Loving the Iris Apfel thing that both Mary-Kate (L) and Ashley are rocking here!


Would it be a New York red carpet without Rachel Roy's sleek separates? No, it would not.


It's gotta be hard if, like Fergie, you spend hours on a full-out Aphrodite...


...only to find Marion Cotillard doing this far more elegant version of white...


And Penelope Cruz just doing "goddess" better than anyone else in the history of the world.


I'm guessing Kimora Lee Simmons (with Djimon Hounsou) has no moral qualms about fur. Just a guess.


Is the bandage still fresh? Maybe not, but as Emmanuelle Chriqui shows, it can still be sleek, sexy and very festive.


Melania Trump's bitch-face says, "that's right, I'm not wearing pants. And you'll take it and like it."


If you gotta ride the DeLorean, Naomi Watts shows what to wear.


It's gotta be hard to have a mom who can say, "Oh yeah, I invented that. 1984. Feel free to raid the closet!"


Nicole Kidman channels the original Barbie. I wouldn't be shocked if there's a striped bathing suit underneath.


"Honey, I thought we agreed "Ascotte Gavotte," not "Truman Capote's Black and White Ball!""


Judi Dench: what, it's cold.

[Images via Getty]

Padma Lakshmi is someone whose cosmic-joke beauty demands envelope-pushing. Like, just how much can she get away with? Well, her 70s tattered "Leather and Lace" ghost-bride is the answer to that question.


I get where Rachel Roy is coming from. Sometimes you start the "whimsical layering" and it's hard to stop. Unlike some of us, however, I presume she has a full-length mirror.


Uh oh! Kevin Bacon has been watching Felicity again...as have I!


Don't you love it when Madonna just gives in to "aging diva?" In a way, isn't that what she's been training for her entire life?


Julianne Moore has embraced the ankle-irons shoe with suspicious enthusiasm.


Judy Greer - with Lee Pace - has "not trying too hard" so down.


Olivia Palermo begs the question: is a leather tunic "timeless" or just "appropriate for a Medieval guildsman?"


Ellen Barkin has the New York bitch face down more than any other actress.


Terry Richardson and Tamara Mellon, looking exactly like themselves. Make of this what you will.


Let's face it: Colin and Livia Firth have every right to look smug.

[Images via Getty]

Geraldine Zivic sacrifices style for warmth, which I totally respect.


Monique Gardenberg shows how winter chic is done. Well, that or CSA reenactment.


Actress Carmen Soo may or may not have pulled a Scarlett O'Hara with this one. But we admire creativity!


Actress Mar Saura's gown is either "timeless" or "mired in the 80s."


Actress Stephanie March's dress needs to be on my back, right now. Well, maybe we can share it, since she wears it so well.


Katharine McPhee's dress needs a Kors runway critique, stat.


Ok, there are "fit issues" with actress Juliana Paes' winter white, but how much do you love her 60s-glam hairstyle choice?


Keke Palmer's dress falls into the "if you can't say anything nice" category.


Actress Angel Locsin does not shy away from drama, the Swan Lake costume shop.


Actress Emma De Caunes snuck in with her.


Rachel Roy can do very little wrong.


And...Moby.

[Images via Getty]

The one context in which Taylor Momsen's teen goth makes sense! Besides, you know, high school.


Jessica Szohr goes topical, too: this is vaguely Interview with the Vampire. Retro!


Hey, if there's one place you can do steampunk spinster, this is it. Not that Agyness Deyn needs an excuse.


Rachel Roy boldly disregards the Tim Burton dress code, and as a result wears one of the more interesting - and certainly cheerful - outfits here. Dig the mixed patterns.


The lovely Ashley Greene plays a clairvoyant vampire. Her dress plays angry shag carpeting.


Alexa Chung's eyes sparkle with the unholy light of the true fan.


Kristen Stewart looks chicer and more comfortable every time we see her. No mean feat at 19.


Genevieve Jones' shoes are altogether too gay for such a serious event. Does she not realize that young girls are dying with love all over the world?


Fabiola Beracasa is...camera-ready. And yes, it is a teen vampire movie! Whatever, who doesn't love costumes?


Lydia Hearst is 1920s ethereal. The "good" to Fabiola's "evil," if you will.


I can't think of a single nice thing to say about Veronica Webb's getup, so let's move on for karmic purposes.


Haha, Natalie Portman thought she could sneak in the back way, did she? Not on our watch, sister! Admit that twi-love!


Ivanka Trump has the look, and the getup, of one who's just realized, wait, this isn't a charitable fundraiser?


Amber Rose just refuses to leave home without her dunce cap!


There are many embarrassing things about this event. This is obviously one of them.

[Images via Getty]

• Lindsay Lohan, finally addressing her disastrously received first Ungaro collection, says, "I am learning." But she will be back in Paris for the next show! "It's already in January. I thought it was in March." January? January means couture.

Could Mounir Moufarrige seriously be reviving Ungaro's couture division — which was shuttered in 2004 — with Lohan at the helm? God help us. Lohan also denies any responsibility for, or foreknowledge of, those ridiculous sparkly heart pasties that the Ungaro models purposefully flashed during the show that just walked in Paris. [People]

• Selena Gomez is launching a fashion line, called Selena Gomez Dream Out Loud. Something called Cynosure Holdings is responsible for the collection, which seems appropriate, somehow. It's not coming out till fall 2010, so if the economy gets worse, there's still time for it the whole idea to slink quietly away, like Pastelle. [WWD]
• Here are some first looks from Rodarte's Target collection, due out on December 20. It includes a lot of leopard print, lace, sequins, and tulle. [Seventeen and A Tiny Machine]
• Carmen Marc Valvo focuses on the positive: "I've survived in this business for over 20 years. And I've survived colon cancer; so a little dip in the world economy isn't enough to keep me down." [Houston Chronicle]
• Badgley Mischka are doing a lower-priced line, called Mark & James. [WWD]
• Ordinary New Yorkers speak out on Filippa Hamilton, the Ralph Lauren face who was fired for being too fat, at size 4: "It makes me angry," says Alexandria Blackwell, 15, of the Bronx. "They always want skinnier." Dr. Robyn Silverman, a child and teen development expert, says, "If a stunning size 4 model is too overweight to look good in their clothes, then they need to change their clothes, not the model." Revolutionary! [NYDN]
• Delia Ephron, on clothes and life: "Clothes have special power. I'll always remember the raspberry colored v-necked silk sweater I was wearing on my husband and my first date. If I hadn't been wearing that sweater that night, would any of it have happened?" Nora says dressing well becomes more important as women age. "Of course it does, because looking good is so easy when you're young. For openers, you're young, and that looks good." [Glamour]
• Linda Evangelista, on doing a shoot for W with chickens: "I grew up in Canada, in an area where everyone had chickens. I mean, we weren't supposed to have chickens — it was a residential area, but we did. Also, when I went back to Italy with my parents where they grew up, there were chickens. So you can say I know a lot about chickens." [W]
• Marie Claire editor Joanna Coles' limited vocabulary drew the attention of Fashion Week Daily, which provided a handy summary of Coles' questions for Hilary Swank, with every repetition of the word "assume" highlighted. [FWD]
• Crocs is opening a flagship store in Boulder, Colorado. [UPI]
• Someone, somewhere, "officially" named Ines de la Fressange the most chic woman in Paris. Carla Bruni, eat your heart out! [Telegraph]
• "I'm excited to go to Olympics in Vancouver," says former figure skater Vera Wang. "I'm definitely going. I always try to go anytime the Olympics come close to our continent!" She still thinks about her former sport. "Skating became a different sport with the magnification of television. And certainly a few exciting things happened in between, like knee clubbing and scandals to raise the sport's profile. But in the end, it's one of the most beautiful spectator sports that you can watch. It's not just about being insanely athletic; it's all being expressive and artistic. There's no other sport that combines spinning, jumping, choreography, costumes, music all in one- it's a full on press." [FWD]
• When she moved on to being an editor at Vogue, Wang had a few hairy moments. "There was a time where I put all of the furs on a Vogue shoot with Deborah Turbeville into the water, and the entire fur industry wanted to sue me," the designer recalled. "Another time we ruined a Frank Stella painting…we were shooting at night and I remember watching a model jumping up and down in front of a work of art that fell apart. It's hard to put a number on it, but that work of art was worth a quarter of a million 35 years ago. That's probably $3 billion now." [WWD]
• Vera Wang popped in to Karolina Kurkova's baby shower, which was also attended by Adriana Lima, Michelle Monaghan, Rachel Roy. Lima, who is also pregnant, compared bellies with Kurkova. [P6]
• Heidi Klum says she's not going to try and lose the baby weight just to be in this year's Victoria's Secret show. [People]
• Jason Wu is greeting his adoring public in Taiwan this week. [WWD]
• Zac Posen is dipping his toe in the churning waters of advertising. Coco Rocha stars and Ellen von Unwerth shot. [Fashionista]
• "Being fierce is a state of being, not something you can become. It's a high point of being a certain persona. Ferosh is a downgraded version of being fierce." — Leading ferocity expert Christian Siriano. [Star-Trib]
• The Gap is bringing back television advertising, after two years without. The chain will also open a flagship in China next year, but overall the company plans to reduce its retail space by 10% over the next five years. Its September same-store sales were down a relatively modest 1%. [TS]
• H&M's same-store sales slid 8% in September. [WSJ]

