Tea, whose last contribution to The Believer was an excellent 2006 essay that offered a queer theory reading of the Annual Taxidermy Convention, Competition, And Trade Show, here offers up a light Paris diary. But in between the Karl Lagerfeld and the Kanye West and the Kate Moss (who actually, during one climactic moment, walks up to Tea and pushes her), there are some real insights.

For one, sexuality issues in fashion are given a hearing, not least because Tea, a lesbian, is accompanying fellow lesbians Ditto, and Tara Perkins — the "Annie Oakley" behind the Sex Workers' Art Show Tour — who manages the Gossip. The fact that the three women are described as having each grown up very poor also motivates Tea to write some eloquent statements about fashion's foundational exclusivity, and about what it means to be on one side of the velvet rope. After being waved past a group of "queer boys with great style and no connections" outside the Nina Ricci show, Ditto remarks, "I've got survivor's guilt. I've got punk guilt."

We all know there's plenty to hate about the insanity of the consumer-driven, needs-manufacturing, world of fashion. But Tea also offers a cogent apologia for liking overpriced clothes:

"For a long time I hated beauty for the way people used it as a measuring stick to beat people, especially women. But I came to believe in a vast idea of beauty, one that included me and all my beautiful weirdo friends As for more conventional beauty, I didn't have to hate it just because people let it make them stupid. My attitude moved from the conceptual to the concrete: Take a beautiful dress. Say it's a Rodarte dress, made by these sort of creepy, gothic sisters who live with their parents in Pasadena. Their dresses look like a storybook princess messed them up while wearing them on a jaunt through the space-time continuum. They are torn tulle and stiff corset and lots of lace and flowers and fluffy bullshit stuck all over the place. Parts make you wonder if these sisters, the Mulleavy sisters — see, even their names make you think of the dark family landscape of a Joyce Carol Oates novel — are employing some sort of spider-beast to do their weaving. The dresses cost upwards of ten thousand dollars at Barneys. At one time in my psychological development, this would have made me hate the dresses, hate the designers, hate those poseur Mulleavy sisters, hate anyone and everyone who could afford them, hate capitalism, hate the world, hate the universe and whatever string of incomprehensible events led to the big bang. Now I think — when I go into Barneys to visit these dresses (the way I have gone to the SPCA to visit with various animals I can't adopt), to just pet their glorious fabrics and marvel at the endless detailing and giggle at the whimsical appliqués — I think: It isn't the dress's fault that it's so expensive. I love it like a living thing, and visit it at this department store. I don't love a painting on a museum wall any less for not being able to own it."

Beth Ditto comes across extremely well in the story. She seems kind, and down-to-earth; she can't sleep alone, and sometimes even then she has to make up jokes to combat insomnia. ("What do D&D-playing goth couples fight about the most? The thermoLeStat! Get it?") She spends hours doing different hair and makeup looks for the women in her life — she says if she weren't in a rock band, she'd be in beauty school. She goes to breakfast at her fancy Paris hotel in her pajamas. And Ditto is light years away from the typical raised-in-privilege star: Tea describes how she grew up "in a part of Arkansas with no MTV, no telephones, no indoor plumbing, and no money."

Yet everyone is on the star swag gravy train; Ditto and Perkins went "shopping" in London prior to fashion week, retrieving articles of clothing from designers' showrooms for nada. Even the girlfriend of a Gossip member grabs a free fur from Fendi. As Ditto puts it, "If people think you're rich they give you things. If they think you're poor, they don't give you anything." The true import of this paradox — the idea that fashion relies on a vast underclass whose belief in the value of products they could never afford actually inflates those very products' prices high enough that the profits they make for the label can be invested in giving away shit to those who actually could afford to buy at the inflated value — is regrettably never fully explored. If fashion is, even in part, a giant system for the regressive redistribution of wealth, then surely Tea could have drilled down on these issues with a source as articulate and informed as Ditto.

Many of Tea's criticisms of the fashion industry, seen through the particular seven-day-circus of fashion week, are similarly implicit. When discussing Ditto's magazine appearances, Tea notes that "magazines are always wanting to dress Beth burlesque, in feathers and corsets and other looks that died out around the turn of the present century, or else they want her to be naked. Beth's onstage stripping has more in common with Iggy Pop's frolicking in broken glass than a burlesque act." The fact that the nudity and burlesque concepts ends up reinforcing one of the tritest and most tired stereotypes about larger women — that they must be lusciously sexually available — must be an annoyance to Ditto, who puts down stereotypes like it's her job, but her reaction is not stated in Tea's piece, beyond the implication that Ditto finds burlesque shoots boring. And although Tea attributes this failure of magazines' imagination in part to "stylists unused to dressing fat girls," she fails to note the number one structural constraint of the industry that influences how Ditto might be styled: magazines shoot fashion samples. Fashion samples are made in tiny sizes. Any celebrity who can't fit into the ridiculously sized clothes is likely to be asked to pose naked. The industry that Ditto loves, and which claims extravagantly to love Ditto back (an LED screen at a party reads "FENDI <3 BETH"), cannot bring itself to make clothing she can wear, except by special arrangement.

Tea evidently likes Ditto; indeed, from the way she comes across in this essay — feminist, self-possessed, genuine — it would be impossible not to like her. But it seems like Tea's affection for her source kept her from asking, at crucial junctures, some hard questions. This shyness, this willingness to go right up to the edge of any of the contradictions that strikes through the heart of the fashion industry, but no further, is the only thing that keeps this piece from being truly excellent. All the sleepovers and makeovers and fashion parties make one yearn for something just a little bit deeper. To a certain extent, this problem of perspective ends up mirroring the frothiness of fashion itself. As Cathy Horyn once wrote, although there are many lively and informative angles from which to interrogate the fashion industry, from inside that world, perspective can be limited: "Fashion ain't deep. It looks into a mirror and sees...itself."

