Interview

Those stories and more in our daily news roundup.

• Rumor has it Kate Moss was dropped as the face of David Yurman after eight years because she did a jewelry collaboration with British line Fred's. The campaign for that line was, in Yurman's estimation, "embarrassingly similar" to his own ads with Moss and factored in to her dismissal. [Stylelist]
  

• The Qatar Luxury Group is planning to open its very own clothing and accessories label, called Qela, sometime this year. The goal is for Qela to open a store in Doha, Qatar, by the end of the year and expand to international markets in 2013. [Yahoo]
  

• Emma Stone covers the September 2012 issue of Interview magazine wearing aggressive stud earrings and a bronze collar. [Design Scene]
  

• An Italian hosiery company called Zephyr is suing Victoria's Secret for $15 million, claiming that the lingerie maker is making inexpensive knockoffs of its legwear — but using cheap lace and bad construction to do it. [Elle]
  

• To clarify: Tyra Banks did not attend Harvard Business School. She attended "a non-degree-granting certificate course at Harvard called the Owner/President Management Program." [Jezebel]
  

• Jenn Rogien, costume designer behind the popular HBO show Girls, is coy when asked whether she's planning on launching her own clothing line. "Right now I'm fully immersed in costume design but I would never say never," she says. [WWD]
  

• The Cambridge Satchel Company has won a trademark infringement case against rival bag maker Zatchels, which has been ordered to pay an unspecified settlement. But Zatchels said in a statement, "The designs we have been offering over the last few months will continue to be offered and are not affected by this settlement. It is not in any way relevant to our current trading position." [Catwalk Queen]

Following her 2009 hit, Prospect Park West, author Amy Sohn is back with a new book, Motherland: A Novel. Amy picks up with some of the same characters, but you don't have to be familiar with the first novel to follow along. Motherland chronicles the adventures of five parents living in Park Slope, Brooklyn, who often turn to alcohol and affairs to face their spouses and life goals after emerging from the black hole of raising an infant. "I really wanted to do something that was at the next phase of being a parent," Amy explains. "If a woman hasn't gone back to work, she might be realizing she's a little bit obsolete and a little bit redundant."

If you're not a mother, you might not expect a novel about motherhood to include passages about smoking pot, underground parties, and Grindr, the gay hookup mobile app. But this book is about parents living in Brooklyn after all. Amy, who raises her family there, still thinks her book captures the universal experience of American parents. Find out what she told us about motherhood, writing her new novel, and whether she's lost the friendships of fellow Brooklyn parents while writing about them.

TrèsSugar: Is it challenging to write about parents in Brooklyn as a parent in Brooklyn yourself?

Amy Sohn: There were always issues about writing about friends and privacy when mining my own life for material.

TS: Do your friends think you're writing about them?

AS: Some of them know that I am.

TS: It probably makes them feel more edgy.

AS: That's the truth. This one woman says that the character Karen is based on her, and it's so funny because not only is she not, but she's not someone I know very well. It's gotten back through the grapevine that she was proudly telling people she was in the book.

TS: How do you think women find a balance between motherhood and having a life separate from their children?

AS: The ones who are really struggling are the ones who can't separate from the child, and a lot of times that leads to very poor discipline. I'm probably in the middle of those two extremes.

TS: So, a big part of the plot is infidelity.

AS: I think infidelity is more rampant than any of us know because women are very good at being private about their affairs. But yeah, infidelity is as old as marriage, right?

TS: Do you think the parenting experiences in the book are specific to New York or Brooklyn, or is it something that moms everywhere can relate to? Just keep reading for Amy's response.

You might know that Rashida Jones and Andy Samberg play a divorcing couple trying to remain best friends in Celeste and Jesse Forever. What you probably don't know is that Rashida cowrote the screenplay with her good friend, Will McCormack, whom she dated briefly years ago. I recently sat down with Will and Rashida, who told me that their own relationship inspired the characters. Read our conversation below.

TrèsSugar: I noticed that Celeste was a more relatable and likeable "power woman." What clichés were you guys trying to avoid with her character?

Rashida Jones: There is definitely a cliché powerful woman in movies. She kind of has it all together, but she can't work out her love life. In our movie, you drop in and she has the guy and she doesn't want him.

Will McCormack: A lot of times in romantic comedies the heroine's life is falling apart, but she's still so cute! We wanted Celeste to just get down and dirty and for her heartbreak to be really heartbreaking and for it to be really ugly.

