Here are our picks for the very most of this month’s Elle, Lucky, Glamour, InStyle, Harper’s Bazaar and Marie Claire. (Vogue, as usual, will arrive fashionably late.)

Best Cover: A purple-hair-era Katy Perry on Elle takes the prize, if only for the very au courant nail art. (She still manages to squeeze her “Jesus” tattoo into the shot, though.) Given that the culture at large spends September shaking sand out of its beach tote, very few of this month’s cover stars—Jennifer Lopez, InStyle? Still?—have an imminent project to promote. (And Victoria Beckham, in a bubble bath on Glamour, isn’t even wearing clothes.)

Most Nostalgic: Harper’s Bazaar, in a cover line, advises readers to “Think Pink!”—a line from Funny Face, the movie based on Diana Vreeland and Richard Avedon’s time at Bazaar. (Cover girl Gwen Stefani, you’re great, but you’re no Audrey Hepburn.) Ms. Vreeland’s time at the magazine is elucidated in a piece that uses the word “Vogue” zero times. (Some anti-Vogue rancor is discernible at Glenda Bailey’s magazine: Another former Voguette, ousted French editrix Carine Roitfeld, gets a glowing profile in Bazaar.)

Best Editor’s Letter, Lede Division: “Naomi Wolf wants you to feel good. Really good,” writes Roberta Myers in Elle. (The feminist firebrand is profiled there and has a piece in Bazaar on dating.)

Best Editor’s Letter, Unintentional Revelations Division: Joanna Coles describes regretfully turning down her dream job as a journalist covering Parliament in the Marie Claire supplement @Work, which features Chelsea Handler on the cover.

Most Unlikely Suggestion: In her capacity as Glamour guest editor, Ms. Beckham writes that she suggested some future cover subjects from the indie-film universe: “Chloe Moretz, Clémence Poésy, Bella Heathcote ...” Maybe if Jessica Simpson falls ill!

Least Fortuitous Timing, Celebrity Division: Kristen Stewart, interviewed pre-cheating-scandal by InStyle. On Cartier’s Juste un Clou bracelet: “It reminds me of the person who gave it to me.” She wanted, and likely still wants, to go on a “very secluded” Mexican vacation.

Least Fortuitous Timing, Cinema Division: Both Elle and InStyle feature sneak peeks at what would have been this winter’s biggest movie, The Great Gatsby. After the magazines went to press, Gatsby was delayed until summer 2013.

Best Logroll: Marie Claire’s nine-page package on Project Runway, a show that features the magazine’s fashion director Nina Garcia. Before suggesting Runway-inflected trips to Parsons and Burger Joint, the author notes, “Sex and the City isn’t the only show that boasts the Big Apple as a main character.” Sure isn’t!

Best Advertising Opportunity: Justin Bieber’s perfume sponsored some of Lucky’s stickers (used to point out must-buy items—like Pinterest, but monthly!), as did uplifting toiletry brand Dove. Thanks to the good folks at Unilever, you can label Eva Longoria’s shorts “brave,” “graceful” or “STRENGTH.” [sic.]

Best Homage to Something Else Popular: Glamour informs us: “Hey, it’s okay ... to own 50 shades of gray ... cashmere sweaters.” Meanwhile, Elle titles its Katy Perry profile “Girl on Fire,” a reference to The Hunger Games, while Miley Cyrus is now getting magazine cover profiles solely in her capacity as Liam Hemsworth’s fiancée, also a nod to The Hunger Games. (Jennifer Lawrence clearly wasn’t available.)

Most Ubiquitous: Who knew Lana Del Rey was such a trendsetter? She gets a full-page spread, “Let’s All Look Like Lana!,” in Glamour (looking like Lana means having long hair) and is cited as a nail-care icon in Elle. Meanwhile, Solange Knowles, noted sister of Beyoncé, gets a photo shoot of her house in Elle and a two-page spread on her style evolution in Glamour.