But although Tea's essay is at times perhaps a little too inclined to take the industry at face value, she understands and articulates a lot that most professional fashion writers never seem to get across. Perhaps it takes a genuine grown-up high school misfit to notice that most, if not all, fashion people are not the "cool" kids aged 10 years: "Though many would think of the term fashion people and conjure rail-thin, snotty, sickeningly wealthy women and their male counterparts, in reality, a lot of fashion people are ex-nerds, small-town gays who dressed eccentrically and got made fun of for being flamboyant and fruity." It really is a world populated by people who were always made to feel different. (Of course, having been at one time intimately acquainted with one's own disempowerment isn't necessarily a prophylactic against replicating that power structure later, in a new context, with oneself in a more secure place, and perhaps that is where the industry's "snottiness" comes from.)

At the end of the week, after Tea and Perkins sneak goodie bags and bump into Nan Goldin, and after Ditto talks with Vivienne Westwood about Leonard Peltier, the Gossip plays a Fendi after-party at the VIP Club wearing a specially-made sequin-and-fur ensemble she can take off, piece by piece — "a wonderful Russian nesting doll of an outfit," as Tea puts it. Ditto takes the stage, and announces, "I'm very, very rich!" before throwing her fur headpiece into the audience, and the band starts to play. The writer reflects:

"Even though I have been here all week, knowing that every moment was leading to this, watching Beth accosted by photographers and flattered by designers, I still cannot get over how this little band that I have known for so long, this indie queer feminist punk band, is the absolute star of the Fendi show. The reality is staggering. In many ways it shouldn't be a surprise — less-talented, less-interesting, less-charismatic artists get famous all the time. They just tend not to be so outspokenly queer, so flamboyantly fat, so poor in their roots, so disconnected from the music industry, with no secret dad producer or mom publicist. The Gossip got to this lit-up stage in Paris through the force of their own dogged dedication to their DIY garage-rock band. It makes my eyes fill with fucking tears."

If fashion — or music, for that matter — needed defending, that call-to-arms is plenty good enough for me.

All cell phone photos by Michelle Tea, courtesy of the Believer

Full disclosure: In 2006, I was a summer intern for The Believer and McSweeney's. I did a lot of fact-checking and tried to interest them in an essay about hoboes.

The Gossip Takes Paris [The Believer]
Charming Deformities [The Believer]
Conspicuous By Their Presence [NYTimes]

• VIP guests at Britney Spears' recent London gig weren't too happy when they discovered that Britney had declared the backstage to be a alcohol free area as a result of "her problems with alcohol." [TheSun]

• Phil Spector's wife, Rachelle, is now complaining about the conditions he's being forced to live in. "He's locked in a 5-by-9-foot cell 23½ hours a day," she says. "They treat people worse than animals. I want that known." [NYPost]
• Oh snap! Iggy Pop has singled out Billy Corgan and Fred Durst as the reasons why rock stars pretty much suck these days, calling them "idiot thugs with guitars making crappy music...Anyone from Smashing Pumpkins to - what's the one with Fred Durst?... There are a million billion of them. And people think they're gods, man. I took great pains not to think first because the thing I can't stand is a rock star who thinks he's got brains. They're always so damned dull!" [DailyExpress]
• Peter Jackson is finally making an appearance at ComicCon, in order to support his friend Neill Blomkamp's film District 9. He will most likely spend the entire time saying, "No, we haven't cast Bilbo yet, I swear!" [NYTimes]
• Lost star Emilie de Ravin is divorcing her husband, Josh Janowicz, after three years of marriage. [People]
• "As you can imagine, this is very hard. All together there were five of us that had the Carradine name. David had a lot of admiration for his father as an actor, and his mother he loved very dearly. We have all been close and we all love each other."-Bruce Carradine, on the death of his brother David. [USWeekly]
• Jay-Z released a new song, "Death Of The Autotune" on Hot97 last night. Sample lyric: "This ain't a No. 1 record/This is practically assault with a deadly weapon." R.I.P., Autotune? [HipHopGalaxy]
• Robert DeNiro is currently starring in commercials for...Subaru? [TimesOnline]
• Rosie O'Donnell says she's learned that screaming gets you nowhere: "I learned that when you yell, nobody hears you," she says, "The best communicators have to live and present themselves in a peaceful manner. And that's going to be a lifelong quest of mine." [CBSNews]
• "I love Perez! Like I think it's really cool that he asked that rad question at Miss America [he quizzed Miss California on gay marriage]. Once he put a picture of that blue catsuit I used to wear next to a Teletubbie, and I could have been like, 'You're an asshole.' But I thought it was really fucking funny."- Beth Ditto [Guardian]
• Universal has responded to allegations that Sacha Baron Cohen injured a woman on the set of Bruno by releasing this statement: "The allegations made by Richelle and Lance Olson in their complaint are completely baseless. Filmed footage of the full encounter, which took place more than two years ago, clearly shows that Ms. Olson was never touched or in any way assaulted by Sacha Baron Cohen or any member of the production and suffered no injury. If the Olsons elect to proceed with their frivolous action, we expect each of the defendants to be fully vindicated." [DeadlineHollywood]
• Looking forward to Whitney Houston's new album? This "sizzle reel" will get you even more excited. [Popbytes]
• Susan Boyle's brother says she's doing much better now that she's left The Priory: "She is much happier. She seems a lot more like herself," she says, "Things are becoming clearer for her now. She's now beginning to believe that, "Yes indeed, I will be a singer." [DailyMail]
• Emma Thompson says that Britain is falling behind the rest of the world in terms of the way they treat working mothers: "It depends where you are in the world. It's not brilliant here in Britain compared to, for example, Scandinavia – maternity leave and everything is different and they're much more clued in to what parents and children need," she says, "We still have quite a lot of Victorian principles hanging on, you can see it and feel it." [DailyExpress]
• Penn Badgely says he wants to star in a remake of Blade Runner. Cue the fanboy outrage! [DailyExpress]
• Jon and Kate Gosselin are speaking with divorce lawyers. Can't we all just get divorced from the both of them, please? [PageSix]
• James Franco and Robert Pattinson are reportedly fighting it out to play the lead in a Jeff Buckley biopic, which is dumb, as everyone knows that James is pretty much the spitting image of Jeff. So whatever, Sparkly Vampire! [ONTD]

