♦ Amusing bits from profile of Marc Jacobs from Rolling Stone, which was reprinted in the Sunday Times: He's now up to 30 tattoos and he spends at least two hours a day at the David Barton Gym. As for his ex, Jason Preston, he has this to say: "I've had boyfriends who were media whores... I don't want to make the same mess again." [Times UK]
♦ If you've wondered why Victoria Beckham's collection of dresses looks like the work of Roland Mouret, there's good reason: Mouret served as Posh's "mentor." [Vogue UK]
♦ Inexplicably, Lindsay Lohan's legwear line is "selling like hotcakes." [NYDN]
♦ Anna Wintour really wants to reiterate that she has no plans to leave Vogue: "With so much uncertainty, one thing is certain: Vogue," read the mag's ad in yesterday's New York Times. [Fashionologie]

UNICEF's 5th annual Snowflake Gala took place on Wednesday night at Cipriani 42nd Street. Bryant Gumbel entertained the crowd of 500 and Lucy Liu was honored with the Danny Kaye Humanitarian award. Attendees included Michael Bloomberg, Jenna and Barbara Bush, Maggie Betts, Roland Betts, Lauren Bush and David Lauren (left), Marcus Samuelsson, Charlie Trotter, Charlotte Moss, Pamela Fiori, Gillian Miniter, Douglas Hannant and Frederick Anderson, Elyse Newhouse, Donny Deutsch, Alexandra Lebenthal, Jessica Joffe, Tea Leoni, Matt Lauer, Meredith Melling Burke, Cynthia Lufkin, and CNN's Sanjay Gupta. [PMc, Wireimage, Style.com, The Daily]

"I have no intention of leaving American Vogue now or in the foreseeable future." [Post]

♦ Mimosa yellow is the color of 2009. [Vogue]
♦ Massive discounts helped lead to a 15 percent boost in sales on Cyber Monday. [WSJ]
♦ Retailers are pulling out all the stops to lure customers to stores this holiday season. [NYT]
♦ Anna on the recession: "I see a lot of people in my industry who are over-reacting. Stores that are over-discounting, designers who are creating collections for the price and what sells rather than to reflect who they are." [Jezebel]
♦ Topshop is "definitely" opening in NYC by the end of March. Ha. [Glamour]
♦ Happy accidents: Lumigan, a drug used to treat glaucoma, makes your eyelashes longer and prettier, too. [MSNBC]

♦ Anna Wintour has responded to rumors she's leaving Condé Nast: "I have no plans to leave American Vogue now or in the foreseeable future." [NYO]
♦ Chris Matthews could be seriously considering quitting MSNBC to run for Senate. Or he could be using it as a negotiating tactic. [Politico]
♦ The Grammy noms were announced last night, in case you missed it. [AP]
♦ NBC has halted production of Knight Rider. [THR]
♦ More on the changes afoot at Random House. [NYO]
♦ ABC will air Homeland Security USA, a reality show produced in cooperation with the Department of Homeland Security, in January. Really. [NYT]

Although the business of journalism is currently in the process of imploding, the romance of journalism remains. So while journalists can't find jobs any more, they can at least take comfort in the fact that they are very attractive subjects for Hollywood! The Sundance Film Festival released its lineup today, and there are no less than three documentaries that are all about the drama of the A-list press. They could all conceivably be good, although Anna Wintour sounds like a far more compelling subject than Nick Kristof:

Conde Nast boss Si Newhouse will have you know that that rumor going around about him going to Europe to work out the details of replacingVogue editor Anna Wintour with her French counterpart is utter hogwash! "This is the silliest rumor I ever heard," Condé Nast's Si Newhouse told us via flack (first quoted in the Wall Street Journal). "There is no truth to it." Si finally sent in his denial from Europe, where he is, ah, not talking to anybody about any magazine jobs. [Pic: NYO]

