Good news first: after failing a screen test for an Elle reality show, a Bri who currently lives in an RV in a Wal-Mart parking lot, wrote E. Jean for advice. Instead, she got an internship with E. Jean herself, whom she calls "a very funny, slightly crazy, super-awesome columnist whom I've read for years." Though it took a while for her to find out about the offer — she didn't know that E. Jean had published her letter — she's now slated to start September 1. She'll be telecommuting to E. Jean's "East Coast mountain office," a remote hideaway that kind of makes E. Jean sound like Dick Cheney, but with better hair. And better taste in employees.

The bad news? Someone at W thought the recession was a good time to offer up what Fashion Week Daily calls "A Whole New Meaning to Homeless-Chic" (what was the old meaning?). In addition to the shot above, there's a model sort of "passed out" on a pile of Prada bags, and an urchin in a fur coat who appears to be begging — for Versace. Marie Antoinette, anyone?

In her letter to Elle requesting her initial screen test, Bri wrote,

I do love writing, and I love fashion, especially vintage and retro clothing. I bet I could out-cute SJP and her super-overpaid stylist any day, haha.

Hers sounds like a voice that could make fashion magazines less elitist, less focused on expensive shit and predictable advertorials and more accepting of the creativity and originality that can make fashion truly exciting. Fashion mags don't have to curry favor with big-name brands — they could be spotlighting independent designers, DIY, and vintage clothes that don't cost $5,000. Maybe if Bri stays in the industry, she can help point it in this direction — and away from photo shoots of girls wearing Dior bags.

Elle Magazine Offers Internship To Homeless Girl [Homeless Tales]
Ask E. Jean: I Bombed It [Elle]
A Whole New Meaning To Homeless-Chic [Fashion Week Daily]

The cover hearkens back to 1991, the last September issue of Vogue we could find that had fewer than 600 pages. For comparison's sake: Last year's had 796, 2007's had a record-breaking 840. And 1996's had 700.

Do you think the advertising crunch and the precipitous decline in consumer spending might make Vogue do something a little different, a little out-there, a little untested?


Why, no!

Charlize Theron, this month's cover subject, has graced Vogue a total of four times — in October, 2000, October, 2004, October, 2007, and now again in September, 2009. In the last three instances, the South African actress was photographed by Mario Testino.


But that's not the only place in the magazine that had us rubbing our eyes with déjà vu. As other bloggers have pointed out, the Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott-shot editorial with Natalia Vodianova as Little Red Riding Hood from this September's Vogue bears a striking resemblance to...


A Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott-shot editorial with model Doutzen Kroes as Goldilocks, which was published in the August, 2007, issue of W.


The Natalia Vodianova spread for Vogue is called "Into The Woods."


The Doutzen Kroes editorial for W is also called "Into The Woods."


Both the editorials even boast creepy masked soft-toy molesters.


Grace Coddington, the fashion editor for this shoot, can sometimes be a little derivative for my tastes; in recent years, we've seen her turn The Wizard of Oz and Romeo and Juliet into editorial spreads that didn't add much to their source material. "Into The Woods" fits perfectly with that trend.


Natalia's absolutely wretched 'do in those pictures is not a fluke: this issue's full of deeply bizarre hair. You took one for the team here, Liya Kebede.


And in this shot, it's as if you can see Karlie Kloss thinking, "Really, Guido Palau? Really?"


I, for one, am getting just a little bit sick of seeing this particular photo re-made. This, David Sims' version...

...owes as much to an interpretation from last September's Vogue by Patrick Demarchelier, featuring model Catherine McNeil...


...as it does to the Richard Avedon original, with Jean Shrimpton, from the September, 1965, Harper's Bazaar.


Dodai already did an excellent LOLVogue! on the rest of David Sims' editorial. Karlie Kloss has apparently wrested the Vogue showjumping title from Caroline Trentini. The St. Louis teenager has an astonishing three editorial appearances in this issue — four if you count an Annie Leibovitz portrait of her, which runs alongside a short profile of Karlie by Sally Singer.


But what's amazing about that Leibovitz shot is just how much it looks like another portrait the legendary photographer recently took of a young starlet.


I'm referring, of course, to the photograph of Miley Cyrus that Annie Leibovitz took for the June, 2008, issue of Vanity Fair. Karlie and Miley are photographed with the same dampened hair, the same skin that's lit extremely pale, and the same red lips on a nude face. They even share a similar pose and both are shot against the same backdrop. The fact is that even though Cyrus and Kloss were roughly the same age when when they were photographed by Leibovitz — Cyrus was 15, Kloss, who only turned 17 earlier this month, would have been 16 — this photo is certain to draw less ire. That says more about our culture's parallel impossible expectations for the few young women who make it in the entertainment business than anything else: we demand that our pop stars remain forever young, and we expect our models to impersonate adult women from the time they hit 5'9".


Steven Meisel has a 16-page editorial with models Liya Kebede, Karen Elson, Coco Rocha, Sasha Pivovarova, and Viktoriya Sasonkina. It's shot in and around Manhattan's Essex House hotel and styled by Grace Coddington.


Something about the spread, though, suggests this was one of Meisel's autopilot days.


This shot, by Meisel for the February, 2009, issue of Vogue, has a different color palette than the "In The Mood" bicycle picture, but the quirky period styling, the models' poses, and the hats, all nonetheless echo it.


This shot, of Viktoriya Sasonkina, from September's Vogue is lovely.


Until you remember that Meisel shot Sasonkina for last September's Vogue Italia in virtually the same pose, and practically the same dress, in a nearly identically-themed 40s editorial.


Liya Kebede, in the September Vogue spread, looks divine.


And "In The Mood" really hits its stride when it starts playing with the murals in the background. Coco Rocha looks like she could be jumping out of that painting.


And I love those creepy hands.


But again, it's hard not to think of Meisel's old Vogue Italia story, with Sasonkina.


Probably the best editorial of the bunch in this year's slimmed-down September Vogue is Steven Klein's offering, "Take Cover."


Karlie Kloss and Caroline Trentini star as two futuristic gals about town.


They are armed and they are dangerous. And what's more, this editorial mercifully does not appear to be a direct re-shoot of anything else.

Fresh ideas: how novel.


Earlier:Harper's Bazaar: Talking About That "Recession" Thing Is Just "Really Annoying" Now
LOLVogue: I Purmd Mai Hare!

• Fran Drescher is launching a skincare line — called FranBrand — this fall on HSN. The products are organic and paraben-free, because, as Drescher puts it, "Women are schmearing stuff on their décolleté, wondering why we're all getting breast cancer..."