• Ashton Kutcher elaborately pranked CNN and Ted Turner:

He threw a banner with his Twitter name, aplusk, over the CNN neon sign at the Atlanta, GA news center. Earlier in the day, he'd visited a restaurant owned by Ted Turner, Ted's Montana Grill, and, with the help of some friends, neatly stacked hundreds of boxes of Ding Dongs in front of the establishment. Kutcher had challenged CNN to a Twitter race, saying he would donate 10,000 mosquito bed nets to charity for World Malaria Day if he beat CNN, and 1,000 if he lost. CNN agreed to do the same. "CNN lost. That's what happened," Kutcher explained. "I'm just fulfilling a promise I made ... that I'd do this thing and I'm doing it." [CNN]

• Madonna and Jesus Luz are indeed having some kind of Kabbalah commitment ceremony, but Jesus's dad says it's not necessarily legally binding: "I don't know if there will, in fact, be a real marriage between Madonna and my son. It will be a type of ritual, but I do not know Kabbalah [or if the ceremony] will have legal validity." Yeah, no way she is letting him near her cash. [Gatecrasher]
• Amy Winehouse's father says he fears for her life: "After she almost died twice from drug related problems, to see her walking, smiling - she has progressed so much. But now, if it's alcohol instead of hard drugs - I don't think I can go through that again. I've decided to distance myself, and whatever happens, happens. It's her life. It's her career. It's her decision." [Ok! UK]
• Britney Spears is taking her Circus tour to Europe, which means her kids are going, which means Kevin Federline is getting a free trip as well. [E!]
• Oh, nice headline: "Kelly Clarkson And 'K-Fed' Hit The 'Big' Time With Weight Gains." [Gatecrasher]
• Real Housewives feel remorse! Kelly Bensimon is sorry for being obnoxious to Bethenny Frankel: She emailed, "I honestly owe you an apology." Apparently when Kelly went off on Bethenny there were other reasons she was upset: she had an ex-boyfriend "harassing" her "like crazy," she was late because she had to "organize the girls to go to the beach" and, she claims, "My driver who has been with me since I was 23 told me he had terminal cancer." [Page Six]
• The home of Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail, child star of Slumdog Millionaire, has been destroyed by the government. Authorities claim he and other families were squatting on land they did not own, and now, Azharuddin says: "We are homeless, we have nowhere to go." [BBC News]
• In the new Essence, Jennifer Hudson opens up about her murdered mother: "I was always a mama's baby," she says. "I'd go and sleep in her bed until I was 15 years old." Ugh. Sadness! She also says: "The thing that keeps me going is knowing that God is in control. It's like, if He placed me here then I must be prepared." [People]
• Details are leaking out about what really happened the night of the Met Gala: Kiefer Sutherland and Brooke Shields were both drunkety drunk drunk drunk; Jack McCollough did bump into Brooke; she did fall; but it had more to do with the fact that she was wasted and wearing heels. Brooke was fine, but Kiefer "insisted" that McCollough apologize, and then got all nuts and headbutted the designer. Kiefer had blood on his forehead and Brooke was like, "What is that?" A source says: "She thought it was a joke or maybe cherry juice and LICKED IT!!!!!" And! Brooke didn't remember any of it until she read it in the paper the next day. [Perez]
• "Kiefer Sutherland talks Jack Bauer's deathbed and what's next on 24." [LA Times]
• Practice your curtsey: Prince Harry is coming to NYC! [NY Daily News]
• Oh, good: A job for Lindsay Lohan! She'll star in an "indie fantasy comedy" with Woody Harrelson, Giovanni Ribisi, Dave Matthews (?!) and Alanis Morissette (!!). The plot revolves around a grad student who spends the summer working at a scientific institute on a remote island and discovers an "eccentric community of characters" hiding a secret. And I'm here, to remind you of the mess you left when you went away… [Variety]
• Will Olivia Palermo of The City get a "job" at Elle? [Page Six]
• Remember that Absolutely Fabulous remake with Kristin Johnston? Fox "passed" after seeing the pilot. In other words, the project is dead, sweetie darling. [Deadline Hollywood]
• Susan Boyle rode in an airplane for the first time in 8 years, to go from Scotland to London for some voice lessons. This gave the paper permission to call her "The Airy Angel." [The Sun]
• Peaches Geldof was actually heard saying "Don't you know who I am?" while trying to get into a club in London. It didn't work. [Daily Mail]
• Beyoncé and T.I. are the artists with the most BET Award nominations; Lil Wayne, T-Pain, Keri Hilson, Jennifer Hudson, Jazmine Sullivan, Kanye West, Keyshia Cole and Jamie Foxx are also up for prizes. Jamie Foxx hosts; the ceremony is June 28. [The Hollywood Reporter]
• Farrah Fawcett's video diary of her struggle with cancer airs tomorrow, but here's a preview. [NY Post]
