• It's still unclear what set off Chris Brown and Rihanna's fight on Sunday night (and both have been tucked away in hiding since it occurred). Could it have had something to do with Leona Lewis? Paris Hilton? Was a sexually transmitted disease involved? One person Brown might want to consider explaining himself to is Jay-Z, who reportedly "hit the roof" when he found out about the attack and is now telling friends that Chris is a "walking dead man." [Star, OK!, Gawker, NYP]
• Mickey Rourke and Courtney Love have been secretly dating for the past three weeks. Sounds like a perfect match. [Telegraph]
• Prince Harry is in trouble for making racially-insensitive comments. [Sun]

• Retail on Madison Avenue is a mess, in case you haven't noticed. More than two dozen spaces are currently on the market. [NYT]
• The plan to move Fashion Week to Lincoln Center beginning in 2010 is a done deal. [WWD]
• Jason Wu has postponed plans to launch a fur collection this fall. The Humane Society is very pleased, unsurprisingly. [WWD, WSJ]
• Liz Claiborne is cutting 725 jobs. [MW]
• Giorgio Armani has stirred up scandal with his comments about Italy's fashion scene, and his suggestion that Paris is where it's at. [Reuters]
• Scandal! Scarlett Johansson is now a brunette. [SW]

• Two people very happy this evening: Jason Wu, who designed Michelle Obama's one-shoulder white chiffon gown; and Isabel Toledo, of course, who was responsible for the lemongrass-yellow coat and matching dress that Michelle wore to the inauguration. [NYT, AP, WWD]
• As for Malia and Sasha's outfits—and Michelle's olive gloves—don't go searching for them at J. Crew just yet. The pieces won't be available to the general public until fall. [Reuters]
• Trousergate, fashion's latest catfight: Giorgio Armani has accused Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana of copying his quited trousers; bitchy comments on both sides have followed. [Guardian]
• A first look at Alexander McQueen's new line for Target. [Nylon]
• News flash: There aren't that many blacks on the catwalks these days. [NYT]
• Profits are up at Burberry, but the company is still cutting staff. [WSJ]
• Aretha Franklin's inaugural hat can be yours for $179. [WWD]

• Gisele is engaged. [People]
• Fur is back. Jean Paul Gaultier, Karl Lagerfeld and Giorgio Armani are among the designers leading the rebellion. [Ind.]
• Despite the recession (and a gazillion lawsuits), American Apparel is one of the few retailers seeing record profits. [WWD]
• Sass & Bide has dropped out of New York Fashion Week. [Fashionista]
• With marketing budgets on the decline, more designers are looking for a boost from Hollywood's awards season. [WSJ]
• Menswear designer Ferruccio Pozzoni is departing Valentino. [Reuters]
• As expected, vacancies are up on Madison Avenue. [Crain's]
• The worst of the worst from the Stephen Sprouse party last week. [Pipeline]
• Rumor has it Elite is cutting both models and bookers. [NYM]
• Blake Lively refuses to wear anything but a size zero. The solution? The Gossip Girl costume department cuts the tags out of larger samples. [FWD]

Winter vacation is over (for most people, at least), but if the holidays left you with a depressing spare tire around your midsection and you need a reminder that nature doesn't discriminate—and plastic surgeons aren't miracle workers—the third picture from the left should boost your spirits. The identities of the four designers after the jump.

Top row (from left): Daniel Craig, Russell Simmons, David Letterman. Bottom row (from left): Giorgio Armani, Beyonce, Donatella Versace.

• In what will probably come as soul-crushing news to Arden Wohl, Mischa Barton is launching a line of headbands with Stacey Lapidus. [WWD]
• How do you rope in shoppers during a recession? Staying open 24 hours a day is one popular approach. [WSJ]
• More bad news for retail: As if the recession wasn't painful enough, snowfall during the final days of the season is expected to make things worse. [WSJ]
• Just in case you missed the news, leggings are back. [LAT]
• Tim Gunn has sent out "videotaped personal pleas" to Giorgio Armani and Donna Karan to urge them to stop using rabbit fur from China. [P6]
• Betsey Johnson is not, in fact, planning a diffusion line. [NYM]
• Sorry, folks: Burger King's meat-scented body spray, is sold out. [Racked]

• Giorgio Armani is moving ahead with his massive Fifth Avenue flagship, which he says will open on February 18th: "New York needs glamour. It needs size. This store is an act of faith toward the Americans and Fifth Avenue shoppers." [Racked]
• Alice Temperley is the latest designer to announce she's skipping a Fashion Week runway show. [WSJ]
• Tommy Hilfiger, however, is moving to the tents this year, and Max Azria says his three shows will go ahead as planned. [WWD, WSJ]
• Pamela Anderson is the newest model for Vivienne Westwood. [R29]
• Agy Deyn appears in a new, T-sponsored movie. [Fashionista]
• Donna Karan has cancelled her Christmas party. [WWD]
• What it's like to shop at Bergdorf as the wife of a Russian gazillionaire. [NYT]

♦ WWD offers a sneak peak at the ads for Charlotte Ronson's Sebastian haircare campaign that debuts in January, and let's just say the Photoshopping was not skimped on. [Fashionista]
♦ Planning to dress up as Rachel Zoe for Halloween? Of course you are. Here's a handy guide. [HuffPo via The Pipeline]
♦ Julie Gilhart of Barneys says that Rodarte's Laura and Kate Mulleavy "are two of the best designers right now." [WWD]

The notable celebrity feuds of late have all been between well-matched pugilists: take the Battle of the British Funnymen (starring Ricky Gervais and Simon Pegg) or the Jewish Comic Conflict of '08 (pitting Sarah Silverman against Jackie Mason). Now, though, word has broken about a feud between two stars so different, it's hard to imagine them even sharing airspace: fulsome serial divorcer Pamela Anderson and Oscar-honored Cate Blanchett.

