• Michelle Trachtenberg is designing a line of jewelry for Coach's Poppy brand. Expect "colorful crystals." [WWD]
• Zac Posen is doing a lower-priced line, Z Spoke, which will be available exclusively through Saks Fifth Avenue come spring. It starts at $78:

• And it's a marked departure from his evening wear-heavy main line. "It's not Zac-for-less, it's not the little sister collection at all," says the designer. "The dresses — that's something I can do with my eyes closed. This is about a new identity." Hopefully that new identity includes solvency, given Posen, subject to continued rumors about his company's financial status, was forced to lay off staff recently. [WWD]
• Why is Cintra Wilson reviewing the Fifth Avenue Armani store now? That opened months ago. And it was extensively covered and reviewed in the Times back then. [NYTimes]
• Sophie Theallet's friend and longtime supporter Rupert Everett is happy she won the Vogue/CFDA Fashion Fund Award. Theallet is going to collaborate again with Manolo Blahnik on her runway show footwear for next February, and this time, some styles will be available in stores. [WWD]
• Some "legendary" male models we've never heard of (OK, male models we have heard of comprise exactly Tyson Beckford and that guy who was in Calvin Klein ads before he played Samantha's boyfriend on Sex And The City) are in this month's VMAN. [Independent]
• Claudia Schiffer has been thinking more about that clothing line she mooted a week or so back. "I have no definite first product in mind, but I would love to do cashmere. It's something I wear all the time myself, but I'd love to do something a bit more price-friendly. Plus a lot of cashmere lines are very classic and timeless, while I'd want to do it a bit more fashion. Or I could imagine doing handbags." You know. Cashmere. Or handbags. [WWD]
• If you need a fresh reason to hate the fashion industry this morning, how about an over-privileged under-informed 17-year-old heaping scorn on Luella's closure, and bragging about how she has, like, a ton of Lacroix — in the garage? Jane Aldridge probably kisses her Vogue portrait before going to bed each night. Right after inclining her head to say her prayers to Anna. [Fashionista]
• Vivienne Westwood says of the same closure, "It's very sad, but English fashion will survive, and be stronger." [Style.com]
• A four-day auction of the last contents of Pierre Bergé and Yves Saint Laurent's home has begun in Paris. Everything from the chandeliers to the pots and pans is for sale, some 1,185 objects in all. [Breitbart]
• Lanvin has attracted a minority investor. An unnamed entity, believed to be a European family, has bought a 12.5% stake in the business, for an estimated tens of millions of Euros. Last year, sales at Lanvin rose 29%. [WWD]
• Apparently it takes £230 worth of creams to look like Jane Birkin, along with Clarins and Dr. Hauschka makeup. And we always thought her so low maintenance and carefree. [Daily Mail]
• Birkin's daughter Charlotte Gainsbourg may be the face of the new Balenciaga perfume, but that won't stop Olivier Zahm from photographing the bottle between the breasts of a topless mannequin. Stay classy, Olivier! [FWD]
• John Bartlett, the recently fired men's wear designer for Liz Claiborne, has announced a collaboration with Alex Carleton of Rogues Gallery. RG/JB will launch in December at John Bartlett's Greenwich Village store, and will include a handcrafted leather log carrier and bankers' envelopes. Sounds practical. [WWD]
• Porsche is bringing back Yoko Ono's favorite sunglasses. [Luxist]
• A Gap store in Vancouver turned itself upside down to sell shoppers on a new kind of reward program called, for some reason, Sprize. They hung all the mannequins from the ceiling and turned the signage upside-down, but what you really need to know is this: Sprize reimburses you the cost difference automatically if merchandise you buy full-price later goes on sale. It's like everything you ever buy will be on sale. And it's not in the U.S. yet why??? [BrandFreak]
• Rosita and Tai Missoni seem like an adorable old couple. [Scotsman]
• Expect Burberry handbags, shoes and belts, as well as children's wear, in the near future. [Reuters]
• In coordination with something called cryptically "more trees," Louis Vuitton is paying 10 million yen (about $112,000) to reforest a 104-hectare area of land in Japan, to be known as the Louis Vuitton Forest. (Insert your own where-handbags-grow-on-trees joke.) [Japan Tourism]

• Lady Gaga, Gay Activist! She "was the highest-wattage celebrity to attend both the Human Rights Campaign dinner Saturday night and the National Equality March on Sunday." Reporter Dan Zak writes:

"Nearby rally-goers screeched her name. She had marched with the crowds from her hotel after shrugging off security concerns, and had just finished a short speech to an enraptured throng of tens of thousands on the West Lawn. Glittery signs reading 'Gay for Gaga' and 'Lady Gaga {heart} Equality, U Should 2' poked up from the rainbowed masses." "I will never turn my back on my friends," said Lady Gaga, before disappearing from the rally. "Today is not a one-off performance."She also said: "In the music industry there's still a tremendous amount of accommodation of homophobia," she said. "So I'm taking a stand… I'm not going to play one of my songs tonight because tonight is not about me. It's about you." She sang John Lennon's "Imagine," but changed some of the lyrics. [WaPo]

• Miley Cyrus and her sister Brandi ate $70 worth of meat and mac 'n cheese at the Outback Steakhouse in Burbank last week. Miley paid with a $100 bill… and kept the change. Her spokesperson explains: She didn't know she was supposed to tip unless she was eating inside." Pardon? When has that ever been the case? [Rush & Molloy]
• Christina Hendricks married Geoffrey Arend — he was hilarious in 500 Days Of Summer! — at Il Buco restaurant in New York on Sunday. Congrats! [People]
• Jon Gosselin says that he wasn't the only one who took cash out of the joint account; Jon filed papers claiming Kate withdrew over $60,000 from their joint account between July and September 2009. But a source says Kate's transactions were legal; Jon didn't have permission. [TMZ]
• Jon Gosselin believes that Kate has control of more than one million dollars and that if she doesn't have a job, it's not his fault. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Jon Gosselin will light a menorah this year, partly because of gf Hailey Glassman. "This is the first year I will celebrate Chanukah. Everyone in my life is Jewish now, my attorney. I love it. I'm now half Jewish and half Korean. The family values are great… They gave her a free tummy tuck, worth $20 grand." I'm sure I'm not alone here when I say: Oy. [Rush & Molloy]
• Dina Lohan says that Lindsay's brother Michael is on academic scholarship at Ithaca (college)… and "He's also is doing a movie!" This paper reacts with the headline, "Oh no! Not another one!" [The Sun]
• Katie Holmes wants to send Suri to Catholic School, and noted Scientologist Tom Cruise is okay with it. Suri is already enrolled in Catholic Charities Yawkey Centre For Early Education And Learning in Boston, where Tom is filming the movie Wichita. [Daily Mail]
• Angelina Jolie is in talks to replace Charlize Theron in the thriller The Tourist. [JustJared]
• Prince Harry and Chelsy Davy: So on. [People]
• Nick Cannon is married to Mariah Carey. He's also a stand-up comic, a rapper, an actor, a D.J., a screenwriter and a television host and the chairman Nickelodeon's TeenNick division. [NY Times]
• At the BET Hip-Hop awards on Saturday, T.I. won, though he is in prison; Jay-Z was honored as MVP of the year; the late DJ AM won "DJ of the Year." Kanye West did not attend. The show airs October 27. [AP]
• Unsolicited uterus update: Kourtney Kardashian is expecting a baby boy. [NY Daily News]
• Mad Men's John Slattery doesn't want a garbage trucks garage in his New York neighborhood. [AP]
• "Fergie is Condoleezza Rice - if Condi knew how to execute a booty shake…" claims this profile of the singer, in which she talks about ecstasy; crystal meth ("it ruins you"); dating Mexican gang members and being a child star. The reporter also writes: "There is some speculation that Fergie is older than she lets on (seems unlikely; she grew up on TV), as her unquestionably sexy features can look a touch - how can I put this? - ravaged." [Times Of London]
• Kelly Bensimon was doing man-on-the-street interviews for Gotham magazine yesterday… and her efforts were taped for Real Housewives. [NY Post]
• Debi Mazar helped Maksim Chmerkovskiy get over ex-fiancée Karina Smirnoff with home cooked meals. Heartache doesn't mean stomachache. [People]
• Remember when Michael Jackson played a character on The Simpsons? The folks of The Simpsons were freaked out by him. [NY Post]
• Speaking of Michael Jackson, a snippet of his song "This Is It" has hit the interwebs; listen at the link. [TMZ]
• By the by the illuminated white glove Michael Jackson wore on his 1984 Victory tour sold for almost $70, 000 at auction. [The Sun]
• Katherine Jackson will not inherit 40% of her son's estate. [Carey Hart are HOT in this photo shoot for his tattoo shop's clothing line. [Daily Mail]
• Amy Winehouse "looked frail and unsteady" singing backup for her goddaughter on the TV show Strictly Come Dancing. [Mirror]
• Couples Retreat raked in $35 million at the box office; this column suggests the film "offers a lesson in moviegoing: add one beautiful location to a comedy that is not very funny, add to it actors who aren't really very famous, and you can make a movie that opens to reviews that aren't very good, yet still make cash hand over fist." [MSNBC Scoop]
• Saturday Night Live's Bill Hader has a new baby and says of fatherhood: "I think it's going to be awesome." [Celebrity Baby Scoop]
• In a poll of 100 New Yorkers, 26 women and 27 men think David Letterman is a "hypocrite for making jokes about the affairs of Bill Clinton and other politicians." 22 women and 31 men have worked at a place where the boss was having an affair with an underling. [NY Mag]
• Singer Stephen Gately, of Irish group Boyzone died Saturday while vacationing on the Spanish island of Majorca. [CNN]
• Stephen Gately may have chocked on his own vomit after a "drinking session." [Daily Mail]
• "Matt Lucas will not return to his stage role following the death of his ex-partner, it has been announced." [The Star]
• Mickey Rourke talks about using the word "faggot." Sorta. [TMZ]
• Dannii Minogue was judging X Factor when this guy Danyl Johnson sang "And I'm Telling You" from Dreamgirls. Danni insinuated that he was gay by telling him he didn't need to change the gender references in the song. Simon Cowell was pissed about that. [Daily Mail]
• Arnold Schwarzenegger is on Twitter now, posting pictures of the happy face in his morning oatmeal and so on. [NY Post]
• Sigourney Weaver is trying to promote a Gorilla Rehabilitation and Conservation Education, (GRACE) in the Congo, which will rescue and rehabilitate orphaned gorillas, saying: "These little gorillas just steal your heart. They're very sensitive creatures. So it's no surprise that this is a very demanding and ambitious project, the GRACE Center, but we need it. We have to have it." [AP]
• "Pierce Brosnan almost turned down the chance to star in his upcoming flick, The Greatest, about two parents struggling to move on after their son dies in a car accident — because his own son Sean survived a similar crash in 2000. "When I first got the script, I looked it over and put it under my bed for a week," he says. "I eventually decided to do it because I liked it, but it was hard to go to those deeper places in my heart." [Gatecrasher]
• Director Mike Nichols has been selected to receive the American Film Institute's 38th AFI Life Achievement Award. Nichols won an Oscar for directing The Graduate; was nominated for a best picture award as a producer for The Remains of the Day and his credits include Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Catch-22, Carnal Knowledge, Silkwood, Working Girl, Primary Colors, Angels in America, Closer and Charlie Wilson's War. [The Hollywood Reporter]
• Horn Lake, Mississippi's Circle G Ranch — also known as the Elvis Ranch, is up for sale, if you have $6.5 million. [UPI]
• High-brow PBS soap opera Upstairs Downstairs is being remade. [NY Post]
• Blind item! "What Oscar-winning actress and her Oscar-winning husband are said to be close to splitting? She's telling friends, 'We've grown apart.'" [Rush & Molloy]
• "I get why chicks dig him. He's extremely kind, incredibly intelligent, thoughtful, creative and respectful. I don't discuss my love life because it's always misinterpreted or put under the microscope. It's especially annoying when you're dating someone else who's well-known, which is why I normally would never go out with a famous guy. Let's put it this way… I'd be flattered if someone hit on me tonight, but I really can't say if I'm available or not." — Emmy Rossum on Adam Duritz. She also says: "I used to be an artsy, quiet, kind of chubby kid — which no one believes. But now I'm really comfortable with my body and my sexuality. I can be naked with the lights on." [People]00
• "My hair has never been that great. I had a Jheri curl at one point in my life. I had to go to rehab and confess, 'I'm Chris, I have a curl.' But, I don't think men are into their hair that much. Guys are concentrating on other things. When I was younger, I had a complex, and probably still do, about just not being buff and big. I think that's what guys are into. There are some right here in Hollywood, men on television right now, with fake pecs and stuff." — Chris Rock made Good Hair, but he doesn't think about his own that much. [Parade]
• "I think if she were playing something that was going to be really hard for her psychologically or damaging, I'd be more concerned, but she had a really good time with the sex thing, She plays a woman who, as far as I can tell, is really in charge of her life and is not a victim. So it sounded to me like it would be a blast. I've already seen little bits and pieces of some of the nudity and she looks beautiful. If you have it, why not?" — Susan Sarandon, on her daughter playing a student by day and a stripper by night in Californication. [Gatecrasher]
• "I've been corresponding with Anya Camilleri [the director] and we've been looking at historical paintings where the concept 'cougar' was depicted to try and see where it came from. I think 'cougar' is a way to make it appear as women are looking at their men as prey, and gaining something from it. Like when men are enhancing their own virility by going out with younger women. Why is there not a term for older men with younger women? I don't think Mrs. Robinson was a cougar — I think she was a woman having a breakdown, and it was played wonderfully." — Sharon Stone, who will play a woman who hires a much-younger gigolo in upcoming flick Satisfaction. [Gatecrasher]
• "I had dairy a few weeks ago by accident and I knew because the next day I was all phlegmy. And I was farting and it was gross. And then I knew. It was dairy. Plus it makes you fat. Instantly. [There] was a time in my life where I was not interested in health at all; health was a dirty word. And when I look at pictures now, I see that I looked tired and puffy and stressed." — Alicia Silverstone, whom this paper calls "the most non-annoying vegan on the planet." [NY Post]
• "I guess everyone has their wild side, and mine was halfway between being really shy and kind of a goofy spazoid. I never bit anyone, like Max, but I slapped a lot of butts. I don't know if you've seen kids do that-butt-slapping. Like, slapping the butts of my grandparents and babysitters. When I wasn't shy, I overcompensated." — Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, who did the soundtrack for Where the Wild Things Are. [NY Mag]
• "In an interview, Lars said he thought he reminded me of my father… and now, of course, I could make that link. He's very sincere with his questions and fears. He's a real artist in that way. He never censors himself... It was a weird relationship. The moments when it was just the two of us were pretty awkward… [Still] I had the feeling that he was inside me. He understood every blink, every detail. I felt as if I were portraying him, even though we were dealing with female sexuality. The anxiety and fear in my character was pretty much him." — Charlotte Gainsbourg, on Antichrist director Lars von Trier, whom this article notes has been called "Misanthrope. Misogynist. Pornographer. Xenophobe. Enfant terrible. Child." [BlackBook]
• "President Obama seems very authentic… I wonder if there's a white man inside of him." — Lars von Trier. [BlackBook]

