• Diane Kruger nabbed a L'Oréal contract. [Elle UK]
• And yes, Siriano provides the contractually-obligated fierceness. [Racked]

• Asked to nominated a 21st Century "heroine" by Harper's Bazaar magazine, Sarah Brown chose Naomi Campbell, for her work with women's charities. Brown calls the supermodel "impatient in a good way." [Guardian]
• Iman says David Bowie loves SoHo. "It's a perfect place for my husband," says the cosmetics company owner/legendary model. "Everyone's dressed better than he is, and they all think they're stars — so no one bothers him!" [TheMoment]
• The Stockholm department store that was set to carry NoKo jeans — the only jeans made in North Korea, by a trio of Swedish entrepreneurs who convinced the communist regime to allow production of its $215 jeans — decided at the last minute to back out. [AP]
• "Chanel in Shanghai: China goes from Mao to wow." No, that's the headline, really. [Telegraph]
• "Within East Africa, Kenyans are renowned for being the worst dressed." And, sadly, the photos accompanying this story are not helping. [BBC]
• Christopher Bailey, the Burberry creative director, went to Buckingham Palace to pick up his MBE for services to the fashion industry. [Elle UK]
• Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons — the label White House social secretary Desiree Rogers wore to the state dinner — has designed a limited edition Barbie dress. Comme des Garçons Barbie looks surprisingly normal, and costs £225. [DazedDigital]
• Christian Louboutin's Barbie, and her four not-sold-separately plastic Louboutin shoes, goes for a mere $150. That would be the Barbie Louboutin redesigned to eliminate her cankles. [People]
• Oh, look: Someone from the Daily Mail went to cover the Elite Model Look competition and forgot to Google Gérald Marie. [Daily Mail]
• Gucci is opening its third Indian store, in New Delhi, through a company the brand owns in partnership with two local entrepreneurs. Previous stores in India were franchises. [WWD]
• Vans and Robert Crumb are doing a collaboration. Two of Crumb's legendarily skeevy cartoon characters will adorn Vans sneakers, for $52-$60. [Independent]
• The Australian wool industry was supposed to end the practice of mulesing — amputating excess skin from lambs' hindquarters to prevent painful and life-threatening maggot infestations — by 2010. Having failed to do so, the Gap has bowed to PETA's pressure and announced it will stop sourcing wool from Australia. [PETA]
• Lord & Taylor has agreed to ban raccoon dog fur from its stores after the Humane Society filed a lawsuit against the company for mislabeling some fur garments. [WWD]
• Ksubi is in trouble over allegations of animal cruelty at one of its events in Sydney. Forty white homing pigeons were hired by the brand as live party props, and at least one died. [DailyTelegraph]
• What what what? Zappos is launching a printed catalog. Isn't that like going back in time? [NYTimes]
• Macy's will roughly triple the number of Sunglass Hut outposts in its department stores over the next year. [Crains]

• Here are leaked pictures of Lindsay Lohan's spring campaign for 6126. The images were shot by reality-TV-star photographers Markus Klinko and Indrani. [Gone Hollywood]

• That was quick: Steve Madden has finalized a deal with Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen to manufacture shoes and accessories for the pair's new Olsenboye JC Penney's brand. [Crains]
• Francesca Versace, the niece of Donatella and daughter of Santo, was rejected the first time she applied to Central St. Martins. "I went to the London College of Fashion and did business and pattern cutting, which I hated, but reapplied for Saint Martins and finally got in. The first year, I was crying all the time. All the teachers gave me such a hard time." The designer says that, eventually, she started to fit in. "I did three years and I loved it. I had so much fun by the end." Now she lives in London and is best friends with Silvio Berlusconi's daughter. [Times UK]
• The December cover of Harper's Bazaar is rumored to feature Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson. [WWD]
• Sometimes the Daily Mail online headline writers are evil geniuses. "Can Chanel Really Gild This Lily Or Are They Allen A Laugh?" would be one of those times. [Daily Mail]
• Project Runway alum Jeffrey Sebelia is taking his poor-man's-Santino aesthetic to his latest position, as creative director of the casual wear label Fluxus. [WWD]
• The M.A.C.-sponsored fashion shows at Milk Studios will continue at least for the next two years, says Estee Lauder Group president John Demsey. [The Cut]
• Scott Schuman's project for Burberry involved him shooting 100 trench coats, reveals Garance Doré. Included in the post is one of the pictures, of Doré wearing a short navy trench with a Yankees cap. [Garance Doré]
• The Gucci family biopic that Ridley Scott is making has Gucci family members upset. The story he's dramatizing — the intrafamily struggle for control that cost the life of eventual winner Maurizio Gucci, who was killed on his wife's orders just after hiring young designer Tom Ford — does not, they feel, redound to their benefit. "Enough mud," says Patrizia Gucci, Maurizio's cousin. "We have been through horrible things and paid plenty in person. I will write a book about the Guccis to say who they really are. And I will give Scott a copy, in hopes that his movie will never be released." Angelina Jolie is purportedly in talks to play Maurizio's wife. [Variety]
• And with the opening of Mongolia's first Louis Vuitton store, late last month, comes the inevitable trend story about how Ulaan Bator is, like, so hot right now (move over, Paris!). Actually, the warmest praise the capital garners from Louis Vuitton C.E.O. Yves Carcelle is that it is equivalent to "a good-sized provincial town in China." [News.com.au]
• Prada had just nailed down an agreement with its garment workers' union to furlough 250 out of 3,000 workers at its factory for four to six weeks when it announced that the rotating suspensions will only last three weeks. Spring orders outstripped the company's expectations by 10%. [Reuters]
• Gabriel Aubry, the male model who fathered Halle Berry's child, will be the spring face of Louis Vuitton men's wear. [Sassybella]
• Marc Jacobs might do a reality show. "I have very specific ideas about a show and how I'd want it to go, and I'd want it to be really different than the other ones," says the designer. But, "I don't think it's going to happen. I don't think so, unless we came up with the right thing, the right way." He hasn't been in touch with Bravo, who a few weeks back said it was "desperate" to have Jacobs in a show. We'd recommend re-watching Loïc Prigent's Louis Vuitton doc if you're feeling anxious. [The Cut]
• Alexander "I make $390 Italian yarn bike shorts" Wang, on his successful Barneys trunk show last week: "When I got to Barneys, I was welcomed with the news that our Rocco bag had a waiting list of 400-plus. By day's end, their entire Spring 2010 handbag order sold out with pre-buys — and that's before it will even hit the floor. Yikes! Good news, but now we're going to have to figure out how to produce more bags so our section won't be empty come January." A 400-plus person waiting list? Are the bags made of gold? Is it magically charmed so that whatever you wish for, you reach in and, pouf, there it is? Does it buy you drinks after a long day? Because we're struggling to understand what it is that's attractive about a black leather bag with studs on the bottom that costs nearly a grand. [Style.com]

