"I’m like the canvas side -- the shitty side that gets dirty quick -- and Gucci is the luxury leather,” says British musician and dandy Mark Ronson, parsing the components of one of the limited-edition boat shoes he designed with the high-end fashion house. The Grammy-winning turntablist (and brother of fashion designer Charlotte Ronson) partnered with Gucci’s creative director Frida Giannini to create hip footwear for the labels Icon-Temporary sneaker line. Sitting at the back of Indochine, New York’s storied nightlife destination, Ronson excitedly pokes at the eyelets and pulls at the laces on one of his high0tops. (Check out Indochine: Stories, Shaken and Stirred, celebrating the restaurant's 25th anniversary; see a gallery of selected photos.) The shoes will be sold at pop-up shops in New York, Miami, Tokyo and London, among other locations. Each pair comes with a Gucci iPhone app that allows users to mix their own songs. What’s more, customers who buy the trainers will snag a brand-new Ronson track inspired by each of the cities.

An unassuming tourist type at an unassuming football bar tells me this: "New York restaurants are crazy! There's a club in every basement!" I nod my head. He means RdV, the bass-thumping club below Bagatelle. "No," says the unassuming tourist, "We were in some East Village pizza restaurant or something!" Jesus, it can be tough keeping up with the NYC Jones. There seems to be tons of hidden gems that try to stay away from the people like me who can write about them, Twitter about them, Facebook about them, and ultimately ruin them. Some things are worth keeping a secret, but when the party is in the basement of Coffee Shop or some media lunch spot that regularly gets off on decent press, it's easy to broadcast. Some other things will remain a mystery, until I can fully understand if it's an actual basement party or simply a couple of bus boys getting high between shifts.

The thing about being a beauty junkie is that you're allowed to be a novice. It's not about turning into a highlight-obsessed Bergdorf Blonde or investing your 401K in indulgent anti-aging treatments. Personally, I think it means actively exploring what you like and what makes you feel good, being scrappy about saving dough, and basically making that whole commercial beauty enterprise work for you. But then again, I'm a novice. I happen to be a lucky junkie and can get my fix of the next big beauty obsession thanks to the nature of my job; but I never obsess or buy into every promised-land product that comes my way. To be honest, homemade scrubs and a 10-minute morning routine puts me in the "low maintenance" bracket. Except when it comes to one thing: eyebrows. I am diligently obsessed and frequently frustrated with my eyebrows, though for some reason I have never fronted the time or money to see an actual professional brow-shaper. Until I found Sue Ellen Gifford at the Pierre Michel Salon, that is.

Some would say Joanna Krupa's career straddles the fine line of physical exploitation and sexual empowerment, depending on the stage of her career and who you're asking. Before she was on Dancing with the Stars, the Polish stunner was known as the swimsuit model. Well, the commercial swimsuit model anyway, because who can top the SI Swimsuit Models? Anyway, before she was the commercial swimsuit model, she made rent by performing in softcore porn, but it was really, very soft-- she tickled co-stars in a tickle fetish film. Around the same time, Krupa posed for her first Playboy cover, without the world even so much as batting an eyelash. But this was all prior to being injected into mainstream media via her moves on DWTS, and now that she's chosen to pose for the December 2009 issue of Playboy, there are many eyelashes batting -- and many of them belong to feminists. But it's all good because Krupa believes that having pride in your body, and bearing the confidence to go bare, is the feminist's way.

Variety is key when you are testing the waters of love and lust. To some, love is motivated by how fat one's pocketbook is. To others, it's based on where one is able to get a reservation at peak time on a Friday night. Whether your leading lady is a tastemaker with a tiny appetite, or your gent is a sucker for the sauce, there’s a hotspot that’s all the bang for your buck, and a watering hole that may just lead to a bang.