• Move over, David Beckham: Cristiano Ronaldo is posing in the spring Armani underwear campaign. [AP]
• Beckham, who says he decided not to renew his Armani contract, is said to be looking to launch an underwear line of his own. [WWD]

• A fit model who worked at Guess? for three years is suing the company for sexual harassment. She alleges that founder Paul Marciano made unwanted sexual advances, and cut her work hours after she resisted. [WWD]
• Yohji Yamamoto announced this morning it was filing for bankruptcy. [NYTimes]
• Meanwhile, Giorgio Armani launched a cell phone that costs $1,032. [Reuters]
• Grace Coddington's face on a t-shirt is definitely something we want. [Refinery29]
• Model Agyness Deyn abstained from booze at a party for a movie. Allegedly, it's because her boyfriend, Albert Hammond, Jr., of the Strokes, is in rehab. [P6]
• Naomi Campbell picked a bag from the Louis Vuitton spring collection to sell to benefit the White Ribbon Appeal, which works to reduce deaths in childbirth. The bag will cost 1,900 Euros; no word yet on what percentage of the proceeds will go to the charity. [Elle UK]
• Looking so nervous you'd have sworn she was about to have a heart attack, Katy Perry interviewed Karl Lagerfeld after his show in Paris. After asking him about the prevalence of metal trim in the collection, the Kaiser said it was actually metallicized leather. The look on the pop star's face when Lagerfeld tells her the one song that sums him up is Lily Allen's "It's Not Me, It's You," is priceless. Then the designer says, "I'm addressing what others do, or have done, but have never wanted to be somebody else." And Perry asks to borrow one of the "metal" dresses for the EMAs. [People]
• Mario Sorrenti is shooting Nicole Kidman in the next Omega watch campaign. "I love diamonds," says the star. [WWD]
• Project Runway is to become a Wii game. We hope that there will be secret levels you can pass into, where the designers will all start singing, "Daniel Franco, Where Did You Go." Or maybe, if you unlock a special sewing box, you look through it and see Tim Gunn and Andrae eating at Red Lobster. [MSNBC]
• Chanel Iman and Iman: Iman and Chanel Iman. These two beautiful ladies did a video for Modelinia, wherein they talked about diversity in fashion. "With the diversity on the runway, it's getting better. But we need more diversity in the campaigns," says Chanel. "The first couple of pages in the magazine is not, you know, ethnic girls." "It's amazing at this age, 2009, almost 2010, with Obama as President, that e should be even talking about this," adds Iman. Iman sums up her life advice thusly: "Just be true to yourself. And don't embarrass your parents. Please." [Modelinia]
• A Portuguese eBay user put a bag from the Jimmy Choo for H&M collection up for auction. The collection doesn't go on sale until November 14. The bag, allegedly from a photo shoot, didn't sell. [Racked]
• Dina Lohan told Access Hollywood not to believe everything you read about Lindsay's fancy new job in fashion, and how that's going. "She's just a little girl and God gave her this gift. She's just trying to create. She did great in Paris, don't believe what you read. She's genius at fashion." Meanwhile, she would like us to buy something called "Shoe-Hans." She herself will continue wearing footwear by Yves Saint Laurent and Gucci, thank you very much. [The Cut]
• Rachel Roy says moving to the East Coast for university after growing up in the Bay Area was a shock, because the former could be "quite segregated, and I wasn't into that. I'm only 35 — so it's not like we're talking many years ago — but I wasn't used to it because I grew up around Samoans, African-Americans, and Filipinos. You go to a club based on the music you like, not based on the kind of people you want to be around. I kind of went into a culture shock when I moved to the East Coast. I try to bring back that laid-back, hippie-chic attitude that the Bay Area has to my business because I've interned at so many places in fashion where it can be quite anal. But I also love New York. I love that it's the closest city we have to Europe, so that's a part of me, but thank God I'm from an area that keeps me out of it." [FabSugar]
• Yesterday in Japan, a suit went on sale that claims to offer some protection against swine flu to its wearer. The $580 suit is coated with titanium dioxide, a chemical that can break down viruses that come into contact with it. To put it mildly: this seems unlikely to work. Why not get the swine flu vaccine instead? [Telegraph]
• Nars is celebrating its 15th year in business with a book featuring photographs of fashion celebrities like Daphne Guinness and Marc Jacobs wearing its products. François Nars did both the makeup and the photography. [WWD]
• Kate Moss met her longtime hairdresser, James Brown, when she was 14. She went to a party at his house, and his sister threw her out. "She thought her boyfriend was flirting with me," explains the supermodel. "So that was that, really," adds Brown. "It started with a fight." Also relevant to this video: HOLY ACCENTS. [Elle UK]
• James Mischka and Mark Badgley live in a 546 sq. ft. studio apartment in Midtown. How relatable! Which they moved into because they were spending too much time in their weekend home, a Lexington, Kentucky, horse farm, to justify the expense of a Greenwich Village duplex. Sigh. [WSJ]
• Philip Treacy designed footwear for the first time ever for the Valentino show. The renowned milliner says working for the foot was like "a whole other dimension." [Elle]
• Again, the article about Crocs, what they mean, whether or not they can make it as a going concern, and what that means. [Time]
• Lost in the news of Liz Claiborne's reshuffle yesterday — the Liz Claiborne line will be sold exclusively at J.C. Penney's, and Isaac Mizrahi's Liz Claiborne New York line will go to QVC — was the fate of Claiborne by John Bartlett, the men's wear line. It will cease to exist. Sorry, guys. [Racked]
• Uniqlo's parent company posted a record profit for the year, of $1.2 billion. [AdAge]
• Levi's profits fell 41% in the third quarter. [WSJ]

Behold: Best-Dressed-List-Member Renee Zellweger! The pressure's on! Normally, this'd be fine. But in the rareified air of TBDL? Not so sure.


Now, Rachel Roy's someone, IMO, deserving of that accolade. She routinely does interesting things and pulls them off with total authority. To wit: stripes, play on houndstooth.


Poll: is Emily Senko sporting a romper or a dress?


Mark Rendall: Pee-pee dance 4.0


I always think of the day-nightie style of oversized tank-shifts as a bit of a cop-out. Irrationally. (And what does that even mean?) And not that Veronica Taylor doesn't look lovely.


Amy Landecker channels the movie's era - which, frankly, I thought a lot more people would do. Truth to tell, it's starting to lose its charms, no? Something I never thought I'd say. It makes me sad, in fact. Damn you, AMC and your overly aggressive promotions!


I'm just going to say it, since producer Norton Herrick doesn't seem to get the weather report: it was, like, a hundred degrees yesterday.


Emma Snowdon-Jones' hobble skirt must give her the most ungainly walk; did she wait until everyone else went in and then shuffle behind?


Bethenny Frankel channels Barbie '85 - not a good era for Barbie.

[Images via Getty]

Look, Jamie Lee Kirchner is within her rights to drag this vinyl leggings trend out to its bitter, painful, inevitable end. I mean, I get it: comfortable and beautiful! But in hundred degree weather? That's commitment.


Emmanuelle Chriqui: I can see your knish through your fly. That is all.


Seriously, I'm working on my aversion to purple, I really am. Would I like Kiera Chaplin's dress if I didn't hate the color? Tell me! Be my eyes!


And I'm already lovin' social Fabiola Beracasa's Park Avenue eccentric: how much more would I love it if I didn't see "Duncan-dancing -wizard" every time I saw aubergine?


Jennifer Esposito's looking seriously busy here. Not in the
"industrious" sense, although I'm sure she has a wonderful work ethic.


Whereas I love Alexa Chung's iteration: it's like asking your bridesmaids to just dress in the same color palette, except one has amazing style and the other finds the whole thing an ordeal and just goes into a store blindly and asks tremulously, "do you have anything in...teal?"


Melanie Laurent channels Mad Men. If Mad Men were costumed by Tim Burton. At which point Johnny Depp would show up and his character would have some random quirk he'd decided on - like he'd always be sucking on an enormous lollipop or crocheting.


Really, Agyness Deyn? Ironic Rocky Horror? Because I feel like we were doing that in middle school, both earnestly and ironically, regardless of whether we were into RHPS. And even then I sensed that we were on very, very thin ice.


Kinda dig Gina Gershon's earthy accessories with an LBD - but the whole thing is rendered a bit odd by said accessories' inevitable "matchy" quality.


If you said had "enormous chain suitable for use by one of those giant Playmobils," I wouldn't cotton to it. And yet, Rachel Roy kinda makes it work!