• "...Once you wake up and smell the coffee, it's hard to go back to sleep. So I'm sounding the alarm." Drescher, a survivor of uterine cancer, founded the organization Cancer Schmancer. (And she also taught us to love Loehmann's.) [The Cut]
• As we learned yesterday, London Fog confirmed Gisele Bundchen's pregnancy by the roundabout way of announcing it had airbrushed her 5-6 month belly out of its latest campaign "to protect her privacy." But the outerwear brand also released a behind-the-scenes video of the shoot, which includes footage of the raw, unretouched shots as they appear on the computer monitor. A side-by-side comparison reveals exactly what London Fog thought wouldn't move units this fall. [SassyBella]
• Bar Refaeli is allegedly seeing Israeli multi-millionaire Teddy Sagi. Sagi owns a company that makes software for Internet gambling sites, and the nicest thing the Daily Mail can say about him is that he "has a lovely smile." The supermodel's relationship with Leonardo Di Caprio ended earlier this year. [Daily Mail]
• Liya Kebede addressed the UN Secretary-General's Forum on the topic of maternal health. Writes the supermodel, "In times of economic crisis, it is tempting to turn inward, to ignore or postpone the problems of the outside world and focus on ourselves. But, if we hope to thrive once again, we must realize that there are no outside problems in today's interwoven, globalized world. Each mother who dies leaves behind a devastated family and weakened community that will eventually, somehow, affect each of us. Each mother who dies deepens the financial and social strain on our world and puts economic recovery further away. Mothers are our best stimulus package because they invest in their families and in our collective future." [HuffPo]
• SassyBella unearthed footage of Karen Mulder hosting an E! special in 1999. The Dutch model encounters a new girl, who, when she introduces herself, turns out to be an 18-year-old Adriana Lima. [SassyBella]
• The first pictures of Rad by Rad Hourani, the Canadian designer's diffusion line, are looking pretty good, at least for those who were already fans of Hourani's unisex, pared-down rocker aesthetic. "This is exactly the same thing," as his main line, Hourani confirmed. Only instead of costing thousands of dollars it costs hundreds. We need more of this. [WWD]
• The writer of the sometimes entertaining, sometimes savage, always fascinating fashion blog The Emperor's Old Clothes has revealed himself — as New York designer Eric Gaskins. Gaskins, after 22 years in business, was this week forced to close his doors because of the economy. [NYTimes]
• And in September, Daphne Guinness is releasing a signature scent with Comme des Garçons. Only unlike most celebrity perfumes lines, this is actually the distinctive fragrance Guinness has, herself, been mixing for years. "I'll be in airports or in a taxi and the driver will say, ‘What are you wearing?'" reports the heiress. [WWD]
• Designer Hussein Chalayan is "weirded out" by models with clothing lines, like Kate Moss, Amber Valetta, Erin Wasson, and Elle MacPherson: "If you have a really strong sense of style and people want to aspire to being like you, I can understand that. But if you really are doing it just because you think of yourself as a brand and you haven't had the training and you know nothing about clothes, it kind of demeans all the training that designers have had." Chalayan thought Kate Moss's line for Topshop was a poor effort. "I don't think it represented her, and I didn't think she worked hard enough. I even told her to her face." How did la Moss respond? "She said, ‘Oh, I'm just trying to do a light thing; I'm not trying to do anything serious.' But I said, ‘That's not the point.'" [WWD]
• In which case, add Jessica Stam to the list of models who've raised Chalayan's ire. The Canadian just announced a collaboration with Rag & Bone. [Style.com]
• Vogue's Lauren Santo Domingo, on being told her boss Anna Wintour had worn flats to a party in the Hamptons: "I wonder if that means we can wear flats to the office now?" [The Cut]
• Fashion blind item: "Which fantastical designer has a new man? She's ditched her long term fiance for an artist with prime real estate." We're with the commenters on this: signs point to Erin Fetherston, who hasn't been photographed in public with her longtime fiancé, Hedi Ferjani, since late April. [Fashionista]
• Ali Wise, the Dolce & Gabbana publicist who was arrested for hacking into the voicemail of a woman who was dating Wise's ex boyfriend, is no longer a Dolce & Gabbana employee. Which must seem like the least of her problems: Wise is facing felony charges of computer trespass and eavesdropping. [WWD]
• A well-written parsing of W magazine's cover story on model Lara Stone: "The fashion industry — and, in turn, the fashion media — have such a warped concept of slimness that a model like Lara Stone is so much larger than her contemporaries that they feel the need to explain her presence. If Stone's body is such an outlier, what does that say about the rest of us? Worse, the magazine saw fit to issue the disclaimer that Stone 'is, it should be noted, a very lithe five foot ten.' Why, yes, do note that! As if there's the slightest chance someone is going to look at these photos and think Stone needs to, like, slow down on the Cheetos." [GlossedOver]
• Lagardère, the French publishing company that owns Hachette Filipacchi Media, which owns the U.S. edition of Elle magazine, has denied that it is in talks to sell the title to rival Hearst, as had been reported in yesterday's New York Post. [WWD]
• Scott Nylund, Beyoncé's design director, comes from Owatonna, Minnesota. Which is where you can see an exhibit that spans his earliest childhood sketches of women in dresses, to his college fashion collection, to his creations for Beyoncé. [StarTrib]
• Freja Beha Erichsen says Karl Lagerfeld's house in Vermont — which recently served as the setting for the fall Chanel campaign she starred in with Heidi Mount — is a serious farm. With horses and chickens and — spitting llamas. Erichsen also praised Chanel for providing food backstage at its runway shows, which a lot of brands don't manage to do. [W]
• Fashion Meets Finance, the terrible event for douchebags and gold-diggers, is back. It's happening August 6th in — where else? — Murray Hill. [FMF]
• Will Ferrell has a Nike sneaker coming out in Japan. It's inspired by Anchorman's Ron Burgundy, that lovable asshole we met, uh, five years ago. [HighSnobiety]
• Timberland lost $19.2 million in the last quarter, a worse-than-expected result that came off the back of a 14% drop in sales, to $179.7 million. [WWD]
• Shiseido was even worse off — its profits declined 57.8%. [WWD]
• Likewise Hugo Boss, which lost $21.17 million in the last quarter. [WWD]
• Bare Escentuals profits also slid 20% in the same period. [WWD]
• Competitor Avon's profits fell 64.3% on revenues that shrank by 9.7%. Revlon's sales fell 12.2%, and its total profits declined to just $200,000, from $19.9 million one year earlier. [WWD]
• Bucking this downward trend is Tod's — the Italian leather brand reported a 3.4% increase in sales for this first six months of this year. [WWD]
• Ann Taylor wants to cut $30 to $40 million in costs by "right-sizing" its organization. No word yet on the number of people who will be laid off. [WWD]
• Three members of a multi-million-dollar New York counterfeiting ring received prison sentences, and a fourth was sentenced to probation by a federal judge. Michael Chu, the group's leader, was in 2005 ordered to pay $7 million in damages stemming from an unrelated counterfeiting case involving North Face jackets. This time, Chu, who imported fake Nike, Chanel and Burberry products, was sentenced to prison for just over 8 years. [WWD]

It's not in dispute that the fashion industry is in some dark times right now; what are as-yet unanswered questions is just how bad things are, and what that will mean for future patterns of consumer spending.