• John Travolta allegedly refused medical help after his son Jett suffered a seizure — which is why the paramedics in the Bahamas were trying to blackmail him.

Reportedly, Travolta wanted the ambulance to drive his son to an airport so he could be flown back to the US for treatment — instead of to the island hospital, 45 minutes away. [Daily Mail, Mirror]

• John Travolta will be the first witness called today. And there may be a secret videotape which allegedly shows the attempted extortion. [TMZ]
• Jaclyn Smith is not dead, despite what Perez Hilton has reported. He apparently mistranslated a story about her stunt double's suicide attempt. Smith's Twitter reads: "Jaclyn is safe and home with her family. She is not in Honduras. It is a lie." [Vancouver Sun]
• Just to clarify: Jaclyn Smith's former stunt double — from her Charlie's Angels days — may have attempted suicide and may be in critical condition, but Jaclyn Smith is fine. [E!]
• Two photographers are suing Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen, claiming the couple's bodyguard shot at them outside the Costa Rican estate where the couple were having wedding celebrations. [NY Daily News]
• Congrats to Sarah Michelle Gellar and Freddie Prinze Jr., who welcomed newborn daughter Charlotte Grace Prinze on Saturday. [Page Six]
• Mickey Rourke will play The Ice Man in a movie about a a sadistic Mafia hit man who murdered more than 200 people. [Page Six]
• In court documents, Britney's American Express card charges for the first 11 months of her conservatorship have been revealed: She spent $5,183.13 on restaurants; $10,096.53 on travel and $17,370.29 on furniture. [TMZ]
• Chloë Sevigny and Jason Segel drink champagne and eat chocolate and kiss and hold hands and so on. [Page Six]
• Beyoncé has rescheduled a concert in Malaysia after canceling what was supposed to be her first show there. Scheduling conflicts? Or the country's strict dress code? [UPI]
• How much would you love to see Will Ferrell sing a karaoke version of "Wanted Dead Or Alive"? [Page Six]
• Get well soon, Megan Mullally! She was injured in a car crash last week, and while the injuries are minor, she had to cancel performances of her play The Receptionist in L.A. [TMZ]
• According to a court order, Aerosmith's concert next month in Hawaii must be of the same "quality, type and duration" as a regular Aerosmith concert: No half-assing it with a 30-minute gig. [People]
• Billy Joel has a new lady in his life, a "Katie Lee-esqe brunette" named Deborah Dampiere. [HuffPo]
• The Jay Leno Show has lost more than two-thirds of its initial viewers. [USA Today]
• A woman connected to Michael Jackson's personal physician (Dr. Conrad Murray) — she may be his girlfriend — has been ordered to testify before a grand jury in Los Angeles. [CBS News]
• New details in the Anna Nicole Smith case: Two nannies who worked for Anna claim they saw Howard K. Stern and Dr. Khristine Eroshevich inject drugs into Anna's system. Afterward, she would be all messed up — falling in the house; sleeping for two or three days at a time. [TMZ]
• In addition, there are legal documents stating that Anna Nicole Smith and her shrink, Dr. Khristine Eroshevich, took nude pictures together in a bathtub and their relationship "crossed the boundaries of professionalism." [TMZ]
• There will be a court session for the Anna Nicole Smith case this morning, and Howard K. Stern could be charged with 11 different felony counts. [TMZ]
• Take a minute and read this interview with Charlotte Gainsbourg, about her experience shooting Lars von Trier's Antichrist. She talks about panic attacks, self-harm, working with a porn actor (or trying to) and doing movies with taboo subjects like incest. And she says: "Lars does portray his own fear of women and the sexuality of women. It's not at all a hatred against women-it's really quite the opposite. He's sincere in the way that he's talking about his own fears, his own questions, but he's not accusing women… Of course, [my character] has some kind of an evil part to her, but for me, it had a lot to do with the grieving and going into madness. And then the act of physically cutting herself was the extreme of madness and just trying, with her guilt, to-there's no way of coping with it, so how do you hurt yourself in the most horrific way?" [Village Voice]
• Alexandra Richards was hired to DJ a party but left after 38 minutes to go have dinner — yet she expected to be paid for the full 3 hours her contract stipulated. [Page Six]
• Shannon Elizabeth and Derek Hough: Maybe back on, if you care. [Page Six]
• Friends and family attended the funeral of Jasmine Fiore over the weekend, and "everyone was crying." [NY Times]
• "The cow's a diva; it's a little known fact.  She's not very giving." — Josh Jackson on his costar in Fox TV show Fringe. [Teen Television]
• "What I try to do is take the best bits of my mother's charitable work and the best bits of my father's charitable work and do them both together. I'm not in their league, but I'm warming up, hopefully, and I'm trying to do what I can." — Prince William. [Telegraph]
• "I was funny in school. I was funny in the classroom. I really got tired of giving it away for free. People say, 'How can you talk all day?' I could do it on the phone or do it on television. A painter paints. I yak yak all day." — Joy Behar, whose new show on HLN (formerly Headline News) begins next week. [WaPo]
• "I saw her on a chat show. I'd worked with her before on Alias and she's always happy and always pleasant to everyone really and when she swears she says thing like 'darnit' and 'darn' — now even The Waltons go a bit (further). Her favourite swear word is 'rats' - that's not a swear word! Rats isn't a swear word." — Ricky Gervais on Jennifer Garner, who he calls "Miss Goody Two Shoes." [Mirror]
• "This was a very joyous moment where I've got new life. It was also a very sorrowful moment, where my sister had gone on, and the family that donated the kidney had lost their daughter as well. My first reaction was that I wished I were back on dialysis to have my sister. These two people had left this earth – and I was here. Why? I feel like I don't deserve it." — Natalie Cole, on getting a life-saving kidney transplant and then learning that her sister Cookie had passed away. [People]
• "I was about 24 years old, and I had tons of acne. I met some random girl on a bus who told me to quit dairy and all those symptoms would go away three days later. By God, she was right." — Woody Harrelson. [Page Six]
• "She's not playing the victim! The press plays the victim for her. All the stories about her-'She's so lonely.' Please! She's having the time of her life! She goes to Mexico every other weekend with her girlfriends, while Angelina and Brad shuffle their kids across country. Would you rather wake up with a margarita or eight children?" — Chelsea Handler, on Jennifer Aniston, who will be a guest on Chelsea's show. [Village Voice]

Von Trier describes Antichrist, which he shot while in the midst of battling a severe bout of depression, in strange terms: it is a horror film, but not "a real horror film." He says it is about "the maximum of dying and living," the creations of God and the church of Satan. It is about a couple, grieving over the death of their son, who retreat into the wilderness in attempts to work through their loss. In a role that won her best actress at Cannes, Charlotte Gainsbourg plays a guilt-stricken mother, who blames herself for the accidental death of her child. Her husband, portrayed by Willem Dafoe, is a cognitive therapist who hopes that the woods will provide her with a safe space in which to heal. Instead, the forest becomes a horrible surreal landscape of "grisly death and feverish reproduction," complete with a self-cannibalizing, talking fox. The New York Times' Dave Kehr writes:

Seeing herself as another "bad mother," Ms. Gainsbourg's nameless character identifies with this nature, red in tooth and claw, and descends from depression to insanity. "Nature is Satan's church," she proclaims, before moving on to acts of worship that will have some viewers looking away from the screen (if not fleeing the theater).