Biggest Vitamin-Related Exclusive: “I wake up at 7 a.m., I shower, shave, eat breakfast, and have a double espresso, a cigarette, vitamins,” Marc Jacobs tells Marie Claire. “I wake up, have a double espresso and a cigarette, then I shower,” Mr. Jacobs tells Glamour.

Biggest Web-to-Print Leap: Fashion blogger Bryanboy, citing Carly Rae Jepsen in Glamour, a magazine that elsewhere features the “Shit Girls Say” video stars and the “Man Repeller” blogger.

Biggest Print-to-Web Synergy: InStyle has enlisted Katie Couric and Tommy Hilfiger as celebrity “Pinners” for their Pinterest pages; Mr. Hilfiger notes he is inspired by “classic autumnal colors.”

Biggest Print-to-Book-to-Print Leap: Elizabeth Wurtzel, for Harper’s Bazaar: “I want everyone to try as hard as I do to please be gorgeous, because it’s not that hard, girls. Looking great is a matter of feminism.”

Most Horrifying, Unsurprising Revelation: Lucky’s oral history of Guess reveals that Paris Hilton keeps a blow-up of her early-2000s jeans ad next to her bed.

Most Compelling Subhed: “Guest editor Victoria Beckham’s dear friend and go-to hair guy, Ken Paves, is on a mission to help at-risk women. Love that.”

Best Use of Profile-Speak: Miley Cyrus, per Marie Claire, is “a 19-year-old firecracker with washboard abs, a smoky laugh, and a filthy mouth.” Elsewhere her voice is described as “tangy and redolent of her native Nashville.”

Most Disconnected From Readers’ Reality: “Everyone I know with taste gets plates from Heath Ceramics,” says Jessica de Ruiter, stylist, in Lucky. “They use them at Axe.” (It’s pronounced “a-shay.”)

Biggest Indications Fashion Magazine Readers Aren’t In It For the Fashion: When asked, an Elle reader notes her biggest wish is not the Bottega Veneta dress Ms. Perry wears on the cover but “my mother’s love and my father’s approval”; a Glamour reader poll yields favorite designers including “anything Jennifer Aniston wears” and Old Navy.

Ms. Phillips paid $1.6 million for the one-bedroom, two-bathroom co-op near the top of 180 East 79th Street. The seller was the estate of Piera Circiello. She died in the fall of 2009, and was the wife of famed Upper East Side restaurateur Gino Circiello, whose eponymous restaurant was located 18 blocks south at 780 Lexington Avenue. In Gino Circiello's obituary from December 2001, The Times described the eatery thusly:

[Gino] epitomized the New York of the time when men still wore hats and a plate of spaghetti went for 95 cents. It was where Ed Sullivan ordered the same chicken dish every day and then spread out his papers on a table to work through the afternoon. Each Mother's Day, Frank Sinatra brought a dozen people to the big table in the back. Manicurists, opera stars and the odd mobster added spice to the sauce.

The 1930 red-brick-and-limestone building went co-op in 1965, according to Carter Horseley's City Realty, where he also notes, "The building has an impressive and large lobby decorated in an Oriental style with a doorman and a concierge."

SLIDESHOW: Connie Anne Phillips' Saucy New Spread >>

Entering Ms. Phillips' new 18th-floor "unique pre-war residence," as Sotheby's brokers Pierrette Hogan and Cheryl Daly put it in their listing, visitors are greeted by a set of exquisitely detailed and connected living spaces. A gallery steps down into a sunken 22-foot-long living room with a fireplace and then back up into the dining room on the left. Those rooms, along with the pantry and kitchen--with top-of-the-line appliances befitting any restaurant--have been painted the red of just-ripe Roma tomatoes. A staff room adjoins the pantry and dining room, leaving ample opportunity to create a two-bedroom. There are carved ceiling  beams and crown molding throughout the home.

These sorts of architectural details should suit Ms. Phillips very well. After all, she told Daily Front Row last September that the thing she missed most about working at Conde Nast was Frank Gehry's famous cafeteria in 4 Times Square.

