[New York, February 18. Image via Getty]

• Who is Tory Burch's elusive 23-year old stepdaughter Pookie? On Mondays, Pookie interns for Bruce Weber, and the rest of the week she works as the assistant to the president of Carolina Herrera, and she was (allegedly) responsible for the magical pairing of New York's leading faux-WASP ice princess with Princess Coldstare, but alas, we have scoured the Google and cannot find a picture of her. So this will have to do. [Fashion Week Daily]
  
• M.I.A has designed her own eponymous clothing line, which is really brightly colored so that, "if you lose it or someone steals it, you can see it from miles away and you can be like, 'Oy! Give me my shirt back!'" Oy is right! [WWD, 3rd item]
  
• Tinsley Mortimer, you see, is not a bad designer of handbags, it's just that she made the mistake of trying to sell them in Japan. "Japanese girls have no use for clutches because they just go to the clubs right after work. They are so different from New York. Stylewise, colorwise, stylewise. It's very youth-oriented. I'm designing for women between the ages of 20 and 40... But in Japan, after 25, it's like, basically, you're dead." [NYMag]

• "Now that I've been modeling some, I can actually stand in high heels—at least for a night." Oh, Hagyness. [Fashion Week Daily]
• Meanwhile, poor Erin Wasson broke her foot running in stilettos while shooting the ad campaign for Justin Timberlake's clothing line, William Rast. Doctors say her bones were fragile due to the amount of time she has spent in her life in heels. Ouch. [NYMag]
• Are you ready for Tuesday night's Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute Gala? [Is that a trick question? -Moe] The theme is superheroes because "the superhero is the overarching metaphor for fashion, because both share this obsession with the body, identity and transformation." [WWD, sub req'd]
• No actually, explains Diane Von Furstenberg, superheroes are just super-trendy right now. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Poor Nicole Fahri was mugged at knifepoint outside her home! [Mirror UK]
• "My wife and I had a great time just sitting and going through things and working on what we liked the best...I would love to see her have a fragrance, and us to have one together — a unisex fragrance. That would be wonderful. She's a lot more expensive than I am." Tim McGraw on his new eponymous fragrance and his oft-PhotoShopped wife, Faith Hill. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Virtual Christian Siriano prom dresses? We're confused. Explain this to us, please. [Gaia]
• Oscar de la Renta shot his Fall/WInter 2008 ad campaign at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego. Which is, um, really random and has nothing to do with polio? [WWD, sub req'd]
• Is former Dior Homme designer Hedi Slimane doing a line for Diesel? Eh, probs. [WWD, 3rd item]
• Naomi Watts is the new face of Thierry Mugler's Angel fragrance. We are so happy for her. [WWD, 2nd item]
• Martin Margiela is trying to go mainstream. Have you never heard of him? Well, that's cause he's so not mainstream. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Chuck Close, Jeff Koons, Marilyn Minter, Kiki Smith, Cai Guo-Qiang, Barbara Kruger, Ashley Bickerton, Kenny Scharf, Glenn Ligon, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Kerry James Marshall, Hanna Liden and Sarah Sze are all collaborating with the Gap on a series of t-shirts. [WWD, sub req'd]
• And Elie Tahari is collaborating with artist Kenny Scharf, too. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Alice Temperely: Showing in London come September for the first time in six seasons. Buh-bye, New York. [Vogue UK]
• Colin McDowell, fashion editor of The Sunday Times of London, is leaving the paper to become creative editor-at-large of Net-a-Porter and spearhead its original editorial content. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Revlon: In debt. But less so now than before. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Elizabeth Arden: Profits are down. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Same goes for Bebe. [WWD, sub req'd]
• And Steve Madden! Hmmm, I wonder what it all means? [Crain's]

• Donatella Versace loves Hillary Clinton but thinks she should dress more like Donatella Versace if she wants to nab the presidency. [Vogue UK]
  
• But forget politics — where are we, Washington D.C.? — Donatella would much rather meet Martha Stewart. [Fashion Week Daily]
  
• This week on Ugly Betty, recently fired ELLE fashion director Nina Garcia will appearing alongside Project Runway winner Christian Siriano. But in the season finale, ELLE's Nina-ousters Robbie Myers and Joe Zee will be appearing on the show, in a storyline featuring a softball game. Needless to say, this would seem to indicate a rapproachment on the level with Nixon meeting Mao, except when you remember that the common goal is not being on TV. [WWD, 3rd item]
  
• How the fuck did Heidi Montag's clothing line outsell Victoria Beckham's at Kitson's? [TMZ]