• MSNBC Scoop columnist Courtney Hazlett recommends the Gosselins of Jon & Kate Plus 8 "get out while they can" and "step off the reality TV gravy train and reclaim their lives." She writes: "Celebrity that comes by way of reality only ends badly. Step away from that sippy cup of confidence that's saying that you can still have the same appeal if you're not together. Apart, you're not the characters those 4.6 million people wanted to watch on TV." [MSNBC Scoop]
• Katie "Jordan" Price and Peter Andre's split might just be a publicity stunt. Snooze. [Daily Mail]
• Jordan's dressage coach denies being involved with her. Also, LOL pix of Jordan in riding gear. [The Sun]
• This other dressage dude says Jordan's hubs Peter Andre is jealous and always has been. [Daily Mail]
• If you watched American Idol last night, you saw Alicia Keys asking people to text for charity as part of her work for Keep A Child Alive. [AP]
• John Mayer dated this model/actress and she's been babbling and blabbing (blabbling?) about him and how he feels about breaking up with Jennifer Aniston, saying: "He's never really got over it and he still talks about her a lot. He's been playing guitar alone at night, pining over her." Yawn. NEXT. [Perez]
• John Mayer once texted starlet Jessie James, "Let me tuck you in. I want to see you." [Page Six]
• If you liked Cornify, you might like to Kanyefy, with the Kanye West shutter-shades inspired Kanye Vision Bookmarklet. OMG what happens if you use them together?!?!? [F.A.T.]
• Well now I feel really really old: It's the 20th anniversary of Lenny Kravitz's debut album, Let Love Rule. He's celebrating by issuing a remaster with additional material, and says: "If you had asked me 20 years ago if I thought the world would be a better place in 20 years, I would have thought yeah, I would have thought that we'd have some kind of evolution even if it was minimal, but in actuality we are in a much worse place as a global community and as just the planet earth, itself, environmentally as well. I'm not less hopeful. I take the position of remaining optimistic but there's a much deeper hill to climb." [AP]
• Whoa: Mel Gibson paid his wife to stay quiet about their separation, which happened three years ago. He agreed to give her $52 million per year. For that amount of cash, I won't say another word about you Mel. Honest! [MSNBC]
• Rob Lowe and one of his former nannies have both decided to dismiss their lawsuits against each other; Lowe is still in another legal battle with a different nanny. [People]
• Barbra Streisand's ex, Jon Peters, is spilling secrets about how the diva was sexually abused by a slimy movie mogul and had affairs with three of her leading men. [Page Six]
• Cheers star John Ratzenberger has filed a restraining order against his 45-year-old ex girlfriend because she has "indicated that it is common in many country western songs for women to set the cars of their former boyfriends on fire." [TMZ]
• Blind item! "Which infamously perverted actor should start checking his dates' IDs? He may not realize that he recently went out with some serious jailbait!" [Gatecrasher]
• "It's known that Jenny Craig has the best tasting food. That's just a fact." — Valerie Bertinelli. [ABC News]
• "That's such a tough question. I would say, probably something in the health industry. It's too late to go to medical school. I'd travel. I'd go back to the years that I never did what I'd wish I'd done, which was travel Europe and backpack. That sounds slightly romantic. What I would do? I don't know. Maybe become a chef. There's so much more to do. It's almost overwhelming. I've gotten to a great place in my career." — Jennifer Aniston, when asked what she would do if she could ditch acting for some other pursuit. [USA Today]
• "I am a real threat to cover 'White Christmas' this year. I'm warning you now: I'm ready, cocked and loaded." — Iggy Pop, to Relix. [Page Six]
• "[Sunglasses] are seriously useful. I can sit in a show and if I am bored out of my mind, nobody will notice… At this point, they have become, really, armor." — Anna Wintour. [Page Six]
• "I'm a completely different person than Lauren. I have a lot more energy. I'm more outgoing. I'm a little more spontaneous. And she has a boyfriend so she's not dating on the show. I'm very open to dating and finding a guy." — Kristin Cavallari, who is the new star of The Hills. [EW]

• Residents of Oyster Bay, Long Island, NY are mesmerized by the dreamy and mystical presence of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, who have been getting cozy in their town.

The heavenly hotties have been doing glam stuff like going to Dunkin' Donuts and Stop & Shop. Oyster Bay Town Supervisor John Venditto says: "When you talk to someone who has met them they're kind of glowing. People love saying they saw them. They feel something very special happened to them." A grocery store manager gushes: "They were so beautiful. They looked like they were airbrushed when they were walking. I went up to Brad and asked if he needed help and he said, 'No thanks.' I was looking at him but I don't really remember it — it was like a dream." [People]