We can only guess that the "acts of worship" are the same ones detailed in this article (spoiler). For those of you who don't want to be sickened by the New York Magazine description, here is the short version: Gainsbourg uses a hand drill on Dafoe's leg, mutilates his genitals, and jerks him off. She later does a similar number on her own parts in "an extreme closeup" that seems guaranteed to make every woman in the theater involuntarily cross their legs and/or vomit.

As for the charges of misogyny, von Trier brushes them off, saying that they arise from his "kind of romantic thing [he] had with Strindberg," a Scandinavian playwright famous for his troubled relationships with women. However, von Triers comments about Strindberg illustrate pretty clearly that he doesn't have a firm grasp on what constitutes misogynistic behavior:

"I do not hate women myself," Mr. von Trier said, "and I doubt that he did. Strindberg spent all his life fighting with his wives and pushing them down stairs and whatever he did, but in a strange way he was just a little ridiculous. Which you can say that this film might be also.

"But my problem is of course also that I'm the son of my mother, who was the feminist movement chairman of Denmark at a certain point. So I think that I made many of my films just to provoke her, even though she's dead."

After reading the synopsis of the film, I find von Trier's comments more disturbing than any cinematic gore. Dismissing domestic violence as a "little ridiculous" says a lot of von Trier's attitude toward the female sex. But Gainsbourg defends the director against these charges, claiming that he identifies with the evil he instill in his female characters. "He puts women on a pedestal and then pushes them off... I can see fear of women, but there's no hatred," she said. Famous last words.

Away From It All, In Satan's Church [New York Times]
So What Happens To Willem Dafoe's Genitals In Lars Von Trier's Antichrist, Anyway? [NY Mag]

• Christian Siriano is collaborating secretly with Starbucks. He won't say on what, but isn't speculation fun? Maybe he's changing the uniform to something fierce, with ruffles. [The Cut]

• Christian Lacroix might have found a buyer. The firm Bernard Krief Consultants has announced its intention to bid for the bankrupt French fashion house. Krief has apparently been treating the recession as a chance to buy up properties on the cheap: it recently bid for the distressed French fast fashion chain Morgan, and successfully took over the textiles company DMC. No dollar value for Krief's proposed bid was mentioned, and Christian Lacroix had no comment. [WWD]
• Marc Jacobs' menswear division publicist Tim Mark Garcia is wearing an ankle bracelet and facing extradition to the Philippines on charges of "plunder." Garcia's father, former major general Carlos F. Garcia, allegedly stole $6.2 million from the Filipino people, and then used it to buy New York real estate — like the publicist's Trump Park Avenue condo — in his children's names. [P6]
• Three of the six nominees for this year's Swiss Textile Awards are Americans: Alexander Wang, Thakoon Panichgul, and Ohne Titel. Also in the running are Erdem, Alexis Mabille, and Peter Pilotto. Kate and Laura Mulleavy of Rodarte, who won last year, were the first U.S. designers to ever nab the prestigious award. [FWD]
• The Guardian compiled some of Vivienne Westwood's wisest words from over the years, including, "Fashion is about eventually becoming naked." Makes for an interesting read. [Guardian]
• Photos of Betsey Johnson's reissued vintage collection for boutique Opening Ceremony show it to be dark and punky and '80s, not pink and frilly and '80s. Johnson says, "There was always this harder side to me but it was hard to see it through the prints and ruffles." [Racked]
• Charlotte Gainsbourg says she wasn't much of a perfume wearer, you know, before she became the face of Balenciaga's new scent. [Style.com]
• Erin Wasson will be showing her Rvca collection at New York Fashion Week in September. [UK Elle]
• Kat Von D has created a line of tattoo concealers for her Sephora line, because she's realized that some people don't want all their tattoos to be visible all of the time. (Maybe a conservative cousin's wedding isn't the best time to show off your ink Barbarella.) She says the concealer is waterproof and won't smudge or transfer to clothing, and it is kind of strange seeing her entire torso without any tattoos for the ad shoot. [People]
• British tabloid the Sun is reporting that model Daisy Lowe fell into a month-long depression after surgery to remove a pre-cancerous growth from her cervix in May. [The Sun]
• Lowe's first campaign for Anna Sui just leaked to the Internet. [Sassybella]
• Chris Benz, Alex Wang, Maria Pinto, and Jason Wu are all newly minted members of the Council of Fashion Designers of America. Oh, and Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen of The Row got in, too. [WWD]
• Model Sigrid Agren — face of the Stella McCartney campaign we posted yesterday — has summer plans that include fishing in a lake and looking for berries with her brother, Quentin, in Sweden. [W]
• Wow, Avril Lavigne really hasn't changed her makeup since 2002. (This story is about her kids' line, which includes, wait for it...hoodies.) [Budget Fashionista]
• Hermès' sales grew by 12% in the second quarter. As had been previously reported, the super-expensive leather goods division led the increase. Its sales were up by 33.4%. [WWD]

• According to this report, Samantha Ronson went out with Sopranos actress Drea De Matteo last night, got into a fight with Lindsay Lohan about it, and threw LL's clothes out into the street.

Can't really tell if the supposedly illustrative pictures at the link actually reflect that, but whatever. [Daily Mail]

• Oy: Rumor has it that Kevin Federline is working with VH1 on a new reality show costarring his girlfriend, Victoria Prince, and his kids, Sean Preston and Jayden James. Just what the world needs. [E!]
• Meanwhile, Britney's conservatorship might be coming to an end, when her tour winds down in November. She seems like she's doing pretty good, no? [TMZ]
• Mischa Barton's model-centric CW show, The Beautiful Life, will go on with or without her — which means that producers are casting a new recurring character as a Plan B., in case Mischa is not ready for filming the last week of July. [EW]
• Madonna is in Marseilles, where she visited with the victims of the stage collapse which left two dead. She met with the widow of a worker and also went to the hospital where eight injured workers are being treated. [Daily Mail]
• Burn Notice actor Jeffrey Donovan was arrested for DUI in Miami Beach. Nice stubble in the mug shot. [NY Daily News]
• Jon Gosselin and Hailey Glassman were seen hanging out in an upstate New York park, and "They kept stopping to make out - and they made out a lot." [Gatecrasher]
• The reporter Jon Gosselin had dinner with over the weekend often "uses her charms" to get stories, and sometimes wears wigs when she follows celebrities, so as not to be recognized. [Page Six]
• "Are Kate Gosselin and Madonna workout buddies? The Jon & Kate star has arms that mirror Madge's." [NY Daily News]
• It's official: Emma Watson will attend Brown University in the fall. [People]
• Jennifer Love Hewitt and Jamie Kennedy: Engaged! [Page Six]
• When Heidi Klum was followed by paparazzi as she took her kids to a NYC park last week, it was other parents at the park who were pissed: They asked the snappers to leave, and when the photographers didn't, the moms and dads threw water balloons at them. [Daily Express]
• Sienna Miller has seen her GI Joe action figure, and she is not impressed. "My doll is cross-eyed and has the biggest chin you have ever seen. Action figures are always a bit off, aren't they? Oddly enough from side on, it is definitely me but front on she looks sort of possessed." [The Sun]
• Here's a video of Katherine Heigl talking about T.R. Knight going to do Broadway now that he's not on Grey's Anatomy: "That really pisses me off," she says. [E!]
• David Beckham's coach is criticizing the player for confronting jeering fans at the first home game of the season: "We appreciate our players and fans passion for the team and the game, but we all must aim to hold ourselves to higher standards." [Mirror]
• Amy Winehouse's mom says the star is on the road to recovery: "A year ago, everyone was saying: 'Will she get through this, will she even survive?' And look at her now. We've got the old Amy back. I always knew she'd come through it. And I know she doesn't want to go back to the drugs. St Lucia was good in many ways because there were no hard drugs around, but she was bored, so she drank…She's put on a bit of weight and looks better than she has in a long time… She was busy cooking, so that's a good sign that she's actually eating. I think she's pleased to be home and I know she's happier now." [Mirror]
• Bonnie Somerville played Suzie Cavandish in Labor Pains, and she says of Lindsay Lohan: "She is supertalented. I had a great time working with her." [E!]
• A balloon company sent Jennifer Lopez a giant bouquet of balloons for her twins, which she promptly sent back. Maybe the colorful arrangement was not classy enough for Jenny from the block? [TMZ]
• Re: Tony Romo and Jessica Simpson: A source says: "Tony pulled the plug because he couldn't stand the constant heat Jessica was putting on him to get married… The final nail in the coffin was an argument they had over how to celebrate Jessica's birthday. She wanted a splashy Ken & Barbie-themed bash with all of her celebrity friends, and Tony wanted a quiet, low-key dinner for just the two of them." [MSNBC via National Enquirer]
• Susan Boyle will appear in an interview on the Today show tomorrow, in which she says of sudden fame: "The impact, like a demolition ball. You know, and anyone who has that kind of impact — finds it really hard to get a head around it. I guess I had to get my head around it, but through the — the guidance of a great team, and they are very good, I was able to see that in perspective and really turn that around a little." [Reuters]
• "Harry Potter's love interest rivals Emma Watson in fashion stakes… Emma Watson finally has competition as the most glamourous Harry Potter screen siren after Bonnie Wright who plays Ginny Weasley was photographed looking equally spellbinding." [Telegraph]
• Mark Lester, godfather of Michael Jackson's children, claims that after the memorial service, 7-year-old Blanket Jackson seemed confused about what was going on. "It is obvious to me that Blanket is still unsure about what exactly happened to his father.He said, 'Where's Daddy gone? On holiday?' It was a rhetorical question and it broke my heart." [Mirror]
• The Jackson family is still "agonizing" over the decision of where to bury the King of Pop, but his body is "temporarily interred" at Forest Lawn Memorial-Park and Mortuary in Los Angeles. [People]
• Joe Jackson was on Larry King Live, where he seemed to blame Dr. Conrad Murray for Michael Jackson's death: "The doctor gave him something to make him rest, and then he don't wake up no more. Something is wrong there," Joe said. [AP]
• Another report claiming that Katherine Jackson is being manipulated to dispute Michael's will. [TMZ]
• Joe Jackson says the rumor that he wants to take Michael's kids on tour as the Jackson 3 is "a bunch of jive." And when asked if he was abusive to Michael when he was a kid, he said: "That's a bunch of bull S." [CNN]
• August 29 would have been Michael Jackson's 51st birthday, and there may be two tribute concerts at London's O2 Arena in August to celebrate. [TMZ]
• Russell Brand. Goat farming. [RussellBrand.TV]
• Ciara is on the cover of Social Life magazine, but she skipped the party for the isue in East Hampton because she had a chance to go into the studio with Justin Timberlake. Social Life editor Devorah Rose has a much lengthier explanation, which you can read at the link if you wish. [Observer]
• There was some chaos at Chace Crawford's birthday party because the prettyboy didn't want to pose for photos. What the hell are we going to paste in our scrapbooks, hmm? [Page Six]
• Will Lizzie Grubman be on Real Housewives Of New York? Short answer: No. [Page Six]
• Jorja Fox: Returning to CSI. [UPI]
• Nicolas Cage is in talks to play the villain in The Green Hornet. Cameron Diaz is negotiating to play a reporter and love interest; Seth Rogen will star. [Variety]
• Uma Thurman will star in Girl Soldier, an indie film about a cleric who helped rescue 140 schoolgirls abducted in Uganda. [Variety]
• "Tyler Perry is paying for 65 children from a Philadelphia day camp to go to Walt Disney World after reading about allegations that a suburban swim club had shunned them because of racism." [AP]
• Ryan O'Neal says he is dealing with Farrah Fawcett's death by answering condolence notes from her fans. [UPI]
• Ryan O'Neal is also spilling about what Redmond O'Neal's last words were to his mother Farrah Fawcett on her death bed, which is maybe a little too intimate. [People]
• Marissa Jaret Winokur is still blogging her "weight-loss journey," although this week, it's "I Fell Off the Diet Wagon." Tons and tons of candy, thanks to her son's first birthday party. [People]
• Jamie Waylett, who plays Vincent Crabbe in the Harry Potter movies, has been ordered to do 120 hours of community service after admitting to growing 10 cannabis plants at his mother's house. [Daily Mail]
• "Bruce Lee's older sister and younger brother have authorized a Chinese company to make a series of biographical films about the late kung fu icon, saying they want to produce a historically accurate account of their brother's life." [AP]
• Whatshisname says he and Whatshername don't let the kids see them fight. [Mirror]
• Whatshisname fell off a stage, btw. [Daily Mail]
• Blind item! "Which indie starlet secretly has a house decorated entirely with Alice in Wonderland paraphernelia?" [Gatecrasher]
• "I would daydream about it all the time. I thought about the fact that there were children who didn't have anything, and I felt like I could help. It was something that weighed on me. It was something I did for the world and for my son and then for me." — Mary Louise Parker always knew she would adopt someday. [People]
• "It was fun. It was a new experience for me just to take my clothes off on camera. So to be able to scream, to be hysterical, to act out all that suffering and all those tears… well, it's not something you get to do every day." — Charlotte Gainsbourg, on controversial and violent film Antichrist. [Telegraph]
• "I'd like to go on record that he is a gentleman. He has not touched me in a bad place once." — Judd Apatow, on Russell Brand. [Mirror]
• "It's a coincidence. It's from a book called Once is Not Enough by Jacqueline Susann. Bad book… People think that I changed my name. I could've been an actress, a superhero, or a stripper." — January Jones, on her name and being born in January. Also, click to see her on the cover of Interview! [JustJared via Interview]
• "The double-edged sword of working with family is it can be the most fulfilling experience you've ever had, but the flip side is it can also be the most tortuous and most stressful, because it's your family and the lines can get blurry." — Shaun Cassidy, who, along with brothers Ryan, David and Patrick, is starring in a new ABC Family show, Ruby & The Rockits. [LA Times]
• "Stand-up is good when you're rolling. When it goes down you feel like 'why the hell did I come here?' and the same thing in acting. If it's not clicking you feel like an ass." — Adam Sandler. [Mirror]
• "This project was rife with opportunities for me to fuck it up enormously and, by doing so, prove my own limitations. To botch the whole thing would have been calamitous." — Hugh Dancy, on Adam, the film about a man with Asperger's. [BlackBook]
• "I see a lot myself in him, he is a Cancer, just like I am. I would love to meet him. He makes me smile just when I see him." — Lil' Kim on Nelson Mandela. [Mirror]

