My colleague Tom Johansmeyer mentioned the other day that the Art Basel exhibit in Switzerland was bracing for a slump but the art affair has had a boost from a celebrity buyer. Brad Pitt caused a stir when he showed up to check out the exhibits and spent $1 million on a new artwork to add to his collection. He bought Neo Rauch's 9-foot rainbow-coloured racetrack painting Etappe which shows a driver behind a red, Formula One-style race-car. Pitt was in good company, he was seen with billionaire art collector Eli Broad. In fact, the Daily Mail reports that Broad encouraged Pitt to buy the painting telling him that if he didn't buy it than Broad and his wite Edythe would. Also seen at the exhibition were Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich and his girlfriend Daria Zhukova, designer Karl Lagerfeld and model Naomi Campbell.

Back in February we reported that British outerwear company Belstaff was offering a collection of leather jackets worn by Brad Pitt in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Now they're offering a jacket sported by the actor in his latest flick, Quentin Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds, which just premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. Belstaff created the "S-ICON" jacket (above) for Pitt's Nazi-fighting character Lieutenant Aldo Raine.

Made from Belstaff's signature waxed cotton known for its protection from the elements, it's finished with a sheepskin shawl collar and leather detailing. It's now available at belstaff.com for $1,720. Belstaff, founded in 1924, was a favorite of Steve McQueen, and has also outfitted Will Smith in I Am Legend, Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible and War of the Worlds, and Tom Hanks in The Da Vinci Code.

There are only six Steve McQueen lots in Antiquorum's Important Collectors' Wristwatches auction in New York on June 11, but they include the famed King of Cool's two favorite timepieces and as such the sale represents an extremely important occasion for any enthusiast. As we've noted in the past, McQueen's rugged sportiness, authentic masculinity and innate good taste have inspired countless fashion designers, not to mention scores of other actors who followed in his wake. His watches are style icons in and of themselves.

Foremost is his Heuer "Monaco" chronograph, which he wore during the filming of the classic 1971 racing movie Le Mans (above). The Monaco was originally launched by Heuer in 1969 in honor of the Monaco Grand Prix. It's an unusual, square convex, water-resistant, stainless steel self-winding wristwatch with chronograph and date; Tag Heuer recently released a new version in tribute to the great actor. Following the filming of Le Mans, McQueen presented the watch to his financial advisor in appreciation.

Antiquorum has set a ridiculously low estimate of $10,000 - $20,000 on the timepiece, no doubt to encourage more people to bid. As we mentioned just the other day, however, McQueen memorabilia has been fetching high prices at auction. One collector just paid $42,700 - more than four times its estimate - for an International Driver's License issued to the actor in 1964. The watch could easily fetch 10 times its estimate, if not more. Perhaps Brad Pitt, a huge McQueen fan who's said to be playing the actor in an upcoming biopic, will snap it up.

Gallery: Steve McQueen at Antiquorum

One side effect of the implosion of Dubai's economy which my colleague Deidre Woollard reported on last month is the plummeting value of trophy properties owned by certain superstars. Celebs including David and Victoria Beckham (above), Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, and Michael Jackson are losing £80,000 or over $100,000 a week as the luxury real estate they purchased in the over-inflated Emirate plunges in value, the London Daily Mirror reports. Posh properties that were worth £3.2 million (or about $4.4 million) in October now on the market for £1.6 million (or about $2.2 million), i.e. only half as much.

"The Dubai market has fallen off a cliff," Jack Whisker of luxury agents Dream Property Dubai tells the paper. "The credit crunch hit us suddenly because all the foreign investors lost confidence. It has hit the higher-value properties the hardest." In January Deidre reported that the Beckhams, who have a luxury villa on the Palm Jumeirah complex, were considering purchasing a second property in the Burj Dubai tower, so they could be doubly exposed. Brad and Angelina reportedly own one of the artificial islands in the out-there development known as The World.

As a supplement to my colleague Deidre Woollard's rundown on red carpet fashions at the Oscars, I offer my own pick for best-dressed man: nouveau James Bond Daniel Craig. Craig, above with girlfriend Satsuki Mitchell, who was a presenter at the ceremony, wore a midnight blue shawl collar tuxedo with satin facing on the lapels and turned-back cuffs and an elegant trim black satin diamond point bow tie and white silk pocket square, all by his favorite designer Tom Ford.

The smaller bow tie in an unusual shape was a welcome change from the alarming trend toward oversized, clownish bows, while the vintage-inspired look of the dark blue shawl managed to be distinctive, classic and extremely elegant, a bit of a departure from the usual without going too far. Ford, who provided suits for Craig to wear in Quantum of Solace, also made Brad Pitt's tuxedo for the Oscars, though Craig looked the best.