"Modern man has evolved, due to his love of cars and fast food, into a blob with all the muscle tone and definition of a slug," she sniffs, "These men might all wear trainers and tracksuits and workwear such as denim jeans and combat trousers, but it is all just dressing up, an illusion, a hark back to the days when men actually knew how to do physical things like, ooh, I don't know, put in a light bulb or change a duvet cover or make love to a woman." This would be a zinger, I guess, if every column Jones writes wasn't about how ugly, fat, or incompetent someone else is. Someone needs to create a Liz Jones "Oh Snap" Flowchart that includes an extra arrow saying "Does Liz Jones hate someone? Yes? This Oh Snap Is Therefore Invalid."

Jones goes on to attack Jamie Oliver for having "a body as soft as butter," and Simon Cowell for having a "peacock chest and underdeveloped thighs. And then there is this:

I wonder why it is that gay men like to stay in shape, and be all smooth and oiled. I hope I am not straying into Dannii Minogue territory here when I wonder if that is merely their feminine side emerging, a genetic tendency to have the humility to take care of themselves, rather than being an arrogant straight bastard who believes, despite the beer gut and nasal hair, he is catnip.

There is really no central argument here; Jones is just off on another one of her pointless and slightly insane tangents, and out-of-shape men, who apparently represent every straight man in the world of Liz Jones (all in-shape men, you see, are gay) are her targets this time around. To wrap things up, Jones declares that men, based on her assessment of Cowell and Oliver as being schlubby, are "wimps" and "wastes of space." It's tempting to declare Jones' column a waste of space as well, but then what would we have to bang our heads on our desks over every Sunday evening?

The Modern Male, He's Softer Than A Slug With A Beer Belly [DailyMail]

What's particularly loathesome about the piece, by Jan Moir, is the sanctimonious tone, that actually has the audacity to pass mournful judgment on a ghoulish culture of celebrity death-eaters. "In the morning, a body has already turned cold before the first concerned hand reaches out to touch an icy celebrity shoulder." Nothing like what we're doing here with Stephen Gately, a 33 member of the Irish boy band Boyzone, who died last week in Spain, and whose death has saddened fans across the UK.

Moir, too, is deeply, deeply saddened. Take this supremely backhanded description of Gately's public sexuality, all couched in the terms of a respectful eulogy: "Gately came out as gay in 1999 after discovering that someone was planning to sell a story revealing his sexuality to a newspaper. Although he was effectively smoked out of the closet, he has been hailed as a champion of gay rights, albeit a reluctant one." Understandably reluctant initially, perhaps - the man was a member of a boy-band - but ultimately someone who made his 2006 civil union a cause celebre and was regarded as a role model for many young people.

His death was "mysterious" - that is, the family hasn't gone totally public with details, although his mother cites a hereditary heart problem. The Daily Mail doesn't buy it: that evening, apparently he and his partner had brought a young man home with them, and, they conclude, obviously something sordid was at work. Well, perhaps - maybe drugs were involved. Maybe there was an orgy. Maybe it was a case of celebrity excess. Whatever the case, however sinister and sordid the death - and please, Daily Mail, do let your imagination run wild! - it does nothing to justify the following paragraph:

Another real sadness about Gately's death is that it strikes another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships. Gay activists are always calling for tolerance and understanding about same-sex relationships, arguing that they are just the same as heterosexual marriages. Not everyone, they say, is like George Michael.Of course, in many cases this may be true. Yet the recent death of Kevin McGee, the former husband of Little Britain star Matt Lucas, and now the dubious events of Gately's last night raise troubling questions about what happened. It is important that the truth comes out about the exact circumstances of his strange and lonely death. As a gay rights champion, I am sure he would want to set an example to any impressionable young men who may want to emulate what they might see as his glamorous routine. For once again, under the carapace of glittering, hedonistic celebrity, the ooze of a very different and more dangerous lifestyle has seeped out for all to see.

