child, giving similar percentages for their mothers and fathers. Similarly, around three quarters of the children said they thought their mother and father would prefer to meet a white adult rather than a black adult, and that their parents would allocate more positive traits to a white adult than to a black adult.

As for the girl named Chelsea declaring she only wants blond friends, isn't childhood all about defining things? Recognizing things that are alike, and things that are different? How many times do kids do exercises in which they're instructed, "circle only the kittens" or "place only the blue marbles in the jar"? And just like wanting to be a fireman can be a phase, so can being friends with only blonds. That said, parents obviously can pass racism on to their kids, as we know all too well. (Remember Prussian Blue?) But does this particular study prove that mothers (more than fathers) are the ones to blame? And if children are not developing prejudice from their parents, where are they getting it from?

Do children acquire racism from their mothers? [British Psychological Society Research Digest Blog]
Do Mothers Pass On Racism More than Fathers? [New York Times Freakanomics]
Mama Made Me Racist! [Salon]
Earlier: Teenage Racist 'Folk' Singers Admit Their Own White Guilt
Related: A Girl Like Me, (Video)
Kids Copy Parents' Mistakes [PopSciBlog]

There's also a beauty salon, where girls can get fancy hairdos and face painting. A few Barbies are for sale, as well as pink clothes and accessories designed and made in Argentina, and only available at the Barbie Store. Loizeau wanted to sell Barbie outfits in kid sizes, but moms in focus groups nixed that idea. The clothes available at the store are "basic" with matching items for dolls, and originally were sized for girls between the ages of 3 and 9. But girls as old as 16 came in wanting Barbie clothes and Loizeau's added larger sizes. He may add adult clothing.

Loizaneau's making about 40% more than he projected he would: Girls love the Barbie Store. "There are girls who come every single day," Loizeau says. The playroom is always packed, and especially chaotic on Saturday afternoons. "When the time is up, they ask their mothers for another hour."

American Girl stores are popular in the US partly because they're one of the few places you can get the dolls. Barbies can be purchased at other places: The sole draw of the Buenos Aires store is trying out the Barbie "lifestyle": Tall, blonde, dream-house living, Corvette-driving, ambiguously employed, mysteriously funded? You know, what every little girl dreams of!

Argentine Entrepreneurs Score A Hit With The First Barbie Entertainment Theme Store [International Herald Tribune]

• The dress code at the Black Ball in New York tonight is "dress for Bono." [WWD, final item]
  
• Designer Patricia Field on why she's keeping far away from the set of the Sex And The City movie: "If I was [there] I'd be telling the director what to do — I'd be finding something wrong with everything!" [Fashion Week Daily]
  
• Tim Gunn on how to politely exit a conversation: "It's been lovely talking to you. But I'm needed across the room." We are pretty sure the whole "need" part would not work for us. [WSJ]
  
• More news about Roberto Cavalli for H&M: The designs are primarily pared down replications of dresses from the Cavalli archives. Which means you, too, will soon be able to look like a knockoff Posh Spice. [WWD, sub req'd]

• Speaking of Cavalli, he's having a Halloween party. Replete with "designer vodka," which is the new "premium vodka"! Wake us when people stop referring to vodka as anything but "relatively tasteless and benign." [Fashion Week Daily]
• Memo to hedge fund guys and nerdy philosophy-major types who buy all their clothes at Goodwill: the three-piece suit is back! [WSJ]
• Auditions start next week for Australia's Next Top Model. PS - Anna will be in Australia then. Just a suggestion... [Sassybella]
• Ugh, do not buy a $400 Tory Burch dress to use as a Halloween costume. [FabSugar]

Earlier: Weekend Homework Assignment: Kill Barbie
Our "Barbie Electric Chair" Is A Bust; We Interview The Inventor
Barbie And Ken: Amateur Porn Stars
Growing Up, Everyone Did Dirty Things With Their Barbies

Oh my god. My best friend and I did this with Tiny Tears dolls when we were ten years old, in my upstairs hallway, "hiding" under towels as we watched. I don't care if that's TMI, she grew up to be a lesbian and I grew up to be every other kind of sexual deviance [sic].

I played Playboy Bunny Barbie/Stripper Barbie/Gotta-Get-Paid-For-Sex-to-Pay-The-Rent-Barbie. I envy her though. I'd love to get regularly shagged in a Dream House with my closet full of clothes and shoes with my Ferrari parked outside.

My Barbie and Ken were never so romantic. They were more circus show, do the splits kind of sexers.

