♦ Kate Moss is joining honorary chair Marc Jacobs as co-chair of the next Costume Institute Gala Benefit at the Met, along with Anna Wintour and Justin Timberlake. [Telegraph]
♦ Jacobs will also be hosting Housing Works Fashion for Action auction on November 13th. And it's not just his karma bank that's overflowing: He just signed a five year deal with Staff International SpA to produce a men's collection. [Fashionista, WWD]
♦ Mark your calendars: On November 25th, Sarah Jessica Parker's familiar voice will be the one you hear when you take the audio tour of the "Costume: The Art of Dress" exhibit at the Costume Institute. [The Pipeline]

Tina Brown appeared on Fox Business today to chat about her new site, the Daily Beast. It turns out that credit for the venture goes to Barry Diller, who, Brown says, was having trouble finding anything worthwhile to read on the Web and brought the idea to Tina because he wanted someone he could trust to tell him what to read every day. Oh, and don't be fooled by the title of the segment, "The Battle of the Blogs," or the lead-in, which suggests she's giving the Huffington Post and the Drudge Report a run for their money. She isn't competing with anyone. "It's not a competitive situation... it's a collegial model."

♦ Adam Platt visits Irving Mill (left) and Inside Park at St. Bart's for New York this week. Chef Ryan Skeen's "meaty, calorie-rich repertoire" earns two stars for Irving Mill, but Platt is a little less enthusiastic about Inside Park, which gets a single star on account of the "eerie" atmosphere and despite his description of the food as "generally first-rate." [NYM]
♦ Eater has pics of David Chang's new Momofuku Bakery/Milk Bar, which may open next week. [Eater]

Here's a way keep up cable news ratings now that the election is over: MSNBC's Joe Scarborough casually dropped the F-word into his commentary on Morning Joe this morning, much to the surprise of his guests. A clip of the slip-up is on your left. [YouTube via Atrios]

How do you get half of the Hamptons to hate you instantly? Destroying the 3,000-year-old sand dunes on your property is a good way to start. Billionaire fund manager Ron Baron now stands accused of razing part of the beachfront property he purchased in May 2007 when he spent a record $103 million for 40 acres of prime East Hampton real estate. Baron has since constructed a 30,000-square-foot mansion on a nearby parcel, but it was the recent destruction of the historic dunes near his house that now has environmental groups up in arms.

Hire This Man! [Ritholtz via Clusterstock]

New York's most successful real estate broker, Dolly Lenz, has never been known for her modesty. And don't think for a minute that the falling real estate market has put a damper on her taste for exaggeration. In the current issue of ForbesLife, Lenz keeps up the tradition of hyperbole as she rattles off all sorts of impressive facts about her day-to-day routine. Back in 2007, for example, she said she owned three Blackberrys to keep in touch with her clients at all times. By February 2008, her collection had grown to four. Now? The one-time Blackberry spokesmodel now says she keeps 12 of them with her.

Not that you need any more proof that the economy is falling to pieces, but it seems layaway shopping—the installment payment system left over from the Great Depression—is now on the rise, as crafty retailers try and figure out how to get people to buy stuff for the holidays. Unfortunately, the trend is restricted to discount stores at the moment, which means if you're doing your Christmas shopping at Barneys, you'll just have to settle for just running up your credit card balance. [AMNY, MSNBC]

If you hear someone announcing that their teenage daughter is "coming out" at the end of the month, you might want to look impressed rather than inquire if it might be just a phase. At the annual Crillon Ball in Paris, 24 girls from all over the world will be trussed up in haute couture and "presented" to society on the arm of a dashing escort chosen for them by the event's organizer Ophélie Renouard. Strictly invitation only, the ball has in past years included lucky debutantes like Amanda Hearst, Lauren Bush, Victoria and Vanessa Traina, and Bee Shaffer—whose mom, Vogue editor Anna Wintour, Renouard remembers fondly.

"Which wife of a top Lehman executive went on a $132,000 shopping spree at the Americana Manhasset Mall the day after her hubby filed for bankruptcy?" Page Six asked today. It didn't take very long for commenters over at Dealbreaker to come to a conclusion. After eliminating Dick Fuld's wife Kathy (who spends most of her time in Greenwich and wouldn't be caught dead shopping at a Long Island mall), the crowd seemed to settle on Niki Gregory, the wife of axed Lehman president Joe Gregory, who has a home in nearby Lloyd Harbor and was rumored to be filing for personal bankruptcy in September. [Dealbreaker]