• According to this report, Mischa Barton was taken from her home last week because she was so high on coke friends were afraid she was going to kill herself. [NY Post]

• A source says of Mischa Barton: "She is a mess. She is a suicidal, uninsurable mess." [The Sun]
• Madonna has visited the family of a worker killed in a stage collapse in France and will meet with three other people hurt in the accident. [UPI]
• Someone stole three boxes of clothing from L.A. stylist Jennifer Rade Thursday night. Who was Rade's client? Who was she collecting dresses for? Angelina Jolie. [Page Six]
• "Single Jessica Simpson Keeps A Low Profile." You mean she's not running around in circles chirping "I'm single! I'm single!"? Huh. [People]
• Nick Lachey says there is no truth to the rumor that he and Jessica Simpson might reunite: "I haven't talked to her in probably two years," Nick says. "I wish her happiness. That's where it pretty much ends." [People]
• Prince was spotted on a first class flight from Minneapolis to La Guardia. He was reading Elle magazine, carrying a gold- and diamond-encrusted walking stick and wearing flip-flops with sparkly silver socks. Whoever spotted him has pretty much had the best day of his or her life and it's all downhill from here. [Page Six]
• Gwyneth Paltrow: "Furious" that Scarlett Johansson is upstaging her. See, ScarJo is on the new Iron Man 2 cover of Entertainment Weekly, and in the new publicity shots; Gwynnie is not. [The Sun]
• David Beckham played his first home game with the L.A. Galaxy this year — and was booed by haters. One fan jumped over some seats to confront Beckham and ended up getting arrested. [AP]
• When we saw this Jean-Charles de Castelbajac ensemble, we were like, who the hell would wear that? Well, the answer, of course, is: Lady Gaga. [BuzzFeed]
• Kate Gosselin and the kids were in New York on Saturday to do a photo shoot for TLC; there was some kind of kerfluffle between security guards outside of the photo studio and paparazzi — the guards used umbrellas, styrofoam boards and folding tables to keep the snappers back; the kids had to be hustled into the studio. "It must have been very upsetting for the kids," says one observer. [People]
• Jon Gosselin's girlfriend Hailey Glassman went to fat camp before college, but would cheat by going to Panda Express. Apparently this was before her alleged "coke diet." [Perez]
• Jon and Kate Gosselin have been split up and living separately since last year, and Jon didn't start dating until after the divorce. [People]
• Wait, what? Jon Gosselin is dating a Star magazine reporter named Kate Major? [Gatecrasher]
• Concert promoter AEG is auctioning off the rights to the rehearsal footage of Michael Jackson's "This Is It" tour, and no Jackson family members are involved in the sale. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Looks like Sony Pictures is close to closing a deal to make a feature film out of the Michael Jackson rehearsal footage. [Variety]
• La Toya Jackson penned a "tribute single" after her brother's death and it will be available on iTunes on July 28. [Mirror]
• TMZ reported that Jermaine, Tito and Jackie Jackson would be performing at the Jamaican Reggae Summerfest. But Jermaine says: "TMZ needs to get their facts straight. We're not going to Jamaica." [E!]
• Tito Jackson seems to blame Dr. Conrad Murray for Michael Jackson's death, saying: "My opinion is that he panicked when my brother didn't wake up… He did have a pulse but he couldn't bring him back. I don't know what the time lapse was between the doctor finding him and when he called paramedics. But I believe if he had immediately called for help we might still have my brother here today, he would definitely still be alive." [Mirror]
• An anonymous senior law enforcement official says there will not be a murder charge in the Michael Jackson case. [UPI]
• Is Katherine Jackson trying to object to the executors named in Michael Jackson's will? And if so, why? There's a "no contest" clause in the will, meaning anyone who files objections to the will automatically gets no money. Is she being manipulated… by Joe? [TMZ]
• This report claims that Janet Jackson has offered to raise Michael's children, and loves them like they are her own. [The Sun]
• Russell Crowe is a hero! No, really: He helped out "a real-life damsel in distress" on the set of his new Robin Hood film. A crew member's car went up in flames when she was on her way to work. She told her colleagues about her scary experience, and Russell made a joke about it — but then ended up giving her enough cash to buy a new car. [Mirror, NY Daily News]
• Paula Abdul does not have a new contract to appear on American Idol for another season, which is probably more of a publicity stunt than an actual possibility that she won't return to the show. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Nevertheless, there's a #keeppaula Twitter trend. [LA Times]
• One reason Paula Abdul might not have a contract: She's holding out for more money. Apparently she makes around $2.5 mil a year, compared to the $15 a year Ryan Seacrest gets. [TMZ]
• Gossip Girls Michelle Trachtenberg and Jessica Szohr, as well as Rumer Willis, Ali Lohan and Stephanie Pratt attended a Charlotte Russe event in NYC last week, where a model playing air guitar almost hit a waiter in the head. [WWD]
• 50 Cent has been trying to sell his is giant mansion in Connecticut — the one that used to belong to Mike Tyson — which has 19 bedrooms, 37 bathrooms and a club with stripper poles. He's knocked about $4 million off the price, so if you have $10.9 million, it's all yours. [The Sun, Hartford Courant]
• Emma Thompson is looking frumpy and old-fashioned: She's filming Nanny McPhee 2! [Daily Mail]
• Jon Stewart has sent Daily Show DVDs to a 32-year-old man with leukemia and has offered to give the guy a tour of the set. [UPI]
• When Kylie Minogue and Spanish beau Andres Velencoso were arguing in a NYC club last week, he pulled out a camera and photographed her while she was upset. A source says: "He's making a collage of Kylie and has already got three albums full of photos of her, which he hopes to publish some day." [Daily Express]
• A source says of John Mayer: "Several years ago when he was dating Jessica Simpson, he couldn't go to her birthday party because he was on tour. So the night of her birthday she had dinner with [hairdresser] Ken Paves and a few friends. Everyone thought John would forget her birthday, but then a gift arrived from him — it was a DVD of him in concert. Jessica spent the rest of the night watching the DVD on a loop, 'being with him.' It was so sad." [Page Six]
• Zzzz: Peaches Geldof fell asleep during a TV interview with Fearne Cotton. [The Sun]
• "Kim Cattrall and toy boy split because he 'refused to be a kept man'" [Daily Mail]
• Jay-Z sips white wine as he is interviewed about The Blueprint 3, his 11th studio album, due in September — eight years to the day after the debut of the original Blueprint. "I wanted to bring it full circle," he says. "The first Blueprint was based on soul samples and more of a place where I came from and the records I listened to growing up with my mom and pop. This Blueprint, I liken it to a new classic, simply because we — Usher, Justin Timberlake, Beyonce, myself — are becoming the people that we looked up to musically growing up, like Marvin Gaye and Frank Sinatra." [Reuters]
• "Sienna Miller: 'I nearly burnt my breasts making GI Joe.'" [Daily Mail]
• Morgan Freeman is in talks to star with Bruce Willis in Red, based on the WildStorm/DC Comic. [Variety]
• Singer Christina Milian and producer/singer The Dream: Engaged. [NY Daily News]
• Click the link if you'd like to see video of Willem Dafoe talking about Lars von Trier's controversial thriller Antichrist. You know, the one where Charlotte Gainsbourg takes a blunt object to Dafoe's [ genitalia? [Guardian]
• Dazed Digital: There's a lot of nudity in the film so, I have to ask, is that actually your…
  Willem Dafoe: … Penis? No, it's not mine. Lars used a porn actor for those scenes. It was a good decision because, if it was me, then that's all that people would talk about. Obviously Lars wants the characters to have genitals but it would become a distraction: ‘Oh, they really had sex!' If he had asked me to do it, I don't know what I would have said. [Dazed Digital]
• Once, David Byrne almost hit Paris Hilton with his bike. [Page Six]
• RIP Frank McCourt. [NY Daily News]
• Blind item! "Which troubled starlet got her first big break on TV by sending the producer a tape of herself having sex with another girl? The producer thought the ploy was so original, he cast her instead of dozens of other ingénues." [Page Six]
• Blind item! "Which perennial bachelor princeling should be more careful? While His Serene Highness was cavorting on a yacht in the Mediterranean with a hunky guy, he thought the servants on board would keep their mouths shut. He was wrong." [Page Six]
• Blind item! "Which creepy dude and his posse of pals take photos of their overnight lady guests while the women are sleeping and tack them up on a 'Wall of Shame' afterward?" [Gatecrasher]
• "He put my son to shame! I provided my son with the best martial artists in the world, and he could not be persuaded to try it. In just two months, Jaden had learned so much. He is truly a talented boy." — Jackie Chan says Will Smith's son, who will star in Kung Fu Kid, is better at martial arts than his own son. [NY Daily News]
• "Anderson was just amazing. He said that the seven most horrifying words you can hear from a mother are, 'I'm going to write an erotic novel.' But he's fine with it, and of course I gave it to him before I even sent it off." — Gloria Vanderbilt, on her new book. The 85-year-old also says: "I think it's a work of art. The age of the artist is not what we're talking about. I mean, it's as if you looked at a painting and said, How old was the person that painted this? You really don't think in those terms." [Time]
• "When I started out, I'm not sure I was actually in it for the right reasons. I wanted very much to be famous. I did expect to succeed and I did have faith that I would. In reality, though, it has turned out to be something very different to what I wanted. It's the work and not the adulation that has proved to be the most fulfilling." — Gerard Butler. [Telegraph]
• "I have a boyfriend now, but I've been linked to so many guys I sound like a wanton woman. People say to me, 'Oh, it must be so easy for you, dating and boys.' It's really not easy. I suppose guys are either intimidated by me and have their defenses up, or they take the piss out of me. And I'm surrounded by cute older guys on set. That's my problem. It's a minefield, to be honest. It's stressful." — Emma Watson. [Mirror]
• "I'm sure I would have liked to have seen my parents more, and at that time, we did come second. But I like to think of them in Paris, having fun, not thinking too much ... And it was a different time." — Charlotte Gainsbourg, on being the daughter of free spirits French singer Serge Gainsbourg and the English actress Jane Birkin. [Independent]
• "He was the most important voice in our lives for thirty years. And that voice made people reach for the stars. I hate the world without Walter Cronkite." — George Clooney. [Yahoo News via E!]