♦ Condé Nast is denying rumors that Si Newhouse plans to replace Anna Wintour at Vogue. "The silliest rumor I ever heard," says a rep. [NYO, WSJ, WWD]
♦ Julia Restoin Roitfeld's response to the suggestion her mom might be taking over for Anna: "She loves Paris too much—she'd never leave." [The Cut]
♦ Zac Posen is working on a new diffusion line. [FWD]
♦ Londoners will get their first taste of Posh Spice's new fashion line tomorrow. [Times UK]
♦ Love Saves the Day, the iconic store in the East Village, is closing. [Racked]
♦ Will fashion shows survive the recession? Some may not. [WSJ]
♦ Bridal designer Gabriella Risatti is making copies of Carrie's Vivienne Westwood wedding dress from the Sex and the City for $15,000. [NYP]

♦ No official confirmation yet, but media insiders say David Gregory has been tapped to take over as host of Meet the Press. [Politico]
♦ It's rumored Carine Roitfeld is replacing Anna Wintour at Vogue. [Gawker]
♦ A former employee of Charles Kushner is accusing him of funneling cash from his real estate empire to prop up Jared Kushner's Observer. [Daily Intel]
♦ Harvey Weinstein owes Cindy Adams $10,000. [NYP]
♦ Condé Nast has shuttered its social networking site Flip.com. [Gawker]
♦ CBS is producing a new hidden camera show with Ashton Kutcher. [NYT]
♦ Katie Couric has a new haircut, in case you haven't noticed. [HuffPo]
♦ Arianna Huffington's how-to book for aspiring bloggers. [Jossip]
♦ Ever fantasized about having lunch with Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel? You can—for $2,500. [NYO]

The Waverly Inn was crawling with Condé Nast insiders earlier tonight, some of whom had been waiting as long as 20 years for the appetizer: The hot, delicious rumor that Si Newhouse was meeting in Paris with Carine Roitfeld to work out the final details of the French Vogue editor's move to New York, where she is expected to take over flagship Vogue from Anna Wintour immediately after New Year's. It did not go unnoticed when Condé Nast overlord Newhouse departed early for his annual three-week December vacation in Vienna; it turns out he needed time for his meeting with uptight Wintour's chic Parisian counterpart.

♦ Christian Siriano plans to make it work with Payless: The Project Runway winner is teaming up with the company on a line of footwear and handbags that will launch next fall. [NYP]
♦ Today was Cyber Monday, the day when online retailers kick off the holiday season with super-steep discounts. It didn't turn out to be a great day for Bloomingdale's and J. Crew: both watched their websites crash this morning. [Crain's, USA Today]
♦ In case you forgot to issue your congratulations, Anna Wintour headed off to Buckingham Palace last week to pick up whatever is it you are given when you're named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire. [Vogue UK]

♦ Going shopping on Friday? Expect bargains galore. "This could be the most heavily promotional Black Friday in history," says National Retail Federation president Tracy Mullin. [WWD, WSJ]
♦ At last night's British Fashion Awards, Luella Bartley was "thrilled" to be named British Designer of the Year, while Model of the Year, 19-year-old Jourdan Dunn, stole the evening with a tearful acceptance speech. [WWD]
♦ Last year a documentary team followed Anna Wintour, André Leon Talley, and the rest of the Vogue team around as they put together their biggest-ever September issue. Does the fact that the film is "creating heat" as a potential Sundance entry mean that the rest of us might get to see it one day? [Reuters]

Just because your mother is the most important person in fashion, designers fight to dress you, you're top of every party-planner's guest-list, and you had a newspaper column at the age of 18, that doesn't mean the idea of graduating from college and trying to find a job in this economic climate isn't scary: "I finish in May," says Columbia student Bee Shaffer, "and I'm really nervous about the fact nobody's hiring right now." If it helps, Bee, we have a strange feeling—a premonition, even—that someone, somewhere, will take pity on you and offer some lowly little entry-level editorial position, just so you can pay the bills and hold your head high.