I think anything that makes you look like you might be heading back from a luude-heavy swinger's weekend the Esalen Institute on Route 1 circa '76, like everything Frederique Van Der Wall is wearing, is kind of a good idea.


In other news, Padma Lakshmi looks stunning. Moving on.


I love Melissa George's frock. In fact, I love anything you can describe as "dowdy" plus "positive adjective." Let's go with "glam."


You know I love me some Emma Roberts, but don't tell me the super-low jean is coming. Because I was at my parents' house and I found an old pair form circa '03 and those bad boys had, like, a 1" zipper, and obviously I'm fresh out of low-rise undies nowadays and I remembered why no one sat down for three years.


One nice thing about Julia Stiles: when you see her IRL - like on the street, I don't hang out with her - she looks like a real person. No furtive glances or baseball-cap-and-sunglasses-indoors-don't-look-at-me-why-aren't-you-looking-at-me?! shenanigans. I mean, an attractive person and everything, that's not code, but...normal.


Y'know, I can live with alien chic. Whatever. Do it, Michelle Monaghan. But this sandal trend is exactly like the orthopedics my grandmother wears, and not cool orthopedics, either.


Yes, Diane Kruger's boxy number's chic as all git-out. But the shoes? Look like security anklets.

[Images via Getty]

• A rare, left-handed Michael Jackson glove — the one the star wore when he unveiled his moonwalk at Motown's 25th anniversary in 1983 — is to be auctioned in November at the Hard Rock Café in Times Square. [CTV]

• Pictures of the +J women's collection are starting to trickle out. Isabeli Fontana stars in the campaign, and my god are we excited for Jil Sander's return to form. Not least because the godmother of minimalism is re-materializing after her long absence at Uniqlo's sensible price point; the full range will cost between $21 and $155. [WWD]
• Diane Kruger, on Karl Lagerfeld: "Karl is like a dad. I've known him since I was 16 – I would do a lot for Karl. I was once on his plane flying to China. He wouldn't stop talking. After a while, I said to him, ‘I have to sleep now Karl.' When I woke up 10 hours later he was still talking to some poor assistant!" [SassyBella]
• Designer Tory Burch and Marchesa co-founder Georgina Chapman are both making cameos on Gossip Girl's next season. [WWD]
• Mad Men's Alison Brie, on the wardrobe: "You wear girdles and tight clothes you can't really breathe in that make you sit up straight. That alone is kind of oppressive and really makes you feel how these women were feeling at the time." [TVGuide]
• From the horse's mouth: Kanye West isn't interning at the Gap. Quoth designer Patrick Robinson, on the occasion of the launch of the Gap's new 1969 Premium Jeans Collection, "He's a friend of mine, and he just likes to see what we do. I tell him, if he wants people to take him seriously in fashion, they have to see blood first! They have to see the blood and the sweat, to see that he really wants it — but he definitely has the capability." [FWD]
• Harlem resident Sessilee Lopez cooks to unwind. "I just made a pepper steak, rice and beans for Wendell the other night. I grew up watching my grandmother cook and she can make anything taste good. So I try to apply what she does. I'm also getting into baking, but I think that might be dangerous for my career." On role models: "Definitely Tyra [Banks]; I would love to benchmark myself after her. She went from being a pretty face to a mogul. It would be great to follow in her footsteps." [W]
• Justin Timberlake's Givenchy perfume ad has a behind-the-scenes video — the behind-the-scenes video now being de rigueur — so you can double up on your Justin pleasure. [People]
• Oscar de la Renta, on not dressing women with double-digit dress sizes: "Well, you cannot be a jack-of-all-trades. You must do what you do best." [VF]
• Robert Geller has a men's capsule collection with Levi's that hits stores next month. [WWD]
• The body of a man was found on the roof of Opening Ceremony, the downtown Manhattan boutique. Signs indicate the death may have been accidental, and the man a vagrant, but police investigated the scene for seven hours yesterday. [Gawker]
• London police have made one arrest in connection with the Graff jewelry heist that netted $65 million worth of jewels last week. A 50-year-old man, who is not believed to have been one of the two robbers who held up the store, was arrested and bailed. [WWD]
• Jewelry designers Arielle de Pinto and Pamela Love are each doing standalone presentations at New York Fashion Week this September, and Bliss Lau — whose original necklace was shamelessly re-cast and copied by Erin Wasson for the supermodel's jewelry line — Philip Crangi, and Eddie Borg are all working on collaborations with unnamed designers for September. [Style.com]
• Anna Wintour has confirmed she will be attending London Fashion Week in September. Although Wintour normally skips the London shows, this year, a special effort by British designers to show on their home turf has resulted in a glut of bold-faced names on the schedule — Burberry, Christopher Kane, Jonathan Saunders, Gareth Pugh, Matthew Williamson — that Wintour simply can't ignore. [Grazia]
• Helena Christensen is naked and gorgeous on the cover of Citizen K. [Sun]
• Ralph Lauren is being sued over shirts he made that say "Lifeguard" on them. The Lifeguard Licensing Corp. says it registered that trademark in 1937. [NYPost]
• Artist Hugh Hayden: "I do dinner parties. The most famous one, in college, was called "Smooth." I wanted people to focus on the taste of food but make everything else a constant. We puréed all the food, had the guests wear all white and arranged them in chairs, facing the wall, around the perimeter of the room. We tied their hands behind their back and fed them through this device, which looked like a snorkel with a funnel attached. So you focus on the taste of what you're eating." Label Hayden-Harnett hired this guy to give their NoLiTa boutique a sporty temporary makeover, and to work with them on the Spring 2010 presentation next month. We're kind of scared, because that dinner party sounds like it would have a long and troubling afterlife in one's subconscious. [W]
• One thing we actually do not want to wear or even see is a "sneaker/boat shoe hybrid," but thanks anyway, Lacoste. [WWD]
• JC Penney's has a line called Twelfth of Eleven that comprises mainly t-shirts, and they won't reveal who designs it. Racked.com thinks it might be Rachel Roy, who designs a line of similar t-shirts (at higher prices) for Macy's. [Racked]
• Wal-Mart's second-quarter results were positive; the world's biggest retailer's profits rose 1.4%, to $3.45 billion. Urban Outfitters' income declined by 14%, to $49 million, but sales rose 1%. [WWD]
• Kohl's second-quarter profit fell just 3%, to $229 million, and sales actually rose slightly, by 2%. [AP]
• Same-store sales at Macy's this quarter fell by 9.5%, but the retailer clung to profitability by cutting costs, and turned in a better-than-expected result of a $7 million profit. [Reuters]

Ok, so hopefully in combo with the lead photo, you can see the asymmetrical action on Amy Adams' glam gown. (It's off the shoulder on the other side.)


It's like Jaslene Gonzalez doesn't even care that I'm over the tummy-peep trend and its accompanying 10th grade-geometry-worthy tan lines! (Yeah, I know you smarter kids took Geometry earlier, but I was in the slow math group.)


Katie Lee (Joel?) is looking a lot more comfortable in her skin on the red carpet these days. It's too bad this coincides with everyone kind of turning on her for vague reasons that, at least in my case, have less to do with Billy Joel than with her career as a celebrity chef and restauranteur.


Okay, I friggin' adore writer and former French Vogue editor Joan Juliet Buck, so it's no shock that this beggar-princess-Arabian-Nights ensemble should totally make my day. I mean, can you see Wintour or her coterie in anything this bizarre? (ALT's caftans excepted, of course.)


Okay, there's something I'm not loving in the mix of low-key glitz and glitz-glitz in Claire Robinson's getup, but this is one of the few frocks that I can actually imagine wearing in yesterday's gruesome stickiness.


Many of us may know Frances Sternhagen best as Bunny MacDougal, but she's also a distinguished stage actress. And someone whose unabashedly white hair and equally unabashed hot-weather-comfort dress I am finding delightfully no-fuss.


Patricia Clarkson, obviously, looks crisp, cucumber-cool and like a total class act.


Chris Messina is, looks, extremely handsome. The end.


Jillian Bach models the "tearaway" bodice, a trend only available to those women with svelte chests. The rest of us would give "bodice-ripper" a new meaning.


What say you about Gayle King's racing stripes? I, personally, hate 'em, but it takes all kinds, as a man once said, to make a world.


Meryl Streep does no-nonsense, wear-anywhere.


Rachel Roy sports the extremely expensive I-Have-"Celebrity Skin"-in-my-walkman distressed jeans trend I'm really hoping is about to end.


Why is Barbara Walters wearing a coat? Because she didn't want to sport head-to-toe ecru?


Come on, even Rachael Ray's harshest critics would be hard-pressed to find much to criticize in this super-safe LBD.


Julie Powell, meanwhile, follows suit. As you know, I have a particular sympathy for the writers at these celeb-filled events; it must be a bit of an ordeal, albeit exciting.