• Did Beyoncé send a look-alike for a personal tour of a museum in Vienna while the singer herself went shopping?!?!?? [AFP]
• Because she hasn't been exposed enough, Heidi Montag will pose for Playboy. Except she won't show nips or vag; she'll be tastefully covered. The mag's new editor was previously at Maxim so this makes sense somehow. No, wait. None of it makes sense. The world has gone mad. [Perez]
• Madonna is holding private Kabbalah prayer sessions at her home in which the focus is on being able to adopt Mercy. Apparently 12-year-old Lourdes prays with her mom for a new sister every day. [Daily Express]
• Chris Brown, who is facing two felony charges for beating Rihanna, has reportedly worked out a plea deal with the court. He'll be back in front of the judge today, so more later, probably. [Radar Online]
• By the way, the jewelry Rihanna was wearing the night of the assault — $1.4 million dollars worth — was borrowed, and the jeweler is asking for her to hand it over. But the baubles are evidence now; Rihanna's lawyer is hoping the judge will release the jewels today. [TMZ]
• More on this in Midweek Madness, but Us is reporting that Jon from Jon & Kate Plus 8 was leaving a club at 2 am with a "mystery woman" and wasn't wearing his wedding band. They've got pictures! [Us]
• Amy Winehouse plans on living in St. Lucia. Like, settling down there. The weed must be awesome. Also, we can haz guest haus? [The Sun]
• Oh, good news: Sam Lutfi has been ordered to stay away from Britney Spears for three years. [Reuters]
• In case you haven't already seen it, here's a video of Julia Roberts and her filthy mouth. She really likes the word "fuck." [Pop Eater]
• Dita von Teese has a new man; he's a French aristocrat 11 years her junior. Count Louis-Marie de Castelbajac, 25, is the actor-son of fashion designer Jean-Charles de Castelbajac and his ex-wife Catherine de Castelbajac. Get it, girl! [Page Six]
• Sam Ronson DJ'd a stripper party but the ladies had to keep their clothes on until she was done, or else she couldn't concentrate. [Page Six]
• Ginger alert! Prince Harry will take his first official royal trip to the United States next month. He'll hit a charity polo match in New York and a few parties. He's single and looking to mingle! [Daily Mail]
• Oprah is bored with Twitter already. Look, if you're not one of Miss O's favorite things, you are a failure. Sorry, Twitter. [Silicon Valley Insider]
• Mel Gibson and girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva, the singer signed to his record label, went to the screening of Wolverine last night. His rep says: "Mel has been single for almost three years and it's nice to see him getting out and enjoying himself." Uh, what? His wife filed for divorce two weeks ago. [People]
• Start hyperventilating: Christian Bale has signed on for a third Batman flick. Hey, can we get a kick-ass leading lady this time or what? [Wired]
• Kate Winslet says she's not middle class. She is working class. "People don't believe that. People literally think I'm lying. Because I speak nice. My dad was very much a struggling actor and spent more of his life as a postman, as a member of a tarmac firm, as a van driver. He'd sell Christmas trees. Anything. That was my dad. […] Honestly, it was hand-me-down shoes and 10p pocket money on a Saturday that didn't go up until I was 11." [Telegraph via Marie Claire]
• LOL: Catherine Zeta-Jones wants to play Susan Boyle in a film of the singer's life. [Telegraph]
• Would a Susan Boyle book sell? One publishing dude says: "She has a story, but it's a short story." [Page Six]
• Ed Westwick and Chace Crawford might be tired of living together. Cue the offers in the comments to give Chuck Bass somewhere to sleep. [Page Six]
• Speaking of Ed Westwick, aka Chuck Bass, he has a tattoo which says "I ♥ Romance" and one that says "Heartbreak Hotel." [Gatecrasher via Interview]
• Moby hurt his ankle walking into the ring of a kickboxing session. [Page Six]
• Will Benicio Del Toro, who is in my top 3, play Bret Easton Ellis on film? [Cinematical]
• Kylie Minogue hearts golf and spent £40,000 on gear. [The Sun]
• "Rubina Ali's house is flooded with sewer water, and her feet itch. She's discovered a world of creepy-crawlies in the opaque gray water: scorpions, rats and slithery creatures with lots of legs. Two months ago, the child star of the hit movie Slumdog Millionaire was worrying about what to wear to the Oscars. Now she has come home to a very different problem: How to get the fetid water out of her family's one-room shack." [Times Of India]
• Lil Wayne's track, "I Feel Like Dying," contains a copyright infringing sample from Karma-Ann Swanepoel's song, "Once," so Lil Wayne is suing the producer who created the track. [USA Today]
• An Iggy Pop insurance ad has been banned because rock stars would actually not be eligible for coverage with this particular type of insurance. [Telegraph]
• "A stalker who threatened to kill Little Britain's David Walliams was allowed to 'marry' the star in a mock ceremony in her mental ward." [The Sun]
• Perfect timing: Michael Douglas and Oliver Stone are going to make a sequel to Wall Street. Get your tissues ready, this one is gonna be sad, we think: Fox spokesperson Gregg Brilliant says of the new Gordon Gekko flick: "We need to keep the story line under wraps, but it's literally ripped from today's headlines. It's going to be very big and very cool." Madoff-style losses? Sniff. No, not the yacht! [AP]
• Farrah Fawcett's condition: Unchanged. [Breitbart]
• An ambulance driver and a former senator have pleaded not guilty to charges that they tried to extort millions from John Travolta after his son died. [USA Today]
• Poor Ed McMahon. It's always something. Now he is suing Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in L.A. for allegedly misdiagnosing a broken neck. [TMZ]
• Blind item! "Which A-list actor's wife belongs to a secret lesbians-only club in L.A.? To keep things discreet, the club staggers arrivals so its members aren't photographed together." [Gatecrasher]
• "Writers have always been interested in my parents and in my teenage years, which I find so weird, especially now that I'm in my late thirties. That's always made me feel infantilized, like they are talking to me as if I were still 10 years old. I'm made to feel as if I were Annie in the musical." — Rachel Weisz. [BlackBook]
• "[Carrie Prejean's] 'opposite sex' marriage thing made me laugh. I've never heard it expressed that way. She said, 'In America, you have the choice between same sex marriage and opposite sex marriage,' like it was a flavor at Baskin-Robbins. You can have rocky road or mint chocolate chip." — Rosie O'Donnell. [Gatecrasher]
• "I don't think I wanna go back anymore. Seriously, I watched some old tapes recently — Harry [Hamlin, her husband] and I were going through stuff. It doesn't feel right! It feels weird. I've changed my mind. You can't go back!" — Lisa Rinna, who, after vigorously campaigning to get on the new Melrose Place, has changed her mind. [Hollywood Insider]
• "Paula's frustrating, she's annoying and I can't understand half of what she's talking about - but there's incredible comfort between us. I think we're possibly secretly in love with each other." — Simon Cowell. [Mirror]
• "One of the best things about being married is having separate bathrooms. There's nothing worse than saying 'I've got to go, I've got to go,' when it's already occupied!" — Joan Collins. [Daily Express]
• "I was bullied for being chubby. Where are they now!" — Kate Winslet, who says they called her Blubber and locked her in the art cupboard when she was in school. [Daily Mail via Marie Claire]
• "I ran into Mia in Chad this January. She'd been living in the camps and villages on the border of Darfur for weeks. She is as dedicated to this cause as any activist I know. It's these kind of efforts that help keep this tragedy in the spotlight." — George Clooney, who applauds Mia Farrow's hunger strike to call attention to Darfur and Sudan. [Daily Express]
• "I am totally confident that I am an incredible artist and performer. I am extremely confident about my body, the way I dress, the way I want to look. But I have no confidence when it comes to men. Men are a disaster area for me. It's so weird because I believe I am super sexy. I believe I am incredible, but I have absolutely no luck with boyfriends." — Lady GaGa. [The Sun]

