Well this should upset her, even if the A-Rod thing doesn't. The New York Times has tolled the death bell on Madonna's fashion influence. She's...boring!

It's bad when the Gray Lady calls you a gray lady. Bestey Johnson likened her look to Christie Brinkley going to court. Whoa there Bestey! As lovely as Ms. Brinkley is, she's never going to inspire gay men to dress like her for Halloween. Well, not the fun ones anyway.

Madonna turns 50 in a few weeks, on August 16th. (Yeah, she's a Leo - shocker, right?) Her age comes up in the article, along with the reminder that she's a mom, and the idea that maybe just can't get away with doing wild stuff any more. Cause you know, she's given birth and she's old.

We happen to think it's crazy for people to write off Madonna. How many times does she have to reinvent herself to prove that she is superhuman? Kinda boring in terms of partying (i.e. no drinking or drugs), but I bet she can stay out dancing all night, do the best moves and then have dirty group sex -- as a top and a bottom -- with all the hottest DJs, if she felt like it.

What do people expect? That she turn up in a Hanes Underwear commercial with Michael Jordan? Please, only Charlie Sheen could sink so low. That said, yeah, this dress is hideous. Enough with the Candace Bergen/Murphy Brown neckwear collection!

Bulletproof cars are so passé, that's Al Capone stuff. We'll see your Tom Cruise and raise you one better- bulletproof clothing.

In Mexico there have been 1,400 drug-related deaths this year alone. Obviously that isn't something to be taken, or discussed, lightly. However, it does appear to be a pretty good marketing campaign for Miguel Caballero, a clothing maker from Colombia who recently opened a shop on Avenida Presidente Masaryk, "a high-end shopping thoroughfare in the Polanco neighborhood, one of the most upscale in Mexico City." [NPR]

Reports have surfaced that Amy Winehouse and Pete Doherty are working together in the studio. Assuming, of course, that "working together" is code for "meeting our dealer" we can expect to hear that new single a week from never.

We blame Kate Moss for this latest union of crazy druggies. She is responsible on multiple levels.

Here's a big WTF from seller Davitcio: "SELDOM SEEN 1922 BEADED BAG BOX PURSE UNUSUAL." All in caps.

Seldom seen? We're never seen anything like it! It's kind of like someone wrote down all the ideas for purses they'd ever had, then took a lot of drugs, then ate the piece of paper, then dreamt an even crazier version of this purse, and then worked day and night while listening to a strange mix of Enya and Bob Marley. No, it's not "kind of" like that. It's exactly like that.

Here are my top five questions about this eBay listing:

Amy Winehouse isn't the only Brit squandering away her talent and good looks on drugs and alcohol. It seems another celeb from the other side of the big pond is always having some trouble staying away from the dark side. Agyness Deyn is reported to be doing a crash detox in order to save her good looks.

Models have always been on the top of the controversy list. There is Naomi Campbell knocking people out with cell phones and Kate Moss' love drama with rocker Pete Doherty – but the real drama lies in the pencil thin no-name models that grace the world's runways.

Last year there was a lot of talk about models being too thin. Some countries considered banning underweight models from runway shows. The question is did it work? Are models putting on weight?

The answer, unfortunately, is no. A New York Times article called "Still Too Thin, and Getting Younger" reveals that not much has changed in the fashion industry saying that ".One might be startled to find, scattered on the makeup table alongside the iPod and the Motorola SLVR (a device that electronics blogs approvingly call the anorexic phone), other currently common tools of the trade like Vicodin, clenbuterol and Marlboro Lights."

In case you didn't know, Vicodin is a prescription painkiller that is used in the fashion industry as an appetite-suppressant. Even more horrifying, clenbuterol, which is a steroid that showed significant weight loss in horses (yes, horses people), is being used by models to keep their weight down. Then there is the ever popular nicotine (cigarettes), which also acts an appetite suppressant.

Sounds like the perfect recipe for death to me -- all of this for a career that, if you are lucky, will span for eight years. It's so very sad.

Over the weekend, we received a note from a concerned reader who wanted to know what she could do to discourage the use of drug culture references/imagery in fashion advertisements. She specifically referred to the Sisley ad that Lauren post last week featuring two models snorting cocaine.

I thought the question was provocative. So here goes: what can we really do to influence what we see in advertisements?

When it comes down to what sparks change in the fashion world, it all boils down to money. You can sign petitions and write letters until you turn blue in the face, but it won't make a bit of difference unless you can also affect company sales.

If you want to let companies like Sisley know that you do not approve of their cocaine ads, stop buying Sisley clothes and ask others to follow suit. Instead, spend money on companies that choose to run responsible advertising campaigns -- i.e. ads that sell clothes not drugs.

Even though Kate Middleton is more beautiful and Padma Lakshmi is more intelligent, Kate Moss is still the reining queen of the fashion world.

But it sounds like the queen might soon be facing some bureaucratic troubles. Kate's work visa for the U.S. is set to expire soon, and in order to get the permit renewed, the American embassy has required her to take a drug test.

Maybe it's because my heart is made of tar, but I'm loving the idea of Kate getting tripped up by a surly State Department employee. In an era of fast-track celebrity adoptions and off-shore bank accounts, it's refreshing to hear that the even the beautiful and famous sometimes face the hard knocks of being a regular citizen.

On Christmas Eve, model Julissa Mercedes was arrested for trying to transport nearly three pounds of swallowed cocaine into Sicily. A body scan revealed that Mercedes had 98 bags of the illicit drug in her stomach, an amount that was worth nearly $2 million on the street. According to police reports, the model was paid $5,500 to act as a drug mule for the Mafia.

Mercedes initially denied the charges but she later confessed before the police performed the body scan. Should Mercedes be found guilty, she could face up to 20 years in prison.

[via Asian News International]

Gone are the days in which supermodels were only accused of encouraging eating disorders and fostering low-self esteem.

Last week, I reported that Colombian Vice President Francisco Santos recently accosted supermodel Kate Moss for fueling the drug war in his home country. Now Lee Jaspers, an official adviser to the London police department, suggested that Moss was partly to blame for the rise in gun violence in the city.

Jasper argues that celebrities like Moss and her fiance Pete Doherty fuel the success of violent drug gangs. He believes the violent crime in London would decease if "the middle classes and the Kate Mosses ... [would] stop coming to places like Brixton to buy drugs."

What do you think? Can Kate Moss be blamed for drug violence or is this just another case of a celebrity being used as a convenient scapegoat?