The issue itself—the much-blogged, Lady Gaga-covered September Vanity Fair—doesn’t hit stands until Thursday,wholesale Victorias Secret, but royal watchers, social chroniclers, and the legions of Little Monsters can get the answers they’ve waited for today: VF’s International Best-Dressed List is now online.

Conclusions? It’s a good time to be in politics. Michelle Obama made the women’s list, as did SamCam (a.k.a. Samantha Cameron, wife of Britain’s new prime minister, David Cameron), and Carla Bruni-Sarkozy. Carey Mulligan and Diane Kruger made their first appearances on the women’s list as well. On the Originals list, Lady Gaga makes her debut, joining Helena Bonham Carter, John Galliano, and the Duchess of Alba, among others. On the men’s side, Waris Ahluwahlia shares space with Javier Bardem, Alec Baldwin (on the list after a 21-year hiatus), and André Balazs, to name a few. And the fashion industry is repped by Tory Burch, Marchesa’s Georgina Chapman, Alice + Oliva’s Stacey Bendet, Alber Elbaz, and Glamour’s Cindi Leive.

The complete list—including couples, sibling pairs, and the hall of fame—is now up at www.vanityfair.com.

Photo: Francis Specker / CBS / Landov

NEW YORK Lea Michele is moving from a locker to a much bigger closet. She’s the star of the new Candie’s ad campaign, dubbed “Hanging at Home,” shot at a private mansion in Beverly Hills, Calif. The images show her poolside, in the kitchen, in a bed with satin sheets and in a walk-in closet, wearing a new outfit and pair of shoes in each one.

The 25-year-old star of “Glee” is following in the high-heel footprints of former brand spokeswomen Britney Spears and Fergie, among others. Michele says she particularly liked Spears’ old ads. “I think they’re fun and flirty and show off her body great.”

Michele does a little showing off here, too, with some sexy poses, some silly poses and some glamorous ones.

Anyone who has seen Michele do a turn on the red carpet knows she’s got her moves down for the camera.

She has become a “get” for designers eager to show off their gowns on a hot, young starlet. At the recent Golden Globes, she wore a silver Marchesa gown that was straight from the runway.

Her sentimental favorite gown, though, was probably the one she wore to her first Globes in 2010: a black, strapless Oscar de la Renta with a full skirt.

Other tidbits from Michele in an email interview:

AP: What was your wardrobe like in high school?

Michele: My wardrobe in high school was very simple. Jeans and maybe a sweatshirt and sneakers.

AP: Is there a style trend that you love?

Michele: I love wide-leg, high-waisted pants. If done the right way,wholesale Columbia, they’re very chic.

AP: Is there a trend you wish would go away?

Michele: Feathers in people’s hair!

AP: Do you have a guilty pleasure?

Michele: I LOVE beauty products. Face and body creams are my obsession.

The Candie’s brand is available exclusively at Kohl’s Department Stores.

Customs data showed exports at their most sluggish in two years — stripping out the volatile month of February.

(Reporting by Aileen Wang and Nick Edwards; Editing by Ken Wills)

BEIJING (Reuters) China’s exporters will face “very severe” conditions in the first quarter of 2012, the Commerce Ministry said on Thursday, with Europe’s debt crisis dragging on and dampening demand.

“The overall trade environment next year for China will be complicated, partly due to the economic uncertainties in the European countries, and I should say that the export situation in the first quarter of next year will be very severe,” Commerce Ministry spokesman Shen Danyang told a news conference.

Growth in Chinese exports and imports slowed in November, fresh evidence of faltering demand abroad and at home that is pushing Beijing towards a more explicit pro-growth policy stance, according to data published on December 10.

NEW YORK In a story Oct. 18 about a controversy over Susan Sarandon referring to Pope Benedict XVI as a Nazi, The Associated Press erroneously reported that the actress gave Benedict a copy of the book on which her 1995 film “Dead Man Walking” was based. Sarandon said she gave the book to the previous pope, John Paul II.

(Reuters) Bank of New York Mellon (BK.N) said on Wednesday that fourth-quarter earnings fell 26 percent after the world’s No. 1 custody bank reported lower forex volume and took a restructuring charge as part of a large-scale plan to make its operations more efficient.