♦ Keith Olbermann has signed a new, four-year contract with MSNBC. He'll earn $7.5 million a year, which is 25 percent less than what his arch-nemesis Bill O'Reilly is collecting from Fox News. [TVDecoder]
♦ MSNBC's new slogan—"Experience the power of change"—has absolutely nothing to do with Barack Obama's victory, naturally. [NYT]
♦ The job cuts at Time Inc. are underway. People is looking for 18 people to take buyout packages. Time is looking for 20 volunteers. [WWD]
♦ Jared Kushner says revenues at the Observer are up 40 percent, although the paper is still losing $2 million a year. [Guardian]
♦ Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, from DreamWorks/Paramount, reeled in $63.5 million in its first weekend. [NYT]

What's the first thing to go when you're an out-of-work Wall Streeter cutting costs from the family budget? Your kids' education, apparently. Enrollment at Manhattan's top private schools is expected to drop dramatically next year as even wealthy parents think twice about shelling out $30,000 (or more) on annual tuition. At Trinity, 45 families have already given notice that they'll be leaving at the end of the year. Other schools are reporting that parents have been demanding discounts and/or haggling for more financial aid in recent weeks.

White truffle prices are falling fast! At a Tokyo auction last night, the biggest truffle on the block went for $30,000, a far cry from the $330,000 paid for the largest specimen at last year's auction. [FT]

The first family-to-be has been given their code names by the Secret Service. Barack Obama will be known as "Renegade"—at least when it comes to dark-suited agents whispering into the microphones attached to their cuffs. Michelle will be "Renaissance." And Malia and Sasha will go by "Radiance" and "Rosebud," respectively. [Chicago Tribune]

How did Veronica Hearst (excuse us, Veronica DeGruyter Beracasa de Uribe Hearst, aka Fabiola's mom), get through three rich husbands and still wind up $45 million in debt? As Vanity Fair's Vicky Ward discovers, the talents that enable one to ensnare wealthy old dudes don't necessarily include financial acumen. In 2000, Veronica persuaded her husband Randolph Hearst—whom she'd married in 1987 when he was 72 and she was a once-divorced, once-widowed, forty-something mother of two—to pay $30 million for Villa Venezia, a 52-room, 28,000-square-foot Florida mansion.

The MTA says it is now facing a $1.2 billion deficit in 2009. So how are agency officials going to solve the problem? They may raise fares in the near future, naturally. [City Room]

Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel leaving Southern Hospitality on Second Avenue through the back door ... Nicole Kidman getting lunch with a friend in the West Village ... Hilary Duff and boyfriend Mike Comrie arriving at their hotel ... Liev Schreiber and Naomi Watts pushing baby Alexander in a stroller ... Natalie Portman taking her dog for a walk in the rain ... Jessica Alba going to dinner at Via dei Mille on West Broadway with daughter Honor and other family members ... Katie Holmes and Suri leaving the Union Square Greenmarket .. Eva Mendes on the set of her new film ... country singer Taylor Swift arriving at her hotel ... Brooke Shields buying toys at FAO Schwarz ... and Keira Knightley and boyfriend Rupert Friend hugging in Central Park.

Malcolm Gladwell has a new book coming out next month, have you heard? Outliers, for which Little, Brown reportedly paid $4 million, may be his most ambitious book or his least, according to New York, which takes a look at the cult of Gladwell in this week's issue. Among the things that you may be surprised to hear: The "rock-star" staff writer at The New Yorker has an "aversion to midtown" (which is where the Condé Nast-owned title happens to be located), but the magazine happily uses a courier service to correspond with him.

♦ Hedge funder James Torrey and his wife Podie Lynch have put their duplex at 131 East 66th on the market for $14.5 million. The Obama fundraiser (and father of New York PR queen Serena Torrey) says the couple is now planning to downsize to a smaller apartment. [NYT, Corcoran]
♦ Exis Capital founder Adam Sender has listed his three units at 15 Broad Street for $10.995 million, after picking them up for a total of $8 million in June 2007. [NYT, PDE]
♦ More than a year after going into contract on a condo at 247 West 46th Street, Rosie O'Donnell has closed on the two-bedroom apartment for $1.97 million. [Real Deal]
♦ German film director Werner Herzog paid $630,000 for a one-bedroom pied-à-terre at 7 East 14th Street. [Real Deal]

It's been a month since Tina Brown launched her Barry Diller-backed website, The Daily Beast. But it appears the massive budget for the new launch—reportedly $18 million over three years—didn't create room for a fact-checker on staff. The Smoking Gun reports that Brown's site was fooled by a Canadian college student who posed as Jay McCarroll, the winner of the first season of Project Runway, when he submitted a design for a burlap dress for Michelle Obama to wear to the Inaugural Ball.