Rashida: I was insistent. That was my H&M sweater and I was like, "I want that sweater to be on her body for like a week in the movie," because you forget to change yourself and I really wanted it to look like she hadn't. Rashida of course washes her hair all the time. But we wanted it to look like Celeste hadn't bathed in a couple days and was just throwing on whatever was near her.

TS: As writing partners, friends, and exes, how much of the script was based on your relationship or past with each other?

Rashida: We dated for such a short amount of time, but really the essence of that relationship between Celeste and Jesse is very much like me and Will.

Will: I would say that Celeste and Jesse's friendship, kind of all of it, is the way that we are with each other; the intimacy and the shared history and all of the stupid little things they do with each other are things that we do. We just lifted our whole friendship and put it in a movie.

TS: Is Celeste brave or short-sighted to dump Jesse?

Keep reading for the rest of our chat.

In the wake of her five New York Times best-selling novels, Emily Giffin's Where We Belong (out today) is one of our must reads of the season. Her success kicked off in 2004 with Something Borrowed, a story brought to the big screen last year with a film starring Ginnifer Goodwin and Kate Hudson. Since that first novel, Emily has gained a large, loyal following — both in bookstores and on Facebook and Twitter, where she keeps in touch with her fans.

Where We Belong follows the story of two women — Marian Caldwell, a 36-year-old TV producer in New York, and 18-year-old Kirby, a high school senior in St. Louis — who are bound by a secret. Emily says she knew early on that the book would be about belonging. Inspired by the power of secrets — when it's justified to keep them and how they change us — she chose to explore those themes through the secretive circumstances of an adoption. I had the opportunity to interview Emily about her new release, upcoming film projects, and her celebrity girl crush.

TrèsSugar: How did you come up with the title Where We Belong?

Emily Giffin: I had a few other titles that would've worked too, so I put them all out there to my friends on Facebook in a poll, and Where We Belong was the favorite. Another choice was Since You've Been Gone, and overwhelmingly, people thought it conjured the Kelly Clarkson song. It's so helpful to have instant feedback from 100,000 people!

TS: This is your first time coming out with a novel that has a teen as one of the main characters. What prompted you to do it?

EG: I've always been drawn to coming-of-age stories and books and movies featuring compelling young characters. My favorite movie of all time is Stand by Me, and I still reread my favorite young-adult books. In fact, the first novel I ever wrote (before Something Borrowed) was a young-adult book, but I was never able to get it published. So writing a young character is something I've wanted to try again for a long time now — and I'd love to do it again.

TS: Kirby was named after our PopSugar TV host, Kirbie! What struck you about her name, and how does it fit the character?

EG: Yes, I met Kirbie at a hair salon in LA during my book tour for Heart of the Matter. She was so cute and bubbly and really seemed like a "Kirbie." I remember telling her I loved her name and wanted to try to work it into a book. When I got home and became more focused on the writing of Where We Belong, I named my character Kirby. I almost changed it because she didn't really seem like a Kirby — but then I thought that contradiction really worked in the story, because Kirby is adopted and deep down, felt that she really didn't belong in her family. Her name was just another example of that disconnect. Bottom line, I love the name!

TS: If Where We Belong heads to the big screen, then who would you like to see cast?

EG: Funny you should ask that, because I just spoke to my film agent, and we're in talks with a wonderful producer now who would be amazing at bringing this story to the big screen in a smart and real way. I haven't yet thought about casting, though. For now, the characters are so vivid in my mind as the "real" people I created, rather than any actor or actress. I'm dying for everyone to read it, though, because I think my readers have always been better at casting than I!

TS: Speaking of the big screen, any updates on Something Blue or Love the One You're With?

EG: Both are looking good, as is Heart of the Matter. It's just such slow process. Getting a script, getting a director, raising the money. It's really hard for movies to get made these days.

TS: Fans know that you adore Jennifer Aniston! Has she ever inspired one of your characters? Which character do you think she'd get along with best?

EG: It would be a dream come true for Jen — I call her Jen so I can feel closer to her — to play a role in one of my movies. I adore her. I think she's a wonderful actress, and I so admire how she constantly hones herself to perfection. I actually felt better about turning 40 this year because of her! She's such a versatile actress that I think she could play a lot of my characters well: Claudia in Baby Proof, Marian in Where We Belong, Valerie in Heart of the Matter. In the casting process, I don't get too hung up on my own physical descriptions. I mean, Kate Hudson looks nothing like the Darcy I wrote about, but I thought she was brilliant in the movie.

Read on for the rest of our interview

The votes have already been cast for season eight's Food Network Star. Before the winner is announced on the finale this Sunday at 9 p.m./8c, we spoke to Giada De Laurentiis on her experience as a mentor, her favorite recipe from the season, and who she's betting will win.

YumSugar: What's it like being a mentor on Food Network Star?
Giada De Laurentiis: In the past we have said that I was a mentor, but truly, I didn't really get a chance to mentor these folks. I think I learned a lot, and I feel emotionally invested in the show. I think you'll find that's what it was like for Bobby Flay and Alton Brown, as well. I really felt like [the people on my team] were almost my kids. I felt so emotionally invested in their future and in their performances.

YS: What was the most important lesson you learned from your team?
GDL: I think that one of the most important lessons I have learned from my team is that sometimes we try desperately to turn someone into something that we think they should be, when really we need to let them grow on their own. I learned that 10 weeks isn't always enough to polish that gem. It's important that [the contestants] stay true to who they are. As much as I want to make them grow and move faster, the experience of turning them into these stars takes time, and I need to be more patient.

Find out Giada's favorite recipe from the show and who she thinks will win.

The Queen of Versailles, out today, began as a documentary about billionaire David Siegel, owner of Westgate Resorts, building the biggest and most expensive single-family home in America. But the film's concept took an intriguing turn in 2008 when the financial crisis hit and the camera crews were there to capture how David; his wife, Jackie; their seven children; and their help fared in the midst of an economic meltdown that jeopardized David's company and their dream house, "Versailles."

Photographer and filmmaker Lauren Greenfield — who won the best director award for the documentary at Sundance — was initially interested in the project because she'd been working on a photography book about wealth, consumerism, and the American dream. But it's the "queen" of the household, Jackie, who really takes center stage in the documentary. I chatted with Lauren about the film, and about its heroine, who is a former beauty queen with an engineering degree, a great sense of humor, and a propensity toward cleavage-baring clothing. Lauren says, "When I started, I thought it would be an inside view of wealth, because Jackie had this unusual personality for a rich person. She was very open and had a down-to-earth quality that I think came from her humble origins. She was able to maintain that and be a real person, so I thought she was somehow relatable in a way that could take a good side in this world." Here's what else we learned from Lauren about her subjects.

TrèsSugar: When you look at Jackie's outer appearance, it's easy to assume she is just a stereotypical trophy wife. Could you talk a little about how you showed that there's more to her than meets the eye?

Lauren Greenfield: I chose to put the part about Jackie's education and having a computer engineering degree from RIT [Rochester Institute of Technology] in the beginning of the film so that you realize that she's not a trophy wife; she's a really smart woman who decided at an early age that her beauty would get her further in terms of where she wanted to go than her engineering degree.

TS: Did your perception of her change while working on the film?

LG: My feelings about Jackie did evolve during the course of the movie. And our relationship changed, we got closer. Her relationship with the camera changed too. I opened with a scene of her posing for me, and you can see her posture for camera and the way she wants to present herself. And she's got full makeup, and you're paying attention to the outfit she's wearing. By the end of the film, it becomes much more real, that whole posturing is gone, she has no makeup on; she's barefoot, she's getting her face dermatologically enhanced, and I'm there to film layers and layers of skin being lasered off.

The other way it changed was the financial crisis, and the way that they dealt with it allowed me to see that she was really a survivor and that she had this kind of adaptability and strength that you couldn't see in the beginning when she was surrounded by all of this stuff. And also, I saw something different in her relationship with David. In the beginning, you don't know why she's married to David. He talks about falling head over heels in love with her, and she's a little bit more reluctant. We don't know if she married him for love or for money. He's a billionaire and 30 years her senior. By the end, it's obvious that she really loves him and yearns for his attention and his affection, which is harder and harder to get as he gets mired in this crisis.

TS: It appeared that their relationship started to get a little rocky toward the end. From your perspective, how would you describe their relationship?

LG: What I showed in the film in terms of their relationship is what I saw. That as things got harder, David isolated more, he withdrew more, he threw himself into his work, he wasn't particularly communicative, except for the interviews where he really revealed candidly what was going on. In his interactions with Jackie and the family, he was often barking. I don't know that it was personal, though. David was kind of like that with everybody, and Jackie is the one who really yearns for his love and his closeness and doesn't get it, and so we see it in their relationship. But he kind of withdraws from everybody, and what you see by the end is a real lack of communication, and I included that in the film too. It wasn't really until near the end that I realized the extent to which Jackie was unaware of many of the financial realities going on, and she has a line where she says, "I guess I'll have to see the movie to find out what's going on."

Keep reading to find out what Lauren had to say about the Real Housewives.