Melissa Seymour

We know that Kate Moss has ridiculously bad taste in men (except maybe Jefferson Hack, he seemed quite decent) but her fashion sense? Spot on. Always. Probably the number one taste maker. So what do we make of this number? 

Given her unblemished record - as far as fashion is concerned - I am going to bet that she didn’t expect that her breasts would show through. I’d say it was something to do with the flash of the paps en mass that lit her up in ways she didn’t expect.

What do you think? Shame she had her daughter with her…… makes it more inappropriate (!)

A texting addiction must be one of the more modern afflictions going around and so I bring you two dazzling cases out of the USA…

Case 1: Detroit Mayor Kirkpatrick sent no less than 14,000 texts of love and lust to his lover Christine Beatty. What makes the story even more interesting is that his lover is his Chief Of Staff. Don’t you think they’d spend a lot of face time together, you know, where they’d actually get the chance to ‘talk’? Someone needs to throw that mans phone away before he brings down his whole administration - if he hasn’t already.

Case 2: Yet another politician, the Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons sent a whopping 860 texts in one month to his mistress. That’s like 28 or so messages a day. His wife was so impressed she booted him out of the Governors mansion (23 rooms) and sent him back to their Reno home. That’s a great start but how about throwing his phone away too? 

A Governor and a Mayor - wouldn’t you think they’d have more pressing issues to deal with, not much time and should know better? Mehhhhh.

This black headed python was found slithering out of a toilet in a Darwin apartment block! It is believed he was living in the plumbing for some time! The snake wrangler called in to deal with the situation, Chris Peberdy, said “this could have ended in disaster. The snake could have been killed and cut up into little pieces.” It absolutely would have had it come out of my toilet.

Going to the bathroom may never be the same again. URK!

Controversial British artist Damien Hirst is auctioning off this work - ‘The Golden Calf’. It’s a bull in a glass tank of formaldehyde with its head crowned by a solid gold disc and its hooves and horns cast in 18-carat gold. It doesn’t work for me on several levels, least of all being the expected 8-12 million pound price tag.

A woman in the US is suing Victoria’s Secret over a defective g-string. Yes, you read that right and it’s probably not the kind of injury you first thought…. The woman, a traffic cop, was changing in the locker room after work and was slipping into her little number when, ping! a small piece of decorative metal flew off and straight into her eye. The piece of metal was holding a rhinestone in place. I guess the lady likes a bit of bling under her things. 

Of course, she isn’t after money. Her case is all about making Victoria’s Secret accountable for their defective product and warning other women about the danger of g-strings. You go girl.

Her lawyer gave this chestnut of a quote - “Victoria’s Secret does have its angels, but as we say, the devil is in the details.”

Fan of the ‘Sound Of Music’? The von Trapp family villa made famous by the hit musical is being turned into a hotel. Located in Salzburg, Austria, if the plans go ahead, you’ll be able to stay there for around 80 euros a night and hey, you can even get married there. Imagine that.

Of course, there is a hitch to these plans. There is a protest group and they have vowed to fight the development ‘with all means at our disposal’. Let’s hope they don’t have deep pockets. I think it’s a very cool idea.

Have you been to the Vanity Fair website lately? Graydon Carter has a VLOG(!) Of course they would be at the forefront of emerging trends - I don’t know why I am surprised. At the risk of being allocated a 2am arrival time to their annual Oscar’s bash (or being struck off altogether - which one is worse?), I must say that he is looking rather…. round.

See for yourself… It’s very Saturday Night Live esq.   http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/video/2008/graydon_video200807

The issue is great. I could almost throw up over how beautiful Angelina looks. Patrick Demarchelier shot her. He did such a great job, I’m wondering if I could hire him for the cover of my next book?  

I saw Sex In The City on Wednesday night - loved it. There is a scene - don’t worry, it’s not a spoiler - where Carrie’s assistant is working on her website. Being curious about all sorts of silly things, I wondered if they had actually built a website, like for real. A quick check last night revealed that yes, they did. Cute. Check it out. www.carriebradshaw.com. 

I just had to post this pic of Mariah Carey in light of Royal Ascot banning people with fake tan lines from the Royal enclosure. Just so you can see why (the hands give it away if the problem isn’t so glaringly obvious, i.e. you don’t have your glasses). It might seem incredibly toss potterish, but you know, the Brits have a long standing loathing for anything unsubtle and inappropriate. 

Anyway, back to the fake tan. I sense a bucking of the fake tanning trend coming on. Royal Ascot are effectively declaring that fake tanners are as unfashionable as ugh boots and Louis Vuitton knock offs. We’ve always known that fake tan can look really really bad (and who amongst us hasn’t had our own little disaster with it?) but now that it’s out there and declared such a no go, who wants to risk it? 

The self tanning industry is worth over 500 million euros in Europe alone. If I am indeed correct and people (it’s not exclusive to women - unfortunately) start to turn their backs on using it, then what impact will this have on the industries sales? I think they have a serious problem on their hands because since it came into use, no manufacturer has done anything great in terms of the innovation of the application process. Model Co identified the application problem some time back and came up with their ‘tan in a can’. Great idea, but I don’t think it made the application any easier or eliminated streaking and these are the fundamental problems. Well, there is the ‘orange’ colour problem but that is pretty much the domain of supermarket products.

If the self tanning industry is going to flourish and not flounder, it has to look at reinvesting profits back into product development. Natural beauty sells. Just look at Miranda Kerr. If only they could bottle her….

San Paolo Fashion Week has been thrown into turmoil because a lot of the designers have been caught up in acquisition negotiations with an investment fund. The fund boasted to a number of designers that it had plans to take on french luxury goods powerhouse (that’s putting it lightly) LVMH. One of Brazil’s highest profile designers, Alexandre Herchovitch says that he was ‘tricked’ by the fund and almost didn’t show.  Other designers have said they were strung along in acquisition talks only to find that the deal being offered to them didn’t contain any money. That’s right, money. None of it.

I coined a term for these types of investors in my book - predator investors. All about ego and not about traditional investment interest. If you find yourself on the receiving end of acquisition interest (and particularly if you are in a tres glam industry), don’t be carried away by the hype. Keep your head on and before showing them your balance sheet, ask to see theirs