British outerwear company Belstaff are offering a collection of leather jackets worn by Brad Pitt in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. In the movie, co-starring Cate Blanchett, Pitt sports three different Belstaff designs in various scenes. In the first, Pitt wears the iconic Belstaff Panther jacket (above) while riding his vintage Indian motorcycle through Louisiana with Blanchett, giving her the jacket to keep warm at one point; in the second he's seen riding a classic Triumph motorcycle wearing a Royal Air Force-type flying jacket based on an archival design, dubbed the Button Blouson; and in a scene opposite Tilda Swinton he sports a vintage shearling-trimmed jacket which the company has now resurrected.

All three jackets can now be ordered from Belstaff's website or purchased in Belstaff stores, in limited editions. The Panther is priced at $1,205, the Button Blouson $1,295, and the Shearling, $1,995. Belstaff is also donating a portion of sales to Pitt's Hurricane Katrina charity, Make It Right. Belstaff, founded in 1924, was a favorite of Steve McQueen, and has also outfitted Will Smith in I Am Legend, Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible and War of the Worlds, Tom Hanks in The Da Vinci Code, Kevin Spacey in Superman Returns and George Clooney in Leatherheads. Benjamin Button has been nominated for 13 Oscars including Best Costume Design.

[via JustLuxe]

From the LA Times Hot Property:
--Software tycoon John McAfee has lowered the price on his Molokai, Hawaii, home to $3.7 million from $4.9 million. The four-bedroom home, shown above, is newly constructed and sits on 5.3 ocean-front acres. The listing is here.I'm hoping he has better luck than he did with the sale of his Colorado home.
--Fashion designer Yael Aflalo who is behind the Ya-Ya fashion line has cut the price on her Hollywood Hills home to $3.95 million. The 1930s home which once belonged to John Barrymore was listed at $4.95 million when it was our estate of the day last summer.
--Jeweler Michael Beaudry has listed his Beverly Hills home for $13.5 million. The listing is here.
The owners of the Mystery Bookstore in Westwood have put their six-bedroom home in the Holmby Hills area on the market for $5.9 million. The listing is here.

From the NY Post:
Infamous swindler Bernie Madoff's penthouse apartment, where he currently is under house arrest, may soon be on the market. The apartment could be priced at up to $8 million.

From the NY Post's Gimme Shelter:
--Aberdeen Townhomes has created a set of landmarked townhouses with condo-like amenities in New York City priced between $7.5 million to $15.9 million. The interior space ranges from around 3,500 square feet to 8,100 square feet, with four to six bedrooms and have remote door-answering services, concierges, automated security systems, climate-controlled package rooms and building maintenance.

From the Wall Street Journal's Private Properties:
--Two years ago former Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards sold his Washington home for $5.2 million, its current owners are trying to sell it, renovated, for almost twice as much. The home is listed at $9.95 million.
--Hollywood producer Brian Grazer has his taken his Pacific Palisades home off the market. It was listed at $27.5 million.
--Nicolas Cage has cut the price on his Bel Air home. We'll check it out as an estate of the day later today.
--Drew Bledsoe has cut the price on his Westlake, Texas home to $1.625 million, slightly less than the $1.7 million he paid for it new in 2005. The listing is here and says that the seller will buy the purchaser a membership to the development's golf club on closing.

When Oscar-nominated actors Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt need to move their brood of six children to a new location they don't mess around. The pair is notorious for renting some of the best real estate in the world and their trip to Long Island is no exception. The pair is said to be renting the Sassafras estate in Llyod Neck while Jolie films the spy thriller, "Salt."

Sassafras is a 48-acre waterfront estate that was once on the market for $60 million. The estate includes a Tudor-style mansion, two helipads, and a private dock. The main house has 22,000 square feet that includes eight bedrooms. There is also a six-bedroom guest house and an 11-bedroom staff house. Newsday has a couple more pictures of the impressive estate.

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie didn't win any little statues at the Golden Globes Sunday night, but they definitely defended their title as the world's most stylish couple. While Angelina eschewed glitz in an elegant and simple frock from Atelier Versace, Brad continued his trend of wearing Tom Ford's finest when the occasion calls for black tie. He wore a black wool Windsor model peak lapel tuxedo, white pique front evening shirt, diamond and white gold shirt studs and cufflinks, black grosgrain bowtie, silk pocket square, black patent leather shoes and a pair of aviator shades all from Ford's menswear collection - and, for those of you who followed the cummerbund debate in this week's Classicist column, Brad (correctly, in our opinion) wore one of those as well, made of black grosgrain silk to match his bowtie.

