• Lindsay Lohan channels Marilyn Monroe on the August cover of Spanish Vogue. [ONTD]
• Fornarina also decided to go another round with the actress — but in these fall ads, they Photoshopped the Lohan to look like Heather Graham. [Sun]

• Lara Stone, who looks like nobody so much as herself, says she wasn't interested in fashion before she started modeling. "I thought modeling was a big joke because I was just a funny-looking teenager." Also, she has no hobbies: "What qualifies as a hobby, anyway? I don't collect stamps." [W]
• Pixie Geldof, Alice Dellal, and Daisy Lowe all left their London agency, Select — possibly because Select closed its celebrity division, possibly because their booker, Sarah Leon, left the company. The trio were snapped up by Next. [Grazia]
• It's fairly obvious why Madonna would begin filming her new music video, "Celebrate," in Milan with her friends Domenico Dolce, Stefano Gabbana, and Jesus Luz. Less clear is why WWD would put in scare quotes what they drank on the set, "limoncello." Don't they know that's a real thing? Danny DeVito advertises it! [WWD]
• Danica Patrick is to be the next face of the watch brand Tissot. The race car driver was photographed in the rooftop swimming pool of the Soho House, and the campaign will hit men's magazines, like Details and GQ in September. Patrick's Twitter page is also sponsored by Tissot, an arrangement she says is "a great way to show my personality, unfiltered and on my terms." Presumably terms that involve lots and lots of money. [WWD]
• André Leon Talley wears monogrammed shirts and alligator loafers without socks — and his new obsession is gardening. "I don't plant. I go to auctions at Doyle and buy gardening ornaments or furniture. That's my idea of planting, it's arranging!" The occasion for this revelation was the book release party for Gloria Vanderbilt's Obsession, an erotic novel which Diane von Furstenberg compared to The Story of O. Fellow guest Salman Rushdie expressed his amazement that the 85-year-old Vanderbilt could even stomach writing an entire novel of sex scenes, which he called "very difficult" and said he used to avoid in his novels. Rushdie also hopes that "when I get around to being 85 that I'm A, able to write anything and B, that I'm still interested in sex." [NYObs]
• If you've ever wondered why there couldn't be a "natural" product for treating pimples — something with willow bark extract, say, instead of the lab-synthesized form of salicylic acid — then the new Burt's Bees acne skincare line is for you. If you grumble more at the idea of "natural" being used as if it had some kind of absolute, timeless, positive meaning than you do at the thought of spots, carry on. [WWD]
• Kylie Minogue is launching her first fragrance for men, and it's called "Inverse." [WWD]
• Pictures of Urban Outfitters' collaborations with milliner Eugenia Kim and jeweler Annie Costello Brown are out — the collections themselves will hit stores this fall. [Blackbook]
• Rumor has it that makeup artist Tom Pechaux, who frequently works his magic for the top magazines and brands, is launching his own namesake makeup line with a cosmetics company partner. [Fashionista]
• There is a picture of Catherine McNeil in a cone bra at the end of this link. Also: Bunny ears are happening. Prepare. (Link potentially NSFW) [Models.com]
• Jon Gosselin and Christian Audigier are in the throes of a full-on international bromance. (Hailey Glassman is now the former's "stylist.") [LATimes]
• Tweets from Forever 21 indicate that a magazine for the brand is in the works. [Racked]
• L'Oreal has added actress Kate del Castillo to its roster of pretty makeup-selling ladies. [UPI]
• The possible bankruptcy of lender CIT Group, which provides financing to many apparel vendors to cover their accounts receivable during the period between when they ship orders to retailers, and when the retailers pay for the goods, has many in the fashion industry alarmed. Nearly 60% of U.S. apparel and footwear makers use CIT, and squeezing out that liquidity will almost certainly drive some of them out of business. CIT owes over $1 billion and has another $10 billion coming due; a bail-out is apparently not an option. [Crain's]
• Nanette Lepore is one of those upset. "They are the only bank that still lends money to small businesses. There is no one else to take CIT's place." [HuffPo]
• Steve Madden's Australian division has gone into voluntary bankruptcy administration. [News.com.au]
• Bankrupt Eddie Bauer was bought by Golden Gate Capital for $286 million. [NYTimes]
• Joshua Walter, a 20-year-old model from Queens who walked for Hugo Boss, was arrested for his role in an alleged robbery ring. The armed five-man gang would target delis and gas stations, rob the register, and then rob all the patrons. Walter allegedly pistol-whipped one patron during a robbery at a Dunkin' Donuts. [NYP]

