Sex and the City is a major cultural touchstone, which guarantees that impressions of the series will be deeply polarized. For every person who loves the SATC franchise, there's someone who hates everything SATC stands for. Wolf, however, appears to be firmly in the love camp. While it may be puzzling to consider a noted feminist being firmly pro-Bradshaw, looking at her frame of analysis, it only makes sense.

Wolf argues:

I have written before about how radical it was that the narrative of Sex and the City centered not around a couple — let alone the traditional formula of hero-plus-beautiful-secondary-love-interest. Rather, the core of the tale was always the life-sustaining friendship among four women, as the men in their lives came and went. This break from narrative norms was remarkable not just because Bushnell was insisting that four women — no longer in their first youth – were renewably compelling on their own terms; it was also radical because, in a very un-PC but admirable flouting of feminist norms, Bushnell was brave enough to lay bare the secret – that for many women the search for love is the same urgent, central, archetypal quest story that for men is played out in war narratives and adventure tales. Bushnell was gutsy enough to disclose that even we serious, accomplished, feminist women spend a lot of time, when we are alone with our female friends, telling stories centered on the men with whom we are romantically entangled, exploring the quality of the love and attraction, the romance and the sex. And we are often just that graphic and hopeful and vulnerable and slutty as those four characters.

Wolf is calling out some tropes in pop culture that appear so often, they are considered normal and rarely receive critical analysis. I'm not sure how many episodes of Sex and the City pass the Bechdel test - clearly, conversations about work, money and breast cancer do, but much of the plot is discussing relationships. However, the overall narrative of female bonding cannot be ignored, particularly when so many popular series revolve around a solo girl within a sea of men, or women who are generally appendages/comic relief for the men who carry the series.

There is one line in particular that is critically important: "This break from narrative norms was remarkable not just because Bushnell was insisting that four women – no longer in their first youth – were renewably compelling on their own terms."

In those respects, Sex and the City is revolutionary. Beyond focusing on the lives of women, it focuses on older women, in an industry that tells women that are over the age of thirty that their only role is to be the hot wife or the hot mother. The character who has the most sex also happens to be the oldest character — Samantha is still as fabulous and fly at 50 as she was when she strolled on screen a decade ago. And the fact that four older women carried a television show that focused on their lives is also amazing. Jennifer Kesler, over at the Hathor Legacy, talks about some of the lessons she learned during her time taking film classes at UCLA:

There was still something wrong with my writing, something unanticipated by my professors. My scripts had multiple women with names. Talking to each other. About something other than men. That, they explained nervously, was not okay. I asked why. Well, it would be more accurate to say I politely demanded a thorough, logical explanation that made sense for a change (I'd found the "audience won't watch women!" argument pretty questionable, with its ever-shifting reasons and parameters).

At first I got several tentative murmurings about how it distracted from the flow or point of the story. I went through this with more than one professor, more than one industry professional. Finally, I got one blessedly telling explanation: "The audience doesn't want to listen to a bunch of women talking about whatever it is women talk about."

In this type of environment, any media that challenges the dominant narrative around who is worth watching is worthwhile.

Wolf also continues to make a deeper point - in addition to showing women and their exteriors, Carrie Bradshaw was also given an interior life:

After the shallow or deeper sagas of hot sex or social slights, of hungover breakfasts with the girls or Cosmopolitans and hookups at night, every episode saw the letters unscrolling — often forming quite existential questions — across Carrie's computer screen. Teenage girls watching each episode were taking in a clear message. Not only can I dress up and flirt, seduce and consume, overcome challenges, yield to temptations, take risks, fail, try again – I can think about it all, and what I think will matter.

However, Wolf makes a common assumption that begins to reveal the flaws in her analysis:

It may seem ironic that the first female thinker in pop culture (not in books — books have had them since Doris Lessing) came to us with corkscrew curls and wacky cloth flowers in her hair, teetering on Manolos worn over Japanese-schoolgirl socks. But really, can you name a TV show or film prior to this that centered around a woman reflecting about her life and the world? Carrie, for better or worse, was our first pop-culture philosopher.

I actually can, which speaks to one of Wolf's limitations in argument, and one of the larger criticisms of Sex and the City — often, the analysis around the series speaks for "women" as a collective group, not bothering to realize that there are often other narratives flowing at the same time. For some women, Sex and the City is their cultural touchstone — for others, it's the fabulous foursome in Girlfriends, or before that, Living Single. And many people can relate to all of the series I've named. At the beginning of Sex and the City's heyday, I was still in high school — our Carrie Bradshaw might have been Angela Chase of My So-Called Life, or even the animated character Daria. And I am sure there are some I am forgetting.

Sex and the City is many different things, to many different people. And while it does subvert some paradigms in the pop culture landscape, it does much to uphold others. Sex and the City's issues with diversity are well known and discussed — hell, even the cast of the series started petitioning to see more color on set. But even with that base level of awareness, SATC couldn't help but replicate existing tropes that people of color are generally servants or sex objects. And, while Carrie Bradshaw may have rocked a name plate necklace as an acknowledgment to the types of women who don't have the idealized Manhattan lifestyle, SATC reinforced that well-off, white narratives are the stories worth telling. In some ways, SATC also represents the worst of our consumerist culture, where happiness is counted in Jimmy Choos and Birkin Bags, instead of values and quality of life.

But to only focus on those messages is to ignore why SATC became so popular in the first place — there are universal narratives to this story. Heartbreak is heartbreak, whether it's found in the pained expression of Carrie Bradshaw appraising herself in a mirror after three days of crying, or whether it's Nana Komatsu tearfully turning her back on the boyfriend who betrayed her in the manga series NANA. And friendship is friendship, whether it takes place in an unnamed cafe over breakfast or in the living room of a friend's house.

And that — the humanity rather than the iconography of Carrie Bradshaw — is why so many women are still watching.

Carrie Bradshaw: Icons of the decade [The Guardian]
The Bechdel Test [Wikipedia]
Why film schools teach screenwriters not to pass the Bechdel test [The Hathor Legacy]
'Sex And The City' Diversifies [CBS News]
NANA [Wikipedia]
Nameplate Necklace [Time]

A particular idea of New York City is still pushed as a character itself — "Empire State of Mind," Carrie comfortably ensconced as Park Avenue princess. There are giggles over the restaurant table, a shot of that famed closet. Charlotte is surrounded by pink cupcakes. Samantha shoots a practiced flirtatious look at a guy. Big is on his cell phone in his towncar. Miranda... walks purposefully.

But just as the first movie took the New York City-centric girls to Mexico (not that it added much, narratively speaking); this one takes them to the desert, filmed in Morocco. Possibly it managed to wring out the last New York truisms. One hopes that they'll be more inventive with their inevitable camel jokes than the Montezuma's Revenge plotline of the first movie.

One of the best essays on that movie, I think, came out before anyone even saw it. Emily Nussbaum wrote in New York in 2007, "The sitcom terraformed the city in its image, turning Manolos and Cosmos and those damned floppy flowers into icons, then something so clichéd as to be oppressive, almost regimented. Three years later, the Zeitgeist, having writ, has moved on: to milfs and grups, among other things. And Brooklyn."

But it turned out there were still plenty of women, in New York and elsewhere, who were happy to fall in line with the SATC regimen, Zeitgeist be damned. I saw them nearly cut each other to get a seat at an advanced screening, dressed in their best approximations of what it meant to be a successfully glamorous woman in New York. And it made $415 million.

"God, how we need this movie and need it to be good," Nussbaum wrote in her pre-release piece. By its end, the show had lost its early idiosyncrasy — the characters became more caricatured and almost kitschy, the fashion became more self-conscious and brittle, and everything became slicker. It became less light social commentary, more prescription for a particular sort of femininity. The first movie did that trend one better. It wasn't good, really — not at all as it turns out. But I wouldn't mind if this one were.