BNY Mellon reported net income of $505 million, or 42 cents a share, compared with $679 million, or 54 cents a share, a year earlier. The results included a $107 million restructuring charge that reduced net income by 6 cents a share.

Chief Executive Officer Gerald Hassell said in a press release that general financial uncertainty in Europe and other parts of the globe depressed client activity, pressuring revenue.

Investment management and performance fees, for example, were $730 million, a decrease of 9 percent from a year earlier. BNY Mellon laid some of the blame on money market funds, whose miniscule yields have forced the company to waive fees to keep investors.

In the fourth quarter, foreign exchange revenue totaled $183 million. That was a decline of 11 percent from the year-ago period because of lower volume.

(Reporting By Tim McLaughlin; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) James Franco is in early talks for a starring role in “The Game,Cheap Ed hardy Shoes,” the MGM movie based on Neil Strauss’ New York Times bestseller about picking up women, TheWrap has confirmed.

Strauss documented his experiences in “The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists,” which was released by Regan Books in 2005. Franco’s role would be as Mystery, who taught Strauss how to become a pick-up artist.

“The Game” is directed by Brian Koppelman and David Levien, both of whom worked on the screenplay. Writers D.B. Weiss (HBO’s “Game of Thrones”), and Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky — the Emmy-nominated writer-producers of NBC’s “The Office” — also worked on the project.

Gary Barber, Roger Birnbaum, Andrew Miano, Chris Weitz and Paul Weitz are producing “The Game.”

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) Geek chic will soon be back when Napoleon Dynamite returns in an animated TV show and joins “Family Guy” and “The Simpsons” on the Fox network’s “Animation Domination” night.

“Napoleon Dynamite,Cheap Ed hardy bags,” the 2004 independent film about a socially awkward teenager in a small town, directed by Jared Hess and starring Jon Heder, became a hit and received praise for bringing something fresh to the teen comedy genre.

The film is about a high-school loser, Napoleon, who becomes a bit of a winner while retaining his geekiness. The original cast is voicing their animated characters in the TV shows that debuts on January 15.

They are joined by new characters and guest stars including Amy Poehler, Sam Rockwell and Jemaine Clement.

Heder, 34, talked to Reuters about returning to play Napoleon and working in animation.

Q: Napoleon is back! Why now?

A: “We played around with the idea of an animated series or live-action series for a sequel, but we never played around seriously because we made this with a bunch of friends, so we weren’t thinking cash franchise. But it came out and became a success, and I think all these years later, when Fox came to us, we said, ‘Hey, we’d talked about it. We think the time is right, let’s do it,’ and we were all on board.”

Q: Why animation over live action, especially with the original cast?

A: “Honestly, because it’s probably cheaper and we’re probably all old and flabby now! A live-action show still has a certain lifespan, but with shows like “Family Guy” and “King of the Hill,” successful animated shows can go on forever.”

Q: Where does the new series pick up from after the film?

A: “Napoleon is already friends with Pedro and Deb, and he still has a rivalry going with Summer and Don, but Kip really hasn’t met LaFawnduh yet. The idea was that Kip might have lots of potential female romantic interests. It’s kind of a prequel, in between the end of the movie and the wedding (between Kip and LaFawnduh), because the wedding at the end of the movie, that could have been much later, even years later, so maybe they took some time apart to try out some different mates.”

Q: What can we expect from Kip’s online dating adventures?

A: “We just like the idea that Kip is always online, especially because he doesn’t really know what he’s getting into. In one of the episodes, he’ll be talking to Tatiana from Russia, and he has no idea who she is, she could be a man, so we’re playing with the idea that Kip is clueless. It also lends itself to stories where Kip and Napoleon are going after the same girl, some sibling rivalry there.”

Q: Do you ever feel pigeonholed by playing Napoleon?

A: “He’s very much like me. He’s not pretentious. He was raised in a small town, and he’s an outsider. So, I relate a ton to the character. It is kind of a part of me and it probably will be for the rest of my life. That’s why I have no problem coming back and doing Napoleon again.”

Q: How do you think fans will respond?

A: “… I think true fans will like it, hopefully. It’s animated but it’s trying to capture the feeling and the integrity of the movie. There’s an innocence that’s still there and the naivety of the characters and there’s such a lovability about them.”

