Why does Diane von Furstenberg totally adore Madonna? "Because she isn't just about building buzz, she's about building relationships." [DVF.com]

♦ The Condé Nast memo concerning budget cuts seems to have failed to make its way to W. Last week Kate Moss arrived in NYC to do a shoot, only to discover it had been canceled and no one had bothered to tell her before she left. So, after stopping to smoke a cigarette outside JFK, she hopped back on another first class flight home, at the cost of $12,000 to the magazine. [Mirror]
♦ The latest casualties of the recession: Holly Dunlap, whose shoe line is no more, Fred Leighton jewelry, which might be going into liquidation, and even, maybe, expensive fashion shows. [NYP, WWD, WWD]
♦ Fashionistas in Moscow are coping with the plunge in the market the way any good Russian would: They're drinking lots of vodka. [stylefile]

♦ Julia Restoin Roitfeld might call herself a designer, but apparently the fat fees from modeling are hard to resist: She's been cast in the new Mango campaign along with celebuspawn Dakota Johnson Griffith. [WWD]
♦ PR maven Kelly Cutrone may play a hard-nosed bitch on The Hills, but in real life she's all heart: After reading about Marie Conde, who fought with three muggers who snatched her purse, Cutrone collected gifts for the 26-year-old nurse's aide, including Longchamp purses, jewelry, and dinner at the SoHo Grand. [NYP]
♦ During an interview conducted, of course, lying down in a hotel room at Claridge's in London, Diane von Furstenberg is expansive on matters personal (such as her first and only female lover), her "naughtiness" during the seventies, and her political opinions: Barack Obama is "so intelligent and very detached... It gives him perspective." [Telegraph]

It sounds like a fun night for Barry Diller: Closeted magazine Details put on a party for Milk, a movie about the first openly gay man elected to office in California, and the InterActive Corp. chairman was in attendance. Designer Marc Jacobs was there with his boyfriend, as was Gossip Girl's Chace Crawford, chatting, for some reason with Taylor Momsen. Topping off the evening quite nicely, fashion executive Diane von Fursternberg "invited Diller... back to her place," according to Page Six, along with designer Valentino Garavani and actress Marisa Berenson. For dinner, of course. Which was awfully generous, considering that von Furstenberg is Diller's wife. Officially, at least. As Diller knows well, mergers take quite some time to integrate, and some components just never mesh at all.

♦ Alexander Wang was the big winner at Monday night's fifth-annual CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund awards at Skylight Studios. Wang and fellow nominees like Richard Chai, Jason Wu, Lisa Mayock and Sophie Buhai, Irene Neuwirth, Alejandro Ingelmo, Juan Carlos Obando, Albertus Swanepoel, Swaim and Christina Hutson, and John Patrick were feted by John Galliano (left, with Charlize Theron), Anna Wintour, Diane von Furstenberg, Sally Singer, Andrew Rosen, Reed Krakoff, Jeffrey Kalinsky, Julie Gilhart, Julie Macklowe, Daphne Guinness, Sasha Heinz, Tory Burch and Lyor Cohen, Andre Leon Talley, Narciso Rodriguez, Maria Sharapova, Penn Badgley, Zac Posen, Vera Wang, Chanel Iman, Juliette Lewis, Harvey Weinstein and Georgina Chapman, Tommy Hilfiger and Dee Ocleppo, Lauren Santo Domingo, Peter Som, Piper Perabo, Phillip Lim, Lazaro Hernandez, Maggie Betts, Calvin Klein, Damon Dash and Rachel Roy, and James Franco. [PMc, NYO, Style.com, The Daily]

The name Candy Pratts Price won't be familiar to the average person in the street, but the executive fashion director of Style.com has been one of the most important people in the fashion biz for several years now, as the hyperbolic testimonies gathered by the Transom at the party for her book American Fashion Accessories make clear. Zac Posen certainly doesn't mince his words: "It's serious, my love for Candy. There's exuberance, and joy...it's fierce." Neither does Francisco Costa: "She's an icon. She has this love of fashion and that's so apropos, it's so right for right now, to have Candy be celebrated."