Sex And The City Official Trailer [YouTube]

Related: What Is The Point, Exactly, Of A Sex And The City Movie? [New York Magazine]

Earlier: I Like Sex, I Like This City. I Hated Sex And The City

• Eva Longoria's perfume ad is a total Photoshop of Horrors. "I have always been somewhat allergic to all perfumes," admitted the actress. The scent was produced with the Falic Group, the company that recently shuttered Christian Lacroix. Priorities. [WWD]

• Phi, the edgy, six-year-old New York-based label, is closing its doors due to the recession. The spring collection shown at fashion week in September will not go into production; the pre-spring collection that just shipped will be Phi's last. Founder Susan Dell is the wife of tech billionaire Michael Dell; it's perhaps a little odd that she didn't want to reinvest to keep the widely acclaimed company afloat. Thirty-five employees learned they were losing their jobs yesterday; the C.E.O. says there will be a warehouse sale in January. [WWD]
• P. Diddy even gave Madame Tussaud's a bottle of his "I Am King" cologne with which to douse his new wax figure, for verisimilitude. [Spoiled Pretty]
• The four stars of Sex And The City will each get their own cover of Marie Claire, but that's absolutely not because they can't stand to be in one room together. [NYDN]
• A New Zealand fashion blogger who was invited to the America's Next Top Model Cycle 14 finale runway show — which took place last week in Auckland — but didn't go posted a shot of the invitation. Turns out Anna Sui is the featured designer. [IsaacLikes]
• "She already has a great handbag collection. She has a mirrored Fendi bag. And she'll say things like, 'I'm not going to wear that any more.' She has really good style as well. She knows what she likes and I can't force her to wear anything she doesn't, which is annoying sometimes. But now I rarely go shopping without her. She tells me what she doesn't like or she'll say: 'Mummy, you look nice' or 'that dress is amazing!' She's got it." Kate Moss, on daughter Lila Grace, 7. [Company via Daily Express]
• Agyness Deyn maybe made out with a dude at a club during Saturday night's snowstorm. Hot. [P6]
• "Giving back" is one way to characterize guest judging Project Runway, Catherine Malandrino. "I can give good advice and be an inspiration for the next generation. I think everyone in life needs direction and models." [HoustonChronicle]
• Thakoon Panichgul unveiled his first jewelry collection for the Japanese pearl brand Tasaki. It features lots of big pearls on rods. Prices range from about $6,000 to just under $40,000. [WWD]
• CFDA Award winner Sophie Théallet — whose dresses Michelle Obama has worn on more than one occasion — followed a traditional route into the industry, working for well over a decade in Paris and New York for established designers before founding her own label. (It became faddish during the 2000s to proclaim your design vision to the world immediately upon graduation from fashion school, à la Proenza Schouler, or even after dropping out, à la Alex Wang.) Jean-Paul Gaultier and Azzedine Alaïa were among her employers. "Gaultier taught me to stop at nothing and Alaia gave a taste for rigor," says Théallet, now based in Brooklyn. [Telegraph]
• Vivienne Westwood's wallpaper collection features her signature loud prints. [Vogue UK]
• A Racked tipster thinks this "Italian Appeal" store has a logo that looks too similar to the American Apparel trademark. We don't quite see it. [Racked]
• Karl Lagerfeld designed a doll with a spectacularly ugly dress, and a life-sized matching dress for little girls. They cost $315 and $1,190, respectively. Part of the proceeds will go to Carla Bruni-Sarkozy's charity. [WWD]
• In ten years of operation, online discounter Bluefly.com has never turned a profit. For the quarter ended September 30, its sales fell 14% on the same period last year, despite overall rising online sales this year. It is receiving a $15 million investment from Rho Ventures, and is reducing its inventory. [WWD]

• Lily Allen has spoken about her miscarriage, which she describes as "the worst time of my life." She says:

"I couldn't even compute the emotions going through my head, but I was having to put out a press release about my miscarriage... I had this public sympathy for about five days and then everyone was on my case again and I didn't know what was happening to me… I just didn't deal with it at all. I didn't even start beginning to deal with it until the baby's due date. Then it just hit me like a house collapsing. I have therapy on and off but at that time it really helped me. Then I started to deal with it and move on. I still get sad. I still think. I don't mark (what would have been) my baby's birth but it's always there. […] I've had really bad, unbelievably awful times, but if I hadn't had them I wouldn't get the happiness I've got now. I'm very grateful because I could have turned down a very different path. It could have been awful. It really could." [Mirror]

• Meanwhile, Lily Allen wants to stay with her boyfriend, Sam Cooper, "forever." She says: "We've never had one argument and there's absolutely nothing about him that annoys me. He's not impressed by what I do. I've been with guys and seen them looking in the mirror before they walk out of the door with me. That makes me feel sick because I know it's not just me they're interested in." [Mirror]
• Britney Spears doing "The Year In BS" is brilliant. Brilliant! [NY Mag]
• "K-Fed Loses Weight, Gains Movie Role." And by movie, we mean straight-to-DVD teen sex comedy. [Radar Online]
• Sarah Jessica Parker on her Sex And The City castmates: "We love each other. Could we spend more time together? If that existed in our lives, absolutely. Do I see Cynthia Nixon as much as I want to? Never. Kristin Davis or Kim Cattrall? Never. It's just not the way our lives work. I don't see my best friends as much as I want to. But it doesn't mean that there is any less affection." [Mirror]
• The Sex And The City ladies will be on the cover (covers) of Marie Claire — each posing separately, not together. [Gatecrasher]
• Jude Law's assistant, Ben Jackson, and Rachel McAdams: Something's up. [Gatecrasher]
• Reading the exchanges between Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin in this interview, it's obvious that they have a zingy kind of chemistry that will be fun when they host the Oscars. Alec calls it "a kind of Hannity & Colmes antagonism." [USA Today]
• Brittany Murphy's husband spoke with Access Hollywood on Monday. "My world was destroyed yesterday," he said. "I loved what Ashton [Kutcher] wrote on Twitter. It was comforting to me… I couldn't have said it better." He described what happened when Brittany was found and denied that she was surrounded by bad influences: "I don't know why anyone would think that. She found love. We found love. Brittany didn't get to where Brittany was with anyone controlling her… Brittany was Brittany." [Access Hollywood, People]
• Brittany Murphy's cause of death will not be known until toxicology results come back, which could take two months. [TMZ]
• At the link, a list of the prescription drugs found at Brittany Murphy's home — including Klonopin, Ativan, and Propranolol, taken for hypertension and used to prevent heart attacks. No illegal drugs were found. [TMZ]
• This paper calls the meds at Brittany Murphy's house "a staggering trove of powerful prescriptions." [NY Daily News]
• "Family Friend Of Brittany Murphy Says Husband Simon Monjack Is 'Not Good.'" [Radar Online]
• BREAKING: Adrian Grenier banged his drum. [Page Six]
• Apparently there was a rumor that Katy Perry hooked up with Robert Pattinson; she tweeted: "Read a bunch of yesterdays-news — BULLOCKS. Ppl should know by now that I don't do vampires, but I do, DO @rustyrockets [Russell Brand]. Don't get it TWISTED!" [Us]
• Jon Gosselin tried to sell his car at a used car lot but couldn't get as much as he wanted. [TMZ]
• Reading about whether nude pictures of Tiger Woods do or do not exist makes my eyes glaze over. [Radar Online]
• This magazine swears that Tiger Woods and Rachel Uchitel have been having sex "since the scandal broke" and that her condo is 500 feet from where Tiger's boat was docked. [In Touch]
• Simon Cowell's brother, radio host Tony Cowell, says Simon will leave American Idol at the end of the next season. He'll be concentrating on bringing X Factor to the US. [NY Post]
• Kim Kardashian lies on a bed and seductively eats salad for her new Carl's Jr. commercial, which made my eyes roll so far back in my head they almost got stuck. [E!]
• In The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus, there's a scene in which the character played by Johnny Depp — standing in for Heath Ledger — sees a stream full of floating images of people who died prematurely in their prime: James Dean, Princess Diana, Rudolph Valentino. And he talks about their godlike status as the forever young. "It's very weird," director Terry Gilliam says. "We didn't change anything, and I wasn't going to change anything. We had to deal with certain things just to get through it. But the dialogue wasn't going to change if possible. That was the film Heath and I were making, and that's the film we finished." [USA Today]
• Terry Gilliam, Johnny Depp and Robert Duvall are trying to make The Man Who Killed Don Quixote happen. At last. [UPI]
• Aw, it's super cute that Lisa Loeb has an eyewear collection. "Think sexy librarian, not retro grandma," she says. [People]
• Jamie-Lynn Sigler and Jerry "Turtle" Ferrara: Splitsville. [Gatecrasher]
• Funny interview with Amy Poehler and Christina Applegate, who voice "Chipettes" in Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel. Here's a snippet:
  Q: Any similarities between you and your Chipmunk selves?
  Amy: I want to be a star! (laughter) Well, Christina is a good leader. She's a good front person and she's an excellent singer and dancer in real life.
  Christina: Thank you for answering that question.
  Amy: You're welcome. I would say that I am like Eleanor in that I'm the shortest. And like Eleanor, I do not enjoy wearing high heels. I don't walk very well in them. But Christina and I look like we could have a bit of Chipmunk in our DNA.
  Christina: I have really hairy arms.
  Amy: And we both sleep all winter (laughter). [Reuters]
• Get your Kleenex: Brody Jenner and Jayde Nicole have broken up. [Us]
• Bruce Willis is investing in Belvedere vodka. I am open to sponsorship by Bonbay Sapphire gin or any cheapo white zinfandel. What. [WSJ]
• Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood dumped his girlfriend Ekaterina Ivanova because she was cheating on him with a male model. As you may recall, Ronnie left his wife of 23 years when he met Ekaterina. [Daily Mail]
• Carrie Underwood is spoken for, as they say. This column notes that she wore "an eye-catching ring" at a hockey game on Monday night. [AP]
• Taylor Swift will perform and present at the Grammys. Obvs. [People]
• Beyoncé will perform at the Grammys. [ET]
• And Beyoncé's noodles are adorable. [WoW]
• Diane Sawyer started working the desk of the evening news on ABC now that Charles Gibson has retired. Did anyone watch? [AP]
• The Venice Film Festival has honored John Woo with a lifetime achievement award. Because those doves in Face/Off were genius! [AP]
• What's Christmas like at 50 Cent's house? He plays Santa Claus, buying presents… But he doesn't dress up as Santa. He also recommends that the reporter buy his wife underwear for Christmas. [Dazed Digital]
• Kristen Johnston will return to Ugly Betty, playing a aging party-girl and temp in a part originally written for Paula Abdul. "It was all, like, hot-flash jokes," says Johnston. "So I rewrote it." [NY Mag]
• Kim Peek, the man who inspired the Oscar-winning film Rain Man, has died. [AP]
• RIP Connie Hines, who played Carol Post on Mister Ed. [LA Times]
• Blind item! "Which lady who recently filed for divorce is trying to lure her husband to a Christmas reunion? Friends suspect she hopes to generate footage for a reality show." [Page Six]
• "While it was great that we were the 'First Couple' of porn, the fact is Tera hates the industry. She's not a sexual person. We barely had sex in our own marriage. She's desperate to break into the mainstream, and just wants to generate press. I didn't choose porn over her. Our marriage had a lot of holes in it, despite what she claims. I chose freedom." — Evan Seinfeld, Tera Patrick's ex-husband. [Page Six]
• "I've given up the Internet. I don't read comments, and I don't go on any of the sites anymore, and I just feel better. And it's not about being a celebrity - you get on MySpace, Facebook, there's all these different outlets where people can just feel like nobody's watching them so they can just say whatever they want to say… It gets dangerous sometimes." — Disney star Selena Gomez, to Seventeen. [MSNBC Scoop]
• "I've got to tell you. My disposition lies in rather populist entertainment. I'm not prejudiced in whether a film is low-budget, independent, or studio-oriented. I suppose the only thing I care about is whether you get some feeling, some sense of integrity from what it is you do. As long as that's not compromised extensively, then I think why should you care about where it comes from?" — Guy Ritchie on his big-budget film, Sherlock Holmes. [The Daily Beast]
• "If you ask me, I think she's all right. I think she's perfectly good. I just don't think people can get her persona out of the way." — Guy Ritchie on Madonna's acting. [The Daily Beast]
• "Yes, at this age it's unusual for somebody to do a love scene, to be making love… Yeah, that is unusual. But that is just how benighted we are. Because, you know, we still are alive. … It's authentic. The whole idea that you have to look a certain way and be a certain age to earn love is ridiculous." — It's Complicated star Meryl Streep, to the Times Of London. [MSNBC Scoop]
• "I don't believe in having work done, because then everybody looks the same. [But] I should exercise more. Lose a couple of kilos." — Sophia Loren. [StarPulse]