• Sometimes the morning brings good news: Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana are going to play Italian priests in the movie version of Nine, which was inspired by Fellini's 8 1/2. Priests! [Elle UK]

• And here's the bad news: The U.S. Department of Labor reports job losses of nearly 10,000 in the apparel and textile sector for January alone. Departent stores cut nearly 9,000 positions the same month. [WWD]
• Luxury conglomerate It Holding SpA, which owns the labels Gianfranco Ferre and Malo, may go into bankruptcy. The Italian stock exchange has suspended trade of its stock indefinitely. [WSJ]
• Residents of San Francisco's Mission district — kind of like the Williamsburg of the west — successfully fought a proposed American Apparel using the city's stringent permit requirement laws for chain stores. The idea of hundreds of American Apparel-clad hipsters arguing the finer points of locally-owned commerce to the planning commission is a little wacky but sweet. [SF Gate]
• Meanwhile, spunky Badgers influenced the University of Wisconsin to let its contract with Russell Apparel, owner of the Russell Athletic brand, lapse following reports of anti-union activity by the company in Honduras. [U.S. News]
• Phoebe Philo talks at some length about her design process for her first Céline pre-spring and resort collections, which are to be shown in June. There's nary a mention of the fact that her first Céline collection was to be for fall 09, which booster Anna Wintour had booked into an exclusive Vogue editorial for the March issue, and which sources recently reported LVMH had gotten "a team" to work on in Philo's stead. [WWD]
• This completely escaped my notice: the real people in the background of the ad campaign for Isaac Mizrahi's first collection for Liz Clairborne include bloggers Dannielle Kyrillos of Daily Candy and Katrina Longworth of Spout Blog. Wonder whose idea that was? [Brand Freak]
• Model Heather Marks diaried her food intake for seven days in the run-up to New York fashion week. You can now commence arguing about whether or not it's healthy; I vote her a paragon of nutritional virtue, but then, I've been in this industry a long time. [Grub St.]
• Fendi's sole perfume, Palazzo, which launched in 2007, is being taken off the market due to disappointing sales. [WWD]
• Victoria's Secret has hired an L.A. entertainment company to help place their products in film and television venues. Look forward to a net increase of characters taking moments to adjust their VS bra straps in 3, 2, 1... [Brand Week]
• The Times of London has a sneak peek at a new exhibition of Madonna's clothes in the English capital, and a fascinating take on the semiotics of her Madgesty's dress. [Times of London]
• Oooh. I totally want stationery that features designers' doodles and sketches. [WWD]
• Fashion houses seem of two minds about how to design for the recession: some, like Louis Vuitton and Zac Posen, are talking all about "classic" this and neutral colors that, while others, like Coach, want more than ever to harness the bright sparkle of trendiness that might make their products stand out from others'. Everyone's going to be watching to see what Marc Jacobs does, of course. [WSJ]
• And whatever that might be, the Guardian has a good, long appreciation of Jacobs' recent Stephen Sprouse collection for Louis Vuitton, and a more than a few 80s New York stories of the designer himself. [Guardian]
• Unsurprisingly, Kate Moss is the female celebrity women most want to dress like. I think, cough, she is part of the reason Hunter rubber boots are selling so well, Wall Street Journal. [The Sun]
• Ew, Fergie has a shoe line now. [WWD]
• McDonald's McCafe will be the "official coffee" of New York fashion week, with espresso and drip coffee available for free in the tents all week long. Naturally they're expecting front-row celebs to be photographed, paper cups in hand. Micky D's hasn't traditionally had the best outreach with the womenfolk; I guess by now they figured out the shortest distance to a girl's heart is via vanilla latte. [AdAge]
• The pre-holiday 70% and 80% markdowns at Saks and other department stores were just a harbinger of things to come. Expect the big stores that can afford the hit to keep pushing prices down — and expect the smaller concerns to continue struggling to compete. [WSJ]
• This is just ridiculous. Heel height has nothing to do with the economic climate, and "sky-high heels," which I'm pretty sure didn't even exist in the 1930s since they didn't then know how to achieve height and strength by using a metal core within the heel shaft, have been in for about the last four years and certainly aren't any new recession thing. Who writes this crap, and why aren't they busy getting to the bottom of the Lipstick Sales Conundrum or retooling the Hemline Bellwether hypothesis? [The Sun]
• American Eagle Outfitters is suing Citigroup for allegedly misleading them into buying assets that they were assured were safe and liquid, but whose value has now plummeted. [Dealbook]
• Unlike Kellogg's, Speedo is standing by Michael Phelps in the wake of being photographed doing whatever he was doing with that unusual-looking pipe. [WWD]
• Jason Wu's PR firm threw the 26-year-old designer a party at the Soho Grand ahead of fashion week. [Style.com]
• Love magazine, the hotly-awaited brainchild of power stylist Katie Grand (formerly of Pop) has leaked its inaugural cover. It's a triple header, with one featuring Agyness dressed up as Queen Elizabeth II, another showing Iris Strubegger as a purple-haired cyber clubkid, and the third with Iggy Pop. Looks like a winner. [Models.com]