Brad Pitt made the scene in head-to-toe Tom Ford once again at the premiere of his latest movie, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (based on a story by F. Scott Fitzgerald) in L.A. the other night, accompanied by wife Angelina Jolie (right).

Pitt wore a single-breasted, peak lapel Windsor tuxedo, a black silk grosgrain waistcoat, white pique front evening shirt, black silk grosgrain bowtie, white gold and diamond shirt studs and cufflinks, white silk pocket square and black patent leather shoes, all from Ford's luxe menswear collection.

Meanwhile, Motorbiker.org reports that Angelina has picked out a present for Brad's 45th birthday on Dec. 18th - a brand new $12,000 Ducati Monster 1100S Titanium motorcycle, which is not available to mere mortals yet.

From the Wall Street Journal's Private Properties:
--Evermay, a 12,000-square-foot Georgian-style mansion, on 3.58 acres in the Georgetown area of Washington D.C. has gone on the market for $49 million. The home was built in 1801 and has eight bedrooms. The property includes a gatekeeper's house, three-room staff house, terraced gardens with six fountains and parking for 100 cars. The current record sale in the area is $25 million.
--At least two of the prefabricated houses on display at New York's Museum of Modern Art are available for purchase. MoMA commissioned five full-size homes for Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling The Philadelphia architecture firm KieranTimberlake is seeking a minimum of $1.75 million for the Cellophane House, a four-story, two-bedroom aluminum and polycarbonate home with two walls of solar panels for the 1,800-square-foot structure. Architects Jeremy Edmiston and Douglas Gauthier have listed their 1,000-square-foot Burst house for $475,000. The listing is here.
--Former Viacom Chief Executive Tom Freston has taken his townhouse on Manhattan's Upper East Side off the market. Freston was asking $35 million for the home which once belonged to Andy Warhol.

From the NY Post's Gimme Shelter:
--Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel are house hunting together in NYC and recently toured a condo duplex loft at the Lion's Head building in Chelsea.
--The $70 million Pierre Hotel penthouse triplex listing has officially been on the market for four years.
--A new apartment record may have been set for the Financial District. Platinum Properties has just signed a $7.82 million contract for the penthouse at the Setai at 40 Broad St.,
--Hockey star Eric Lindros has put his condo in One Morton Square on the market for $6.3 million. The listing is here.
--Law and Order star S. Epatha Merkerson has been spotted checking out units in the Kalahari building on 116th Street.

From the LA Times Hot Properties:
--Actress Julianna Margulies has listed her home in Santa Monica, it's our estate of the day later today.
--British model Jasmine Lennard has leased a 1930s Hollywood traditional just above the Sunset Strip for $16,000 a month. Lennard appeared on the British reality show "Make Me a Supermodel."
--Renée Taylor and Joe Bologna have listed their Beverly Hills home which is in teardown condition for $5 million. The listing is here. Check out a gallery of other celebrity teardowns here.
--Movie producer Richard Suckle has put his Hancock Park home on the market for $3.295 million. The virtual tour is here.
--Model and actress Simona Fusco has listed her Bel Air area home for $3.995 million. The listing is here.

From the Real Estalker:
--Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver front man Scott Weiland and his wife Mary Forsberg have put their Sherman Oaks, California home on the market for $2.25 million. The listing is here.
--Baseball player Derek Lowe has listed his Manhattan Beach home for $5.7 million. We will discuss this one as Monday's estate of the day.
--Football player Tony Gonzalez has also listed his home in Manhattan Beach for $3.999 million, this will also be part of Monday's estate of the day.
--Reality TV star Audrina Patridge has picked up a new home in the Hollywood Hills which was listed at $1.29 million.
--via People, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie will decamp from the south of France to Berlin with their brood and move into Palais Parkschloss on Wannsee Lake while Pitt films a movie.
--Billy Baldwin and Chynna Phillips have listed their Bedford Corners, New York home. It was our estate of the day on Friday.

From Newsday's Real LI:
Property that once belonged to inventor Elmer Sperry, who founded the Sperry Corporation is on the market in the village of Bellport, New York. The nearly five-acre property has a thre-bedroom cottage and 300 feet of beach. The property was sold by the Sperry family in 2007 for $5.5 million and is now back on the market for $5.7 million. The listing is here.
--The Westhampton Beach home of Asian art dealer Michael Weisbrod, which originally went on the market last year for $9 million, is now being handled as a bankruptcy sale.

