Peter has been ordered to begin paying Seymour, his supermodel wife of 16 years, $270,000 a month in alimony and support for their three children. In the global context, $270,000 — every month — is a lot. That sum could buy 900 operations to repair obstetric fistulas in the third world, or pay for 60 new, clean water wells in Kenya. But in the context of Peter Brant and Stephanie Seymour, it's not very much at all.

According to court filings, Brant, who owns a paper company as well as magazines like Interview and Art in America, has assets of $490 million. His net monthly income this year — a pretty bad year for the media — has averaged just over $1.5 million. What does he spend it on? And might it just be possible to economize a little?

Well, for starters, Brant owns a farm in Connecticut. It's 200 acres, and the main house on it resembles George Washington's mansion at Mount Vernon. He owns "40 some odd" polo ponies, and maintains a fully sponsored professional polo team on the property. (He's disbanding the team and giving away the less valuable horses — that is, the $10,000-$15,000 ones.) The cost of all this? $500,000 a month.

Suggestion: It's a farm. Get rid of the horses and raise some soy beans. Or apples. Or organic heritage grains. Or whatever. Pronto.

Photo of Mount Vernon via Encyclopedia Britannica.

Maintaining his Jeff Koons topiary sculpture, Puppy — pictured here is the Puppy outside the Guggenheim in Bilbao; Brant's is an exact replica — costs up to $100,000 a year.

Suggestion: Invest instead in one of Koons' stainless steel sculptures, or perhaps a nice Anish Kapoor; we're thinking durable, shiny, and most importantly, low-maintenance. Realize extra savings by polishing it yourself.

Image of Puppy via Wikipedia

What's Stephanie supposed to do if she wants to go on vacation? $270,000 wouldn't even cover one week of kicking back, Brant-style: the 150-ft yacht Brant chartered for his and Seymour's kids this summer cost the mogul $300,000.

Suggestion: This paddleboat only costs $3,499.95.


Peter Brant gives $216,000 a month to his foundation, which funds his art museum, which is conveniently located across the street from his house. It features a rotating selection of the many works by Warhol, Koons, John Currin, Elizabeth Peyton, Larry Clark, and Cindy Sherman, that Brant owns.

Solution: Why not hang your pictures on the walls of your 20,000 square foot house? Also, 50 cents will get you into the Met.

Cindy Sherman's Untitled Film Still #7 via official website

Brant spends $30,000 a month on "household supplies." You know, everything from "toothpaste to towels."

Suggestion: CVS sells the jumbo size tube of Colgate Total Whitening for $3.99.

Brant has some suggestions of his own about how Seymour should spend her money. Last month, he alleged she had a $50,000-a-month shopping habit. The divorce court judge says Brant "said he did not understand why she was paying retail at Bergdorf's when she could get clothes, at a discounted price, from the atelier in Paris of their friend, the designer Azzedine Alaïa, who Mr. Brant considers to be the best couture designer of the 20th century."

Do you hear that, Stephanie? Most of us would be so lucky to save money by wearing only Alaïa.

Stephanie Seymour, Peter Brant Divorce Case Reveals Lavish Lifestyle [Stamford Advocate]

Jake and Natalie co-star in the upcoming film Brothers and it's clear from the interview that they're both geeky in every sense of the word. At various points in the excerpt of the interview online, they discuss their favorite planetarium shows, obsess about '80s toys, and plot a time machine journey back to the beginning of civilization. They actually shift from high-brow to low-brow pretty easily, such as when Jake tries to psychoanalyze Natalie based on her revelation that she used to be scared of Gargamel, the bad guy on The Smurfs.

GYLLENHAAL: Looking at all these things that you've done and contributed to the world so far, I would have thought that the evil wizard Gargamel would've been something you could have very easily stepped over.

PORTMAN: Thank you for saying that, but I'm far from fearless. I'm afraid of everything. But maybe when you're afraid of everything, it sort of seems like you're scared of nothing.

