Stylista debuts tonight, and all the mildly-enthusiastic reviews reveal something more important than whether or not the show is actually worth watching: Apparently, we live in a world so ironic, where the line between reality and fiction has been trampled on to such an extent, that we can't even watch a woman pretend to do her job and dole out abuse to eager victims on a set created to resemble an office without suspending our disbelief for one second. Stylista's star, Elle's fashion news director Anne Slowey, is playing a part, you see, and although she's playing it quite well, that won't stop everyone from pointing out that she's doing Meryl Streep doing Anna Wintour:

Alex Rodriguez walking in Midtown with Guy Oseary ... Madonna with kids Rocco and Lourdes on a trip to Chelsea Piers ... Ashley Tisdale and Vanessa Hudgens standing outside the GMA studios ... Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes on their way to a cocktail party for All My Sons ... The Hanson brothers hanging out in Times Square for some sort of PR stunt ... Jason Schwartzman and Olivia Thirlby on the set of their new film, Bored to Death ... The cast of Gossip Girl standing on set ... Anna Wintour, Vera Wang, Tory Burch, Donna Karan, and many others walking into the Golden Heart Awards Dinner ... and a long list of notables entering last night's Whitney gala, including the host of the event, Donatella Versace.

Just as Anna Wintour could clearly care less about rumors that the Russian Vogue editor might be in line for her job, she's certainly not going to let the trifling matter of a global recession get in the way of what's important: expensive renovations of her estate in Mastic Beach, NY. Town planning minutes reveal that Wintour's applications to expand her gym and build a new 700-square-foot garage on the property were both approved. [Newsday]

♦ Anna Wintour attended the presidential debate last night at Hofstra. In Hempstead. On Long Island. Also: Is it just us, or is her hair getting lighter and lighter? [The Cut]
♦ Next week, five hundred lucky students will attend Teen Vogue's Fashion University, where for three days they'll access the wisdom of Tory Burch, Phillip Lim, Peter Som, Nanette Lepore, Monica Botkier and Cynthia Rowley. [NYDN]
♦ No, the day could not pass without Marc Jacobs being in the news for some reason: He's inked a licensing deal for swimwear, which will launch in spring '09. [WWD]

We always guessed Anna Wintour had psychic powers. The November issue of Vogue is now out, and the profile of four generations of women in Joe Biden's family appears under the headline "All the Vice President's Women." And if Anna says it's a done deal, who are we to argue? [Vogue via HuffPo]

♦ It's just such a relief to know that as the economic situation reaches new levels of bleakness, fashion journalists won't lose sight of what's important: Bows are back! Julia Restoin Roitfeld is the trend's pioneer, on the off chance that you needed persuading. [Grazia]
♦ Not quite as earth-shattering, but still important news: Maggie Gyllenhaal has jumped on the short haircut bandwagon. [Elle UK]
♦ Is the Ice Queen melting? In this heartwarming urban fairy tale, a young fan happens to see Anna Wintour in a store, and he tells her "OMG, I could just cry," but she says, "No, please don't cry," and then has Bee take a picture of the two of them. [Fashionista]

Earlier today, following the news that Vogue editrix Anna Wintour has a little crush on actor Gerard Butler, Radar compiled a list of some of Anna's known paramours. It's a strange mix of gents. B-baller LeBron James, country club hero Roger Federer, Monty Python's Eric Idle, Condé Nast chairman Si Newhouse (oohhh..), and, um, Bob Marley. Yes! Bob Marley. Heh heh. Well, because it's such a varied group of dudes, we got to wondering... who exactly would be Anna Wintour's perfect man? We tapped our Photoshop whiz Steve Dressler and employed some of our own inductive reasoning and have come up with a fellow called Archie Bronson, a writer and public speaker. Read a little about Archie and see a photo after the jump.