From the NY Observer's Manhattan Transfers:
--Video artist Douglas Gordon (he does photography and sculpture, too) sold his 2,000-square-foot loft at 225 Lafayette Street to Italian photographer Elisa Sighicelli, who paid $3 million, according to city records.
--Lawyer Eleanor P. Vale has listed her apartment in the Hampshire House for $10.9 million to raise money to help her children in this bad economy. She bought in 2005 for $1.515 million. The listing is here.
--Cosmetics queen Laura Mercier sold her 5,500-square-foot, eight-room loft at 205 West 19th Street for $8.5 million back in April but the sale just cleared public records recently.Her buyers are Ana and Henry Pincus, the son of ailing venture capital titan Lionel Pincus.

From the AP:
--Jessica Lange and Sam Shepard's estate in Stillwater, Minnesota has sold for $1.825 million. It was our estate of the day last month and was listed for $1.95 million.

From the LA Times Hot Properties:
--Pickfair, , shown above, the home of Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, is one of the most famous estates in Los Angeles. The original home was designed by California architect Wallace Neff in 1919 and visitors to the home ranged from George Bernard Shaw, Albert Einstein, H.G. Wells, Amelia Earhart, F. Scott Fitzgerald to Joan Crawford and Noel Coward. Pickford lived in the mansion until her death in 1979. It was later bought by Los Angeles Lakers owner Jerry Buss and then owned by actress Pia Zadora and her husband, Meshulam Riklis who built a new, larger mansion. They sold in 2005 (it was for sale for $27.5 million in 2004) and now the 17-bedroom home is up for sale for $60 million. The listing is here.
--Actress Jane SIbbett and her husband Karl Fink have sold their Topanga horse property, Trust Ranch, for $4.25 million. It was originally listed at $7 million about a year ago and was at $5.2 million when it was our estate of the day back in May.
--George Hamilton recently bought along the Wilshire Corridor wrote into the purchase offer that the seller, who runs a popular bakery, had to keep him in cookies for a year.
--Kevin Spacey has bought a new loft in the e Biscuit Co. Lofts for $1.2 million. The loft is for Trigger Street Productions, his production company, to create low-budget feature films and independent products.
--Doctor/Author Vladimir Lange's and his wife, Marilyn, have listed their five-bedroom, four-bathroom home in the Sunset Strip area for $6.2 million.The property website is here.
--Sports marketing guru Sonny Vaccaro has listed his 6,200-square-foot home in a gated Calabasas community for $2.399 million. The listing is here.
--Cinematographer Newton T. "Tom" Sigel has put his Malibu home on the market for $7.995 million. It's our estate of the day later today.

From the NY Post's Gimme Shelter:
--Jimmy Choo co-founder Tamara Mellon has just paid $20 million for Edgar Bronfman Jr.'s condo in the Carhart mansion on East 95th Street.
--Kiefer Sutherland has picked up a circa-1830s Greek Revival townhouse in the West Village for $8.2 million.
--More and more Plaza condos are showing up back on the market including a two-bedroom unit on the sixth floor, a 15th floor two-bedroom for $12.5 million and a one-bedroom on the 16th floor for $3.35 million.
--The listing for Tommy Hilfiger's $50 million apartment at the Plaza is up. The listing is here.

From the Real Estalker:
--Film producer Robert Chartoff and his wife Vanessa have put their Cliff May-designed home in Malibu on the market for $8.75 million. The listing is here.
--Richie Sambora has picked up a three-bedroom apartment at Two Liberty Place in Philadelphia.
--Film producer Andrew Lazar has put his five-bedroom Tuscan-style home in Los Angeles on the market for $6.95 million. The listing is here.
--Brothers and former child actors Rider and Shiloh Strong have put their home on Wonderland Ave in Los Angeles on the market for $1.26 million. The listing is here.


From the NY Observer's Manhattan Transfers:
--Zinc magnate Bill Flaherty and his wife Tina are in the midst of a messy divorce which may lead to the sale of their penthouse at 1040 Fifth Avenue which could get over $30 million.
--A new record could be set in Tribeca with the sale of the penthouse at 145 Hudson Street which has has gone to contract. It was listed at $34.5 million, the current record stands at $33.15 million.
--Director Joel Schumacher has picked up a $1.36 million apartment at 25 Fifth Avenue.
--The Observer checked out 11 Spring Street, a 19th century building being renovated by Caroline Cummings, the 27-year-old who bought 11 Spring from Rupert Murdoch's elder son, Lachlan, exactly two years ago for $12 million. The 4,600-square-foot penthouse has been on the market at $17.95 million for over a year, just like the $15.15 million triplex downstairs and a $6.7 million flat in between.
--Russian financier Andrei Vavilov is suing the Plaza's developers to get back a $10.7 million deposit plus interest and damages back on a two-unit penthouse that he was set to purchase for $53.5 million. He says he was a victim of bait and switch.

