Things are apparently a mess at fashion magazine Elle. A terrible reality show is has taken over the office, according to Ben Widdicombe. The show is called "Fashionista," it's produced by Tyra, and it will air on The CW later this year. It documents the search for a new assistant for creative director Joe Zee, even though he has an assistant already, one who is by all reports perfectly competent. So the show's contestants are just running around the office, getting in everyone's way with pointless "challenges," competing for a job they won't get. Meanwhile, an email we received from an anonymous tipster seems to suggest that maybe Mr. Zee, with his star-making new reality show on the way, might be helping to publicize the ouster of the mag's last reality show star, former fashion director Nina Garcia.

OK, let's just get it out of the way. Nina Garcia is in! Nina Garcia is Auf'd! She can leave the Runway! She can go to Elle! She looks like the child of Caroline Kennedy and Alf! Well, maybe the last one doesn't count. But you get my drift. Lots of people are jabbering on about Garcia, who has reportedly been yanked from her position as "fashion director" of Elle magazine, raising some uncertainty about her future as a Project Runway judge. Women's Wear Daily (this is their Watergate) says that Elle is trying to find her a phony "Editor-at-Large" masthead position, so she can stay on for the competition series' fifth and final season on Bravo (the show is moving to the Lifetime [Television for Women] network after that).

Oh dear, what a week for Project Runway. First, the show is moving to the cat-lady network and now judge Nina "fashiondirectorforEllemagazine" Garcia is apparently gone as Fashion Director of Elle, according to WWD. Elle threw a party for Simon Doonan and Nina was "notably absent." Garcia was reportedly in the office this morning, but gone by the afternoon. What does it mean? How will Heidi explain who she is next season?

Pop singer and old curmudgeon Madonna is gracing yet another magazine cover. You'd think she was promoting a new album and her directorial film debut or something. This time it's the May issue of Nina Garcia's little 'zine Elle, both the US and UK editions. And the covers are different! The US version (left) is a modestly suggestive fashion pose, while the UK version features a scantily clad Madge using a rope like a stripper pole. The US headline says "Madonna Opens Up," while the UK edition promises an interview that is "intimate" and "outrageous." What does this say about our two nations? Do the Brits simply have a higher tolerance for 50-year-old lady bits? Are we just prudes? Larger image after the jump. [US image via Elle, UK via Stylefrizz]

It's tough out there in Hollywood for smart hot chicks. In fact, it's tough out there for smart hot chicks everywhere, because everyone assumes that they're dumb. Women can only be smart or hot, not both. But Natalie Portman went to Harvard and she's attractive, so the only possible conclusion we can draw is that she's a cyborg sent from the future to destroy us. In this month's Elle she talks about smart things, like why Hillary Clinton matters to women (because she's also a woman!) and why ambitious chicks get hated on. In the attached video, she explains that women can still look good, and not all crunchy and gross, in animal-friendly clothing. In like five years, she's totally going to adopt some Cambodian refugee babies, and then usher in the robot apocalypse.

We wish Jack Kliger happiness in his forthcoming marriage. Because the Hachette boss' job certainly isn't much fun. The magazine group's titles, such as Elle, are mostly also-rans; and the 60-year-old publishing veteran is both starved of funds by the company's French owners, and second-guessed by agents of head office. "I'd heard the French were rats," he's known to complain. "But now I know." This might be the opportunity for the magazine exec to spend more time with the family.

Divorced magazine publisher Jack Kliger got engaged to his longtime girlfriend, speaking coach Amy Griggs, according to Jeff Bercovici at Mixed Media. Here's the 60-year-old Hachette Filipacchi boss, who runs a stable of magazines including 'Elle' and 'Premiere', between Griggs and his daughter, at a party in 2006. Apropos of nothing, after the jump, a blind item from Page Six, from three years ago.

Chaos! From the mailbag: "So there are about 150 employees crammed into the lobby of 1633 Broadway right now waiting for elevator use to resume between floors 40 and 48. Apparently there was ANOTHER fire on 44.... Although I'm less shocked that those genius Elle girls don't know how to pop popcorn, and more shocked that they were actually eating. Starbucks across the street is overflowing with disgruntled employees and my coworkers on 40 didn't even know there had been a fire.... Probably because no one really cares about those damn mail room employees. Its like the lowest level on the Titanic here at HFM. Update; they're moving us into the freight elevators..."

Lindsay Lohan will be on the covers of both Elle and Maxim's September issues. Also, October's Prison Bitch Review. [WWD]

A special advertising section on Elle is sponsored by the Showtime series The L Word. Hmm, what do they think these lesbians are buying these days? A lot of pretty fugly clothes and jewelry, that's what!

From Mediabistro's Revolving Door:

• In an interview with the Guardian, Conrad Black calls his fraud trial "bullshit" and announces that he's at war with the U.S. government. The paper also has an excerpt from Black's forthcoming biography of Richard Nixon, which praises the former president's "surpassing dignity." Read into that what you will. [Guardian]
  

1824 Joseph Fourier discovers greenhouse effect.
1949 Richard Gere born.
1960 Dr. Seuss publishes One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish.
1962 Rachel Carson publishes Silent Spring.
1972 U.S. passes Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act. (Amended 1977.)
1994 Knight Center for Environmental Journalism founded at Michigan State's J-School.

This month's Elle has a profile of New York Times managing editor Jill Abramson. It's pretty competent, instead of being all "OMG lady news executive!," and, as today's WWD notes, it's fairly thorough.

In the pantheon of love and relationships advice columnists, there's no one quite like Elle's E. Jean to tell it like it is. Whining that you're too fat to find a boyfriend? Lose weight, dumpling. Complaining that you're too much of a wallflower to find a man? You are, and no one likes a wallflower or a complainer. Darling.

• Ravelston, the company through which Conrad Black controlled Hollinger International, plead out to fraud. [Guardian]
  

A tipster writes:

For the love of sweet baby Christ! Do you see this? Do you? Yeah, that's right — it's Leigh "Princess Coldstare" Lezark, the lady of MisShapes, and it's from page 406 of the September Elle. Yesterday, she was modeling circus costumes in Thursgay Styles; two weeks ago, her fellow MisShapes pictured were sipping rosé in Sunday Styles. Now it's a high-end, multi-pound fashion monthly.

Last night we took another trip to the newsstand to fetch more of the beastly September fashion glossies, but this time things were toned down a notch. Rather than haul another 9.5 pounds of aspirational crap, we went more towards the featherweights. Next round, we'll suck it up and grab the heavyweights like InStyle or the 650-page Vogue. And when we're all done? Just you wait. We're going to take all these fuckers and build ourselves a coffee table.

Last month, Hachette Filipacchi debuted a Middle Eastern version of Elle, sold in Jordan, Morocco and Lebanon. Unfortunately, Lebanon has become considerable less fashionable in the past few weeks and the magazine's production has suffered: