Brooklyn brings out the best in Anna Wintour. We've never seen the Vogue editrix look as happy as she did with Marc Jacobs at the Brooklyn Museum's launch of their Murakami retrospective. We can't help but wonder what Wintour's doing with her other hand. Something perverted, probably.

Meanwhile, Kanye West looks none-too-pleased to be shot with Kristen Davis, while Jacobs got snap happy with the artist himself, Takashi Murakami. We guess pretense goes out the window when you cross the East River.

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Many of you may have heard about the LeBron James Vogue's "Shape Issue" controversy. Those of you who haven't need look no further than the above image.

Did the Vogue staffers really intend to present the NBA superstar as King Kong? That wasn't our impression. While we did think it queer they didn't doll him up in a suit, we just figured they wanted to make sure readers knew he's a basketball player. Are we just naive? Maybe.

Our colleague, Cord Jefferson, who has 26-years of blackness under his belt, offered this take:

The Vogue cover is inexcusable for this reason: Even if the photo was not intentionally alluding to the ape imagery of yesteryear, Annie Leibovitz and Anna Wintour, "experts" on imagery that they are, should have been able to look at that photograph and realize what sorts of feelings it would evoke in the public. At worst, the picture's racist, at best, it's evidence of glaring ineptitude.

That straight boy sure does have him some sass.

So, readers, if you're not too mad at us right now, what's your take on this James outrage?

Hillary Clinton's campaign may come to an end this week. And, on the eve of a decisive primary, we can't help but wonder if she made a fatal mistake: downplaying her femininity.

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Madonna's got balls. The material girl reportedly rebuffed Anna Wintour's Fashion Rocks advances. Says Portfolio's Jeff Bercovici:

The chameleonic singer, I'm told, was the Vogue editor in chief's first choice to appear on the cover of Fashion Rocks, Conde Nast's annual supplement about music and style. Only after she declined did Wintour turn to Jennifer Lopez.

In other words, the former Fly Girl is still a backup dancer.

Straight Bercovici's certainly got some bitch in him, huh?

A Conde Nastie, meanwhile, denies the rumors, saying Madonna never agreed to perform at the Fashion Rocks concert and, thus, proved ineligible for the cover.

Rome's Arch of Peace just got a makeover. Party planners fitted the 2000-year old structure with 300 of Italian designer Valentino's breathtaking dresses.

The next three days will be filled all sorts of star studded as Uma Thurman, Elizabeth Hurley, Sienna Miller and that fashion tyrant, Anna Wintour gather to celebrate Valentino's 45-years as a style god.

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The world's most stylish fashionistas, singers, actors and hangers-on made their way to The Metropolitan Museum of Art last night for the Costume Institute's Gala. This year the institute honored the late, great French designer Paul Poiret. Poiret's stunning designs drew on both Oriental and art deco aesthetic, but constantly revolved around his favorite flower: the rose.

Our invitation must have gotten lost in the mail, so we had to live vicariously through press images. Shame, because we would have loved to pick Tom Ford and French Vogue editor Carine Roitfeld's respective brains. Oh well, there's always next year.

Take a look at some more shots, after the jump…

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First Anna Wintour, now Patrick Guerriero. The president of the Log Cabin Republicans was just starting his National Coming Out Day speech at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill when a mysterious figure rushed the stage and threw a chocolate cream pie at him. Though he valiantly ducked and swerved, he took part of the pie in the kisser.

Poor Patrick has a tough time getting any support for Log Cabins. Studies have shown that by a margin of 99 to 1, gay people prefer living in a fabulous pied-a-terre anyway. One Democrat in L.A. sent Patrick an e-mail saying he is “just another self-hating faggot,” and then topped that with “You and people like you are the worst enemies of the gay community.” The charming Minister Fred Phelps once said that Patrick is a “faggot . . . worthy of the death penalty.” Phelps has also journeyed to Sweden to hunt down its King, in the belief that he supports homosexuality.

Observers of the 2006 Pride March in New York City might recall that when a few straggling Log Cabin types paraded by, proud as all get out of their Republicanism, they were booed as if they were Ashlee Simpson lip-synching. Now you can experience all the Republican fun for yourself at the LC website. It has a video corner and a photo of Dick Cheney, if not any convincing explanations of why a gay person in their right mind would want to be associated with the homophobic Republican so-called party.