On the former point, The Atlantic's Benjamin Schwartz takes a dire view indeed, calling the most recent New York fashion week "a splendid relic" and quoting liberally from F. Scott Fitzgerald's Depression-era essays on the free-spending, free-spirited, bull-market 1920s, and what the period meant. (Whether Schwartz's blithely generic line, "The current collapse, universally labeled within the fashion world a depression," and inclusion of data about the layoffs of just under 2,000 people at Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus are strong enough factual support to bear the weigh of Fitzgerald and his Jazz Age elegies is questionable; if and when we see California close its borders and tens of thousands of hoboes camp out on the Washington Mall, then we'll know for sure if this downturn merits a comparison in absolute terms with the Great D.)

But Schwartz's article gets a lot of things right, too. He's mostly on point with the queasy timeloop of fashion, wherein collections are presented six months ahead of the season for which they are designed, made of fabrics ordered six months earlier, and financed with the proceeds of the collection which had, all the way back then, just left stores. If anyone wondered why last September's collections seemed so deaf to the sudden financial crisis ringing through the land, that was why. Similarly, the glut of unsold product that clogged the department stores last fall — and which caused Saks and others to break the rule about not discounting new stock before it had been in store two months — was all there because buyers had ordered it the previous February, when no-one foresaw the crisis, the ensuing recession, or the cataclysmic correction in consumer spending they would bring. (I don't think that, as a result, this February runway models "halved their catwalk fees" out of the goodness of our hearts, as Schwartz's odd locution implies — and the per-show rate he quotes, $20,000, is typical only of models named Naomi Campbell, anyway — it was more like designers cut rates on the girls they were paying at all, cut payment-in-trade on the girls they never were paying to begin with, and we all ate it. But that's a small misunderstanding of an industry subsection that is itself willfully obscurantist.)

Exactly how bad things are — F. Scott Fitzgerald bad, or survive-and-reorganize bad — aside, what to do about the fall in consumer spending has advertisers and magazines thinking furiously. As W magazine reported, the luxury market reached its peak in 2007; unusually, the luxury-goods sector has been hit harder than retail generally, and was down 23% last month. Counter-intuitively, publisher Nina Lawrence sees this as evidence of a "luxury renaissance." In this view, aspirational consumers are down for the count, leaving the very wealthy to enjoy the perks of membership in what is once more a very exclusive club.

Others, and Schwartz is among them, see a place for the aspirational consumer still — but that new ways of reaching her are being found. Sally Singer, Vogue's fashion news and features director, wore a year-old doubleknit cashmere Halston blazer, a J. Crew sweater, and "very old" Devi Kroell ballet flats to the first day of fashion week, and speaks of "conscientious consumption"; ergo, says Schwartz, "this idea of buying so-called investment pieces resonates more deeply today than it did even six months ago." Julie Gilhart, Barneys' senior vice president and fashion director, says, "If I were a consumer now, I'd really want to buy pieces that count, that last; the customer is in no hurry. She should be choosing these things with great care." Singer reminds us that "things that are very expensive can be very expensive for just the right reasons — because they were made beautifully by someone who really gave a lot of care to the design and by people who were fairly paid along the way to execute something that was rather difficult. Those prices that often seem high are fair prices."

Singer edits the Vogue "Views" section, which this month leads off with an exclusive story about Christopher Kane's new position as creative director of Versus, Versace's relaunched, lower-priced line. The Kane-designed "gladiator heels" in the accompanying photograph cost $3,400.

Karl Lagerfeld would support Singer's view. As he tweeted yesterday: "Guilty feelings about clothes are totally unnecessary. A lot of people earn their living by making clothes, so you should never feel bad."

Chanel is a privately held company, so of course it's impossible for any of us to actually know what else besides honest middle-class livings for garment workers is financed by the cost of a $2,000 purse or a $4,000 dress.

The entire idea of "investment" dressing is actually pretty dubious, writes Lesley M. M. Blume, at The Big Money. It's nothing more than a marketing term designed to separate us from our hard-earned cash, says Dana Thomas, the author of last year's De-Luxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster. "They're just changing the slogans. It used to be, everyone deserves a little luxury and a little splurge. Now that no one can afford the splurge, the business executives are all scratching their heads and saying, how can we repackage this again? So now you're buying 'quality things that last forever.' "

Investments are, after all, supposed to hold or rise in value — but this season's $1,600 purse depreciates as soon as it leaves Bergdorf's, like a new car burning off value as it leaves the lot. Only a few luxury items can actually fetch comparable prices when sold second-hand (as-new Birkin bags can actually rise slightly in resale value, since Hermès controls the $6,000-and-up retail market with extraordinary artificial scarcity, closed three-year waiting lists and all). But when the resale boutique commissions (or eBay and PayPal fees) are taken into account, the "value" of a Birkin — or any fashion item — depreciates, often precipitously. "Investment" is a weasel word in fashion, and it's a disappointment to see The Atlantic repeating an advertising term uncritically.

Whether Singer and Gilhart are sincere in their belief that, as Singer puts it, "the world does not need more things," it's true that both work for companies that make their living by stoking the fires of consumption. (Cathy Horyn nailed Vogue's particular blitheness when she wondered at its "peculiar fascination for the ‘villa in Tuscany' story" this January; you would also do well to remember last September's $64,000 gold-dipped fur coat by Fendi, which is of course designed by Karl Lagerfeld. "Value" indeed.) I'm not saying that these industry figures, and others who share their sympathies, can't and won't lead us into a new, more sustainable era of fashion; I'm just saying I'm wary of anything that, at least for now, still has the feel of a cannily adjusted marketing strategy.