GYLLENHAAL: Well, there's no courage without fear, so you must have great courage because you're afraid of everything.

PORTMAN: That sounds like something from a Batman movie: "There is no courage without fear..."

But as Natalie says, Jake is also, "really good at getting out the dark secrets." He asks her what song reflects her current state and she says all she's been listening to recently is "dirty rap."

GYLLENHAAL: Your affection for dirty rap is something that people really don't know about you, which I think is fascinating. You do incredible things for the world, and then you listen to just completely obscene hip-hop music.

PORTMAN: Really, really obscene hip-hop. I love it so much. It makes me laugh and then it makes me want to dance. Those are like my two favorite things, so combined . . . I've been listening a lot lately to "Wait (The Whisper Song)" by the Ying Yang Twins, where the lyrics are like, "Wait 'til you see my dick"-which is just amazing because it's whispered. [whispers] "Wait 'til you see my dick . . . " [laughs] Crazy. So I just listen to it like I'm a five-year-old, like, "Oh my god! I can't believe he just said that!"

GYLLENHAAL: It's interesting that you think the lyric "Wait 'til you see my dick" describes your current state. I think people are learning more about you right now then they ever have in an interview. I'm proud of that.

It's true. Now we've all learned that SNL skit probably wasn't a joke after all.

Natalie Portman By Jake Gyllenhaal [Interview Magazine]
Natalie Raps [NBC.com]

• Before digesting the latest round of layoffs, garment worker intimidation, stupidly expensive luxury crap, and magazine turmoil, say a hearty Good mornin' to David Beckham in his fancy new Armani underwear ad. Hello David. [People]

• Fans crowded Oxford St. in London to get a glimpse of Beckham. He was making a promotional appearance at Selfridges to unveil a billboard of the new ad. [Sky]
• Glenn O'Brien, who recently left the troubled Interview magazine, says he just couldn't take it anymore. "It's like a Greek tragedy. Like watching a company going insane, instead of a person," said the media veteran. He also admitted he's not even on speaking terms with his former editorial co-director, Fabien Baron. When Baron was fired five months ago, O'Brien took over his job. And now that O'Brien is gone, Baron is back in. Meanwhile, Brant Publications owes freelancers and photographers (including such names as Inez & Vinoodh) for work dating back to last August. [FWD]
• Unions say the economy is making conditions worse for garment workers worldwide. Workers face unfair dismissal, the threat of relocation, abuse, long hours, and even worse pay. In the countries with the largest apparel industries, like China and Bangladesh, workers do not have the right to unionize or strike for better conditions. Seventy-six trade unionists were killed around the world last year, and 49 of those were in Columbia. [WWD]
• Lauren Bush has a new "FEED" bag in aid of the UN's World Food Program. This one is hand-beaded over the course of a day and a half by women from a Kenyan school for the deaf. In exchange, $100 of the $195 purchase price goes to feed two Kenyan school children for a year. [WWD]
• In other expensive bag news, Takashi Murakami released an updated version of his 2003 Louis Vuitton ad. The little girl he animated back then is all grown up, and, get this, still loves Louis Vuitton! [Racked]
• For the 2009 Council of Fashion Designers of America Awards on Monday, host Tracey Ullman will wear: a dress by Claire McCardell, a dress by Donna Karan (whom she recently lampooned), and a dress by Doo-Ri Chung, who wrote her Parsons thesis on McCardell. And the ouroboros of fashion is complete. [WWD]
• Natalia Vodianova will be the guest designer for Lutz & Patmos' pre-Spring line. [WWD]
• Ben Sherman is discontinuing its children's line, because, said chairman J. Hicks Lanier, "In this environment, we didn't have the luxury of ‘fun and cute' without the financial reward." It's a cold, cold economic reality that separates a child from his stripy t-shirt and mini suspenders. Also gone will be the men's and women's footwear lines. [WWD]
• Remember how Sean John went online looking for regular guys to model in its fall campaign? They found two hot dudes, and bookended them around a male model anyway. [WWD]
• Some luxury companies are pulling out all the stops to reach that tiny slice of the population that can still afford their wares. Hermès, whose overall sales rose 3.2%, to $603 million, and whose leather goods division grew 21.7% in the first quarter of this year, is increasing its annual marketing budget by nearly 10%, but two thirds of that $141 million will not be spent on advertising. Instead, the brand is pushing marketing events that garner publicity and make its best customers feel special — like extra trunk shows and store opening parties. Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy says its putting more of its marketing budget online, which explains the online-only Marion Cotillard series of film clips for Dior. [Reuters]
• The above moves aside, most experts are not expecting the high-end retail market to make its recovery any time soon. May same-store sales were typically dismal across most stores — Saks Fifth Avenue was down 26.2%, Nordstrom fell 13.1% — and luxury spending is falling faster than other retail spending. Some analysts say a full recovery may not happen until 2012. [TS]
• The C.E.O. of Liz Claiborne said the words "the new normal." [Reuters]
• Frederick's of Hollywood isn't doing so well, either. Maybe offerings like this are part of the problem? [WWD]
• Gap is also investing in online retail — it's adding 50 labels to Piperlime. Fifty Old Navy stores across the country are also due for a redesign, presumably to make them less like dingy warehouses. Old Navy has seen an increase in custom because of the recession. Its same-store sales for the first quarter of this year were only down 3%, compared with 18% a year ago. Still a ways to go, then. [TS]
• The judge overseeing the Filene's Basement bankruptcy has ordered that the auction for the company be re-opened. An affiliate of Men's Wearhouse won the nine-hour auction, bidding $67 million for Filene's trading name, inventory, 17-20 stores, and an all-important super-cheap 15-year lease for its downtown Boston flagship — but two other bidders complained that the proceedings were "a sham" because Men's Wearhouse didn't follow court-ordered auction procedures. The judge agreed, and there is to be a new auction today. [BH]