Let's forget for a moment about these "gay activists" with their uniform opinions (Andrew Sullivan, for one, would be surprised to hear his views characterized this way). Let's forget about this straw-man litany of disillusioning celebrity civil unions (since straight celebrity marriages are all a model of decorum and old-fashioned values.) And let's forget about the disgusting poor-taste of using the death of someone - whose body, only today, was delivered home - as an opportunity for ham-fisted, wholly irrational and mean-spirited political sermonizing. All this we'd expect. What's truly vile is, throughout, the tone of commiseration, the "isn't it a shame that his death has proved civil unions are an evil sham, and that he was such a poor role model for the gay youth we care about so very much." They'd just love gay marriage to work - it's too bad they're just inherently sinful! Simple-minded censure is one thing; chilling forked-tongue hypocrisy is quite another. It's - how did a great writer once put it? - like poinous ooze, seeping out for all to see.

A Strange, Lonely And Troubling Death . . .[Daily Mail]

Scott writes,

While babies in prams got my friends all gooey, they left me cold. I didn't see how I could juggle a career with children. And I didn't see why I'd want to. [...]

I know Mum didn't begrudge the time she gave me and my brother. But I feared I would. After taking a fashion course at college, I landed a fantastic job in retail and rapidly started climbing the career ladder.

I couldn't imagine giving it all up for children.

Her essay admirably busts some myths about childless women. She's not cold or selfish — she has a close relationship with her family and mentors a teenage mom. She doesn't worry about who will take care of her in old age — not having children has allowed her and her husband to save up some money for nursing care, and, as she points out, most elderly people aren't actually cared for by their children anyway. She bristles when people tell her "that one day, when my ovaries have shrivelled, I'll regret not having children." "It's ludicrous," she writes, "No one should rush into something that life-changing."

I tend to agree that "just because you might want them someday" isn't a good reason to procreate. But unfortunately, this is the Daily Mail, and any article about a woman's lifestyle has to pit itself against — you guessed it — the lifestyles of other women. Zoe Lewis railed against feminists for supposedly forcing her to forgo marriage and children, and Scott slightly more subtly disses women who choose to breed. Married for 21 years, she says she and her husband Robert "enjoy a wonderful, passionate marriage and fantastic lifestyle largely because we don't have children." She explains,

We hold hands, we kiss. We do all the things couples with children somehow forget to do any more.

Not having children means we have time to focus totally on each other. So many marriages fall apart when children come along because parents don't have time to talk, and problems fester. That doesn't happen with us.

Apparently, couples with children have bad marriages. Also, when mothers get old, they're lonely anyway. Scott says as they age, she and her husband will "be better off than those sad old women waiting to be taken out to lunch once a month." Oh, and also you can't be a mom and have a successful career. To illustrate this one, Scott references one of the women she interviewed for her book, Two Is Enough:

Gina is a high-powered businesswoman in her 30s. ‘If you're going to be successful, you have to pour yourself into it,' she says. ‘And that wouldn't be fair on a child.' Does it make us selfish or sensible? I don't see anything great about trying to play Superwoman and ending up small-changing everyone.

Scott says "I don't want to sound smug," but she definitely does, especially when she says things like, "I suspect some of my friends envy me because I'm living the lifestyle they wish they could have. Do I envy them? Not at all." Given that friends and strangers alike accuse her of being selfish and ask her when she's going to pop one out, a little defensiveness is natural. But Scott ends up sounding almost as bad as those who say all women should stay home and make babies. Like them, she seems to be arguing that there's no good way to balance family and career, ignoring the fact that there are lots of ways governments and employers could help women do this. By claiming that nothing can make motherhood and work compatible, she gives society yet another excuse not to try.

She also seems to be saying having children is incompatible with happiness. Again, a certain amount of backlash against her wrongheaded critics is to be expected. And she does pay some lip service to moms by mentioning her friend Karen, who loves her kids. But couldn't she simply have explained why being childless works for her and her husband, rather than claiming their lives are better than those of people with kids? By doing so, she may actually be giving ammunition to the kinds of people who criticize her for not breeding — they could just as easily fire back with how much better their lives are than hers. Memo to Scott: the way to get other people to respect your lifestyle is not to malign theirs. Choice feminism: ur doin it rong.

Image via Daily Mail.

Friends Call Me Selfish - But Not Having Kids Is The Best Thing I've Ever Done [Daily Mail]

According to a study of British women's measurements interpreted with great nuance and restraint by the Daily Mail's Victoria Lambert, women are bigger in almost every dimension than they were the last time such a study was conducted, in 1951. With measurements of 37-27-39, the average British woman in 1951 "was the classic hour-glass, not far off Hollywood standards." But now "our hour-glass has rolled into a barrel-like 38-34-40." Says Lambert, "our vital statistics don't just carry implications for how we look - they are crucial to our health."

She goes on to write pretty much the obesity-panic piece you might expect. Despite the fact that average BMI has actually gone down in Britain over the past 60 years, and is still in the healthy range, British ladies still need to worry about those "vital statistics" because their waists are now unhealthily large. Even an increase in foot size is apparently cause for concern: "It's definitely a bad thing if the reason is weight related because it can lead to increased pressure exerted through the foot and lower limbs and back, causing additional wear and tear on joints and soft tissues such as ligaments." And of course, men don't make passes at girls who look like barrels — British hips haven't kept pace with waists, and "wide hips have been traditionally seen as attractive to men because they denote fertility."