[Images via Getty]

• Change! Stately old American Vogue is apparently seeking to revamp itself. Says Wayne Sterling, the mag wants "a new circle of models, an influx of fresh, young photographers and a desire for 'unpredictability' in the stories." Unpredictability. In Vogue. [TI]

• Marc Jacobs has added two pro-marriage equality t-shirts to his Marc by Marc line. One shows a line drawing of a lesbian couple with a child, and the other shows an American flag and a dollar sign; both have the tag line "I pay my taxes, I want my rights." The tees cost $24 and are available now. Jacobs is of course looking forward to his own gay marriage, in Massachusetts, later this summer. [PerezHilton]
• Jacobs, along with Patti Smith and David Rockwell, has been named one of the Pratt Institute's Legends of 2009. [WWD]
• Madonna wears diamond dust on her eyes. For that extra sparkly something. [People]
• Patrick Demarchelier shot Gossip Girl's Taylor Momsen in Central Park for the September cover of Teen Vogue. [TFS]
• The Kaiser's Chanel accessories ads featuring Lily Allen, who recently launched her own jewelry line, are also out. She wears a tiara in one; in another, she looks like she's hiding behind a carry-all. [FWD]
• Amanda Hearst, the model/heiress, is rumored to have been offered a job sinecure at Hearst-owned Marie Claire. [P6]
• More details are emerging about the only bid for the house of Lacroix that the bankrupt company's administrator has yet deemed "serious": Italian department store company Borletti had bid jointly with Christian Lacroix himself. Borletti bought the Printemps department store chain from Pinault-Printemps-Redoute in 2006, and owns the Italian department store La Rinescente jointly with Deutsche Bank. French turnaround firm Bernard Krief Consulting made a bid that the administrator described as "insufficient" for the fashion house, and which it has promised to revise upwards. No dollar values for these bids has been revealed. [Reuters]
• Maybe one way Christian Lacroix could make a little cash would be licensing his name to an unaffiliated uniforms division, since that's exactly what Nicolas Ghesquière of Balenciaga did. Air Tahiti Nui sent out a very happy press release yesterday announcing the introduction of its brand-spanking-new Balenciaga uniforms — but further investigation has revealed that the gear was made under license by a uniform company using the Balenciaga name. Our visions of flying with space-age Ghesquière creations were crushed. [The Moment]
• The rumors were true: Coach is launching — and fully funding — a signature line for its creative director, Reed Krakoff. The designer's eponymous accessories collection will launch for Fall '10. [WWD]
• This is despite the fact that Coach suffered a 32% decline in quarterly profits for the period ended June 27. Net income fell from $213.5 million last year to $145.8 million. [WWD]
• Rachel Roy and Estelle are working together on a jewelry line. Roy announced this via Twitter. [WWD]
• Zappos earned $10.7 million from total sales of $635 million worth of sales last year, according to new owner Amazon's SEC filing. [TBI]
• New York City charity HousingWorks, which sells used clothing and furniture and donates its profits to fund AIDS and homelessness, has been doing great business in the recession — understandable, considering so many of their offerings are designer. Susan Sarandon, Bill Clinton, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Chloé Sevigny, as well as, one presumes, a whole slew of regular well-dressed folk, all recently donated clothes and goods. [NYObs]
• Bravo, still reeling from the loss of Project Runway, is launching another fashion-themed reality show: Launch My Line. The concept pairs new designers with established industry lights in order to develop the youngsters' businesses — the best mentee gets his or her line launched, and the best mentor gets $50,000. It all unfolds under the watchful eye of hosts Dean and Dan Caten, of DSquared2, and judges Stefani Greenfield, formerly of retail chain Scoop, and Lisa Kline. [FabSugar]
• Profits at the multinational luxury company LVMH, which owns everything from Louis Vuitton to Dior to Sephora, dropped 23% in the first six months of this year, to 687 million euros, or $934.3 million, from 891 million euros, or $1.39 billion, a year earlier. Sales during the same period rose 0.2% on a year earlier. The top performing brands was Sephora, and Louis Vuitton handbag sales remained strong. [WWD]
• Maybe, just maybe, one reason profits are down is the fact that Louis Vuitton is trying to sell a $450 USB key? Hermès, in any case, is jumping on the lux-tech bandwagon with a bluetooth device "made of super lightweight carbon fiber, aluminum and supple leather ... [with a] custom-built silicon earring." [Racked]
• Men's control underwear is still being talked about as if it's a new idea. It isn't. [Telegraph]

• Jennifer Lopez is getting out of the U.S. clothing business, closing her brand, Sweetface. In 2007, Lopez shuttered JLO, replacing it with Justsweet — which then closed after two seasons. It's tough out there for a wannabe fashion mogul. [WWD]

• However, you'll be happy to know that Lopez's Passionista lingerie range is still faring well enough to hire Ana Beatriz Barros for its campaign. [Sun]
• And yet the fall-back advertising strategy remains: if all else fails, throw celebrities at the problem of generating sales in this economy! OP has Sophia Bush, Brody Jenner, Solange Knowles, and a gaggle of other faces in its summer campaign. [People]
• Angelina Jolie takes it easy when it comes to dressing for the red carpet: "I don't think too much about what to wear on the red carpet. I usually have three basic colors and I get the same shapes in different colors!" [MyFashionLife]
  
• Heidi Klum's Barbie, launching this September, comes clad in a sequined mini-dress — and a gold pair of shoes heavily inspired by those Dior gladiator platforms everyone was wearing last summer. Is it still a knock-off if it's plastic and 1" tall? [PopBytes]
• Michelle Obama favored New York designer Rachel Roy with her sartorial selections in San Francisco. The First Lady wore a dress by the designer to attend a conference on volunteering. [The Cut]
• The first of the Michelle Obama style books are here. There's Michelle Style: Celebrating the First Lady of Fashion by Mandi Norwood, Michelle Obama: First Lady of Fashion and Style by Susan Swimmer, and, amazingly, even a Michelle Obama 2010 wall calendar dedicated to 20 glorious full-color pictures of her style. Shockingly, the "experts" agree: the lady dresses well. [USAToday]
• Alexander McQueen said he wouldn't do a runway show for his Spring 2010 men's wear collection, but would instead present his goods in some very special format that the fashion world has eagerly anticipated, McQueen being known for theatrics. Well! If you want to spend 2:19 minutes of your life watching a heavy-breathing pyromaniac in his underwear crawl around an abandoned mental hospital, draw on his own arm, compulsively build a house out of sticks, and slather himself with a brownish substance he then uses to write "Shit" on the wall, all while creepy music plays, now's your chance! Directed by David Sims. Dazed & Confused called it "a daring expedition into both the mind and the wardrobe of an artist." [AlexanderMcQueen]
• Jonathan Saunders is returning to London Fashion Week for the Spring 2010 collections. He had previously shown in New York. Burberry, Matthew Williamson, and Pringle of Scotland have all similarly announced their intentions to celebrate LFW's 25th anniversary by showing there. [UK Vogue]
• The two brothers accused of committing dozens of robberies, mainly on lone women, around London were convicted in court yesterday. Daniel Mykoo, 28, admitted 19 offenses, including choking fashion designer Nicole Farhi until she became unconscious, and stealing her rings and watch. Matthew Mykoo, 27, was convicted of seven attacks but cleared of another eight, including the one on Farhi. [Guardian]
• Vogue hasn't lost any time in replacing Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, the director of special events (a.k.a. the woman in charge of the Oscars of the East, the Met Costume Institute ball), who resigned last Thursday. Sylvana Soto-Ward, an accessories editor who started as Anna Wintour's assistant in 2003, will take the reins. [WWD]
• Yasmin Le Bon is behind a U.K. charity that aims to help children in Romanian orphanages. To support it, you can buy weekly £1 raffle tickets with a chance of winning bounty donated from sponsors. The prize for the first week is a £2,000 voucher from Net-A-Porter. [Times of London]
• 17-year-old fashion blogger Jane Aldridge of Sea of Shoes has a deal to sell her own shoes at Urban Outfitters. Three styles will be in stores next month, and three more will debut in December. Pricing information isn't yet available, but pictures are. (Ironically, to my eye, the heel-lover's flats are the best-looking pair.) [SeaOfShoes]
• And fashion designers think using Twitter will help their business. [WWD]
• Gildo Zegna, the chief executive of Ermenegildo Zegna, the Italian suit maker, says fashion talk of an economic recovery by spring next year is foolish. "I remain positive long term, but we have to be realistic about the crisis," said Zegna. "I think it will be longer than initially anticipated and marginal players are going to go out of business. We have the example of the banking system and the car industry. If it happened to them, it can happen in our business." Zegna just showed the younger, lower-priced line Z Zegna at Milan's men's wear week for the first time, and has aggressively expanded over the past few years in China, to the point where it now has 60 boutiques there and foresees China becoming a bigger market than the U.S. within the next 18 months. Zegna also believes luxury's next great frontier will be Africa. "Look how the Chinese are investing in Africa — they are smart." Did we just hear the future of fashion articulated by one of the industry's oldest names? [NY Times]
• Struggling Abercrombie & Fitch is opening a 40,000 square foot flagship mega store for its Hollister brand in New York. [WWD]
• Chinese counterfeiters are shipping products with fake "Made in India" labels. The ultimate blame-the-other-emerging-economy dodge. [Hindustan Times]

• Spencer Pratt says that when he did the Today show, he thought that Al Roker was a "fan" "off the street." And! Heidi Montag's command for Al Roker?

