The Good:
I'd never loved this dress before — makes me think "Harlequin" — but Jaime King has made me a believer.


MIA was obviously going to make maternity look awesome.


January Jones looks as retro-elegant as Betty Draper ever did.


I love it when Rosario Dawson goes low-key.


Yes, Rashida Jones's silhouette is on trend, but it totally works!


The Bad:
If I find out Lynn Collins actually crocheted this, I take it all back.


See, I get what Olivia Wilde was going for — a casual, bohemian mix 'n match look. But this nightie and sequined shrug is looking more Norma Desmond.


Maybe when you're really naturally lovely, like Emmanuelle Chriqui, it's fun to get away with really ugly clothes just cause you can?


Sarah Shahi's red romper deal would depress me, too.


The Ugly:
YSL is currently rolling in his grave at Amber Valletta's interpretation of "le smoking!"

[Images via Getty]

At first, I thought perhaps the context of Mirren's statement would make it less nonsensical. I mean, why is Mirren even bringing up rape in an interview in the first place, much less for the second time in less than a year? I can't really imagine Julia Roberts weighing in on rape when talking to Redbook. But the context makes Mirren's statements even more damning, since she brings up rape apropos of nothing. First, Mirren claims to love women more than men, but then the reporter, a woman named Chrissy Iley, brings up the fact that in the past, Mirren has requested male interviewers instead of female ones. To that, Mirren says:

I prefer male journalists because there's a streak of female journalism - the bitches - who are mean-spirited and nasty because you are another woman and want to make you feel crap. It's very upsetting. I'm more careful when I'm being interviewed by a woman because, from experience as well as reading articles about other women, I know there is a little stiletto knife hidden behind the back.

Right after that, she launches into the part about rape cases quoted earlier. Perhaps the saddest part of all is the fact that Illey agrees with Mirren. "She's laughing as she sizes me up," Illey writes, "But she's right. On the whole, women don't like other women, because women are competitive with each other." Even more odd is that Illey spends the entire article basically drooling over Mirren's looks, describing her"simmering sexual presence" and skin-tight suit. "She’s wearing a cotton suit in milky beige and a white T-shirt. As she bends down, the skirt stretches over her bottom and thigh. Extremely tight." Then, after all that rape talk, Illey describes how Mirren aggressively flirts with her: "As I get up to go, she stops me and says, 'And thank you for the view.' I blush. I was jet-lagged, I had no clean underwear, so I’d gone without. I didn’t think she’d notice. But she did. And she laughs, the minx."

In this interview as well as the GQ piece, Mirren talks about how she has been raped before. "She has said in the past that when she was forced to have sex against her will it was the lethal result of a combination of feminism — not wanting to be a victim — and innocence — not knowing how not to be a victim," Illey writes. "She has said that it wasn’t about just saying no, because the man wouldn’t take no for an answer."

Great Britain has a pathetic record when it comes to rape prosecution — only 10% of rapes are reported and of those, only 6% get convictions — and as such, activists are furious with Mirren. Solicitor General Vera Baird tells the Daily Mail, "This is just such an ignorant thing to say, to suggest that the defence or prosecution have any involvement in the selection of a jury…It's such a shame that a person who has a high profile feels qualified and able to put forward this nonsense. It's capable of being quite dangerous because someone in that position saying that sort of thing, suggesting that she knows more than she actually does."

What remains a mystery is why Mirren continues to insert her feet firmly into her mouth. Is it because her ego is so huge she thinks she can do whatever she pleases without repercussion? Is she just projecting her own feelings of hate onto other women? Is it something deeper and more personal? Or is she just an asshole? In her interview with Illey, Mirren says, "I learn from the positive, not from the negative, but I do believe in getting on with it. Taking responsibility for yourself and not blaming other people is an incredibly important thing."

