Project Runway is all about vision and delusion. The vision to make designers use difficult fabrics. The delusion that burlap must be ugly. The vision to give the models control. The delusion that anyone cares what they think.

• Mayor Bloomberg has pronounced it "Sparkle Week" in NYC as part of an effort to give a boost to the jewelry industry. They sure could use the help: Retailers in the Diamond District report that sales have dropped by more than 50 percent over the past year. [NYM, Crain's]
• Jil Sander's new Madison Avenue store has opened its doors. [Racked]
• Lauren Hutton was injured while surfing a couple of weeks ago, but she's still hoping to make it to the Costume Institute ball. [NYM]
• Is Chloe Sevigny single-handedly trying to bring back the sandals-and-socks look, or was the combo of sun and booze at Coachella to blame? [Frisky, JJ]

• Why do people like to watch models falling down? "Is it because us mere mortals love to take pleasure in seeing the beautiful go down? Is it fashion show turned fashion spectacle? Is it the same logic as watching a car crash?" Yes, yes, and yes. [Pipeline]
• Editors who turned up to Gareth Pugh's show in Paris were shown an 8-minute video instead of a runway show. The same one that appeared online. Surprise! [Fashionologie, Fashionista]
• Meet Ruth, Marc Jacobs's secret weapon on Bleecker Street. [Racked]
• Kenneth Cole cut 10 percent of his workforce last week. [Reuters]
• PETA's new anti-fur campaign features strippers. Classy. [Gawker]
• Lou Doillon is opening a concept store in Paris later this year. [Fashionista]
• Rebecca Taylor is introducing a line of shoes and jewelry. [FWD]
• Badgley Mischka's new ad campaign was shot by Annie Leibovitz and features Eva Longoria, Brooke Shields, Lauren Hutton and Anjelica Huston. [SW]
• What you can expect to see when Topshop finally opens on April 2. [NYM]

Renee Zellweger and boyfriend Dan Abrams walking around on the Upper East Side ... Hugh Jackman having a picnic in Central Park with his wife and kids ... Daniel Radcliffe leaving Morandi on Waverly Place ... Agyness Deyn walking in the Village ... Kirsten Dunst smoking on the sidewalk ... Isla Fisher arriving at JFK with her daughter Olive ... Whitney Port getting coffee with City co-star Allie Crawford in the West Village ... Sarah Jessica Parker leaving her townhouse on Charles Street ... Lauren Hutton walking with a friend in the East Village ... Madonna, Guy Ritchie, and the kids heading into the Kabbalah Center ... Amy Adams arriving at JFK ... and Samantha Ronson leaving the Bowery Hotel.

• Tory Burch appears to have lost her shot at winning the title of Mom of the Year: On a flight from Miami to NYC, the designer/society staple was spotted lounging in first class while her kids and nanny had to make do with coach. [P6]
• Olivia Palermo still seems to think her gig on MTV's The City is going to help her become a "serious actress," poor thing. [P6]
• Tom Cruise was photographed touching Katie Holmes' stomach, so obviously she must be pregnant, no? [OK!]
• Paris Hilton is in London this week. And she's providing lots of entertainment to the British public. She's already announced that she has no plans to choose Amy Winehouse as her new BFF, she doesn't know who the country's prime minister is, and she isn't planning to date Prince Harry out of "respect" for Chelsy Davy. [TS, DM, Hello]

Interview recently sent addled Bravo awards crasher Lauren Hutton to interview sometimes actress Lindsay Lohan, a pairing that evokes an episode of Iconoclasts filmed as the fold-out chairs are stacked after an AA meeting.

♦ Heidi Klum, Adriana Lima, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Karolina Kurkova were just a few of the models who took to the stage in Miami this weekend for the Victoria's Secret show where the company unveiled its latest publicity stunt at the celeb-packed event, the $5 million Black Diamond Fantasy Miracle Bra by jeweler Martin Katz. [Vogue UK, E!, ABC]
♦ Prada is gamely adapting to the economy by launching a new line of purses that are all—gasp—under $1,000. [Nylon]
♦ As if today's tiny fashion victims don't have enough to choose from, Jean Paul Gaultier has inked a licensing deal to make children's clothes. [WWD]
♦ Vanity Fair's fashion department tried to go on a $150,000 shopping spree à la Sarah Palin and discovered it's actually kind of hard to blow that kind of cash. [VF]

John Mack probably won't be celebrating much this year given the financial crisis, but the Morgan Stanley CEO turns 64 today. Also turning 64 on this Monday: SNL creator Lorne Michaels and Danny DeVito. Martin Scorsese is celebrating his 66th. Lauren Hutton is 65. Howard Dean turns 60. Former MTV House of Style host Daisy Fuentes is turning 42. Drag performer RuPaul, is turning 48. Isaac Hanson, of the Hanson brothers, turns 28. In the weddings department, hotelier Ian Schrager tied the knot with another former ballerina on Saturday night named Tania Wahlstedt. And Rob Speyer, the president of Tishman Speyer and son of real estate billionaire Jerry Speyer, married Anne-Cecilie Engell over the weekend.