Of Sex and the City's supposed enduring relevance, Cattrall tells the WSJ, "Post-feminism has been really confusing. It influenced so many women to leave a lot of their feminine qualities behind and assume the business suit." She says SATC offered something different, which is why "it's captured so many women's imaginations. It's truthful and it's real and it's now; it's not dated, and it keeps evolving. These four women really make up one complete woman." That one woman would, of course, be very very rich, and what with Carrie's shoe obsession and Charlotte's fetish for housewares, she'd need a pretty huge home to hold all her stuff. A home that could be designed by Nancy Meyers.

Daphne Merkin noted Meyers' focus on immaculate interiors in her recent Times Magazine profile (which we wrote about last week), but Nicole LaPorte's Daily Beast essay pays even more attention to Meyers's "decorator porn." LaPorte writes,

[T]he sumptuous details in Meyers' films-the gazillion-thread-count sheets; the Park Regent suites; the glintingly new Porsches (none of which seem solely to be there because of product-placement deals)-are so unrelentingly omnipresent in every, single frame that they actually become distracting. During a screening of It's Complicated, Meyers' latest installment of decorator porn, I became so consumed with the outlandish dimensions of Meryl Streep's (a.k.a. Jane, the film's protagonist) Santa Barbara kitchen and all of its Martha Stewart accoutrements-cake plates with perfectly frosted cakes on them; vases stuffed with plump basil-that I missed whole sequences of dialogue.

But that might be just fine — Meyers's films may be just as much about what the characters sleep on as about what they say. Meyers tells Merkin that her lavish interior decorating "softens the message" of her films, but really it only amplifies that message — that women can have everything they want in bed (a man; good sheets) and out. Merkin thinks the point of Meyers's linen fixation is that "your character is attested to by the quality of your bed linens and where good taste stands not only for itself but for all that it exudes in the way of fast cars, moral turpitude, kinky eroticism and political scandal." But the beauty of Jane's home in It's Complicated may speak less to her character per se than to her independence, even her happiness. Merkin writes that Jane is "a professionally successful divorced mother of three who runs a flourishing Santa Barbara bakery and seems content to be on her own when romance sticks its big foot back in the doorway to her life" — and the beautiful house she paid for with her own money may be the filmic symbol of this contentment.

Cattrall's words (uttered, interestingly enough, at a party hosted by a linen company) point to a similar stuff=happiness equation in SATC. The women of that show did "assume the business suit" metaphorically — they all had high-powered careers. But they chose to exercise their economic independence by purchasing very "feminine" accoutrements, like vertiginous heels. Post-feminism is indeed confusing, and the answer both SATC and the Meyers oeuvre seem to offer is to become the sugar daddy you want to marry, and then give yourself lots of expensive presents.

While being able to afford Manolos and chintz without a man around does have a certain "Independent Woman" appeal, neither Meyers nor Sex and the City totally jettisons the Prince Charming narrative — viewers of the first SATC movie will surely remember the giant closet Big buys Carrie. More significantly, portraying independence through buying power is dated, no matter what Cattrall says, and it's also kind of depressing. LaPorte described Meyers's aesthetic as "aspirational," which is exactly the word that women's magazines use when they depict the ideal life as a collection of stuff outside the price range of their readers. Women's happiness has long been defined by restrictive standards of marriage and child-rearing, and the new standard of expensive-shit-buying is no less limiting, even though the tastemakers who promulgate it are often women themselves.

Of course, what many SATC fans loved about the show was not its glitzy shoes or unrealistic real estate (Carrie had a good job, but not that good), but its depiction of enduring female friendship. And Merkin's depiction of Meyers's movies as pleasant wish-fulfillment for women over 55 implies that nobody actually considers such women desirable — a perception movies like It's Complicated may actually counteract. What women of all ages could use are complex roles that focus on all aspects of their lives — not just what they look like to men. Both Meyers and SATC have taken a step towards this — it's just a shame they had to do it in such expensive shoes.

