♦ André Leon Talley has joined the chorus of disapproval over Sarah Palin's wardrobe budget: "Wal-Mart hockey moms would never spend $150,000 on clothing." Then again, he's not so unhappy with what he's seen so far: "I thought that she was totally pro-Jackie in that knit suit." [The Cut]
♦ Meanwhile, that Louis Vuitton bag that Palin's daughter, Piper, was spotted with? It was quite likely a fake. [Fashionista]
♦ In tribute to Richard Blackwell, the UK Sun does its own worst-dressed list, honoring Rachel Zoe, Britney Spears, and Sharon Stone. [The Sun]
♦ The "luxury mall" in the basement of the Plaza has opened. [NYO]

We certainly hope Anna has something special planned in the office today: Vogue editor-at-large Andre Leon Talley celebrates his 59th birthday. Also: Tim Robbins is turning 50. John Mayer is 31. Cablevision billionaire Chuck Dolan is 82. JetBlue founder David Neeleman is turning 49. Broadway producer Jeffrey Seller is 44. Art collector Donald Jonas turns 79. Flea, from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, is 46. Angela Lansbury turns 83. And Suzanne Somers of Three's Company fame is 62.

André Leon Talley's luggage is missing! The Vogue editor arrived in Milan this morning and he was forced to wear the same outfit he wore on the plane—Juicy Couture shorts and gray Ralph Lauren polo shirt—to the D&G show. No wonder Alitalia is going bust! [WWD]

Serena Williams—who was seen palling around Fashion Week with André Leon Talley, leading to whispers that a Vogue feature must be pending—has sold a memoir to Jamie Raab-led Grand Central Publishing for $1.3 million. Presumably its main advice to aspiring tennis stars will be: "Have your father plot your success before you've even been conceived." [Crains]

• Jennifer Lopez competed in a triathalon in Malibu, then flew to New York to throw Marc Anthony a birthday party at the Bowery Hotel. It's unclear, though, if she ever had an injured foot, which was the reason she gave for pulling out of the Project Runway finale last week and now some are wondering if a fight with Harvey Weinstein over a movie role was the real reason she cancelled. [People, NYDN, MSNBC]

• Lindsay Lohan called Sarah Palin a "narrow minded, media obsessed homophobe" on Lohan's MySpace page, citing a conference her church on "converting" gays. "She can suck it." [MySpace, Daily News]

» Zac Posen showed the kind of pretty dresses that made him famous. What has also made him famous, of course, is his dazzling knack for networking, which was in full effect with a starry audience of Claire Danes and Hugh Dancy, Marisa Tomei, Leighton Meester, Venus and Serena Williams, Anna Wintour, André Leon Talley, Bernadette Peters, Diddy, Julian Schnabel, Bette Midler, Juliette Lewis, Kate Mara, Jada Pinkett Smith, Veronica Webb, Joy Bryant, Rachel Zoe, Ingrid Sischy, and Fern Mallis. [WSJ, Wireimage]

Marc Jacobs and boyfriend Lorenzo Martone kissing while eating outside at Pastis ... Liv Tyler walking in the Village with her son ... Andre Leon Talley walking with Venus Williams while wearing peep toe shoes ... Keira Knightley taking a stroll with a friend ... Diane von Furstenberg chatting with a group of women at a Fashion Week event ... Claire Danes and Jada Pinkett Smith posing for pics in the front row at Zac Posen's show ... Tobey Maguire being followed by paparazzi while jogging on the street uptown ... Natalie Portman walking under an umbrella on her way to the Rodarte show ... Heidi Klum en route to Bryant Park ... Tyra Banks standing outside and surrounded by fans ... Blake Lively striking a pose in Bryant Park ... Agyness Deyn looking like she's about to trip while making her way into the Kors show ... Goldie Hawn exiting a store ... Jessica Simpson leaving her uptown hotel en route to the Letterman show ... Eva Mendes going somewhere in a hurry ... Ricky Gervais standing on a street corner and talking to a woman ... and Lindsay Lohan leaving a party, followed closely behind by Samantha Ronson.

My relationship with Anna is one where we understand each other, says ALT. "We can communicate silently." Also, your generation, with its blogs and no Studio 54, is lame: "Each generation has its moment, and with this generation, I don't know exactly what they do." But we think so highly of you, André! [Mediabistro]

» The scene at Michael Kors was inevitably the central portion of the fashion industry/magazine world/reality TV venn diagram: Nina Garcia, Rachel Zoe with her client Joy Bryant, Heidi Klum, Joanna Coles, and Joe Zee drew the limelight away from Kelly Killoren Bensimon, Aerin Lauder Zinterhofer, Blake Lively, Bette Midler, and Kors' mom Joan. On the runway the (smiling!) models, who were told "you are the most glamorous beach bums in the world," showed off middle-of-the-road, cheerful outfits with polka dots and gingham aplenty. [NYO, NYDN, IHT]