♦ Lauren Hutton is the new face of the Olsens' clothing line, reportedly, although it's not clear whether that means the younger Elizabeth and James label or the more high-end The Row. Ashley Olsen on the 64-year-old actress: "She's just a wise woman and she's a traveler and she's obviously a style icon." [Vogue UK]
♦ The Olsens' appearance on Oprah yesterday was noteworthy for many reasons, but none more than the fact that Ashley totally lies about what she eats for breakfast. [Fashionista]
♦ Donatella Versace must not be too worried about the recession: Versace is launching a perfume in a "that comes in a gleaming, hand-stitched white leather train case." The price: $2,100. [WWD]

Jerry Ford,* the (dapper!) fellow pictured here, is dead at 83.** Ford founded Ford Models, one of the leading agencies in the seventies and eighties that legitimized the industry and gained renown for discovering Lauren Hutton, Christie Brinkley, Rachel Hunter, Vendela and sundry other blonde ubermodeltypes and OMG I totally forgot about Xuxa. Ford is slightly less famed for its canny picking of future Mouseketeer Gone Wild types: the agency represented Lindsay Lohan and Mischa Barton, Ashley Tisdale, Courteney Cox, Ali Larter and ha ha ha we will forgive him for this but Paris Hilton. Because Jerry Ford was the first genuinely decent boss in a business characterized by predatory "robber barons." A lot has changed since Ford's heyday, and not for the better!The robber barons, for one thing, are back. As our anonymous industry friend and Jezebel contributor Tatiana tells us, most modeling agencies these days are glorified human traffickers that occupy a place on the "usury" spectrum somewhere between Payday Loan shops and actual armed robbers. Agencies stick them in overcrowded model apartments and gouge them on rent. When they are not in "demand," they're forced to work for either clothes or nothing at all; when they are in demand, they're forced to walk 28 shows in a week and that sort of nonsense. Ford was different. He instituted a five-day workweek, paid models every Friday even when clients didn't pay up, and ran a practically Victorian institution wherein models weren't allowed to host gentleman callers. I don't even think he knew how to get coke! Obviously all that shit is gone today. In any case, Ford sold out to a private equity firm in December and his son who is still involved in the company is apparently (duh) a modelizer. We welcome any and all old Ford Model cards, hot Courteney Cox pix, links to that cute Lindsay Lohan-Mischa Barton catalog picture that surfaced sometime last year and/or clips of that retarded Xuxa show. Jerry Ford, Man Behind The Models

Jerry Ford, co-founder of Ford Models with his wife Eileen, died on Sunday. The industry pioneer, who invented the notion of having models represent specific brands exclusively—the first being Lauren Hutton for Revlon—was 83. His daughter, Katie Ford, remains on the board of directors of the agency, which is now owned by the investment bank Stone Tower Equity Partners. [NYT]

Liv Tyler pushing her son in a stroller outside their West Village townhouse ... Chuck Schumer and Al Sharpton walking through Midtown ... Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos filming a cooking segment with their son for Live with Regis & Kelly ... Lauren Hutton wearing shorts and sneakers on a walk downtown ... Rumer Willis posing in a party dress outside the David Letterman show ... Madonna's kids, Lourdes, Rocco, and David, playing in Central Park with the nanny ... and Brody Jenner leaving a dinner at Cipriani Downtown.

• Haven't seen Isaac Mizrahi around much lately? That's because he's been holed up making his own pomade, since the product he usually uses is no longer on the market. If all goes well, he might sell his new creation and call it I-Hair. [Page Six]

Held last night in New York and scheduled to air next Thursday, Bravo's A-List Awards are billed as a night celebrating "the best in Food, Fashion, Beauty, Design and Weatherman Lap-Dance Dispensation." BravoTV.com has already started building buzz by leaking highlights online, including Lauren Hutton acceptance speech for a "beauty icon" award. In it, she first admits to having been "up for 46 hours," before launching into a stream-of- sleep- deprived-consciousness which encompassed, in no particular order, her thoughts of guacamole-preparation, the ozone layer, and the promiscuity-engendering properties of testosterone. So confounding was her monologue that during the commercial break, it took the combined efforts of Tom Colicchio, Santino Rice, and Carson Kressley just to pry apart the paralyzed furrows in a deeply perplexed Tim Gunn's brow. [BravoTV.com]

• Charlie Sheen and wife-to-be Brooke Mueller are getting married tonight. The bride might already be pregnant, and Denise Richards might be planning to crash the party with her reality show camera crew. Should be fun! [Rush & Molloy]