• Trouble a-brewin in Los Angeles! Apparently Nicole Richie is thrilled that Paris Hilton and Benji Madden broke up, because Nicole "never thought Paris was ever really into" Benji. Nicole also told her boyfriend's identical twin brother that he "deserves better." Burn! [Star]
• Speaking of Paris! She wants to take her breathy baby voice and use it to play Tinkerbell in a Disney live action movie based on the famous sprite. According to a source, "Paris has worked on her acting chops lately and showed some comedy prowess in her YouTube spoof of running for president. Disney suits saw it and think she may be developing some comedic-actress potential." But people were laughing at her, not with her. [Daily Express]

• Britney's husband of two minutes, Jason Alexander, was arrested for ditching his court appointed trips to the morgue. According to TMZ, "After Alexander was busted for DUI back in 2006, the judge ordered the 27-year-old to go to an alcohol education program, which required him to visit the local morgue. When the judge learned Alexander had ditched his first 2 appointments, he refused to give him a third chance and promptly chucked him in the slammer." [TMZ]
• Jada Pinkett insists that she and Will Smith are totes normal. "We are not perfect. We have bad days, just like any other couple. I tell Will all the time what makes you perfect are your imperfections." Yawn. [Daily Express]
• Olympic beach volleyball champ Kerri Walsh is expecting her first baby. Sayeth People: "What could be better than winning an Olympic gold medal? Becoming a mom, of course!" [People]
• Iggy Pop is so over New York and L.A., and thus picked up and moved to Miami. "I was fed up after 25 years in huge, dark, media-centric cities. I decided to find a house and move here. I was looking for something in a kind of elegant coma with a lot of peace and convenience," the Popster says. [CNN]
• Twilight hottie Robert Pattinson is overwhelmed by the screaming tweens who stalk him. "I didn't know anything about the hype when I was making it so now I just turn up and literally I used to get so stressed out because people are screaming at you. And you just think 'What do I have to do? I cant give anything back to you at all.'" [Daily Express]
• File under things that make you go hmmm: Gossip queen Ted Casablancas is wondering why no one ever followed up on the story about Diane Lane calling 911 on her volatile husband, Josh Brolin. He says he pressed Lane's PR folks on the matter more than once and has come up empty. [E! Online]
• Sources say that Johnny Depp will play Dante in a forthcoming film based on the Fourteenth Century scribe. The biopic will be about Dante's struggle to write the Divine Comedy.[Daily Express]
• What does Emma Thompson admire most in a person? "The ability to laugh in the face of disaster. Every joke is a form of rebellion. Mark Twain said that only laughter can blow nonsense 'to rags and atoms at a blast.'" [Reader's Digest]
• Why did Details think it would be cool to make Keri Russell look like an OD-ing heroin addict in this photoshoot? [Egotastic]
• Is A-Rod already cheating on her Madgesty? Sources say the Rod is obsessed with model Melissa Britos. [Perez]
• Though there were rumors that NeNe from Real Housewives of Atlanta was evicted, she is denying all that noise. "Everybody knows that I like to be honest, real and upfront. If something was wrong, I would tell you… please know that my family continues to be abundantly blessed, and that Miss NeNe has not skipped a beat!” [People]

[Cannes, September 26. Image via Bauer-Griffin]

The Good:
Ed Burns and Christy Turlington aren't so rock 'n' roll, but gosh and golly they look lovely.
Jerry Butler: One class act.
Dear Michael J. Fox and Tracy Pollan: You make me heart happy.
Does Chevy Chase's wristband mean he's old enough to drink?
I know I should hate Damien Rice's poseur maroon suit. But I sorta love it.
Leonard Cohen: He's your man.
Ben Harper can steal my kisses!
Nom nom Tom Hanks in glasses.
John Mellencamp: Way to rebel and ditch the tie.
Seth Meyers stays classy.
While Richard Belzer busts a move.
Princess of Firyal of Jordan looks like a Tory Burch ad.

