The thing about models is that they are rarely the subjects of long, investigative, detailed magazine profiles, leavened with biographical information about their parents' backgrounds and whatever psychological tells the writer can seize upon during his or her reporting. Models are mostly seen in pictures. They're there to entertain our projections, and that's easiest done mute. It's celebrities who are endlessly, redundantly storied, profiled over and over again until such mundanities as what Leighton likes to eat for lunch and the fact that Angelina has a pilot's license have been entirely too thoroughly plumbed for metaphoric depth. The glimpse-of-fame profile is an essential part of the celebrity-sartorial complex, but the problems with it are manifold. As the celebrity profiles proliferate, the pool of unreported information that might actually be interesting or affecting to a wide audience shrinks. The pool of under-covered celebrities — who are (of course) pretty and (nearly always) white and (duh) thin enough to fit sample sizes in the standard lavish photo shoot — dwindles, too, until we're stuck reading about the Deep Thoughts of reality TV stars and teenagers ad nauseam. And as women's magazines' reliance on Big Cover Stars to anchor their issues grows, the conditions imposed by the army of protective flacks — writer approval, preset no-go topics, limitations on access — become more byzantine. (Hence why Elle spiked even this pretty tame profile of Jennifer Lopez at the request of her reps. Hence why you'll never read about the night Charlize Theron's mom shot and killed her dad while 15-year-old Charlize watched in a women's magazine. You will instead be told that she's really pretty, and much too polite to be thought of as having opinions, or as Vogue puts it, "far be it from her to ruin a perfectly nice luncheon trying to prove that she's a serious person.") Models get talked about as images but don't tend to get covered as people. Celebrities talk all too much, but far be it from them to say anything interesting.

So into this morass of diminishing returns steps Lara Stone, and it is just so weird to read a story that starts off in the standard mawkish key of celebrity profile writing — obligatory meaningless quote from Mario Testino; repetitive physical description along the lines of "naked Venus...austere, Flemish face...Her breasts are so perfect even I found it hard not to stare at them"; entirely too much attention paid to what she is wearing — before switching codes entirely.

What's the longest she has stayed in one place in the past two years, asks Vogue's Vassi Chamberlain, after Stone confesses she has spent seven days at a stretch, max, in her London apartment since moving to the city six months ago.

She answers without hesitating: "Four weeks." Was that on holiday? "No. That was to rehab." ... "I am a complete alcoholic," she says. "It used to be so easy to tell someone, 'Get me a bottle of vodka,' and they'd run and get it."

Okay then! Consider our expectations raised.

In the story — which you cannot read at British Vogue's website, but which people have taken the time to scan here and here — Stone goes on to make various statements which aren't "bold" or "interesting," with all the self-consciousness those imply, so much as they are just affectingly real. She doesn't sound like she's talking from a well-rehearsed script when pressed about controversial industry practices, as can the otherwise clever Lily Cole. Cole recently claimed in the Times of London, "I saw eating problems more at my school than in that industry. I do get that there is an aesthetic — it changes generation by generation. There's always been an ideal, from the Fifties or the Eighties," which is an ingenious dodge of the size-zero question and a very disingenuous thing to say. Stone, who despite her 34"-24"-35" measurements is sometimes considered one of the larger straight-size models, calls herself "fat" and says, "If I could have the discipline to be super-skinny, I would be. I think of dieting, then I eat pizza. I'm a woman, and every woman wants to be skinnier. Unfortunately." Cole, testy: "I think drugs are taken all over the world. And I've never really experienced it." Stone, realistic: "I never really wanted to be that model on drugs, the sort who gives head for a line of coke."

Stone isn't interested in running interference for an industry that treated her with standard disinterest for the better part of a decade before she, at the improbable age of 23, started to enjoy breakout success. As a teenager in Paris, she lived in an Elite model apartment with up to seven other girls. She was not a sensation. "We did 15 castings a day, visiting the same people over and over again. They'd make bitchy comments about us in French, thinking we didn't understand." (Sounds...familiar.) Stone also worked in Japan, where her agency measured her weekly, instructed her never to smile, and contracted her to do up to three shoots a day. Models who got pimples were sent back. Not that Stone is dewy-eyed about model solidarity: she pushed a girl who wouldn't get out of her way at the Jaeger show this season. "I kept saying, 'Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me,' because I had to get to the catwalk, but she just kept posing. So I pushed her. It was only a few stairs." It's not easy to imagine Kate Bosworth confessing to something so human.

"Men don't like me," reports Stone. For all her much-vaunted "curves", she says, "I haven't been on a date in six months." She last dated an investment banker in New York; the end of the relationship coincided with her stint in rehab and her move to London. "I've just started a club with a girlfriend," she reports, "called the We Hate Men But We Can't Be Gay Club."

I Hate Women's Magazine Profiles But Can't Stop Reading Them.

Ones like this are pretty all right, though.

British Vogue [Official Site]
Stone Age [The Fashion Spot]
Charlize Theron At Home On The Range [Vogue]
Time Out: Lily Cole [Times of London]
Behind The Glow [Daily Beast]

Earlier:French Vogue All Lara Stone, All The Time
The 5 Great Lies of Women's Magazines

After flipping to the "On The Cover" section of the table of contents, we encountered a cover line that seems to have lost its way: "Why you love guys who are bad for you...p 266." (It refers to an E. Jean column telling women to put on their stilettos and run—-not walk—-away from the losers they are dating). So, why didn't this make it? Was it an art-department coup resisting orders to make more room by Photoshopping more of Katie Holmes arms? Was Editor-in-Chief Roberta Myers all like, "We're not Cosmo, bitches," while angrily scrawling all over the mockup? Did Bigfoot abscond with it? Below, our honest take on the lines that actually made this month's cover.

• "No one wants to see curvy women," says Karl Lagerfeld, who has struggled with his weight. "You've got fat mothers with their bags of chips sitting in front of the television and saying that thin models are ugly." [News.com.au]

• Meanwhile, Christian Louboutin gave Barbie a much-needed slimming treatment. The three dolls the designer is releasing will have an all-new morphology, because the shoe man "found her ankles were too fat," reports a spokesperson. [WWD]
• Heidi Klum says becoming a Barbie was "a dream come true." There's a horror movie in that somewhere. [People]
• Tom Cruise says sweet, underminey things to Katie Holmes about her clothes, like, "I think that dress might be wearing you." The only question remaining is: Is he responsible for Suri's clothing choices? [NYDN]
• Trovata and Forever 21 have settled their copyright infringement lawsuit, just days before a second trial was to begin. The terms are confidential. Despite being sued more than 50 times, Forever 21 had never faced a jury prior to the Trovata case; Trovata had sought a multi-million-dollar judgment against Forever 21 for knocking off its shirts, but the first trial in May ended in a mistrial when six jurors sided with Trovata and one sided with Forever 21. [WWD]
• The Daily Mail did a hilarious write-around on Dov Charney, The Sleazy Sexual Predator Behind High Street Store American Apparel. Wait till they realize that the "model" in the lace bodysuit ad they hold up for particular condemnation — "it is the kind of photograph which would send shivers down the spine of anyone with a teenage daughter" — is in fact an actual porn star named Faye Valentine. We can't wait for the blistering, "exclusive" follow-up. [Daily Mail]
• Marc Jacobs: "I think the idea of people being exposed, whether it's stylists who have their reality shows or whatever, is just the way of the world. It's every chef, every stylist, every hairdresser, everybody who's doing plastic surgery. We're in a period where people are entertained by what they consider to be the real lives of people in different professions, etc. And fashion has also reached this kind of proportion like football or sport, you know — a spectator sport." [WWD]
• W magazine is reducing its frequency from 12 to 6 issues per year. This is fueling rumors that Condé Nast might be interested in buying American Elle. [FWD]
• Ugg Australia is releasing a "limited-edition" kids collection as a tie-in for the Where The Wild Things Are movie. Half the proceeds will go to St. Jude's Research Hospital. Which means half will go to making more ugly Uggs. [WWD]
• Levi's is snapping up young(ish), hip(ish) artists of both coasts in the scramble for sales: after having Ryan McGinley shoot its new ad campaign, the company has announced that printmaker extraordinaire Shepard Fairey will have a capsule collection in stores by the end of this month under the label Obey x Levi's. [WWD]
• Turns out that with the move to selling exclusively at J.C. Penney, Liz Claiborne isn't closing the Claiborne by John Bartlett line — it's just firing two-time CFDA-winner John Bartlett less than halfway into his three-year contract. [WWD]
• Meanwhile, the Upper East Side has hatched another fashion label. Two people who really need the money — socialites Gigi Mortimer and Courtney Moss — want us to buy $199 rabbit fur neck warmers and $315 fox fur gloves. Oh, look: Kelly Killoren Bensimon is all over their website! [WWD]
• Women's Wear Daily puts on its thinking cap to investigate this question for the ages: Has fashion lost its mystique? Is it the reality television? Is it the Internet? Is it Marc Jacobs inviting reporters to work out with him? The story quotes an Internet commenter, and Valentino. [WWD]
• Diane von Furstenberg is mounting an exhibition of her life's work in Moscow later this month. It will include garments she designed, artifacts, and portraits of her by artists including Warhol and Horst. [WWD]