"Please do not be rude to women in the future. Please do not be rude to me. Please watch your tone, especially if you have a mother or a wife or a daughter. I don't think that they would appreciate you talking to them like that." Ugh. Seriously? Anyway, Al Roker, Heidi forgives you. [Us Magazine]

• Al Roker's Twitter reads: "Heidi and Spencer are an interesting couple. famous for...being infamous. Bad and vacuous behavior. I think we're at minute 11 of their 15." And! "Amazed at the fact that Ann Curry had an terrific interview w/ Benjamin Netanyahu but what gets picked up is my goofy interview w/ Speidi." Good point. [Gatecrasher]
• Madonna calls her new adopted daughter on the phone every night. [The Sun]
• Remember that voicemail Alec Baldwin left for his daughter? The one in which he called her a "rude little pig" who needed to have her "ass straightened out"? After the message leaked, Baldwin considered killing himself, he tells Playboy: "I spoke to a lot of professionals, who helped me… If I committed suicide, [Kim Basinger's side] would have considered that a victory. Destroying me was their avowed goal." [People]
• A source says that when Lindsay Lohan was at a photo shoot in London, she "kept going on about the jewels, asking if she could have them." Later? They went missing. [MSNBC]
• Look! Lindsay Lohan with a pregnant belly. It's for that flick, Labor Pains, which will air on ABC Family July 19. [EW]
• Lindsay Lohan: Spotted at a club "not acting normal." [Page Six]
• Words you never really thought you would read: Katie Holmes is taping her guest appearance for So You Think You Can Dance today. [Us Magazine]
• Teyona Taylor, who was with Chris Brown at the Lakers/Magic game on Sunday, says Chris Brown did not use her for a PR stunt. As for looking like Rihanna, she says: "I've always dressed like that. I've always had style ... I've had that Mohawk now for months." [TMZ]
• Chris Brown being out and about — instead of keeping a low profile — is part of his "strategy." [TMZ]
• David Letterman apologized again for the joke that involved Sarah Palin and her daughters. [NY Times, TV Week]
• Oh, look: A Fire David Letterman campaign. And a protest. [NY Daily News]
• Jeff Foxworthy on David Letterman: "I don't think any kind of joke about someone having sex with a teenage girl is funny." [CNN]
• BREAKING: Sarah Palin has accepted David Letterman's apology. [AP]
• If you're still interested in Carrie Prejean, here's a story about how she's "considering legal action" against the Miss California USA pageant and how her book deal may have been one of the reasons she was fired. [Radar Online]
• This report claims that the pageant threatened to sue Carrie Prejean, for her "churlish insolent misbehavior." [TMZ]
• David and Victoria Beckham have received a High Court apology from their former nanny, who gave an interview to the News Of The World after she resigned and spilled all kind of private information. [BBC News]
• Bad news for Patrick Swayze: A&E's series The Beast has been canceled. [NY Times]
• Why hasn't Mischa Barton been at any of the promotional events for her new model show, The Beautiful Life? Weird, right? [Pop Wrap]
• Peaches Geldof is being linked to an L.A. stylist named Sandra S. This paper takes it as a sign "she may be off men for good." [The Sun]
• Adrien Grenier and Twilight's Ashley Greene: It's on. [Page Six]
• Gerard Butler and designer Rachel Roy? Getting cozy? [Page Six]
• Steven Spielberg and Noah Wyle are working on an alien-invasion TV series for TNT that sounds kinda like V. [EW]
• Natalie Portman is in talks to star in a supernatural thriller set in the world of New York City ballet (?!?!) directed by Darren Aronofsky, of The Wrestler and Requiem For A Dream. Intriguing! [The Hollywood Reporter]
• Leonardo DiCaprio will star in a flick about Costa Rica-based online casinos, written by the guys who did Ocean's Thirteen and Rounders. [The Hollywood Reporter]
• Wow. A documentary chronicling Tilda Swinton as she bikes along what used to be the Berlin Wall. Sign us up! [Reuters]
• What the world needs now: R. Kelly will make his first trip to Africa and perform at the Arise Africa Fashion Awards gala in Johannesburg, South Africa. [WWD]
• "Artie Lange won't be appearing on Conan O'Brien's Tonight Show anytime soon: Producers think Howard Stern's sidekick isn't sober enough to perform." [Gatecrasher]
• Ignore any rumors you may have heard about Stephen Baldwin's house being in foreclosure, says Stephen Baldwin's rep. [People]
• As previously mentioned, Scott Weiland's wife is writing a book about their marriage's ups and downs; Scott Weiland says: "My love for her will never end. We just forgot how to be friends. She has now chosen a public career and one that brings both accolades and public scrutiny. There will be more of this sort of thing to deal with as time goes by... both good and bad. Divorce is hell..." [ONTD via All Headline News]
• Hulk Hogan's accusing estranged wife Linda of spending her $40k a month alimony on drugs. Stay classy you guys. [TMZ]
• Michael Strahan and Nicole (ex wife of Eddie) Murphy: Engaged. [People]
• Chim chim-in-ey, chim chim-in-ey, chim chim cher-ee! Dick Van Dyke is writing a memoir. [Yahoo News via AP]
• Blind item! "Which male music diva kicked a billionaire out of his house - just because he put his dirty feet on a pristine white couch?" [Gatecrasher]
• "Even the people that were shovelling bodies into gas chambers would say 'we're just obeying orders'... you've got to accept responsibility for what you're doing. If your actions as an individual are directly having a negative effect on someone else's life then you can't say 'I'm just doing my job.'" — Pete Doherty on the paparazzi (yes, he's comparing them to Nazi concentration camp guards.) [Mirror]
• "There is a period once you finish a guy — a character — when you're looking to go back to yourself and sometimes it can manifest itself in illness. After I made The Libertine, I was in bed for two weeks. When you're working, you don't get sick, then suddenly it hits you like a two-by-four." — Johnny Depp. [MSNBC via Contact Music]
• "After I was cast and I realized my body would be exposed all the time, I went out and bought some shorts - I owned none - to help me get used to it. You stop thinking, Do I look weird at this angle? I've learned to feel comfortable wearing very little. It's liberating! …I love being barefoot. I'm not going to lie - I love my high heels, too, so I'm completely bipolar in that regard." — Anna Paquin, on exposing herself in True Blood. [Gatecrasher via Self Magazine]
• "When I read the script, I said to myself, ‘OK, well, you're turning 50 this year and you're really heading into the eye of the storm with this one. Then I was working too hard to really think about what was happening. [My birthday] kind of came and went and it wasn't a big deal. Honestly, it was a huge relief when it was over because you realize nothing changes." — Michelle Pfeiffer, on playing a french prostitute in Cheri. [WWD]
• "I had booby stickers on. If I'd been actually topless, I would have sued someone… I know who, and I never did anything about it. It's her karma to deal with, not mine." — Megan Fox, on leaked nude pix. [NY Daily News]

• Marc Jacobs and his Brazilian fiancé, Lorenzo Martone, are set to marry next month in Provincetown. Also, Jacobs is taking the artists John Currin and Rachel Feinstein, plus Madonna, to the Met ball. [FWD]

