SandraBullock

Last year the economy restrained Oscar fashion a bit but this year it seemed like glamour was back in full force. Actresses on the Oscars red carpet wore gowns in either metallic fabrics or rich, deep colors. Deep blues and purples combined with gowns in gold and silver gave the red carpet an almost celestial feel. Mariah Carey, Kristin Stewart and others made the most of deep blue, a color that was a perfect foil for large, sparkling red carpet diamond jewelry. Safely protected from the intermittent rain by a tent, stars brightened up a cloudy day. Check out the gallery below for looks from some of the top stars.

There were definitely some fashion misses. Charlize Theron's dress was a bit of a fashion misstep. Sarah Jessica Parker tried a new silhouette that didn't work as well as her usual nipped in styles. One thing that didn't seem to be in fashion was basic black. Actresses that wore black gowns made sure they were heavily ornamented. This was the year for a cautiously exuberant return to Oscar excess.

Chopin, the small-batch ultra-premium potato vodka from Poland named in honor of the famed composer, has created the world's largest bottle of vodka to be signed by celebs and auctioned off for charity. The 200-liter behemoth, celebrating the 200th anniversary of the Polish composer's birth, was just unveiled at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival (SBIFF) where Sandra Bullock (above) was the first to affix her signature. Bullock won the Festival's American Riviera Award, presented by Chopin and established to recognize an actor who has had a strong influence on American cinema. Past recipients include Mickey Rourke, Tommy Lee Jones and Forest Whitaker. The signed 200-liter bottle will now tour the U.S. and then be auctioned off with proceeds going to The GRAMMY Foundation's Music Preservation Project. The lucky winner will get to have one hell of a party.

The Golden Globe Awards are a pleasure to watch, but not nearly as much fun as the preceding red carpet. It's there that we get to see the gowns, the tuxes, and, of course, the jewelry.

Whatever, dresses. Let's talk about diamonds.

The winning ladies of the Golden Globes were:

• Sandra Bullock (pictured) for The Blind Side
• Meryl Streep for Julie & Julia
• Mo'Nique for Precious
• Julianna Margulies for The Good Wife
• Toni Collette for The United States of Tara
• Drew Barrymore for Grey Gardens
• Chloë Sevigny for Big Love

Now, let's have a look at their jewelry, shall we? Designers of winners' jewelry included Everlon, Fred Leighton, Buccellati, Lorraine Schwartz and Neil Lane. While we weren't too sure about all of everyone's accessories (we could have done without the costumey details on Drew's dress and drabness of Meryl's belt), the jewelry this year was stunning and demure -- a far cry from last year's statement pieces.

In truth, we miss the giant stones and enormous diamond-encrusted flowers, but we've always had a taste for decadence and excess. The good news is that for those of us not fortunate enough to buy (or be loaned) 40 carat earrings, this year's styles are far easier to emulate for a fraction of the price.

Special thanks to the Diamond Information Center.

From the Real Estalker:
--A New York City townhouse rented by Kate Hudson is now for sale for $4.95 million. The listing is here.
--Christina Ricci's home in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles is for sale for $1.549 million. The well-decorated home, shown above, is already listed as "looking for back up."

From the NY Post:
--Two new townhouses, which can be converted into one monster home, are hitting the market for a combined $33 million. The townhouses are currently under construction at 22-24 Downing St. in the West Village. Together they would form one 12,127-square-foot, 50-foot-wide, six-story home. The listing is here.
--A co-op at 640 Park Avenue belonging to retired financier Peter Smith is on the market for $26 million. Smith's residence is on the third floor of the 13-story building which has only 12 units. The listing is here.
--Last month, Dick Fuld, the former boss of Lehman Brothers, sold his apartment at 640 Park Ave., which closed for $25.87 million to Glenn Fuhrman, an art collector and co-founder of MSD Capital, Michael Dell's investment fund.
--Tuesday Weld's Montauk beach house has sold for nearly its latest asking price of $7.75 million. The home had been on the market for years but we only covered it as an estate of the day last month. The buyers of Weld's house are a finance family based in Manhattan.

