>> INSIDER WIRE —The turmoil for Peter Brant continues, in both his personal and professional lives.  While Brant was in Europe last week, one of his bodyguards was arrested for shoving Brant's wife, Stephanie Seymour, into a door. Brant and Seymour are in the midst of a messy divorce, and police have reportedly been called a number of times for disturbances on their property, ranging from a car windshield being smashed with a bat to a complaint from Seymour about a GPS unit placed on her car.  Brant's magazine Interview has also seen a lot of upset recently; editorial director Fabien Baron and creative director Karl Templer left after a few short months, and now Baron's co-editorial director Glenn O'Brien is said to be leaving after his relationship with Brant has deteriorated. [Greenwich Time, WWD]

>> Stephanie Seymour sat out the Costume Institute Gala earlier this week as a gesture to Alaia, but there may have been more to it: she's in the middle of a divorce from husband of 16 years Peter Brant, billionaire owner of Brant Publications and Interview.

Seymour filed for divorce two months ago, and although she and Brant are still living under the same roof in Greenwich, Connecticut, she told a friend:

"It's OK. I'm sleeping in the maid's quarters.  I'm doing the best I can to keep things amicable. I want to be the bigger person. But it's tough. He's playing very dirty with me."

Apparently she's already come home to find the locks changed, and the proceeding, which begins Monday, is expected to be less than facile — Brant is challenging her for custody of their three children by accusing Seymour of being an unfit mother.

The couple began dating when Brant was married to his previous wife (by which he had five children), who he eventually left to marry Seymour in 1995.  Guess this whole thing means she'll no longer be conducting interviews and appearing on the masthead of Interview?
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>> THE MODELIZER —After Azzedine Alaia asked her not to wear the dress he made for the occasion, Stephanie Seymour is joining Naomi Campbell in sitting out the Costume Institute Gala tonight. “Azzedine has made my dress for every single ball.  I had a fitting in Paris. But then he called me over the weekend and asked me not to wear the dress. I will still make my donation to the Met, but I won’t be going.” [On the Runway]

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>> Anna Wintour received criticism yesterday for co-opting the Met's reputation for her own means, but new Costume Institute Gala-related developments snuff out those complaints in a second.  Seven models — including Naomi Campbell, Stephanie Seymour, and Linda Evangelista — were to wear Azzedine Alaia creations to the gala tonight, but the designer has asked them not to wear the dresses because his work, though strongly tied to a number of the supermodels' careers, has no place in this year's exhibit, save for one photograph.

As a result, Naomi Campbell — as rumored — plus some of the other (unnamed) models will not be attending tonight in a gesture to the designer. A spokeswoman for Campbell confirmed this afternoon: “As Naomi has been the muse of Azzedine Alaia for 23 years, she feels she doesn’t want to attend unless she can represent his work.”  No word on whether Seymour and Evangelista will do the same.

Alaia blames Anna Wintour for the omission »

>> He may be one of the lesser knowns of a design generation that includes Valentino Garavani, Yves Saint Laurent, Karl Lagerfeld, and Giorgio Armani, but at 68, Azzedine Alaia has carved out a niche of his own.  Like Armani, Alaia owns his business, allowing him to design his way — as Stephanie Seymour, who spoke with the designer for March 2009 Interview puts it — "usually very late at night with an old film playing in the background."  More elusive than Marc Jacobs but more forthcoming than Martin Margiela, a window into Alaia's world is always a treat; More from Seymour and the man she refers to as "Papa":

Alaia was fired from Christian Dior after five days.

I met my best friend, Leila, whose mother had connections to clients of Christian Dior in Paris, and eventually someone asked if I could come work there. I got the job. But when I arrived, it was the end of the Algerian War [1962]. After five days there they said to me, "You can't work here any longer. You're a foreigner."

"I have such fond memories . . ." »

>> ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL —The house may be in transition, but for their Spring 2009 campaign, Valentino stuck with someone established: Stephanie Seymour.  Paired with Claudia Schiffer's reign at Yves Saint Laurent, and Kate Moss at Stella McCartney, it looks like the Fall 2008 season of the supermodel isn't done for Spring. [TFS]

>> A month ago, Gisele Bundchen was spotted in LA taping a music video as favor to a friend, and the finished product for Blackcowboy's "Come On" video has finally debuted.  So will her performance become as iconic as Stephanie Seymour's in "November Rain," the supermodels' in "Freedom" or Kate Moss's in "I Just Don't Know What to do With Myself"?  I'm going to go with no.

>> Stephanie Seymour is contributing fashion editor at Interview, Cindy Crawford blogged about the environment for Vanity Fair, Naomi Campbell is a contributing editor at British GQ, and now Marie Claire has tapped Christy Turlington as contributing editor — it's funny how supermodels have moved from solely being in editorials to also doing editorial.

Christy, who is currently enrolled at Columbia University for a master's course on public health, will collaborate with the magazine's writers on a column — to appear in the magazine every two to three months — covering such subjects as politics, mothers around the world, and her travels for humanitarian causes.  Her first piece, "Fighting for Mothers," describes her trek to Washington, DC to push for a Senate resolution on maternal health and appears in the December 2008 issue of Marie Claire.

The new gig likely came from all her public support — after Marie Claire ran a piece by Christy in March about mother's health, editor-in-chief Joanna Coles says she got a "ton" of fan letters from readers.
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