• Nicolas Ghesquière picked the intolerably cool Charlotte Gainsbourg to advertise Balenciaga's perfume. Ghesquière calls his friend "one of the most inspiring girls in the world." Gainsbourg said, "I was secretly hoping to be the face of Nicolas' first perfume." [WWD]

• Sources are saying Rihanna has an editorial, shot by Steven Klein, in Italian Vogue's September issue. [Fashionologie]
• Julia Restoin-Roitfelt, French Vogue editor-in-chief Carine Roitfeld's daughter, is the face of a new perfume by Jil Sander. [NowSmellThis]
• Hold onto your quirky hats, everybody! There's going to be a new hour-long television drama set in the New York fashion world. Because it's going to star a lady, it'll be just like the new Sex And The City! Isn't that exciting? [Variety]
• The ten finalists in this year's CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund are: Flora Gill and Alexa Adams of Ohne Titel; Natalie Chanin of Alabama Chanin; Patrik Ervell, Sophie Theallet, Waris Ahluwalia of House of Waris, Wayne Lee of Wayne, George Esquivel of Esquivel Shoes, Gary Graham, Monique Péan, and Simon Spurr of Spurr. Congratulations to them all! The winners of the six-year-old cash and mentorship award will be announced on November 16; past honorees include Proenza Schouler, Alexander Wang, and Doo-Ri Chung. [WWD]
• Doo-Ri Chung is just one of many designers whose business has been hurt by the economic downturn. Chung is owed more than $60,000 by the owners of Jake, a small, independent Chicago boutique. Specialty retailers have been among the hardest-hit in the whole retail sector, but the two men behind Jake, Jim Wetzel and Lance Lawson, actually managed to reorganize their company when it went bankrupt, and continue on as employees of a new entity, the Jake Retail Group. Except that Jake Retail Group did not assume liability for any of the store's debts — meaning that Chung, plus other young designers like Brian Réyes, Tina Lutz and Marsha Patmos of Lutz & Patmos, and Emma Fletcher of Lyell, are out tens of thousands of dollars each for clothes they made and shipped, and Jake sold, but which haven't been paid for. [NYTimes]
• Lyle Lodwick, brother of fameballer Jakob, is a male model. He says that male models take their jobs less seriously than women models do — which is generally true — but also that women models are, naturally, bitchier. "I've heard horror stories of girls putting needles in a girl's shoes so when she's on the runway she'll fall over." Lodwick: Whichever sweet model lady told you that is pulling your leg. [TDB]
• Ossie Clark, the iconic British label that was briefly revived by private investors, is closing again. [WWD]
• The occasion of Berlin designer Patrick Mohr's recent homelessness-themed collection, where he had homeless people walk his runway caked in mud, is used to peg a list of other politically edgy collections of varying levels of success — like John Galliano's own Spring 2000 homelessness-themed couture work, Rei Kawakubo's 1995 Comme des Garçons collection that looked like concentration camp victim uniforms, and Karl Lagerfeld's 1994 appropriation of verses from the Koran. Somehow, the list ends with nary a mention of Miguel Adrover's 2001 MeetEast collection, which was so widely panned it drove the talented designer out of business. [TDB]
• Alber Elbaz: ""The people I chose to run my new store in London are nice. I cannot work with bitches, I can't, I can't. Maybe I am too sensitive, I get blocked. There are some people who don't give a damn. With me, I find that if there is no energy flowing or no connection, I can't think. Talent is amazing - I love it, appreciate it. I respect talent a lot. But if you ask me, ‘Talent and bitch, or less talent and good?' I'll go with less talent." [MyFashionLife]
• New York attorney general Andrew Cuomo caught the firm behind the "Lifestyle Lift" cosmetic surgery procedure posting fake customer reviews and testimonials on the Internet — and won a $300,000 settlement for the astroturfing. [Clickz]
• U.K. lingerie maker Intimas is in bankruptcy administration. Around 200 jobs are at risk. [ToL]
• Liz Claiborne, which has been struggling in the recession, renewed its C.E.O. William McComb's contract, but didn't give him a raise — just a bigger bonus. [WSJ]
• That story about how Crocs are going bust is getting written again, this time kind of artlessly. [WaPo]
• In the second quarter, net income at Joe's Jeans fell 17.8%, on a same-store sales decline of 4.3% [WWD]
• Chemists have traditionally been unable to produce fabrics that are reliably water-repellent when doused with hot, instead of cold, water. Which is why the development of a hydrophobic fabric coating that can repel hot water is potentially exciting news. Scientists think it could have applications in protective clothing, for instance for people who are at risk of scalding burns. [NS]

• Daniel Radcliffe is a budding poet: one of his poems (written when he was 17, mind you) can be read here. It involves "glistening blondes," and "hookers and lies." Hookers and lies?! That's 10 points from Gryffindor! [DailyMail]

• Russell Brand reportedly declined Lindsay Lohan's advances at P.Diddy's White Party last week: "Lindsay is a very good-looking girl and she is used to getting what she wants. Russell has been on her radar for a while now but he doesn't want anything to do with her," says a source, "He finds her constant craving for attention and her heavy drinking a turn-off. It's not like he is short of female attention anyway." [TheSun]
• Despite an internet death rumor, Jeff Goldblum is alive and well, and thanks you for your concern: ""This was a rare opportunity to experience your own death. (Fans) still run into me on the street (and say), 'Glad to see you're alive!' I reconnected with people I hadn't seen in a long time. I wasn't angry I was touched." [DailyExpress]
• Morgan Freeman's publicist says the story about the actor marrying his step-granddaughter is "complete garbage." [DailyExpress]
• Paul McCartney will appear on the Late Show with David Letterman this Wednesday; it's his first appearance on Dave's show, but obviously not his first time at the Ed Sullivan Theater, where he made history performing with The Beatles in 1964. [Variety]
• The custody hearing over Michael Jackson's children has been pushed back to July 20. As of right now, Katherine Jackson still has custody; according to Debbie Rowe's attorney, Rowe "has not reached a final decision concerning the pending custody proceedings." [People]
• More than 6,000 people showed up for a memorial to Jackson in his hometown of Gary, Indiana. The memorial included a recreation of Jackson's Thriller video, complete with 500 "zombies." Says Mayor Rudy Clay: "He's going to put on those golden slippers and he's going to dance all over God's heaven.'' [NYTimes]
• The premiere of NBC's upcoming series, Parenthood has been pushed back due to an illness that has caused star Maura Tierney to undergo "medical evaluation." [Hollywood Reporter]
• "I had a real dialogue with my mother during the shoot. She was very supportive and funny. And I needed to make jokes about the whole thing. It was so heavy and it was great to be able to describe my day to her and joke with her about what I was doing. It was like, ‘Guess what I've been doing today?' You know, my day would go from crying and howling and screaming into the sex and the blood. It was hysterical and to put it into words in a text message was hilarious." -Charlotte Gainsbourg on how she coped with difficult scenes while shooting the film Antichrist. [TimesOnline]
• An old flame of Robert Pattinson says he's "amazing" in bed. Like, really amazing: "We just had this chemistry between us that made our kisses amazing," she says, "I felt electricity go between us! I'm really passionate, as is he. That's why, no matter how much we fought, it was always amazing in bed! We'd glance at each other throughout the night because it made it more exciting when we got home. The tension was so strong, we couldn't control ourselves. It was amazing!" Yes...but was it AMAZING!?! [ShowbizSpy]
• Artie Lange was charged with DUI yesterday after getting into a "minor car accident." [Yahoo]
• Despite earlier reports that Justin Timberlake and Bradley Cooper were in talks for the role, the Hollywood Reporter now claims that Ryan Reynolds will indeed play the Green Lantern. [Hollywood Reporter]
• Britney Spears has allegedly put Kevin Federline on a diet. "She's worried his eating habits are setting up the kids to make poor food choices," says a source. [ShowbizSpy]
• Amy Winehouse is heading back to England after an extended stay in St. Lucia. "She's been banned from hotels, the bars don't want her there and locals see her as a nuisance when she's drunk," says a source, "Her friends have all left and gone back home, her mum and dad couldn't stay in St Lucia with her as she was acting up too much. She's lonely and wants to get back to what she knows. But she has to knuckle down. She's on a very fine line with the label and has pushed them almost as far as they will go." [Mirror]
• Blind Item: "This American teen TV star's fall from grace has been documented all over the celebrity weeklies recently. But perhaps the saddest thing behind-the-scenes is that the actress doesn't think she has any real friends so her entry into the London party scene was to try to lose her loner's reputation - instead she descended into a drug spiral." [BlindGossip]
• Paris Hilton was in court yesterday to defend herself against allegations that she did not properly promote Pledge This, a flop that she co-starred in. The judge in the case was curious about Hilton's reality show, and according to the AP, "After Hilton gave the title - 'Paris Hilton's My New Best Friend Forever'- the judge remarked 'This will be my best case forever.' Without missing a beat, Hilton replied 'You're my best judge forever.'" Oh, Paris. [Yahoo]
• Michael Gambon, who plays Dumbledore in the Harry Potter films, has found a way to hide his cigarettes inside of his Hogwarts robe: "I got the wardrobe to put a little pocket inside for them," he says. Hooker poems! Cigarette pockets! What is going on at Hogwarts?! [DailyExpress]