• But Jesus Luz won't be in his fall Louis Vuitton campaign. "Why is everyone asking me about him? He's not modeling for me. I don't do menswear," said the designer. He did say, however, that Madonna and Steven Meisel are shooting the campaign right now, right here in New York. "She's the ultimate professional and she and Steven are amazing. I love working with her. There's no one better." [The Cut]
• Steven Alan, on this one time he opened a barbershop: "My mom was getting her haircut at this hairdresser's in the East Village, and the lady told her she was interested in opening her own salon, so my mom goes, 'Oh you should talk to my son!' And I'm like, 'Mom, I'm not opening a hair salon.' And she goes, well you should meet her anyway. So I met her and I was like, 'If I open anything it's going to be a barber shop,' and she was like, 'Ok, I can cut guys' hair.'" [Fashionista]
• Lanvin's Alber Elbaz — who seemed talented, fretful and difficult in Ariel Levy's recent New Yorker profile — is questioned by Stephanie Seymour in the new issue of Interview. "We really started from scratch eight years ago at Lanvin. It's the oldest couture house in the world, but when I came onboard, it was a great name without much in it. We slowly moved in. I love coffee, but I always say not everything has to be instant. We took the time. It took eight years to move from 15 accounts to 400 accounts. What's important is to maintain it as a family business. It's very much like Interview, which you don't talk about as a group-it's a family. The nature of fashion is family. You see that at almost every house-it was owned first by a family. It wasn't owned by a bank. In fact, the bankers went into fashion later...And look what happened to fashion!" [Interview]
• Alexander Wang, last year's Vogue CFDA fashion fund award-winner, is teaming up with the Gap. And unlike in previous years, where the CFDA designers re-imagined the retailer's white shirt — with mixed results — Wang has done something that sounds kind of exciting. Says Gap designer Patrick Robinson: "This year it's with khaki. He did this incredible motorcycle jacket in khaki that's going to be under $100. It's coming out on June 16th, so get ready!" [Fashionologie]
• Thinker of deep thoughts Michael Kors wishes there were some kind of Spanx for men. It exists, Michael! [The Cut]
• All that lobbying from the First Lady's favorite designers must have worked: a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the House has reintroduced a modified version of the design piracy bill. [WWD]
• The ever-humble Isaac Mizrahi: "I just love women in dresses. Last night I was at an event at the Pier [in New York] and everyone looked just ugh ... except those wearing my clothes." [Philadelphia Inquirer]
• Soon, there will be Jessica Simpson lingerie. And sleepwear. Fantastic. [WWD]
• And Paris Hilton is doing sunglasses. [PopDirt]
• Anne Hathaway may not be doing the next Marc Jacobs campaign — but she looks good in her new ad for Lancôme perfume. [E! Online]
• WSJ. took Hilary Rhoda to Miami to shoot swimsuits, and shot this nifty behind-the-scenes video. No amount of overdubbed music can hide the fact that modeling is generally about making odd positions look natural. [WSJ]
• This list of the top 20 fashion Twitterers covers all the bases, but all you really need to know is: Fake. Karl. [Times of London]
• In a similar vein, Rachel Roy held a press conference via Twitter. She answered such hard-hitting lines of inquiry as, "Rachel, you absolutely glow! How do you stay confident through tough times?" Oh, the vaunted democracy of the Internet. [WWD]
• Revlon is launching a new mascara, and adding two items to its ColorStay product range. [WWD]
• Henri Bendel, the department store founded in 1895, is no longer going to sell clothes. The retailer will shrink its New York flagship by one floor, and concentrate only on selling accessories, beauty products, and gift items that leverage its brand and signature colors. Eight percent of its 250-strong workforce will be laid off. [NY Times]
• Timberland's profits declined 12% in the first quarter of this year. [WWD]
• Breaking: Tiffany & Co. has bought the bankrupt Lambertson Truex handbag brand from Samsonite. [WWD]
• Abercrombie & Fitch, meanwhile, is in its second round of layoffs this year. After making fifty workers at its Columbus, Ohio, headquarters in January, the company is letting go an addition 170 this week. [The Street]
• Joe's Jeans actually rose slightly in its sales and earnings for the first quarter. [WWD]
• The Gap is recalling 22,000 toggle coats for babies, up to size 24 months. The toggles can come off, and pose a choking risk. [Babble]

• What appears to be Kanye West's campaign for his Louis Vuitton sneakers has leaked. Amber Rose, the woman he squired around fashion week, is featured, along with a truly hideous crocodile bomber jacket. [Nah Right]

• George F. Will: hates jeans, or as he likes to call them, "the demon denim." "Denim," he says, "is the carefully calculated costume of people eager to communicate indifference to appearances." Then the columnist writes that the only acceptable jeans are "authentic work clothes for horny-handed sons of toil and the soil." He he he he horny. [WaPo]
• The New York Times is ending its weekly fashion spreads — which were always, to my eye, surprisingly good — its Sunday magazine. Ad pages are down 41% on last year, and the Times is going to concentrate its fashion coverage in the execrable T, as well as the Styles section. [WWD]
• Heidi Klum confirmed the seventh season of Project Runway (applications are due April 24, guys!) will be filmed in New York, not L.A. [E! Online]
• Prada is nearing the completion of some kind of an epic building in Seoul. Designed by BFF starchitect, Rem Koolhaas (who did this season's lookbook), and called the Transformer, the building's components will rotate and re-align to transform the structure completely. It'll be flexible enough to host film festivals and exhibits of all kinds. The building will be contained by a thin, elastic white membrane. [WWD]
• At least Karl Lagerfeld is honest about modeling. "[I]n fact there is no advice, because all circumstances are very different. It depends on what you are ready to give, the kind of life you bring, what may be exciting or disappointing … You can't accuse anyone of not doing enough to help you, because, besides yourself, there's nothing anyone can do. You have to be given what's needed by nature, and what's needed is to bring something new. But it's the most … (hits hand on table) unjust … (hits hand on table) thing in the world." [Fashionologie]
• Jewelry designer Anna Sheffield is the next in line for the Target: GO International diffusion line program. And Macy's will sell a cheaper capsule collection from Rachel Roy, under the label Rachel Rachel Roy, starting this August. [Fabsugar]
• Vivienne Westwood is now making pillows. Naturally, they're awesome but perhaps a little extreme — which is Westwood's aesthetic to a T. [FWD]
• Could Jennifer Connelly be making a return as the face of Balenciaga this fall? [The Cut]
• Cynthia Rowley turned up on the cover of an auction catalog with her guitarist husband. They like to collect contemporary art to decorate their West Village townhome. [WWD]
• Stefano Pilati, the creative director of Yves Saint Laurent, now has a floral sleeve tattoo. [Purple Diary]
• Coco Rocha says the weirdest thing about hosting that E! Canada documentary on New York Fashion Week was having to actually interview people. "For me to run up to people who have like, eight bodyguards was not my scene," said the model, who recently died her hair red at the request of Steven Meisel. "I don't like to get into people's personal space, I don't believe in it, so I was like, whoa!" [The Cut]
• WWD has a fascinating look at the process of clothing restoration. The case study: the work of Madeleine Vionnet. [WWD]
• There is now a thing called ModelFeed, which functions like a group blog, for models. So if you ever wanted to know how Myf Shepard feels about contemporary art, now's your time. [ModelFeed]
• Do you want to watch Rick Owens — a designer who bears some resemblance to Professor Snape — grinning maniacally for Nick Knight while Richard Strauss' Salomé plays in the background? The answer is yes. (Moreover, Owens takes his shirt off suddenly, and lets his trademark black sweater blow in the studio fan. It's dramatic.) [ShowSTUDIO]

• "Rumors are swirling" that Marc Jacobs and boyf may be adopting a baby girl. [New York]
• Damon Dash and Rachel Roy are divorcing. [NY Daily News]
• Why is Nicole Richie dressed as Lady Gaga? [BlackBook]

• Oy. Barneys eliminates 76 positions. [WWD]
• Tiffany's profits are down...although not as low as people expected! Silver linings...? [NYT]
• This 30-something reporter is worried that she's too old for "sheers." We feel her pain! "Then there is the problem of the sheer panel. You know the sort - where one five-inch peekaboo slot has the ability to make a slick cocktail dress look startlingly cheap." [Daily Mail]
• And another one down: menswear designer Mark Shale files for bankruptcy. [WWD]
• Lady Gaga has totally ripped off Hussein Chalayan's bubble dress. But they should feel honored! Besides, the original covers the vagina, a problem with Mme. Gaga rectified. [New York]
• Fashion types are awfully excited at the news of Marni's new summer capsule collection, which will feature "Marni's unmistakable abstract prints and block colour panels feature on easy-to-wear T-shirt dresses, casual jackets and mannish trousers." [ElleUK]
• So when she says, "her husband," is Michelle Obama really talking about "the media?" M.O. says: "He's always asking: ‘Is that new? I haven't seen that before.' It's like, Why don't you mind your own business? Solve world hunger. Get out of my closet." [New York Times via Fashionista]
• Taking the pulse of the times, Margiela opens a German flagship: "Eight white rickshaws and 10 white bikes ferried guests from the new shop on Maximilian Strasse to the art museum, while those who preferred to walk had only to follow the white Tabi toe-sock footprints and white helium balloons pointing the way." [WWD]
• Speaking of which: we can add nothing to this quote from VogueUK: "The yummy mummy enclave of London's W10 is set to become even yummier with the addition of Burberry's first UK childrenswear store on Westbourne Grove. [VogueUK]
• Fashion parties, on the other hand, are feeling the pinch: "At a recent soiree, there was a strict one tipple per guest rule." Accordingly, fashionistas are packing flasks. We know that game. [Fashionista]
• Patrick Robinson asserts, again, that he's changing the image of the Gap. Visits to the store fail to back this up. [VogueUK]
• Clarins is opening a series of in-department-store spas. [WSJ]

• Rihanna's maybe moving on! But: She was seen getting cozy with Wilmer Valderrama. Isn't that dude bad news bears? He's been linked to Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, Ashlee Simpson, Mandy Moore… [Mirror]

