It was Drew Barrymore's big night at the Ziegfeld yesterday when the new HBO movie, Grey Gardens, had its premiere. On hand for the occasion and afterparty at the Pierre: Drew's co-stars Jessica Lange and Jeanne Tripplehorn, as well as guests like Justin Long (left), Jimmy Fallon, Rudy and Judi Giuliani, Stanley Tucci, Steve Buscemi, Gay Talese, Arthur Sulzberger, Dan Abrams, Roger Friedman, Hilary Rhoda, Marc Jacobs and Lorenzo Martone, Peter Som, Jason Wu, Erin Fetherston, Kristin Wiig, Tony Sirico, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Aerin Lauder, Albert Maysles, Ashleigh Banfield and Howard Gould, Monet Mazur, Debbie Harry, Selita Eubanks, the Beastie Boys' Mike D, Ad-Roc, and MCA, Aleksandra Baryshnikov, BD Wong, and the film's director, Michael Sucsy. [PMc, Wireimage, Getty, LAT, FWD]

Saks CEO Steve Sadove was honored at a fundraising gala for the Fashion Institute of Technology last night at Cipriani 42nd Street. Sadove was presented with an award from Michael Bloomberg ("This is an evening I like to call Saks and the City!") and guests including FIT president Joyce Brown, Olivia Chantecaille, Jason Wu (left), Carolina Herrera, Tom Florio, Fern Mallis, Robbie Myers, Joe Zee, Amy Astley, Peter Som, Stacey Bendet Eisner, Susan Fales-Hill, Dan Peres, Bill Cunningham, Scott Harrison, Steven Kolb, Saks President Ronald Frasch and his wife Georgia, former State Comptroller Carl McCall, and actress Sarah Wynter. [PMc, Wireimage, NYO, FWD]

Giorgio Armani celebrated the opening of his new Fifth Avenue flagship last night with a party at the store. The designer was accompanied by his niece Roberta Armani; guests on hand included Leonardo DiCaprio (left), Carine Roitfeld, Victoria Beckham, Martin Scorsese, Michael Bloomberg, Caroline Kennedy, Joel Klein, Cindi Leive, Fern Mallis, Andre Leon Talley, Ricky Martin, Rachel Zoe, Nina Garcia, John Mayer, Mario Testino, Josh Hartnett, Liam Neeson, Richard Meier, Alicia Keys, Chace Crawford, Milla Jovovich, Thom Browne, Kevin Liles, Molly Sims, Mira Sorvino and Christopher Backus, Sally Singer, David Hershkovits, Jim Moore, Hal Rubenstein, Patrick McCarthy, Emile Hirsch, Natalia Vodianova, Zani Gugelmann, Kate Lanphear, Horacio Silva, January Jones, Elsa Pataky, Zoe Saldana, Solange Knowles, Marcus Schenkenberg, and Olivia Palermo. [PMc, Wireimage, Vogue UK, FWD, NYM]

Andrew Saffir's Cinema Society hosted a screening of He's Just Not That Into You at the Tribeca Grand on Wednesday night. Guests at the screening and after-party, hosted by Stardoll and Philosophy di Alberta Ferretti, included Lindsay Price (left), Olivia Palermo and Johannes Huebl, Michael Kors, Amy Sacco, Anne Hearst and Jay McInerney, Rachel Roy, America Ferrera, Helena Christensen, Eva Amurri, Mamie Gummer, Cuba Gooding Jr., Maggie Rizer, Annelise Peterson, Zoe Kravitz, Lisa Bonet, Lorenzo Martone, Marina Rust Connor, Chris Benz, Christian Siriano, Reed Krakoff, Dori Cooperman, Taylor Momsen, Carson Kressley, Poppy Delevigne, Jane Seymour, Genevieve Jones, Patricia Clarkson, Shoshanna Lonstein Gruss, Irina Pantaeva, Dylan Lauren, Jeff Gordon, Kiera Chaplin, Liam McMullan, Derek Blasberg, and one of the stars of the film, Ginnifer Goodwin. [PMc, Wireimage, VF, Style.com, NYO, FWD]

The few dozen people who still read print magazines will have noticed that the January glossies are more anorexically skinny than ever before. Elle is no exception, so it's no wonder that the mag is determined to pin its fortunes on a medium that remains relevant: TV. But since Joe Zee and Anne Slowey's uninspired (and lightly-viewed) Stylista has officially failed to make up for Elle's loss of Project Runway, Hollywood powerhouse agency CAA has just been tasked with finding new shows for Elle. So if you've got a concept that's brilliantly novel but still involves the humiliation of striving wannabes, elimination rounds featuring dramatic pauses/clunky music, and plenty of tears and tantrums, you now know where to pitch.

Tina Brown's party earlier this week to celebrate the launch of her new site, The Daily Beast, could have just as easily served as an early birthday bash: The famed editor turns 55 today. Indie film powerhouse Christine Vachon is turning 46. Bjork is 43. Goldie Hawn is 63. Publicist Mara Buxbaum is 41. Retired football player Michael Strahan is celebrating his 37th. Actress Cherry Jones is 52. Real estate developer Daniel Brodsky is 44. Norman Siegel, civil rights lawyer and perennial candidate for public office, is 65. Congresswoman Yvette Clark is 44. Nicollette Sheridan is 45. And actress Marlo Thomas is 71. Weekend birthdays after the jump.

On last night's episode of Stylista, the contestants were divided into teams and tasked with devising a "shopping" page, one of those cheap-to-create catalogue-ish pages that highlight an alleged trend. When the hour of judgment rolled around, one team got roundly scolded by Joe Zee and Anne Slowey for not bothering to include store details and prices because, Anne frowned, what on earth is the point of looking at something if she cannot instantly totter off to purchase it? Elle would never feature clothes that aren't actually available to anyone, right? Um, not exactly, as the Times' Eric Wilson discovers during an intrepid investigation into what those three tantalizing little words, "price upon request," actually mean.

♦ 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]

♦ If Sarah Palin was on the cover of Elle, what would she look like? "Two words," says Joe Zee: "Blowout and contact lenses." That's actually four words, Joe, but we get the point. [Daily Intel]
♦ Today in bizarre publicity stunts: Wal-Mart is opening a pop-up store in Times Square, and will also have a truck "roving around the city to celebrate the launch of AC/DC's new album." [Reuters via Curbed]
♦ Kelly Cutrone won't be appearing on Whitney Port's new show on MTV: "I didn't really feel like it was a great idea to be on a spinoff of a spinoff of a spinoff." [The Cut]
♦ Sofia Coppola's goal in designing for Louis Vuitton was "to create the perfect bag that doesn't exist." The result is the $2,190 "SC" purse. [IHT]

♦ Last night Jessica Stam hosted an impossibly chic soiree in Paris, which was attended by Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen, Emma Watson, Leigh Lezark, Lauren Santo Domingo, Kate Bosworth, Lazaro Hernandez, Tinsley Mortimer, Alexander Wang, and Ryan McGinley. [stylefile]
♦ Stylista has released a preview, and the most interesting details are: They've cast a fat girl for dramatic tension, and Anne Slowey, for all her Ice Queen imperiousness, can't walk in her four inch heels. Oh, and it looks like Joe Zee's going to be a big bitch to the contestants. [Jezebel]
♦ What does the fashion world think of Sarah Palin's outfit choices? It's a chorus of "no comment," except for Simon Doonan, who offers some advice: "Nothing she wears will cause anyone to budge, so she might as well enjoy her clothes and go for a little flamboyance. I'm seeing a little Jackie Rogers, a little vintage Mackie." [WWD]

J.Lo isn't one of them, but Elle creative director Joe Zee isn't suffering from a shortage of notable friends on Facebook. Just a few of the 1,714 people you might recognize: Narciso Rodriguez, Alice Roi, Samantha Ronson, Charlotte Ronson, Jane Rosenthal, Anne Slowey, Al Reynolds, Leven Rambin, Lara Shriftman, Horacio Silva, Russell Simmons, Peter Som, Natalia Vodianova, Pam Wasserstein, Linda Wells, Daria Werbowy, Emil Wilbekin, Arden Wohl, Dennis Basso, Hamish Bowles, Bryan Boy, Maer Roshan, Ramona Brodsky...

» The Liv Tyler-hosted party for Hearts on Fire diamonds at the Rose Bar was the hottest ticket in one of the busiest social weeks of the year: Leonardo DiCaprio, Alexandra & Theodora Richards (who DJed), Keith Richards, Elizabeth Banks, Catherine Keener, Mena Suvari, Dave Navarro, Ellen von Unwerth, Tara Subkoff, Alan Cumming, Tinsley Mortimer, Adrian Grenier, Sean Avery, Emma Roberts, Monet Mazur, Richie Rich, Ingrid Sischy, Jamie Burke, Russell Simmons, Lauren Santo Domingo, Diego Garcia, Andrew Saffir and Daniel Benedict all stopped by. [The Daily/Paper]

» The scene at Michael Kors was inevitably the central portion of the fashion industry/magazine world/reality TV venn diagram: Nina Garcia, Rachel Zoe with her client Joy Bryant, Heidi Klum, Joanna Coles, and Joe Zee drew the limelight away from Kelly Killoren Bensimon, Aerin Lauder Zinterhofer, Blake Lively, Bette Midler, and Kors' mom Joan. On the runway the (smiling!) models, who were told "you are the most glamorous beach bums in the world," showed off middle-of-the-road, cheerful outfits with polka dots and gingham aplenty. [NYO, NYDN, IHT]

Cityfile compiled a booklet of Faces at Fashion Week and posted it online so people like you could have your own glamorous little liquid crystal menagerie to admire right at your very own venue of indentured servitude. Look, Carine Roitfeld! The Ronsons! Andre Leon Talley and Kelly Cutrone and two separate Hearsts! And the most startling realization upon clicking and resetting text size enough to read the goddamn thing…

Well if it isn't a blessing from the Gawker Media Gods who brought us that pretty fundamentalist rape victim hating Alaska Governess! The Style Network plans to double your viewing rations of Project Runway judge Nina Garcia! This was known already, actually, but now there are details: the show is called Running in Heels and revolves around the staff of Marie Claire magazine, Elle having fired Garcia after deciding to make a reality show featuring Garcia rival Anne Slowey. Nina vs. Anne! Elle vs. Marie Claire! It is like Road Rules vs. The Real World, only…something we'll actually set our DVRs for! But can the show be anywhere near as awesome as the reality-TV-esque circumstances that enabled it to be?Nina told me1 last month she'd had plenty of offers to do other shows before, but didn't want to do a makeover show. She hasn't: According to Marie Claire, Running In Heels intends to "offer unprecedented behind-the-scenes access to Marie Claire and the stylish, smart women who put the magazine together each month," including "private video confessionals," in which "viewers will learn how the interns cope with their jobs, their superiors and each other." That sounds so good!!! Except, of course, for two things: 1. Seriously, it's Marie Claire.2 How bad could the bullshit be at Marie Claire? The show runs the risk of being as boring as Vogue's stupid three million dollar "documentary" web show no one except Tatiana watches. At least Elle's Stylista has the virtue of being watchable, at minimum, as a trainwreck. 2. It's going to be on the Style Network. Which is owned by Comcast, unlike new Project Runway host Lifetime, which is half-owned by Marie Claire publisher Hearst. What kind of entertainment conglomerate snatches up Nina Garcia only to not air her new foray into "docu"-reality TV? Something is off there. My guess is that Nina, who is pretty controlling of her image, did not want to make a campy gossipy addictive voyeuristic Devil Wears Prada-type reality show when she is already, you know, famous.

After foolishly losing hold of megastar editor and Project Runway judge Nina Garcia, Elle has been scrambling to recreate its TV buzz with a reality fashion show called Stylista, in which contestants vie to become a fashion editor. The presumptive star of this effort, Anne Slowey, starts with several strikes against her. She did an unconvincing Miranda Priestly imitation in an embarrassing trailer for Stylista; looked like the loopy hippie to Garcia's polished fashion plate in a New York magazine profile and some Web videos; and came up through the ghettoized editorial side of Elle rather than the fashion side. Enter Sunday's Page Six Magazine profile of Elle creative director Joe Zee, "the celeb whisperer" who, face it, is poised to be Elle's real breakout TV star, Slowey be damned. There are any number of reasons, but you can start with the fact that Zee got Scarlett Johansson and Keira Knightley to pose naked together in Vanity Fair:

Is fashion too gay? I know, I know, that is like asking, "do Americans love Jesus too much?" Like, maybe they do, but in general neither side is attempting to carbomb the other into submission and that is why Toqueville loved it here! But speaking of French transplants: many in the publishing world believe that Elle, America's second-biggest (and first-best) fashion magazine, has gotten "too gay" under great helmsman Joe Zee, who succeeded longtime "director" Gilles Bensimon, a lecherous Euro modelizer (who once was married to 'Elle' Macpherson!). Gilles was pushed out of the magazine in a protracted power struggle with Editor-in-chief Robbie Myers* that famously culminated in the firing of style director (and least gay person on Project Runway) Nina Garcia, and in came Joe at the beginning of last year. Gilles, who basically defined the magazine's look after 22 years in the job, liked to celebrate the "Essence of Woman"; Joe, a refugee from the male shopping rag Vitals, is more of an "Essence of Faghag" type. Opening arguments after the jump!Here, boiled down, are the arguments pro and con, which I gleaned in the process of chronicling the Anne Slowey-Nina Garcia Project Runway Stylista saga a couple weeks ago. As a non-consumer of fashion, I don't have a very strong personal opinion on the matter, but I bet I know someone who does! (Ha ha ha, well, my boss duh.) JOE ZEE'S ELLE = TOO GAY. Joe Zee is too gay. He is so gay he immediately brought in his gay boyfriend to work as the web editor. He thinks everyone should dress like Mary-Kate Olsen and he only likes gay celebrities like Mariah and Lindsay, except he is probably over Linds now that she is actually really gay. Everyone who loves him and thinks he is so nice is just fooled by the fact that he is a gay man and everyone knows gay men act nicer than straight men but deep down they are STILL MEN. Also he has ADD and is a self-promoter. When Gilles and Nina and their crew were running things, the magazine was classier and not so trendy and the halls were filled with the sounds of cool accents screaming at one another. Now everyone screams in American. Gilles' style was more timeless and feminine and less consumerporny and that's how it differentiated itself from Vogue. And seriously, why do you think Gilles is Tyra's favorite photographer? JOE ZEE'S ELLE = JUST GAY ENOUGH Whatevs! You are in America now, and in America people who like fashion (Marc! Tom! Christian Siriano!) are GAY. Like is it just through some bizarre series of unrelated circumstances that Elle resurrected its whole business thanks to its appearance on the gayest show on the gay network? And where do you expect all those mediagays to work, anyway? Men's magazines???? Hahahahahahahaha sorry, but the Fashion Week galas are just slightly better in women's! Oh, and Joe's boyfriend can actually code HTML, which is just a little more than slightly more qualified than we might say for that ex-wife Gilles made "editor in chief" of Elle Accessories! In any case, the rising generation of fashion consumers is a bunch of Fashion Spot-posting Project Runway marathoning MK-idolizing Santogold-muxtaping Andy Sachs wannabes with just the sort of warped priorities that sell fashion magazines, and you know what? When that generation invariably arrives in New York to waste its twenties buying boots and learning the hard way that there is no such thing as a free bump, it is going to need some real friends and guess what THOSE FRIENDS ARE ALL GAY. Okay everybody, recess! We'll follow up with some exhibits from both sides once we're reunited with our scanners.

1) Piaget launched its new Limelight Paris-New York Collection last night with a party at The Loft & Garden at Rockefeller Center, where Leighton Meester and Emmy Rossum (left) mingled with Liv Tyler, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Becki Newton, Mena Suvari, Joe Zee, Lisa Anastos, Lydia Fenet, Allison Aston, Adam Lippes, Roopal Patel, Zoe Kravitz, Philippe Leopold-Metzger, Geoffrey Bradfield, Gillian Miniter, Kate Schelter, Meredith Melling Burke, and Paul Sevigny. [FWD, PMc]

1) Donna Karan's annual designer garage sale in support of the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund was co-hosted by InStyle and Kelly Ripa on Saturday. Betsey Johnson, Lydia Hearst, Euan Rellie, Lorraine Bracco, Jessica Stam, Katie Lee Joel, Debbie Matenopoulos, Hana Soukupova, Charlotte Ronson, and Nanette Lepore browsed stalls manned by the likes of Rachel Zoe and Shoshanna Lonstein Gruss, raising $3.6 million. [FWD]

1) The 303's new gallery in Chelsea was christened last night with a performance by The Virgins and partiers Lisa Spellman, Kirsten Dunst, Matt Creed, Thurston Moore, Serge Becker, Anna Sui, Byrdie Bell, Cynthia Rowley, Poppy de Villeneuve, Genevieve Jones, Julia Restoin-Roitfeld and Magnus Berger (left), Jessica Stam, Marilyn Minter, Sean MacPherson, and Rogan Gregory. [PMc/FWD]