♦ It's a horrifying mystery that will weigh heavily on all of our minds until it's solved: Where on earth is Karolina Kurkova's belly button? [Telegraph, Daily Mail]
♦ Diane von Furstenberg confirmed last night that she has submitted sketches for Michelle Obama's inaugural ball gown: "Well, they asked me to. Of course, everybody has." [The Cut]
♦ Best outfit worn to the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund Awards last night: Agyness Deyn's tux-style black suit with Marc Jacobs hat and red platforms. Absolute worst: Blake Lively's hideous Vena Cava dress, which we can only imagine was chosen to fulfill a contractual obligation to expose her boobs at all times. [stylefile, Teen Vogue]

Well, this will certainly soften the blow of a certain Gossip Girl actor thinking he was Vera Wang's husband: Last night, Alexander Wang won the $200,000 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund prize, awarded by a panel of judges including Diane von Furstenberg, Vogue's Anna Wintour and Sally Singer, Coach's Reed Krakoff, Jeffrey Kalinsky, Theory's Andrew Rosen, and Barneys' Julie Gilhart. At the 5th anniversary ceremony held at Skylight Studios, a crowd including André Leon Talley, Tommy Hilfiger, Vera Wang, John Galliano, Charlize Theron, and Juliette Lewis saw the 24-year-old New Yorker beat out the competition, including runners-up Lisa Mayock and Sophie Buhai of Vena Cava and Albertus Quartus designer Albertus Q Swanepoel. [WWD, Vogue UK]

CNN plans to air a documentary on Diane von Furstenberg the day after tomorrow. But it seems the network is having some trouble finding someone who owns one of her wrap dresses from 30 years ago to gush about it on camera: "If you own a wrap dress from the 1970s, write to CNN and tell them where and when you bought it, and what it means to you. Your quote or photo could then be featured on the show. Email revealed@cnn.com." [DVF]

Vito Schnabel (son of Julian) and Olivier Sarkozy (half-brother of Nicolas) hosted Terence Koh's "Flowers for Baudelaire" exhibition on Wednesday night at Richard Avedon's former studio, where the unusual art was admired by the likes of Anna Wintour, Simon de Pury, Jeffrey Deitch, Allison Sarofim, Stella Schnabel, Olmo Schnabel, Lola Schnabel, Jacqueline Schnabel, Zac Posen, Ann Dexter-Jones, Nadine Johnson, Theodora Richards, Alexandra Richards, Byrdie Bell, Benjamin Cho, Cynthia Rowley, Salman Rushie, Lyor Cohen, Todd Eberle, Derek Blasberg, Genevieve Jones, Yvonne Force Villareal, Drena De Niro, Lisa Anastos, and Gilles Bensimon. [PMc, NYM, GoaG]

♦ Did you attempt to get your hands on some Comme des Garçons for H&M today? You're braver than us. [Racked]
♦ Cathy Horyn provides a clear-eyed assessment of Barack Obama's sartorial style, pointing out that "his jeans are the loose, jingle-the-change-in-your-pocket type. He belts them at the waist, and when he wears them with white sneakers and a windbreaker, one could almost say he had stolen the look from Jerry Seinfeld's character on the television series." [NYT]
♦ At Diane von Furstenberg's party for Financial Times editor Vanessa Friedman, André Leon Talley broadcast his delight over Obama's victory in the most appropriate way: The back of his coat was emblazoned with "The New American Dream" in crystals. [WWD]
♦ Also gushing about the Obamas? Donna Karan, who says: "I'm hoping to get to work with them—it would be my dream. They are so committed to ideals that are much in alignment with mine." [WWD]

The Tribeca Film Institute hosted a benefit screening for the Quantum of Solace last night, which was followed by an afterparty at Tavern on the Green. Attendees included Daniel Craig, Becki Newton, Chris Diamantopoulos, Robert De Niro and Grace Hightower, Craig Hatkoff and Jane Rosenthal, Julia Stiles, Kelly Killoren Bensimon, Jeffrey Wright, Debra Messing, Andre Balazs, Andrew Saffir and Daniel Benedict, Hoda Kotb, Jill Stuart, John Sykes, Judy McGrath, Howard Stringer, Rob Wiesenthal, Liya Kebede, Stewart Rahr, Molly Sims, and Serena Altschul. [PMc, Wireimage, GoaG]

Diane von Furstenberg is blogging—sort of. In the most recent entry on the DVF website, she welcomes the Standard Hotel to the meatpacking district (which, in case you haven't heard, is a "new luxe hotel" that's "minimalist chic but with a downtown NYC twist.") We're going to go ahead and place the blame on her assistant, though, for referring to the hotel's owner as "Andre Balaz." [DVF.com]