Q: Does Napoleon’s iconic dance to Jamiroquai’s “Canned Heat” make an appearance?

A: “Sadly, because it’s animated, unless they do some motion-capture on me, that was the only thing I was a little bit bummed about. I’m playing the part, but it’s only the voice, and so much of the Napoleon character is capturing the image and the physical movements. But from what I’ve seen, the animators are doing a pretty funny job.”

(Editing by Bob Tourtellotte and Patricia Reaney)

NEW YORK Nick Cannon is spending the first week of the new year in the hospital, with wife Mariah Carey by his side. Carey tweeted that Cannon is suffering from “mild kidney failure.” His representative confirmed Cannon’s hospitalization. He is in Aspen,wholesale Ed hardy belts, Colo., where he and Carey were vacationing.

Carey posted a picture on her website of a miserable-looking Cannon in a hospital bed as she lay beside him. She asked for prayers and said Cannon’s situation was “very painful.” She later called it a “serious moment that’s very tough on all of us.”

The pair became the parents of twins a boy and a girl last year.

Cannon is 31. His representative had no further information Wednesday about his condition, but said he is still hospitalized.

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Online:

http://www.mariahcarey.com

The Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art has opened its doors, at long last, to one of its most highly anticipated exhibitions: “Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty.” Even in its first few weeks, this show has broken attendance records. Organized by curator Andrew Bolton, the retrospective celebrates one of the fashion industry’s most important designers, the late Lee McQueen, founder and creative director of the label Alexander McQueen. His unprecedented designs marked a critical shift not only in fashion design, but in the reception of fashion as a form of installation, performance, and art.

Nearly 200 items are featured in the exhibition, which spans the 19 years of McQueen’s career that was cut short in February of last year by his suicide. Rarities from his graduate collection at Central St. Martins are displayed alongside work from the unfinished final collection of 2010, his swan song. While “Savage Beauty,” on view through July 31, showcases the designs within the context of the label, it is clearly homage to the man himself,Inflatable Jumpers, and the creative intuition that produced one of the most innovative visions of contemporary fashion.

Despite the commercial aspirations of the show — “Savage Beauty” was funded almost entirely by the label whose clothing it features — it is nevertheless difficult to look at a single one of the designs without being mesmerized, intrigued, or provoked into some response, oftentimes confusion. No designer has better embodied Yves Saint Laurent’s incisive dictum that while fashion is not exactly art, it requires the creativity of an artist in order to exist. McQueen’s originality and genius derived from the fact that his tremendous talent as a designer was matched by his capacity as an artist.

His technical training as a tailor’s apprentice on Savile Row formed the basis for the attention to craftsmanship and expert tailoring that have become synonymous with the label’s aesthetic. At the same time, fashion served him as a medium to explore complex ideas. Despite his background as a tailor, he was able to see beyond the garment itself and its construction, and as a result his understanding of fashion extended far beyond clothing. Each piece had an individuality about it, but was nonetheless part of a sustained vision that governed the aesthetic of a collection as well as that of the final runway presentation.

His Spring/Summer 2001 collection, for example, was based on avian imagery (which he revisited frequently) and the gothic aesthetics of a mental institution, with garments including extraordinary pieces such as a dress with taxidermy eagles protruding from the shoulders as though in flight, as well as head bandages and embellished, asymmetrical jackets that were vaguely reminiscent of nurses’ uniforms. Models paced around inside of a boxed, mirrored room clawing at the glass walls as though trying to escape from their asylum-like runway. In the final moments of the presentation, the walls of another box within the faux psychiatric ward collapsed to reveal a startling tableau vivant inspired by the Joel-Peter Witkin photograph “Sanitarium”: a reclining, masked nude breathing through a tube and surrounded by fluttering moths.

Other presentations included snarling wolves, life-sized chess boards, and rain pouring down over models as they walked the runway. The famous showing of his Spring/Summer 1999 collection featured two automated robots who shot a model clad in white with sprays of green and black paint.

The artistry of McQueen’s artistry vision is also seen in his love of an idea over (or at least as much as) its product. Many of his designs had little or nothing to do with fashion, and their translation into clothing design was far was from obvious or literal. Plato’s account of Atlantis, Darwin’s “Theory of Evolution,” Lucien Freud’s paintings, films such as “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?,” and elements of 19th-century Victorianism (McQueen would refer to himself as the Edgar Allen Poe of fashion) were incorporated into his designs. Historical events were of great influence as well, and one of his early collections, “Highland Rape,” was based on what McQueen called the “rape of Scotland” by the British Empire during the Jacobite Risings and the Highland Clearances of the 18th and 19th centuries.