• Jesus Luz went on a Brazilian TV program, Fantastico, and said of Madonna: "She is my friend, only my friend." Hmm. Wow. Okay. He also said:

"Madonna is a person who I admire very much, a friend who has entered my life and [with whom] I keep in contact. I cannot say anything more than I don't have plans of marrying her. I can't say if she is the woman in my life." Dammit! Are they shagging or not? What does it mean? [Gatecrasher, The Sun]

• Lily Allen: Not impressed by Susan Boyle! "I thought her timing was off on Britain's Got Talent on Sunday — no control, and I don't think she has an amazing voice." And! "She seems like a lovely lady but if the show is about talent, then that Shaheen kid should win." [Daily Mail]
• Aww, Kiefer Sutherland and Proenza Schouler's Jack McCollough have kissed and made up! Well there was no kissing, but the two did issue a brief joint statement: "I am sorry about what happened that night and sincerely regret that Mr. McCollough was injured," Sutherland said. "I appreciate Mr. Sutherland's statement and wish him well," McCollough said. Then a unicorn jumped over a rainbow and gumdrops and structured dresses fell from the sky. [USA Today]
• Kiefer's headbutt incident caused some drama on the set of the film he's working on. [Daily Express]
• Guess who was out drinking Thursday night? Kiefer Sutherland. He had his 21-year-old daughter with him. [Page Six]
• Check out the toothless picture Demi Moore posted of herself — from the dentist's chair — on Twitter. Nice glasses. [Daily Mail]
• Charlotte Gainsbourg has won the best actress prize at the Cannes Film Festival for her role in Lars von Trier's Antichrist — in which she does unspeakable things to the genitalia of Willem Dafoe. Congrats! [AP]
• Tragic: Mike Tyson's 4-year-old daughter is on life support after she was found with her neck caught in the cord of a treadmill. [AP, NY Post, NY Daily News]
• Cate Blanchett spoke at the World Business Summit on Climate Change in Copenhagen yesterday, saying: "Australia's best climate scientists have been warning us that we'll face many more catastrophic fire days in south-east Australia unless the world acts to dramatically cut greenhouse pollution. We have the ability to kick start the low carbon economies of the future right when we need to, and that's now." [Breitbart]
• Natalie Cole has been released from the hospital five days after getting a kidney transplant. The memorial service for her sister, who died from lung cancer the same day Natalie received a kidney, was held yesterday. [People]
• We've heard this a zillion times, but now it's confirmed by his "people": Mel Gibson's girlfriend, Oksana Grigorieva, is pregnant. [People]
• "Actress and Scientologist Kirstie Alley is on a Twittering crusade against a bill that would provide money for screening, diagnosis and treatment of postpartum depression." Here are some of her Tweets:"I have to get you all info on THE MOTHER'S ACT. this is this lousy BILL that would give BIG BROTHER the right to force you to drug ur kids" And: "AND MANDATE that when you are pregnant, YOU MUST take drugs if a Dr. tells you to. THIS is BIG BROTHER at his finest. More on this soon moms." Plus: "I am organizing a MILLION MOM MARCH to protest this BILL. It just keeps rearing it's head. BACKED 100% by BIG PHARMA. MOMS UNITE!!" According to a spokesperson, the "Mother's Act," sponsored in the Senate by Sen. Bob Menendez, will not force "expectant mothers or new mothers to do anything." The spokesperson says: "Furthermore, the pharmaceutical industry has had nothing to do with this bill. We frankly have no idea where they get this stuff." [Politico]
• Lindsay Lohan will star in The Other Side, an indie comedy Katie Holmes was supposed to make. Apparently Katie was really into the script, sending notes and stuff, and then there was a scheduling conflict. This is the one with Woody Harrelson, Giovanni Ribisi, Jason Lee, Alanis Morissette and Dave Matthews; Lindsay will play a grad student who goes to spend her summer doing research on a remote island, where she discovers a community of eccentrics who share a secret. [Yahoo via E!]
• While Monica Bellucci was at the closing ceremonies of the Cannes Film Festival, burglars stole about $112,000 worth of jewels, a laptop and such from her Paris apartment. It's so To Catch A Thief! [Reuters]
• Whoopi Goldberg cut her Las Vegas stand up show short on Friday night after a man in the audience had a seizure and collapsed. [TMZ]
• Amy Winehouse's mom, Janis, says Amy drinks because she's bored. "Amy knows her drinking ruined the performance. Of course her band is frustrated, but even they can't stop her. It's just another one of Amy's addictions getting the better of her. It's yet another demon she has to beat. She came off drugs on her own so I know she'll stop drinking too much too. It has to be her decision though, no one else can stop her." [The Sun]
• Colin Farrell will be the best man when his gay brother Eamon Farrell marries his partner Steven later this year. [Daily Express]
• Shocker: Jon & Kate Plus 8 is staged, says Kate's sister-in-law Julie. She blogs: "When the show first started, Kate made a wish list of things that she wanted, and that became the theme of each episode - the carpet, twins' room, bunk beds, cow, hair plugs, teeth whitening, trips, etc. EVERYTHING that you see them do or buy is completely paid for out of the budget for the show or traded for free advertising … The episodes are also staged. Here's how it works ... there is a staff of people reading these blogs and they base the shows around what people are talking about." [MSNBC Scoop]
• The Real Housewives Of New York are getting a raise: Next season they'll get "upwards of $30,000 per episode." Raise your hand if you feel impoverished now. [NY Daily News]
• Lost's Evangeline Lilly says that producers "have seen that I haven't picked up on the opportunity to become a big movie star. It frustrates [them] that they've given me this chance to become the next Angelia Jolie" yet she hasn't gone after it. She adds: "Sure, I'd love to be her, but just the humanitarian side." [Page Six via Women's Health]
• Desperate Doused Wives? Teri Hatcher jumped into the pool fully clothed after performing with her charity group, "Band From TV," at Miami Beach's Shore Club. [Page Six]
• Mandy Moore loves watching the cagefighting mixed-martial arts of the UFC: "It's the best way for me to get out my aggression," she says. "The rush of adrenaline, being in an arena with 20,000 screaming people-it's overwhelming in the best way." [Maxim]
• Kevin Bacon's BlackBerry was stolen at a subway station in NYC on Thursday — and KB totally chased the guy! Unfortunately, he didn't catch him. [Daily Mail]
• Liz Taylor is in the hospital, but it's only a routine visit. Also: La Liz hearts Twitter. [MSNBC]
• "Brooke Shields: 'I was a virgin until the age of 22 because I didn't like the way I looked.'" [Daily Mail
• Rapper T.I. played a farewell concert to an arena packed with 16,000 fans Sunday night; he's due to report at the Federal Correction Institution at Forrest City, Arkansas by noon today. [USA Today]
• Unsolicited uterus update: Model Adriana Lima is reportedly three months pregnant; she eloped with NBA player Marko Jaric on Valentine's Day earlier this year. [Gatecrasher]
• Are you wondering if the Jonas Brothers are fizzling out as a Disney franchise? Here's a 1,114 word story that will sort of, but not really, answer that question. [NY Times]
• In this interview with Michael Bay, he divulges that the new Transformers movie takes up huge chunks of computer memory with its special effects. The first Transformers took up "an astounding 15 terabytes," and the sequel required 140 terabytes. "That breaks every record," says Bay. Also: Did you know he directed that old Aaron Burr "Got Milk" commercial? [LA Times]
• Phylicia Rashad, aka Claire Huxtable, is taking over as the mother in the Broadway play August Osage County. This article notes, "In a notable flourish of so-called nontraditional casting, Ms. Rashad inherits a white stage family of three daughters, a husband, a sister and other relatives." [NY Times]
• Are Kylie Minogue and her hot hottie gonna get married? [News.com.au]
• Not that you care but: "Peter Andre tells Katie Price it's 'too late' to reconcile, as he spends first day back with his kids." [Mirror]
• Morrissey has canceled more tour dates due to illness. [BBC News]
• For the last few weeks, there's been lots of buzz about the book Hollywood producer Jon Peters was going to write — with details about Barbra Streisand and so on — and now his book deal is off. Although he's still going to write a book. [Deadline Hollywood]
• "A Night Out With" Nia Vardalos includes Greek desserts, men yelling out blessings in Greek, and Rita Wilson dipping her tongue in a shot glass of Jägermeister, with Vardolos urging, "Do it, do it, do it." [NY Times]
• Sly Stone — previously reclusive — has been taking the stage lately, to support his 27-year-old daughter Novena Carmel, and her band, BabyStone. [CNN]
• Two Scottish cities are fighting over Groundskeeper Willie of The Simpsons. Is there nothing else to do? [The Sun]
• Grumpy Paul McCartney is reportedly "furious" about the switch to digital cable. "He doesn't think it's right that you have to either go to the trouble of getting an adapter or you have to buy a new TV, which he should do anyway," says a source. "You'd think he'd have an apartment full of flat screen TVs but really, he's got these old clunky sets in this tiny New York apartment." [MSNBC Scoop]
• Attention, Black Magic Women: Tomorrow, Carlos Santana will kick off a two-year residency at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas. [USA Today]
• RIP Jay Bennett, former member of the band Wilco. [E!]
• Tony Curtis called Joan Collins a "****" but it's tough to figure out what those stars stand for. [Daily Mail]
• Liberty DeVitto, who played with Billy Joel for 30 years, has sued the singer claiming he's owed overdue royalties. [UPI]
• Do you want to read a quote from Heather Mills' ex-fiancé, Chris Terrill, in which he compares her to a tornado? Then by all means, click the link. [Mirror]
• Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian made a whopping $70 million over the last four days; Terminator Salvation made about $65. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Phish tour: Sold out. Go find your tie-dye. [UPI]
• "Simple Minds return with a new album but the same defiant attitude." [Daily Express]
• Blind item! "What seemingly sweet small-screen starlet is actually so nasty that she won't speak to anyone on set until she 'has her face on?'" [Gatecrasher]
• "It was a divine beginning and it went on becoming more romantic. He took more attention than you can imagine to make sure you were sexually OK, with tiny wee cushions everywhere so one was comfortable. I never knew anyone who gave one such tiny, exquisite attentions. It was like having a wonderful parrot who bites everyone else but you. Everyone said: 'Oh Serge, he's so dangerous.' I said : 'Oh yes, he is,' but really, he was a pushover – very sentimental, very romantic." — Jane Birkin, on Serge Gainsbourg. [Guardian]
• "I don't take myself so seriously. All these people think I do. Look, a lot of people think it's fun to hate on Michael Bay. There's a lot of poison on the Internet. People always try to knock someone who's had a ton of success in movies. Whatever." — Michael Bay. [LA Times]
• "Becoming a mum was the single most profound, self-adjusting moment in my life. I birthed myself. It's like I took back my life. I took back the essence of who I am." — Thandie Newton, who struggled with bulimia before she got pregnant. [Times Of London]
• "Very swiftly we turned into two different people, and it's just hard. He's angry with me that he's home and I'm not. Yet he doesn't really feel great about me, so he wants me to travel. It is so involved I almost can't put it into words. I think the thing that makes me the maddest is: Jon made some mistakes and he was out and whatever, and that made people question him. I'm doing what I'm SUPPOSED to be doing. I'm working and traveling. [which led to reports that she was having an affair with her bodyguard]." — Kate Gosselin. [AP]
• "Since I've played for years, I get a little break. I think if I were doing rock music, there would be more doubt because there's such a great tradition of actors doing rock music so badly." — Steve Martin, on his banjo playing and bluegrass album. [NY Post]
• "I have never tap-danced in my life and I was kicked out of the choir in the fifth grade because I can't sing, but for this movie I had to tap-dance and sing in one scene… when I was supposed to be nine months pregnant. So I had tap shorts over fishnets around a fake pregnancy belly, and when I put my arms up to tap-dance in front of 300 people, my pants fell down. It was like embarrassment laid on top of embarrassment laid on top of embarrassment." — Sarah Chalke, on shooting the Lifetime movie Maneater. [NY Daily News]
• "For me, it's not a pastime, going out and meeting people and trying to hook up with people. That actually makes me feel disgusting. From a really early age, I was really sensitive to that. Getting your flirt on is the best thing in the world, but when it comes to sharing bodily fluids with a person I don't know — no thank you." — Katy Perry. [Gatecrasher]