♦ André Leon Talley urged fashion students at the Art Institute of Philadelphia to vote, "no matter who your candidate is," and said of Anna Wintour: "She is not that person in 'The Devil Wears Prada.' She is like Catherine the Great of Russia. She has kept that magazine on top, raised money for the Met and for the Democratic party." [WWD]
♦ Election eve shocker! Donna Karan and Diane von Furstenberg are voting for Obama. [WWD]
♦ Michael Kors could care less which network Project Runway winds up on: "I just want people to watch the show." [The Cut]
♦ In the new Agent Provocateur campaign, Helena Christensen doesn't look very happy in cheap red lace, and we don't blame her. [The Mirror]

We're as excited as anyone about Whitney Port's forthcoming reality show The City, but we don't want the poor thing overdoing it in order to satisfy the voracious demands of the cameras. Port tells the Daily News: "There are times when I'm working so much that I just think, 'What am I going to do?' But I just have to roll with the punches and take it day by day—that's something that Lauren taught me to do."

♦ The election, the economy, and Madonna and Guy all faded into insignificance last night when MTV aired the first clip of The City, and we saw our girl Whitney stepping inside Diane von Furstenberg HQ and getting ambivalently eyeballed by Olivia Palermo (who seems to have a weirdly strong screen presence). [NYO, NYP]
♦ The sixth season of Project Runway has wrapped: Rebecca Romijn, Eva Longoria and Lindsay Lohan reportedly make guest judge appearances, although regular judges Nina Garcia and Michael Kors earn less airtime than before. Yet due to legal issues we can't wrap our mind around much less summarize, no one knows when or where the show will air. [WWD]

♦ Soon-to-be-single Madonna premiered her directorial debut, Filth and Wisdom, at the Sunshine Theater on Monday night. On the red carpet and/or the after-party at the Thompson LES: Lindsay Lohan (left), Jerry Seinfeld, Naomi Watts and Liev Schreiber, Ann Dexter-Jones, David Blaine, Alan Cumming, America Ferrera, Brooke Shields, Marc Jacobs and Lorenzo Martone, Glenda Bailey, Jessica Alba and Cash Warren, Juliette Lewis, Jason Biggs, Jeremy Piven, Vanessa Williams, Becki Newton, Malin Akerman, Lake Bell, Max Minghella, Padma Lakshmi, Terry Richardson, Diane Kruger and Joshua Jackson, Joe Zee, Byrdie Bell, Fabiola Beracasa, Ferebee Bishop Taube, Zani Gugelmann, Katie Lee Joel, Beth Ostrosky, Eleanor Ylvisaker, Kelly Klein, Minnie Mortimer, Maggie Rizer, Chace Crawford, Amanda Cutter Brooks, Ingrid Sischy, Ross Bleckner, Nancy Jarecki, Derek Blasberg, Ed Westwick, Rose Byrne, Taylor Momsen, Debbie Bancroft, Terry Richardson, Bruce Weber, Guy Oseary, and Ali Wise and Jason Pomeranc. [The Daily, PMc, Wireimage, Style.com]

♦ Diane von Furstenberg's comic book is now on sale. She launched it last night with a party at her meatpacking district boutique, where guests (like Lindsay Price, left) had their names checked off at the door by Whitney Port and Olivia Palermo, and everyone was warned they might be taped. We look forward to seeing the relevant scene on The City. [Racked]
♦ Pat Field's line for British chain Marks and Spencer had shoppers lining up in their hundreds today, but an unimpressed reporter says she "can't imagine any woman with a stylish bone in her body being seen dead in these get-ups." [Daily Mail]

♦ Diane von Furstenberg has not only designed a collection inspired by Wonder Woman, she's also authored a comic book featuring superheroines Diva, Viva and Fifa. [WWD, DVF]
♦ Backstage at Marc Jacobs' Louis Vuitton Paris show, the models flipped up their skirts to show Cathy Horyn an important detail: lace underwear monogrammed with LV. [On the Runway]
♦ Jessica Stam's East Village apartment, designed by Rafael de Cardenas, is sickeningly fabulous for a 22-year-old. [Jezebel]

Dreamy Silver Fox Anderson Cooper may have a new boyfriend. Village Voice gossip Michael Musto is doing some whispering about a strapping young lad named Jonathan Chase who may or may not be canoodling with the esteemed CNN anchor. Cute! We care not because we're pointing fingers at a gay person, but because it's as newsworthy (or, at least, gossipworthy) as who Kate Hudson or Leonardo DiCaprio is dating. We're, um, orientation blind. After the jump, we've provided a small listicle (because why the hell not) detailing some of the Coop's previous romantic dalliances.