Katie Holmes, Emily Blunt, Julianne Moore, Renee Zellweger and Zoe Saldana all look amazing — although poor Emily is… obstructed in her pretty shot. But instead of famous-for-being-famous ladies like the Kardashians, these are women who are using their talents: Katie just finished shooting The Extra Man and Don't Be Afraid Of the Dark; Emily is filming The Adjustment Bureau with Matt Damon and just wrapped Gulliver's Travels — plus she's in The Wolfman; Julianne has four films coming out in 2010; Renée has a flick called Case 39 coming later this year and two more in production (including the Bridget Jones sequel; Zoe Saldana has six movies scheduled for 2009/2010.

While it's great that Elle picked some stunning, impressive ladies to feature, why do all of these women have to share the month of November? Couldn't each have had a month of their own? Because if Elle has, as the saying goes, blown their load, then next month we might get stuck with Jessica Simpson wearing plaid. Again. As in, for the third time.

Women in Hollywood [Elle]
5 Covers For Elle's Women In Hollywood Issue [ONTD]

Earlier: Why Do Women's Magazines Pick Cover Girls Who "Don't Work?"
Jessica Simpson's Elle Cover: Waist Not, Want Not

But what's to be expected of a "reality" show that's completely staged. (Including Olivia's "accessories department" position at Elle. She's actually working in the PR department, but her name does not appear in the magazine's masthead.)

I've been down to Canal Street many, many times, and no one will sell you knockoffs (the kind that actually have designer logos on them) in the middle of the street. They won't even sell them to you in the shops. You have to specifically ask for them from one of the employees, who will first deny carrying such bags, but once it is established that you are not a cop, the employee will pull out a walkie talkie, mutter something into it, and then turn to you and start screaming and pushing you toward the back of the store, where a hidden door opens up, arms reach out, yank you in and slam the door behind you. It's basically a very tall closet with lots and lots of convincing knockoffs. Once your transaction is complete, you have to wait for walkie talkie clearance to exit the hidden room.

However, if you do manage to strike up negotiations with someone who does not have a storefront, they will never ever show you bags in the middle of the street. There's usually some kind of rendezvous point (like Sbarros or halfway down the stairs to the subway entrance) where they will reveal the merchandise, and then get super pissed off at you when you don't want to buy anything.

The fact that Olivia made her illegal purchase from a guy whose face was not blurred out on camera is probably the biggest indicator that the entire thing was staged. But what else is new with this show?

"I read about that girl!" said the woman. "It's like, I think she was anorexic, and then she gained all her weight back, but she's still a top model." Crystal's agent, Gary Dakin at Ford, smiled wryly.

Crystal and the other two models in Lane Bryant's current campaign were at the store to film, viral-video-style, a snippet of a segment of them all trying on clothes and shopping. "Do you Twitter?" asked Gary, of a sales assistant. "Tell them to Twitter that the Lane Bryant girls are all at the store getting new clothes."

They did many takes of the trio stepping out of the dressing rooms in new ensembles, and styling each other's outfits: jumpsuits with belts, lingerie, and boyfriend blazers over long t-shirts. Crystal was on her way to catch a flight to Canada to shoot for Elle magazine, and of course the video shoot was behind schedule. So when it came time to talk, we jumped in a cab to her neighborhood, Williamsburg, so she could pack. Five o'clock traffic gave us plenty of time to talk — about her experiences starving herself to be a straight-size model for years, the point at which she broke down and had to enter recovery, and the amazing ignition of her plus career, all of which is chronicled in her new memoir, Hungry, co-written with Marjorie Ingall.

After returning to her natural size, Steven Meisel booked Crystal for American Vogue — the "Shape" issue, of course, because American Vogue still fails to feature plus models any other month of the year — and then, the famous photographer shot her for an editorial in Vogue Italia. Since then, she's worked with photographers like Patrick Demarchelier, Arthur Elgort, Ruven Afanador, and Ellen Von Unwerth. She's walked the runway for Jean-Paul Gaultier, been in campaigns for Dolce & Gabbana, and she's made the covers of international editions of Elle and Harper's Bazaar.

A handful of other models have gone from disordered misery at straight-size, to self-acceptance and a new career at what the modeling industry calls plus. (Kate Dillon and Carré Otis are notable examples.) But perhaps most importantly, Crystal seems to be slowly helping the notoriously sizist industry change its ideas of what a plus size model can be: she rarely looks like the typical friendly, smiley, approachable stereotype of the larger model. Although she can look adorable styled as a pin-up, she's also booked for jobs that require a confrontational look, an overt sexuality, or a darker kind of beauty — it's probably no coincidence that she says she was a high school goth, and that when we met, she was wearing complicated black paper-bag-waisted pants, a deconstructed black t-shirt, and a cropped black vest with serious shoulder pads. (She particularly likes the designer Rick Owens.)

Crystal and I played a long round of model geography, locating mutual friends and photographers we'd worked with. We compared everything from childhood hobbies — collecting unopened Barbies, bottlecaps, and Star Wars figurines (her), collecting Kinder Surprise toys and not swapping stickers with the other girls at primary school (me) — to favorite kinds of chocolate ("I'm very particular about my chocolate," says Crystal) before we started bonding by swapping industry horror stories.

CR: But you know what: I made a decision to do this job. Nobody tied me to a treadmill.
JS: It's true, it's true.
CR: Or locked me in a closet, and forced me to not eat. Although — I got a contract to go to Japan, and I refused it, because this model told me, They locked me in a closet for three days…So I mean, I'm sure somewhere, maybe someone is being forced.
JS: Japan can be really brutal. I never worked there, because I heard similar kinds of horror stories. A friend actually told me that she got off the plane, and she was immediately booked on four jobs in one day. That was Day 1. She got to sleep for five hours, and then she was booked on another three jobs. That was Day 2. No client had any food, because they were all booking her in four-hour increments, with no obligation to even let her take a break. By Day 3, he'd had basically nothing to eat since arriving, and she collapsed on set. She had to be taken to hospital, and as the EMTs were putting an IV in her arm, the client was trying to stop the ambulance from leaving, and screaming into his cell phone to her agency, ‘I'm going to charge you for the time your model is wasting!' While she was being taken to hospital.
CR: That's so gross. That's incredible...I actually heard something similar the other day, I was at a studio and this client said, ‘Oh my God, I booked this girl for all this money, and she's outside crying into her phone. Ugh!' I'm thinking, well, why can't you guys shoot one half of the story now, and her part later? I mean, who knows. Maybe the girl is like, ‘I didn't get enough drugs and I'm freaking out.' That's the stupid reason — but maybe something serious happened? Maybe someone passed away? And this woman, as opposed to going up to this girl asking, ‘How are you?' she was screaming down the phone to her agency about how unprofessional the model was.
JS: And the poor girl has to walk back in there, try and recover from whatever personal crisis she's been dealing with, and—
CR: Because if you're a model, you're not a person, and you can't have feelings.
JS: It's true, it's true. Some people in the industry, it's just like they're missing an empathy chip.
CR: Right! Some people. Not everyone, there are good people.
JS: Oh, absolutely. Not everyone. But there's an attitude that's like — it's girls to order. You pick one out of the lineup, and you want that one, and you want her to do these poses, and you want her to wear these clothes.
CR: Right. And you're going to get her exactly how you want — like she's a doll. You have to remember there's a soul and a heart in that person, and feelings…

Crystal shares a story about a time on a shoot when, after telling the client that she was dealing with a personal crisis, instead of being understanding or thankful that Crystal had still turned up ready to work, the client promptly made a private situation into a huge deal, and loudly questioned her professionalism. Crystal complained to her agency, and they talked to the client. Which, in modeling, is exactly how the system is supposed to work: Model is treated unfairly, model contacts her representative, representative deals with situation appropriately.