[Image by Steven Klein via W Magazine.]

• Twihards! Sparkle vamp Robert Pattinson says there will be a fourth Twilight movie; the plot of the book Breaking Dawn will come to the big screen. What does this mean?

To the uninitiated, (SPOILER) this creepy story involves young Bella being pregnant with a vampire baby that eats its way out of her uterus... Fun times! Vampires are dead, right? So how can they be born? Or have sperm to impregnate? Oh, that's right: SPARKLES. [The Hollywood Reporter]

• One of Robert Pattinson's bodyguards pushed a paparazzo into a trash can at Cannes. [Gatecrasher]
• Kate Hudson and Alex Rodriguez had dinner and drinks in Manhattan Friday night. It's so on. [People]
• Rihanna and rapper Drake: Really, really on. [Page Six]
• Sarah Jessica Parker is concerned for the safety and well-being of the surrogate carrying her twins: "She's had friends threatened and family threatened and she's had family of friends threatened," SJP says. Plus, the woman's phone and computer have been tapped/hacked. [USA Today]
• Gay bashing alert: A young woman was attacked at a party where Samantha Ronson DJ'd, and Sam says it was "simply for being gay." She writes: "NO ONE should have to suffer any sort of attack, verbal or physical, for any reason." Warning: She links to a picture of the victim's face, and the damage is terrible. [MySpace, Twitpic]
• The documentary about Amy Winehouse — Saving Amy — may reveal that the singer is struggling with anorexia, alcohol, and her parents. [Daily Mail]
• If you want to see what Michael Jackson looks like these days — without a face mask — go ahead and click. [Daily Mail]
• Property improvements! Brad Pitt is building a new pool cabana and deck on his Malibu estate, which is up for sale. If you have $18 million, you can get a lovely home, pool, tennis courts, and neighbors like Cindy Crawford and Leo DiCaprio. Any takers? [LA Times]
• Here's a first review of Brad Pitt's latest, Inglorious Basterds. Derek Malcolm calls it "absurd, overlong and mostly cardboard version of World War II." The script "places its actors in the unenviable position of appearing either melodramatic, farcical or just plain dull." And "there are some decent moments but they are few and far between." [This Is London]
• Ellen had No Doubt come to her show and overbooked the studio by 500 people — leaving hundreds in the heat and sun for hours, even though they had tickets. Feeling hella bad. [Perez]
• Shawn Johnson says Dancing With The Stars changed her life, and that her dancing partner brought out her personality. "And I've loved every second of it." [E!]
• A neighbor says Jon and Kate of Plus 8 fame are only together for the TLC paychecks. "A lot of people around town say that's what their relationship has been about for a while." [MSNBC Scoop]
• Paula Abdul was asked if all four judges would be returning to American Idol next season, and replied, "Tune in!" [LA Times]
• A reporter to Hugh Hefner: "Would you let Lindsay Lohan play for Playboy?" Hef: "Who?" Reporter: "Lindsay Lohan." Hef cluelessly looks to his young girlfriend, who says, "Lindsay Lohan?" Hef, still looking confused, says, "Sure." Its on video. [Radar Online]
• In this video, Katy Perry talks about her religious parents: "They're very much cool." And: "My mom's isn't the rock-n-roller pot-smoking debutant that she was, and my dad's not the acid dealer with long hair anymore." Plus, she says doing a second record will be good, because "It'll show that either I got lucky or that I was meant to do this." [Rolling Stone]
• Years before Jay Leno nabbed a primetime spot, NBC was asking Oprah and Letterman to try it. [Variety]
• George Clooney will star in a flick called A Very Private Gentleman, playing an assassin who who protects his cover by hiding out in an Italian town. Is it even fiction? Can't you picture Cloons having a secret identity? [Yahoo News via E!]
• Looks like Chace Crawford from Gossip Girl will definitely be in Footloose; and now he may be joined by Miley Cyrus. The world is a strange and mysterious place. [E!, The Hollywood Reporter]
• Paris Hilton has been trying to get paid to appear at nightclubs in Cannes; a source says: "They aren't about to pay her. It's not 2002." [Page Six]
• Seven words you didn't want to hear this morning: "Jennifer Love Hewitt to relaunch singing career." [NME]
• Jesus, there is still major drama going on in Gossip Girl star Kelly Rutherford's divorce and custody battle. Rutherford has filed legal papers asking the judge to bar her ex from taking their 2-year-old son Hermes home — until the dad kid-proofs the pool and play areas. [TMZ]
• In this video, Charlotte Gainsbourg, who stars in Lars von Trier's Antichrist — the one with the genital mutilation — defends the film and Von Trier against the charge that he hates and exploits women. [Guardian]
• Another day, another Slumdog Millionaire child star's home destroyed. This time it was the living quarters of little Rubina Ali. [Yahoo News via AP]
• Sienna Miller wants a rose named after her, so somebody had better get on that. [Daily Express]
• Do you care if Vanessa Minnillo is still with Nick Lachey or not? This report says she was seen "acting single." Because she was drinking and dancing in a club. [Page Six]
• Colin Firth says he was well-versed in Noel Coward's work long before he signed on to star in Easy Virtue, a film based on a Coward play. [UPI]
• Does Ryan Phillippe have a wandering eye? [Page Six]
• File under: Moms re-entering the workplace. Liz Hurley has been away from movies for five years — due to the birth of her son — but would like to come back: "I decided I couldn't do movies for a while, which was a huge decision for me because I actually love making movies more than anything," she says. If she could do a film that could work around her son's school holidays, she would "take it like a shot." [Telegraph]
• T-Mobile is bringing Catherine Zeta-Jones back to its ads. [Business Insider via WSJ]
• Interesting: Chris Pontius of Jackass fame will appear in the new Sofia Coppola film, Somewhere. [The Hollywood Reporter]
• It's hard to read this story about actor Rip Torn's probation for DUI, because his 2006 mug shot is so LOL. [Yahoo News via AP]
• Blind item! "Which wanna-be rocker had to take a trip to the emergency room because he went to sleep with his contacts in?" [Gatecrasher]
• "It is all going well and I know I am very happy right now. I want the happy ever after ending. I've definitely changed. I'm just letting things happen and seeing what does. In so many ways I am behind the mark for my age. I'm not married and I don't have children but my attitude now is that things may happen or they may not but just be happy." — Kylie Minogue, who has been dating this sweet piece of man candy for seven months. [Daily Mail]
• "I'm doing a speech about the situation with AIDS in America basically, and how we need to address what's going on. We seem to be falling a little behind in America. I find this disease very cyclical. Every 10 years or so, after we spend a lot of money trying to educate people — a new generation of people — and we tell them to have safe sex and to abstain sometimes but have safe sex, wear condoms, we find that after 10 years another whole group of people come along. And we have to start all over again, which is really, really frustrating because it takes money for education. And we find that if we could get into the schools at a grass-roots levels, which we do in places like Africa where we get to kids at a young age and we tell them about preventive measures for not getting HIV, we find the success rate is tremendous." — Elton John. [CNN]
• "I just hope it will go away, after a little bit of time. I hope I'm not naïve in thinking that's possible. I don't want to be a part of it. I can't seem to navigate a way of doing that, of actually telling the truth of events that happened without feeling I'm encouraging the whole gossip notion." — Christian Bale on his rant. [USA Today]
• "I don't want us to split up. I love my husband, but I can't sit around crying. This is a new story and a new chapter in my life. Pete is the love of my life and I am so sad and upset by his decision to separate and divorce me as I married him for life. This is not what I want, but the decision was taken out of my hands." — Katie "Jordan" Price. [Telegraph]
• "'Hot' has become a euphemism for all things positive, making it generally acceptable to use to describe everything from a jalapeño to a drum solo. It's sort of a useful word. We don't have to think of appropriate adjectives for people, places, performances, tacos, or objects anymore as they all fit snugly under the glorious umbrella of 'hotness.' So I don't know how hot I am but I'm honored to be considered as warmer than the average taco." — Olivia Wilde, who is number one on Maxim's Hot List. She also says, "Michelle [Obama] will always be No. 1 on MY list." [The Daily Beast]