Nancy Meyers' Decorator Porn [Daily Beast]
Can Anybody Make A Movie For Women? [NYT Magazine]
"Sex and the City 2's" Kim Cattrall On The Franchise's Enduring Appeal [Wall Street Journal Speakeasy Blog]

• Michelle Trachtenberg is designing a line of jewelry for Coach's Poppy brand. Expect "colorful crystals." [WWD]
• Zac Posen is doing a lower-priced line, Z Spoke, which will be available exclusively through Saks Fifth Avenue come spring. It starts at $78:

• And it's a marked departure from his evening wear-heavy main line. "It's not Zac-for-less, it's not the little sister collection at all," says the designer. "The dresses — that's something I can do with my eyes closed. This is about a new identity." Hopefully that new identity includes solvency, given Posen, subject to continued rumors about his company's financial status, was forced to lay off staff recently. [WWD]
• Why is Cintra Wilson reviewing the Fifth Avenue Armani store now? That opened months ago. And it was extensively covered and reviewed in the Times back then. [NYTimes]
• Sophie Theallet's friend and longtime supporter Rupert Everett is happy she won the Vogue/CFDA Fashion Fund Award. Theallet is going to collaborate again with Manolo Blahnik on her runway show footwear for next February, and this time, some styles will be available in stores. [WWD]
• Some "legendary" male models we've never heard of (OK, male models we have heard of comprise exactly Tyson Beckford and that guy who was in Calvin Klein ads before he played Samantha's boyfriend on Sex And The City) are in this month's VMAN. [Independent]
• Claudia Schiffer has been thinking more about that clothing line she mooted a week or so back. "I have no definite first product in mind, but I would love to do cashmere. It's something I wear all the time myself, but I'd love to do something a bit more price-friendly. Plus a lot of cashmere lines are very classic and timeless, while I'd want to do it a bit more fashion. Or I could imagine doing handbags." You know. Cashmere. Or handbags. [WWD]
• If you need a fresh reason to hate the fashion industry this morning, how about an over-privileged under-informed 17-year-old heaping scorn on Luella's closure, and bragging about how she has, like, a ton of Lacroix — in the garage? Jane Aldridge probably kisses her Vogue portrait before going to bed each night. Right after inclining her head to say her prayers to Anna. [Fashionista]
• Vivienne Westwood says of the same closure, "It's very sad, but English fashion will survive, and be stronger." [Style.com]
• A four-day auction of the last contents of Pierre Bergé and Yves Saint Laurent's home has begun in Paris. Everything from the chandeliers to the pots and pans is for sale, some 1,185 objects in all. [Breitbart]
• Lanvin has attracted a minority investor. An unnamed entity, believed to be a European family, has bought a 12.5% stake in the business, for an estimated tens of millions of Euros. Last year, sales at Lanvin rose 29%. [WWD]
• Apparently it takes £230 worth of creams to look like Jane Birkin, along with Clarins and Dr. Hauschka makeup. And we always thought her so low maintenance and carefree. [Daily Mail]
• Birkin's daughter Charlotte Gainsbourg may be the face of the new Balenciaga perfume, but that won't stop Olivier Zahm from photographing the bottle between the breasts of a topless mannequin. Stay classy, Olivier! [FWD]
• John Bartlett, the recently fired men's wear designer for Liz Claiborne, has announced a collaboration with Alex Carleton of Rogues Gallery. RG/JB will launch in December at John Bartlett's Greenwich Village store, and will include a handcrafted leather log carrier and bankers' envelopes. Sounds practical. [WWD]
• Porsche is bringing back Yoko Ono's favorite sunglasses. [Luxist]
• A Gap store in Vancouver turned itself upside down to sell shoppers on a new kind of reward program called, for some reason, Sprize. They hung all the mannequins from the ceiling and turned the signage upside-down, but what you really need to know is this: Sprize reimburses you the cost difference automatically if merchandise you buy full-price later goes on sale. It's like everything you ever buy will be on sale. And it's not in the U.S. yet why??? [BrandFreak]
• Rosita and Tai Missoni seem like an adorable old couple. [Scotsman]
• Expect Burberry handbags, shoes and belts, as well as children's wear, in the near future. [Reuters]
• In coordination with something called cryptically "more trees," Louis Vuitton is paying 10 million yen (about $112,000) to reforest a 104-hectare area of land in Japan, to be known as the Louis Vuitton Forest. (Insert your own where-handbags-grow-on-trees joke.) [Japan Tourism]

• While filming her upcoming interview with Barbara Walters for 20/20, Sarah Palin claimed she was "shocked" and "devastated" when she learned of her daughter Bristol's pregnancy, as she had no idea Bristol was sexually active. [ABCNews]

• Lindsay Lohan was reportedly upset after she was asked to pay for drinks at a bar after she "stormed into the kitchen and grabbed two really expensive bottles of champagne." When he bill arrived for said bottles, however, Lindsay began yelling "I don't pay for drinks! This is ridiculous! I'm freaking out!" [People]
• Meanwhile, Jeff Cohen, director of the Long Island charity FREE, says Michael Lohan failed to show up to a celebrity boxing event meant to raise money for people with special needs: "He just wasted everybody's time," Cohen says, "He's just a fame whore. For him it's a publicity stunt, for us it's a fund-raiser for individuals with special needs. He didn't stand up and be a man." [PageSix]
• Ugh, and it gets worse: Elliot Osher, former owner of Scores, says that Michael Lohan once visited the strip club and "and described the kind of dancer he was looking for. We sent some girls over. Funny, they all seemed to look like Lindsay. We ended up having to show him to the door." Lohan, however, says, "No girls danced for me. The last thing I'd want to see is a girl who looked like Lindsay. I don't even look at the magazines where she's done some risqué photos." [NYDN]
• Paris Hilton is "furious" that Kim Kardashian and her family are stealing her spotlight: "Paris is furious that Kim got her start by hanging out in Hollywood with her — and now, the Kardashians have it all, the reality shows, the magazine covers, the big appearance fees and promotional deals," says a source, "She used to command $100,000 for club appearances, but now Kim is the hottest girl — and they aren't friends anymore. [PageSix]
• And for those of you who care, Kourtney Kardashian's baby shower was "a huge success." [People]
• Rosie O'Donnell has admitted that her partner, Kelli Carpenter, whom she publicly acknowledged a split from last month, actually moved out two years ago. [People]
• "I wear these tight black leggings when I run, which I like to think make me look like Spider-Man when he goes evil. But just might actually make me look a bit of a ponce. Especially as they don't leave much to the ol' imagination - sex-organ-wise."- Russell Brand [TheSun]
• Roger Corman, Lauren Bacall, and Gordon Willis received honorary Oscars this year; the Oscars were given out last night, as opposed to being given out on the televised broadcast. [Yahoo]
• Victoria Beckham wants Blake Lively to model her new line of dresses. [DailyMail]
• Whoops! At a concert in Auburn Hills, Michigan on Friday night, Bruce Springsteen yelled "Hello, Ohio!" and referenced Ohio several times until Steve Van Zandt finally told him he was shouting out the wrong state. [NYTimes]
• 2012 took first place at the box office on Friday with a total of $23.7 million in ticket sales. [EW]
• Kelly Osbourne's black Pomeranian is named "Sid, but he's not at all vicious." [PageSix]
• Interested in possible Sex and the City 2 spoilers? Click here. [NYPost]
• Shayne Lamas was busted for DUI last night. "I take full responsibility for my lack of judgment," she says, "I have always strived to be a role model for my friends, family and fans and have never nor will ever condone drinking and driving. I apologize for all those I have disappointed, including myself." [JustJared]
• "I was trying to help this old lady with a big picture she was carrying. I offered to help and she told me to go f*** myself - twice. I said, 'I beg your pardon?' and she said, 'You heard, f*** off'. I was only trying to do a good deed - that's the last time I try and help an old lady." -Liam Gallagher [TheSun]
• "I read the book five months before casting. I read the first 50 pages and I was just like, No! Because I was really fat as well. After reading the four-line synopsis - ‘Edward is the perfect being. He's so witty and beautiful. He's crazy and funny. He'll open doors for you. He'll drive you in his Volvo' - I thought even turning up would be embarrassing."-Robert Pattinson, on showing up to his Twilight audition. [ShowbizSpy]
• "What really kills me - it really rips me up - is when people think I'm abrasive, inconsiderate or ungrateful because I don't go outside in a bikini and wave to the paparazzi. Come on!"-Kristen Stewart [NYTimes]

• Roman Polanski's lawyer, Herme Temime, says a "very, very significant" cash bail offer will be made to Swiss authorities on Monday, and that Polanski will accept "whatever" extradition decision is made, as Polanski wouldn't behave "like a fugitive." [AP]

