[Los Angeles, July 22. Image via INF]

• Michelle Obama wore French-born Brooklyn-based designer Sophie Theallet to unveil a bust of Sojourner Truth at Emancipation Hall yesterday. Naturally, journalistically, WWD asked the designer to specify the First Lady's measurements. Theallet declined. [WWD]

• Michael Kors, on the now-solved problem of women becoming socially invisible as they age: "I used to hear women saying, ‘Oh, I hate my arms, I hate my thighs' when they got older, but now they don't. They're in the gym or doing yoga, or getting what they don't like fixed. Sigourney Weaver's 60, Michelle Pfeiffer's 50. Michelle Obama is showing older women that you can be serious without looking stiff, and showing younger women that you don't have to dress like a hoochy mama to be modern. It's all different. Everyone is refusing to age." [Times of London]
• Christopher Kane is tackling a wider range of items than ever in his next season's Topshop range. Expect bags, knitwear, and shoes, in addition to the clothes. [Grazia]
• Fellow Brit Stella McCartney made the Time 100, the only fashion designer represented. Gwyneth Paltrow, her BFF, did the profile. [WWD]
• Vera Wang bedazzled a BlackBerry for a breast cancer charity raffle. Elizabeth Hurley will do the honors. [WWD]
• Now this is a match made in heaven: showmen fashion designers Viktor & Rolf are turning their talents to opera. For a German production of Der Freischütz, the duo made costumes with over a million crystals. That, Vera, is how you do bling. [Elle UK]
• The Payless shoes on Christian Siriano's runway back in February were kind of hideous; the ones likely to make it into stores this August are kind of boring. Let's hope he can even out his aesthetic at some point during his multi-year contract. [Racked]
• Alexa Chung, the British ex-model, moved to New York to further her television career — and was hotly rumored to be exploring options with MTV. That opportunity seems to have come to fruition: Chung will host a daily show on the network, something like TRL, only with Twitter. [Yahoo! News]
• The September Issue Director R.J. Cutler, on how his subject, Anna Wintour, communicates: "It's mostly in silences, gestures, and the occasional use of language. It's more than enough and she always gets her way. When she's not getting her way, she's happy to speak at greater length. In her work environment, that's how she communicates with everyone. Some people see the film and say, she seems so closed. She's a closed gal. That's who she is. But the times that she does open up in her life are the times that you see her open in the film — when she's with Bee, when she's talking about her dad, talking about her siblings. It's family." [MakingOf]
• The SoHo Hogan store is closing, and looking for a space uptown. [Racked]
• Australian Fashion Week, like fashion weeks everywhere, was smaller this season than before the recession. There were 15% fewer shows, and two catwalks inside the venue, compared to last August's three. Fewer buyers attended, and, barring any case of Aussie economic exceptionalism, the orders they place will prove smaller. Organizers say they expect things will be much better next season, because organizers have to say things like that. At least in public. [Reuters]
• As for the designers who did bother showing, half of them seemed to be phoning in 80s nostalgia and Balmain shoulderpads, and one, Ant!podium, well, they really, really like Beth Ditto. So they found a proudly non-model-sized tattooed artist named Tokio Pink to walk in their show. Such is their commitment to diversity. [News.com.au]
• Max Azria, on the other hand, isn't predicting any great improvement in business conditions during the rest of this year. [WWD]
• Jones Apparel Group, owner of the brands Anne Klein, Nine West, and Jones New York, handily beat analysts' expectations in their quarterly profit announcement. Although revenue still fell 9%, Jones shares rose 10% in response to the good news. [Reuters]
• Prada's profits fell 22% in 2008. [WWD]
• The opening of Forever 21's first store in Japan was a bit of a madhouse, apparently. It isn't hard to imagine why. [WWD]

MEGAN: Morning! How's my favorite sous chef?

SPENCER: It was my friend Sommer's birthday yesterday, and at her party I had to field many a question about peeling testicles and hear about how it was priceless the way I gripped my sink in agony when we filmed that. I think my favorite part of that video is how at one point my dog looks at me — I'd like to think that he's concerned for my well-being but in all likelihood he was trying to catch a stray slice of testicle.

MEGAN: From what I've heard from other dudes, I'm going to guess that only women asked you that, especially given the use of the word "priceless."

SPENCER: No, that's me being hyperbolic. People of both genders practically issued condolences. What's in the news.