JS: There are these people who are going to take some kind of an ‘In' that you gave them, and use it against you. As some kind of leverage.
CR: Definitely missing the empathy chip. Totally missing it. Did you have any experiences like that?
JS: I did, actually. I told a story of when, during the sad break-up of a long relationship, I went to work for the first time in a new market, having gained a few pounds above my fighting weight. And I got to Milan, and the agency was upset. Extremely upset. The woman — it wasn't my booker, my booker was great — but the woman who was in charge of doing all the measuring, was viciously unkind. You know, it's your first day, you're on your way home from the airport and they whip out the measuring tape to see where you're at.
CR: It's so uncomfortable.
JS: You're standing there naked in front of strangers. After stepping off your long flight, it's the first thing they want to do. And this woman said, ‘Ugh. These hips…' And I made the mistake of telling her the basics of what was going on. I made sure to say, But I am getting back on track! She just looked at me and said, ‘We had another girl who just broke up with her boyfriend, and she's not been eating at all. It's strange how some people react.'
CR: Are you serious?
JS: Yep. She was like, Shame you aren't one of those girls who stops eating during times of emotional strife! Because we'd really prefer that!
CR: We would prefer you to handle stress in a different way, Jenna! Can you manage to change your way of handling stress? And depression? Can you do that? Yeah, that makes sense. Wow.
JS: It was ridiculous. I can laugh about it now, but at the time I just wanted to cry.
CR: Of course…I can't even believe people are like that. I remember being on this shoot once, and this was when I had put on the weight, you know, after starving for so long.
Crystal is talking about the period when, while still working as a straight-size model, her metabolism slowed and she started, slowly, gaining weight even despite her extremely disordered eating and near-constant exercising. Crystal used to maintain two gym memberships to avoid detection as a compulsive exerciser.
CR: I was working on a commercial with this girl who was 6' tall, and there's me, who's 5'9". We wore the same bathing suit, and the stylist said...‘Oh honey, it's OK. You just have a fat ass!'
JS: No.
CR: That's what he said. So I go into the bathroom. I have a fucking fit in the bathroom. I am so angry, I'm like — steaming hot tears are pouring down my face. I'm like, this freaking guy, has just pushed my wrong button.
JS: Let me find your weak point and jam it in there!
CR: You just have a fat ass.
JS: That's disgusting. That he would say that. To anyone.
CR: I just remember being like, dying inside. And then I had to go be on camera in a bathing suit. I have never felt so disgusted with myself or with everyone around me.
JS: That's terrible.
CR: That rubbed me the worst. And that was right before I made the decision to stop what I was doing. I was like, What do you want? What do you want from me? I am doing everything I can. There's no food. There's exercise only. And I am still not the size that you want.
JS: I think it's — I think the relationship that you have with your own body is the thing that's most under threat when you're modeling.
CR: Yeah. Yeah!
JS: Because you're forced to analyze your body, as if from a third-person view.
CR: Totally. I love that you know that…You're an object.
JS: You objectify yourself...You know, when I was reading your book, I was just struck with the thought, How is it possible that your old agency never noticed that this girl had an eating disorder. They asked you — they told you — to lose a vast amount of weight. Like, 40% of your body weight.
CR: I don't think they really understood what they were asking. I want to think that they didn't really understand what they were asking me, a 14-year-old girl, to do. I mean, [when someone is asked to diet down to a certain measurement] nobody knows for sure how many pounds that will actually be.
JS: It's so fucking naïve though. And, Jesus Christ, when you're dealing with such young girls, irresponsible.
CR: I think so. They have certain requirements, and I don't think they want to think about how the girl meets those requirements…A lot of girls never come forward to their agencies and say, Hey, I starve myself to maintain the standards that you've set for me.
JS: Yeah.
CR: You know, they're not going to do that. I'm one of the only ones. And that's the reason I got a book.
JS: True. And congratulations.
CR: They're literally unaware. And that's, I think, what is the problem. People look away. They are unaware. Not only of themselves, but of the wider problems.
JS: It's true. Everyone sees some little piece of it, but nobody — yet — has stepped forward to take ownership of the problems in fashion in any kind of a holistic sense. I'm curious, how did that feel to walk in to your old agency — after taking that last set of Polaroids, and them still wanting you to lose weight after having an eating disorder for years — how did that feel to walk in there, and say —
CR: I literally had a breakdown. I was like Really, Really? I started to get hysterical. You think I should ‘Maybe go on a diet?' Oh, maybe! Maybe I should go on a diet! Let's see, what am I doing: Eight hours, twice this weekend. Sixteen hours in the gym. Maybe go on a diet! I am eating only vegetables. Maybe go on a diet! What do you think I should do, because I would like to know! Tell me what I should do that I am not doing already! Because I think I have gone above and beyond what any normal person would do for their job! Please, tell me!
JS: Jesus.
CR: Right! Tell me! So that's when my old agent said, Well, you have two options. That's when she understood — she realized, obviously I had done everything…So then she obviously offered me the two options: do commercial work, or do plus size modeling. And she wasn't too keen on the idea of plus size modeling. She was like, It's for old women.
JS: (Laughs)
CR: And I'm thinking, but I can be any size I want and still model!
JS: (Laughs)
CR: (Laughs) Do you know what I mean? Settle for commercial work and still starve myself to be this size?
JS: Plus, she was basically asking you to give up the dream of modeling. Which is that you might book that job with Steven Meisel.
CR: That was exactly it. That was 100% it. I didn't want to lose the dream. Because they would have never supported me in sending me to those people. And I would have been still miserable, in a horrible emotional state, still looking terrible, still starving, and for no dream…Choosing the unknown, but still the dream, was of course the option. I'm not going to lose my life. Wonderful! I know it sounds so casual to say that —
JS: But it was a real concern.
CR: It was a real concern! Where do you go from there? If I'd continued eating as I did even for another couple of months, I would have been in a hospital. I was really starting to be sick.

(Here, having arrived in Williamsburg and sat down outsider her building, we were interrupted by one of Crystal's elderly neighbors, who wanted to warn us not to sit on the curb, and also to tell us to eat at a certain Italian deli around the corner, where he once brought "someone from the Governor's office — because we know all them people." He talked for five minutes.)

JS: (Laughs) That's a real piece of Brooklyn right there.
CR: That's the guy on the block. And he tells me about the same restaurant every time. He'll say, ‘You know that restaurant over there…' And I'm like: I already know what you're going to say. Yes, I know the restaurant. And Armando says, ‘Hello.'
JS: (Laughs)
CR: It's sweet, but like, the twentieth time…
JS: Retirees, man. You move away from Florida [where Crystal grew up, before moving to Clinton, Miss.], and you think you're out of the woods.
CR: In Miami, it's more — you see these kids walking around at the malls. And they wear these really skimpy outfits, and I — cus I told you, I was the Goth girl, wearing my huge glow-in-the-dark JNCOs—
JS: When I read that part of your book, I felt such recognition. Because I used to make my own pants, in high school. I was after that whole silhouette of the road cone. My friends and I were all into sewing and just making whatever we could...we would make these pants with hems out to here.
CR: That's cool. That's really cool! I would have to say that I liked people like that in high school. Who would do interesting things, as opposed to — I guess ‘conforming,' and wearing the same old Gap sweater. Nothing wrong with Gap, Gap's great — but everyone having the same sweater? Really? You and I would have been great friends.
JS: I think so, too. One of the things I always loved about the fashion industry was that sense that it was all the high school misfits, put together in one room.
CR: Totally! Yeah. I actually feel, weirdly enough, now that I'm my normal size, that I'm actually more accepted now than I've ever been in my entire life.
JS: That's really heartening.
CR: It's true. Because, God, I was so uncomfortable in high school. I felt like I was — just a complete outsider…Now that I have accepted myself, and I'm in the fashion industry, I totally feel more accepted by others.
JS: What a wonderful irony!
CR: I think that I've found my place. That's why I'm so happy — the people I work with, my peers, are accepting of me. I came into the industry and I was pulled apart because of my weight, but now, I don't have to worry about such things anymore. I'm in the best, most magical place that can be. It's great.

And then she went inside to pack her suitcase and go to the airport.

