Nina however, in the same issue, doesn't seem to worried:

belltolls's new line beats the original, "Just This Morning A Small Child Played Me Like a Xylophone."

Oooooh, "suffered"?? "Lookalike" son? Ouch!

Who is Joanna Coles? Well, for starters she is an actual real journalist, and was a longtime New York bureau chief for the Guardian in London before she got into fashion magazines, which is one of the reasons she is considered an "outsider" by fashion people. She is an outsider!

Man, would it kill the fashion community to be kind to its earnest newcomers? Yes! Seriously, guys! Well, in defense of the shit-talkers there is nothing more irritating than the British person who comes to New York and succeeds by embodying all the irritating traits for which British people are always mocking Americans. For instance, in the interview today, she admitted that she had been keeping a diary since she was seven. Who does that? Navelgazing Americans! She admitted in another interview that she really admired marathon runners and that she was training for a half-marathon herself. Who does that? Pointlessly overachieving Americans! She famously got her job by running after Hearst president Cathy Black's JFK-bound limo and jumping into it for an hourlong pitch session and she is proud of that fact. Who does that? You know, I bet the intern who took herself seriously enough to show up for work after her poopfest would do that. Amanda from The Paper would do that. I would never do any of these things and that my friends is your public service announcement for today.

She doesn't seem a lot like Nina Garcia! Yeah, she's pretty much the exact opposite of Nina Garcia, who is known for liking nice things, taking a lot of vacations, engaging in the odd extramarital dalliance, hanging out with the indulgent socialite likes of Tinsley Mortimer and Vogue editor Lauren Davis and never really giving a shit about the whole "having it all" dilemma that is one of the foremost obsessions of Joanna and her nanny advocating deputy Lucy Kaylin until she found herself pregnant at age 42. But Nina is famous/on famously good terms with all the luxury brand gatekeepers, and Joanna is an opportunist, so that's how that happened.

Should I work for her? Joanna's writers and editors mainly seem to love her. Part of this is because women's magazine employees have either been beaten down by the oppressive stupidity of the Bonnie Fuller model (Bonnie edited Cosmo, Glamour and Us) or the oppressive conspicuous consumerism of the Anna Wintour one, but it's also because she's a smart, genuinely good person who is neither fake nor insecure, and that is rare in the top spot at women's magazines! Just know that she is very intense, starting at the interview stage!

Enemies? Well, Como editor-in-chief and fellow Hearst editress Kate White can't love that she made a point of telling Fashion Week Daily:

We don't do Ten Ways to Have Sex with your Boyfriend Tonight.' We took the word "orgasm" off the cover. It's a much more knowing, much smarter approach.

But Elle mastheaders are probably Joanna's main enemies, because the two French-transplanted brands (which used to share an owner!) are basically the only two magazines still bothering to attempt to be simultaneously "smart" and "fashion-forward" and that can be death to the newsstand performance, as Joanna has learned! Elle has had a lot more luck, but they've had Project Runway and the distinction of having always been an actually good magazine. Marie Claire likes to point out how its readership has gotten wealthier*, and also that the Hearst building is about ninety million times nicer, but that would make a job there that much harder to leave.

*Ha ha, since I stopped having to buy it for Jezebel@

Related: Joanna Coles Has Huge Handwriting Frontal Lobe

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.

1 Yes, I know! I talked to her many times. Her favorite movie is "Scarface"! But Anne Slowey is more fun to hang out with. Which is to say, Anne Slowey would actually hang out with me.
2I mean, I know people who work at Marie Claire. They are completely totally normal, and not in that "for a brainwashed person" way!

Although we've wondered whether Zee makes Elle too gay, he comes complete with long-running connections with J. Lo, Justin Timberlake and Sarah Jessica Parker plus a Horacio Alger, immigrant-makes-good biography. And he apparently also has a silver tongue. Here's what he told Page Six about the naked Vanity Fair shoot:

“Keira and Scarlett really were naked [in front of the cameras] for a while, but they got it. You have [photographer] Annie Leibovitz, you have Tom Ford—I think the girls realized that they were in trusted hands. It’s not Playboy. They knew it would be interesting and artful. Plus, Tom Ford [guest edited this issue and he] is incredibly visual and incredibly specific. He wants to direct movies now, and no doubt he’ll be phenomenal at it.”