In general, the best shopping advice is not to shop at all. But if that's not good enough for you, I can babble on about margins and commodity fetishism to the point that you'll probably want to pay me to shut up, and I hear that's good for the environment. Yesterday Clorox bought Burt's Bees. This is hot on the heels of Colgate buying Tom's Of Maine and Adrian Grenier telling Woman's Wear Daily, "I hope to replace my entire wardrobe with eco-friendly clothes." Meanwhile, the ice caps are melting, people are getting horribly disfigured from unregulated medi-spas, women are dying from this new Brazilian formaldehyde hair-straightening treatment, and legions of New Yorkers like Jennie are obsessed with the notion that nail polish can kill you. How does it all link together? Very tenuously, which is part of the problem.

So, what does it mean that Clorox is buying Burt's Bees?
Well, first off it means that whoever owns the most shares in Burt's Bees is getting retardedly rich, because Clorox paid four times sales for the thing, or just south of a billion dollars, or about six times as much as it was sold for four years ago to... wait for it, a private equity firm, when one of the co-founders sold her shares to go do hippy-dippy shit.

Anyway, the company's CEO came in from Unilever, whom you'll remember as the giant conglomerate that gave you such eco-conscious products as Axe and Slim Fast, and he probably got a shitload of stock options with which he will probably start some sort of private equity firm specializing in such other "green" industries.

Now, for you, the Burt's Bees consumer, it's hard to say. Usually when big consumer products companies buy smaller ones they use their clout with retailers to get more of their merchandise into bigger retail chains in more visible sections of the store. But is it possible to go anywhere without being visually assaulted by a yellow Burt's Bees display? Seriously, I'm so glad that now when I'm in line at the Borders scanning the Economist the consumer gods get to fill my brain with thought like, "Oooooh, that last lipgloss made my teeth look a little yellow, but maybe if I get a slightly pinker shade..." Anyway from the looks of the stories they'll be taking the brand international, to which I say, "Oh, how nice for those international markets?"

So, what does it mean when something is "organic"?

Generally that it doesn't involve seeds that have had their chromosomes fucked with or fertilizers. Anonymous Lobbyist, who was involved with the legislation, says it's different here than in Europe, and there are reasons it favors bigger businesses here and smaller businesses there and sent me this sob story about a small farmer who got fucked by the regulations, but in general I think regulations are a good thing in a market where the little-guy-gets-fucked-by-big-business paradigm is so resilient.

Why we should care about that stuff?

I think the biggest thing is that there's a lot of paranoia out there about shit we don't understand, because none of us really understands any information we can't distill thirty seconds between pointing and clicking anymore. That's why parents are so afraid of the internet, and we're afraid of genetically modified crops and hyperpotent fertilizers. They are creepy, no doubt, in large part because mutations breed other mutations: overuse and misuse of antibiotics and antibacterial agents breed superbugs, and fertilizers breed disease resistant roaches, etc. etc. It's in human nature to want to put it all on halt, to say, Wait a sec, this shit's not natural, let's get back to basics. Just like it's human nature to believe that a positive attitude and a macrobiotic diet can beat cancer, or Amazonian shamans can heal your chronic back pain, or that God exists.

Do you believe in that shit?

Here's what I believe: the whole point of the market economy is to keep you engaged, driving to work, making money, buying shit with it, driving home, repeat as necessary. Protecting the environment, on the other hand, is about a certain level of disengagement; walking when possible, re-using shit, buying less. You'll notice that when you're broke, you tread lightly on the environment.