Helen Mirren: Perennial Pin-Up [Times of London]
Helen Mirren: Sexually Jealous Women Jurors Think Rape Victims Are Asking For It [Daily Mail]

Earlier: Helen Mirren on Being Raped And Why Women Should Just Learn To Work It Out
The Rape Conviction Rate In Britain Is Pathetically Low

Related: Me And My School Photo: Helen Mirren [Daily Mail]

Charlotte Rampling in 1974

Charlotte Rampling in 2007



Raquel Welch ca. 1969

Raquel Welch now



Julie Christie in 1965

Julie Christie now



Catherine Deneuve in 1967

Catherine Deneuve now

Sophia Loren in 1963

Sophia Loren now



True, GQ shows us these women in their youth. But the above photos are proof that hotness isn't dependent on unlined skin and a provisional driver's license. Sometimes when you got it, you got it for good.

The 25 Sexiest Women in Film — Of All Time [GQ]

• Snoop Dogg takes cross-marketing to a whole new level: He's promoting his clothing line, Rich and Infamous, via his reality TV series Snoop Dogg's Father Hood, on his concert tour, through placement in movies and videos, on iTunes, through a Web series, and, natch, on the packaging of his new CD. [Variety]
• It's easy to believe Kate Moss is a crappy neighbor, but it does seem like this would be the least of the problems: "Neighbors at her Oxfordshire summer home have complained to the local planning authority about Moss’ two 15 feet teepees erected in her backyard. Their complaints are that the tents are an eye sore on the 17th Centrury home... and also obscure the view of the Cotswold hills." [Sassybella]
• Albert Hammond, Jr. is going into menswear. The Strokes guitarist, solo artist and Agyness Deyn fiance explains: “A lot of people hate suits, because when they fit terribly, they feel strange inside, like they’re going to a bar mitzvah and they’re 30,” [NY]
• Rememeber those Russian faux-lesbian school girl sorta-pop singers who were big for like two seconds five years ago, t.A.T.u ? Yeah. For some reason Marc Jacobs is featuring them in an ad. [Perez Hilton]

• Screw the conventions: it's official. Obama and McCain are now paper dolls. They've been drawn by renowned artist Tom Tierney, "who casts the candidates and their spouses as ready-to-dress paper people, each with about half a dozen wardrobe changes (oddly, Barack Obama's daughters Malia and Natasha are included — each with a single cold-weather outfit — but John McCain's brood of seven is absent)." And yes, they're in undies. [LAT]
• New Rachel Zoe line will, apparently, contain everything plus kitchen sink: "We're doing accessories, clothes, everything — we're going across the board. I always have a lot I want to say, and I think there's a gap in certain areas [of the fashion market]. I'm thinking it will launch sometime in 2009. It will be very accessible. I want people to have access to fashion fantasy all the time. I also want the person who's spending $500 on a purse to want to buy it. It will be a mix of lower-tier and midrange prices — maybe with some limited-edition items." [LAT]
• "Nike Sportswear" opens its first boutique. [WWD]
• Heidi Klum has designed a butterfly/tennis ball tee shirt that we wouldn't wear if our lives depended on it. [Sassybella]
• Why do celebs think hawking T-shirts is the answer to all the world's problems? Elettra Wiedemann. Isabella Rossellini's moddle daughter, "is more than just a pretty face - she's trying to save the world one T-shirt at a time. The Italian stunner is working with the Solar Electric Life Fund to equip a failing hospital in Kigutu, Burundi, with solar power. To raise $450,000, Wiedemann enlisted the help of fashion-industry friends to design limited-edition, Africa-inspired T-shirts to be sold via JOFD.org." [Page Six]
• New J. Crew accessories catalogue is ridiculously high-end. And no mittens! [WWD]
• You can thank this woman for Rachel Zoe: "Founder of the Margaret Maldonado Agency, one of a dozen or so offices that place stylists with high-profile clients, she's the image maker behind the image makers." [LAT]
• Honeymoon's over: more fast fashion condemnation. [Guardian]
• "Brazilian design and designers are spearheading a new look that is increasingly taking over in Europe and the US." The nature of "the look" is vague. [Independent]
• Is Madonna going to pioneer a "hosiery trend?" We're gonna go with "Winter" on that one. [The Sun]
• Rumor has it that American Apparel is extending its evil, vertically-integrated empire to shoes. [Fashionista]
• Tyra claims she was Kimora's modeling mentor: "She didn't have rhythm … I'd teach her how to roll her hips sexy," says the modeling mogul. [NY Mag]
• Horseshoe boots, anyone? The top five strangest Japanese fashion trends. Just look at it, okay? [Inventor Spot]