Read past Manhattan Transfers here. >>

mchaban [at] observer.com | @mc_nyo

Keith Kelly writes this morning that Elle was handicapped by the departure of chief brand officer Carol Smith in April and cannot be expected to compete as long as her desk stays open.

Ms. Smith is currently cooking up plans for Bon Appetit and the Gourmet brand for Condé Nast.

Howard Sloan Koller has been hired to find a replacement for Ms. Smith, and in the meatime Elle publisher Anne Welch has been filling in.

On Tuesday night Mr. Foxman announced that he plans to launch an InStyle iPad app before the end of the year, according to Memo Pad.

Mr. Foxman's title sold over 1,100 ad pages in the first half of 2010, according to Keith Kelly, beating Vogue by over 100 pages, and leaving Elle in third place.

In 2007 Vogue beat InStyle by over 300 ad pages, but circulation and ad pages were already beginning to look up for InStyle the following year when Mr. Foxman took over the magazine.

Mr. Foxman will have to defend his stance in the second half of the year as new ad pages continue to come up for grabs.

According to Condé Nast sources, Mr. Florio was not at all pleased with the thought of Ms. Phillips raiding his staff as she figured out her plans with InStyle. Moreover: “He really cared for her and he was really bruised when she said she was leaving,” as one well-placed insider put it.

Mr. Florio had additional reason to be wounded. Before Ms. Phillips got her new gig, the executive director of beauty ads at Vogue, Toria Garrett, announced she was leaving for InStyle, to become the advertising director of beauty and lifestyle. She was a hot property at a time when beauty—which is to say, cosmetics—is particularly important to women’s magazines; fashion companies have balked at advertising in the face of their industry’s general contraction; but even during a depression—especially during a depression—women always need a little lipstick pick-me-up!

After Ms. Phillips’ letter of resignation landed on Mr. Florio’s desk, a decision was made to go back after Ms. Garrett, hard. This may be a moment when many staffers throughout Condé Nast are taking on two and three jobs, but Mr. Florio grew up in the company at a point when raiding rival staffs, whatever it took, was part of the game. Time to turn back the clock. 

On March 2, Ms. Garrett abruptly turned around, without putting in even one day at InStyle, and announced she was moving back to Vogue, with a shiny new title: advertising director, overseeing the magazine’s beauty and non-endemic business.

Score for Mr. Florio.

Both camps insist that there was no specific message sent by the rehire, and that there is no tension.

“Tom encouraged Connie Anne to interview for the position at InStyle,” said Elissa Lumley, spokeswoman for Vogue. “He called people in the organization to recommend her. When he heard that Connie Anne got the job, he was genuinely happy for her and hugged her.”

“Connie Anne and Tom remain good friends,” said an InStyle spokeswoman, “and she is focused on getting to know her new staff at InStyle.

Yet one could be forgiven for expecting Mr. Florio’s and Ms. Phillips’s newfound professional rivalry to be fraught. They’ve had a close working relationship for years. They were also friends—they’re neighbors in Sag Harbor, and Mr. Florio’s children affectionately called Ms. Phillips “Auntie Con-Con.”

Ms. Phillips was also one of the most powerful deputies at 4 Times Square. While Mr. Florio oversees the large Vogue empire, Ms. Phillips did a lot toward running the day-to-day operations at the classy monthly. Last year, her title was changed to managing director to reward her for increased influence at the magazine.

In recent months, however, Condé Nast has not been in a position to be particularly nurturing of proteges. When Si Newhouse and CEO Chuck Townsend were considering what to do with the now-defunct shelter title Domino a few months ago, they were openly shopping for a new publisher. Ms. Phillips, two sources said, wanted the job. She did not get it (of course, this might have been a blessing, since the decision was made to fold Domino on Jan. 28).  

Ms. Phillips started at InStyle on Feb. 23, one workday after she resigned from Vogue.

jkoblin@observer.com