Fashion in Dark Times [The Atlantic]
A Luxury Renaissance Is Upon Us [The Cut]
Luxury As An Investment? [The Big Money]
Karl Lagerfeld's Twitter [Twitter]

Earlier:
When A Fashionista Turns On Fashion
Fashion Week: The Party's Not Over Yet
New York Times Bets Against Anna Wintour, American Vogue

• Gwyneth Paltrow has tired of the cosmetics contract gravy train; no longer shall the actress concentrate on embodying the qualities of the Estée Lauder brand. Instead, she'll be the new, white Oprah! [Daily Mail]

• Nanette Lepore has added her voice to the save the garment center chorus. [HuffPo]
• According to Jesus Luz's Brazilian agent, Sergio Mattos, Luz was paid $100 for the two-day Steven Klein shoot with Madonna that ended up in W. Let me say this one more time: that kind of pay is entirely standard for an editorial shoot, no matter one's modeling experience or industry status. [NY Post]
• Christina Aguilera looks, um, Photoshopped to high hell in the new Stephen Webster jewelry campaign. [Sun]
• Jerry Hall got a $750,000 advance from HarperCollins to write a memoir that would include full details on her life with Mick Jagger. But the manuscript Hall rendered proved too tame and cagey on the subject of Jagger for the publisher's taste; the supermodel has agreed to return the advance. (Side note: how many times do you get to read a word like "priapic" in the Daily Mail?) [Daily Mail]
• Terry Richardson just shot next year's Pirelli calendar in Trancoso, Bahia, Brazil. Georgina Stojiljkovic, Catherine McNeil, Abbey Lee Kershaw, and Daisy Lowe are purported to be featured, along with actual Brazilians Gracie Carvalho and Ana Beatriz Barros. Glamurama got a NSFW snap of Richardson in action, shooting a topless McNeil on a white horse. [Glamurama via Fashionologie]
• Supposedly, Zac Posen is in the early stages of producing a scripted series for the CW network about the equestrian world. Might be a wise move to diversify, as we keep hearing wild rumors that his label is in trouble. [The Cut]
• Erin Fetherston is also shooting a short film this week, starring Juliette Lewis, and her fall collection. Music is by Damon Dash. Her husband also confirmed that the designer will launch a line for home-shopping giant QVC this fall, probably during fashion week. [WWD]
• Stacey Bendet Eisner — yes, last year she married the son of that Eisner — is the designer behind Alice + Olivia. And she says there are exciting things to come for the brand, including an expanded line of embellished t-shirts, a jewelry line with Erickson Beamon coming out this November, and a possible cosmetics deal. [Blackbook]
• Macy's says not to expect deep markdowns this season — but it does want a lower-priced outlet store bearing its name, since Saks and Nordstrom both have them. [WWD]
• Douglas Reker, one of the bracingly new designers I'm personally most excited about, has just been picked up for fall by Barneys Coop. [Crain's]
• Now that Lakshmi Menon — two-time Indian Vogue covergirl — has had her only-girl editorial debut in American Vogue, industry commentators wonder aloud: Why has it taken so long for a South Asian supermodel to emerge? Sarah Doukas of London mega-agency Storm says it's because Indians are culturally conservative and don't want their daughters modeling; Menon says agencies don't have scouting networks on the subcontinent, and if you don't look for something, of course you won't find it. [Independent]
• England's National Trust is in talks to buy the home of the late designer Laura Ashley. [Telegraph]
• Leigh Lezark, who is a member of this preposterous thing called the MisShapes, but who nonetheless finds time in her busy schedule to "model", might be Matthew Williamson's new muse. Because a perpetually black-clad stony-stared New Yorker would be the perfect match for his exuberant tastes. [Fashionista]
• Rosa Chá, which is just about the best-looking and best-fitting swimwear out there, barring perhaps Norma Kamali, and therefore heartbreaking for its extravagant price, is losing its founding designer, Amir Slama. Slama, who launched Rosa Chá over two decades ago, is going to start a namesake swim collection. Brazilian Alexandre Herchcovitz will take over at Rosa Chá. [WWD]
• Diego Della Valle, the head of Italian leather goods brand Tod's, has doubled his investment stake in Saks Fifth Avenue, to 5.9%. [WWD]
• Alberta Ferretti, Moschino, and Pollini are all lowering their prices. Their parent company, Italy's Aeffe SpA, experienced steep losses in the first quarter of this year, and has thus formulated a cost-cutting plan that is intended to save $13.6 million over the course of 2010. In addition to lowering prices, Aeffe is shrinking its collections and planning layoffs. [WWD]

Masson came into the public eye in the early 1990s, when he waged a 10-year libel lawsuit against the writer Janet Malcolm, disputing quotations that were attributed to him. (He was also engaged to feminist scholar Catherine Mackinnon.) He is now most famous for his best selling books on animal emotions, When Elephants Weep and Dogs Never Lie About Love. Masson's work with animals led him to convert to veganism five years ago. Since then, he has been promoting the vegan lifestyle and animal rights pretty much nonstop.

I went to see Masson speak last weekend in Woodstock, NY. The lecture was intended to promote his new book, but it ended up being about a lot more than that. Masson is a great speaker, and he is particularly convincing when he discusses the mistreatment of animals in the American livestock industry. I am basically the furthest thing from vegan, but Masson allows himself, and others, a certain level of flexibility in the quest for ethical consumption. Eric Konigsburg for the New York Times writes:

For an author of polemics - and "The Face on Your Plate," though it's more measured and engaging than most, is definitely that - Mr. Masson has a deep inclination to forgive. He said that the best excuse for eating meat (or butter or eggs) is "because you like the taste."

What he gets more worked up about are "rationalizations," such as the argument that animals like cattle and chickens exist only because we eat them and their milk and eggs. "That's denial," he said. "We're the only animal who gets to choose what we eat, so we can choose to do what's humane and also much healthier."

Masson believes that there is no such thing as giving farm animals a "good life," and has nothing but scorn for anyone who tricks themselves into believing this "rationalization" (during the talk, Masson spent a good deal of time bashing Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma, for his pro-meat stance). However, Masson occasionally contradicts himself, a habit that was particularly apparent during his lecture. He was good, but not good enough to convince me to give up bacon.

In the two and a half hour discussion, one of the only things Masson did not mention is the issue of veganism as it pertains to dress, something that is perhaps even more difficult to navigate than diet. Today, Dana Wood, senior fashion editor at W magazine, blogs about the difficulties facing vegans with a love for fashion:

But here's the real dilemma for someone like me, who clocks in at a fashion magazine every day and also happens to be utterly fashion-obsessed: Steering clear of meat is a walk in the park compared to finding a decent bag, boots or shoes that don't involve leather, suede or some other cuddly-critter byproduct. In fact, the more committed I become to this little project, the more I realize how challenging it is.

