Brooke Shields

Last night’s Calvin Klein 40th Anniversary party was held in a John Pawson-designed, temporary structure on 10th Avenue and 30th Street built specifically for the event.

Adjacent to the space—fittingly, it seemed to be constructed from the same building material used to turn Manhattan living rooms into second bedrooms—was the new Highline Park, which guests were invited to tour during the party (the park is not yet open to the public).

Once inside, the place looked something like a very glamorous high school quad—a slate-colored staircase ran the width of the building, most of which was occupied by seated cliques of attendees sipping drinks and appraising the entryway.  read more »

Candace Bushnell's NBC show Lipstick Jungle has set up shop in the Flatiron district-right outside the Observer offices!--for the day, occupying two blocks of Broadway between 19th and 21st streets. Some helpful production assistants told us they were filming a "club scene" featuring stars Lindsay Price (dressed in what another Observer reporter likened to a "blue medieval beer wench" costume) and Andrew McCarthy inside Strata, a multilevel nightspot under whose awning we like to smoke.

"It's like a Halloween dream sequence thing," one of them added. Indeed, the sidewalk was mostly occupied by a line of costumed extras (masqueraders and witches, mostly). Lipstick Jungle star Brooke Shields was reportedly not around, but we were told that she is expected on set at Franklin and Varick streets tomorrow (just saying!).

Hamptons residents who paid up to $2,500 a plate to hang out with Gwyneth Paltrow at a benefit for the Amaryllis Farm Equine Rescue Organization at Steven Klein's Bridgehampton farm (read Daily Transom's account!) were upset when the actress refused to come out of the host's house for most of the evening. [NYDN]

Maybe she was just saving her energy? Ms. Paltrow later attended at party at Def Jam Chairman L.A. Reid's house celebrating Mariah Carey's recent marriage to Nick Cannon. Mary J. Blige, Kelly Ripa, Samuel L. Jackson and Star Jones were also there. [P6]  read more »

Attendees expected to attend the Democratic Convention in Denver include Kanye West, Wyclef Jean, N.E.R.D., Ben Affleck, Scarlett Johansson, Warren Beatty, Annette Bening, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Ed Norton Jr. [WashingtonPost]

Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon are fighting to keep St. Vincent's hospital from expanding onto West 12th Street, three blocks from their home. [P6]

Brooke Shields says she got very emotionally involved with the Project Runway contestants when she filmed her upcoming guest judge spot. [The Cut]

The 10 finalists for this year's CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund were announced late yesterday and included: Richard Chai, Alexander Wang, Irene Neuwirth, and Sophie Buhai and Lisa Mayock of Vena Cava.  read more »

Ladies, if you thought you could have it all, you can’t. You can come close—you can have an attractive partner, cute kids, cool job, decent apartment—but it’s not going to be everything put together like you thought. You’ll do the best you can at all these things, but in everyone else’s eyes, it will never be enough. Yes, it’s rough out there.

But…  read more »

BRYANT PARK, FRONT STEPS, 8:00 A.M.—A few minutes before some chilly spittle started to fall, IMG Fashion senior VP Fern Mallis, Mercedes-Benz VP of marketing Stephen Cannon, writer Candace Bushnell, and Lipstick Jungle co-stars Brooke Shields, Kim Raver and Lindsay Price huddled together and cut a red ribbon, signifying the official beginning of fashion week.

Draped in a blood-red cashmere cape, a beaming Ms. Mallis, standing tall before the main tent and its questionable Caesarian theme, appeared before the crowd of weary journalists and giraffing onlookers like a mighty torch, sent down from the fashion gods on high. Hark! Her oversized ceremonial scissors, which Ms. Shields also got to clutch, blessing, with a single snip, all tony threads and the stylish heads who weave them.  read more »

Last Thursday, on a cold and blustery January afternoon, the cast and crew of Lipstick Jungle, the new NBC series premiering Feb. 7, scuttled about the Ukrainian Institute of America on 79th Street and Fifth Avenue.

Bright lights illuminated the high ceilings, ornate moldings and chandeliers within the 1898 mansion, which was standing in as a billionaire bachelor’s New York City apartment. Banks of additional lights outside the building created artificial sunlight streaming through the windows. The grand staircase was covered in plastic wrap.  read more »

Brooke Shields, for one, wouldn’t mind seeing a woman in the Oval Office after the 2008 presidential election. “I’m always convinced, at the risk of being—and I love men—but I think women are incredibly capable, and it seems that their talents and their intellect seems to be a little more varied, I should say,” said Ms. Shields, 42, in a purple Donna Karan dress.  read more »

"It's a Princeton versus Yale thing."

That's Edward Tenner, the author of Why Things Bite Back, summing up the rivalry between Robert Caro and the master builder.

Mr. Caro graduated Princeton in 1957; Moses finished Yale in 1909.

There is a certain kind of ultra-industrious Princetonian that does everything in a most thorough way and is totally obsessed with doing it right. Then there is the Yalie who loves to spread his feathers and bask in the limelight and Moses was extremely Yalie in that sort of way. I can just see Caro getting dressed up in his coat and tie to beaver this Yalie down to size.

Other Yalies: William F. Buckley Jr.; Cole Porter; George W. Bush; Jennifer Beals.

Other Princetonians: George Kennan; Woodrow Wilson; Samuel Alito; Brooke Shields.

Mr. Tenner has a whole anatomy of the Ivies which you can find via his website. He, by the way, is Princeton '65.