British women's life expectancy has risen by 10 years since the 50s, but Lambert's message is clear: the average female body is unhealthy, and unattractive. By all rights, it seems, women should be filled with self-loathing. But at least according to her fellow Daily Mail writer Lucy Taylor, women today are totally full of themselves! Taylor uses a painfully oft-cited US study on narcissism as a jumping-off point to make some questionable claims about women and their egos. Did you know that narcissism has grown by 67% in the last 20 years, "mainly among women?" Or that a full 10% of the population now "suffers from narcissism as a full-blown personality disorder?" Apparently all this self-regard is bad for women, because we actually kind of suck, and will never get a man if we don't acknowledge it.

Dating service founder Margot Medhurt tells Taylor she's seeing more and more women who don't understand where they fall in "the eligibility stakes." She says,

They tend to be in their 30s, and there is a wide discrepancy between how they perceive themselves and how others see them. They are often very plain, but see themselves as being absolutely fabulous, exceptional people. They invariably reject every guy's profile I send them. But if a guy rejects their profile, there is all hell to pay. There is disbelief. They are really saying: "I'm so fabulous. How dare he turn me down?"

Men are noticing this "phenomenon" too. Says management consultant David Baxter, who admirably admits that "he's not perfect, but is told he's an eligible and pleasant guy with a lot to offer," says,

I've had three successive dates recently with ladies in the late 30s to early 40s age bracket that have left me dumbfounded. [...] You sensed that they absolutely worshipped themselves, though none of them was drop-dead gorgeous or had amazing personalities, jobs or anything else to set them apart and elevate themselves into some superior position. I also thought it was quite telling that none of them had ever been married, engaged or had recently - or perhaps ever - been in a long-term relationship. I got the feeling that these women were living in a Sex And The City-inspired fantasy world. I also sensed that nobody would ever be good enough for them.

If you're a woman, being overcritical or getting angry at rejection makes you narcissistic. But if you're a guy, it makes you a sociologist. Taylor lets "professional golfer-turned-financial consultant" Neil Hay close out her article. He says,

I spent three hours on a date with one woman. I thought we got on brilliantly, but then she said she didn't want to meet again. This has happened a few times. It makes me think that if you don't live up to their perfect fantasy, then that's it. It's game over before you've even had any chance to begin to get to know each other. It does dent your confidence. I'm left thinking either that there's something wrong with me or that I'll just never be whatever it is that these women are looking for.

It's tough to be a man these days, forced to live up to impossible standards. If only there were some way to make women feel a little worse about themselves, so they'd recognize how plain they were and stop turning down perfectly good blokes. Perhaps some sort of study that scrutinized every aspect of their bodies, all the way down to the feet, and pronounced their very measurements dangerous and unappealing. Then again, those deluded women would probably just ignore it — as Hay says, "it's easier for them to believe their own myths than to face reality - that they are completely ordinary."

How Women's Bodies Have Been Transformed In The Past 60 Years... With Huge Implications For Our Health [Daily Mail]
The Ego Epidemic: How More And More Of Us Women Have An Inflated Sense Of Our Own Fabulousness [Daily Mail]

The secret to a long and happy marriage could be having separate beds, an expert on sleep claims.Not only will a couple escape arguments over duvet-hogging and fidgeting, but they will have a proper night's rest. This will have a huge impact on both their health and the relationship as poor sleep increases the risk of stroke, heart disease and divorce, said Dr Neil Stanley.

The good doctor, in case you were wondering, "follows his own advice and sleeps in a different room to his wife." Good sleep, he says, is crucial: and if your partner's snoring is keeping you up, screw Breathe-rite and hit the couch. After all, quoth Stanley, single beds were a necessity of smaller urban dwellings, not some nod to romance. Sounding increasingly fervent, he goes on:"You then put in this person who makes noise, punches, kicks and gets up to go to the loo in the middle of the night, is it any wonder you are not getting a good night's sleep?"

On the one hand, separate beds evokes sit-com twin prissiness. And there's always the Royal Sex issue. Kings went to their wives' rooms, but what are the rules with two beds? Rolling off and hopping back into your virginal bier seems kind of bloodless. On the other hand, I get it: I love sleeping alone, and frequently slip onto the couch in the middle of the night, which boyfriends have found strange and "distant." It's not even the issues of snoring or rolling or blanket-hogging; sometimes you just want the luxury of your own space. Giving us a little too much insight into a conversation I'm guessing he's had with his wife a time or two, Dr. Stanley sums it up thusly:

We all know what it is like to sleep in a bed with somebody and have a cuddle. But at one point you say, "I'm going to go to sleep now".
Why not at that point just take yourself down the landing? Intimacy is important for emotional health. But good sleep is important for physical, emotional and mental health.

So's sharing, so, you know, that's good.

Want The Dream Marriage? Then Sleep In Separate Beds [Daily Mail]

• The details of Fashion's Night Out — aka Anna Wintour's Plan To Save Retail — have been announced. Over 700 stores in all five boroughs will be participating in events that range from sewing circles to cook-ins to rock shows:

• Celebs and designers who will be in attendance at the various festivities include Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen, Francisco Costa, Manolo Blahnik, Isaac Mizrahi, Kate Mulleavy, Diane von Furstenberg, Liev Schreiber, Stephanie Seymour, and Anna Wintour herself. Although all the tee shirt customization and free music will be enough to drag us around to at least a few stores come September 10, we're also tremendously excited by the idea of taking salsa lessons taught by Juan Carlos Obando. [WWD]
• As is to be expected, Vogue is apparently attracting a lot of attention from cost-cutting consultants McKinsey. Dare we hope that McKinsey will shake things up at the tired mag, and shake them hard? In other Condé Nast news, Teen Vogue's very stylish accessories editor, Taylor Tomasi Hill, is leaving to take a position at Marie Claire. There are no plans to replace her. [Fashionista]
• Agent Provocateur is launching a new line of super-expensive lingerie it's calling couture. Agent Provocateur Soirée will launch with an in-season show at New York Fashion Week on September 9, and hit stores in November. Prices top £2450. [Elle UK]
• The second issue of Love is out, and it turns out the preview image that surfaced online last month actually is one of the covers — editor Katie Grand chose Alex Hartley, and 18-year-old bass player she found on the Internet, for one cover, and Sting spawn Coco Summer for the other. [Fashionologie]
• Katie Grand had 35 guests at her recent wedding. Thirty-five guests who finished 28 bottles of vodka. Our kid of woman. [ToL]
• Dasha Zhukova, the 28-year-old heiress, art gallerist, and Grand's replacement editor at Pop, is rumored to be pregnant by her 42-year-old boyfriend, Roman Abramovich. [P6]
• An image of Scarlett Johansson which might be part of the ad campaign for a Dolce & Gabbana perfume launching later this year has leaked. The perfume is called Rose The One, and the picture is very soft and rosy looking, plus Johansson is already confirmed to be the face of the scent, both of which are signs that point to yes. [SassyBella]
• Tori Spelling has launched a children's clothing range. Little Maven will cost $26-$88, and is designed for kids up to 4 years of age. [Daily Mail]
• Naomi Campbell and Queen Rania of Jordan were introduced while holidaying in the south of France. There's no word on what they discussed upon meeting. [Daily Mail]
• The mayor of Kennesaw, Georgia, which is male model Sean O'Pry's hometown, is today giving the 20-year-old an official proclamation, because O'Pry speaks highly of Kennesaw in the interviews he does between gigs for Armani and Calvin Klein. [P6]
• Comme des Garçons and Converse are giving their collaboration wider distribution this fall. Four styles of the Comme des Garçons-designed sneakers will go on sale in select cities at the end of this month, and worldwide in October, for $100 a pop. [WWD]
• When asked about the person who irrevocably changed the way she looked at fashion, Heidi Klum generously named Karl Lagerfeld, despite the designer's stated dislike of her. [Newsweek]
• Everybody is wearing Lolita glasses. And by everybody, we mean Madonna, Drew Barrymore, Katy Perry, Nicole Richie, Kelly Osbourne, and Kim Kardashian. Clearly we ought to be wearing them, too. Or something. [NYDN]
• If you are a man who wants to buy Levi's jeans that are "re-created using the original techniques from 1873" for $395, you can do so, at J. Crew's downtown men's stores. [WWD]
• Riam Dean, the young woman who was asked to work in the stockroom by Abercrombie & Fitch because of her prosthetic arm, has sold the full, terrible story of her experience of discrimination to the Daily Mail. Dean says the £9,000 she won from the company in damages hasn't covered her legal fees. [Daily Mail]
• Hats are back, again. This story gets re-written every six months. [WSJ]
• The alligator "harvest" begins later on this month in Florida, but wildlife experts expect the number of the creatures that will end up as purses this year to be drastically reduced: while revenue from alligator skins topped $71 million in Florida in 2007, a mere $10 million is this year's industry estimate. What doesn't make sense about all these stories about exotic skins, whether alligator, crocodile, or python, losing their marketplace appeal, is the fact that among luxury categories, the bridge products — wallets, keychains, and other "aspirational" branded baubles — are the ones that are experiencing the steepest decline in sales. Brands from Hermès to Louis Vuitton have reported that their most expensive offerings, like exotic skinned bags, are still experiencing strong sales — if not actually leading sales across the whole brand. So what gives? Are the pythons and gators going to be left to their own devices in the Everglades this season, or not? [MSNBC]
• H&M's same-store sales fell 3% on last year during the month of July; analysts had expected a more modest 1% drop, since the fast fashion chain has been performing relatively well in the recession so far. [Reuters]
• Following another disastrous quarterly result, Abercrombie has announced it plans to further cut its prices. [WSJ]
• Escada USA filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in New York, one day after the German parent company opened bankruptcy proceedings there. [WWD]

Yes, it's the Daily Mail. And Liz Jones has been party to a goodly amount of asshattery in her time. But she's a also writer who's actually bucked her publication's trend and written smart pieces in which, as she puts it, she's "vocal in campaigning for more diverse women on the catwalk, on the covers of magazines, and in adverts - encouraging women to love themselves as they are, not to conform to some outrageous, one-tiny-size-fits-all ideal of beauty." But, as she frankly admits, in her case that's theoretical.

I certainly don't practise what I preach and am in fact secretly proud that I'm still a size 8 [4 US -ed], a sample size. I love my concave stomach and I can't help, despite my beliefs, but regard women who are fat, who don't exercise, who gorge on things like Galaxy, as somehow lazy. They just don't try hard enough....That's the thing about being a borderline anorexic: it makes you feel superior, clean, morally unimpeachable.

There's nothing "borderline" about it. Perhaps because she's not currently hospitalized (she has been in the past) she thinks her life is not in the grip of illness but merely joyless and controlled. "I have never pigged out. I have never eaten a whole bar of chocolate, a whole banana, or even a whole avocado," she says with the strange mixture of self-awareness and defiant pride that characterizes the piece. But as the article continues, it becomes abundantly clear that the author is very ill - and that what she needs is not to be force-fed a bunch of heavy food, but to see a psychiatrist, and quickly.