But broke people don't do much good to big public companies trying to eke out higher sales and fatter margins, so companies like Whole Foods and Rogan and now Clorox and Colgate go for the sweet spot: wealthier consumers armed with an array of fuzzy neuroses, paranoias and superstitions borne of the fact that they don't really understand how it all works, or who gave them all the money. So organic/natural/eco /green products that kind of fuzzily try to tap into that fuzzy array of concerns — personal health, ethically-sound practices, karma, cool packaging, the future of the planet — are never going to be fully satisfying. Sometimes you're going to find out it's a big scam, like with a lot of environmentally-friendly paper products, and other times you're just going to get a lot more conflict. Like if you go to Whole Foods and buy sushi, it's good for your health, but not so much the environment, since the tuna has to be flown vast distances in climate-controlled jets.

In general, you're probably just better off avoiding spending the money in the first place. And when you do want to spend money in a way that feels "healthier" or whatever, factor into your formula the question of whether the company's employees — and contractors' employees — are happy, given the circumstances. The combination of predictable prices, fewer meaningless "choices" and better employee benefits is, for instance, why I feel better buying food at Trader Joe's to Whole Foods, and, despite my own experience being annoyingly underpaid there, American Apparel to Forever 21, but really, when it comes to looking out for society and tempering the forces of global market capitalism, that's mostly the business of the government.

• Model Agyness Deyn and designer Henry Holland went as Mr. and Mrs. Beetlejuice for Halloween. They did their own makeup. [Vogue UK]
  
• Jennifer Hudson on Vogue editor-at-large/hideous capelet advocate Andre Leon Talley: "I was like André, you don't have a cell phone? André, you don't e-mail? He's like, 'I don't e-mail honey, I don't do that,' I was like, 'No, no, no, we have to get that together." [Fashion Week Daily]
  
• Jacob "Jacob the Jeweler" Arabov has pleaded guilty to the charges of falsifying records and lying to a federal agent during a drug investigation. We hope all that ice can buy a man a carton of cigarettes in the big house. [WWD, sub req'd]

• Liz Claiborne is thisclose to selling off 4 of its final 9 brands. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Nina Ricci designer/wunderkind Olivier Theyskens is designing socialite Lauren Davis' wedding dress. Says Davis of the design, "[I]t's very bridal." Um. [Fashion Week Daily]
• T-shirt-for-a-cause alert! Marni shirts (ranging in price from $67 to $135) benefiting NGO Mani Tese, which helps underprivileged kids in developing countries. The shirts are portraits of six of the children who would benefit from this funding. Hmm. [Fashion Week Daily]
• What is model Iekeliene Stange's biggest secret in life? "I'm obsessed with roller-skating and having pancake parties!" Ah, models. [Fashion Week Daily]
• We confess: We would buy any magazine with Cate Blanchett on the cover. [Sassybella]

• The supermodels of yore think they deserve film careers. Naomi Campbell would like to start doing comedies (in itself: comedic!) and Helena Christensen hopes to be the next Bond girl. [Vogue UK]
  
• How did this not happen earlier? The official periodical of normal people who aspire to be hipsters (Nylon) teaming up with the official retailer of normal people who aspire to be hipsters, Urban Outfitters. Starting in September, little Nylon "shops" will open in all Urban Outfitters stores. [WWD, sub req'd]
  
• Disney is set to release fragrances inspired by High School Musical, Hannah Montana, The Cheetah Girls, and That's So Raven. That's so... sadly unsurprising. [WWD, sub req'd]
  
• Burt's Bees has set up an an online petition to set standards that companies must meet to be able to stamp the word "natural" on their packaging. We always feel a little unnatural buying $6 chapstick in line at the bookstore, but whatevs. [WWD, sub req'd]

• Karl Lagerfeld on violent crime prevention: "I'm rather pro-prostitution. I admire people who do it. It can't be much fun. Thank goodness for it. People need relief or they become murderers." [Vogue UK]
• A forthcoming documentary looks at the house of Louis Vuitton since it fell under the design helm of Marc Jacobs. Hey, God? Please tell me the documentarian got some footage of him trashing Galliano on the Stairmaster.. [Sassybella]
• At his company's annual meeting, Ralph Lifshitz says he hopes he lives forever (or whatever, that "Ralph Lauren" does). [WWD, sub req'd]
• The brand Adampluseve is hacking off the pesky female part of its name, hereon to be known as "Adam - Adam Lippes." Because Eve would never be there in the first place without that stolen rib of Adam's.... [WWD, sub req'd]