• TMZ recently acquired a copy of a book Richard Heene wrote in 1994 titled "The Official Offensive Driving Handbook," which includes references to "Towelheads" and "Orientals" and a picture of Heene on the toilet. [TMZ]
• In more irritating reality dad news: Michael Lohan says his friendship with Jon Gosselin is over after Jon became "secretive and distant." [Radar]
• Meanwhile, Dina and Lindsay Lohan are teaming up to fight back against Michael Lohan and his plans to take control of Lindsay's life. Says Dina: "He is hurting Lindsay. It breaks my heart. She's like, 'Mommy, when is he ever going to stop?' He is also six months behind in his child support. On Monday, we will file a violation order, and if he doesn't pay, he'll go to jail." [PageSix]
• Lindsay, meanwhile, has taken to her Twitter account to share her feelings on her father: "My father is a lunatic and doesn't even deserve such a title since he's never been around in my life other than when he'd threaten me and my family. He should be where he has always put himself after verbally abusing and physically abusing people all my life-behind bars. Its so sad to get a phone call from my baby sister just now asking, ‘Why is daddy doing this?' Through tears. He's crossed the line and hurt me and my family for the the last time." [JustJared]
• "Everyone in the '70s was stoned in order to get onstage, but I was afraid of drugs . . . Now I've grown to love them."-Carly Simon [PageSix]
• Michael Jackson's This Is It won the Friday box office with $7.9 million in ticket sales. [EW]
• Adam Lambert and his boyfriend, Drake LaBry have broken up, says a source: ""The relationship just ran its course. The break-up was mutual and amicable. They remain friends and still care for each other." [JustJared]
• Paris Hilton feels "very, very violated" after her house was broken into. [People]
• "There was one time I went for a meeting for this big movie and I was up for a character who wasn't written as black. The character was a college graduate and the studio head, a woman, said, 'How can we make this role more black if we are going to have you in the film?' And I said, 'Well, I think as it's written it's fine...' And she said, 'Yeah, I know, but she is a graduate, she has been to university.' So I said, 'I've been to university.' And then it was, 'Yeah, but you're different.' I wasn't offended. It's just nonsense. But no, I didn't do the film." - Thandie Newton [DailyMail]
• Bob Marley's family has hired a company to help them protect the rights to Marley's image; counterfeit Marley products currently bring in approximately $600 billion per year. [AP]
• Christina Aguilera says she doesn't deprive herself of the food she loves and tries to keep things balanced with exercise: "I make healthy choices when I can, because it's very important for me to have moments where I can let go, have a great dinner and not care so much about the carbs. I work out five days a week – and I hate working out in the moment, I truly do. But the aftermath is so great, and it helps you feel good – not only physically, but mentally." [DailyMail]
• People of the world! The Spice Girls are set to open the 2012 Olympics in London. [Mirror]
• Ethan Hawke has only positive things to say about Madonna after she spoke out against Gypsy discrimination in Romania: "She transcended being a pop star. She drew international attention and shone the spotlight on a level of racism and the need for greater education." [Yahoo]
• "I see life in colors. When I'm depressed, and going through something, it's in black and white. The flowers are not yellow."-Mary J. Blige, explaining the lyrics to her song for the Precious soundtrack, "I Can See In Color." [LATimes]
• Elton John has been sent to the hospital due to "flu with complications." [DailyMail]
• Elizabeth Hurley says motherhood made her more aware of the dark side of the paparazzi: "‘I would be bursting into tears and just be so angry. There is something about motherhood that makes you very protective of anyone coming too near your child, and the paparazzi did things like take pictures of him nude on the beach and put them online. It was disgusting, disgraceful." [DailyMail]
• Robert Pattinson was so nervous before his Twilight audition that he had to medicate himself before performing: "I took a quarter of a Valium for the first time – and it worked. But when I tried another Valium before another audition, it backfired and I passed out." [Telegraph]
• "Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Cynthia Nixon and I are all close in different ways and we've all been together now forever. It's hard to describe what it's like to be able to have gone through the crazy, crazy journey that is Sex And The City together. There is no one else we could turn to and talk about "remember when". We have years of crazy experiences together. And you can't recreate that with anybody, you can't even pull anybody else into it."- Kristen Davis [Mirror]
• Ryan Seacrest let his fans know that he was "fine...happy" via Twitter after his alleged stalker, Chidi Uzomah was arrested last week. [People]
• "You know, my mother – who was an opera singer – used to use the term as a compliment; it meant a very talented singer. But I looked it up in the dictionary recently and now it also means a difficult and demanding woman. I guess people like to put you in a little box, and that box fits me because I have the big hair, and I wear the tight dresses on stage. But that doesn't mean I'm difficult or nasty."-Mariah Carey, on the word "diva." [Mirror]
• Michael Buble says his breakup with Emily Blunt was "one of the worst and greatest things that ever happened to me. I've learned a lot, I've become a lot more introspective. I've taken the time to get to know myself and to like myself and to respect myself." [DailyExpress]
• "I regret trying to kill Sharon. It wasn't my plan to go out, get p*ssed, try to strangle her and wake up in jail. My best moment was being successful on my own after Black Sabbath. And having my kids. And getting sober."- Ozzy Osbourne [Mirror]

Right off the bat, Finke admits she's not into lists, writing:

"Last year I was on Elle's Women in Hollywood power list; this year I was asked to write it. That's ironic, because I hate power lists more than one-size-fits-all spa robes. These influential jobs are not necessarily comparable. Are the casting directors I included more important than the cinematographers and film editors I didn't? So what I have is a very subjective roster of women I deem essential to a town run by alpha males who don't play well with others. Women in general do."

The List is split up into sections; there's The Movie Executives; The TV Executives; the awfully titled "The Wives & Daughters." But first and foremost there's The Talent — which includes Tyra Banks, Beyoncé, director Kathyrn Bigelow, Miley Cyrus, Ellen DeGeneres and Tina Fey. Also on that list? Michael Patrick King, whom Finke calls "2009's honorary female." Finke explains:

He gave us the best years of Sex and the City on TV and can be credited for reviving the chick flick in Hollywood when the movie version grossed $415 million.

The commenters on Women In Hollywood are split. One writes:

I just dislike that she left out a woman in order to include Michael Patrick King as an "honorary female". It is not good to be told that a man knows and produces women's films better than women.

But another replies:

That bugged me as well… but then I thought, well… It's the biggest film starring a cast of women of all time. He may not be a woman, but his film surely did something great for women in Hollywood, especially with a cast of women 40+.

Here's the question: If a man sympathetic to women is in power, is it as good as a woman in power? I'm going to go with: No. Because the more women pulling strings and making executive decisions the better. But since Finke makes a point about the SATC franchise being a powerhouse — and generates some buzz by including a man — she gets a pass from me. Disagree?

The Most Powerful Women in Hollywood According to Nikki Finke [Women In Hollywood]
Nikki Finke's Power List [Elle.com]
Nikki Finke's Deadline Hollywood

Earlier: Hollywood Heavy Nikki Finke: Victim Of Misogyny, And Misogynist Extraordinaire

• Stephanie Seymour's divorce from Peter Brant is getting even uglier. After police were called to the couple's home following Seymour's complaint that Brant's security assaulted her, Brant has accused the model of drug use and is seeking sole child custody:

• Brant alleged in court filings that Seymour sought treatment for Vicodin abuse, and subsequently became addicted to the drug Subutex, which is used to treat opiate addiction. He says Seymour has missed multiple court-required breathalyzer tests, and has twice submitted urine samples that, though clean of Subutex, were too cold to meet the minimum valid temperature. The media mogul also says Seymour "broke in" to the couple's Florida mansion and removed $700,000 worth of items, all while the kids sat in a hotel in Connecticut. [NYP]
• When fashion goes Galt, you know we're in trouble. [TDB]
• Nanette Lepore, Michael Kors, Zac Posen, Anna Sui, Betsey Johnson, and that guy who was just endorsed by Barack Obama, whatsisname, Bill Thompson, will be on Seventh Avenue on Wednesday for a rally to save the New York Garment District. Twenty-five thousand people work in the district, and designers say they need their convenient access to sample houses and manufacturers it provides, but lax enforcement of existing zoning laws and competition from cheaper labor sources overseas have led the zone to dwindle. [NYDN]
• Not to be outdone, Mayor Bloomberg — whom some designers have criticized for failing to do enough to protect the garment district — is launching a fashion incubator program for 12 up-and-coming designers this fall. [NYP]
• Woody Allen is reportedly considering casting Adriana Lima in his new movie, which is set in Rio de Janeiro. Because he's "fascinated" by her beauty. [NYP]
• "My fashion advice is to have a flattering mirror at home and then forget about it," says Vivienne Westwood. The designer lives in Captain Cook's old house, and has never sold out to a larger company or a private investor, despite some offers. And some polite nos: reports Cathy Horyn, one backer in the 90s picked another designer instead. "They could have made money with me. They lost it. I'm a woman," says Westwood. "I'm like household management or whatever it is. I would never spend more than I have." [NYTimes]
• Tim Gunn has a cameo in the Sex And The City sequel. [E!]
• JMS, a brand owned by Hanes, is adding a dedicated plus-size apparel line to its existing plus-size offerings, which were mainly jeans and underwear. It'll be sold at Wal-Mart and the creative director promises "slimming seams, strategically placed pockets, freedom of movement and appropriate-weight materials." [WWD]
• Christian Louboutin, the designer who slimmed down Barbie's ankles when he had the chance to release a line of dolls under his own name, says he never meant to imply her ankles were big before. "Fat ankles she didn't have, she just could have had thinner ankles," explained Louboutin. Still digging, then. [WWD]
• Manolo Blahnik: "I hate celebrities. All those pointless girls — I won't name names, but you know who I mean. They are 'famous'. Ridiculous. I like women with style: actresses like Uma Thurman, icons like Audrey Hepburn. I like women with style to wear my shoes." [Vogue UK]
• Model Selita Ebanks joins Sinbad, Darryl Strawberry, and Cyndi Lauper in the next season of Celebrity Apprentice. [NYDN]
• Pat Field made a tote bag for Diet Coke to give away with purchase, which will be available later this month from Boots stores. [Daily Express]
• Erin Wasson, presumably to avoid her dreaded homelessness, makes an appearance in the fall J. Crew catalog. She eats a necklace in one shot. [Refinery29]
• Something called the Japan Jeans Association given the country's first lady, Miyuki Hatoyama, its Best Jeanist Award. (She shares it with a pop star and an actor.) Pleased, the 66-year-old Hatoyama said, "This is the prize I have long wished to win. I'm a jeans lover. I'm always putting on jeans as they're easy to wear." She also recalled that she and her husband were each wearing jeans when they met. [AFP]
• Gee, we're so glad reporter Giles Hattersley puts that nice boss, successful businesswoman, and maker of lovely shoes Tamara Mellon in her place in this hard-hitting profile. Apparently she smokes, wears "teensy" dresses, and altogether reminds Hattersley of "the heroine of some dicey Danielle Steel bonkathon." Can't have that. [ToL]
• Love Moschino, the Italian company's lower-priced clothing line, is adding accessories to its collection. [WWD]
• Georgia May Jagger, already having nabbed the Hudson Jeans campaign, is now the face of Rimmel cosmetics. [Telegraph]
• Yasmin le Bon's daily life: "If lunch is at home then I tend to eat up leftovers from the fridge. I'm the leftover queen. I can't help it. I might mix them into an omelette or throw them all into a soup. One of the children won't eat soups any more because she's worried what old food I've put in it. Simon's mother, Ann Marie, often comes round with homemade bread and cakes." [ToL]
• Alvin Ailey company dancers will wear Mark & James, Badgley Mischka's just-announced lower-priced line, to their season opening gala on December 2. [WWD]
• Henry Holland kinda maybe sorta wants to move to New York. "Every time I come, the need to live here becomes more and more urgent and I want to go home less and less. I spend my entire time here plotting about how I would do it." But even if he did cross the Atlantic, he says he would still show his line in London. [Grazia]
• The luxury market, once in free-fall, is still declining, just not as steeply as some analysts earlier expected. Instead of the overall 10% drop in luxury sales that had originally been forecast for 2009, analysts say the industry is on track for an 8% decline in sales. [WSJ]

• The Kardashian sisters are going to put on their thinking kaps and hopefully kome up with a kollection for Bebe. [Kim Kardashian]
• Which makes about as much sense as Jermaine Jackson's rumored clothing line. [Times Of India]

• Megan Fox has been gunning for her just-announced Armani campaign, for which she was paid a rumored $2 million, for years — or approximately as long as she's been famous. She has worn Armani to events and finally met the designer at his couture show this summer. [AP]
• After missing the opportunity to release a Sarah Jessica Parker scent to coincide with the Sex And The City movie, Coty, the clever clogs company behing the actress' perfume deal, vowed to be prepared next time around. And lo, SJP NYC, a cute little pink thing in a beveled bottle, will launch next May, just in time for Sex And The City 2: Electric Boogaloo. [WWD]
• Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas has signed a perfume deal with Avon, the preferred perfume partner of Reese Witherspoon, Courteney Cox, and Patrick Dempsey. [WWD]
• See how Selena Gomez's new clothing line, Dream Out Loud, stacks up against the luminaries of tween clothing collections past: the Olsen twins' Wal-Mart line, Miley Cyrus and Max Azria's concatenation of sequins, and the criminally God-awful Stuff By Hilary Duff. [Refinery29]
• Yeohlee Teng has been honored by the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. She says, "Fashion is so often about the Eighties, about the Seventies, but not about original thinking." Teng's preferred design philosophy? "Construct a cube, then put it on the body and watch the body activate it." Check out her current show at the Crow Collection of Asian Art in downtown Dallas. [DN]
• In some kind of grand, music-fashion-industry circle jerk, Michael Stipe will give an award to Renzo Rosso, Jon Bon Jovi will present something to Kenneth Cole, Oscar de la Renta will receive a prize from Grace Coddington, and Dita Von Teese will bestow something on Stephen Jones. In fashion, everyone's a winner. [WWD]
• Coach creative director Reed Krakoff is not only getting an eponymous fashion line, but a New York Fashion Week debut. Expect to see Krakoff on the schedule for February. [FWD]
• When I, like the Italian luxury — luxury as in $30,000 suits — label Brioni, turn 65, remind me to celebrate by releasing a limited-edition perfume and selling each of my 7,000 bottles for $399 (100 ml) r $830 (300 ml). Then, inexplicably, I'll invite Bryan Ferry to the launch. [WWD]
• Nitrolicious was given a free pair of Steve Madden's "Seryna" booties — the alleged knock-off Alexander McQueen is suing Steve Madden over — and posted an understandably glowing review, with photos. But with praise like, "These are really a good copy of the original boots but cost a fraction of the price," not to mention the fact that posts like these serve as timestamped evidence that Steve Madden is continuing to promote the product, could the company only end up developing Alexander McQueen's case? [Nitrolicious]
• We know Vera Wang won't be on the next season of Dancing With The Stars, but is it because the producers wouldn't let her design her own costumes? [FWD]
• Wang's president of creative direction, Constance Darrow, announced her resignation from the company yesterday. The designer is understood to have offered Darrow a promotion to stay. The senior vice president of worldwide marketing and communications, Elizabeth Musmanno, left Vera Wang last week. These developments could be related either to Wang's rumored reality television show, or to the arrival of new company president Mario Grauso, who starts work today. [WWD]
• Thus says model Liya Kebede: "Mothers are the world's best stimulus package because they invest in their families and their communities. When a mother dies, her children are up to 10 times more likely to die within two years. They are less likely to be immunized, more likely to be malnourished, more likely to contract HIV, and more likely to be exploited. When a mother lives, her children are fed, attend school, and know that someone exists who will do absolutely anything to make their lives better." [TDB]
• The American launch of A*Muse, Richie Rich and Pamela Anderson's eco-friendly swimwear line, sounds much like the international launch, at New Zealand Fashion Week in September. Even down to Richie's rollerskates. (I'm beginning to feel bad for the models who have to wear the samples, no doubt well-rubbed with body makeup and other people's sweat, by now.) [People]
• Ruffian's new collection for Anthropologie, Mise en Scene, is out. It's less whimsical than the retailer's typical fare, though the connection to vintage fashion is still obvious. [WWD]

• After barring a woman from helping her autistic sister try on clothes at the chain's Mall of America outpost, Abercrombie & Fitch was fined $115,264 for discrimination. Now we can say it definitively: Abercrombie doesn't like disabled people. [StarTrib]

• There are pictures of Threeasfour's inspiration boards, fabrics, and the in-progress pieces of its collection with Yoko Ono, which will be shown next week in New York. Ono contributed original artwork and inspiration to the collection, and the dot drawings that were transformed into original prints look fantastic with their repeated circular-organic shapes. [The Cut]
• Oprah is going to co-host next year's Met Ball. Oprah. Let that sink in. Co-hosting, of course, will be the woman who made her lose 20 pounds to be fit for the cover of her magazine: Anna Wintour. [Yahoo! News]
• This year's Met Ball model co-host, Kate Moss, stormed out of the GQ awards show in London because host James Nesbitt made a joke about her naked appearance on the cover of that magazine. She managed to interrupt Dizzee Rascal, who was being interviewed after accepting an award — twice. Once to storm out, and once to ask if anybody had seen her lipstick. [Telegraph]
• GQ anointed comedian and Little Britain star David Walliams as the most stylish man of 2009. He accepted the award wearing goggles and denim hotpants. [Mirror]
• Craig "Radioman" Schwartz, apparently some sort of serial movie set hanger-on, nearly rode his bicycle into Sarah Jessica Parker while she was filming for Sex And The City outside Bergdorf's. She stumbled over the curb. Do people really have nothing better to do than flashmob the SATC set? For the rest of the day, Parker was protected by ten bodyguards between takes. [WWD]
• Meanwhile, co-star Kristin Davis' line with Belk department stores has been discontinued, and the actress' planned New York Fashion Week show canceled. Belk and Davis say the decision was mutual. [The Cut]
• Three words: Lady Gaga Headphones. (No, she's not doing a side project with David Bazan.) [Engadget]
• The house of Ungaro has tapped Lindsay Lohan as an "artistic adviser" and relatively unknown designer Estrella Archs as its chief designer. When the Lindsay-for-Ungaro rumor started — back before the young, talented Colombian designer Esteban Cortazar had been fired — it sounded like crazy talk. Now it's happening. "Odds are it could work," says C.E.O. Mounir Moufarrige. [WWD]
• Heidi Klum, on that time Karl Lagerfeld sneered that he didn't know who she was, and that she was obviously fat anyway: "It's bizarre to me that he says he doesn't know who I am because he's dressed me in the past. I've worn Karl Lagerfeld. Not even Chanel – his line. Lagerfeld doesn't just send random things everywhere." Klum in fact wore Lagerfeld to the CFDA awards a few years back. [P6Mag — story not online yet]
  