Hungry: A Young Model's Story Of Appetite, Ambition, And The Ultimate Embrace Of Curves [Amazon]

• It's confirmed: Katherine Heigl and husband Josh Kelly are adopting a baby girl from Korea. In an episode to air on Friday, Katherine tells Ellen:

"She was actually born the day before me in November, which I thought was really serendipitous and just kind of like a sign. I realized just recently that I basically forfeited my birthday for the rest of my life." And: "Her name is Naleigh. Well, I am naming her after my mother and sister Nancy, Leigh. So we call her Naleigh. I wanted to tell everybody so you don't think I stole a Korean baby." [People]

• Kate Gosselin is "beyond angry" at Jon Gosselin for saying he "despises" her, blah blah blah. [MSNBC]
• Jennifer Aniston is really sick of the haters, yo. That means you, Elle magazine: "It's just their headline of 'Lonely Girl' that's sort of bullshit," Aniston says.  "I agreed to do it because how many times have I done an interview-every time-and you're misquoted and stupid sound bites get taken out of context and all of that….still happened with this. It's unavoidable. I'm not upset about it. I just find it funny." [E!]
• Fans are divided about Ellen DeGeneres being the newest American Idol judge. On the one hand: She's "the people's point of view," because she has no formal music experience. But as one Idol blogger wrote: "Is she going to be a real judge or some kind of joke?" [AP] 
• Prodcers for Sex And The City 2: Electric Boogaloo have cast a "hunk" named Max Ryan to be a European architect who crosses paths with Samantha. He is rather handsome, I must say. [The Hollywood Reporter]
• Chris Brown's community service will involve 8-hour work days. He'll begin at 8 AM, get picked up by a Department of Corrections van (along with 40 other offenders), wear an orange reflective vest and pick up trash and litter along highways and roads in Richmond, VA. [TMZ]
• Yes, George Clooney "went public" with new ladyfriend Elisabetta Canalis at the Venice Film Festival earlier this week, so consider him off the market. [NY Daily News]
• Did Demi Moore snub British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's wife Sarah Brown on Twitter? [Telegraph]
• The company that owns Neverland Ranch has filed a bunch of trademarks with the US Patent Office and submitted paperwork requesting to use the Neverland name in association with a museum. A Michael Jackson museum. Of course, Joe Jackson says the company cannot do so without the family's permission. [TMZ]
• Meanwhile, Michael Jackson's family is upset over the charities that are supposed to get 20% of Michael's estate, for reasons unclear. [TMZ]
• After actor James Nesbitt made a joke about shagging Kate Moss at GQ's Men Of The Year Awards in London and Kate reportedly said: "He's so fucking rude. I'll never come to one of these fucking awards ceremonies again!" [Gatecrasher]
• Mary-Kate Olsen was seen "chain-smoking and throwing back shots." [Page Six]
• BREAKING: Kim Kardashian has gone back to brunette. [NY Daily News]
• Hugh Hefner claims soon-to-be-ex-wife Kimberly Conrad cheated on him early on in the marriage, but they are only getting divorced because she sued him over the sale of a house or something. Mo money mo problems. [TMZ]
• Zooey Deschanel will get married in Seattle at the end of the month, FYI. [Page Six]
• Ivanka Trump will get married on October 25 at a golf club. A Trump golf club. [Page Six]
• Do you care about America's Got Talent? Then you may care that columnist Courtney Hazlett thinks the show should be renamed America's Got A Very Broad Definition of Talent. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Eddie Cibrian and LeAnn Rimes: Shacking up. [National Enquirer]
• "It's a Georgian manor. We basically redid the entire thing, from the floors to landscaping to the closets, which are inspired by my New York apartment, with a men's and women's department store-esque feeling! Of course, I have the salon and Nick has a basketball court, which is his favorite place in the house. And I love having the outdoor space so the dogs can play. It's not too small; it's not too big; it's not a monstrosity. It's a home." — Mariah Carey on her new place in L.A. [Elle.com]
• "His movies make money. His movies play everywhere. If I looked like Tom Cruise they just wouldn't say such a thing." — Todd Solondz, on being compared to Woody Allen. [Reuters]
• "[Jessica's] always saying, 'Oh, I want a baby!' Being a mom's so empowering and incredible. I'm one of those people who believes that life brings things to you at a certain time for a certain reason, and if you just go with it, that's where the best moments come from. I've grown up so much. Your body is changing, and it's such an amazing time to feel that connection ... Being pregnant was the healthiest I've ever been in my life. Except for the cupcakes." (Do you envy your sister's freedom as a single girl?) "I really don't." — Ashlee Simpson. [People via Redbook]
• "People can have rhinoceros skin, but there's a point when something's going to hurt you. Not everyone is stone, stone. I haven't watched the news in weeks. I had to ask my chef, 'How's Obama doing?' I haven't read a newspaper." — Janet Jackson, on dealing with her brother's death. [NY Daily News via Harper's Bazaar]
• "I'm so dangerous right now I scare myself." — Shawne Merriman, the San Diegos Chargers linebacker accused of choking Tila Tequila, to Playboy. [NY Daily News]
• ''Somehow during the last Genesis tour I dislocated some vertebrae in my upper neck and that affected my hands. After a successful operation on my neck, my hands still can't function normally. Maybe in a year or so it will change, but for now it is impossible for me to play drums or piano. I am not in any 'distressed' state - stuff happens in life.'' — Phil Collins. [Telegraph]
• "How do I put this like a gentleman... I have never high fived Kristin Cavalari with my penis. My Milli has never slam danced with her Vanilli. I have never Bensoned her Hedges, nor have I attempted to Bartle her James. I'm sure she's a wonderful gal but we have never tasted the Skittles Rainbow together." — John Mayer. [ONTD via Twitter]

Due to general fatigue, this year, we decided that we'd only add up the prices in major high fashion magazine players, meaning: Harper's Bazaar, Elle, and Vogue. The process was tedious, but we uncovered a mystery, learned that jodhpurs are the "it" pant of the season, and discovered other surprising results. Please note that this was not the most scientific of ventures (we didn't call designers for numbers on the various "price upon request" items featured in the magazines) but we did make an easily digestible chart on how the ladymags' selections compared to last year's:


Click on image to enlarge.























It looks like both Elle and Harper's Bazaar editors shifted their focus from expensive apparel to pricey bags and shoes, which have apparently doubled in cost since last year. In fact, it looks like Vogue is the only magazine that reduced its prices during the recession. Then again, the lower totals and averages could be attributed to mere laziness, because a significant portion of the items featured were, as mentioned above, "price upon request." For your amusement, below, a sampling of the magazines' most expensive and the cheapest items in the four major expensive shit categories.

Harper's Bazaar:
Apparel: Cheapest - Gap shirt, $14.50; Most Expensive - Fendi jacket, $40,800
Accessories: Cheapest - H&M ring $5.95; Most Expensive - Van Cleef & Arpels ring set, $335,000
Beauty: Cheapest - RickyCare retro small bobby pins, $1.99; Most Expensive - NuFace Microcurrent Device, $325
Other: Cheapest - $25 Michael Kors Limited Edition scented pen; Most Expensive - Hermès magnifying glass, $410

Elle
Apparel: Cheapest - Gap tee, $15, Most Expensive - Balmain Dress, $28,080
Accessories: Cheapest - Victoria Secret stockings, $13; Most Expensive DVH by H. Stern bracelet, $198,000
Beauty: Cheapest - Murrays pomade, $3; Most Expensive - RSession Nalu Waver (a curling iron), $180
Other: Cheapest - Vie Lux Scented Candle $45; Most Expensive - Gibson Guitar, $3,749

Vogue
Apparel: Cheapest - American Apparel tank, $29; Most Expensive - John Galliano Padded Wool Skirt, $17,715
Accessories: Cheapest - Falke socks, $18; Most Expensive, Lanvin zibeline-wool and cashmere scarf, $10,135
Beauty: Cheapest - Cover Girl foundation, $4; Most Expensive - Secret de vie perfume by Lancome, $240
Other: Cheapest - La Roux CD, $24; Most Expensive - Skepshultt V-bike, $1,250

The Winner: Vogue, for being too lazy (or too Charles B. Rangel) to affix a price to each item.