Jones is perfectly ready to admit that her illness has impacted her life, but conflates neurosis and illness, veganism and ED, looking good in a bikini and being unable to menstruate, "being thin" with "being sick" with an ease that's alarming.

Being this way made me not just socially awkward, but unlovable: I've always hated being touched, hugged, naked, half-dressed on holiday, in case I'm found wanting, in case someone felt or saw an extra ounce of flesh. Being this thin meant I never got pregnant; I have menstruated perhaps half-a-dozen times in my life...In fact, I was always fearful of getting pregnant because the thought of my stomach growing fat, of stretch marks and a big bum, was not a price I was willing to pay for a child. The whole process seemed messy, dirty, greedy.

We are used to reading about people struggling with ED, perhaps, but not from the eye of the storm: usually these accounts come from the tentative safety of recovery, or from someone receiving some kind of treatment. This is different: Jones may be smart and self-aware, but she's so in the grip of her illness's distortions that she doesn't seem able to see what's appallingly clear to any reader. And why, in the name of heaven, does she then decide to "address" her illness by allowing her visiting sister to stuff her with scones and cream and cake for three weeks on end? "To learn pleasure in food" presumably - and to help offset her doctor's concerns about osteoporosis - but does anyone really think this kind of unbalanced 0-60 is going to do anything but produce more anxiety and self-loathing? Even Jones doesn't: as she begins the "experiment," she says, "And so, for the first time in 40 years, I'm going to try, for three weeks, to eat normally. To see if my world falls apart and I become fat, and bloated, and lazy." She adds, "Oh, and by the way, at the start of this odyssey I weigh 8st 2lb, which is slight for my 5ft 8in frame. What a silly, empty half-century achievement that is." She may know the second part is true, but that's hardly the same as believing it.

And what happens? Well, her sister puts her on some kind of grandmother's weight-lifting diet, heavy on the carbs, cream, and sugar. Not shockingly, Jones feels "incredibly fat, and lazy, and tired." There are up-sides: she enjoys some of what she eats, begins to take things a bit easier and "when I stand up, I don't see stars and black clouds. A first." Of course, she ends up putting on a few pounds, and she's "horrified." Not shockingly, taking on her semi-acknowledged ED in an incredibly drastic and unhealthy fashion, without professional guidance, has not achieved any miracles on her psyche.

I'm afraid I find all the extra flesh disgusting. I start imagining myself thin again, savouring how much I will enjoy losing this weight...The thought gives me focus. All this eating has proved what I thought all along: food makes you soft, lazy, undisciplined. And I realise my not eating is an excuse not to take part, and that part of my personality has not changed.

What's the most terrifying part of this? The self-deception? The fact that one of the few fashion-writer advocates for runway diversity actually has contempt for anyone over a sample size? That her publishers would run such a naked cry for help? (Okay, that doesn't shock anyone.) That some young girl could read this and, like Jones, believe this isn't a serious problem? It's hard to know what Jones' intent writing this is (with the Mail, a certain amount of gratuitous humiliation is apparently contractually obligatory; that shot - cropped by me - is intended to show off her new "gut") but one thing is for sure: this successful, mature woman's confession that "I'd rather be thin than happy or healthy" is not unique, and is cautionary. And Liz? Despite your avowal that "it's too late" for you? It's not.

For 40 years I have battled anorexia - so what happened when I had to eat normally for three weeks? [Daily Mail]

Earlier: Daily Mail Writer Says Drive To Be Thin Holds Women Back

Columnist Liz Jones Buys £585 Silver Leggings, Encourages Children To Go Hungry

Daily Mail Columnist: American Women Are "Mindbogglingly Stupid"

While you might hear the words "Daily Mail" and "escort addiction" and mentally call for the check - I did - Andy Bodle's essay is suprisingly interesting. Misguided? Troubled? Worrisome? Sure - as only those things written with "now I know better" authority can be - but also thought-provoking. See, Bodle's not, he's at pains to tell us, the kind of guy who would have ever seen himself paying for sex. And he says now, "I'm ashamed of exploiting women, and of having supported a degrading, dangerous industry. I don't expect anyone to condone what I did.But now, after many years have passed, I want to explain why I was propelled into that addiction - and why so many other men are, too." And he;s still kind glad he did it!

Well-educated and successful, Bodle nevertheless had a disastrous history with women: mocked in school, painfully shy, and by his own reckoning stood up 27 times in the 90s. Cue violins.

When I hit 30, I hadn't had a girlfriend - or even a kiss - for three years. I was starting to feel desperate: lonely and with little to look forward to. I'd never seriously thought about paying for female company: my image of the sex industry was of kerbcrawlers and kneetremblers in needle-strewn alleyways. But, according to the article, it was very safe and very clean. You visited the girls in plush, rented apartments; you were paying for companionship, not sex.

Of course, although he treats the transactions like dates - insisting on buying the escorts dinner, bringing them flowers, and choosing to believe the pros "like" him - they invariably end in sex. And not shockingly, this boosts his ego. He gets 'hooked' - blowing through his savings, forswearing normal dating altogether. "My reasoning went like this: why should I hang around trying to pick up women in bars when I could meet far more attractive women with no risk of getting hurt emotionally?"

As we've seen, the man is susceptible to the media; not shockingly, he falls for one of the working girls, even paying for her to spend his birthday with him. "I was convinced, after that, that Hayley and I had a special connection. Maybe the whole Pretty Woman myth was true. Maybe, if I played my cards right, I could persuade her to quit escorting and be with me."

