Nearly half of India's population lives on less than $1.25 per day. And yet Vogue India thought everyday Indians would be perfect models for a $10,000 Hermes handbag, $200 Burberry umbrella and $100 Fendi baby bib. The models' lack of teeth and shoes and their dirt flooring only made the products look all the more attractive to India's growing upper class, apparently. But thousands of indebted Indian farmers committed suicide over the past decade, leading one local newspaper columnist to call the ads "tacky... downright distasteful... [an] example of vulgarity." Vogue India editor Priya Tanna thinks her critics are being way too glum:

1) As well as something going on in Denver this week, there's also been some tennis! The 8th Annual USTA Serves' OPENing Gala was on Monday: Roger Federer's No. 1 fan Anna Wintour was there, although judging by the look on the face of the man standing behind her, some tennis fans weren't especially impressed by the sight of the Vogue editrix. Other attendees included Martha Stewart, Michael Bloomberg and Diana Taylor, Keisha and Forest Whitaker, Maria Sharapova, Boris Becker, Chris Evert, and Oscar de la Renta. [Wireimage, Getty/Jezebel]

Anna Wintour, John Lithgow, and Les Moonves and Julie Chen (left) watching a match at the US Open ... Rachael Ray buying fruits and veggies at the Greenmarket ... The four American Idol judges on a red carpet at Chelsea Piers ... Supermodel Miranda Kerr taking a stroll downtown ... Don Cheadle waving outside the David Letterman show ... ... Carmen Electra blowing kisses from her SUV ... Khloe and Kourtney Kardashian acting like idiots at JFK ... Vanessa Minnillo shuttling between talk show appearances in Midtown ... Lindsay Price heading into an event at the Empire Hotel ... and Katie Holmes showing up to watch a performance of August: Osage County.

Vogue editor Anna Wintour's fashion tyranny was satirized in the book and film The Devil Wears Prada—she's famously dictatorial about how her staff looks and dresses. Her stance, like her own helmet of hair, hasn't softened since: we hear from a salon gossip that the razorlike Wintour recently made a new 22-year-old assistant cut her Rapunzel-like long hair.It flowed all the way down her back, and Wintour requested directly that the girl chop it to below her shoulders. The assistant, who is probably making her age in yearly salary, ran immediatey to Bumble & Bumble. Despite the bitchiness of the request, the word is that Anna was right—the assistant looks much better this way. From Wintour's 2006 biography, Anna Wintour: the Hot Life and Cool Times of Vogue's Editor in Chief:

["Vogue" editrix Anna Wintour at the US Open yesterday; image via Splash] Bell County's new line beats the original, "Something About the Cold, Icy Blue Color Really Spoke to Me."

Even assuming Marc Jacobs remains clean and sober per his recent stints in rehab, there is no doubting the designer retains quite the pet collection of addictions. Add to unabashed bed hopping and obsessive workouts a new fascination with bathing and a mushrooming collection of tats. The fashion designer says in a New Yorker profile this week that "I spend hours in the bathroom now. I like shampooing my hair. I like putting on moisturizer." The 28 tattoos, meanwhile, include "Bros before hos." The 29th will read "Shameless," an apt label for a narcissist who uses gossip columns as mirrors through which he might further admire his own reflection. Jacobs should be especially thrilled to gaze upon his words in the New Yorker, especially this defining quote: "I am a perfect being in a perfect world." [Daily News] (Picture from Marc Jacobs via Daily News)

We are certainly probably not the first bloggers to point out that Anna Wintour is (until November anyway; yes, Scorpio, duh) the same age Grace Mirabella was when she got canned. Of course, Grace hadn't built herself an entire stable of Vogue-branded titles! Of course, said stable is looking a liiiitle bit sickly: Teen Vogue lost its role on The Hills, Men's Vogue just lost a managing editor to the Journal glossy, and Mothership Vogue is looking thin in the only possible bad sense of that term this September, with the month's ad pages down 7% from last year — following on the the heels of four consecutive months being beaten out for ad pages by ELLE. (And many consecutive months of progressively more creepily Photoshopped covers.) Even the latest Vogue India looks less luscious than just a few months ago, though I am pretty sure Anna is not to blame for that! Any information that might enhance our Wintour Kremlinology? Email me.

New York is stoking a rivalry between Nina Garcia of Project Runway and Marie Claire and Anne Slowey, Garcia's TV stand-in at Elle and star of the forthcoming reality show Stylista. It's hard to imagine either of the two fashion editors terribly minded New York's in-depth article on their differences — which, disclosure here, was written by our own Moe — considering they both have shows to push, Slowey's being brand new and Garcia's in the midst of a controversial jump to Lifetime. But it's hard to imagine Slowey, who desperately needs to put Stylista's embarrassing trailers behind her, is thrilled about the particulars of how she looks.

Shortly after hearing the scuttlebutt (yeah) yesterday about the summer intern who took her new TV network employers and shat all over them (no literally shat all over them) yesterday we put a call out to some of our most cherished sources for "nightmare intern" stories that might gratuitously expand upon the "Kids today: My they are insubordinate and entitled in just that infuriatingly unabashed way that will probably totally work in their favor!" meme. And wow, did the stories we heard totally play to our stereotypes in ways we could not even ourselves imagine! But they also helped to contour our cartoonish notions of "clueless lazy entitled youth" with hints of "well, their parents' generation is obviously to blame"-ism. Take the case of this hapless Vogue-ette!

On a fundraising event list sent to Barack Obama supporters: "Runway to Change with Special Guests Sarah Jessica Parker & Ann Wintour." We appreciate that running a presidential campaign is a lot of work, but getting Anna's name wrong? Maybe Andre Leon Talley can intervene and negotiate a rapprochement? [NYT]

Finally, a silver lining to the declining economy! This month you won't need to put in extra time at the gym in order to be fit enough to carry the fall issues of Vogue and W home from the newsstand (nor will it take 20 minutes of flicking until you reach any actual content): ad pages in both mags (as well as other fashion and beauty titles) are way down, reports the WSJ today, as advertisers, especially mid-tier brands, scale back. (Anna Wintour won't be hanging up her Chanel couture just yet, however: The September Vogue still has 674 pages of ads.) Similar shrinkage will soon take place at Rolling Stone, news that actually may be welcome to the mag's core readership of aging rock fans, since they probably have difficulty raising their arms anyway. Founder and publisher Jann Wenner has decided to shave a few inches off the mag's size, although he's quick to point out that the mag is going to spend more on production, with glossier paper and a flat, glued spine instead of staples, in the hopes of attracting new advertisers and younger readers. What, slapping the Jonas Brothers on the cover to appeal to ten-year-old girls wasn't enough?

Eagle-eyed commenter Raincoaster noticed something funny about the picture we posted last night of Bee Shaffer: The daughter of Vogue editor Anna Wintour was wearing an Oscar De La Renta dress last seen in July on the back of actress Jennifer Lopez. But it was barely on her back. As pointed out with varying degrees of cruelty on lolebrity and D-Listed, one photo showed how famously-voluptuous Lopez didn't quite fit the dress, so it had to be held onto her body with some sort of rope or scrunchy or something. Now Shaffer is prancing back into New York with that same dress elegantly draped over her wispy, fashion-friendly frame. COINCIDENCE?

At the risk of overdoing our coverage of monsters and hellspawn, we present this lovely picture of Anna Wintour and her daughter Bee Shaffer, snapped by a Columbia acquaintance of Shaffer at a recent party. The outdoor dinner featured lamb chops (not overdone!) and seems to have been convened at least partly to fête young Bee, presumably upon her return from a semester in London. Despite the mean things sometimes said about her mother, Shaffer herself retains much of the glow from her regal fashion lineage, thanks to outfits like the one she wore to the Costume Institute Gala this year and generally positive reports in her wake at internships at New York, Teen Vogue and so forth. Since we last checked in with her in 2006, Shaffer seems to have stopped writing her column for the UK's Telegraph and ceased contributing to the Columbia Spectator and its magazine. But she may have picked up a boyfriend! Check out the party picture after the jump.