• So you know how Lindsay Lohan has a new Maserati? It's already been in a minor car accident. LL wasn't driving — her assistant hit a Subaru in front of them. [Just Jared]
• Is Angelina Jolie on a "crazy" diet called liquid detox? [The Sun]
• WTF: Nadya Suleman has fired the nurse-nannies from Angels in Waiting! She felt she was being judged or something? How the heck is she going to take care of 14 kids by herself? Seriously? [E!]
• Did Jennifer Aniston dump John Mayer over his Twitter obsession? [Daily Mail]
• This one time, Mary-Kate Olsen was driven off the road by the paparazi. "It was never written about,"she says. [Just Jared]
• Designer Rachel Roy has filed for divorce from hip-hop mogul Damon Dash. He co-founded Rocawear but has since been struggling with debt and bad business deals; she has her own line of women's clothing. They have two kids. This should be interesting. [NY Daily News]
• Jesus Luz says he did not cheat on Madonna with some random woman in Brazil: "The press created this story." Welcome to fame! [The Sun]
• Uh-oh: "Madonna's fling with Jesus Luz and her rumored hookup with A-rod may foil adoption plans." An official from Malawi's Ministry of Child Welfare says: "Our official policy is that we do not encourage our children to be sent into broken homes." [NY Daily News]
• Um, this report claims that Jesus wants to adopt a kid with Madonna. Grain of salt. [ONTD]
• Angelina Jolie's mother owes $60,000 in back taxes, despite having passed away in 2007. How do you fix that? [TMZ]
• Diablo Cody and her homies all wear matching necklaces which read "Fuck My Face." Heart-warming! [NY Mag]
• Here is a photograph of Amy Winehouse climbing over a spiked fence and being compared to Sideshow Bob. [Daily Mail]
• Lindsay Lohan's former roommate and Tila Tequila's ex-girlfriend Courtenay Semel has checked into rehab. [Page Six]
• Someone blogging as Leighton Meester but decidedly not Leighton Meester likes poetry, goes to a shrink and complains about the paparazzi. [NY Observer]
• Nicole Richie channels Lady Gaga in her pix for BlackBook. [Just Jared]
• Cindy Crawford is naked in the April issue of Allure, with some strategically placed soap bubbles. [The Superficial]
• Jessica "Slimpson"'s body "has now fully returned to its former glory" so you can all relax. [The Sun]
• Geri Halliwell is on a "man-ban." [The Star]
• Another day, another story about Hugh Grant making out with two women at the same time. In public. [Page Six]
• Kim Kardashian couldn't pronounce "philanthropic" at a charity event, and people laughed at her. Tragic! [Gatecrasher]
• Is Fergie heading to Washington to play a private concert for Sasha and Malia Obama? Is this why she is brunette now? Will she teach them to spell duchess with a T? [Gatecrasher]
• Coldplay's Chris Martin met kiddie band The Wiggles, got super psyched and them covered their song, "Fruit Salad." So punk rock. [The Sun]
• Chris Martin can't get Michael Jackson tickets! [Mirror]
• Maybe Chris Martin should bid on this Michael Jackson stuff up for auction? A Swarovski crystal-encrusted white glove could go for a mere $15,000. [NY Daily News]
• Speaking of Michael Jackson, he's invited the stars of Harry Potter to be All-Access guests opening night of his sold-out UK shows. Naturally. [The Sun]
• Anne Hathaway will play Judy Garland in an upcoming film and theater productions of Get Happy: The Life Of Judy Garland. Question is: Will she sing or lip sync? [E!]
• People. For the last time. Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson are not a couple in real life. Quit asking. Sheesh. [E!]
• But hey! Meet the New Moon wolf pack! Cute teenage Native American actors! [Socialite Life]
• Amanda Seyfried has pulled out of Zack Snyder's film Sucker Punch — described as Alice in Wonderland with machine guns — due to scheduling conflicts. Who should play Baby Doll, the girl in a mental institution in this big-budget action flick? [ONTD via Slashfilm via EW]
• "Syfy" is not a new kind of hip hop from the West coast but what the Sci-Fi Channel is calling itself now. It's also Polish slang for syphilis, so people aren't kidding when they say, "Sick name." [Jossip]
• Denise Richards went to see Charlie Sheen's new twins: "They're amazing." Isn't it nice when everyone gets along? [ET]
• Ooh, recession humor: Amanda Bynes has just signed to an ABC pilot called Canned, a show about a group of friends who are all fired on the same day. [ET]
• Kiefer Sutherland has signed on to play Jack Bauer for an eight season of 24. [Mirror]
• Anna Faris is on the new cover of Self magazine; cover also shills "1 minute abs." Huh? [Just Jared]
• Chelsea Handler's last night show has been extended through 2012. Bring back Russell Brand! [Reuters]
• Oh no: Problems with NBC's Parks & Recreation? Test audiences found it "unoriginal" and "too slow." [Deadline Hollywood]
• Kenny Rogers music helps stroke victims. [Wired]
• This article about Angela Lansbury contains the following sentence: "Ms. Lansbury, who describes herself as a homebody and a working actress, is described by pretty much everyone else as a 'living legend,' a phrase that makes her want to vomit 'a little,' she conceded." [WSJ]
• Blind item! "Which TV heartthrob had to wait until a young starlet's mom walked away before he could hit on her at a party?" [Gatecrasher]
• "This movie was never meant to be the end of Hannah Montana. The thing is, a lot of people put where the show's future lays in my hands — and it's not up to me. It's up to Disney and whether they want more episodes, and we hope that they do." — Miley Cyrus. [Yahoo via Billboard]
• "I had avoided getting married pretty good for, like, 23 years, and I ... secretly felt that men who were married admired me, like I was the last of the real gunslingers." — David Letterman. [People]

• German fashionisto: "She's is no runway model. Heidi Klum is simply too heavy and has too big a bust. And she always grins so stupidly. That is not avant-garde - that is commercial." Me-ow! [VogueUK]