Like Masson, Wood allows herself a certain level of freedom in both her diet and her purchases. Working in the fashion industry, it is almost impossible to conform to perfect vegan ideals, but Wood says she is trying. Fortunately for the vegans among us, the last few years have seen a rise in vegan restaurants and vegan boutiques. In many ways, veganism can seem like a passing fad (kind of like "going green" or "recessionistas"), but for those committed like Masson and Wood, veganism is a lifestyle. And a growing one at that.

A Man With Opinions on Food With a Face [NY Times]
Trials of a Fashion-Loving Vegan [W Magazine Editor's Blog]

• Audrey Tautou reunited with Amélie director Jean Pierre Jeunet to star in an Orient Express-themed Chanel No. 5 ad, which took three weeks to shoot. The reel's not up till May 5. [WWD]

• In some perfect fashion synergy, Liya Kebede and J. Crew are at work on a creative partnership. Liya will become the first model to lend her services to an entire catalog, front-to-back, and the company's children's line, Crewcuts, will stock pieces from the model's kids' line, Lemlem. Liya launched Lemlem in 2007; it's handmade in her native Ethiopia from cotton. [FWD]
• W, Glamour, T The New York Times Style Magazine and Vogue are among the fashion magazines nominated for prizes at this year's National Magazine Awards. Whoever thinks Vogue is generally excellent — or that Glamour's essays are praiseworthy — is smoking something epic. [ASME]
• More from Jil Sander, on her new role with the Japanese streetwear brand Uniqlo: "We are living in a small world today. People are in easy contact with each other. There is a new collective feeling of democracy. You can sense it everywhere. It is a wonderful challenge to dress this new world as attractively as possible. I am thinking of clothes that are comfortable for everyone, beautiful and not expensive. I am convinced that there can be luxury in simplicity. One glass of water doesn't equal another. One may just appease the thirst, the other you may enjoy thoroughly. In Japan, people know about this difference. Details are everything here. The challenge for me is to establish premium quality in a democratically priced brand: Quality for everyone." [On The Runway]
• Prada's favorite architect, Rem Koolhaas produced the brand's spring look book. (Which, in further proof that falling on the runway doesn't have to hurt a model's career, features Katie Fogarty, one of the girls who fell so spectacularly during the brand's spring show last September.) Koolhaas' offering fits with the trend of ever more bizarre look books — there's a classical theme, with models Photoshopped to look like crumbling statuary and other weird and wonderful effects. [OMA]
• This is what L.A. fashion week has been reduced to: "model-actress Molly Sims donned a bright cranberry colored one-shouldered dress custom-designed by [Kevan] Hall for the event and decorated with real, freeze-dried cranberries to promote a new cranberry body wash by Dial." [Yahoo! News]
• André Leon Talley still bothered to show up. Or was his trip just in honor of the fact that he can only freely indulge in fast food when Anna's safely in another time zone? Someone spotted the Vogue editor-at-large eating at the airport Chili's. [P6]
• L.A. kid Chanel Iman's new gig as a special correspondent on the revived House of Style might be a bridge to other slashy things. [Fashionologie]
• But is Chanel prepared? She admitted to only YouTubing a few minutes of old host Cindy Crawford's footage since getting the job. "There's Cindy, and ... I forgot the other girls' names! But I know there's more. Cindy was the only one I found on YouTube when I did my research," said the model, unpromisingly. She also gave a false birth year in the same interview. Alas, I know very well why even a girl born in 1989 might start shaving a tad off her age in this industry. [The Cut]
• Matt Tyrnauer, the Vanity Fair writer who directed the new documentary on Valentino, The Last Emperor, says that when the designer and his partner, Giancarlo Giammetti, first saw his film, they "freaked out." And tried to have scenes removed, despite having the fact that Tyrnauer held full creative control. But now, having seen audiences react positively to the portrait, they have come to appreciate Tyrnauer's efforts. [On The Runway]
• That much hoped-for bail-out of the Italian garment industry looks like it will indeed come to pass: industry minister Claudio Scajola resumed his talks with industry heads last night. Italy exported $35 billion worth of fashion goods in 2008, making it the world's second-largest apparel exporter, and the center of manufacture for nearly all high-end handbags and shoes. The Italian fashion industry employs some 800,000 people. [Forbes]
• Perry Ellis failed to meet even lowered expectations for the quarter, announcing a loss of $22.3 million, mainly due to write-downs. [WSJ]
• Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, paid $933.6 million in bonuses to about 1 million of its hourly staff yesterday, or about two-thirds of its total workforce. The bonus pool was increased by 46% on last year's. Occasionally a man does bite a dog, I guess. [WSJ]

See, fashion is an industry based on image. Do you follow? Because, W has noticed, one of the effects of this is that people who work in fashion tend to be judged on how they dress. Kind of a lot, even. So many of them take the question of what to wear very seriously! And journalists, well, they find it interesting to write about in great detail without even a hint of the broader economic outlook or the narrowness of the audience that regularly wears $300 t-shirts from The Row and Lanvin flats.

Journalist Vanessa Lawrence's premise is almost too simple to be believed. "Working in fashion," she writes, "necessitates being fashionable from the moment you leave the house. And it is an implicit requirement that can prove exhausting for even the most passionate of clotheshorses....But when the weekend rolls around, they are faced with a dilemma: how to keep up appearances while giving their Yves Saint Laurent Tributes and Balenciaga sheaths a breather-if they choose to do so. Between trips to the gym, brunch dates and grocery store excursions, that 48-hour stretch is hardly a time for hibernation."

That's right. When you work in fashion, in addition to needing always to look your best, you might need to dress differently on different occasions. For instance, the weekend. Or the Hamptons! And any forays to distant nations — like the Upper East Side of New York, also known as "10021 land," where people wear these things called "blazers" and look "decked." What's a fashion worker bee to do?

Weirdly enough, everyone Lawrence quotes still seems to dress really well on the weekends. "When I'm in the Hamptons getting stuff at Citarella on the weekends, I'll see fashion girls who are in Marni and Lanvin in the daytime and I'm in a Tracy Feith cotton dress, Jack Rogers sandals and a ponytail," says designer Shoshanna Gruss, whose idea of 'weekend casual' is wholly relative. Others seem not to grasp Lawrence's issue: "French people don't really ‘underdress' on the weekends," remarks a confused Julia Restoin-Roitfeld.