Another source of inspiration that McQueen drew heavily on throughout his career was Medieval and Renaissance art, specifically Flemish painting. His last collection, presented posthumously, was unofficially titled “Angels and Demons,” and the references to the work of Botticelli, Hieronymous Bosch, Jean Fouquet, and Hans Memling were clear both materially and in concept. New textile technologies were used to photograph the paintings and weave their images into jacquard fabrics and embroideries that were cut into highly tailored garments. Moreover, the collection mirrored a theme present in the works McQueen was focusing on: death and the afterlife. In a way, it is this set of source images for his last collection that best illustrate McQueen’s view of fashion. Major characteristics of Flemish painting include highly detailed imagery, sumptuous colors, and fantastical narratives that often focus on the grotesque, and McQueen’s work offers an aesthetic that values and masterfully combines all of these aspects.

The innumerable tributes to the designer since his death aim both at commemorating his contributions to fashion and securing his legacy. It is somewhat difficult as a result to keep sight of the man beneath the weight of so many accolades — commercial as well as critical — and in a sense, there is little need for these displays of recognition; Lee McQueen’s legacy was ensured long before his death. One of the most important aspects of this legacy was the nature of his vision, which related fashion to art in a way that few designers, or artists, have been able to do. McQueen created a new class of designer, and in so doing expanded the field for those to come.

“Pariah,” writer-director Dee Rees’ feature debut, achieves a difficult, intriguing balance. It’s at once raw and dreamlike, specific to a particular, personal rite of passage yet widely relatable in its message of being true to oneself.

Adepero Oduye gives a subtly natural performance as Alike (pronounced ah-lee-kay), a 17-year-old Brooklyn girl who’s struggling to come out as a lesbian. Each day at school, she dresses the way that makes her feel comfortable in baggy T-shirts and baseball caps, and she pals around with her brash best friend, Laura (Pernell Walker), who’s already happily out. But on the bus ride home, she must transform herself into the young lady her mother, Audrey (Kim Wayans), approves of and loves. You can see the weight of resignation hanging on her shoulders, the sadness in her eyes as she catches a glimpse of herself in the window.

Audrey hopes arranging a new friendship with a colleague’s daughter, Bina (Aasha Davis), will set Alike down a traditionally straight, female path, but this budding relationship only complicates matters further. While the two girls don’t exactly bond at first, Bina eventually becomes beguiling to Alike on a number of levels; their mutual fascination with each other would be believable even if they’d forged a simply heterosexual connection.

But nothing is ever simple with girls at this age, and so there are gray areas, a phenomenon Rees herself clearly understands. “Pariah” isn’t exactly an autobiographical tale for the filmmaker, but the struggle Alike endures is obviously quite personal to her.

Simultaneously, Alike’s home life is deteriorating, as her police officer father (Charles Parnell) begins keeping suspiciously late hours; it’s a subplot that bogs things down and feels like a distraction from Alike’s journey, a device to crank up the tension. The growing rift between mother and daughter certainly provides enough angst already, with Audrey remaining fiercely closed-minded, even as Alike finally begins to feel free.

Her story is inspiring to see, whether you’re gay or straight and regardless of age or race; she’s searching for her place in the world at a difficult, transitional time, something we’ve all experienced. Oduye is both melancholy and radiant in the role, and she makes you long for her character to finally find peace. And Bradford Young’s award-winning cinematography gives “Pariah” the gauzy,wholesale Ed hardy belts, gorgeous feel of an urban fairy tale one in which our heroine doesn’t necessarily live happily ever after, but at least she has hope. And she knows who she is.

“Pariah,” a Focus Features release, is rated R for sexual content and language. Running time: 86 minutes. Three stars out of four.

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Motion Picture Association of America rating definitions:

G General audiences. All ages admitted.

PG Parental guidance suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children.

PG-13 Special parental guidance strongly suggested for children under 13. Some material may be inappropriate for young children.

R Restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

NC-17 No one under 17 admitted.