"She thinks he's amazing. She talks about him all the time." [Post]

♦ Michael Phelps is telling people he's single even though he's actually dating Miss California runner-up Nicole Johnson. [R&M]
♦ Peter Cook's interview with Barbara Walters airs on Friday, but Christie Brinkley's lawyers now say he violated a confidentiality agreement by speaking with the network. [OK!, ABC News]
♦ Hugh Hefner says his relationship with Holly Madison began to crumble six months ago when they found out his sperm count was too low to father any kids. Also, he's already auditioning new girlfriends. [E!]
♦ Anna Wintour's latest celebrity obsession? Gerard Butler. [P6]

This should come in handy if you've been trying to understand how Alexis Bryan, George Gurley, Bee Shaffer and Sam Shaffer are all connected to Anna Wintour: Page Six magazine has assembled the Vogue editor's family tree. [Page Six]

["Vogue" editor Anna Wintour at Paris Fashion Week yesterday; image via Splash]

♦ Kate Betts sits down with Tom Ford and Karl Lagerfeld for an interview, which was also filmed if you can cope with seeing Karl's ponytail up close. [Time]
♦ Suzy Menkes celebrates 20 years at the IHT, and fashion stars including Marc Jacobs, Karl Lagerfeld, Donatella Versace, Alber Elbaz, Anna Wintour, and John Galliano offer their video tributes. [The Moment]
♦ Sofia Coppola is designing a line of handbags and shoes for Louis Vuitton. The company must have searched far and wide to find this unknown talent so deserving of a break. [WWD]

["Vogue" editrix Anna Wintour with fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld at a Paris Fashion Week show today; image via Splash] seekingwhat's new line beats the original, "You Won't Believe Who I Have Tied Up Back At The Castle."

Looks like "Anna Wintour is at risk of being usurped by Russian Vogue editor" has officially become a meme, which we guess is what happens when everyone is desperate to talk about/write about anything other than the economy. Page Six's justification for propagating the idea today is that Elle beat Vogue in ad pages in October—hardly surprising given Elle's reality TV supremacy. We're guessing Aliona Doletskaya (left) is enjoying the attention, although she presumably knows full well she'd have to pry the job from Wintour's cold, dead hands.

In July, Aliona Doletskaya looked like just one in a series of baby Vogue editors who might someday replace Anna Wintour atop the American flagship. Then came a buzzy appearance at New York Fashion Week, a writeup in the Times, a Forbes takedown on Wintour, and, now, an embarrassing Wintour loss to Elle. Hachette's fashion title, a longtime also-ran to Vogue, surpassed its rival in October ad pages, Page Six reports. Wintour boss Si Newhouse is supposedly pissed. And Doletskaya was reportedly introduced at a Condé Nast magazine confab in Moscow as "the next editor of American Vogue" — a bit of tongue-in-cheek flattery that now threatens to become a self-fulfilling prophesy. Attached, excerpts from a May Russia Today profile of the telegenic Doletskaya. Click the video icon to watch.

♦ You probably heard the news yesterday that Clay Aiken is coming out of the closet. We thought we'd remind you again since you're undoubtedly still in a state of shock and disbelief. [P6, People]
♦ Anna Wintour took the trash out of her West Village townhouse wearing sweatpants, a t-shirt, and slippers. [R&M]
♦ Olivia Palermo's role in Whitney Port's new Hills spinoff will earn her $12,000 an episode. [P6]
♦ In response to her father's recent rants, Lindsay Lohan says her dad is out of line and "obviously needs to be on medication to control his moods." [P6]
♦ Jude Law was spotted with protestors outside the UN this week, although he was acting like "more of an observer than a protestor." [MSNBC]

♦ 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]

"Forget Anna Wintour, famed editrix of Vogue," begins a story in Forbes today. Why, we'd love to but she runs the most profitable print publication in U.S. America! But not forever, Forbes warns, in a story about Vogue's sorry internet presence and uncertain future that makes a pretty good case for the notion that Wintour's influence at her boring fashion magazine is receding. Which is good for anyone who still gets Vogue, because the magazine reached a new level of inanity in its October issue, come look!

♦ Leonardo DiCaprio's romance mojo isn't good this week: On the heels of his break up with Bar Refaeli, Gisele is banishing the memory of their relationship by selling the jewelry he gave her at auction. The October 15th Christie's sale will include a diamond pendant necklace estimated to fetch up to $150,000. [WWD]
♦ People's "Best Dressed" list, topped by Kate Hudson and including Gwyneth Paltrow, Sarah Jessica Parker and (of course) Michelle Obama, is a totally random list of averagely-dressed women who happen to have been photographed a lot lately. [People]
♦ Carla Bruni-Sarkozy was photographed in Paris last week for T's winter fashion issue, which comes out October 19th. [WWD]

• Lindsay Lohan called Sarah Palin a "narrow minded, media obsessed homophobe" on Lohan's MySpace page, citing a conference her church on "converting" gays. "She can suck it." [MySpace, Daily News]