Out in Los Angeles, Steven Spielberg, Halle Berry, Jamie Foxx, Samuel L. Jackson, Sharon Stone, Bradley Whitford, Tom Hanks, Jamie Lee Curtis, Magic Johnson, Robert Zemeckis, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Berry Gordy and director-producer Reginald Hudlin have all pitched in. From New York, we have Cynthia Brill and Patricia Duff, who each gave $25,000. Ms. Duff's ex, Ron Perelman, gave $50,000, as did Def Jam executive Antonio Reid, Laurance  Rockefeller Jr. and his wife, Wendy, Citigroup's Ray McGuire, Sally Minard, Howard Milstein (two family members also donated the maximum amount), and five people with the last name Soros (including, of course, George).

Contributors will receive tickets to the ceremony and, more important, access to official balls and events. Whether the $500 folk will be attending the same parties as the $50,000 crowd is unclear, but it seems, shall we say, unlikely. 

Cathy Horyn gets to the bottom of what's wrong with Vogue. (Summary: The magazine has gotten sort of boring.) [NYT]

The clothing company established for Kira Plastinina, the 16-year-old daughter of Russian billionaire Sergei Plastinin, has officially filed for bankruptcy. [Bloomberg]

Natalie Massenet, the founder of high-end shopping site Net-a-Porter, is set to launch an outlet in Feburary. [The Cut via Telegraph]

People paid around $300,000 for the first pictures of Bristol Palin's  son, Tripp Easton Mitchell Johnston. [The Scoop]

Sean "P. Diddy" Combs doesn't think he should have to pay for his inauguration tickets because he's famous. [P6]

Actor Matt Dillon was given a citation for driving 106 miles per hour, which was 41 miles per hour over the speed limit. [NYDN]

Meanwhile, basketball player Charles Barkley was picked up for drunk driving on New Year's Eve. [NYDN]

The highly anticipated spring ads for Chanel (Heidi Mount posing in Karl Lagerfeld's home) and Marc by Marc Jacobs (a supine Daisy Lowe on a white bed) are out. [Fashionista]

FYI: Lounge in Soho--the one with the big "GOING OUT OF BUSINESS" signs in the windows--is not honoring gift cards. [Racked] 

Forget the hemline index and expect to see a lot of very short shorts on the Spring 2009 runways. [Style.com]

Renowned Italian hotel Villa d’Este is launching a line of luxury products. [WWD]

We started the year worrying that pom-pomed moccasin boots were here to stay. Thankfully, we now know they were not.

Meatpacking district original Florent Morellet failed to understand the skyrocketing rents on his "shabby" bit of Gansevoort St. 

At a Bergdorf Goodman Fashion Week party, a slightly manic Isaac Mizrahi explained why he does not attend fashion shows. Later on, at Cynthia Rowley, Parker Posey told us she doesn't like runway viewing because it makes her sweat. And Victoria Beckham almost prematurely revealed the winner of Project Runway.

A couple weeks later, we continued to talk fashion at the Westminster Dog Show: “You never want to wear anything that outshines the dog, you want to wear shoes that won’t slip, and you never want to wear anything that clashes with the carpet.”

On the one-year anniversary of The Box, now-embattled owner Simon Hammerstein told us: “If you look at the program from last year till now, certainly we kept pushing the boundaries of what we thought people would be able to take. … It paid off because people really responded well to stuff that I thought they would get creeped out by." How things change in a year!

L.A.-based institution Wolfgang Puck dissed hometown hero David Chang. 

We attended a non-fund-raising fete in honor of the Jagger Dagger--a specially designed $250,000 ice pick that Jade Jagger created for Belvedere vodka--and Alexander Wang, Tara Subkoff, and Tatiana von Furstenburg were all confused. 

Even after quitting his (recently resurrected) Gatecrasher column, Daily News gossip Ben Widdicombe found the time to fill us in on New York chatter from Istanbul.

Sarah Jessica Parker played rock star at the premiere of Sex and the City. 

A post-Padma Salman Rushdie shilled for the Kama Sutra at a steamy Barnes & Noble reading. 

Summer rolled around and we pondered the wearability of the season's ubiquitous maxi dress.

At the 30th anniversary of Betsey Johnson, the designer mourned the death of downtown. More recently, the old-school club kids at Susanne Bartsch's Christmas toy drive proved that they're still having fun. 

Out in the Hamptons, we tried--and sort of succeeded--to wheedle information out of a freshly divorced Christie Brinkley.

We made a study of Chuck Bass--er, Ed Westwick's--carefully crafted photo face in preparation for a very special Gossip Girl party.

At the DNC in Denver, the celebs of the Creative Coalition wondered how to get in touch with the common folk. However, by the end of the week, they were more than happy to relax at Google and Vanity Fair's fancy get-together.

Over at the RNC in Minnesota, buddies Danny Meyer and Tom Brokaw unwound over junk food and fly-fishing chat.

Fashion Week: Round II brought us to a glittery party hosted by Interview at the unfinished Standard Hotel and a premiere party for The Rachel Zoe Project, where Ms. Zoe's mother told us some cute stories about her daughter (our next run-in with Ms. Zoe was less warm). Andre Leon Talley hoped for a new generation of less emaciated models, and Andre 3000 informed us that dressing well doesn't mean you're gay. To top it off, we stumbled upon a quietly A-list party on West 31st St. 

At an Accompanied Literary Society party (co-hosted by Diesel), literature (sort of) met fashion. We met Fiona Apple, who was there with author-boyfriend Jonathan Ames. 

Toby Young returned to New York to promote the film version of How to Lose Friends and Alienate People. 

