To be sure, some of the books reviewed in Maslin's article are the bread and butter of the chick lit genre, like Lauren Weisberger's Chasing Harry Winston, with its "caipirinha-soaked" trio of materialistic harpies, she conceded. "But why do Birkin and Everything get thrown into the slush pile with the marriage-minded messes? And some of these books, despite their female friendly plots, must be better than others, mustn't they?" she wondered, pushing a lock of sun-bleached hair behind her ear. "So why are they all thrown into the same catch-all review?"

She toggled back to the front page of the books section and sighed deeply. Of the seventeen other articles on the books index, only two were about works written by women. Dejected, she crawled back into the fuchsia ghetto of the Styles section to read more stories about sunglasses.

On the Beach, Under A Tiffany-Blue Sky [NY Times]
Bringing Home Birkin [Amazon]
All We Ever Wanted Was Everything [Amazon]

• An incognito PETA operative posing as a style-maven turned up at Donna Karan's Manhattan home on Wednesday; the undercover "agent" was invited in, offered a beverage, and when Donna came home, shoved a portable DVD player with footage of animals being slaughtered alive for their pelts in the designer's face. Said Donna, "I've seen all these [videos], but for me it's just purses and accessories." [Page Six]
  
• OMG genius: In its March issue, Harper's Bazaar has recreated a minute-by-minute reenactment of the wait for the Spring 2008 Marc Jacobs show [Fashion Week Daily]
  
• Project Runway held its finale fashion show this morning. We were there. Pictures begin going up in ten minutes.

• Oh models: We love when they try to help the people! Irina Lazarau has been sporting a t-shirt for Angelina Jolie's Global Action for Children backstage while getting made up for shows in an attempt to raise awareness for the organization. Alas, as of Tuesday evening Lazarau reported that, "No one has asked me about the shirt yet." [WWD, 6th item]
• Well phew I'll sleep better tonight: Shark liver oil will no longer be used in our cosmetics. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Can we discuss the fact that Macy's is the exclusive retailer for Tommy Hilfiger? Oy. [WWD, 2nd item]
• Sex and the City costume designer Patricia Field: Not such a fan of Hillary Clinton's. Or her style at least. [Sassybella]
• Tyson Beckford on the lack of diversity amongst working models being used on the runway: "A lot of designers are aware of it, but we want to make more designers conscientious of it. I don't mean just black. We're also talking about Latino and Asian. [These companies need to know] your customer is not just one race. You never want to cater to just one race. You can call that racism." [WWD, 9th item]
• Books we cannot wait to read: Michael Tonello's Bringing Home the Birkin, out in April, an expose on the way in which the author routinely proves the two-year wait list for a Birkin bag to be a load of bullshit. [Page Six]
• Ivanka Trump: Designed the uniforms for the Trump Hotel Collection. And by "designed" we mean that the LA-based House of Uniforms "helped." [WWD, 11th item]
• American Eagle and Aeropostle are launching a campaign called "Declare Yourself" which is supposed to encourage young people to vote and Guess is doing voter registration in-stores: We think politics is a pretty good thing to care about and we're glad fashion agrees. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Rachel Zoe: Arrived at New York Fashion Week with eight steamer trunks of clothes. [Page Six]
• Botkier: Debuting shoes for spring! [Fashion Week Daily]
• ELLE's International Creative Director Gilles Bensimon: A leap year baby! [Fashion Week Daily]