In our continuing coverage of ex-Observer reporter Jessica Joffe's every movement during Fashion Week (a crucial, make-or-break time for a "girl about town"), we've found proof that Joffe is indeed hard at work, doing important research at Behnaz Sarafpour. Atta girl!
Oh, lamentable runway of death! Fashion's center, stained with grief! At right, Vogue fashion news/features director Sally Singer sacrifices her young son at the altar of Marc by Marc Jacobs. The poor boy doesn't know what hit him; his eyes are cold and dead. Mom's such a bitch, man, picking out his stupid clothes and making him talk to these stupid old people. As soon as he gets to high school, he's dropping out.
• For the remaining handful of you who still fail to comprehend why Fashion Week is the work of Satan himself, consider this: child runway models. You can go and say it's not JonBenet Ramsey, but we're not buying it. Does that little girl's face not tell of her suffering?! [Reuters]
• The Department of Child and Family Services is investigating Britney Spears after she was seen driving with her infant child in her lap. If they take the baby, maybe they can take K-Fed, too. [TMZ]
• Every once in awhile, Village Voice gossip Michael Musto gets off of his bike and shits out a million blind items, all at once. We can't even fathom how to arrange them into a guessing game, so just go on over and knock yourselves out. [VV]
• Aileen Gallagher at FishbowlNY talks to Warren St. John about the JT Leroy hoax; we imagine that after the interview, she took him to her boudoir and made sweet, syrupy love to him and his muscle tee. Well done, girlfriend. [FishbowlNY]
• A strip club indicted for tax evasion? You don't say. [NYP]
• Imagining a day in the life of reformed meth addict Jodi Sweetin, pre-rehab. [The Road More Traveled]
• Michael Kors is Mugatu. [Logged Hours]
• And last — but certainly not least — we proudly share with you some "love and sex advice" from Star Jones Reynolds. If you're brave, you'll crank up the volume for this one. [AOL]
While we earlier grappled with the lack of Jessica Joffe in February's issue of Vogue, it's come to our attention that yesterday's Times was on Joffe duty (we missed this because it was in a Fashion Week article, and our doctor has asked that we limit our contact with that stuff to visuals only). Cathy Horyn writes:
• If Madonna wants to open the Grammys, she's going to open the Grammys — even if it means bumping Mariah Carey out of the slot. If these two were to actually brawl it out, the sheer bitchitude of their contact would make the recording industry spontaneously combust. [R&M]
• Paris Hilton impersonator Natalie Reid is so much like the real thing, she even worked as an $800/hr escort. [Page Six]
• Ivanka Trump splits with socialite Bingo Gubelman, citing irreconciable name choices. [Lowdown]
• Ashlee Simpson insists her father's not a control freak — he even lets her shower and shit all by herself. [IOL]
• David Burke tortures Fashion Week models by offering them all sorts of tasty snacks. The cruelty of Bryant Park knows no bounds. [Page Six]
Salman Rushdie does research for his next novel, a magical exploration of the subcontinental wrap dress.
• Never underestimate the power of a hairdresser. Says one with plenty of celebrity clients, "I have this one client, and I gave her an ultimatum...You have to leave him if he's not going to marry you. You're 43, and you've got to get out. You can't accept this. You're beautiful.'" Innneresting. Did Lance refuse to set a date? [NYT]
• Funny that Dave Itzkoff wrote the New York piece on James Frey's editor, Sean McDonald, considering some have called foul on the accuracy of Itzkoff's own memoir. A sympathetic ear always makes for a great interview. [VV]
• A Paris Hilton impersonator crashes Fashion Week, caught on video. It's funny until you watch the clip of the impersonator talking about her job as a Fake Paris — her voice is as monotone and scarily deep as the real thing. [TMZ]
• An open letter to Graydon Carter. [Open Web Letter]
• Natasha Lyonne's father insists that she's not homeless, but rather very wealthy. Sure, but that doesn't address the crackhead problem. [Handbag]
Based on our past experiences, the above video montage captures the best of Fashion Week as we know it: Nazi guards keeping the less fabulous out of the tents. Models in various stages of undress doing the "oh-I'm-so-cute" shtick for the cameras. Reality television stars acting like they care about the collections. Intolerable crowds of people and errant rock stars. And, of course, sponsors up the ass. Watch and spare yourself the pain of actually being there.
• Bad news: this year's Fashion Week must go on sans fancy Kohler toilets. The usual crappers have been replaced with mere Porta Potties, which flooded at Kimora Lee Simmons and John Varvatos' shows. Presumably the plastic crappers couldn't withstand the force of mass purging. [Gatecrasher]
• What did Aniston know and when did she know it? The debate rages on as to when Jennifer Aniston was informed of her ex-husband Brad Pitt's procreation with Angelina Jolie; the latest rumor is that she got just one day's notice, via Pitt's publicist. You didn't expect him to tell her without his mouthpiece, did you? [Page Six]
• Of course Catherine Zeta-Jones' gay rugby movie has Alan Cumming attached. It can't exist any other way! [R&M (last item)]
• Good Morning America executive producer Ben Sherwood is rumored to be facing a forced exit, presumably because he couldn't handle being less pretty than Diane Sawyer. [Lowdown]
• Life after losing on the Apprentice involves little more than returning dirty clothes to angry saleswomen. [Page Six]
• Thanks to her lost diary, we all get a glimpse into the frighteningly intellectual world of Lindsay Lohan.
• A Times sports reporter gets unacceptably frisky with a Rangers cheerleader; coincidentally, Times reporter Jason Diamos just happened to be covering the Rangers that night.
• Time Inc. brings the bloodshed, forthcoming layoffs can be considerably less painful thanks to union rules.