• In the wake of his big, possibly violent fight with his mom and sister, everyone's trying to figure out what ever happened to Christian Bale. The Daily Mail notes that after Bale became the family breadwinner at 13, his father tried to make him into a Hollywood star while Mom advocated a normal childhood in Britain. Also, he's been angry all the time since forever. The Post passes along the news that he hates press tours and is known as "robo-actor" because of his "steely focus."

First it was young, elegant Carine Roitfeld, making Vogue publishing look slightly effortless and more-than-a-little spunky from her perch in Paris. Then there was Franco Sozzani, reminding everyone with her all-black issue that Italian Vogue "has gained a reputation for being more about art and ideas than commerce." Now, fashion blogger Bryanboy reminds us, Aliona Doletskaya is the latest editor of a baby Vogue to arguably upstage American editor Anna Wintour, having reached her 10th anniversary at the healm of the fashion title's Russian edition. "Month after month after month, she offers original content, she uses models for her covers and her editorials are very bold, strong and in your face," Bryanboy writes. Well, sure, but there's also the fact that she can fly helicopters! Also: In 10 years, she sees herself flying across continents on an airplane. Considered that fair warning, Anna. Click the video icon for excerpts of Russia Today's half-hour profile. [Byranboy]

Rupert Murdoch and his deputy Robert Thomson are eager to get the Wall Street Journal's new magazine off the ground. The publication, WSJ., is to get the Journal in on a consumer-glossy bonanza that now nets the Times' T magazine $46 million in annual revenue and helped it grow 12 percent last year. Murdoch and Thomson are so keen on this concept that they're racing ahead with WSJ. even though it was conceived under the Journal's prior owners, the Bancrofts' Dow Jones. So convinced are the News Corp. executives of the magazine's future success that, the Observer reports in today's paper, they are making staff sign a "code of conduct" to ensure they will not be swayed by the inevitable mob of overeager advertisers. But to hear one reliable inside source tell it, WSJ. will be lucky to launch without embarrassing itself on the editorial side, to say nothing of selling ads.

• On her new album, Britney Spears allegedly has a song called "ATM" where she sings, "Hey Mama, I know it's my cash you seek." After being hospitalized in January and February, Spears stabilized her life and won increased visitation with her two sons, only to have her handlers push her back into various work endeavors. Point being, the song is probably more than mere celebrity whining, and I will actually purchase it on iTunes! (JUST LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE, etc.) [Mirror]

• Did Uma Thurman and Arki Busson get secretly married during their engagement party earlier this month? If so, does that mean the European vacation they're on right now is really a honeymoon? [Page Six]

Vogue has always acted disdainful of reality television. When it became clear the fashion title had passed on something big with Project Runway, Vogue editor Anna Wintour sniffed that her magazine "is not in the business of making entertainment out of the struggles of new designers." Fine. How, then, to explain Vogue's seeming reversal, its participation in an online reality show about the travails of three young models? With denial. "This isn't a reality show," cries the trailer. Other shows are "just amateurs live" Vogue publisher Tom Florio told the Wall Streer Journal, while this one is co-produced by modeling agency IMG, which makes it totally legitimate. The show's tagline is more honest, but still rubbishes the rest of the genre: "Reality TV just got real." Well, at least someone has. Preview video after the jump.

Anna Wintour and Bee Shaffer leaving Marni on Mercer Street ... Molly Shannon on a morning jog through the West Village ... Alex Rodriguez slipping out the side entrance at Trump Park Avenue ... Adrian Grenier and new girlfriend Isabel Lucas waiting for baggage at LAX ... Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony shopping at Pucci in Italy ... Seal, sans Heidi Klum, leaving the Four Seasons in Prague ... Meryl Streep, completely covered up in a jacket, scarf, and hat, walking near the water in Sydney ... Gwyneth Paltrow getting out of an SUV in front of Gemma where she met up with Madonna for lunch ... Blake Lively and Penn Badgley stopping to take photos with fans during a stroll through SoHo ... Nas talking on a cell phone as he left Da Silvano.