There are plenty of moments of hilarity as the reporter valiantly tries to get a handle on the problem of what to wear in one's off hours. "Gruss's appropriately pulled-together look extends beyond Long Island summers to her Upper East Side residence," writes Lawrence; what range.

The thing is, anyone who spends a lot of time with magazine editors and stylists and General Fashion Personages knows a few things. For one, most of them do not have a lot of money — certainly not enough to be dropping $800 on stilettos every season. (Whether you've got a friendly quid pro quo going with a label's PR depeartment, or something occasionally goes missing from the styling closet is another issue.) For another, most of these people wear the same things every day. All-black ensembles are the norm, not the exception — because it's easy to look stylish in a dark monochrome, and you can switch out accessories without anything clashing, which is crucial if you spend a lot of time traveling and need to look like you have more outfits than you actually do. There are remarkably few people in fashion who consistently dress in ways that turn heads; pretty much everyone just wants to be stylish and look as nice as they can while they're working.

Which is fine, and normal, and fun — and the total opposite of the sort of sartorial-psychological weekend arms race Lawrence's article conveniently invents and then lavishes with attention, perpetuating the myth that all fashion folk are better-dressed than anyone else, and at all times. The real story is told in the pictures that accompany it: they're little images of the article's subject, photographed going about their daily lives, working in the fashion industry. Nobody looks bad — there's Charlotte Ronson at an event in a white dress and a black cardigan; Restoin-Roitfeld in denim shorts, a blue Oxford, and a blazer; Kate Etter in ballet flats, leggings, a green tunic and a long sweater. But nobody looks "fancy" or as purposefully styled as Lawrence's article implies is the industry norm. These look like outfits that have been doing reliable service in various forms for seasons already, and which will continue to see the light of day for a long time into the future. Bags and shoes might wash over Bryant Park like a tide each season, but a good pair of black pants is for the ages. And even people who work in fashion have enough good sense to know they can be worn on the weekends and to work.

Cartoon illustration via W

Weekend Warriors [W]

"You can't be the fair-haired young boy forever. Maybe a photograph of him with his crow's-feet and furrowed brow is good for him." As for the story inside, writer Kevin West spoke with Pitt at the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood and got the 45-year-old actor to spill about his Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Aniston, gay marriage and the appeal of his motorcycle.

On Jennifer Aniston calling Angelina "uncool":

"Listen, man, Jen is a sweetheart. I think she got dragged into that one, and then there’s a second round to all of that Angie versus Jen. It’s so created. We still check in with each other. She was a big part of my life, and me hers. I don’t see how there cannot be [that]. That’s life, man. That’s life.”

On Angelina being a homewrecker:

"What people don’t understand is that we filmed [Mr. & Mrs. Smith] for a year. We were still filming after Jen and I split up. Even then it doesn’t mean that there was some kind of dastardly affair. There wasn’t. I’m very proud of the way that it was handled. It was respectful. [The film] will mean something to our kids. It will, that’s all.”

On watching Barack Obama's acceptance speech in Grant Park in Chicago:

“It was just total jubilation. It was the best rock concert that I’ve ever been to. Really. I could just feel it in the air. All the boulevards were closed afterward, and so we walked a half hour to the hotel. Everyone was just on a high."

On Prop 8:

“People who are against gay marriage do not understand the very freedoms that they themselves are enjoying. What if someone said, ‘Sorry, no Christianity here? No Judaism. Certainly no Mormons.’ No one would stand for that, and I wouldn’t allow anyone to say that either. I’d fight them in the same way.”

On how fatherhood has changed him:

"I’m scared to death of death. I quit smoking. That was the only thing that got me to quit. That was it. Done.”

On the W photographs he shot of Angelina Jolie breastfeeding, which a publicist would certainly have advised against:

"A publicist isn’t going to know as much as I’m going to know about what we want to do. It just becomes more people to talk to. Man, we’ve got six kids. We don’t have time for that. We’ve got to streamline. I make my own decisions for myself anyway. I’ve never seen a publicist that could protect me from things, protect anyone from what’s going on out there. [Angelina and I] have fun working together; these things bring you closer. And let me tell you, it’s really sexy to see your loved one through the lens. I went much further [than the shot of her breast-feeding]. I didn’t show those.”

On riding motorcycle (and wearing a helmet):

"This is my anonymity. With it, I’m just another asshole on the streets."

A-List: The Actor Brad Pitt, The Chuck Close Photographs [W]

• Brad Pitt's on the cover of W, two months after ladyfriend Angelina Jolie graced the mag. In the photo by artist Chuck Close, Brad looks… wrinkly. [Just Jared]