• Kaiser Karl piles on: "I don't know Heidi Klum. She was never known in France. Claudia Schiffer also doesn't know who she is." This dismissal comes as Heidi helms the third season German Top Model. We're guessing Mrs. Seal is crying all the way to the bank. Maybe in a diamond-encrusted bra.[VogueUK]
• Stylist Patricia Field's advice to real-life Shopaholics? "Find a rich husband." Thanks, will do. Someone's been spending a little too much time with the Carrie Bradshaw crew...[Fabsugar]
• Photos of Rachel Roy's fall collection are up. The models in the presentation all wore black bobbed wigs and black lipstick — echoing Yves St. Laurent in Paris last September. The clothes were all white, with touches of gray, pale yellow and blue, and black. [WWD]
• Bluefly.com is upping its presence within the fictional worlds of fashion-related television and movies. Since the company noticed site traffic spiked during the episodes of Project Runway it sponsored, it set about buying ads within other media, too — most notably Gossip Girl (did you think it was an accident when Serena kissed Dan in Times Square and there was a Bluefly billboard behind them?) and Isla Fisher's Confessions Of A Shopaholic. [WSJ]
• If you heard a rumor that Thom Yorke was going to be playing the music for the Rag & Bone show today at 5 p.m., I am here to tell you it ain't so. But Yorke did act as a musical designer for the show — although that still doesn't mean he'll be present. [Men.Style.com]
• 25 garment workers who were required to work over 80 hours a week and only intermittently paid the princely sum of $3 an hour won their lawsuit against their former employers, New York's Liberty Apparel. Liberty had used subcontractors to attempt to shift blame. As competition for jobs in the garment sector worsens — in 2008, the jobs available shrank by 7% in New York City, and U.S. Bureau of Labor figures for January of 2009 showed 9,600 garment workers were laid off nationwide that month alone — working conditions are believed to worsen. [Crain's]
• British supe Lily Cole plays a model called Lettuce Leaf in the upcoming film Rage, a murder mystery set in the New York fashion world, which also stars Dame Judi Dench, Jude Law, Steve Buscemi, and Eddie Izzard. You can watch a clip, mostly in English, of Cole as Lettuce Leaf and hear her talk about modeling, blogs, and beauty while doing promo work at the Berlin Film Festival. "There's a big gulf often between appearance and, you know, the reality, like seeming and being," says Cole. "Fashion illustrates that quite clearly because you only ever see the exterior and you don't really know what's going on behind. But it's true of every human, some to more extent, some to lesser extent, that there's a difference between the truth of that person and their own internal struggles and difficulties and loves and joys, and how they present themselves to the rest of the world." Watch, if only for the moment when she suddenly takes off her wig during Lettuce Leaf's monologue. [Spiegel Online]
• Speaking of voyeurism, here's a bunch of pretty pictures of designers doing last-minute runway show stuff. It's supposed to be hectic, still looks glam. [WWD]
• Ikram Goldman, owner of the Chicago boutique Ikram and de facto stylist for a certain First Lady, is of course at New York fashion week. She refused to talk about anything Obama-related in this interview. [Paper]
• Not so tight-lipped is Benjamin Cho. The designer, who's not showing at fashion week this season, says he wishes Michelle Obama dressed more sophisticatedly. Her inauguration outfits "got a little cheesy." Cho thinks her style is too retro. "It would be nice if she wore like a Jil Sander shift dress. Or something interesting like that — more sophisticated." Can we talk about something else than Michelle Obama's clothes now? [The Cut]
• Kelly Cutrone always has an interesting take on powerful women! On Michelle Obama: "She's the first lady in the White House in 50 years who actually looks like she's getting fucked." Hm. That wasn't the kind of non-sartorial discussion I meant. [The Cut]
• Anna Sui apparently has a book deal with Chronicle. [Fashionista]
• Australian label Morrissey is going out of business. [News.com.au]
• The video that Halston put together instead of a show or presentation is now live at their website. It's undeniably beautiful — I love the part where the model kicks off her stilettos — but how are you supposed to get any idea of the clothes via grainy digital video? [Halston]
• Two pieces of statuary from Yves St. Laurent's art collection, which is to be auctioned at Christie's by his partner, Pierre Bergé, are believed to have been stolen by looting French troops in 1860 from Beijing's imperial Summer Palace. China wants the statues, originally part of a fountain representing the Chinese zodiac, repatriated, but the treaty that covers such claims states only things taken since 1970 have to be returned. A Hong Kong billionaire might bid on the statues and take them back to China. [Time]
• Here's a look at some of the more unusual highlights of St. Laurent and Bergé's eclectic collection. [WSJ]
• Ew. Scott Weiland, who in no way deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as the late, great Yves, is debuting a men's line with L.A. label English Laundry. [WWD]
• Thank dog designers are taking the pulse of the times and scaling back on vulgar runway shows! To show her sensitivity to the zeitgest, Monique Lhuillier premiered her collection of ballgowns, "Modern Ballet Russes," at the Plaza, where guests quaffed champagne. [WSJ]
• Donna Karan, for her part, relieves her social conscience by giving out a truly ugly tee to all comers to Sunday's runway show. The tee has a bunch of worthy charities listed on the back (including Donna Karan's Urban Zen Foundation) and their contact info, should the fashionistas feel that receiving a free shirt is not doing their part. [WWD]
• We've been burned by Target's accessories collabs in the past, but listen up, kids: Erickson Beamon for Target, which hits this Sunday, looks outstanding. Glimpses show a lot of vintage costume jewelry-inspired statement pieces and one old lady chic pendant we'll fight you for. [Fabsugar]
• The new all-things-moddle web site Modelina (remember how they handed out those model "campaign buttons" during the election?) is not only up and running and spilling mannequin gossip, but has launched a pr stunt we can get behind: fashion-themed Necco conversation hearts! A "Kiss Karl" in clove would just about make our weekends, although we're not sure why. [Glam.com]
• Is this the end of an era? Abercrombie's 4th Quarter profits were down a whopping 68%! [AP]
• We'll believe it when we see it, but now they say the first American Top Shop will be opening in April.They've cried...um, "high-concept fast fashion?" one too many times! [WWD]

• Jessica Simpson is launching a line of luggage. Because that's the image of America we want to project when we travel abroad! [People]

• Jennifer Aniston wants a beauty deal. Join the club, sister. [WWD]
• When Kimora's slashing fabulosity budgets, you know things are bad! On her subdued Baby Phat show, "Now's not the time to be running all over and flaunting the money that we don't have." [WSJ]
• Ex Russell Simmons would seem to agree: he's launching a line at Wal-Mart. [Business Week]
• Remember how last week Rachel Zoe said that designer Christopher Sauvé couldn't sell those "Bananas/I Die" tees due to trademark infringement? He's having none of it! He's starting a "free the fruit" campaign to return bananas to the people. [New York]
• Should you have a Michelle fetish and a few grand to spare, check out Jason Wu's truly lovely offerings on Net-a-Porter. [Fashionista]
• Liz Claiborne exec: "Isaac Mizrahi is a nuclear weapon." Is that...a good thing? For the flailing company's sake, we hope so! [New York Times]
• A big spread in O Magazine can't hurt: "A spokeswoman for Liz Claiborne said the brand chose O because it reaches its demographic. In the issue, more than 50 pieces will be modeled by a mix of "real" women, models and celebrities, including Veronica Webb, Becki Newton of "Ugly Betty" and fashion icon Iris Barrel Apfel. The designer has included plus and petite sizes in his collection and has kept it budget conscious. To finish each look, Liz Claiborne is selling coordinated shoes, bags, jewelry and lingerie."[WWD]
• David Gandy is as modest as he is beautiful. Quoth the British model, "Why would anybody want to look at my body?...How can a man be pretty? Flowers and women are pretty. Men are not". We respectfully disagree. [Fashionista]
• Wal-Mart's move to New York could screw some of their vendors. Good plan, though: we're sure the cost of living is way cheaper here than in Bentonville, Arkansas! [Business Week]
• We're not sure how psyched we are about the Jay McCarroll Fashion Week documentary. On the one hand: his last doc was a bit sad, what with Heidi blowing him off and everything. On the other: it's as much Runway as we're getting! [Reuters]
• Jenna Lyons, the creative director of J. Crew, obviously has great timing and a lot of skill. But...we're confused by the deliberate hole in the knee of the jeans she's pictured wearing. [Observer]
• The new Zappos ads: "Underpants-clad customers are pictured either standing in a Zappos box or walking into one. Putting on their best Vanna Whites for the camera, they either reveal their purchases or lift the box over themselves — at which point they are suddenly transformed into fully-dressed Citizens of Society." Hehe. Underpants. [AdRants]
• Speaking of skivvies: OMG the Herry Hall Cherie-inspired Chanel ads are out and are they rad! (We're assuming they're ignoring the sequel in which Cherie commits suicide.) [New York]
• Meanwhile, Chanel's mastermind, Karl Lagerfeld, doesn't dig the internet. Quoth the Kaiser, the web doesn't project "the unique feel and sophistication of luxury materials, refined tailoring and extraordinary attention to detail found in luxury fashion." But can luxury fashion show Christian Bale ranting?! [WSJ]
• THE BARBIE COUTURE IS HERE. Okay, sketches, but still. [AP]
• Anna Sui: "It's survival of the fittest at this point." We'll back the iconic iconoclast in any Darwinian struggle! [NYT]
• Says the head of struggling label Five Four, "I want to create our generation's Polo. You can't be a megabrand in the U.S. today if you're selling a woven shirt for $200...I think the concept of luxury is passé." [WSJ]
• Rachel Roy's current motto? "Strength and courage." [Glam.com]

• Zooey to Topshop: "...you have a choice every day when you put on your clothes to present yourself to the world...Also, my first love was musicals like 'Singing in the Rain' and 'The Sound of Music'." [TopShop]

• It's confirmed: Kate Moss will do another line for TopShop. Runners, to your marks! [WWD]
• Alice Cooper, celebrity designer. We're predicting a lot of batwing sleeves. [WWD]
• Vera Wang on her scaled-back Fashion Week: “It seems relevant today. I don’t want to seem irrelevant or unaware of what’s going on in the rest of the world — not just the fashion world...I finally made the decision last night based on many, many things. The intimacy of a smaller show feels much more appropriate for these times. I say that as a business owner, as a designer and as a person.” [WWD]
• Donna Karan and Francisco Costa are "desperately" trying to scale down, too. [New York]
• Stella McCartney, for her part, goes mobile: you can view her collections, use a store locator, cry from the comfort of your own home! [Fashion Week Daily]
• Will New York impose a luxury tax on items over $20 grand? Ooh, that'll hurt.[WWD]
• The luxury downturn is, however, bad news for beaver trappers. [Reuters]
• Mascara sales still up. Again: we're guessing the waterproof formula. [AdAge]
• If like us you're inexplicably intrigued by other people's playlists: here's Rachel Roy. [Elle]
• Did US Weekly rip off a WWD story? Shouldn't WWD be flattered? Maybe if it had been Vogue... [WWD]
• While this video is dedicated to Debbie Harry reminiscing about Stephen Sprouse, it's really hard to move beyond her tee shirt. [New York]
• The foundering U.S. textile industry makes its recommendations to Obama, hoping to cut down on imports. [WWD]
• Elle Macpherson's sister might be bankrupt. Hope not, for her sake. [News.com.au]
• Menswear designers are turning increasingly to womenswear. [WWD]
• Conde Nast may have pulled the plug on holiday festivity, but damned if Vogue will be denied its party! They held a private (read: no underlings) soiree at the Oak Room; Anna "stayed nearly the entire time." [Fashion Week Daily]
• Isaac Mizrahi narrates a new Peter and the Wolf. Quoth the designer: “I’m such a ham, I just love doing this stuff!” [StyleFile]
• Levi's sticks open flies all over NYC taxis. XYZ! [AdAge]