First, Schoff. He slipped into the septic tank in his backyard while trying to get a piece of toilet paper unstuck. The writer fantasizes about punching Joel Osteen in the face the whole way to Schoff's house but Schoff doesn't have much to tell him about the experience:

"Didn't smell s'bad. Smelled like dirt, mostly. I was covered in it. Dirt, and some other stuff. I'm a celebrity. There goes the guy from TV. Last time I went to church was probably thirty-five years ago…No, I wasn't angry. I'm pretty active. I was thinking I was dead. Got m' good days and m' bad days.

Then, Gisele. Did you know Gisele owns some sort of extended-stay hotel in Santa Monica? That's about the most revealing thing we learn here:

Look, I know who I am, and I know where I come from. I think there is danger obviously when you're really young and they make you all glamorous and then you start thinking you are that… This is exactly how I would describe my work: I get there, I put on the clohtes, I leave it on the hanger, and I go home. And that's what I do.

And finally, Michael Caine. Would you believe he's been married to his wife for 35 years? That's just one year longer than the amount of time Bob Schoff has been married to his wife! Caine is in a higher tax bracket, of course. He talks about that. The tax rate used to be 82% in California, you know. (Wait, can I get the math on this? And think we could try it again sometime?) What else does he say? Not a whole lot. But this passage stuck out. For obvious reasons.

Is it true that in the '60s you used to drink two bottles of vodka a day? My God, that's impossible I used to drink a lot. Yeah. Vodka's very easy to drink and very nice. You can drink it with a lot of stuff.
Yeah, but two bottles a day. How would you work or sleep? Or eat? When would you have time to do anything? Along with eighty cigarettes!
It's a very long day. But I didn't do that when I was working. And I don't do that now That was a long time ago.

And he probably doesn't remember any of it. Anyway, that GQ, they sure tried! But I guess for now it's summer, and the only thing to do is drink it away.

In brief, West Indians make "marvellous surrogate mothers, which is odd because they have such terrifying children themselves" while Australians "are famous in Nannyworld for needing sex about as often as Bentleys need filling up. And in the same quantities," while South Africans are mostly to be avoided for their accents, (Elsewhere in British GQ it's noted that cover girl Charlize Theron has none.) Old liberal Europeans are "expensive and demanding" but will teach your child conversational French and to write letters "demanding the release of Aung San Suu Kyi." while Soviet bloc New European girls "will life happily in a converted broom cupboard and talk wistfully of how they could fit their grandmothers and cousins into the airing cupboard," though they are "seriously predatory when it comes to solvent men with their own cars." Having chosen an ethnic group compatible with your budget, political leanings and number of accumulated delusions of grandeur you intend to project onto your offspring, the more divisive dilemma of pretty vs. ugly takes center stage. "Mothers go for ugly because they just had a baby and they are flabby, grey-faced, lank-haired and tearful," he explains. "On the other hand, who would purposely go and buy a huge piece of hideous furniture to stand in the middle of every room of the house? Having a grim nanny is a constant aesthetic poke in the eye."

At this point, readers, you probably recognize that the point of posting this is simply to say, "See? Seeeeee how the satire-lite thing works, guys? See what they get away with?" Etc. etc. But Gill isn't done!

You may wonder why I'm telling you all this hideous, racist, sexist, 19th century, embarrassingly stupid shit…You wait: having a child, being responsible for children, gives the parent permission to say and do the most appallingly pernicious, unfair, vain and inconsiderate and cruel things. The moral of the nanny conversation is that you have to be a good person before you become a good father. Fatherhood won't turn you into a good person. Quite the reverse, it may make you into a far nastier one.