● The Little Owl (New York) - Small hotspot where you can view the West Village through rose-colored window panes. A savvy choice for a date in the know, but let your date know you chose it for the greenmarket menu. Swoon.
● Mistral (Los Angeles) - Intimate space, low lighting, the smell of French cuisine, and love is in the air. Couples relish the dark corners. A vast wine list and pared-down menu means easy first date decision-making. Opt for fries over the spinach side; the soft light helps you seem sexy, but it will do nothing for a green tooth.

Perhaps Anne Hathaway isn't the first body to pop up in your fantasy wish list of desirable celeb physiques. She doesn't have Britney's crazy abs, circa 2000 -- that we know of anyway. Famously a 6-cum-4, thanks to The Devil Wears Prada dress-size admissions, her curves embody a healthy real girl message while maintaining a secretly bangin' bod -- usually only bared in cleavage-sweeping gowns on the red carpet. Which is cool because it gives healthy real girls good target practice, minus Hathaway's bra size and red carpet access, unfortunately. In any case, her fitness routine is a mix of upper body jabs to tone shoulders and lower body blasts to keep her long legs cut and shapely. If cutting cigarettes, red meat, fish, and alcohol to lose pounds is not your style like it is Hathaway's, at least these moves can help keep you lean.

I just walked past Macy's in Herald Square, and it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas and the seasonal shopping mayhem that comes with it. Even as early as November 13, the sidewalks were clogged with obnoxious shoppers wielding strollers and heeled boots -- both of which assaulted my feet and ankles. I suggest you get a head start on the holidays and pick up a few cheap 'n chic items before all hell breaks loose. It's true that beauty gifts are hard to buy for even the most obsessed product collectors, but these little specialty gifts are under $20 and are unique enough to give you an edge in the thoughtfulness category.

As the holidays near, it's fun to roll the dice on what former hotspot will have a revival, or what invitees may finally get a glimpse of the most exclusive space by way of special event invitation. This week alone the The Bowery Hotel had a major resurgence, proving it's a party player by hosting the annual Humane Society’s Cool vs. Cruel benefit, back-to-back with tonight's Art Rocks! event. Same with the six-thousand-foot "local hang'" -- The Ainsworth -- which was ground zero for Stylecaster's Short Films Premiere Party. Sienna and Savannah Miller hosted a dinner to celebrate their spring 2010 collection at the Royalton (not exactly the downtown scene we'd imagined for them). Party palaces also revive with extreme makeovers' the closed 105 Rivington space -- a splinter off of the Rivington Hotel -- is getting a redux. It will be called CV, and it had a little show-and-tell this past Tuesday. All in all, the holiday times bring a little nightlife cheer in the form of new beginnings at old places, reminding people how awesome some of our nighttime landmarks can be.

Last night the Bowery Hotel was hopping with humane fashion folks like Nigel Barker, Victoria Bartlett, Charlotte Ronson for the Cool vs. Cruel Fashion Competition -- an annual event that gives fashion students the task of reinterpreting high-end luxury designs using cruelty-free fabrics. Ingrid Bergstrom-Kendrick was the big winner for her take on a cruelty-free Michael Kors 2009 look. Meanwhile, I tried to hide my leather Frye boots from the Humane Society hosts and ended up feeling pretty guilty, though it was refreshing to feel more aware of what I had on my body. I ended up downing one too many cocktails to drown my guilt, but resolved to try to maintain that sense of eco-awareness. Come morning, bourbon-induced eye puffs made me reach for my usual eye fixers, but I opted to try Dr. Alkaitis' Organic Eye Cream, a certified organic, biodynamic and ethically wild-crafted eye cream that made me feel a bit better about the leather boots.

Gisele is, in a word, inspiring. But then again she's also a bombshell, the sexiest female alive, genetically gifted, terrifyingly hot, lively and simply beautiful. So the moral is, there is no single word to describe her. The other moral of this story is there is not actually a formulaic "how-to" that can get you glowing like the girl; however, we can share some of Mrs. Tom Brady's favorite beauty tricks and product must-haves, which can inspire you to go the Gisele route and perhaps start feeling like more of a super-duper-model. So in that case, I am not giving you (totally) false hope.