• Bummer: Frances Bean Cobain is not going to be the next face of Chanel. [Vogue UK]
• Meta: ubermodel Liya Kebide is set to play supermodel Waris Durie in the upcoming bipic beased on Durie's autobiography. [Fashion Week Daily]
• Best headline ever: "Louis Vuitton Sues Darfur Fundraiser." [TorrentFreak]
• More from the wonderful Simon Doonan: "Basically I don't know anybody that remembers just the hallmark moments where you are riding a Victorian bicycle around trying to catch butterflies. There may be people who remember that but I think the medical emergencies and the crazy outfits always trump that stuff. Hence, the emphasis [in his writing] on things like flying dentures, prostitutes, medical emergencies and freak accidents." [Vogue UK]
• What's it like to be Madonna's makeup artist? Says Gina Brooke, "Usually on certain jobs you walk in and go, "OK, this is my idea." She's like, "No, this is my idea, and then you guys give me what you've got." [BellaSugar]
• Designer Cynthia Rowley's advice to graduates of Marymount University's fashion design and merchandising students, "If I can do it, you can do it." Gee, that's helpful. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Designer Ralph Rucci: Honorary Jezebel? "I think we're in a state of mediocrity. Magazines are totally unrelatable to what you look like...To show a garment that's difficult to wear, that just has a concept to it, is not fashion." [WWD, sub req'd]
• Mazel tov, probably, to Giorgio Armani who is rumored to be receiving France's Legion of Honor medal next month. [Fashion Week Daily]
• The Solar Bag! So you can, um, recharge your cell phone using your handbag. [WWD, 1st item]
• Jean-Paul Gaultier: Now shilling man make-up. [NYMag]
• Avon profits are on the rise. This surely has something to do with the price of oil but we're too tired to come up with a silly theory. [Reuters]

ELLE: Jan-Mar '08 ['08 $] 71,832,955 ['07$] 64,793,223 [% change] 10.9 ['08 pgs] 583.55 ['07 pgs] 552.00 [% change] 5.7

The team at Elle is doing something right, if PIB figures are a tell (see previous post 'It's not just newspapers.') And I suspect circulation figures, especially newsstand, were also strong for the same period, which coincides with the end of the last PR cycle.

Not all the work is done in the office especially in high profile positions at a fashion magazine. What seems like a glam lifestyle to many — designer dinners, fashion shows, gala functions — is considered work and has value. Also let's not forget, during the '2 years' cited by the 'insider' (read, one who likely wished their job was to get out to attend the aforementioned) Nina had a baby. Motherhood is very important work, isn't it?

I actually heard when I worked there, that Nina had slept with Joe Zee not Gilles... wait, wait now I remember... They said Joe Zee loved having trio's [sic] with Nina and Robbie Myers IN THE CLOSET! yes!...and that they walked out with their hands full! Did you spread that stuff you said she did on your fucking tongue or what you bitch! You really hate and envy Nina right?...is it that you are in LOVE with Nina and truth is her popularity kills you!

Earlier: Elle Continues To Toy With Nina Garcia's Affections

• You knew this already, but Project Runway judge/style tome author/ELLE fashion director Nina Garcia has parted ways with the magazine that made her. At least, ELLE has yet to tell anyone the rumors are false.
  
• Our sources say Garcia came in Friday morning around the hour fashion people usually get to work Friday morning, and was gone with all her earthly possessions by lunch time. Her assistants apparently cried all day, packing the rest of her things.
  
• New rumors are starting to surface that she's "in talks" with ELLE regarding some sort of position there.
  
• We suspect the fact that ELLE fashion news director Anne Slowey and creative director Joe Zee are getting their own Tyra-produced show this fall doesn't exactly make for a great environment. (Coupled with the fact that the magazine's fashion coverage has gotten a million times more interesting since Zee came on board.) But these are just our speculations. Know anything? Drop us a line! [WWD, MediaBistro, NYMag]
  
• And in other very important world news, Project Runway guest judge/style tome author/ELLE covergirl Victoria Beckham's denim line DVB has been dropped by Kitson and Fred Segal. Um, anyone else seeing a trend here? [News of the World]

