• Maria Sharapova is denying that her controversial tennis getup had anything to do with her upset loss to Alla Kudryavtseva (dressed in a simple skirt and red-trimmed top). [Guardian]
• Recessionistas take note: Richard Chai for Target is cute. First look! [Nylon]
• No, seriously, Donatella. You need to stop talking. Now. […

• Who is Tory Burch's elusive 23-year old stepdaughter Pookie? On Mondays, Pookie interns for Bruce Weber, and the rest of the week she works as the assistant to the president of Carolina Herrera, and she was (allegedly) responsible for the magical pairing of New York's leading faux-WASP ice princess with Princess…

• Georgio Armani is co-chairing a dinner to celebrate a Vogue-sponsored Costume Institute exhibit called "Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy." Which is why he gave a press conference during which he professed to be "indifferent" to Anna Wintour while standing next to her. We assume he'll be too dead to make it to dinner.…

• Venus Williams was awarded with an associate's degree in fashion design from the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale over the weekend, becoming the first celebrity "designer" to ever get a degree in fashion design. She even got a prize for the "Best Sportswear Collection" and a 3.5 GPA. Also, she has a collection for…

• Designer Issey Miyake's show taking place today in Paris is inspired by vacuum cleaners. Guaranteed not to blow you away? [WWD, 5th item]
  
• TopShop is opening its first U.S. store, supposedly in time for the holiday season. [Fashionista]
  
• Giorgio Armani paid himself $346.5 million this year. We hope he enjoys it before…

• Todd Oldham has been named creative director at Old Navy. Says ON prez Dawn Robertson:"Todd was an interesting choice because he is so relevant. He is really modern." Which is interesting, you see, because the Gap usually goes the extra mile to be irrelevant. [WWD, sub req'd]
  
• Cell phones are the new handbags, so if…

• Alina Shriver, who is part of the whole Shriver-Kennedy clan, is getting in on the whole rich socialite starting a fashion label thing. We hope it evades the Kennedy "curse"! [NYPost]
  
• He speaks! Notoriously hermetic, recently-ousted Dior Homme designer Hedi Slimane will be interviewed in French newspaper Le Monde this…

The first time I saw an International Male catalog was at the all-girls Virginia boarding school I attended in the 1980s. The cool girls — the ones who owned their own horses and got BMWs for their 16th birthdays, with car-size bows on top — got the catalog in their mailboxes, along with subscriptions to GQ. The…

• Rachel Zoe: prepare to die. The celebrity stylist has announced herself mightier than Anna Wintour! Uh, didn't Zoe ever study Greek mythology in school? Don't taunt the gods. [WWD, 1st item]
  
• Former Dior Homme designer Hedi Slimane is BFFs with French president Nicolas Sarkozy?! (Might they be interested in a…

• "If I could just do one thing for 24 hours it would be [have sex] . . . or sew. Or have sex while sewing. Or sew an outfit to have sex in." So says singer Beth Ditto, which is why the plus-sized Ditto is now collaborating with New Look to become the most unlikely (and kinda awesome!) celebrity clothing endorser yet. [