• Fashion success story Christopher Kane, on childhood: "I was this wee kid who just stayed in the house, watching The Clothes Show with my mum and scrooging all the money from my first communion." [ToL]
• Model Crystal Renn, who was directed as a 14-year-old to lose 9" off her hips in order to work in the industry, and struggled for years with anorexia and exercise bulimia as a result, says that Glamour magazine was the only client who ever noticed her eating disorder, and took action by calling her then-agency, Next. Not that she was appreciative as a frightened young teen: "At the time, I was really embarrassed because someone had figured me out. They called it and brought it to light. I wasn't only not only not pleasing my agency but I wasn't pleasing Glamour. When I became a healthy model like I am now, they were one of the first people to shoot me at this size, and that says something." Renn, whose memoir Hungry came out yesterday, would like to have a plus-size clothing line because she says her rock 'n' roll aesthetic is under-represented in the larger sizes. [GlamChic]
• Tara Moss, who modeled for 10 years, now writes crime novels. And she does her own stunts: to research events for her books, she tries to experience the things her characters feel. In addition to spending days in morgues and courtrooms, flying fighter jets, and being set on fire, she has had an Ultimate Fighter choke her until she lost consciousness. [Reuters]
• Hadley Freeman says, of the attempts by models too numerous to name to raise awareness about the industry's working conditions, "The fact that all these efforts have come from models as opposed to the outside media (which gets too distracted with painting models as evil fem-bots and harbingers of eating disorders to see them as underpaid homesick teenagers), suggests maybe people find the idea of models making them feel fat more upsetting than the very real fact of models being raped." The serial rapist designer Anand Jon Alexander was sentenced to 59 years in prison this week; other sources interviewed for this story express amazement that any of his victims, all young models over whom he had authority, came forward at all. [Guardian]
• Anna Sui's Gossip Girl-inspired Target collection launches this weekend online and in 600 stores nationwide — and today, if you live in New York and are willing to go to a pop-up store in a townhouse on Crosby St. [WWD]
• A woman told the Post that sometimes she goes to Yigal Azrouël's Meatpacking District store to try on clothes "just to be naked in the same room with him." Azrouël is sexy and all, but that's just creepy. [NYPost]
• This story about Fashion's Night Out, which is tomorrow, includes an unexpected reference to Fitzgerald. Then Anna Wintour says, "What am I looking to buy? Something in red, some new boots, and some kind of savage fur (that's American Vogue shorthand, so you know, for a rough, shaggy stole or collar of some kind). It's not a lot, but isn't that the whole point of shopping these days." [ToL]
• Club Monaco locations in New York City will be serving champagne until 11 p.m., and the SoHo store will have a cupcake truck outside until September 12th. [FWD]
• The Financial Times' coverage of Fashion's Night Out casts Wintour as Ben Bernanke in a grand fashion stimulus plan. [FT]
• Wintour's appearance on Letterman drew slightly higher ratings than the show's average for the week and month, but ABC's Nightline still won the timeslot. [WWD]
• "Would I think twice about buying a dress that costs $2,000? Yeah! Of course I would. I'd try it on and go home and think about it before I bought it," says Victoria Beckham. Nonetheless, she says that demand for her uber-expensive dress line is outstripping supply. [People]
• Robin Givhan reports that now, the time just before Fashion Week, is a period of "soul-searching and hand-wringing" for designers and the industry. [WaPo]
• Neiman Marcus suffered a $168.6 million loss during the fourth quarter. Revenues decreased 24%. [WWD]
• Yesterday, Gap-owned e-tailer Piperlime started selling designer clothes, in addition to shoes. [NYTimes]
• Same-store sales at Laura Ashley rose 6.7%, to £101.5m. [FT]

• Two weeks after adding Nicolas Cage's home to his sheaf of L.A. properties, Ed Hardy designer Christian Audigier has announced he's moving into Michael Jackson's last residence. Audigier will rent the $38 million home from his C.E.O., Hubert Guez. [E!]

• The glove the late King of Pop wore to marry Debbie Rowe has sold at auction for $49,000. [TMZ]
• "I love Japan. I love the people, the shopping, the fashion. I think they have so much fun with fashion...they don't take it too seriously," says Nicky Hilton. Don't take fashion seriously? Because insanely awesome and carefully cultivated street fashion just happens. [WWD]
  
• Mad Men's Christina Hendricks tells InStyle Weddings about her planned wedding to actor Geoffrey Arend, and specifies the designer (Carolina Herrera) and the look (Sophia Loren) of her wedding dress, but doesn't let it be photographed. [People]
• Lily Cole is a model, who is also (very) smart. The Daily Mail took a break from publishing finger-wagging paparazzi photos of her and scurrilous scuttlebutt about her to notice these facts. [Daily Mail]
• Nanette Lepore would like you to remember Labor Day by saving New York's Garment District from rapacious commercial exploitation. [NYTimes]
• Juicy Couture co-founder Gela Nash-Taylor doesn't drink out of common Starbucks cups. She has her own paper cups, because "I'm so into monogramming. I'm doing it on everything right now." [ToL]
• More than 800 stores across all five boroughs are involved in Thursday's shopping-with-fun event, Fashion's Night Out in New York City. Other regional and international events are also planned. [BrandWeek]
• Karl Lagerfeld will be tending the Chanel store with Carine Roitfeld in Paris, for example. [WWD]
• R.J. Cutler's documentary, The September Issue took in more than a quarter of a million dollars over Labor Day weekend. The $40,000 per-screen average makes it the fifth-highest-grossing documentary ever made. [AdAge]
• Meanwhile, Studio 360's Kurt Anderson says that based on the film, the fashion world is "amazingly old-fashioned, like some royal artifact from the 18th Century." [Studio360]
• The Los Angeles Times says the film "charts the intersection of art and commerce with a perhaps inadvertent eye for an excess that wasn't to last." (I am quoted in this article, proving that if you write long enough and, well, long enough on the Internet, someday someone will mistake you for an expert in something.) [LATimes]
• Anna Wintour, for her part, says that complaining about the sea change in the fashion industry that has taken place since the filming of that documentary is "like talking about that house you could've bought for nothing on the beach in Southhampton. Forget it. It's gone. The amazing golden years that everyone in the industry was enjoying were fantastic from a business point of view but also maybe a little unseemly. Every celebrity thought she could be a designer, and how many handbags? How many shoes? How much of a thing does everyone really need?" Then Wintour goes to the Macy's in Queens where she will be — on Mayor Bloomberg's orders that the event not smack of elitism — kicking off Fashion's Night Out, and upon surveying the scene, asks in a horrified voice, "Can we...enhance?" [NYMag]
• Sixteen months of declining same-store sales at the department store chain might make the budget for those "enhancements" leaner, however. [BW]
• And retailers in general, after an apocalyptic fall and winter, and a barely-improved spring and summer, are hungry for the fall sales boost that events like Fashion's Night Out are aiming to provide. [WWD]
• WWD has a beautiful, subscription-only, series of photographs of various New York designers as they prepare for fashion week. Alex Wang looks radiant and un-stressed, but the same can't be said of the male models snapped lining up for a casting at Yigal Azrouël. [WWD]
• Naomi Campbell would like to point out, for all those who called her hypocritical for modeling fur in Dennis Basso's fall campaign, that she actually quit PETA years ago. So her hypocrisy has weathered a few seasons now — like a vintage mink. [SB]
• More bad news for Annie Leibovitz: the practically-bankrupt photographer is being sued by an Italian photographer, Paolo Pizzetti, who claims that Leibovitz used his pictures without consent — or payment — for a Lavazza coffee campaign. Since Leibovitz could not travel to Italy to complete the shoot, which features images of models in romantic poses in front of Italian landmarks like the Trevi fountain and the Piazza San Marco, she had Pizzetti scout locations and take snapshots for her. Then Leibovitz shot the models in a New York studio, and digitally stitched the fore- and backgrounds together. Pizzetti says he was never paid for the rights to his contributions. [AW]
• Lady Gaga is reportedly set to perform during New York Fashion Week at an after-party for Givenchy hosted by Out magazine and to be held at The Box. [WWD]
• On the night of the 13th in New York, a short teaser film for Spring '10 by Gareth Pugh will be screened at Milk studios' M.A.C.-sponsored fashion shows in Chelsea. Although the first screening will be invitation-only, the second is open to members of the public who register on M.A.C.'s Facebook page. [Style.com]
• And newly-minted director Christian Louboutin just wrapped filming on an advertisement for Piper-Heidseick champagne starring model Elisa Sednaoui. [WWD]
• Manolo Blahnik says he never wanted to be a celebrity designer, and blames Sex And The City for his unwilling transformation. "If people talk to me about Sex And The City, I get sick," he told the Telegraph. "The taxi drivers recognize me now. It becomes too much and I don't feel comfortable." [PC]
• Sojin Lee's new online fashion venture, Fashionair, has launched. Lee last worked for Net-A-Porter, and her backer is Simon Fuller's company. [Forbes]
• Giorgio Armani designed a custom costume for a Spanish matador. It's grey and spangled. [Telegraph]
• Despite growing sales, profits for 2008 at Armani shrank by 41.4%, to $188.3 million. [WWD]
• Harold Tillman, a British fashion businessman who already owns Jaeger, has apparently acquired the bankrupt house Acquascutum. [ElleUK]
• Tom Binns for Disney might seem like a weird combination, because, well, it's a weird combination. [WWD]
• The Ebony Fashion Fair, an important industry event for black designers and models, is canceling its fall tour. The largest traveling fashion show in the world, Ebony helped launch the careers of talents like Kevan Hall and Tracey Reese, and raised money for various local and national charities including the NAACP and the Urban League. The economy is the culprit. [Examiner]
• Milan Fashion Week has been thrown into "chaos" by a series of re-schedulings to avoid schedule conflicts, which begat new conflicts and new re-schedulings, and then yet more conflicts and re-schedulings. [WWD]

