Jeweler to the stars Fred Leighton has filed for bankrutcy.

Ralph Esmerian put Fred Leighton into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection to halt the auction Tuesday of a collection of fine jewels and gems, according to his lawyer.
The 115-piece collection was set to be auctioned off at Christie’s at 6:00 today, but the bankruptcy filing prevents any creditors from collecting on their debt, said Helen Davis Chaitman, who works at Phillips Nizer and is Esmerian’s attorney. At 5:00 Chaitman said she was going to stop the auction and had notified Merrill of the filing. “The company’s solvent,” said Chaitman. “We just did this in order to prevent the desecration of this collection.” The other entities that held pieces to be auctioned off were also put into bankruptcy.

Esmerian still owes Merrill Lynch about $180 million on loans he used to finance his 2006 purchase of the Leighton business. He missed part of a payment in the fall and has been tangling with Merrill in court since.

After Esmerian bought the fourth-generation Manhattan fine jewelry dealer, he tapped Martha Stewart’s former stockbroker, Peter Bacanovic, to be chief executive officer.
 (WWD)

Click to view Fred Leighton Inspired Jewelry 

Call it what you will, but I love Mariah. Not exactly known for her fashion sense, she’s still a diva! Right down to the ridiculous stunt (she had someone bring her throat sprays to the stage) she pulled on the season premiers of “The Hills”. Watch her on Oprah and if you cannot, go to Oprah.com to find out how she how she obtained this new fabulousness.

For years, Mariah’s fluctuating weight has been a popular topic in tabloid magazines. “I think the whole body image thing and people expecting everybody to be this thin is ridiculous,” she says. “It just isn’t reality.”

After a close friend made a comment about her weight, Mariah says she was inspired to make permanent life changes and get into shape once and for all. Mariah says she has a secret weight loss weapon—her nutrition and fitness coach, Patricia. “Finally I just said, ‘It has to be a life decision if you’re going to really lose the weight,’” she says. “So Patricia created a number of things for me…one is a workout regimen.”

Mariah says her workouts typically last for 60 to 90 minutes and combine cardio with resistance training. To tone her arms, Mariah uses her own body weight and stretches to sculpt long, lean lines. She likes to hop into a pool for the cardio portion of her workout. “What’s great about working out in the pool is the water acts as resistance,” she says. “You’re actually exercising twice as hard without feeling it.” (oprah.com)

France has moved a step closer to a legal ban on ultra-thin fashion models.

PARIS - The French parliament’s lower house adopted a groundbreaking bill Tuesday that would make it illegal for anyone — including fashion magazines, advertisers and Web sites — to publicly incite extreme thinness.

The National Assembly approved the bill in a series of votes Tuesday, after the legislation won unanimous support from the ruling conservative UMP party. It goes to the Senate in the coming weeks.

The lower house of parliament passed a bill that would make it illegal for anyone, including magazines, advertisers and websites, to publicly incite extreme thinness. (MSNBC)
The National Assembly approved the bill in a series of votes, after the legislation won unanimous support from the ruling conservative UMP party. It goes to the Senate in the coming weeks.
Fashion industry experts said that, if passed, the law would be the strongest of its kind anywhere. Leaders in French couture are opposed to the idea of legal boundaries on beauty standards. (Press Association)   Don’t blame Miss Bimbo
French fashion signs charter against anorexia
Anorexia risk may start before birth

Every summer, I pull out my white handbags. Unthinkingly, I know it’s just right and It feels right. Fresh,classic and always in style. It just seems as ubiquitous as a black handbag at this time. As soon as the weather gets less spectacular, it instinctively feels wrong and the handbags get packed away. Strangely, I don’t feel this way about white shoes, thank goodness. White shoes are seriously styling for those with lovely litle delicate feet of which I am not.

Check out all the gorgeous white bags on our website 

FENDI  (Forever Tote Bag)

MARC JACOBS (Patchwork Ines) is perfect for summer weddings.