• Oooh, and in W, Brad Pitt says Angelina is not a homewrecker! "What people don't understand is that we filmed [Mr. & Mrs. Smith] for a year. We were still filming after Jen [Aniston] and I split up. Even then it doesn't mean that there was some kind of dastardly affair. There wasn't. I'm very proud of the way that it was handled. It was respectful." [Page Six]
• Jennifer Garner gave birth to a baby girl Tuesday in Los Angeles. What will Violet's little sister's name be? [People]
• Jett Travolta's sudden death will dominate the new cover of People. Friend of the family actress Anne Archer says: "John and Kelly never discussed his physical condition with me. I observed that he was significantly mentally handicapped. John always communicated to him as if Jett could completely understand him. ... It was a kind of sweet exchange, where he was just happy with anything that Jett offered. Anything." [People]
• Sarah Jessica Parker is reportedly moving out! A source says she wants to "bring down the curtain on her marriage." More later in Midweek Madness. [Star]
• It was reported that Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes bought three apartments in one NYC building (we heard one was for living, one was the gym, and one was for Suri). But! This story claims that when Katie's stint in All My Sons is done, the couple will return to L.A. [E!]
• Kate Winslet could win an Oscar if Academy voters get creative with the ballots. [Fox 411]
• Lauren Hutton talked to Lindsay Lohan for Interview and L.L. told her: "I have become this girl who just loves to be photographed, doesn’t know how to focus, doesn’t know how to work on set, just loves the attention, knows how to go out at night, knows how to party. I lived maybe six months out of my life like that, doing something wrong, and then I stopped. God forbid I should have ever learned my lesson. People are so distracted by the mess that I created in my life." [WWD]
• Britney Spears missed some dance rehearsals for her upcoming tour and supposedly doesn't want choreographer Wade Robson to see "that she's not as good as she used to be." Uh, Brit? He knows. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Are ghosts to blame for the delay of Courtney Love's album? A spokesperson released a statement which reads: "The studio that Courtney was using to record had paranormal technical issues so they have moved to another studio." [The Sun]
• The "hunk" Amy Winehouse has been hanging out with in the Caribbean swears there's nothing going on: "She’s sweet — but just not my kind of girl." Maybe he likes 'em crack-free? [The Sun]
• Bad news if you're sick of Anne Hathaway talking about putting the past behind her: She says, "As horrible as what I went through was, it's not the worst thing that could happen to a person. In the history of humanity, it doesn't even come close." And some other stuff. [USA Today]
• Jennifer Love Hewitt is having a "tough time" after breaking up with her fiancé, if you care. [People]
• Perez Hilton on Anderson Cooper: "Rumor has it that [actor Mitch Morris] was having some kind of relationship with Anderson, but I don't have any photos. If I did, you would have seen them by now." [Village Voice]
• OMFGG: Will Nicole Richie be on Gossip Girl? A "friend" says "She wants a really bitchy, juicy role." [Gatecrasher]
• Ben Lee got married to Ione Skye in India?!?! [ONTD]
• Blind item! "Which pothead actor is seeking refuge for harder drugs in a NYC rehab center? The toker couldn’t quite kick the nose-candy habit." [Gatecrasher]
• Sometimes gossip "news" is too surreal to absorb, which is why the following information is presented without comment: "Rock superstars U2 have revealed their Spider-Man musical will be ready to hit Broadway this year." [The Sun]
• The new American Idol judge, Kara DioGuardi, says she's seen some male contestants who are uniquely talented. Unfortunately, this is not a euphemism. [AP]
• Some schoolkids saw Nicolas Cage in a Starbucks and offered him money. Time to shower and shave, dude. [Telegraph]
• The court system is trying to get Roman Polanski to return to L.A. to get his sexual misconduct charges dismissed; his lawyers are all, "No." [Variety]
• The woman who was used by police as a Jamie Lynn Spears decoy is pissed! She wants $2 million for her humiliation and harassment and "had no idea that her privacy would be invaded and her identity made synonymous with 'fake Jamie Lynn Spears—a nobody.'" [Yahoo News via E!]
• Will people actually purchase tickets to attend Mel B.'s Vegas extravaganza, Peep Show, which is a night of burlesque, singing and dancing? [Mirror]
• Kevin Federline's new girlfriend was kicked out of her apartment after not paying rent for six months. Perfect for each other? [TMZ]
• Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony went on a romantic jaunt to Puerto Rico and either are doing great or are arguing, like any couple, but it's so hard to give a shit. [People]
• Whoa: Back in the day, La Toya Jackson was kidnapped, forced into marriage and beaten by her husband! [The Sun]
• The wacky/emotional judge who presided over the dispute involving Anna Nicole Smith's remains has been cleared of wrongdoing. As you may recall, he cried while reading the verdict of the case. [AP]
• If you have £7,000, you can be the proud owner of this oil painting of Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy, a prop from the BBC adaptation of Pride And Prejudice. [Telegraph]
• Aerosmith is ready to work on a new studio album. Is the world ready for more rock of aged? [Reuters]
• Producer Scott Storch, 35, got the face of a 19-year old chick inked on his skin. A source says: "The tattoo is ghetto, big, and on his arm. It's crazy because he's not even actually dating her." [Page Six]
• How is it possible that the Christie Brinkley/Peter Cook court battle is still not over? Her ex-husband has filed contempt of court charges against Brinkley, and her attorney is calling it "unwarranted and petty." [Extra]
• Richard Branson's New Year's Eve party on Necker Island was B.Y.O.M.: Bring your own model. [Page Six]
• Hate your boobs? MTV wants to talk to you. [Page Six]
• "If a play came along now I would jump at it. I’m very keen on doing new writing. I’ve always kind of been doing new writing with plays and that’s where my heart is. Not that I don’t think that doing the classics is a wonderful idea, but Shakespeare’s got too many lines and the other stuff is really complicated. I like newer media stuff." — Daniel Craig. [The Sun]
• "I'm sorry it took until your 40s for you to be recognized. I wrote [Josh] off as I do all square-jawed actors. But bit by bit — as he became older and older — I realized he’s going to become such an asset to the film industry." — Sean Penn on Josh Brolin. [Gatecrasher]
• "I have made my position very clear. I do not believe that there is a military solution to the situation in Gaza. I support peaceful conflict resolution, and dialogue, which HAS to take place inevitably in order to resolve the situation in any case. I do not believe that the deaths of hundreds of innocent civilians will solve anything. It will only make things worse for everyone, on BOTH sides… I am not “anti Israeli”, nor have I EVER been, and for anyone to say that I am is profoundly offensive and completely wrong." — Annie Lennox. [Pop Dirt]

Oh, this last one is loaded with nutrition.

Slate:

My enjoyment of this film hovered perilously close to camp at times. Stone's musical choices lay it on particularly thick: He accompanies a party scene during Bush's drinking years with the Freddy Fender song "Wasted Days and Wasted Nights" and scores the fall of Baghdad to the marchlike rhythm of "The Yellow Rose of Texas." But if Stone's portrait of George Bush is laid on with a trowel, maybe it's because God seems to have engineered the real Bush's life with a similarly crude sense of irony. W. is a case of biographer and subject being perfectly matched: You really don't want a Bush biopic directed by Jean-Luc Godard (though Robert Altman could have done something interesting with it if he were still around). Like Tina Fey's Sarah Palin, Stone's George Bush gets his best lines straight from the source. This movie was scripted by screenwriter Stanley Weiser (Wall Street) but was ghostwritten by history itself.

Los Angeles Times:

Yes, "W." is definitely satiric in intent and execution, and it has no love for the actions and policies of the man who has led, as the film's advertising puts it, "a life misunderestimated." But those yearning for a red meat entree, a kind of "Natural Born Killers" meets "JFK," will be disappointed. There is a restraint about "W." that is both pleasing and effective. There are reasons to smile in this film, but not nearly as many as you'd think. Instead the message is that what has happened to this country is no laughing matter.

USA Today:

W. could have benefited from the perspective that comes with time. It might have been a better film had it come out later, when shading and context could have been added. To assess his true character requires knowledge of Bush's final few months in office and how his decisions spill over onto the next presidency.

Mother Jones: (Roundtable review)

Elizabeth: Back to Katrina for a hot sec. That was such a f-up, and less trodden than the "My Pet Goat" disaster on 9/11 that Fahrenheit 9/11 illustrated. I guess giving us Katrina would be more of an advance on the story. WMDs and yellowcake to me feels like old news, especially when you're timing your release two weeks before a presidential election.