Um, no. His bubble is further burst when one woman mentions that his visit will allow her to pay her electric bill. And he has a revelation.

In a year of visiting escorts, this was the first incontrovertible evidence I'd heard that not every girl did escorting because they enjoyed it. Some of them were doing it because they had to. And even though Sylvia seemed to like me, even though I had helped her out in the short-term, I was helping to perpetuate that situation. Perhaps I'd been naive not to notice anything amiss before; perhaps I was just too immersed in my own self-pity at being single to worry about anyone else's feelings. But the truth is that up until that point, I had genuinely been convinced that all the girls I'd seen were selling their bodies entirely of their own free will.

When one escort starts crying, he leaves without sex and gives up the lifestyle, gradually easing back into non-paid relationships. While the depth of his delusion - or denial - is kind of hard to grasp, we try to stay with him. So, does he regret it? Well, here's where the article gets weird.

Many people say that men who use escort girls hate women. That may be true for some; but in my case, I believe those escorts stopped me hating women. I feel gratitude towards those sweet, beautiful girls for the warmth they showed me. Guilt, absolutely, that I helped perpetuate an industry that is unregulated and potentially unsafe - but also gratitude. I firmly believe that while some sex workers are escorts by choice, thousands of others are not. And the fact is, when you book an escort, you never know which you are going to get. And that's why I'll never again try to re-create the 'girlfriend experience'. The truth is that it's an unedifying sham.

Basically, what's at war here are what he thinks he should think about the women, and his own self-interest. Is he sorry he - maybe - exploited women and promoted an industry he finds problematic? Nah, it was worth it! And in some ways this piece underlies what many find worrisome about the world of high-class escorting (as opposed to the more obvious pitfalls and degradations of less rareified forms of sex work.) That in some ways it's the men like Bodle - lonely, naive, certainly self-deluding - who are a big part of the problem. Because while these men might treat an escort with respect and kindness, they're also buying into the fantasy - allowing them to misrepresent their own actions, and, more to the point, effecting the way they view real-life relationships. Take that telling admission that now he can have "more attractive" women with less effort - do we really think this superficiality and entitlement won't carry over into a normal dating life? To say nothing of "relationships" - which he admits he considers them - centered around pleasing him, fulfilling him, demanding nothing? Sure, good training wheels. And we're not even getting into the sex element.

It's easy, as women, to underestimate the self-esteem issues inherent in this kind of give-and-take. It's funny: when I ask some male friends (the type who'd 'never pay for sex') what they make of men who do, one word always comes up: "pathetic." A guy who can't get sex on his own terms seems, implicitly, more problematic than one who'd indulge in an unhealthy power dynamic, or a current system that allows for the degradation of women (even allowing for a best-case-scenario view of sex work.) And ironically, of course, it's this same kind of judgment that draws men like Bodle into "addictions" like the one he describes - a wish for that kind of validation. And tying self-esteem up with paid sex? Well, as plenty of women have found out, the Pretty Woman scenario rarely works out.

I Was Addicted To Call Girls: A Respected Script Writer Explains How He Succumbed To The Lure Of Paying For Sex [Daily Mail]

Clune trots out the old chestnut that women are too tired to bone after working, grocery shopping, and taking care of the kids. She also complains that, "these days women are expected not only to be the perfect wife, mother and career woman but also a naughty nymph at bedtime." But the only solution she offers is one already espoused at length by Caitlin Flanagan: "Just Do It." Though she jokingly blames her triplets on "Just Doing It," Clune seems to agree that "sex is just like jogging - you don't always fancy the idea of it, but once you start you wonder why you don't do it more often." True enough — but why do the legion of columns about busy women's low sex drive offer lying back and thinking of England as the only real fix for the problem?

Clune does name-check the recession ("money worries, redundancy and falling house prices aren't the best aphrodisiacs") — but she doesn't make the obvious connection that people's work lives are ruining both sex and sleep. Other writers on this issue — Ayelet Waldman among them — have suggested that men should shoulder more of the housework to get their wives in the mood. Equality in the home is a great idea, and, which really practiced, has probably sexed up many a celibate marriage. But individual men doing more laundry is no substitute for an examination of capitalism's demands on families. We live in a world where both parents must often work to support their kids, where maternity and paternity leave are substandard, where child care is expensive, and where women and men both suffer in the workplace when they put their families first. And the recession has not changed the mentality that the best employee — single, childless, partnered, or parenting — is one who always puts his or her personal life second. Until these things change, people will always have to make the sad choice between sex and sleep.

At least, though, the Brits surveyed had a choice. A new Australian film, My Year Without Sex, tells the story of Natalie, who suffers a brain aneurysm and is told to forgo sex or a year to avoid triggering another one. The movie shows not just how Natalie and Ross navigate Natalie's sexless year, but also how they raise their two children and interact with a richer family "who spend their time making money, arguing and shopping." Reviewer Paul Byrnes says My Year Without Sex gives viewers "a strong sense that raising a family now comes with unforeseen difficulties" and "a year without sex is actually one of the lesser challenges that [the director] tackles." Nonetheless, Natalie's plight should serve as a reminder to people prevented from screwing by the more common libido-killers of long hours and housework — sex, and a fulfilling personal life in general, is worth fighting for.