ISABELLA FIORE - Brite Lite- Just love this cute clutch from Zappos.com

DIOR Lady Pochette

Okay, another MARC JACOBS - Mercer Blake

If you can’t do the all white yet, here’s a bicolor handbag for you. It should do the trick as well.
DONALD J. PLINER

A doctor who runs hospitals in Cambodia has refused a donation raised by selling a nude picture of France’s first lady, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, because he said it would shock local morality.

Beat Richner, a Swiss paediatrician who runs a children’s medical care group, said he had turned down an offer of $91,000 (£46,000) - the sum paid in a Christie’s auction last week for the 1993 picture of the Italian ex-model, now married to the French president Nicolas Sarkozy. (telegraph) Read more

 Beyond creating just one impressive site, she reinvented the way we shop. Massenet paved the way for luxury online, and now all designers have e-tail sites, including Marni, Yves Saint Laurent and Stella McCartney. Following her lead, department store sites evolved into mini-magazines with trend reports and blog posts. She also proved to shoppers that buying clothing online could be easy.

Now, Massenet is on the cusp of the next retail leap: collapsing the six-month runway-to-rack cycle to just hours. Net-a-Porter was started with $1 million, and after eight years, business is booming. In 2006, the site had revenues of $73.9 million. Los Angeles is the second biggest market in the U.S. because it’s “paparazzi-free shopping,” Massenet says, and it has some of the largest single orders, including one for $40,000.
Now that the Internet has come of age, runway photos travel around the world at lightning speed, and copies of garments land in stores before the designer originals. So, earlier this year, Massenet shortened the time it takes for a dress to travel from the runway to your closet from six months to 48 hours, when she struck a deal with Halston to sell two looks from the fall collection the day after the show on Net-a-Porter. Although she won’t say how much inventory there was, it sold out in 45 minutes. (LA Times)

We blogged about this last week and all the huge magazines are backing up all these claims. Check out Cheap (Inexpensive thrills) 

This is THE best selling eye cream in America. Avon sells a jar every 44 seconds. (At the risk of sounding like Avon ladies, their products are great). Avon’s ANEW Clinical Eye Lift has become a worldwide sensation after 87% of women claimed they saw less puffiness after just a week, and 97% said after a month they found better clarity and skin tone of the under eye area.

Now, you dont have to have lines or crepeness around your eyes to use an eye cream. Prevention is the key. Presenter of Ten Years Younger and Avon’s beauty expert Nicky Hambleton-Jones commented, ‘I love this product. No wonder it’s a best seller - it really works. When I was in the States recently everyone was talking about it so I’m not surprised it’s becoming such a hit in the UK too. At only , I think this is the best-kept beauty secret around!’

Following its huge success, the product has now been formulated to work better than ever, to offer a triple lift to the upper eye, under eye and brow bone.

The product has since become Avon’s UK bestseller, with over a million sold to date and in the US it proved such a hit that it outperformed its nearest competitor by 2:1.

CLICK HERE TO BUY YOURS

A new over-the-counter pill could be the ‘miracle cure’ to fighting obesity, say drug manufacturers. 
I am very fascinated by these topics and always wonder what the long term effects would be. Even just viewing the headlines, I think ” I guess obesity is now a disease that needs to be cured”. Since I have only recently developed a weight problem, Yup! I reserve my judgement. Who knows where I am headed:(. Never had a weight problem ever, not even after kids, so this is proving to be a little traumatic. I have not tried any pills though and don’t think I will, okay maybe after my butt gets its own zipcode.

Alli is available at pharmacies and is a more readily available version of Xenical, a prescription-only drug which doctors give to treat obesity.
Both drugs, Alli and Xenical, contain orlistat, which interferes with enzymes called lipases, which break down fat. Orlistat stops some fat being digested, meaning it can’t be absorbed by the body and passes straight through.

Professor Williams of Bristol University commented on the new drug saying: ‘People who take these drugs without comprehensively changing their lifestyle will probably lose less weight than those who make lifestyle changes.’

Prof Williams continued saying those after a ‘quick fix’ by buying the drug over the counter would end up disappointed. (marie claire)

Have you tried Alli, do tell us what your experiences are or were.