From Berg Properties Celebrity Big Time Listings:
--Brad Pitt aid $1,287,500 in April to purchase a 1,534-square-foot house in Los Feliz that's adjacent to his existing compound.
--Public records show that tennis star Pete Sampras got $16.98 million for the Beverly Hills mansion he had early this year for $25 million.
--Mary Steenburgen and her 25-year-old son Charlie McDowell (Malcolm McDowell is his father) have paid $550,000 for an 886-square-foot condominium unit in West Hollywood.

From Newsday's Real LI:
--Ross Klein, who was recently president of the luxury brands group of Starwood Hotels and is now global head of luxury and lifestyle brands for Hilton Hotels is selling his two-bedroom home in Bellport, NY. The home is a 1954 Weyerhaeuser kit house, which Klein restored and decorated with mid-century modern pieces and is listed at $799,000. The listing is here.
The estate of Masterpiece Theatre's Alistair Cooke has put his home in Cutchogue, New York on the market for $5.2 million. The listing for the home is here.


From the Wall Street Journal's Private Properties:
--The Wall Street Journal takes a look at Willem Dafoe's rubber house in upstate New York. It is still listed for $850,000 and was our estate of the day back in June.
--The 3,000-acre Santa Fe estate of the late Richard L. Fisher, a New York real-estate developer and philanthropist, has sold for slightly more than its $15.5 million asking price. We looked at this one way back in 2005 when it was listed at $14.5 million.
--Turns out the owner of Cher's former Key Biscayne property is entrepreneur and film producer Sean Wolfington and his wife, Ana, for $8.8 million in May 2006. They listed the six-bedroom, 7,300-square-foot house a month later but dropped the price to $11.9 million in October 2006 and it is now at $12.9 million which is the price it was at when we covered it as an estate of the day last month.

Free-spending Russian billionaire and Luxist mascot Roman Abramovich has soared to No. 8 on this year's Vanity Fair 100, aka the magazine's annual "New Establishment" list of the world's most powerful and influential people. That's a big jump for the oligarch, who only ranked 20th on last year's list.

Aside from his impressive art and real estate acquisitions, VF notes that Abramovich is also getting more involved in Russian politics. Although he resigned a regional governorship in July, Abramovich plans to run for an even higher profile political post next month.

Elsewhere on the just-released list, Abramovich's pal Vladimir Putin has captured this year's No. 1 spot, while power couple Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are ranked at an eye-opening No. 9, ahead of Michael Bloomberg and Steven Spielberg. Check out the complete list here.

In Los Angeles, Derringer Cycles are the new Bentley. Whether you want to go green or just look good doing it, you'll want one of these moto-hybrids.. You can reach speeds of 40mph, pedaling not required. (Hence the hybrid in moto-hybrid: you can pedal as if on a traditional bike, use the engine for assistance, or rely completely on your bike's 4-stroke engine.) Depending on how often you choose to pedal, your moto-hybrid can get up to 180 miles per gallon.

The Derringer cycle was conceived by famed industrial designer Adrian Van Anz (Brad Pitt is a fan) to "take the compromise out of environmentalism," riffing on parts Ducati and parts Schwinn. You can order up your hand-built cycle in splashy colors ranging from Fresco Blue to Bad Girl Pink (there's Good Girl Pink, too), or custom paint jobs like 22-carat engine-turned gold. Check out the gallery for all the cool options.

Derringer has a retail store at 7954.5 West 3rd St., L.A. and can talk bikes with you over the phone at 323-944-0091. Cycles sell for $3,500.

Luxe British outerwear company Belstaff, founded in 1924 and known for their distinctive motorcycle jackets, is teaming up with Audi to produce a one-off SUV to benefit the charity founded by Ocean's Eleven co-stars George Clooney and Brad Pitt. The stars' charity, Not On Our Watch (NOOW), which my colleague Laura Malesich reported on earlier this year, raises awareness about humanitarian crises around the world. Belstaff and Audi are co-designing a special edition Q7 luxury SUV which will be sold to benefit NOOW's efforts in Darfur, Vogue UK reports. Earlier this week, Clooney and Pitt hosted a fundraiser for NOOW at the Venice Film Festival.