• Fake Writer James Frey adds a relatively un-fake author's note to existing and forthcoming editions of A Million Little Pieces.
• Let Fashion Week begin! Just don't feed the models, obviously.
• It was a week of sad farewells: Wendy Wasserstein, Coretta Scott King, and CNN film critic Paul Clinton.
• The New York Sun an innovative new circulation plan, whether you like it or not.
• Go ahead, call Nicky Hilton. She'll be happy to hear from you.
• Wonkette gets itself two new cocks and Gawker Media launches tech geek gossip rag Valleywag.
• Ryan Seacrest is no more or less Gay than last week.
• Anderson Cooper, however, is a little more Gay when he wears his gimp mask.
• Thought Alessandra Stanley's correction rate couldn't get any worse? Think again. And again. And again, if you can bear.
Today marks the first day of our favorite elitist ritual, New York Fashion Week — meaning that it's a big, skinny Christmas in Bryant Park right now! If you're not one of the chosen fags and accompanying hags cruising the tents with an invite, however, the Wall Street Journal reports that you're kind of screwed: security knows your type, and they know you only want to go to Marc Jacobs and Tuleh because you want to smell Bee Schaffer's hair.
• The world's mysteries explained: Wintour spawn Bee Schaffer was toting a 46-lb. copy of The Iliad around Fashion Week because Columbia University MADE HER. Fashion and education are an ugly combination, indeed. [The Daily]
• Yankee Alex Rodriguez treats his mistresses right, takes wife to swingers parties. [Deadspin]
• We believe that President Bush is hitting the bottle. We don't believe it was because of the devastation in New Orleans. He didn't seem bothered enough by that whole mess to fall off the wagon. [National Enquirer]
• The MTA orders a cease-and-desist for the maker of those beloved iPod subway maps. [ISM]
• Never pay retail for your TimesSelect. [John Tabin]
• Pam Anderson deprives Veuve Clicquot drinkers of their God-given right to live penguin entertainment. [Mr. Mickey]
• Ornery actor Russell Crowe looks into starting a job-training program for Australian prisons similar to that on Rikers Island. If Crowe is tried and sentenced for an "incident" in which assaulted a Mercer Hotel employee with a phone, we're sure this sort of activism will keep him safe from forced ass-fucking. [Page Six]
• The residences at 740 Park Avenue are so gilded, not even Barbra Streisand scored approval from the co-op board. [R&M]
• In Eddie Hayes' memoir, the litigator notes that the infamous Vogue editor is "physically incompetent." Great news for assistants who bruise easily. [Page Six]
• Meanwhile, Vogue editor-at-large André Leon Talley notes on Oprah that "Miss Anna don't like fat people." Big secret there. [Lowdown]
• Actress Catherine Zeta-Jones refuses a Fashion Week jeweler's gift — $50,000 ring — presumably because it didn't match her noticeably larger breasts. [Gatecrasher]
• Paris Hilton sleeps a little more soundly at night knowing that a teen has been sentenced for the hacking of her Sidekick. And so the infotainment industry exhales and Senator Durbin gets his much-needed closure. [eWEEK]
• Beyoncé pulls a David Pogue on Jay-Z. [Cityrag]
• NYC ranks as the most expensive rental market in America. We're number one! Thank you, Barbara CorcoDevil! [Forbes]
• Renée Zellwegger cites "fraud" as the reason behind her split from country singer Kenny Chesney. Huh? Did he trick her into thinking he loved her or something? [A Socialite's Life]
• Who can ever recall the name of Brooklyn's hip new band? [McSweeney's]
• Jonathan Safran Foer and Elijah Wood are extremely precocious and incredibly similar. [Radar]
• None too surprisingly, some of Fashion Week's best is far from the tents. [VV]
Outside the Fashion Week tents yesterday, the highlight of the week: A Saks promotion for their goat cashmere collection, now available in fall's hottest shades of piss.
• Italian tabloids are bubbling with news that Brad Pitt is planning to wed Angelina Jolie at George Clooney's Lake Como villa. We're not sure how true this is but, even if there's no wedding, we're sure there'll be celebratory lovemaking as they force an orphan into Clooney's possession. [R&M (2nd item)]
• Model Naomi Campbell continues to claw her way through Fashion Week, saving it from ennui up until the very last moment. For tonight's finale, Campbell has scheduled her Fashion for Relief charity show at the same time as Gwen Stefani's L.A.M.B. show, which was supposed to be the week's big closer, and Stefani's rather pissed. We're not even sure who's in the wrong here, but this bitching certainly does feel oh-so-right. [Page Six]
• Photographer Dave LaChapelle continues to rail against Jessica and Ashlee Simpson, which is about as controversial as hating the Holocaust. [Lowdown (last item)]
• So, uh, will French Vogue still let Kate Moss guest edit their December/January issue? [Page Six]
• If God is truly dead, then Michael Jackson has arrived in NYC. [Fox411]
A correspondent notes that a Google image search for "kate moss cocaine" returns one lone result: a photograph of Lindsay Lohan.
You really have to hand it to the Daily Mirror: After yesterday's front-page story starring supermodel Kate Moss — who bravely inhaled multiple lines of Bolivian marching powder — they've managed to stretch the story out to a second day, announcing that they have video footage of the event ('cause, you know, it's fun to hit the rewind button and watch Moss shoot cocaine out of her nose).
On Wednesday, when we read the news that Heather Mills McCartney stomped over to Jennifer Lopez's Sweetface clothing offices with a PETA video, our childish first instinct was to write the item with a punchline relating to her prosthetic leg. No, we decided, that's just too easy. For once, we'll not go the path of poorest possible taste.