Sischy and Brant, who spent 18 and 23 years with Interview, respectively, struck out for other pastures at Condé Nast last year, becoming international editors at Italian Vanity Fair and Spanish Vanity Fair. Now, according to a press release for Condé Nast, they are taking on the same positions at German Vogue and Russian Vogue.

Fabien Baron, who replaced Sischy as co-editorial director of Interview (along with Glenn O'Brien), was pushed out of his position after less than a year at the magazine. Baron, an accomplished fashion photographer in his own right, and creative director Karl Templer had revamped Interview and focused on better photography and more fashion content. The April issue is the first Interview produced under the leadership of the creative team M/M Paris, who put teen star Zac Efron on the cover.

Related:
Breaking News: Ingrid Sischy and Sandra Brant Resign [FWD]
The Interview Backstory [WWD]

Earlier:
Interview Magazine Cover Sparks Existential Crisis
Calvin Klein, TSE & Originality In Fashion : Not So Black & White

Remember that when she started, with those famous shots by Corinne Day in The Face, Kate Moss was 15 years old. (She says of that shoot: "Corinne just wanted to bring out everything that I hated when I was 15. My bow legs, the mole on my breast, the way I laughed.") But by 1994, she was earning $2.6 million a year with contracts for Gucci, Louis Vuitton and, of course, Calvin Klein. Her rail-thin body sold jeans and fragrance, and became an "Obsession," to say the least. Previous supermodels, like Cindy Crawford and Naomi Campbell, were in possession of a more "robust" physique. But Kate Moss ushered in a new style. It started out as shocking, but everyone adjusted, and looking back, she doesn't even seem so skinny anymore! So. Thin was in, and it stayed stylish. Ms. Freeman writes: "In the next issue of Interview magazine, Moss admits that at times she was too thin: 'When I was doing shows ... nobody ever fed me. I didn't eat for a long time. Not on purpose ... I remember standing up in the bath one day, and there was a mirror in front of me, and I was so thin! I hated it. I never liked being that skinny.' Hilariously, the journalist, confirming all cliches about the fashion press, interrupts: 'I didn't think you were all that skinny.' But Moss stands admirably firm: 'I remember thinking, I don't want to be this skinny.'"