MEGAN: Anyway, in the balls department, Obama is apparently arguing with everyone about keeping his Blackberry.

SPENCER: Do you remember back in 2001 when the New York Times ran a trend piece about how there was a racial difference between BlackBerrys and two-way pagers? It never made sense to me, but now we live in an era of BlackBerry domination. Some might say HEGEMONY.

MEGAN: I think they coat the plastic in actual drugs to make it that much more addictive.

SPENCER: Interestingly, something the transition might want to think about are the legal ramifications of keeping an online presence as web 2.0 friendly as Obama's has been and even change.gov is. The Presidential Records Act governs preservation of all that sort of stuff, so could you really have something like my.barackobama.com continuing over into the White House without people's personal stories becoming government property preserved at the National Archives? And if not, what happens to this enormous grassroots political network that won the election for Obama?

MEGAN: I don't mean to be flip about the privacy aspects, but the reality is, how much privacy does anyone really expect these days with stuff they post online? Google, National Archives, does it matter which one it's housed at?

SPENCER: I'm way more concerned about a video of me eating testicles being housed at the National Archives than preserved through GoogleCache. Privacy might not be what it used to be, but a government-owned online cache of people's private moments — even if it's just the stuff they'd embed on a campaign website — is a chilling thing. People's my.barackobama.com pages talk about their personal hardships. What if insurance companies or mortgage brokers or banks or whatever used those government-storehouse records to search for who had what financial or health problem and cross-referenced that with their applicants? That's something you (probably?) can't easily do through GoogleCache. Help me ArsTechnica! This is what I usually rely on my friend Julian Sanchez to inform me about.

MEGAN: I guess that's true, although it seems like there would be a way to keep the specific my.barackobama.com stuff that's already up there separate from things that people add? I don't think there's any doubt that the White House website needs a serious overhaul. Even its search function is terrible — though, all of the search functions across all the agency sites suck that bad, too.

SPENCER: Which raises the next question: how will such a Mac political organization adjust to the PC nature of government? This question will now launch a year's worth of lazy journalistic cliches and it's all my fault.

MEGAN: Hey, there's nothing inherently terrible about a PC, says someone who had to reinstall corrupted MacOS files one at a time on 4 different computers in a previous life But it is interesting because some sort of better web presence seems to be what Obama was hinting at in his Barbara Walters interview last night and the new social secretary, Desirée Rogers said the same thing to the WaPo on Monday.

SPENCER: What did they say? I'm not going to watch a Barbara Walters interview.

MEGAN:

"One of the things that I'm going to have to work through is how to break through the isolation — the bubble that exists around the president. I'm in the process of negotiating with the Secret Service, with lawyers, with White House staff ... to figure out how can I get information from outside of the 10 or 12 people who surround my office in the White House," he said.

Obama said that, on the campaign trail, he had a chance to interact with hundreds of Americans, to hear their stories and connect with them personally. He said the often hermetic environs of the White House sometimes lead presidents to lose touch with their constituents.

"One of the worst things I think that could happen to a president is losing touch with what people are going through day to day ... " he said. "I want to make sure that I keep my finger on the pulse of the struggles that people are going through every day."

There's no way he's talking about e-mail from the world. Which means, like too many of us, Obama reads his comments.

SPENCER: Nah, he just wants you to think he does. Which means he's just like a blogger after all. Okay, clicking through the link I see that interview was entirely useless. Good thing we don't live in times of massive upheaval or we might consider ourselves poorly served by our cadre of celebrity-journalists

MEGAN: Wait, you mean that another story about clothes gifted to Sarah Palin isn't super-important? Man, I wish you'd told me earlier.

SPENCER: HAHAHAHA look at their lede!

Will we ever stop talking about Sarah Palin's clothes?

Of course not! You have no power or agency to stop talking about Sarah Palin's clothes. There is no force on earth that can keep you from discussing these clothes. It's the power of Christ that compels you! The power — of Christ — compels you!

MEGAN: Luckily, I'm an agnostic! So I am exercising my Free Will to talk about pardons — turkeys or John Forte, it's your call.

SPENCER: Wow I have no idea who this guy is. I don't regret my dislike for all post-"Nappy Heads" Fugees. Why can't Bush pardon Slick Rick or get Shyne out from his cell or clear up whether Rick Ross was ever a corrections officer?