• Jean Paul Gaultier always brings surprise into his shows. He's had Coco Rocha Irish dance, and included plus models in his lineup. This time he closed the show with magnificent Ines de la Fressange. [AFP]

• Taylor Swift is launching a line of sundresses that will cost $14 and be sold at Wal-Mart. However! She says she's not like all those other celebrity "designers" who are all too happy to claim the title. "I like people who have worked their entire lives to become designers," Swift says. "I think that they have their place as designers and I have my place as a musician, and I'm going to pretty much stick to that." Huh. If Taylor Swift isn't a designer, then who designed the line? Or did the dresses simply spring, fully formed, from the fingertips of a bevvy of 14-year-old Indonesian sweatshop workers? [The Cut]
• A Real World: Brooklyn cast member has become an underwear model. Scott from New Hampshire is the new face of Baskit Underwear's organic line, "Pure." [Racked]
• The Japanese government held a runway show in New York to promote young Japanese designers on the international scene. [WSJ]
• On the occasion of Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli's first collection for Valentino, which will be shown today at couture week in Paris, the man himself has praise for the pair — and some choice words about his successor, Alessandra Facchinetti, who was fired after just eight months with the company. At the time of her appointment, Valentino, who left his company a year ago, would only say, "I've met her. She's pretty." After Facchinetti was dumped, he let rip: "[Chiuri and Piccioli] always demonstrated an enormous respect and love for my work. There is an existing archive with thousands of dresses where they can draw and take inspiration from to create a Valentino product that is relevant today. It is a shame that their predecessor didn't feel this need." Today, he'd like to remind everyone that, despite his affinity for Chiuri and Piccioli, he "categorically denies" helping them design their first collection. "If I decide to attend the presentation of their collection, it will only be as a supporter of two people I love and who have been close to me for many years," he said. All right then! [The Cut]
• Polyvoweled supermodel Iekeliene Stange was interviewed by Style.com on the occasion of her first solo photography show. She has this to say about fashion photography: "I think these days fashion photography is very restricted and lacks a lot of creativity. There’s always certain items that need to be shot in certain ways and you don’t have as much freedom. Very often these days it seems to be more about socializing and who knows who, rather than about actual photography." A pretty bold statement to make. [Style.com]
• Lydia Hearst's Pringle of Scotland ad leaked, and the trustafarian model has her patented dazed expression. Still, it's nice to see her actually, you know, working as a model. After last season's campaign efforts, which were a long way from her Prada heights, one would have sooner expected Hearst to turn up in an ad for Pringles than Pringle of Scotland. [The Cut]
• American Express, which, as a fashion week sponsor normally gets one designer to be in a special AmEx branded fashion show in the tents that card-holders can pay $150 to watch, is taking a slightly different route this fashion week. Diane von Furstenberg will be the featured talent, but instead of re-creating her Fall/Winter 09 show of a few days prior, she'll showcase looks from the current spring season. Things you can actually buy. (Of course, AmEx card-holders could also just walk into a DvF store to see her spring collection. But think of how it'll look on the runway, with hair and makeup and lights and music!) Ms. von Furstenberg will also do a Q&A with André Leon Talley before the show. The 850-seat venue is expected to sell out. [WSJ]
• Poor sales numbers at Swatch had a predictable effect on the company's performance for 2008. Gross profits rose less than expected, by 4.3%, to 6 billion Swiss francs ($5.2 billion). The company is predicting modest sales increases for 2009. [WWD]
• H&M had a better-than-expected fourth quarter, although it closed with disappointing December sales. Net profits for the brand jumped 9.4% to 5.09 billion Swedish kronor (about $626 million), up from last year's 4.65 billion kronor. Analysts had predicted a rise to 4.85 billion kronor. Overall profits for 2008 were up 13%; the chain is going to continue its expansion. [WSJ]
• Which is good news, because I'm already getting excited about Matthew Williamson for H&M, which hits stores this April. The designer himself will model in the ad campaign, alongside Daria Werbowy. Solve Sundsbo will shoot. [WWD]
• The 85% off sales of designer goods may have permanently affected the market. According to a new study, sales of luxury products are expected to fall between 3% and 7% in 2009, at least partly because now that consumers have seen how low prices can get, they feel like $600 is too high an asking price for a pair of shoes. I would agree! Some labels are going to permanently lower their prices, others might continue shifting production to Asia. [WSJ]
• Angelina Jolie wore a Max Azria dress to the SAG awards...backwards. I can actually see how it would have looked way too revealing if she'd worn it the "right" way around. Who among us has never turned a favorite sweater backwards for something new? [The Life Files]
• Project Runway's 5th season, which is still the subject of litigation in California, will still show at New York Fashion Week. But the designers featured, and whether there are any decoys among them, will be kept secret from the audience. Also Nina Garcia's writing another book, presumably to keep busy while the lawsuit shakes out. [Fabsugar]
• Betsey Johnson's reissuing a 35-piece capsule collection of garments from her archives. They'll only be sold at Opening Ceremony in Los Angeles and New York. And, I'm willing to predict, on eBay. [WWD]
• Oh. My. God: Lou Doillon and Charlotte Gainsbourg were shot by Annie Liebovitz for American Vogue. Did Anna Wintour just get a clue? [WWD]

The Good:
Claudia Schiffer, incredibly chic at Armani.
French fashionista Clotilde Courau wearing this New Look number to the riotously retro Dior show is the equivalent of painting your face with the Patriots logo. Except that this looks stunning.
Helen Mirren, power-dressing to good effect at Armani.
Princess Siriwanwarree Nareerat of Thailand, at Dior.
No one - not Kate Moss, not Lauren Hutton - does dressed-down better than Charlotte Gainsbourg, chicest woman in the world. Here at Givenchy.
There's a lot going on here, but Eva Mendes, at Dior, makes it work.
Not going to lie to you, team. I would get a perverse pleasure out of sticking Nuclear Wintour (at Lacroix) in 'Bad.' But looks like today's not going to be that day. Journalistic ethics, etc.
Who but Wonder Woman could pull off this trying shade of lemon? Lynda Carter, Lacroix.


The Bad:
Socialite and fashionista Becca Thrash looks...how do you say?...not great. I think the problem lies in the necklace. Lacroix.
Not my favorite look on Patricia Arquette, at Dior. The belt, the hem...oh, dear.
If model Joanna Preiss (at Dior) was rocking this with shorts, maybe — maybe — it could just be dressed-down. But the diaphanous skirt takes this in a dangerously middle-school direction.
I can imagine the pressure's on when you've been a fashion icon as Marisa Berenson has. And if she just wanted to say, 'screw this I'm done with fashion' it would be one thing. I mean, I'm not looking iconic right now, either. But she's at the Dior show and I'm at my Grandpa's house.
Incidentally, Liv Tyler's movie, The Strangers, is really scary. I dislike her frock, presumably Givenchy.

[Images via Getty, WENN]

[At the Balenciaga show, Paris, February 26. Image via Splash.]

• WHAT?! Model Irina Lazareanu is engaged to Pete Doherty. They're already on the registry at Cokespoons N' Things! So, like what is it with this man and models? What is it with models and this man? And like, does Irina read the tabloids? Does she read at all? [WWD, 1st item]
  
• Model Natalia Vodianova will be walking in the Valentino show today. She gave birth three weeks ago. Yeah, fuck her. [NY Post]
  
• Mazel Tov, Stella McCartney! Her eponymous fashion line is finally turning a profit, which makes us happy because we were seriously worried about how Stella was going to pay the bills and put food on the table. [WWD, sub req'd]
  
• We can't help but wonder if it's the same, wounded-by-fashion soul who robbed both Elle international creative director Gilles Bensimon's home and Skeletor/celebrity stylist Rachel Zoe's during the flurry of fashion shows. [Fashion Week Daily]

• Yves Saint Laurent designer Stefano Pilati takes a cue from Howard Dean. On making his fall advertising campaign a political manifesto (complete with Gisele-bedecked pamphlets!) he says, "I decided I had to scream a bit more - not in an angry way, because that would be impolite, but to give people more opinions." [Vogue UK]
• Normally we get bitter when celebrities act as "guest editors" at magazines. But Charlotte Gainsbourg overseeing December issue of French Vogue? That's just cool. [WWD, 2nd item]
• Nepotism! 19-year old Delfina Delettrez Fendi makes a jewelry collection and it gets sold at exclusive Paris boutique Colette! Poor family planning! 19-year old Delfina Delettrez Fendi gets knocked up and has a baby this summer! And this is why we love Italian heiresses. [WWD, 3rd item]
• The dangers of smoking? Ain't Vogue's problem. The American branch of the international fashion magazine's advertising director is reaching out to congressional leaders to pass additional legislation to teach about the health risks associated with the habit. Because the magazine will continue to practice "freedom of the press" - aka, still take advertising dollars from tobacco companies. [WWD, 1st item]
• Just us, or isa coffee table book about stylists along the same lines as Kramer's coffee table book about coffee tables? [WWD, 3rd item]
• Miuccia Prada is to be honored by Los Angeles' Hammer Museum for the art space established in Milan by herself and her husband back in 1993. [Vogue UK]
• Why aren't we becoming millionaires predicting "trends" based on info you can otherwise get for free? [Guardian]

[Paris, France; September 13. Image via Splash.]

• In the department of a-day-late-and-dollar-short, Senators Elizabeth Dole and Maria Cantwell have introduced legislation that would aid textile/apparel workers who lose their jobs when the work goes overseas. If those workers haven't already blown American Apparel's Dov Charney (above right), that is! [WWD]
  
• Kate Moss's latest project? Singing karaoke to benefit Palestinian refugees. Confusing, yet true. [WWD, 4th item]
  
• French actress Charlotte Gainsbourg is the new face of Gerard Darel bags, in a blatant attempt to win favor with the lucrative market niche known as "Jennifer Gerson." [Vogue UK]
  
• Indian leather goods company Hidesign inks deal with Louis Vuitton in an attempt to become the first Indian global luxury brand. And yet we say: Continued reliance on the French despite an attempt to stand on your own? How, uh, Catherine Deneuve in Indochine! [Breitbart]

• The Limited is supposedly close to finally selling itself. [WWD]
• Vivienne Westwood's new fragrance, 'Let It Rock', is supposed to smell like rock 'n' roll groupies, which means top notes of patchouli and amber with undertones of pot, Valtrex, and puke. [WWD]
• Canadian designer Christina Burgess brings "hip Canadian style" to the UK with the opening of her shop there. The news here is 1) there is apparently such a thing as Canadian style and 2) it is hip. [Vogue UK]