♦ Charlotte Ronson continues with her role as the most respectable (and least annoying) member of Ronson family: She's signed a deal with J.C. Penney to design "a full contemporary sportswear collection" called I ♥ Ronson. [WWD]
♦ Did you sense that the fashion world had turned on its axis? That's because Richie Rich unveiled his first solo collection this past weekend in Miami Beach. [Miami New Times via Paper]
♦ Narciso Rodriguez is parting company with Liz Claiborne after an 18-month partnership; the designer will now have independent ownership of his brand. [WWD]
♦ Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen launched their Elizabeth and James line in London last night with the help of Henry Holland, Dasha Zhukova and Pixie Geldof. [FabSugar]

♦ The first painting of Kate Moss ever to be sold at auction—"a self-portrait in lipstick marked with her own lip prints and stains of her former boyfriend Pete Doherty's blood"—is expected to go for between £30,000 and £40,000 in London on Saturday. Meanwhile the subject of an upcoming show at Les Arts Décoratifs in Paris will be "the Kate Moss myth" in advertising. [Telegraph, WWD]
♦ Video of the new Prada collection (and models falling on the runway) from the show in Milan earlier this evening. [NYT]

• Wacky old Giorgio Armani is going back on his promise to PETA not to use fur in his designs. [P6]

♦ It seems like sending out company-wide emails ripping your co-workers is not a good idea: Pat O'Brien has been fired from The Insider. [R&M, P6]
♦ Brandon Davis has been conning his friends out of cash, but whenever anyone tries to get the money back "he starts crying and gets them to feel bad for him." [P6]
♦ Poor Ivana Trump almost had to fly coach this week. But then someone in first class switched seats, so everything turned out okay. Phew. [P6]
♦ Heather Mills is suing her former publicist—the one who very publicly dumped her and called her a "witch"—for libel. [P6]
♦ Anne Hathaway's been crashing on her parents' couch ever since she got booted from Raffaello Follieri's duplex. [In Touch]

The public face of PETA, Dan Mathews, has been flying around the world as usual, but instead of focusing solely on orchestrating wacky animal rights stunts, he's promoting his book, Committed: a Rabble-Rouser's Memoir, in which he describes PETA's public enemy no. 1, Anna Wintour, as looking "like she has constant, painful gas." Attacks on the Vogue editor have created some of the biggest headlines for PETA, but she remains intransigent in the face of gay ex-model Mathew's inventive campaigns:

Yes, the fashion industry is just like high school, and Times fashion critic Cathy Horyn not only said it but proved it this morning with an article detailing, in no less than 1,400 words, her own petty squabble with designer Giorgio Armani. Aramani appears to be, by far, the pettier of the two, having banned Horyn from his fashion shows over a rough review in January and having sent a bitchy letter to her bosses. But Horyn has also been catty, writing repeated melodramatic accounts of the feud and casting Armani as something of a 1980s has-been, even as she puts on analytical airs. Here's a quick summary, in Horyn and Armani's own words, of their hissy little slapfest:

Obviously unaware that fashion trends in Second Life tend to be less "chic" and more "chicken," Giorgio Armani has opened up a store in Second Life. Well thank jeebus. Now avatars can get decked out in Armani duds — horridly pixelated Second Life versions of them, anyway — and if they so desire, connect directly with the online store to spend money on actual goods. Mr. Armani, you may have a sense of style, but you don't have any business sense. The people who hang out in virtual worlds aren't the type to wear your clothes — let alone fit in them. And by buying into the metaverse hype, you're just postponing the day Second Life goes out of style once and for all.

When he wasn't busy blacking up Kate Moss for his editorial stint on Britain's Independent, designer and disembodied head/hand Giorgio Armani found time to weigh in — get it! — on the thin/fat model teapot-tempest that continues to rage. Well, maybe "rage" isn't the right word. Armani certainly plays the peacemaker, dismissing complainers as alarmists who "exaggerate the problem." And even though he admits his models have always been on "the slender side" (because his clothes must "hang correctly on the body"), the anorexic model trend ain't nothin' to do with him. As counter-example, Armani even takes time to gingerly trod on Gianni Versace's grave, all but calling his dead competitor a chubby chaser. The article's behind the Independent's subscription wall, so we present it for your delectation after the jump.

Here's the front of today's Independent (UK), guest-designed by Giorgio Armani. We've very little to add, save to say that putting Kate Moss in blackface makes it much easier to see the coke you're cutting on the cover.