MEGAN: Slick Rick didn't go to a fancy private school with Carly Simon's son, and Orrin Hatch is, undoubtedly, not on his side. But what I want to know is what kind of shit lawyer John Forte had that he got 14 years. (Also, kids: if your friend asks you to do something illegal for them, seriously consider whether that is really your friend or not. Friends don't let friends go to the pen for 14 years to save their own hides.)

SPENCER: Oh I see he's claiming that he was carrying drugs for a friend. Sorry. I'd probably claim the same thing.

MEGAN: Yeah, everyone does, it's why it's a crap defense.

SPENCER: But can we get a moratorium on the word "besties"? That's a slang term that has to go.

MEGAN: I like it better than BFF, so, no.

SPENCER: You're like those "Reliable Source" reporters who claim that they have little choice but to report on Palin's clothes! Your options are not limited to "besties" (ugh) or "BFF" (ugh ugh) — create your own terms. This is slang-rap democracy.

MEGAN: Perhaps more up your alley, then would be the unions' shock and awe that the Labor Secretary isn't part of Obama's Economic Team, even though he can't pick one because there's too much infighting amongst unions for them to unite behind a guy.

SPENCER: Right, Labor Secretary. I have to say I wish it was SEIU's Andy Stern. That's big-labor boss-age we can believe in. But former SEIU dude Patrick Gaspard is going to be White House political director, so there's that. Still, what sort of message does it send to millions of working people and union members that you'd announce an economic team without a secretary of labor?

MEGAN: Well, Andy Stern took himself out. But I think it sends the message that the unions don't get to have that much influence on monetary policy (good) and not that much on fiscal policy (probably appropriate) and that the portfolio of the Secretary of Labor will return to overseeing labor conditions and laws in this country, rather than trying to make sure less of us get overtime. Also, I think it's sort of incredibly petty for the unions to criticize Obama for not picking someone yet when all they can do is fight over whether it should be an industrial guy or a services guy and agree that it shouldn't be a politician that might have some actual power and skills at politicking to get stuff done. But that's just me.

SPENCER: What, all the different unions have an obligation to unite around one candidate? that's not true for any other cabinet secretaryship. Why do you hate millions of working Americans?

MEGAN: I'm just saying that if he had picked one over the other, or announced Sebelius or something, they would be criticizing him for that, which is annoying. I hate when people do that.

SPENCER: Life would be more miserable if we didn't complain and criticize.

• Remember the news about the new reality show in which Tyra Banks pits a group of young women against one another to compete for a job at a fashion magazine? Well, it looks like the ladymag in question is ELLE and creative director Joe Zee and fashion news director/calorie restrictor Anne Slowey are going to be judges. Having worked with these people, allow me to just say this is going to make for good television. [WWD, 2nd item]
  
• The Danish Fashion Institute is putting up signs throughout Copenhagen that read "Eating Is the New Black" and "The Weight of Your Worth Is Not Measured in Kilos." First person to wrangle us one gets a pony! [WWD, sub req'd]
  
• Victoria's Secret has named Victoria Beckham the sexiest mom of 2008. We're seriously doubtful about the credibility of this list, though, as it also named Ryan Seacrest as having the sexiest smile. [Sassybella]

• David Beckham wearing the naked Victoria Beckham Marc Jacobs shirt! [Chic Report]
• ELLE's Nina Garcia offers this following advice to the masses, "Don't be a fashion victim. Be true to yourself and get your own personal style and look." She uttered these pearls of wisdom, mind you, while shilling for the new pink Blackberry Pearl on Tuesday night. Exactly. [Fashion Week Daily]
• The fashions at Wal-Mart: Supposedly getting "cooler." [WWD, sub req'd]
• Intimates designer Josie Natori now has a ready-to-wear line. It is called (what else?) Natorious. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Imitation of Christ designer/prepster-turned-hipster/Wes Anderson main squeeze Tara Subkoff has paired with Bebe to do a capsule collection for them. Ooooh, pleaaase call it the Imitation of Christ Bebe Jesus line!! [WWD, sub req'd]
• Moschino has a new diffusion line called Love Moschino. Only it's not exactly new. It's just Moschino Jeans, renamed. Moschino Jeans, incidentally, used to be named Love Moschino. Follow? [Vogue UK]
• We do not approve of Van Cleef & Arpels and Earnest Sewn collaborating on blinged-out jeans. Ew. [Fashion Week Daily]
• For those of you always asking how you get a smoky eye, here ya go. [BellaSugar]

[Image via Oh! My God! I Miss You ]

We've seen the perils of tech-obsession firsthand: Earlier this month a reader emailed to complain about a business dinner she attended, where "there was music, champagne, the food was amazing, the setting lavish. But did the men at my table pay any attention? No. They were all playing with their iPhones." And she's not the only one to forfeit male attention to Steve Jobs. Our very own guest columnist, Heather declared herself an iPhone widow last year. "Wherein we used to actually interact with one another during cab rides or walks or, you know, dinner," Heather lamented, "Now I sit there and watch him make love to that damn phone, his unblinking eyes glazed over with rapt-geek puppy love."