When a tipster sent us the link to the Guardian story (which was already on our radar) with the comment: "Kate Moss is the new Che Guevara. Ahem." I sort of rolled my eyes. But actually, the tipster, Hadley Freeman and Kate Moss are right: The fashion industry needs a revolution. And the chances of things being changed by someone from the outside are — forgive me — slim. Only someone who has been granted access into the inner sanctum, who is well-respected, who has worked in the trenches, who knows all the players and knows the game can actually make an impact. Will a post-coke scandal, open-about-starving-herself Kate Moss be the one? Can Kate Moss be a revolutionary in whole new way?

Only The Clotheshorses Can Buck Fashion's Thin Fixation, Fashion Industry Made Me Too Thin, Says Kate Moss [Guardian]

• "With so many magazine images that are so completely retouched, we've gone in the opposite direction, showing the soul of a woman." That's artist Francois-Marie Banier, on this Diane von Furstenberg ad starring Natalia Vodianova. Which makes us wonder, if that is the "opposite direction" of the retouching trend, we sort of wonder what that trend would look like "taken to its hyperbolic extreme." [Vogue UK]
  
• And in other DVF news, Diane is suing Target over a wrapdress. Wait, you're telling us Target didn't invent the wrapdress? [Reuters]
  
• Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell are appearing on the February cover of French Vogue together — with Naomi appearing sans hair extensions. What would Tyra say? [Fashion Week Daily]

• Fashion PR guru Kelly Cutrone on her blog on Fashion Week Daily: "I woke up this morning and thought, 'I wonder if, when you die, is there a fashion section in heaven?' I also wondered if you had spent a great portion of your life working in fashion if you would be mandated there. Next I asked, 'Is there anyway I could avoid going to the fashion section of heaven?'" Oh Kelly, don't worry, you're all going to hell anyway! [Fashion Week Daily]
• Stella McCartney for LeSportsac! [Sassybella]
• Stella McCartney lingerie! [Nylon]
• Quote of the day, from WWD: "SAGGING ECONOMY BE DAMNED. Plenty of women are spending the equivalent of nearly two barrels of oil — or more — to slather themselves in luxury body creams." [WWD]
• Famous recluse/corset-maker Mr. Pearl on his wares: "To me, a corseted body, with the shape of the indentation at the waist, is beauty in extreme; it represents absolute femininity....Breathing does become a problem, but it does not affect digestion....It would be interesting if people would consider [corsets], since I believe liposuction and plastic surgery are quite ugly acts by comparison, and the results are not quite as becoming. What a corset lace can do is much more attractive." Spoken like a true man. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Prada made some animated sort film inspired by wallpaper called Trembled Blossoms, and it's showing at Fashion Week. [Fashion Week Daily]
• Rachel Roy is designing a capsule collection for Manolo Blahnik. Moe can tell you that Roy is Damon Dash's wife, but you're going to have to google the meaning of "capsule collection" yourself. [Fashion Week Daily]
• Former supermodel Eva Herzigova on Valentino: "Do you remember how we would always have to be in full hair and makeup before Valentino would even look at us?" Yeah, we'll miss him. [Fashion Week Daily]
• Still not quite ready to say goodbye to Valentino? Here's how to get the makeup look from his couture show. [BellaSugar]
• The new Versace shoes have red soles. We're assuming Mr. Louboutin is going to be less than thrilled. [Ugh. Because, you know, manufacturing red soles is practically MAPPING THE HUMAN GENOME in the fashion industry. -Moe] [Chic Report]
• English designer Christopher Kane is doing a limited edition lip gloss for Lancome. The packaging is extra-pretty. [Nylon]