• Iman will grace the cover of Vogue Italia’s all-black issue. I was hoping they would highlight someone new, but I understand. [Fashionista]

• More wedding photos and gushing commentary from the weirdest newlyweds ever. I can’t believe Nick Cannon got that huge “Mariah” tattoo on his back. [NB]

• Negative, Tina. Negative. [DL]

• A juror on a marijuana possession trial was caught smoking weed during a recess and arrested. You can’t make this stuff up folks. [C&D]

• Foxy Brown’s Jet cover looks, uh, hastily executed. And that’s all I have to say about that. [RWS]

One of the most glamorous annual events in New York City, the Costume Institute Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, was held last night. As usual, the stars showed up to the party — this year’s theme was “Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy” — in all of their designer finery, and as usual, some gowns were finer than others. Loads more pics after the jump.

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It’s Tribeca film festival time, and the NY-based stars put on their best outfits (yes, that’s Russell Simmons’ best outfit) for the annual Vanity Fair Party that kicks off the events. After the jump, a flawless Iman, an uncharacteristically-clean-looking Zoe Kravitz, and more.

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While some people might feel a certain way about the way Eve’s paw-print tattoos look when she’s in formal wear, I actually think that she pulls them off. It’s like a trademark.

It should be said that it’s not the sort of thing a non-rapper/sort-of-actress can make work as successfully. More pics from the 7th on Sale Black-Tie Gala, where Eve showed off her class and sass, after the jump.

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It is bad that I not only do I hope and pray to look like Iman when I’m 52 years old, but I actually wish I looked like her now? It’s appropriate that the most glamorous 50-something in the world attended Glamour’s Women of the Year awards last night. Check out some more of the honorees and guests after the jump.

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Yay, Alicia! She got it right at last night’s annual “Black Ball,” a benefit for the Keep A Child Alive charity! Finally. And even if you don’t like the dress, you have to admit that at least she didn’t get it wrong. Her stylist did it for the children. More pics from the ball after the jump.

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It’s kind of hard to recommend makeup for the very wide range of skin tones black women possess, but Sam Fine was kind enough to tell me a little bit about some of his favorite products and brands, after I was done grilling him about the glamorous life of a celebrity makeup artist.

You may be surprised by how inexpensive some of his picks are. As Sam says, “Just because it’s expensive doesn’t mean it’s going to do the job.”

A few of his faves after the jump.

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It was the era of the Supermodel — you know, when they all went by their first and last names but certainly didn’t need to — think Naomi, Christy, Linda — and claimed they didn’t get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day.

New York Fashion Week shows were more glamorous (read: they weren’t sponsored by Olympus or Mercedes Benz and were held in lofts, clubs, and restaurants instead of tents). And Sam Fine was behind the scenes — at Geoffrey Bean, Fernando Sanchez, Tracy Reese, Todd Oldham, Isaac Mizrahi, etc. — giving the models faces to match their designer looks or rushing from show to show with Naomi and Tyra.

It was the first half of the ’90s when Sam Fine both assisted the late Kevyn Aucoin and worked the shows on his own. Those were the good ol’ days… that he doesn’t really want to go back to.

“It’s a fun gig, but I leave it to the young at heart and the ones that really love fashion,” he told Stereohyped.

And it’s not like being a celebrity makeup artist, which is the the job Sam Fine graduated to when he left the fashion show world, is any less glamorous. Or that much different.

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Because she’s infinitely cooler than me (actually, I just let her think that), Debbie, editor extraordinaire at our sister site, Jossip, crashed “snagged an invite” to Alek Wek’s party for her new book, Alek, which no one there actually read.

Or so Debbie says.

I actually did read it, and will be sharing my thoughts with you on it a bit later.

After the jump, peruse her astute party observations, which cover everything from Kimora Lee Simmons formidable height, to gift bags, to Nigel Barker, noted fashion photographer.

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Before Beverly, Iman, Veronica, Naomi and Tyra, there was Dorothea. Okay, so the name doesn’t conjure up images of beauty and glamour the way the ones I just listed do. But those fashion icons all walked through the doors Dorothea opened.

In the 1950s, Dorothea Towles Church was the first black model to sweep the Paris couture scene. A favorite of Christian Dior, for whom she dyed her hair platinum blond to create “contrast,” Church has said that in Paris, they saw her only as a beautiful woman. Of course, the Texas native did not have the same mainstream success in the United States, but magazines like Jet and Ebony would often publish articles detailing her Paris adventures.

But her growing fame did not eliminate prejudice on the part of some designers. At Schiaparelli, she once overheard someone describe her as Tahitian. While she worked for Pierre Balmain, she recalled, he would not allow her to borrow dresses for a photograph for Ebony magazine, fearing that would offend his white clientele. She took the clothes later on the pretext that she would wear them to a party, and the magazine then photographed them.

Church returned to the states in 1954 armed with trunk-loads of couture she had amassed through her work with different designers. She toured HBCUs, staging fashion shows with the never-before-seen designer clothes and throwing fundraisers for various branches of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.

Read more about the little-known Dorothea Church in Skin Deep: Inside the World of Black Fashion Models.

Tyra Banks, Iman, Kimora Lee Simmons, and Alek Wek grace the cover of September’s Ebony, which focuses on blacks in fashion over the last 50 years and is on newstands today. Naomi Campbell is framing this and putting it on her wall.

The new blood (Chanel Iman) came out to party with the veterans (Iman Iman) at a celebration for a NYC celebration of Trace Magazine’s “Black Girls Rule” issue, which Iman guest-edited. Fashion world celebrities were in attendance, including Bethann Hardison, famous black model guru and mother of Kadeem. More pics after the jump.

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As I informed you earlier, today is the anniversary of the Supreme Court decision in Loving vs. Virginia, which officially legalized interracial unions. A group of overly sentimental people have dubbed this day Loving Day, during which we are all supposed to celebrate our legal right to love and marry whoever we want (as long as they’re of the opposite sex). Here is a smattering of some famous interracial couples, starting with two of my favorites, Paula Patton and Robin Thicke.

Bono, the entertainment business’s resident bleeding heart, took over as guest editor for July’s Vanity Fair issue and focused on his favorite continent, Africa. To commemorate this historic event, famed photographer Annie Liebovitz shot 20 different covers.

As for the covers themselves, I was wondering why it looked like Madonna was about to kiss Maya Angelou’s ear and why Bush was violating Desmond Tutu’s space like that until Jossip informed me that the whole thing was supposed to look like a game of telephone. I’m not sure that is readily apparent, but the covers — featuring Alicia Keys, Brad Pitt, Condoleeza Rice, Don Cheadle, and Barack Obama, to name a few — are impressive nonetheless.

[VF]

Oscar De La Renta and design duo Proenza Schouler tied for best womenswear designer at last night’s Council of Fashion Designers of America awards. I don’t have much of either in my closet, unless you count a silk kimono dress I managed to snag from Target before the entire Proenza Schouler Go International line flew off the shelves. But I digress. An eclectic mix of celebs, models, and designers showed for last night’s awards.

Of course, Diddy threw the afterparty.

[WP]