• Heidi Klum's new coffee table book, Rankin's Heidilicious , is "very naughty." Who doesn't want nudity with their coffee? Oh, wait, everyone? [ElleUK]
• American Apparel brings its sleaze to England. England doesn't like it. [The Street]

• The "provocative" American Apparel ad, which appeared, natch, in Vice, involved a model who appeared to be under the legal age of 16. And who was probably wearing crotchless lame jersey bloomers? AA says she's 23. [Daily Mail]
• No, wait, it's a hoodie - unzipped, obviously, and revealing one underaged nip. [Reuters]
• The Advertising Standards Authority has suggested that the vertically-integrated softcore "could be seen to sexualise a model who appeared to be a child." [BBC]
• Fashion weekly Grazia has come to France, sporting Kate Moss. [WWD]
• Speaking of Kate! The much-discussed Paris Kate Moss retrospective has been put on hold for lack of funds. Priorities, people! [Google]
• This is a woman whose latest perfume ad features leather corsets, partial nudity and "fantasy sex!" [Daily Mail]
• And she's appearing on her celebrity stylist best mate's reality show! [GraziaDaily]
• Grazia's hoping to beat Elle in France. But Elle has a secret weapon: Posh Spice's cleavage. [Cocoperez]
• A biography of Laura Ashley - the woman behind the florals - hits tomorrow. The chintz-mongers will be releasing a line of mugs and fancies to correspond to its release. [ElleUK]
• Karl Lagerfeld's cover of Wallpaper: "While Lagerfeld has shot his current muse, Baptiste Giabiconi, clad in a Dior Homme suit for his cover, he's added a layer of paper to the magazine, which those inclined can peel off to reveal Giabiconi naked. Lagerfeld has also shot a 27-page editorial for the title featuring Giabiconi in locales such as the Queen's Theater in Versailles." He's caught the pulse of the times. [WWD]
• Harper's Bazaar bucked the September slump: their secret weapon? Susan Boyle. [Min]
• House of Deréon is taking their glitz to Greece. Cue Trojan Horse joke. [WWD]
• Mary-Kate Olsen on her style? "There was a photo of me with weird sunglasses on and a green sweatshirt, some striped thing, with tights and cowboy boots. Something really random where in some sense it's me. To this day, I have never read the article. I just saw the photo and thought, 'God, I look crazy in that photograph!'" This, is true. [NYPost]
• And speaking of sartorial eccentrics, what's on tap for Betsey Johnson? "I'm going back to my true blue pieces - and couture prom dresses. I'm hoping the clothes will get edgier - more archival and kick-ass shoulder pads. I just want to be more true blue me." Already hating those young girls who will be buying said couture prom dresses. [VogueUK]
• Ruben Toledo on his (amazing) covers for Penguin classics: "I must confess I didn't re-read the books - I never read them in the first place. (I was a really bad student as a kid!) It was great to enter them without a preconceived notion of where the story was going, which really triggered my imagination. I took all three manuscripts with me to Miami Beach last New Year's break and spent time reading under the palm trees." [WWD]
• Oh dear: is Derek Lam having cash-flow issues? Sources say the former CFDA winner is bleeding money, has lazy managers, and is being "propped up" by "Italian investors." Aren't we all. [NYPost]
• Gucci's funding a scholarship promoting the use of "experimental technologies" that will make fashion greener. [WWD]
• Loads of designers are banding together against Chicago retailer Jake, who has apparently stiffed a bunch of them. [WWD]
• Max Azria's going to be doing a guest turn on the terrible-but-compelling-looking new model drama The Beautiful Life. Is this the beginning of serious fashion cred? Given that the other known guest stars are Tory Burch and Tyra, we're gonna go with "no." [People]
• House's Olivia Wilde is the face of new Escada scent "Desire Me." Quoth the good doctor, "For me, Escada represents style, refinement and sensuality. I like to think of myself as being an Escada woman, and I think that the majority of women aspire to these admirable qualities that this perfumes so perfectly represents." This said, the ad is very cheesy and kinda looks like it was shot in 1993. [Sassybella]
• Speaking of what every woman allegedly wants to be, Megan Fox is said to be the next face of Armani perfume. [Fashionologie]
• She'd be replacing Beyonce? WTF? [NY]
• Mad Men makeup tips: "A great start would be lining the top lash line only with a gel liner like M·A·C Fluidline...We love this product for recreating the perfect '60s eye. Replacing gloss and sheer or shimmer lipsticks with matte reds, bright pinks, and corals help create a more retro look." So does a cocktail and a Winston. [People]
• Tiffany's doing great. In point of fact, they've kicked Wal-Mart's ass. [WSJ]

After a quick glance through this issue, we automatically deem most of the featured clothes unwearable in real life (i.e. metallic leather shorts). We know that these items are supposed to be inspiration as part of trickle-down fashion economics and that only rich and/or those in fashion actually wear such styles. But apparently, there are times when even the boldest of fashion editors don't want to be that fashionable, especially in front of men. According to Elle Creative Director Joe Zee, some of the "girls in the fashion department" typically say "I work in fashion, I don't want him to think I'm obsessed with it." He concludes that "women basically have two wardrobes—-one to wear for other women (or themselves!) and one to wear for men." This is the premise for a feature in which Zee enlists SNL cast member Andy Samberg to represent men in a battle to pick the best outfits for the fashion department to wear for non-work occasions. The result is as you would expect: Samberg picked out more classic items while Zee leaned towards the weird, fashion-forward choices. Cute, yes, but one question: if the editors of this magazine are too self-conscious to wear the very same duds they peddle, why are they pushing them on the rest of us? Find out what else the Elle is pushing in the September issue.

Bri begins by explaining that she has spent the last six months "homeless and living in a beat-up old trailer," with her boyfriend. Once her trailer was towed away, with everything she owned inside of it, Bri moved into a "a beat-up, non-running RV on a dusty back lot," where she currently resides. Her stint with Elle, she claims, is an opportunity for her to "reverse the prevalent negative attitudes and common stereotypes of homelessness," but if this particular article is any indication, Bri seems to be trapped inside a few of those stereotypes herself.

She wants to make it very clear that the traditional definition of "homelessness" is incorrect: "Its legal definition," she writes, "is 'an individual who lacks a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence, or a person who resides in a shelter, welfare hotel, transitional program, or place not ordinarily used as regular sleeping accommodations, such as streets, cars, movie theatres, abandoned buildings, etc." It also includes children and youths 'who are sharing the housing of other persons due to loss of housing, economic hardship, or similar reason'." This, she says, should be how people view the homeless: as individuals who simply lack a consistent residence, and not as "bums" or "drug addicts."

But here's where Bri (or, perhaps, Elle) gets into trouble: she presents "the new face of homelessness" as a type of homelessness that deserves more attention than the plight of your standard bum, addict, or untreated schizophrenic. "I want to help put a human face on homelessness, so to speak," she writes, by which she means, of course, "white and middle class."

There is something very icky about this entire set-up: while I don't doubt that Bri has good intentions, and seeks to break down many misconceptions that the public has about the homeless (that they are lazy, that they're on drugs, that it could never happen to them) the whole "new face of homelessness" aspect reeks of a Derelicte view of looking at things. Homelessness can only have a "human face" when it happens to middle class white girls? If there's a "new face of homelessness," what happens to the "old face?" What about the people who really are struggling on the streets with drug addiction and undiagnosed mental illness? Do they just fade into the background? Are they less human because they weren't selected by E. Jean to write a column for Elle magazine?

"Even those that do fit the negative stereotypes are no less deserving of help; if anything, they are far more in need of it than the majority," Bri writes, "With the necessary assistance, there is no reason that they couldn't become a useful contributor to society." One hopes that Bri, given the opportunity to contribute her own personal experiences with homelessness to the rest of the world, will be able to further explore those negative stereotypes, and perhaps recognize that there's a "human face" behind every story. Her heart is clearly in a good place, and hopefully her column will reflect more than just the magazine's slightly off-putting attempt to attach a "new face" to a sad and ongoing issue.

The New Face Of Homelessness [Elle]

Earlier: Today In Homelessness & Fashion: An Internship, An Ill-Advised Photo Shoot

Good news first: after failing a screen test for an Elle reality show, a Bri who currently lives in an RV in a Wal-Mart parking lot, wrote E. Jean for advice. Instead, she got an internship with E. Jean herself, whom she calls "a very funny, slightly crazy, super-awesome columnist whom I've read for years." Though it took a while for her to find out about the offer — she didn't know that E. Jean had published her letter — she's now slated to start September 1. She'll be telecommuting to E. Jean's "East Coast mountain office," a remote hideaway that kind of makes E. Jean sound like Dick Cheney, but with better hair. And better taste in employees.