• A reader wrote in to Guardian fashion writer Hadley Freeman asking when it is okay to wear shorts. Freeman's response? "When it's flipping well warm enough to do so, like, duh." [Guardian]
• Despite the rumors, Kate Moss is not on the outs with lingerie line Agent Provocateur and just shot a wedding-themed ad campaign for them. [This is London]
• Phat Fashions is suing Victoria's Secret for copyright infringement. Apparently, no one can use a frilly letter 'P' but the Phat designers. And while I can't believe I'm saying this, I think it's gonna be Kimora FTW. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Whoa, Vidal Sassoon was a resistance fighter during WWII?! [Telegraph]
• Elton John: Wears Tom Ford's fragrances! (Also likes that Tom Ford's ads frequently contain naked men? Again, JUST speculation.) [Page Six]
• The John Varvatos store in the old CBGB's space? Could suck more. [Washington Post]
• Yay for Cambodia, the latest country to allow its young female citizens to be exploited by the western world by making them into runway models. (And Cambodia is usually such a leader on the youth exploitation front.) In all seriousness, [ITN]
• Nicholas Huxley, the director of the Sydney Institute's Fashion Design Studio, says Australian women dress "cheap and nasty." [News.com.au]
• Want to have guaranteed success as a jewelry designer? Than go into a career in anything but jewelry design [WWD]
• OMG will or won't Prada go public in June? The suspense is killing me. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Carolina Herrera junior is pregnant again. Just what the world needs: Another kid with a trust fund. [WWD, 2nd item]

Anna Wintour We are so tired of Anna WIntour's damn bob and think she needsto learn a few lessons from Carine Roiteld about the perks of smudgey, grungey French chic. And voila! Tousled long red locks and bright red lips do just that. Anna Before: Anna After:

Robbie Myers Robbie, like Anna, also sports a trademark 'do: Long wispy bangs, hair pulled into a loose chignon. But unlike Anna's style, we think Robbie's really suits her. So we thought our only option was to take her from tousled and natural to the look sported by recent covergirl Victoria Beckham: Short, blonde, and alien-esque. Robbie Before: Robbie After:

Glenda Bailey In dire need of a new look is Glenda Bailey, a woman who seems to have never met a comb or a tube of lipstick. (In her defense, she's stubborn) So we tried vampy old-school glamour, the opposite of Glenda's new look, with long Angelina-esque locks. Hmm, on second thought, we think her Simpsons makeover was a helluva lot better. Glenda Before: Glenda After:

[Source photos from Getty and Bauer-Griffin.]

Earlier: Vogue Editor Anna Wintour: Not Exactly Playing Against, Uh, 'Type'
Elle Magazine's Roberta Myers: Creative, Cautious, Constant
Harper's Bazaar Editor Glenda Bailey: Smart But Stubborn

• Oh lord: Tom Ford is having a baby in 2008. It will be "biologically" his, not his partner Richard Buckley's. "I don't want to get to 75 years old and just have made a lot of dresses, done some houses." In the same interview: "I don't find a guy's cock or a woman's vagina offensive; in fact, I find them beautiful." So will he be penetrating one to achieve this demonspawn? He probably won't be able to keep them off him! "I was having sex with girls when I was 14, and that was because they were pouncing on me." [Fashion Week Daily]
  
• Waris Dirie says she's super sorry about that whole "disappearance" thing last week. She said she got lost in Brussels and spent the whole three days she was "gone" walking around and sleeping in hotel lobbies since she didn't know where she was and didn't have any money. Um, Anne Heche enough for you? [MSNBC]
  
• Katoucha Niane's family is asking French police to investigate the possibility that she was murdered, despite the conclusion of accidental death by drowning from the autopsy. [Telegraph]
  
• ELLE Fashion News Editor Anne Slowey learns the whole "never put limp plumper under your eyes" lesson the hard way. [Fashion Week Daily]

• And in other ELLE news, soon-to-be-ousted International Creative Director Gilles Bensimon is very Zen about his looming departure from the fashion mag: "I'm surprised, but I'm not upset. It's not their obligation to use me [to shoot covers] and [creative director] Joe [Zee] does not have to explain anything to me....ELLE is my life. I've been there since I was 23 years old. I will be at ELLE until the last month, the last minute. I'm not upset at [editor-in-chief] Robbie [Myers], really. I don't want to hate people. Hate makes you weak." [Chic Report]
• And in other inspiring news, Diane von Furstenberg is thinking about writing a book about her mother, a Holocaust survivor. When her mother was forced to leave her home, en route to the first of three concentration camps she would be put in, she threw a note into the street which read, "I don't know where I'm going but I want you to know I'm leaving with a smile." [WWD, 1st item]
• Color us shocked: Rihanna says she wants to do her own clothing line. [Sunday Mirror]
• Even better: roses with the Louis Vuitton logo stamped onto them! [Inventor Spot]
• Kate Moss's personal assistant has resigned to have a baby and now Kate Moss is crying, saying her life is over. Oh Kate, maybe you'd be less hysterically self-absorbed easier if you had kids of your own...I mean... [Daily Mail]
• Beck's wife Marissa Ribisi will be showing her Whitley Kros collection at L.A. Fashion Week, which will also play host to Nicky Hilton and Lauren Conrad's shows. [LATimes]
• Urban Outfitters: It grows. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Nike: Feigning concern over the fact that some of its shoes are made in Chinese factories that are not held to the labor standards upheld by the Nike brand. [FT]
• Brace yourselves, Dubai: Bloomingdales is headed your way! [WWD, sub req'd]
• Feathers: Big for fall. Animal rights groups: Unhappy. [Independent]
• Is Colette Dinnigan doing a lingerie line for Target? And if so, will it only be for Target Australia? Wait, there's Target in Australia? [Sassybella]