Earlier: Barbie And Ken: Amateur Porn Stars
Our "Barbie Electric Chair" Is A Bust; We Interview The Inventor

Trisfe Pornografia [Metacafe via Boing Boing]

[My sister and I] made Amazonian Barbie once. We took the clothes off of one of those with the really long hair, and we put her in my mom's giant ivy plant. Then we took the head off of another Barbie, and put her head on the other Barbie's hand. My dad thought it was so awesome that he took a picture.

Was this your first Barbie experiment?
I wouldn't say so, no. I've always been altering Barbies, even since I was little. Though none of those went this far - mostly just coloring hair with markers, building tiny Barbie parachutes and throwing them from the top of the playhouse, that sort of thing. I'd say the electric chair is the first notable one, though!

So you grew up playing with Barbie then?
Not in a good way, but since my relatives always bought them for me I found ways to make them fun, I guess. My sister and I normally just had them battle or it turned into a weird soap opera if we weren't cutting their hair and such.

So now that you're all grown up, what do you think about Barbie in general? What does she represent to you?
Honestly, I've hardly thought about them for years until I had to go hunt one down for the science fair. I think if there's any doll I hate, it's those Bratz dolls. They make Barbie look like a good role model. An anorexic fake role model, perhaps, but I suppose that's better than an alien hussy with a giant head. I think, honestly, that I should have made one with a Bratz doll. Maybe next time, if I don't make a Ken one.

How did you come up with the idea for the Barbie electric chair?
You know, I really am not sure. When I made the initial one in middle school, I made it with a friend. I think that we just wanted to put a Barbie in a weird situation. We both had Barbies lying around that we never played with, and it just seemed like a funny idea. We were just very weird kids, I guess.

How did your teachers react to it?
I don't think many of them liked it at all. I mostly just remember the female teachers being especially disgruntled about it. I pretty sure people were thinking we were completely deranged at that point even though we thought it was pretty harmless. I'm surprised they didn't try to put us into counseling! I can't even remember the grade we got on it, but it was pretty low.

So do you have anything else on Instructables?
Yep, I have two other projects on the site and I've been registered there for a while now. I did another instructable on how to lose weight, and one where I build bookshelves out of large print encyclopedias. I just like making things in general, so I think it's nice that I made my way to the site because they have such a great interface and it makes it so easy to explain your project to other people.

Your Barbie chair got linked on Boing Boing, which is one of the most popular sites on the internet, so I'm sure you're getting a lot of attention over this. Have you gotten any weird hate mail or anything? And more importantly, has Mattel contacted you?
No hate mail or anything. Slighty nasty comments on other sites, though, but it's nothing I didn't expect! I figured people would get worked up by it. And Mattel hasn't contacted me, thankfully. Can you imagine? I'd probably be quite worried if that happened.

Yeah, they're litigious jerks. So you're in college right now?
Yep, I'm going to University of Louisville. I'm a public health major, actually. Though I'm thinking more and more that I'd like to just build things for the rest of my life!

You should! You're good at it! Have you been overwhelmed by the attention the chair has gotten for you?
Thank you. Really overwhelmed. I put the project up, and I didn't think I had done as well as I should. I kept thinking people would say it was awful and no one would like it... and then out of nowhere, it was extremely popular and ending up all over the net. I just didn't see it happening like this. Now I feel like I need to update the chair and make it better.

What do you think of capital punishment?
It's not something that I can say I'm absolutely for or against. I just don't know if it's better to have someone live their life in jail, and have to face the consequences of what they did, or to kill them. What is really the worse punishment? I think it varies from case to case. And I think some people will always scream for the death of a killer. Eye for an eye, you know. The really cynical part of me tends to say that perhaps taking those people out of society through capital punishment might be the better option - why do you want to support someone that has committed such terrible acts with your tax dollars? So I'm not sure what my opinion is, I guess. I'm still working it out in my own head. But I'm happy we're phasing the electric chair out. Lethal injection is a much better method, and one that's less likely to fail.

Earlier: Weekend Homework Assignment: Kill Barbie
Related: How To Make A Barbie [BoingBoing]
Barbie Doll Electric Chair Science Fair Project [Instructables]

Barbie Doll Electric Chair Science Fair Project! [Instructables via Boing Boing]

Also, has Mattel taken a good look at its own products lately? Barbie is looking more and more whorish every year! Even the pricier collector's editions, like the Kimora Lee Simmons doll (pictured above) look like streetwalkers! Anyway, the lawsuit asks the court to award up to $100,000 in damages, that China Barbie's domain name registration be transferred to Mattel, and that any profits made Global China Networks be given to Mattel. China Barbie—who describes herself as a "cordial young lady"—has stared in such hit films as Me Luv You Long Time and Ethnic Cheerleaders 8 to name a few. Frankly, we'd never heard of them before. But thanks to Mattel, and they're quest to keep their name "pure", now we have!
Porn Star Barbie? [MSNBC]