The Bad:
Has Miss Patti been vacationing at Del Boca Vista?
God bless Iggy Pop for still rocking the shirtless chest and leather pants. That doesn't mean I have to like the look of it, though.
Joan Jett: See above.

The Ugly:
Even a love affair with Laurie Anderson doesn't compensate for Lou Reed's douchey attitude and leather suit.
Madonna, Madonna, Madonna: What the fuck are you wearing? The sorta see-through dress, the bow tie, the boots. Ugh.

[Images via FilmMagic.]

• For its 140th anniversary issue, Harper's Bazaar styles little kids to look like mini-versions of our favorite (and not) fashion designers. And oh my god, is it awesome. (Please note mini-Olivier Theyskens, at left.) This is 10 times better than that Simpsons fashion spread, which was itself pretty freaking inspired, and may force us to reevaluate our position on the whole magazine, which is a lot to handle right now. [Fashion Week Daily]
  
• Last night's "Fashion Rocks" event in London featured: Uma Thurman screaming at Johnny Borrell for smoking during Razorlight's set for Burberry, The Gossip's Beth Ditto throwing her shoes into the audience, Lily Allen being introduced as model Lily Cole, Stella McCartney's models playing musical chairs, and Iggy Pop. Pictures later! [Vogue UK]
  
• Karl Lagerfeld has created a limited edition carrying case for Dom Perignon. It holds 6 bottles. At $140,000 it is the most expensive item in the Harrods Christmas catalog. And to all of this we say: Of course he did; of course it does. [Vogue UK]

• Pervert and D-list designer Anand Jon has been slapped with another lawsuit, by one of the 19 women named in the indictment against him for charges of rape, battery, and committing lewd sexual acts on a child. Natalie Pack says she is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of her rape by Jon. We hope he is once again found guilty. [Yahoo]
• Moe's complaints have been heard! The second go-round of Simply Vera Vera Wang for Kohl's clothes will be offered in smaller sizes than the premiere collection. It seems during the debut retailing they expected, er, bigger girls to be buying the Wang garb. Turns out the skinnies like the cheap shit too. [WWD, final item]
• Um, how did we never know before that Nestle (as in makers of the deliciously-heinous chocolate beverage) owns close to 30% of L'Oreal? Yeah, but they're thinking of selling their shares. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Okay, WWD, good move. The headline on their story about Stella McCartney launching an exclusive "green" collection at everyone's favorite Simon Doonan creative-directed department store: "Stella McCartney Comes To Barneys, Naturally." [WWD, sub req'd]
• Rock & Republic CEO Michael Ball is being sued for libel by fashion photographer Markus Klinko. Ugh. [TMZ]
• Check out Hollywould for Target here. [Coutorture]
• i-D magazine has seen a 56% increase in newsstand sales with its November. Why, you might ask? Because it has Kate Moss on its cover with her new bangs. No, seriously. [Sassybella]

• Britney Spears to star in remake of The Bodyguard! Oh wait, phew. Joke! [Best Week Ever]
  
• The verdict is in: Miss New Jersey can stay Miss New Jersey, even though she's a (only sorta) dirty girl. [CNN]
  
• A helpful hint: Don't eat steamed buns off the street in China. They're made of cardboard. [CBS]
  
• What's your virginity worth nowadays? Free theater tickets? [USA Today]
  
• Different day, same deal: President Bush still believes the Iraq war can be won. [CNN]

• A new study released by Pew reports that American women believe more strongly than they did 10 years ago that working full-time is not good for their children. [USA Today]
• Seems like common sense, but apparently not: Do not go outside wearing an iPod in a lightening storm. [CNN]
• 3 pending U.S. casualty confirmations by DoD. [Iraq Coalition Casualties]

• After a super low-key and abstemious week in New York, Lindsay and Callum Best let loose a bit in the Bahamas at one of those super understated resorts populated by close friends Gloria Estefan, Steve Tyler and the Village People. [Rush & Mulloy]
  
• Razorlight concert attracts likes of Kate Bosworth, Mary Kate Olsen, Kirsten Dunst (who dates lead singer Johnny Borrell). We have never listened to Razorlight, but we have an inkling there may be some finger foods going uneaten backstage! [Gatecrasher]
  
• Sheryl Crow adopts a baby boy, mercifully abstains from naming him one of those hippie names like "Woodland" or "Sierra" or "Emission Tax Credit" or some shit. [Sherylcrow.com]
  
• We have basically been waiting for our entire lifetimes for a Fergie-Sarah Ferguson collabo. For the children! (And the retarded at heart) [Rush & Mulloy]

• All those dudes who pumped their fists a little while pledging to see Spiderman 3 last weekend made good on their words. [Nikki Finke]
• Iggy Pop on modeling the Stooges' steez on Egyptian pharaohs: "Those guys look bitchin', they never wear shirts." [Page Six]
• Drea de Matteo is prego with some country singer who promised to put the O back in country. We have never paid any attention to these people but from the sounds of their Wikipedia entries the kid is actually getting a good shot at gene-wise being in the top tenth percentile of the celeb spawn kindergarten class. [Page Six]
• Following on the footsteps of similar actions by Replacements and Dinosaur Jr. frontmen Paul Westerberg and J. Mascis, respectively, Beyonce reveals that Destiny's Child may reunite.
• Gossip press rips "New Yoko Ono" title from Ashlee Simpson, bestows it upon Sienna Miller. Because Pete Wentz was less deserving of the John Lennon parallels than a supposed rock star who is also a model. [Gatecrasher]