The bad news? Someone at W thought the recession was a good time to offer up what Fashion Week Daily calls "A Whole New Meaning to Homeless-Chic" (what was the old meaning?). In addition to the shot above, there's a model sort of "passed out" on a pile of Prada bags, and an urchin in a fur coat who appears to be begging — for Versace. Marie Antoinette, anyone?

In her letter to Elle requesting her initial screen test, Bri wrote,

I do love writing, and I love fashion, especially vintage and retro clothing. I bet I could out-cute SJP and her super-overpaid stylist any day, haha.

Hers sounds like a voice that could make fashion magazines less elitist, less focused on expensive shit and predictable advertorials and more accepting of the creativity and originality that can make fashion truly exciting. Fashion mags don't have to curry favor with big-name brands — they could be spotlighting independent designers, DIY, and vintage clothes that don't cost $5,000. Maybe if Bri stays in the industry, she can help point it in this direction — and away from photo shoots of girls wearing Dior bags.

Elle Magazine Offers Internship To Homeless Girl [Homeless Tales]
Ask E. Jean: I Bombed It [Elle]
A Whole New Meaning To Homeless-Chic [Fashion Week Daily]

• "I've thought about clothing and jewelry lines," says Usher. "But fragrance stays on when everything else comes off." [People]
• Bottom of the barrel? For $8, American Apparel will sell you a bag of fabric scraps. [BF]

• Elle Creative Director Joe Zee dined with R.J. Cutler, the director of The September Issue. Which obviously means that he's going to spend two more years making a movie about Elle now! [FWD]
• Says lost soul Ashley Olsen, in fashion, "everyone is just really looking out for themselves. I don't know if I'll be designing this collection forever. A couple of years from now, I'm sure I'll want to do something else, and I'm not going to shy away from that. What if I just want to be an artist, or if I want to go back to acting? Which is not in the cards, but what if I wanted to do that?" [Daily Express]
• An Hermès representative says the rumors that creative director Jean Paul Gaultier is going to leave the company are false. Gaultier has been in his position for six years, and Hermès has experienced continued strong sales from its luxury categories since the start of the recession. [FashionMag]
• Christian Blanckaert, Hermès' director of international affairs, is leaving the company in early September. Blanckaert will become the non-executive chairman of the French children's clothing line Petit Bateau, and is expected to pursue a more international strategy for the brand. [WWD]
• Meanwhile, some anonymous sources in the finance industry are saying that Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy may spin off DKNY, the Donna Karan diffusion label it has owned since 2001. Or that it may sell Moët Hennessy itself, where revenues fell 17% in the first half of 2009. The reason the luxury conglomerate supposedly wants to free up some cash? To make a bid for Hermès, which is trading well below its usual share price. [Fashionista]
  
• Conservative party supporter Anya Hindmarch: "I started my business when I was 18, and I realized the difference it made having Thatcher in power. It was the start of privatization-there was a feeling of ‘Get out there, get going, be an entrepreneur.' I've seen what politics can do to make a difference. It really inspires me and that's why I've been passionate about it." [VF]
• Lara Stone is set to curate the choices available at Not Just A Label's online shop, a home for avant-garde and emerging designers. Lara's choices go on sale on September 2. [UK Elle]
• Uniqlo has a licensing deal with Disney that'll allow it to roll out Disney-themed apparel starting next month. Which should mean the mouse products will hit stores around the same time as Jil Sander's long-awaited first collection for the retailer. [WWD]
• Jean-Charles de Castelbajac is launching a diffusion line called JC/DC. The line will be presented in London and again in Paris at the upcoming shows, and the company wants real-life hepcats to model its wares — anyone who wants to apply for a spot in the runway lineup can do so via the websites of Dazed & Confused or Jalouse magazine, respectively. [WWD]
• Someone named Bronson van Wyck is obsessed with "The Penguin Sparkling Water Maker from Williams-Sonoma. The penguin makes the water fizzy. You can adjust from superfizzy like Perrier to moderate like S. Pellegrino to milder like Hendon." Socials! They're not like us at all. [WWD]
• Vogue Brasil mis-spelled photographer Guy Bourdin's name as "Guy Bourdain" in huge font on its cover. [MadeinBrazil]
• Rosemary Port, the writer behind the infamous "Skanks In NYC" hate-blog against model Liskula Cohen, says that she will continue her $15 million lawsuit against Google for disclosing her e-mail address and IP to Cohen. Even though Google only disclosed those details after losing its long legal battle and being ordered to so by a Manhattan supreme court judge! Port feels her right to privacy has been violated, and alleges of Cohen, "By going to the press, she defamed herself." Her lawyer had this to say: "I'm ready to take this all the way to the Supreme Court. Our Founding Fathers wrote 'The Federalist Papers' under pseudonyms. Inherent in the First Amendment is the right to speak anonymously. Shouldn't that right extend to the new public square of the Internet?" Which, if you think about it, is an airtight argument. Doesn't anyone else remember reading that long footnote in the Federalist Papers where James Madison goes on and on about how Brutus is, like, such a ho? And then of course next month Robert Yates was all like, Nuh uh, you're a big fat skank, Publius, and everyone knows it! Whatever, Rosemary Port. Defamation isn't traditionally considered protected speech. [NYDN]
• Louis Vuitton has won a $400,000 judgment against Bonini Handbags for trademark infringement. [WWD]
• Derek Blasberg watched The Rachel Zoe Project in Los Angeles, with Rachel Zoe. "Watching the actual show and having an alternate show happening in front of me was surreal. And kind of confusing. There was Brad on TV wearing a Missoni sequined shift dress impersonating his boss, and then there, in the flesh, was Brad trying on a Louis Vuitton tennis skirt and booties impersonating his boss. Taylor was on TV moaning, and there she was in person moaning." [StyleFile]
• Casual Male, a U.S. maker of men's plus-size clothing, has seen its quarterly profits increase by 92.1% on last year, even as sales fell 13.4%. [WWD]

Moore came on the scene in 1985 with the collection Self-Help, and readers familiar with her later collections, Like Life and Birds of America, and her novel Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? will recall her dark wit and often acerbic view of human relationships. According to Elle's Louisa Kamps, New Yorker fiction editor Deborah Treisman has said that Moore deals with "female" topics but that no one would "dismiss her work as chick lit." Moore does often write from the point of view of women, but the assumption that women's lives are "female topics" (translation: private, soft, and not of interest to men) is one of the publishing industry's biggest canards. The idea that calling something "chick lit" is the same as dismissing it may be the other side of that coin. In fact, Moore's stories often make women's lives sound hard — kids get cancer, babies die, relationships are unsatisfying or just plain infuriating, and the idea that one finds oneself in others is generally disproved. The fact that these "topics" need apology, a not-chick-lit stamp of approval, just makes the problems of Moore's characters seem that much graver — life is tough, and people aren't necessarily taking them seriously.

Moore's new novel, A Gate at the Stairs, is set in a Midwestern university town much like Madison, where Moore lives and teaches, and Kamps spends a lot of time trying to figure out whether it is autobiographical. Moore doesn't seem very interested in this question — when asked if a particular Madison restaurant found its way into the novel, she says, "sure, I thought a little bit of this place." She's more interested in discussing how one writes and becomes a writer than in her own divorce or its impact on her fiction. At times she sounds like a terrifying teacher: she once told her students to "satirize the tics and tendencies" of the classmate seated next to them, which sounds like a pretty good recipe for shame, especially for the student satirized by Moore. But her teaching philosophy also displays a tough-mindedness that is as refreshing as it is unsettling. She says,

The only really good piece of advice I have for my students is, 'Write something you'd never show your mother or father.' And you know what they say? 'I could never do that!'

She's commenting on the close relationship young people today often have with their parents, but this closeness can breathe an eagerness to please not only the parents themselves, but authority in general. Moore's writing sometimes conveys a nasty view of humanity, one that would surely sadden any mother or father, but the nastiest parts are often the most funny and true. Insofar as it encourages students to stop trying to make people happy, Moore's advice is great — readers, like all humans, don't necessarily know what they want, and trying to please isn't a very good way of actually doing so.

On the writing life, Moore says,

The detachment of the artist is kind of creepy. It's kind of rude, and yet really it's where art comes from. It's not the same as courage. It's closer to bad manners than to courage. [...] if you're going to be a writer, you basically have to say, 'This is just who I am, and if I'm going to do.' There's a certain indefensibility about it. It's not about loving your community and taking care of it — you're not attached to the chamber of commerce. It's a little unsafe. You have to be willing to have only four friends, not 11.