But hey, if you're a father, chances are you are a bad person, even if you weren't before, which is why family men have an easier time getting laid, because that's how evolution intended it, according to one of those new studies intended to prove to "nice" guys women sleep with dudes like A.A. Gill, when actually the real reason A.A. Gill gets laid is because, you know…it's a joke! There's no way he could possibly be that bad…

Yes, I digress.

British GQ

Bad Guys Really Do Get The Most Girls [New Scientist]

• [Mariah Carey] is very happy. I've spoken with her and she is superb. She is over the moon. I received an email from her [Monday] and she is so happy. She really sounds like someone on her honeymoon." — Andre Leon Talley. Talley also says the wedding happened so quickly he "didn't have the time to offer her any style tips!" Underminer. [People]
  
• Britney Spears' progress impressed the court yesterday. She will now get three days of supervised visitation a week; within a month she should get overnight visits. Stay the course, girl! [TMZ]
  
• Lindsay Lohan has another job! She'll star in Labor Pains, a comedy about a young woman who pretends to be pregnant to avoid being fired. Yay for her; boo for another damn knocked up movie. Is that all women are good for? [Page Six]

• Liv Tyler didn't wear her wedding ring to the Costume Institute Gala. Add this to the sad stuff in the last Midweek Madness about getting married too young and hubby Royston Langdon being a leech on her assets, and you gotta wonder... [Rush & Molloy]
• Scarlett Johansson, however, did have a ring on her finger: The rock Ryan Reynolds gave her. [Rush & Molloy]
• Denise Richards knew her marriage to Charlie Sheen wasn't going to work when he accused Richards of poisoning their daughter with a vaccination. Yeah, I don't know. [Page Six]
• Nicky Hilton cut the buffet line at Diddy's party. "Everyone behind her rolled their eyes," says a source. [Rush & Molloy]
• Robin Williams has pledged to keep his divorce civil. Good for him! Boring for us. [People]
• Ryan Seacrest may be replacing Larry King??? Sources say he will take over Larry King Live at the end of the year. "He's the classic generalist," King says. "The only thing I don't know, and I've gotten to know him pretty well, is how versed he is in politics, world affairs. Does he read the paper? Is he interested in Iraq? Because if he is, he's going to be very good." Haha, Iraq. Raise your hand if you think Seacrest knows where it is. [MSNBC]
• Mary-Kate Olsen was submitted by Showtime as "Best Guest Actress in a Comedy Series" for her role on Weeds. She could win an Emmy! [MSNBC]
• Pete Doherty left prison with a certificate proclaiming him drug-free. (He may have made the certificate himself.) He told reporters: "I made a few friends in there and the food was all right. I can't wait to have a rum and coke. I've missed the little things like girls and cats." [Mirror]
• Terri Irwin, widow of Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin, has settled a lawsuit with creditors who claimed the zoo owed them $2.3 million. [Yahoo News]
• If you thought the Gwyneth Paltrow Vogue cover was PhotoShopped, wait till you see the GQ bobblehead cover. [PsD]
• Ugly Betty is moving to New York! I've always hated the fake-ass "Manhattan" streets they use, which are so clearly a Hollywood lot. Now New Yorkers will have Wilhelmina, Marc and Amanda sightings! [LA Times]
• So, you know the rumor that Mr. Big dies in the Sex And The City movie? Director Michael Patrick King says: "Kill Mr. Big? I would have been chased around the planet by women with torches. It's a summer movie. Why would I want to kill anyone?" [CNN]
• The new Coldplay album will be a rainbow! "Each song is our attempt to do a different colour," says Chris Martin. "It doesn't matter whether the record is good or bad. It matters that it's colourful. The songs are supposed to be flavours, things we haven't tasted before." Um, good to know. [The Sun]
• Rosie O'Donnell responded to the interview Barbara Walters gave on Oprah, saying, "I love her." [People]
• Harry Potter author JK Rowling has won her battle to ban the publication of a long-lens photograph of her son in a privacy case. One of the judges explained: "If a child of parents who are not in the public eye could reasonably expect not to have photographs of him published in the media, so too should the child of a famous parent." [Reuters]

"Why is there this division all of a sudden between people in support of me and people against me? How did this happen? I haven't done anything to anybody! I look at Karl Lagerfeld and John Galliano—everybody has their shtick. And just because this wasn't my shtick two years ago, it's a problem."