Jesse: But it [the movie] didn't really look at Bush's second term at all, did it?

Elizabeth: No, it didn't, which to me felt incomplete. My last thought? It was alright, but it certainly wasn't better than "Cats."

Wall Street Journal:

When Oliver Stone's bizarre and bloated "Nixon" opened 13 years ago, the 37th president had recently died, after being out of office for two decades. When his screwball tragedy "J.F.K." opened in early 1992, the 35th president had been dead for almost three decades. George W. Bush is very much with us, of course, but it's unlikely that "W." will make many waves, and not just because the 43rd president is an exceedingly lame duck. Mr. Stone's latest POTUS potshots are scattered at best, and his hopscotch approach to recent history drains context and significance, not to mention shock and awe, from the enormous events that have marked the second Bush presidency. Feature films are, by their slow-gestating nature, unable to rival the spectacular sizzle of a Tina Fey skewering Sarah Palin, but this one also scants the steak. In spite of Josh Brolin's heroic efforts, "W." is a skin-deep biopic that revels in its antic shallowness.

The New Republic:

Stone's latest foray into political cinema is a shapeless grab-bag of familiar incidents and quotations (many of them placed in the wrong context or uttered by the wrong mouth) posing as a character study of the 43rd president of the United States. It's a film that seems pitched at an almost unimaginably thin cross-section of viewers: those who follow politics closely enough to catch its constant self-conscious references, but not closely enough to recognize it as a shallow, ham-fisted portrait.

The New York Times:

“W.” isn’t as visually baroque as “JFK” (1991) and “Nixon” (1995), Mr. Stone’s darker, more ambitious excursions into the American psyche and presidency, partly because, I think, he does not yet have enough aesthetic distance from his subject and partly because he seems keen to weigh in as more evenhanded than usual. But while he has tamped down his style, he retains a pleasingly fluid approach to narrative. The story repeatedly shifts between scenes of the younger Bush meandering through his life, and the older Bush navigating through the early stages of the Iraq war. This shuttling across time and space undercuts the drama — the story doesn’t so much build as restlessly circle back — but it puts into visual terms Mr. Stone’s ideas about the present and past being mutually implicated.

Salon:

Stone is sometimes a fine director and sometimes a total nutball; sometimes he's both at once. But "W." needs more nuts and less finesse. That's not to say the movie is exactly subtle — this is an Oliver Stone picture we're talking about. It's just that Stone and screenwriter Stanley Weiser seem to be torn between duty and impulse: Stone, who has earned plenty of accolades for ponderous, heavyweight pictures like "Nixon," may have felt compelled to deliver a historical document, something that will stand for the ages. But he also tips his hand frequently enough to let us in on his true feelings about our 43rd president: Stone leaves no doubt about his meaning when he shows his characters — Bush, Rice, Rumsfeld, Franks, Powell, et al. — trooping across a field in Crawford, Texas, as the theme from the '60s TV show "The Adventures of Robin Hood" tootles in the background. It's when Stone engages in shameless editorializing — when he lets his freak-flag point of view fly, rather than tempering it — that "W." is most entertaining and most vital. The rest of the time it feels too much like awards bait: stiff, arch and knowing.

Chicago Sun-Times:

One might feel sorry for George W. at the end of this film, were it not for his legacy of a fraudulent war and a collapsed economy. The film portrays him as incompetent to be president, and shaped by the puppet masters Cheney and Rove to their own ends. If there is a saving grace, it may be that Bush will never fully realize how badly he did. How can he blame himself? He was only following God's will.

Newsweek:

"W." seems content to skim the surface of conventional wisdom. You wish it could have explored the connection between Bush's alcoholism and his born-again Christianity with some depth or curiosity: what addicts and born-agains share is a terror of ambiguity, an absolute need for a belief system that removes all doubt. "W." treats Bush's conversion with respect, but offers little illumination of this soulaltering turn in the road. "W." might have had some impact had it been made four years ago. But it's both too late and too early for a movie about our sitting president. Its "outrageousness" feels complacent. Controversial? Daring? In the fall of 2008, it seems neither.

'W.' opens in theaters today.

The Good:
Thandie Newton's beauty even allows us to overlook a fairly damning shoe.


How does Rosario Dawson make a coat and scarf look this sleek? This is kind of my favorite look of the evening.


As we know, I have a weakness for the "artistic great-aunt" look as embodied by Ellen Burstyn.


American Apparel is now calling some 2" jersey tube sheath the "Little Black Dress." Kim Raver's iteration is a more accurate representation.


When you think about it, Diane Lane tends to stick to this shape, which she really does rock.


I will admit to some ambivalence about the bodice of Julia Stiles' dress, but overall the effect is pretty.




The Bad:
I daresay it will have its defenders, but Elizabeth Banks' coral just has a few too many elements for my taste.


Apparently Katharine Hepburn was really self-conscious about her neck and made all the wardrobe mistresses add weird ruffs and collars to all her costumes. She would have liked Kyle Bax's number.

[Images via Getty]

"I do think that I’m good in a partnership now. I think it just needed to be the right man." Plus, writes Bagley:

…She believes she was correct about needing to find a shared purpose with someone. "It’s not just that I love being in Brad’s company, which obviously I do, but it’s that we both roll up our sleeves and take on what we care about in the same way," she says. "I have a lot of respect for him, and he helps me to be better and fight hard for things that I love."

She also talks about getting knocked up: "I think one of the life-changing things that he did, one of many, is that I was absolutely never going to get pregnant. I never felt that it was the right thing to do. Now I wouldn’t trade that experience for the world. It taught me a lot about life, just the process of it, and now we have three other beautiful children that wouldn’t otherwise be here.”

As for the kids, Zahara and Pax like to slow dance together, imitating Princess Aurora and Prince Phillip from Disney’s Sleeping Beauty; newborn Vivienne is "sturdier" and "more demanding" than her brother Knox, who is "very chill" and "loves music," taking after his father. All of the children sleep with Angelina and Brad at some point. "Most nights, someone ends up in our bed," Angelina says. "They’ve just taken over in there—especially right now, because we want them to feel that the babies aren’t special in the room." But: "The kids do knock before entering," she says. "We've at least got that part down. Because Mommy and Daddy need some space." So there you have it. The world's most-wanted it couple are just like any other parents. Except she's gorgeous and on the cover of W.

One Week: Brad & Angelina, The Photographs [W]