[New York, September 4. Image via Bauer-Griffin.]

[New York, September 1. Image via Bauer-Griffin]

Last week I was introduced to the holy grail of TV shows: a sitcom created by and starring women that is actually hilarious — and to both sexes! After devouring every episode of the critically acclaimed but sadly canceled BBC 3 Britcom Pulling (the second series of which just became available in the states), I came away not only with an exciting thing to share with friends, but also a new hero (series co-creator and star Sharon Horgan - the real person, not her character) and a reinvigorated optimism about the future of comedy. I'm not even exaggerating!

The series begins with Donna (Catherine Keener-esque Horgan), giving her fiance a disinterested handjob. She then calls off their wedding at the last moment, causing him to beg, vomit, and attempt suicide. Donna moves in with her frenemies, the wildly alcoholic Karen (Tanya Franks) and the dim, childlike Louise (Rebecca Staton). What ensues as these three intensely self-absorbed and irreverent characters navigate their late 20s and early 30s makes up the rest of the series.

It's impossible to describe Pulling without mentioning Sex And The City (and its creators have openly said that the show was designed as an anti-SATC), so let's get that out of the way: Pulling is like Sex And The City, but funny. Pulling is like Sex And The City, but dark, pessimistic, nihilistic, totally not uplifting, and un-romantic, featuring characters you would never want to know or emulate in real life, but whose fantastically shocking behavior will often remind you of your own darker moments taken to extremes. It's actually not like SATC at all aside from the "women friends" skeleton — it's more like Curb Your Enthusiasm than anything else — any moment of sentimentality or even decency on this show is immediately revealed to be false. There are no role models here, so don't even look, but as one reviewer put it: "There is, I'd wager, a bit of Donna in all of us. (If there isn't, I don't want to know you.)" In life and in love, these characters just can't catch a break, and none of them deserve one. Here's a representative example: in one episode, facing an outrageous veterinary bill, Karen and Louise kill a cat. With a brick. They must have had a lot of fun with the inherent metaphor in that (smash those stereotypes!) Here are a few clips from the series:

Donna breaks up with Karl in a scene more awkward than the one in Forgetting Sarah Marshall:

Donna, desperate to impress the popular girl from her school days, takes her back to her apartment:

Karen, a kindergarten teacher, has a memorable meeting at a grocery store:

There's also a 1-hour finale special that aired in the UK in May but isn't yet available here. ABC is planning a U.S. version of Pulling which will probably suck (you just can't get away with that kind of humor here), but the good news is Sharon Horgan is currently writing a pilot for HBO, and will co-star with Will Arnett, David Cross and Spike Jonze in the upcoming UK series The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret. And she has now earned her place alongside Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Sarah Silverman, Carrie Fisher, and Mindy Kaling as an invitee to my own personal fantasy slumber party (everyone has one of those, right?). Welcome!

[Via The Awl]
[Series' 1 and 2 of Pulling on Netflix]
[The Times Of London's great interview with Sharon Horgan]

Okay, so Entourage has been compared to Sex and the City in a great many places, most notably Entertainment Weekly and Slate. But when you really examine the text, you can see that some themes have definitely been recycled.

Sunday night's episode "Murphy's Lie" continued to play into the themes established by the SATC foursome. Listen to the guys discuss Eric's little slip up:

Or Eric channeling Charlotte as he tries to prevent breaking up with his current girlfriend while still pining for his ex:

I understand that the testosterone soaked words and visuals can obscure the nature of the text. So I pulled two random scenes for this season and subbed in the different characters. It works almost a bit too well.

[General Scene Changes: Charlotte has Eric's lines, Samantha has Drama's lines, Miranda has Turtle's lines, and Vince has Carrie's. I left the name Sloan is because it's unisex. All references to she have been changed to he, and pussy was replaced with dick. Other than that, the script is as it plays.]

Charlotte (E): How pathetic are you guys?

Samantha (D): Pathetic? Us? Who tells a first date that they love [him]?

Charlotte (E): Aw, yeah right, I told [him] I loved [him].

Miranda (T): You looked like you were going to tell [him] you loved [him].

Samantha (D): My point exactly.

Charlotte (E): Whatever.

Carrie (V): Aww, [Char], [they're] are just bitter because you're on a hot streak.

Charlotte (E): Thanks [Carrie].

Samantha (D): The girl's got more [dick] the last month than the previous 29 years. I wouldn't call it a hot streak, I would call it entering the twilight zone.

Miranda (T): That's what being a successful [gallery] manager does for ya.

Samantha (D): So you're saying it has nothing to do with [her], just the business card.

Miranda (T): Yup.

Samantha (D): Ah. Now I get it.

Miranda (T): So you've been banging all these dates, [Charlotte]?

Samantha (D): [S] he [w]on't bang ‘em that quickly. [Charlotte] needs to be wined and dined for at least a month.

Carrie (V): No, no, no, I think I heard banging last night. Was there banging[Charlotte] ?

Miranda (T): Well, was there banging?

Charlotte (E): Can we talk about important stuff, please?

Carrie (V): So how's Sloan?

Charlotte (E): What do you mean?

Carrie (V): I mean, how is [he]?

Charlotte (E): Oh, [he's] good.

Carrie (V): Was that a weird question?

Charlotte (E): No.

Carrie (V): Because you sure answered it kind of weird.

Charlotte (E): Did I?

Carrie (V): Yeah, didn't [s]he?

Miranda (T): Yeah.

Samantha (D): Kind of weird.

Miranda (T): You're getting back together with Sloan?

Charlotte (E): No.

Miranda (T): After one cup of coffee?

Charlotte (E): No!

Samantha (D): You're back in love with Sloan?

Miranda (T): One cup of coffee is all it takes with this [girl]!

Charlotte (E): It was a friendly meeting!

Miranda (T): Ah.

Carrie (V): A meeting.

Miranda (T): A meeting that [he] called for!

Samantha (D): It's all the [guys] [she's] been getting. [Dick] can smell other [dick] and then they have to pounce on it. That's why when you're on a hot streak, you have to press it like blackjack.

Miranda (T): Are you pressing it with Sloan, [Charlotte]?

Charlotte [E): Forget it, I'm done with this conversation.

Next Time: The Entourage Boys Take on the Sex and the City Script!

Related: Extended Fourplay [Entertainment Weekly]
It's A Guy Thing [Slate]