The idea of the writer as ill-mannered hermit going against the grain of society can seem a little self-aggrandizing — after all, there are more "unsafe" forms of rebellion than writing. But Moore's vision of the writer seems more troll-under-the-bridge than Che Guevara. And if her anti-communal view of writing sounds a little lonely (really? Writers only get four friends?), it's also a good antidote to the idea that the purpose of fiction is to uplift readers. This idea seems to be particularly foremost in publishers' minds when they market books to women, and it does us a disservice, assuming that we have to like the characters, their lives, and also their reflection on our own lives if we're going to buy a book. But it's not so easy to predict what will bring us joy — what writers can do, as Moore suggests, is detach themselves from what they think will please, and free themselves up to be a little rude.

Elle [Official Site]

• This rather banal anecdote about Michael Kors being mistaken for Marc Jacobs is enlivened by an adorable photo of the two from when Jacobs was pale and long-haired and still had those clear-framed glasses that are so totally hot. [FWD]

• Kors designed the dress for his mother's second wedding. "Who in their right mind would actually listen to their five-year-old? Though the marriage didn't last, the pictures are timeless." When pressed on his status as a top or a bottom, Kors replied, "Well, I love eveningwear and I love sportswear." [VF]
• Karlie Kloss — who just turned 17 and celebrated at Disney World — booked the fall Alexander McQueen campaign. She looks ethereal and a little frightening — perfect for McQueen's aesthetic. [Fashionologie]
• Eva Mendes does what Eva Mendes does best for Calvin Klein, with Jamie Dornan. [Sun]
• An object lesson in what happens when you refuse a reporter's questions at a press event: they get snippy! Kanye West was described as "skittish" and "visibly withdrawn" as he "avoided all questions" at an event for Casio G Shock. Even though the rapper didn't clam up entirely — he praised Amber Rose, and said she'd just done her first modeling shoot — the interaction motivated WWD to note, "When he later took to the stage, 90 minutes behind schedule, West interrupted his set with a spontaneous, free-style rant against the press, with such lines as 'I'm sorry I broke your arm/I meant to break your camera' and 'I could kill a man/I am a man/Don't forget I could kill a man' regarding his fury at the invasive nature of today's media. As he stirred the audience into a frenzy, the bevy of invited reporters and photographers at the event (marketed by Casio as a press conference accompanied by a concert), were left to fidget uncomfortably with their press passes." [WWD]
• Kanye didn't mention it, but Elle's Joe Zee pointed out that the rapper recently styled a shoot for the magazine. Could Amber possibly have been the model? [FWD]
• Fifteen-year-old Christine Staub, the eldest daughter of Danielle Staub from the Real Housewives of New Jersey, has been signed by the modeling agency IMG. [Fashionista]
• Christian Siriano is looking forward to the advent of marriage equality so that he can marry his long-time partner, photographer Brad Walsh. "Maybe we'll buy a farm or something," explains the Project Runway designer. "I want to raise alpaca or something. You know, make my own alpaca coating." [E!]
• Sarah Jessica Parker is suing a Long Island perfume distributor for allegedly selling bottles of her "Lovely" fragrance without the quality-assurance marks. Her company is accusing the distributor of selling counterfeit or stolen product. [P6]
• Padma Lakshmi had Steven Meisel shoot the fall ads for her jewelry line, and the results are lovely, if a little overly Photoshopped. [WWD]
• Banana Republic's fall campaign is modeled by — wait for it! — actors and actresses. Krysten Ritter, who used to be a working model but would almost certainly never have booked such a gig before becoming an actress, must have had a tremendous case of déjà vu. Joining her in the shots are Lauren Ambrose, Chris Messina, Scott Speedman, Florence Faivre, Nicole Fiscella and Juan Diego Botto. [WWD]
• Residents of SoHo are reportedly unhappy with the new Hollister store downtown. One building is even flying a "Go Home Hollister" banner off a balcony. [Curbed]
• Retail rents are falling all through Manhattan, but the most drastic drop is along the Manhattan shopping corridor of Madison Avenue. With many prominent brands moving out of their former flagships on the Avenue, rents there have sunk from $1,100/sq. ft. to around $500/sq. ft. [Crain's]
• Company earnings for K Swiss fell 62% in the first six months of this year, off the back of a 29% decline in sales, and the company reported a net loss of $11.5 million. [WWD]

• Lindsay Lohan is on the cover of Elle UK — the shoot where jewelry went missing! — and here's what Editor-in-Chief Lorraine Candy writes in her Editor's letter:

"Lindsay Lohan wrote me a note during this month's cover shoot. It read, 'Let's do it again some time.' I've put it on my office wall because, in all honesty, I don't know if I could. This was the most unpredictable, and confusing cover shoot in my magazine career. First, Lindsay was about to arrive. Then she was in Paris. She was almost on set, then she disappeared into her hotel room. She was ready for her interview, then she had to have a fake tan! But we got there. And what we got was amazing. This shoot is truly original, just like Ms Lohan herself. In the end, she did her job brilliantly and, I hope you'll agree, so did we." Here's video from behind-the-scenes at the shoot [Elle TV]