We got pre- and post- election assessments from the literary and media set at the New York Public Library Lions benefit and a screening of After the Party, respectively.  

We found out that Katie Holmes and Suri Cruise eat at the Zaro's across the street from our office (sometimes)!

The art and social worlds were forced to note the tanking economy. 

Finally, to close out the year, we were treated to a discourse on hip-hop by Tom Wolfe. 

Jennifer Hudson, who has not performed since the murders of her mother, sister and nephew, may sing "The Star-Spangled Banner" at the Obama inauguration. [P6]

Here's Christina Huffington (daughter of Arianna) at the International Debutante Ball at the Waldorf-Astoria. [Guest of a Guest]

Whitney Port's somewhat underminey take on City co-star Olivia Palermo: "I was already so nervous for my first day [at Diane von Furstenburg], and it became even worse when I met [Olivia] because she seemed so experienced! Olivia  taught me what a socialite really is—I mean I sort of knew the parameters of what it takes to be a 'social' considering I have grown up in Hollywood, but I found it so interesting that you can be completely self-made in the cutthroat environment that is New York City!" [Celebuzz via Racked]

There's also "downtown" girl Erin (who lives in Gramercy), a longtime friend of Ms. Port with no distinguishing characteristics (see also: Adam, Mr. Lyon's partner in... something). In the double episode premiere, we watch Ms. Port backstage at Fashion Week in the first days of her entry-level PR job, learn that downtown residents like fedoras and neon wall paint while uptowners host undermine-y dinner parties, and witness a non-physical confrontation between a bunch of gossipy boys at Tenjune. It was all fairly bleak, devoid of even the guilty pleasure crunch of parent show The Hills. The morning-after analysis didn't mince words.

From The Cut: "Whitney looks bored as all hell when she arrives at the Diane von Furstenburg office for her first day of work. Olivia Palermo arrives, and they have one of the most staged reality-TV conversations in history about who Whitney and Olivia know. Because everyone knows New York — excuse us, The City — is all about who you know. And don't you know Whitney? Everyone knows everyone. Throughout this fascinating discourse, Olivia looks at Whitney like she wants to jump out from behind her desk and suck the blood from her neck, while Whitney looks, as usual, oblivious to Olivia's and her own feelings." 

From Gawker:  "At the dinner party, while they tried to look all louche and exclusive and clucked their tongues at their mama's way of doing the boy, girl / boy, girl seating, they just came off as eight year olds wearing way-too-big blazers and silly hats that didn't fit their tiny heads. If I wanted to watch dress up time, I'd go down to the elementary school. Yes I would be arrested for suspicious lurking, but I would see some honest to goodness dress up before that happened. Here it was just overgrown, bulbous entitled idiots dancing and dancing, unaware that in a few short months, so very much of it would disappear."

From Jossip: "Olivia seems to want everyone to know she's 'in' on the joke of being on reality TV, but she just comes up as an uber-condescending bitch...People on this show love weird hats. Alex's roomate/best friend used to date Jay. 'She's a model' is a theme for this show, as is the phrase 'small world.'"

From Television Without Pity: "Whitney admits to Jay that he saved her, and he pretty much immediately suggests they leave. Whitney agrees, and they take Erin with them, dropping the party's cool person quotient back to zero. And in case you need proof of what irredeemable bastards these people are, Erin tells Whitney on the way out that some guy at the party called her a hooker. Nice."

From, uh, the MTV Remote Control blog: "Now, we don’t like labels one bit, so we’re not going to tell you that our eyes bleed every time we go above 14th Street, or that Bergdorf Goodman's cosmetics section gives us hives. We will tell you, however, that not all of these geographical stereotypes ring true. Not all Upper East Siders dress like Gossip Girl characters and throw fancy dinner parties with placeholders. And not all Lower East Siders suck at relationships and could benefit from a haircut."

High-end LA boutique Tracey Ross, which carried lines like Derek Lam and Thakoon, has shut down. [P6]

Spotted: Scott Schuman, also known as the Sartorialist, shopping at American Apparel. [Racked]

French designer Ted Lapidus died at the age of 79 on Monday. [WWD]

Some mostly positive reactions to Thakoon's new Target line. [Racked]

In an attempt to weather the recession, ready-to-wear designers plan to offer "edited," more practical collections while turning their attention to international markets. [WWD] 

If you're hanging out in Chelsea or Times Square on New Year's Eve, P. Diddy (and Ciroc Vodka) will pay for your cab home. [NYDN]

Actress Zooey Deschanel is engaged to Death Cab for Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard. [People]

In case you missed it, Bristol Palin gave birth yesterday to a son, the creatively named Tripp Easton Mitchell Johnston. [Us Weekly]

Next up for How to Lose Friends and Alienate People author Toby Young: a charter school. [WWD via Gawker] 

Donald Trump is upset that Rebecca Jarvis, a former Apprentice contestant and current CNBC reporter, neglected to remind the public of her reality TV past in a recent on-air promo. [P6]

Now that he's hooked up with Madonna, 20-year-old Jesus Luz's modeling rate will likely rise. [The Cut]

We learn that Mr. Lohan has been invited to Sundance this year, where he will again attempt to compete for a good cause (his November boxing match was cancelled when his parole officer objected to his participation) in a poker battle against other "A-list celebrities." Also, there's the announcement that he and his daughter have declared a "truce," which means that "all sources, so called friends and mouthpieces" should "refrain from any more comments or suggestions on her blog." 

As for the blog itself, the inaugural post warns readers:

Meanwhile, in a video clip, he explains what it is about:

If you still have questions for Mr. Lohan, he'll be hosting a live chat tonight at 9pm. The topic is: "How the media, press and public opinion affect those in the spotlight."