♦ At Betsey Johnson, the front row—Kelly Osbourne, Perry Farrell, Miss J Alexander, Bow Wow, Ugly Betty's Mark Indelicato, Jason Lewis, Mickey Boardman, Lynn Yaeger, and Patrick McMullan—sat at little tables festooned with frosted cupcakes and lollipops for a Peter Pan-themed show in which Liam McMullan played a pirate "throwing gold coins at the audience and pinching the models' exposed bottoms as they walked by." Betsey did her customary finale cartwheel, showed off her granddaughter (left), and went off on vacation with her boyfriend (an Italian decades her junior, of course). [NYO, The Cut, Fashion Wire Daily]

The Fashion Week crowd will take a break from discussing hemlines and turn its attention this evening to the other big (and possibly more important?) story dominating the media: the upcoming presidential election. A fundraiser for Barack Obama will take place tonight at Charles Nolan's Chelsea studio. Expected to attend: Anna Wintour (who sat alongside a dour Natalie Portman at Derek Lam's show earlier today, left), Sarah Jessica Parker, and André Leon Talley, among others. The Obamas won't be there, but they'll gladly scoop up the $5,000 checks that buy admission to the VIP party beginning at 6:30pm.

♦ At Marc Jacobs, there were lots of celebs like Helena Christensen, Elijah Wood, Nicole Richie, Stephanie Seymour, Kelly Osbourne, Sofia Coppola, Winona Ryder, and Jennifer Lopez, and the elaborate, adventurous, world travel-inspired clothes got high marks—but all of the above was entirely eclipsed by the presence of Posh Spice's new gamine haircut. [WWD, Telegraph, Hello]

Anna Wintour may have thought that the spectacle of Meryl Streep as Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada was the last time she'd see a version of herself on the big screen (until her ghost sees her inevitable posthumous biopics, that is—do they have movie theaters in hell?) but today brings news that New Line is making a movie—a rom-com, no less!—about hockey star Sean Avery's experience as a Vogue intern. No other details are yet forthcoming, which only permits our imaginations to run wild: Who will our hunky hero's love interest be? What fashion-related obstacles will keep them apart for 90 minutes? And will André Leon Talley be played by an actual black person this time? Our breath is bated.

• Drama abounded at DKNY's show yesterday: PETA protestors burst onto the runway, shouting and brandishing placards—to the apparent amusement of André Leon Talley—while Petra Nemcova's new bangs rendered her unrecognizable and therefore unmolested by the media. Meanwhile the rather random celebrity trio of Winona Ryder, Christina Ricci, and Nicole Richie were regaled with "combinations of electric blue and black, neon pink and yellow anorak dresses, parachute pants and color-blocked knits" and a finale led by Donna Karan's five-year-old granddaughter Stefania. [The Cut, Fashionologie, NYDN, Telegraph]
  
  

• The inimitable Fug Girls were at Yigal Azrouël today and saw Elettra Rossellini Wiedemann (not sweating in leather pants, enthusiastically posing for a photographer), Miss J Alexander and Nigel Barker (chatting front row), Cory Kennedy (bored, disheveled), Alexis Bryan Morgan (still pregnant), Fabiola Beracasa (front row next to Katie Lee Joel), Nina Garcia (talking to reporters), and Kelly Cutrone (looking better in person than on TV). [The Cut]

1) One of many Fashion Week kick-off events was the Agyness Deyn-hosted, Thierry Mugler-sponsored bash last night at Christie's, where Chloë Sevigny, Henry Holland, Kelly Osbourne, Peaches Geldof, Yigal Azrouël, Kelly Cutrone, Paul Sevigny, Kate Schelter, Jennifer Creel, Holly Dunlap, Genevieve Jones, Jen Cohen, Dori Cooperman, Ellen Von Unwerth, Padma Lakshmi, and Mary Alice Stephenson previewed the auction house's fall sales of post-war and contemporary art, impressionist and modern art, and fashion. [The Daily, Wireimage, NYO]

1) The 303's new gallery in Chelsea was christened last night with a performance by The Virgins and partiers Lisa Spellman, Kirsten Dunst, Matt Creed, Thurston Moore, Serge Becker, Anna Sui, Byrdie Bell, Cynthia Rowley, Poppy de Villeneuve, Genevieve Jones, Julia Restoin-Roitfeld and Magnus Berger (left), Jessica Stam, Marilyn Minter, Sean MacPherson, and Rogan Gregory. [PMc/FWD]

Don't think for a second that Fox News has a monopoly on vicious, personal attacks against its media competitors. Daniel Saynt (pictured, left) of the blog Fashion Indie is in his own, particularly bitchy catfight with Sarah Conley and Julie Frederickson (pictured, right) of Coutorture. The battle started with a racial insult, then progressed to trash talking and now involves unflattering photos. And one gets the feeling that, when all is said and done, it's going to make the despicably nasty Fox-Times brawl look like a tea party. The whole thing started when Saynt wrote the following noxious critique of Vogue's Andre Leon Talley:

• Heiress Casey Johnson and Courtenay Semel, daughter of entertainment mogul Terry Semel, are officially dating. Casey is ditching plans to move home to Manhattan so she can stay closer to Courtenay in LA. [Page Six]