Zee also bends other celebrity women to his will, through the magic of, uh, listening. Tricky and clever! Here's how it works:

“I identify with big personality women like Jennifer, Madonna, Mariah,” Joe says of the connection he has with stars. “I love their style, but I also love their careers, the decisions they make—all those things that make them who they are. Maybe it’s because I treat them as three-dimensional, successful women with real ideas, not as models.”

At the moment, though, J.Lo looks as comfortable in front of the camera as any career catwalker. It’s not the first time the pair has collaborated: Joe styled her for every W cover she’s shot over the years and for her album art for 2001’s J.Lo. Today, she rolls her caramel shoulders and tosses her hair before photographer Carter Smith as Joe stands nearby, directing her while chewing furiously on a piece of gum. “Gorgeous with your arm up like that,” he shouts. “Hot! Hot! She’s smokin’!”

You know what else Joe Zee is good at, besides fashion? Name dropping!

[Page Six Magazine]

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.

*Robbie Myers is famously a very nice and smart person who is hated by no one I know. It is hard to be that type of person in this business I think. Just putting that out there! Also: I am sorry to those of you who found this post in poor taste. I don't actually think it's so much of a "gay" matter as a "generational/camp" one but again, what do I know? Nothing apparently! Anyway XO to all my (super-constructive) critics.

Further Reading:
How Reality TV Turned Anne Slowey And Nina Garcia Into Rivals [NY]
Just How Creative Is Elle Creative Director Joe Zee? [Jossip]
Is Joe Zee Ruining Elle? [Jossip]
Elle Has A Little Work Done [NYT]

While Garcia comes across as a natural fashionista descended from South American aristocracy, Slowey seems like an East Village hippie with no claim on the Miranda Priestly airs she apparently will put on in Stylista. She's described in "Birkenstocks and vintage frocks" and consulting "healers [and] alternative-medicine practitioners." She even hires an "energy cleaner" to get rid of negative energy after Garcia leaves.

Perhaps the clearest contrast between the two, the article notes, is revealed in comparing Elle.com videos touring each woman's closet. As you can see in excerpts from both videos above, that's true: Note the size and organization of Garcia's closet (presented first), in an apartment overlooking Central Park, to that of Slowey's in the East Village.

Garcia may now be known as "the evil one" or "the monster" around Elle, as Moe writes. But at least her show brings some redeeming value to the world of fashion, rather than indulging a contrived (for Elle and for Slowey, at least) and masochistic view of magazine employment.

[NY Mag]

According to a tipster, Elle publisher Carol Smith signed a multimillion-dollar deal with Anne Klein to have Garcia—then an Elle staffer—do in-store appearance and promotions on behalf of the fashion brand. But Garcia refused to wear Anne Klein clothes at the appearances, because she believed it would be a "conflict of interest." This put the huge endorsement deal in jeopardy, we hear, and everyone from Elle's editor-in-chief to former Hachette boss Jack Kliger was putting pressure on Garcia to give in and wear the damn clothes to keep the customer happy.

But Garcia was stubborn! By the time her final mandatory appearance for Anne Klein rolled around, says the source, the publisher actually drove to Garcia's home and waited for her to make sure she wore an appropriately Klein-ish outfit. The entire ordeal was so outlandish that the whole staff was gossiping about it. Shortly after the endorsement deal wrapped up, Nina Garcia was fired—after Elle had made its money. Or so we hear.

In an odd way, we respect her crazily firm editorial commitment to picking her own clothes NO MATTER WHAT.

A source tells us, when asked about Garcia's final months at Elle: "One of the last things she did were appearances for Anne Klein and I think she charged somewhere around $60K-$70K for it (though possibly a bit more) plus of course, all her expenses, first class travel, 5star hotels, etc. She charged for everything...she charges for appearing on PR as well."

Oho! Good on you, Ms. Garcia. Makin' a buck and knowing how to do it. If she's getting that, can you imagine what Tim Gunn is getting when he makes public appearances? Actually we do know. When Tim Gunn appears in public he gets... sad.

Nina Garcia was unceremoniously... fired? Or quit? All we know is that she just left, last Friday afternoon. She's reportedly seeking a ceremonial Editor-at-Large position there in order to continue having some authority as a judge on popular, increasingly insane reality program Project Runway. And we know this thanks to Women's Wear Daily reporter Stephanie Smith, who reported that Nina left the magazine last week, adding that she was conspicuously absent from an Elle-hosted party a week ago. Smith would know, because, according to our tipster, Smith was at that party, sitting conspicuously close to Joe Zee.

A few more unsupported claims and insinuations:

Mr. Zee should think about people in glass houses as he's brought a lot of baggage to the magazine. Maybe WWD (obviously Stephanie is not in position) might want to ask why Mr. Zee appointed his boyfriend/lover as Editor of ELLE.COM when he had no relevant experience (however, I guess if you are a salesman on the floor of the Paul and Joe store) and a number of former bf's are teaming the halls of the magazine with lesser relevant experience. The fact that he and the former features editor turned EIC are so desperate to be on TV - tried so hard to get on Ugly Betty for over a year. So, WWD next time you pick up the phone from Joe after he's had his morning meeting with his team of bf's, maybe disclose your interest when you pen your next column. Could Stephanie Smith be looking for a job at ELLE? She certainly knows who to call.

Is Stephanie Smith looking for a job at Elle? Who knows! Sitting next to Joe Zee at a party doesn't actually mean anything, though it's probably a better method of netting a new job than appearing on a reality show. But if Zee's the one feeding the Garcia news to WWD, well, that's embarrassing for everyone.

REALITY TELEVISION IS KILLING FASHION MAGAZINES. There. We said it.

Apparently folks at Elle have wanted to get rid of the slightly bitchy (read: intelligent and assertive) Colombian for a few years now, but stayed her execution when her Project Runway gig started raising the second-tier magazine's profile. If she does stay on, though, her fake magazine job would probably only last her through the next season. Elle is only contracted to be affiliated with the show through this fifth season, and other titles have professed interest in future partnerships. And this is where the sweater unravels: Elle bolts, Lifetime accepts some bottom barrel magazine like Cat Fancy or something, and the whole thing reaches the pathetic, irrelevant depths of America's Next Top Model. [WWD]

mathnet's new line beats the original, Cheery Vagrant Waves At Invisible Friend.

WHAT TO WEAR UNDERNEATH YOUR DRESS I once saw one of the most influential women in fashion wearing one of her standard amazing outfits: a great jacket with a great pair of jeans. But when she turned around, I was horrified. Panty lines! Granny panties! Who in the twenty-first century does not own a thong? That day she fell from grace just a little bit (or maybe a lot). You have to check your backside before leaving. No panty lines or thongs showing!

[T]here is nothing like walking through the halls of the Louvre or watching an Italian woman move through the streets of Rome. These are the informal lessons a girl doesn't soon forget. Wherever we went, I would notice how differently women dressed in each country. I would also watch as my mother picked up the styles, buying the necklaces and dresses and bringing them back to Colombia. These women—the women of the world and my mother—showed me how the best sources of inspiration are often found outside of your area code. It doesn't matter where you go; it's what you bring home.

SOUTH AMERICA
There is a strong focus on femininity and standards of personal grooming that the South American woman adheres to every single day. The standards are not only a matter of presentation, but a matter of moral fiber. There is a notion, passed down from generation to generation, that your physical presentation reflects the person you are on the inside. Through everyday pageantry, there is an aura of effortless chic and a display of correctness inside and out that never lets up.

EUROPE
For these women, style is never created; it simply is. And it has meaning. Take the Hermès bag, for example. The French woman carries hers because it is an heirloom, not because it is an "it bag."

ASIA
Throughout Asia, style is laced with ritual and culture. The geisha, for example, with her unremitting attention to luxuriant, theatrical beauty, has cultivated a sense of feminine mystery for centuries.

INDIA
On a daily basis, the women in India are ensconced in extreme color, sparkle, and texture. They wear endlessly ornate, gold-and-enamel jewels quite unabashedly, with silken saris of every hue. The important events of their lives are usually punctuated by a ritualized approach to the kind of beauty that is laden with custom and tradition.

AFRICA
For women in Africa, ornamentation has always been paramount to style, and their perspective is reminiscent of queens and goddesses. Elaborate head wraps, luminous colors, organic textures, and jewels of all kinds characterize the impacting power-beauty of the African woman. For obvious reasons, these women have had to reclaim their style throughout the centuries, forging an even stronger sense of pride and alliance to these roots.

THE UNITED STATES
In America, the promises of possibility and inspirations are limitless. Anything that might catch your eye is worth the trek, but you do not have to travel far. If you cannot get away, go to the ethnic shops in your neighborhood. But wherever you go, be it Tokyo or the local Indian store, this is the time to buy with drama. Bring back something fantastic. Pull out all the stops. Humidity be damned, forget about modesty, leave the trends behind, and have a little fun.

How many times have you read in a fashion magazine that you're supposed to "mix it up," that wearing a Chanel jacket with jeans from the Gap is okay and you can shop at Hermès and Forever 21! Um, probably, like, a million? Nina thought her readers might need to hear that advice again (also in this chapter, she advises throwing things out that don't fit):

Anything that sounds like it won't make sense usually looks amazing. The uptown with the downtown. The soft with the hard. The casual with the elegant. Trust me, it works. Unpredictable is far more interesting than predictable. It is what is going to make you look different and interesting, which is the hallmark of a stylish woman. Mixing it up is not about looking staged. It is supposed to be personal. Keep those items that are uniquely you.

Mixing it up means taking the unexpected and making it yours. I had never been an old-lady-diamond-bracelet kind of girl. I just didn't see the appeal. But at a dinner party one night, this incredibly chic and stylish woman was wearing on of those old lady bracelets. She paired it with her beads from Thailand, her Kabbalah string [Ed: Ewww], and a few other pieces that she never takes off. She made it a part of who she was, and for the first time in my life, I wanted an old lady diamond bracelet... or maybe I was just in awe of the expert mix-and-march situation. I never got the bracelet, but I never forgot the image of that perfectly imperfect mix.

Style is about these imperfect mixes and these unusual juxtapositions, it takes time and trial to perfect the mix. It can't look staged, it has to look effortless.

Go ahead and try:

H&M with Prada

Vintage with a modern trend

Plaid with stripes

Preppy with edgy

Masculine with feminine

Flirty with fierce

Funky with basic

Leather with lace

Sweet with vampy

Uptown with downtown

The precious with the not

Confidence is captivating, it is powerful, and it does not fade—and that is endlessly more interesting than beauty. The first and most important step to developing style is to project this kind of confidence. The kind of confidence that tells others that you respect yourself, love yourself, and dress up for yourself and nobody else. You are your own muse. Style comes from knowing who you are and who you want to be in the world; it does not come from wanting to be somebody else, or wanting to be thinner, shorter, taller, prettier. Many of the most stylish women in the world have not been great beauties, but they have all drawn from an enormous amount of self-confidence. They made us think they were beautiful simply by believing it themselves. They did not let anyone else define them; they defined themselves.

I truly admire women who love themselves, even if they are not the standard beauty norm. I am fascinated by the "imperfect icons," the girls who are by far not the most beautiful girls in the room, but they are confident and think they're beautiful, so others think they are. I marvel at a six-foot-tall woman in stilettos, a big-bottomed woman in a curve-hugging skirt, a flat-chested woman in a tight, low cut T-shirt. When a woman embraces her "imperfections," they can become her greatest strengths, definers of her character and spirit. When she plays up her weaknesses and draws you to her flaws, she makes them special, attractive, and even enviable.

When I was fifteen, my parents sent me to an all-girls boarding school in Wellesley, Massachusetts. I strutted onto campus in a short skirt, high heels, and rabbit fur. There I stood, surrounded by khakis, jeans, pastel cable-knit sweaters, ribbon belts. "Look at the Colombian princess," the American girls must have been thinking. "We're gonna eat this one for lunch." I looked around this little bubble of preppiness. The girls all played lacrosse and they all dressed the same, more like boys than girls. I remember thinking, "Where the hell am I?" Before this moment, I considered myself really American and I thought I had seen everything. I had been to New York, Paris, Rome, but I had never seen this thing they called 'preppy.' But there I was, in maybe the preppiest town in America, nearly hyperventilating from my first experience with culture shock. My mother took me into the Wellesley town center to see if we could find something that would help me blend in a bit. The only item I found somewhat appealing was a pink angora cardigan with pearl buttons (I know). I regretted the purchase immediately and the cardigan was soon stuffed into the far depths of my closet, never to be worn again. I decided to hold my own—I was not going to be intimidated, especially by girls who wore L.L. Bean duck boots.

Nothing can prepare a Colombian girl for the sight of one hundred American girls trudging across campus in duck boots. I'm sure I thought myself quite superior, but now I admire a lot of those very American things. I think that blue jeans and a white shirt can be the most fabulous outfit. It's all about how you wear it. And I love a Chanel bag, but I also see the perfection in an L.L. Bean canvas tote. Functional, chic, simple. It's about how you carry it. So I am proud to say that I owe a lot of my style to a strong, colorful Colombian woman, who taught me that how you present yourself to the world is important. And I owe a lot to a man in white linen who shunned mathematics and instead pushed me to see the world. And I also owe quite a bit to a group of American prep school girls, who gave me my first culture shock, who gave me the opportunity to hold my own, and who understood simplicity long before I did (though I'm still not sure about those boots).

Anyway, after the jump: find out what Tina Brown likes to put in her mouth, and who Project Runway judge/ Elle editor Nina Garcia likes to put in her down-there mouth.

UPDATE: Ms. Garcia's lawyers have written to inform us that the information contained in this article is false.

I used to work (as an underling) for Tina Brown. She was always really nice to me, but definitely lived in her own bubble world and for a recent J-school grad was a tiny bit intimidating to be around. One day when I had been working at the mag for less than maybe a month she came out of her office to have a meeting with some editors/assistants including me. After about 5 minutes her asst. came out to tell her that she had an important call, which she then proceeded to take at MY desk. So the meeting keeps going and I sort of glance back and see her completely chilling at my desk - chatting on my phone, leaning back in my chair, and then casually reaching over and proceeding to start unwrapping and eating a package of Vitamin C drops that had been sitting on my desk! As if they were her very own! I think she ate like two or three in the course of the phone conversation. From then on I could never be afraid of that candy-stealing bitch again. At least she threw away the wrappers.

It's common knowledge that Nina Garcia (married) is having an affair with Prosper Assouline (of Assouline publishing and also married w/ a son). In fact you guys have run a few Nina sightings with "overly gelled" man (that's Prosper). It's a little known fact that Prosper keeps a love nest in his actual office. A small door in his office at the Sterret-Lehigh building leads to a fully furnished studio apartment w/ full bathroom. On more than one occasion Prosper's assistant has had to juggle his wife and Nina moving in and out of that love shack. Both Nina's and Prosper's former assistants (no, I'm not one of them) have blackmailed their way into better positions just for keeping quiet (One is now and Editor at Elle). The backroom loveshack has also been used by various other Assouline employees. Anyway, the whole point of that convoluted story is that Nina Garcia is sperminated... and no one knows who the father is: her husband or Prosper Assouline.

Project Runway 3 Contestant May Have Cheated His Way Into Heidi Klum's Heart [Defamer]
Keith Michael Speaks [OMG]
The Copycat is Out of the Designer Bag [BWE]