But guys aren't the only ones with geek love to go around. My own boyfriend tried to ban laptops after work hours in our household. The first day he made me go cold turkey and I was relegated to answering emails on my BlackBerry in the bathroom. Since then I've maybe gone one night without perusing the internet for at least ten minutes. But I'm not addicted at all! Though if someone destroyed my wireless network I would cut them in a hot second.

"Technology Overload" Can Ruin Relationships: Expert [Reuters]

Earlier: The iPhone is Cool and All, But Can You Stick Your Dick in It?

• Kirsten Dunst looks almost as evil in these Miu Miu ads as we somehow believe she actually is. [Sassybella]
  
• The latest ads for British lingerie label Agent Provocateur features model Vahina Giocante playing "a bored housewife drawn into a love affair with a reform school tomboy." Um, based on this image, she doesn't look so tomboyish to us! [Vogue UK]
  
• First no black models, now no black customers: ck Calvin Klein Beauty Collection cosmetics for Caucasians only. [BellaSugar]
  
• This is what diplomatic disputes look like in Western Europe: The mayor of Paris v. H&M [WWD, sub req'd]
  
• Donna Karan: Still trying to cure cancer through yoga with her Urban Zen initiative. [NYMag]

• Ooh, images from the Jovovich-Hawk for Target line. Yeaaaah, jury's still out. [Sassybella]
• Elle fashion director/ em>Project Runway judge Nina Garcia is no stranger to shilling for Blackberry, but now she's shilling a pink Blackberry. [Fashion Week Daily]
• This year, the Make-A-Wish Foundation fulfilled the dreams of a teenage girl named Yali, who had always longed to collaborate with Kate Spade in designing a handbag. "This was the most inspirational and gratifying experience of my life," says Yali. Um, so how's Yali holding up? What's her affliction? What's the prognosis? Yeah, they don't say. But Kate Spade ooh! [Fashion Week Daily]
• Diane von Furstenberg is now designing shoes. "My shoes are not just pretty accessories; they are functional and serve a purpose." Shoes? A purpose other than retail therapy? Shock. [Fashion Week Daily]
• Here's a handy place to hide your ill-gotten subprime mortgage hedge fund gains: a $18,000 belt. [UPI]
• Alexandre de Paris, Elizabeth Taylor's favorite hairstylist, passed away over the weekend at the age of 85. [Independent]

• So that's what Naomi Campbell was doing in Venezuela: interviewing Hugo Chavez for British GQ. Now they're sending her to talk to Fidel Castro. Is this a fucking joke? And if not, does she realize the whole Latin American socialist alliance thing is like, kinda last season? [Vogue UK]
  
• Selling real fur as "faux": clever move, Neiman and Saks! [Consumerist]
  
• On the heels of an ELLE redesign, Vogue is undergoing some design "tweaking" of its own. [WWD, 1st item]
  
• Agyness Deyn is the face of — well, the whole entire fucking universe, including the Armani cell phone. [Sassybella]

• Marketing ploy we just can't avoid: Blackberry has asked Karl Lagerfeld, Dita von Teese, Henry Holland and others to share their favorite secret spots for the masses on their new website The B List. Karl: likes eating tacos at La Esquina in NYC. Where they put crickets in the tacos! [Vogue UK]
• Signing bottles of Armani perfume in Milan, Beyonce shared how excited she was to go to her "mum's" for Christmas. Oh god. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Whoah: Over-the-knee Uggs. [FabSugar]
• Coach: still doing meh. [Portfolio]
• Lanvin Spring 2008 ads: you know, they said the giant tent-dress trend was over, but not really getting that vibe with this one... [Sassybella]
• Valentino Spring 2008 ads: who needs plastic surgery when you've got a giant handbag to shield your face? [Sassybella]