Hope you didn't try and cheat on your taxes last year or pull some sort of shady maneuver that you were hoping no one would notice. With the state now facing an unprecedented budget shortfall, tax authorities are now pushing people who haven't paid their outstanding tax bills to pay up in a hurry. Ralph Lauren had to hand over $4.18 million in back taxes recently, a debt related to taxes on his Gulfstream jet (photo here), although the fashion mogul says he plans to fight the ruling. Secretive billionaire Ira Rennert has been battling the state over a tax bill imposed on his holding company, the Renco Group, although he's since settled the case by coughing up $1.77 million. And Shelby Bryan, Anna Wintour's boyfriend (and the father of Alexis Bryan), also had to write a hefty check to New York State recently. In August, he handed over $976,222, although the IRS also hit him with a $1.6 million lien for outstanding federal taxes. Looks like Anna may not be able to retire so soon after all!

• Anna Wintour's daughter Bee Shaffer, the aspiring journalist, is graduating from Columbia in May and is "really nervous about the fact nobody's hiring right now." If she gets desperate she could take one of those awful personal assistant jobs working for a magazine editor. (She won't get desperate.) [NYM]

NY mag's fashion blog The Cut ran into the Vogue editrix Wintour at the National Book Awards this week. They politely (we assume!) asked her about the rumors that she might retire. They are (sort of) substantive rumors and it's a question about her job, not her personal life, so you'd think that she'd respond as courteously as she could. Except, no she didn't. She gave 'em the ol' heave-ho:

♦ If you have the nerve to approach Anna Wintour at a public event and ask her an uncomfortable question, don't be the least bit surprised if tells you to get lost. [The Cut]
♦ Madonna's latest fashion faux-pas? A green Louis Vuitton dress by Marc Jacobs, which "looks as if someone poured a wheelbarrow of lawn clippings all over her," bitches fashion critic Hilary Alexander. "Just another horrific hiccup in the wardrobe of a woman of wealth, but no taste." [Telegraph]
♦ Karolina Kurkova is the world's sexiest woman, according to E!, belly button or no belly button. [Reuters]
♦ Yes, it's 30 degrees outside, so why not distract yourself by watching footage of Brazil's Clara Rio Summer event, including Natalia Vodianova and Byrdie Bell showing off on the dance floor? [Vogue UK]

Gucci celebrated the launch of its Tattoo Heart Collection on Wednesday, a line of products that benefits UNICEF. Rihanna, who is the new face of the campaign, was joined Gucci creative director Frida Giannini at a snowflake lighting ceremony at the Grand Army Plaza, which was followed by an event at Gucci's flagship and dinner at the Plaza's Oak Room. Guests included Madonna, Penn Badgley, Blake Lively, Adrian Grenier, Monet Mazur, Timbaland, Mary J. Blige, Erin Wasson, Becki Newton and Chris Diamantopoulos, Kelly Rutherford, Patricia Field, Charlotte Ronson, Shoshanna Lonstein Gruss, Jessica Joffe, Julia Restoin Roitfeld, Mamie Gummer, Eleanor Ylvisaker, Bethenny Frankel, Anja Rubik, Hal Rubenstein, Magnus Berger, Joe Zee, Kelly Killoren Bensimon, Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch, and Maggie Betts. [Style.com, NYO, PMc, Wireimage]

♦ Paris Hilton has broken up with Benji Madden after nine months of dating, reportedly so she can return to the party circuit and possibly reunite with her ex, Stavros Niarchos. The second part of Paris' plan might be tougher than she thought, though, since Stavros may have his eye on Annabelle Dexter-Jones. [Star, People, P6]
♦ Anna Wintour's reps say she has no intention of leaving Vogue. And she has no plans to accept a "cultural post" in Barack Obama's White House either, just so you know. [MSNBC]
♦ Have Madonna and Guy Ritchie finally reached a divorce settlement? The couple has supposedly sealed a deal that will let Madge keep her cash and allow Rocco and David to spend half their time living with Guy in England. [ThisIsLondon]
♦ Winona Ryder's British Airways flight had to make a special landing in London yesterday after she fell ill, allegedly because she "accidentally overdosed" on Xanax. [The Sun, NYDN]

Vogue editor "to accept a 'cultural post of some sort for the Obama White House,' according to at least one person in the magazine industry." [Scoop, second item]