8 out of 10 Brits prefer sleep to sex [GMTV]
Is sleep the new sex? Yes! Yes! Yezzzzzz [Daily Mail]
My Year Without Sex [Sydney Morning Herald]
"Year Without Sex" proves to be time well spent [Reuters]

Of course, this wouldn't be a Daily Mail article without a few ham-fisted statements. Jones writes of hugging Gisele Bundchen, "as I crunched her tiny form in my arms, it was like hugging a broken umbrella." She then hints that Gisele may develop brittle bone disease. But you can't tell if someone's healthy by hugging them, and snarking on Gisele's body doesn't help anyone else's.

That said, Jones makes some pretty solid allegations against the beauty-industrial complex. She writes,

making us think about what we ate today and what we will eat tomorrow is a great way of ensuring women don't have the energy to succeed. We don't need 'gender pay audits' [...] to find out why on earth women are paid less than men.

The patriarchy probably isn't consciously using diet tips to keep us down, and there are many reasons for unequal pay, but it's no coincidence that women and not men are constantly pressured to fight against biology. Women's bodies are constantly described as flawed, in need of perfecting, and ever-deteriorating in a march of time that, if you believe advertisers, seems to bypass men. This focus on making our "bad" bodies "good" (and rest assured, they'll never be good enough) doesn't just distract us from more important things, it also underscores the notion that women are lesser. After all, we're the ones who need creams and shakes and cayenne pepper cleanses to make us less what we are. So while Gisele may be healthy, what she stands for — the preference for one female body type above all others, and the pressure to strive for an ever more perfect version of that type — definitely isn't.

Now I get it - stick thin means women will never have the energy to succeed [Daily Mail]

In the charming, "A day with the nagging wife whose husband put her up for sale," intrepid reporter Matt Roper decides to see whether he can handle a wife so nagging that her husband, Gary, just "had" to put an ad in Trade It reading ""high maintenance, some rust, but free to collector."

Donna's reaction? "She gave me an ear-bashing about it but she's seen the funny side now." (Oh, and agreed to be humiliated in the ) In case you're wondering, why, yes! She does nag the reporter! She makes him do all the household chores and wait on her and says a lot of stuff like, "Men need to be told what they're doing wrong… they are so pathetic on their own" and ""Why can't men do anything right?" and other things that are obviously not for the benefit of the reporter, leaving the cowed journalist to conclude, "Gary, she's all yours!"

Beyond the fact that none of this is remotely funny to someone who doesn't find "The Lockhorns" riotous, why the hell would this woman do this to herself? If she and her husband want to indulge in humiliating stunts on their own time, okay, I guess that's their prerogative. Clearly, she's not thinking about the larger social implications of disseminating this sort of cliche, and we're not going to look to the Daily Mail for good judgment on this or any point, but really? Even if they were paid, could the sum have been enough to justify this sort of humiliation? This is a question I am often left pondering after watching a particularly disturbing episode of Wife Swap. Are people so desperate for their fifteen minutes that anything will do? Obviously I'm not the first to pose this question in the era of reality television, but something about this story - the degrading premise, the lameness of its "humor," even the relative brevity of a piece that was probably shunted to somewhere mid-paper - is especially distressing. That said: we do see the appeal of making a tabloid reporter clean our toilet while we insult him...as long as we're dealing in such elevated currencies.

A Day With The Nagging Wife [Mirror]

Oh yes, they did. They have considered, they have weighed, and they have spoken. l'Osservatore Romano's article, "The Washing Machine and the Liberation of Women - Put in the Detergent, Close the Lid and Relax" runs through the history of washing - from washboard to laundromat - to show how far we've coming in breaking the laundry glass ceiling. We're not quite sure why the Vatican felt compelled to weigh in on the issue, and we're not exactly shocked that they don't feel like applauding birth control, but really? Not even the tampon?

Now, don't get us wrong: the washing machine was indeed a huge breakthrough for humankind. In the old days, laundry and housework did indeed make a woman a slave to the house, and mod cons like the washing machine revolutionized a housewife's work day. Take this vintage Whirlpool ad which Hortense mentioned this weekend: we may laugh, but to prior generations, liberation from the wash kettle was a real blessing. Of course, plenty of the women who could afford these early appliances were probably the same ones who a generation earlier would have had hired help, so the gains are not so straightforward as Whirlpool and the Vatican may imply; but yeah, it was A Good Thing. The Best Thing? Well...

We're sure l'Osservatore Romano considered the question of women's lib seriously, but we can't bow to a single authority: we never make any determination about feminism without consulting that authority on enlightened womanhood, the Daily Mail. That paper's contributors dispute that the washing machine was the most freeing thing to women in the history of the world. Rather, it's disposable diapers, wet wipes, freezers, and Chardonnay. (Hey! They forgot Manolos!_

We hate to flout a higher power, but we must: the washing machine, the most liberating invention in the history of the world? Please. The Vatican has made a serious error, and we can't let that stand. Whatever the washing machine's benefits to womankind, we think other factors have been more crucial in advancing us as a sex, bringing us liberation and equality, sexual freedom and physical health. In the last century, we've advanced in innumerable ways and fought against incredible obstacles. What has allowed that to happen? There is an answer. And the answer is obviously... the dishwasher.

Vatican Paper: Washing Machine Liberated Women Most [Reuters]
The Washing Machine 'Liberated Women' [Independent]
Revealed: The Six Inventions That Freed Women, From Disposable Nappies To Wet Wipes And Wine [Daily Mail]

Earlier: Vintage Whirlpool Ad: Nothing Says "Liberation" Like A Woman's Right To Do The Laundry