The Daily Transom

Troubled singer Amy Winehouse is reportedly in talks with British fashion house Fred Perry to design her own clothing collection and has already begun sketching some of her ideas. [Vogue UK]

Gedalio Grinberg, chairman of the Movado Group (where he had worked since the '60s), died on Sunday in Manhattan at age 77. [WWD]

Women who have scored invitations to the inaugural balls have started "registering" their dresses on special websites to make sure no one else will be wearing their gown. [NY Daily News] 

Designer John Galliano has been appointed a chevalier of the French Legion of Honor, previously bestowed upon Yves Saint Laurent and Azzedine Alaia. [WWD] 

Some obvious fashion casualties of the recession: young designers, celebrity lines, very expensive designer labels with limited distribution, and $20,000 handbags. [WWD] 

Author and social fixture Jay McInerney's new book, The Last Bachelor, is being released in the UK this month; it's a short-story collection about the morally complicated relationships of middle-class Manhattanites. In a piece in the Telegraph, Mr. McInerney comes off as certainly "the last" of something--perhaps the last author to establish a writing career based on the hedonistic lifestyles of New York yuppies--even though his new collection of stories takes a look at a decidedly more current, post-9/11 city.

Some of the article's highlights include Mr. McInerney on his first novel, which he still enjoys re-reading occasionally:

"I hadn't thought about it. I recently re-read it. It's sort of like reading a book by somebody else. I thought, 'Wow, that's pretty damn good. Where did I come up with that?'

"Sometimes it seems an albatross, because it remains not necessarily my best but definitely my most successful book. When I die the words Bright Lights, Big City will be in the headlines. Probably not The Good Life, probably not Brightness Falls, probably not Story of My Life."

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Ambitious twenty- and thirty-somethings in New York working in creative fields are living with their parents instead of getting a place of their own, reports Page Six Magazine. The magazine cites the celebrity examples of socialites Fabiola Beracasa, 32, and Charlotte Ronson, 31, who just this year left their respective parents' lush residences--socialite Veronica Hearst's on the Upper East Side and Ann Dexter-Jones's duplex in the West Village.

But since Ms. Ronson, a successful designer, and Ms. Beracasa, creative director of the jewelry company Circa, have in fact taken steps to establish their domestic independence, they seem to contradict the magazine's argument that this sort of thing is on the rise.  read more »

In the interest of drumming up maximal funds—or "transparency"—Barack Obama's Presidential Inauguration Committee has released a chart (to be updated in real time) listing the names, employers, cities, and contributions of everyone who donates money to help make January 20 the best inauguration ever. The PIC won't be accepting any more than $50,000 per person, so it's not a good venue for show-offs, but we still spotted a lot of familiar names.  read more »

The Village Voice has laid off legendary fashion writer Lynn Yaeger. [Fashionista]

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]

Madoff-tainted Walter and Monica Noel managed to rent out Yemanja, their Mustique vacation home, to someone willing to pay their $55,000-per-week asking price. [P6]

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]  read more »

The year 2008 began with an extravagant bang and ended with a painful, economic catastrophe-induced whimper. Here, we relive some of the highlights.

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.  read more »

With sales of high-end childrenswear up 50 percent in the last year, designers are set to introduce more fancy kids' clothes to the market. [WWD]

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]  read more »

After meeting a bunch of girls at Britney Spears's birthday party, the romantic Jeremy Piven sent a mass text message to all of them reading "Come to my room—whoever responds first gets me for the night." The lucky first responder was 23-year-old Ashley Chontos, who has been nursing the actor through his mercury poisoning and will be accompanying him to the Golden Globes. [Gatecrasher]

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]  read more »

Last night, an already suspicious viewership tuned in to MTV's latest spinoff-of-a-spinoff, The City, a chronicle of robotic LA-transplant Whitney Port's wan adventures as a Diane von Furstenburg "employee" in Manhattan. Along for the ride are "co-worker" and grasping socialite Olivia Palermo, who has apparently decided to trade in the  crumbs of her Upper East Side credibility in exchange for vague national face recognition, and Jay Lyon, the Australian frontman of very little known band Tamarama and Ms. Port's official love interest.

There's also "downtown" girl Erin (who lives in Gramercy), a longtime friend of Ms. Port with no distinguishing characteristics (see also: Adam, Mr.  read more »