• It's all about who you know. Wanna get a job working for your local elected official? Wanna get a job working for the editor-in-chief of a major fashion magazine? Good luck with having your resume finding your way to anyone's door unless you've got an 'in'. Having hired interns in both industries, the very few slots there are to fill are more often than not get taken by the daughter of the cousin of a high-ranking person in that establishment's college roommate.
• It's all about what you wear. Think fashion's the only industry in which people judge you based on your appearance? LOL. When I was a Clintern, memos were circulated about the presence of flip-flops in the office... And not in a good way. My poor GOP gal pal was told she must wear pantyhose in the office of the Senator she works for. As for the ladymags, even peons in the fashion department are expected to chip in for a major seasonal "It" item — the better to show the higher-ups that they're willing to stay on top (or ahead) of the trends.
• There are only 10 jobs in the entire industry. When I left Elle, editor in chief Robbie Myers assured me we would cross paths again as there "are only five jobs in the industry." Likewise with politics: In fact, fashion and politics are both small communities populated by a handful of people who bounce around the few available jobs, working their way up the ladder. By the time you've been in the business for five years, you'll feel like you're back in high school.
• There is no new news. With fashion seasons scheduled every six months and elections scheduled every 2 years, both industries have both set calendars and news cycles... meaning, easy-to-anticipate headlines. And because there are so few players, there are just as few storylines: Grunge is back! Grunge is dead! Compassionate conservatism is the New America! Compassionate conservatism killed America! The media outlets try to convince us that these are new stories, but let me assure you: they are not. Sure, every once in a while a wunderkind (Chris Benz, Barack Obama) springs up, seemingly from nowhere and dazzles the masses with his or her brilliance, but the rest of the time we're simply watching the regulars (Ted Kennedy, Donna Karan) up to their same old tricks.

• Everyone just wants to sell something. Magazines aren't really about scouting, directing, and cultivating new aesthetics: They're about selling lipstick and bringing in advertising dollars. Politics, as cynical as it sounds, is just as mercenary and although there are some with good intentions and a desire to save the world and help the common man, most people are simply jostling for power by selling messages (and themselves) to the public. Money makes the world go round, and neither a candidate nor a magazine can get anywhere without it.

Earlier: Sarah Jessica Parker In 'Elle': The Impact Is, Well, Twofold

Wonder what the numbers will be like at the end of the year, when the scandalous Lindsay Lohan cover is taken into account?

Poor editor-in-chief Robbie Myers: if we've learned anything from their signatures, she can be expecting some poison flowers from Vogue's Anna Wintour by day's end, though Bazaar's daffy Glenda Bailey is probably too busy playing with her Simpsons figurines to realize that any of this has occurred.

Winners and Losers [WWD]

• Indie pop band Tilly and the Wall announces Nebraskan style-revolution from the stage of the Coachella Music Festival, saying of their home state: "...you don't really have anywhere to buy clothes except for thrift stores so you just create it yourself, which has led to a ton of crazy style in Omaha." [WWD]
• Glamour editor-in-chief Cindi Leive re-elected president of American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME); Elle editor-in-chief Robbie Myers transitions from secretary to vice president of the organization. [WWD, 1st item]
• Liz Claiborne has gifted a $350,000 scholarship in honor of their new Chief Creative Officer Tim Gunn to his former employer, Parsons, to help budding designers in their journey to "make it work." [WWD]

• Silvia Venturi Fendi, brand accessories director of the family business, sings "We Are the World," and insists that open office and eschewing of traditional, regimented design process yields more creativity and better products. [WWD]
• TopShop head honcho Sir Philip Green tended to customers and fetched different sizes during Kate Mosspalooza at the TopShop on Oxford Street yesterday. [Vogue UK]
• Furniture makers Kartel teamed up with the best of the best in the world of fashion design to create chairs that are supposed to embody femininity. Or something. The girly chairs will be on view in the windows of Barney's flagship store on Madison Avenue sometime in May. [Fashion Week Daily]