• Chris Brown will be sentenced on Wednesday and appear on Larry King Live afterward: He'll apologize for assaulting Rihanna on TV. [Radar Online]
• Was Chris Brown forcibly removed from an upscale bowling alley in NYC last week for "partying too much"? [Fox 411]
• Take note: Tom Cruise is David and Victoria Beckham's "relationship guru." [Daily Express]
• "David Beckham is to star alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger in TV ads promoting California to tourists." [The Sun]
• Ryan O'Neal says of Farrah Fawcett's funeral: "I had just put the casket in the hearse and I was watching it drive away when a beautiful blonde woman comes up and embraces me. I said to her, 'You have a drink on you? You have a car?' She replied, 'Daddy, it's me - Tatum!' I was just trying to be funny with a strange Swedish woman, and it's my daughter. It's so sick." Tatum O'Neal says: "That's our relationship in a nutshell. You make of it what you will." [The Sun]
• Vanity Fair produced two different covers for its September issue: Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett. These deaths bumped a scheduled Mad Men cover, so now the actors from the show will be inside. Boo. [WWD]
• This paper spoke with the grandmother of the Samantha Burke, woman that Jude Law got pregnant. Delores Burke, 80, says: "What I want to know is how a girl gets pregnant in this day and age? Yes, it takes two people but he is the older and wiser man and he should have made sure nothing like this happened. I'm mad at him, we all are. He has other children. Didn't he think about how his actions would affect them?" [Daily Mail]
• "Samantha, her mom, and her family can affirm that Jude has been responsive and supportive throughout the relationship and pregnancy, and know that he will remain so as a father once Baby Sophia is born." [People]
• Video of Samantha Burke talking to the media at the link. TMZ]
• Apparently Samantha barely had any boyfriends, hence the headline: Prude Until Jude. [The Sun]
• A source says: "Jude sleeps with so many different women. A lot of names were going around as to who the mother of his baby could be." [Page Six]
• Jude's ex, Sadie Frost, is the oldest of 10 half brothers and sisters and mother of four kids from two marriages, so she's "understanding" and wants her kids with Jude to meet the new child. [Mirror]
• Jude Law allegedly told Sadie Frost that he only slept with Samantha Burke once, after a drunken party. [Daily Mail]
• Jessica Biel sings! She's playing Sarah Brown in Guys and Dolls at the Hollywood Bowl, and says she would love to to go Broadway: "That is one of my eight-year-old dreams. That's like my little eight-year-old inside me is cartwheeling around, thinking about that idea." [AP]
• Mariah Carey's new CD will have ads. Actually, the CD booklet will be a 34-page mini magazine in co-production with Elle… with ads from Elizabeth Arden, Angel Champagne, Carmen Steffens, Le Métier de Beauté and the Bahamas Board of Tourism. [BrandWeek]
• Paris Hilton's estranged manager Jason Moore is hopping a book about how he molded this blond piece of clay into a global icon." [Rush & Molloy]
• Dr. Conrad Murray was getting $150,000 a month to be Michael Jackson's personal physician. But many of his previous patients were low-income. "There are many, many patients that thank God this man was here for them," says one. One patient said Murray performed angioplasty on him three years ago without ever being guaranteed he would be paid. [CNN]
• If you have $30 million or so, you can big on the Andy Warhol portrait of Michael Jackson, going up for auction soon. [BBC News]
• Jon & Kate Plus 8 will not become Jon & Kate Plus Dates. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Leslie Mann says her husband Judd Apatow gives her anecdotes to tell while she's promoting new film Funny People: "He has trained me to be ultra-prepared, to have five stories ready to go. He gives what I say a beginning, a middle, and an end. Whereas I'd just barf it out," she says. "It's really lazy of me to depend on him to make me sound sensible, but so what? I'm lazy." [The New Yorker]
• Milla Jovovich: Getting hitched for the third time; filmmaker Paul W.S. Anderson is her fiancé. [Daily Mail]
• Tilda Swinton and 40 other people are pulling a film screen through the Scottish Highlands "on an eight and a half day odyssey through the mountains, camping each night in a different village." [Guardian]
• In this interview, Diane Kruger says she is a "country girl" and "definitely not sophisticated." The reporter writes: "What utter hogwash! Kruger spent most of her childhood summers on a scholarship to the Royal Ballet School in London, then five years as a top-drawer international model, based in Paris, before becoming a film actress." [Times of London]
• Liev Schreiber says kids make you youthful: "I'm older physically, but spiritually much younger." [People]
• Kate Middleton, aka Prince William's girlfriend, has had a series of meetings with Sir Richard Branson, in an effort to "sharpen her business acumen." [Daily Mail]
• Editors at British magazine Pride are apologizing for manipulating comments made by Nia Long, which made it seem like she was ranting about Beyoncé's acting skills. [Daily Express]
• Liza Minnelli will not be on Ugly Betty, but she will be on Drop Dead Diva. [AP]
• Whoops! Emile Hirsch and an Emile Hirsch impostor both attended the same party. [Page Six]
• Eric Bana is hot and talking about his attraction to cars. [Daily Mail]
• Sienna Miller on GI Joe: "If these films are well done I can find them quite entertaining. But…I prefer indie, arty films really. It's not the kind of film I'd normally go and see." [Guardian]
• In addition, Sienna's GI Joe wig cost cost £4,800. [Telegraph]
• Carey Hart says he and Pink are going to have a baby… Eventually. "She still has another 18 months of touring, and I'm pretty heavy in competing again in all my businesses, so it's definitely going to happen, but just not anytime soon." [E!]
• Q: A character with special needs or a prostitute-those are usually the two paths to Oscar. Had you considered that? Hugh Dancy: "I genuinely didn't. But now that you've said that, if it doesn't work out for me with Adam, I'll play a hooker next. There was the worry that if we didn't pull this off, I would look doubly exposed. Like, 'Really? You thought that was going to work? Better luck next time! There's this great prostitute movie coming out-maybe you should give that a shot.'" [BlackBook]
• Kevin Costner and his band were set to perform in Canada when suddenly the stage collapsed. One person died and at least 60 people were injured, including 2 members of Costner's band. [TMZ]
• Funny interview with Michael Ian Black and Michael Showalter, at the link. [BlackBook]
• Sheree from The Real Housewives Of Atlanta seems psyched that she was the number one trending topic on Twitter last week after her "Who's gonna check me, boo?" argument. She says: "You don't want to be on the wrong side of Sheree. You really don't. I tell them all the time, 'Don't let the cute face fool you!'" [E!]
• He's done Ali G, Borat and Brüno.What will Sacha Baron Cohen do next? How about a Eurovision music mockumentary? [The Sun]
• Kathleen Turner spills about living the last 17 years with the pain of rheumatoid arthritis, taking steroids which made her puffy and bloated and then turning to vodka to kill the pain — and becoming a drunk. [Daily Mail]
• Omarosa will be on TV One in a new series called Life After. [WaPo]
• "In Cold Souls, opening Friday in limited release, the actor Paul Giamatti plays an actor named…Paul Giamatti." [LA Times]
  
• Billy Joel is "distraught" over his breakup with Katie Lee Joel and "obsessed" with getting her back. [Page Six]
• People you may or may not have hear of had a kid: "Survivor & Amazing Race's Rob and Amber Become Parents." [People]
• Hollywood is out of ideas, part MCDXLIV: Steven Spielberg will direct a remake of Harvey, about a man and his friendship with an invisible six-foot tall rabbit. The original flick was released in 1950 and starred James Stewart. [Hollywood Reporter]
• Will Ferrell has left the film project Neighborhood Watch. [Variety]
• Dustin "Screech"Diamond: purposely excluded from the Saved By The Bell reunion by his castmates. [NY Daily News]
• Whatshername will celebrate her divorce with a televised "party extravaganza." [The Sun]
• Whatshername is on "yet another" holiday, and her cagefighter boyfriend is with her. [Daily Mail]
• Whatshisname has been crying himself to sleep and wishes he were stronger. [Mirror]
• "They did try to submit in the comedy category in the '90s and suffered from doing it in an era of juggernaut comedies like Friends and Seinfeld and Cheers and whatnot. And The Simpsons was as well written, if not more so, as any of those — but suffered from the prejudice against the medium. So I think perhaps in reparation for that, they should give them an honorary achievement Emmy." — Seth MacFarlane. [LA Times]
• "At 21 I married Luc Besson and we bought a beautiful 13-room chateau in Normandy. I was totally happy, drinking wine, walking in the forests and riding horses in the beautiful farmland. It didn't work because he was so much older. I was young and staying up late, playing the guitar and hanging out with my friends. He was the early riser who went to sleep early. He expected me to be the perfect wife, which was natural - the hostess entertaining his friends. But I was like, 'Aaaargh! I don't even like those people.' It's too bad it didn't work because he was an incredible person and I was an incredible girl, but the timing wasn't right." — Milla Jovovich. [Daily Mail]
• "I think Hillary Clinton is one of the most amazing women of this time. I don't know her and I don't know — should I call her? I'm sure she's busy. But I know they know this movie's being made. And I just want to call and say: Do you have any thoughts or feelings I should be aware of? Of course I can't make that call. I feel like saying, 'I'm going to play you in this movie and I have a lot of respect for you and is there anything you want me to say?'" — Hope Davis. [LA Times]
• "Whatever I say, I get myself into trouble." — Sienna Miller. [Guardian]
• "When I'm not working, I feel like a Ferrari in the garage. You have all this potential and you just want to break out." — Glenn Close. [LA Times]
• "I would talk my wacky language to him and he'd interpret it to the drummer. I'd say, 'I want it to sound like Zeus woke up from a nap and he's pissed and there's an opening in the clouds and he starts handing out lightning bolts,' which is crazy, but that's how I hear the rhythm. And Omar, he whispers some things to the drummer, and that's exactly what it sounds like. It really encouraged the songwriter within me." — Juliette Lewis, on recording her band's new album, produced by The Mars Volta's Omar Rodriguez-Lopez. [Reuters]
• "I have a theory that people feel as attractive as they did as a child. I was a really hideous child. People who were attractive as children have a sense of entitlement. I have a sense of awkwardness." — Kate Beckinsale. [Times of London]
• "Troy launched me but it launched me as the face that launched a thousand ships and not as an actress. I want roles where I have to expose my soul." — Diane Kruger. [Sydney Morning Herald]
• "I have never come across a female character that is written with Blanche's level of complexity, in that she's vulnerable, she's pathetic, she's a monster, she's nasty, she's tender, she's kind – she's so many things that you never know quite what she's going to do next. I've never come across so rich a character before." — Rachel Weisz on being in A Streetcar Named Desire in London. [Telegraph]
• "My life has gotten more surreal in stair steps. from the blog to the book to the movie to 'Oh my God, Nora Ephron's directing it! Oh my God, Meryl Streep's in it!' So right now I'm at this sort of surreal-is-the-new-normal phase. I'm cool with it." — Julie Powell, whose blog became the movie Julie & Julia. [NY Daily News]
• "I'm so not the relationship go-to girl. But I'm much clearer about what a relationship is, which is why I will never marry again. Gabriel and I have a great partnership and a lovely daughter. But I once was stupid enough to say, in a previous relationship, 'I'm going to be with this person for ever,' and realized, as I grew, that I don't know if for ever is possible. Gabriel and I don't look at our relationship in terms of for ever, we look at it as right here today. And today means being the best people we can be, the best parents we can be. It's wonderful, but neither one of us feels the need to attach ourselves to each other for life – because it may not be that." — Halle Berry. [Daily Mail]
• "I hate alcoholics and AA. If you can't drink responsibly, don't drink at all. Don't go to meetings, whine about your character flaws and blame the fact that you are a sociopath on booze" — Roseanne Barr to Heeb. [Page Six]