There are few remaining champions of Mark Jacobs. Affection for him has eroded over the past year in particular, as he has emerged as a gym-and-Sponge Bob Square pants-and-Victoria Beckham-obsessed mean girl, someone who lets the masses wait ages for his fashion shows to start, only to stick his tongue out at them from his own turn on the catwalk afterwards. This is not the fat and greasy Jacobs that garnered notoriety and respect for showing "couture grunge" for Perry Ellis over fifteen years ago. And I suspect that Kaylin, who wrote of her inalienable right to employ a nanny in her recently-published book the The Perfect Stranger, doesn't have much sympathy for a man who openly hates his mother. (In her book, Kaylin was very insistent about how much her children must love her despite (in spite?) of her choices. Jacobs probably made her uncomfortable.) When he was seven years old, Jacobs's father died from ulcerative colitis (a condition he also has), and then watched his mother take off on, as Kaylin puts it, "a chaotic period of power dating and failed marriages." This underscored the young Jacobs's belief that his mother was, inherently, a person who made poor choices:

I hate the term 'bad taste,' but my mother wasn't, like, a very chic person. Jane Fonda in Klute was definitely one of her role models, much to my father's dismay. But when I'd watch my mother getting dressed up to go out on dates and she'd be putting on three rows of false eyelashes and some hideous fox-trimmed brocade coat with a wet-look miniskirt and knee-high boots...

Utterly cold on the subject. I never believed that idea that you're supposed to love the members of your family. I hate the idea of obliged feelings—I just think that's a huge waste of time. But I've had enough conversations with people to realize that I'm the oddball in this category. I can't think of anyone as detached from their family as I am. Or as detached as I say I am.

Exercising is fun — the best part of my day. I'm such a catastrophic thinker that when anything happens, I figure I better just live life to the fullest — buy a diamond necklace, get another tattoo, work out... Whatever makes me feel good, I want more of. If work is going well, I want to do more clothes. If the gym thing is working for me, I want to be bigger. If getting my hair cut makes me look younger, I want to play with the color.... 'I want to look hot.' That is such a dumb thing to say. But what's so cool about it is that you can say it. Yeah, I want a bunch of muscle queens at David Barton Gym to think that my body looks dope. And I might think that was an awkward and dumb thing to say, but I still like that I'll throw it out there. Because it's true, you know?

Well. some of us would. Let's hope he stays sober and healthy. I'll bet there are still many creative tricks up his fashionable, neurotic sleeve.

Marc Jacobs Doesn't Give A F___ [GQ]

That guy. You know him. He is the big talker, the philosophical dominator of the group, the chief purveyor of the whiskey-soaked rhetorical salves when his dude friends get hurt or dumped or discarded or simply awakened to the cruel magnitude of their own imperfections. This dude does not bother caring about his own imperfections. And before I go any further, let me just make this a story about Don, lest all the other dudes in my life who complain that their dude friends are irrationally entangled in monogamous relationships with tyrannical educated she-males assume it's about them. (Not because they read this site, you understand, but because their whipped married dude friends get their only kicks from sending them hyperlinks to posts I have written that are totally talking about you, dude.)

Don has a lot of great guy friends, but whenever they get into relationships, he comes calling me about how they have totally betrayed him for the most cliche reason ever, which is to say, pussy. How could they not know better, don't they read the Bible etc., no, because they "put the pussy on a pedestal" again or whatever. Don assumes they are experiencing this because once, a very long time ago, he carried a seven-year torch for a girl who cheated on him repeatedly. She was not worth it. That = you get for putting the pussy on a pedestal. That and a fucking mortgage. Fuck that.

