FASHION
• Victoria’s Secret is featuring Adriana Lima in its Super Bowl ads because of her “spectacular eyes.” Right, her eyes. [WWD]
• Diane Von Furstenberg has launched her first line of shoes. [FWD]
• John Bartlett is joining Tim Gunn at Liz Claiborne. He’ll be designing a men’s sportswear line. [Investor’s Business Daily]
FINANCE
• Citigroup’s likely write-down for the fourth quarter: $24 billion. And keep in mind, the media has a track record of underestimating just how bad the banks will do. [CNBC]
• As if Wall Street wasn’t already screwed enough — what with the coming recession, huge write-downs, and outsize foreign investment — the SEC started investigating rumors of massive intra-bank insider-trading, where information illegally crosses the “Chinese wall” separating investment and advising divisions. [WSJ, AP via CNN]
• Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo will take home $110 million in severance for unloading his radioactive mortgage company to Bank of America. [Deal Journal/WSJ]
MEDIA
• Si Newhouse maintained his favorite holiday tradition back in November, seating execs he later fired far away from the right hand of god. Shake-up accomplished, here are the three top contenders for the Condé crown: David Carey, Bill Wackermann, and Tom Florio. [NYP, Ad Age]
• Tina Brown claims she’s never read Gawker regularly. Kurt Andersen used to be a devotee sometime reader but jumped ship with Choire Sicha’s departure. And Nick Denton’s blaming Gawker’s recent drop page views on Jezebel’s success. [NYT] Meanwhile, a Gizmodo blogger is banned from the Consumer Electronics Show after spending most of last year’s show roaming around turning off people’s TVs with a universal remote. [Portfolio]
• “I think newspapers are going to be with us in one form or another. They may just be completely on a screen. And if they’re not, I’m conservative enough to think that’s a gigantic tragedy,” New Yorker editor David Remnick told start-up website Big Think. “That said, I couldn’t care less if it’s no longer on paper. I mean, I have an atavistic affection for that, but even I at 49 see this as semiludicrous.” [Big Think via WWD]
LAW
• Law students, back to school! Get ready for your tough spring-semester class: “The Law of 24.” [Law Blog/WSJ]
• Super-conservative Cravath moves top partner John Beerbower to London, signaling a shift for the most white-shoe New York firms. [American Lawyer]
• Another case in the New York judiciary’s quixotic campaign to force Albany to raise wages moved forward. Adjusted for cost of living, New York judicial pay ranks 49th in the country. [New York Law Journal]