Once I IM-ed Don for romantic advice, just to see what he would say when faced with the same sort of dilemma from a female friend. "I wonder what you did to fuck it up," he wrote.

The 25 Most Whipped Men On The Planet [GQ]

P.S. Don, I only write this out of love, and also, because I needed a post.

Sure, there are some superficial moments in the GQ piece. (Two of the Ben-Gals in the locker room preparing for a game: "We look so awesome." "Oh, my God, we do!") And yes, the women tease their hair, fake their tans, paint their lips with orange lipstick and obsess over every pound gained and lost. But before you toss these women off as flippant and the story as chauvinistic, take a moment to appreciate the fact that they are allowed to speak in their own voices in the piece, a smart journalistic move which eliminates any possibility for the reader to assume any tone of condescension and shows many of these women for who they are: Just as smart as they are sexy. There's Rhone:

I have a bachelor's in chemistry and a bachelor's in biology. I just finished my master's in public health with an emphasis in environmental-health science. For two years, I worked on a project dealing with air quality within chemical-fume hoods. We came up with something called the smoke-particle-challenge method. I did monoclonal-antibody research for BD Transduction Laboratories. I worked for the U.S. government at the Center for Health Promotion and Preventative Medicine... For me the Ben-Gals is about fulfilling a dream. Not many people out there can say they're an NFL cheerleader. I have never been so proud to wear such an ugly color of lipstick....[W]hen a small-town girl tries out for NFL cheerleading and makes it, that's huge. I made the front page of our local newspaper.

People think we're so weird...Like, a guy will ask you out on a date on a Wednesday night, and you can't say, "I can't eat, because I have to weigh in tomorrow." But you can't go and not eat, either. So it is hard. I usually say to a guy, "Let's wait until Friday night, because I have four days to get my weight back down after that"....Of course, guys look at it as some type of sex symbol. But I don't think it's a thing that guys want their girlfriend to look like, you know what I mean? It's like a costume. It's not something I think a guy would like to look at every day.

My mom was killed. She was murdered by my stepdad. I had just turned 1 year old. I break down sometimes. You can't think: Why me? Things happen for a reason. You just can't think about the unknown... With the Ben-Gals, with thirty girls in one group, you'd think it'd be a bunch of backstabbers, cliques, but it's not like that. They say I'm this role model because I have a little girl I'm raising on my own and I work construction. They say I'm an inspiration. They say that they're amazed I do all this....Being a Ben-Gal in general is just awesome.

Meet the NFL Cheerleader: G-L-O-R-Y [GQ]

Earlier: Angelina Jolie: A Woman For All Seasons (And Sexes)

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

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

While it's true that women can be obsessed and concerned with their weight as compared to other women (my shameful secret is that I am a dutiful reader of theskinnywebsite.com — where an insane woman tracks the weight gain and loss of every starlet down to the ounce), isn't the implication that all women want to be thin as a bid for alpha female control a vast overstatement? Isn't our collective weight obsession a fraught and complex issue, with so many societal factors that oversimplifying it into mere catfighting is downright insulting? All the same, Bilmes isn't completely off the mark. Who among us has not mentally denigrated another, more successful woman by thinking, "Well at least I'm thinner"? (I'm not at all proud of it, but it's happened. But it's not just about weight — I've mentally denigrated other people in all manners of pettiness! i.e., at least I'm cuter/younger/etc.) Are you dismissive of those pleasure-seeking, beta-females? Or do you think Bilmes deserves an arse-kicking via one of those women with the "unappealing" musculature?

Vogue UK

Men's magazines have nipples, so why don't women have a magazine where men show their penises? If there was a magazine like that I'd buy it. Nudity's not a big deal to me.

We're sick of reading profiles in which Scarlett Johansson and Lindsay Lohan sound like they're these awesome empowered articulate hypersexual uberconfident dames when, um, duh, they're 21, so like, what they have going for them can pretty much be summed up as "perky tits." Sayin!

Jessica Alba Has Never Heard Of Playgirl [Fleshbot]