--Rumor has it that the Corcoran Group listing brokers selling Bernie Madoff's Montauk beach house have pledged to donate their commissions to the victims of Madoff's fraud but the broker for the buyer, who works for a rival firm has apparently made no such promise.

From Cityfile's Buyers and Sellers:
--Former model and fashion designer Gail Elliott and her husband, Joe Coffey, have sold their condo at 40 Mercer. The buyers, club owner Bryant Yunker and his wife, paid $3.812 million.
--Seymour Zises, founder of the investment advisory firm Family Management, and his wife Cathy, have closed on the sale of their five-bedroom apartment at 1016 Fifth Avenue. It was listed for $10.95 million and sold to investor Paul Orlin for $8.9 million.
--via the Real Deal, British architect Lord Norman Foster has closed on the purchase of a second apartment at 912 Fifth Avenue. The eighth-floor pad, which Foster was first reported to be buying back in July, was bought for $6.7 million.
--via the Real Deal, Mark Brashear, who heads up Hugo Boss in the US, has paid $3.2 million for a 2,793-square-foot condo at 60 Beach Street in Tribeca.
--via Curbed, publishing entrepreneur Win McCormack has put his apartment at 170 East End Avenue on the market less than a year after he bought it for $8.75 million. The four-bedroom apartment with 1,600-square-foot terrace overlooking Gracie Mansion and the East River is currently listed for $10.5 million.
--Real estate investor Adam Gordon has dropped the price of his West 76th Street townhouse. It was listed at $25 million last November and is now listed for $23.5 million.
--Jewelry designer Lorraine Schwartz paid $4.7 million for a duplex at the Olympic Tower on Fifth Avenue.
--Steven Oesterle, a managing director at Giuliani Partners, and his wife Nancy, have sold their three-bedroom apartment at the Park Imperial on West 56th Street for $4.9 million.
--Developer Arthur Zeckendorf and his wife Connie have sold an apartment they owned at 524 East 72nd Street for $1.81 million, which is $1 million less than what it was listed for when it first went on the market for in August 2008.

From the NY Observer's Manhattan Transfers:
--Charles Schwab's small penthouse at 834 Fifth Avenue, which neighbors part of Rupert Murdoch's triplex is now available for around $14 million.
-- Media entrepreneur Clive Ng and his wife, ex-model Farrah Summerford, have put their 25-foot-wide townhouse at 20 East 10th Street on the market. The five-bedroom home is listed for $19.9 million.
--A third-floor, 14-room apartment at the Plaza which was to sell to Italian businessman Luigi Zunino for around $45 million now appears to be listed for $39 million. The huge L-shaped apartment includes former State Rooms which were used for private entertaining.
--The drama between Princess Firyal and the family of Lionel Pincus, a 78-year-old who's been legally incapacitated for three years continues. Mr. Pincus' two sons want to sell off their father's $50 million, 14-room duplex at the Pierre while the Princess says the she was promised the pad.

From Move Trends:
--A classic mid-century modern home designed by R.M. Schindler and used in the movie "Pineapple Express" is on sale in Glendale, California for $2.475 million. The listing is here.


From NOLA.com:
--Sandra Bullock has purchased a historic home in the Garden District of New Orleans, Lousiana from entrepreneur John Russell Lee Sr., whose I CAN Learn educational software was at the center of the Mose Jefferson trial. The 1876 home is near properties owned by John Goodman and Nicolas Cage and the home previously owned by writer Anne Rice. It sold in June for $2.25 million in cash to Big Easy Bebe LLC, which was incorporated a few days earlier by John Chamblee, a lawyer from Austin, Texas, who has represented Bullock in other real estate transactions.

From a reader tip (thanks, Patrick)
--A Houston estate that we covered in 2007 when it was listed at $19.9 million has had a huge price chop and is now listed at $9.5 million.

From Homes of the Rich:
--The businessman who bought the most expensive Yankees seats, has been charged with mortgage fraud. His New Jersey house just hit the market for $7.99 million.

With categories like "I want to be adorned," "I want to be loved," "I want to be envied," and "I want to be worshipped" to choose from it seems jewelry designer Lana Fertelmeister has a real knack for recognizing the many moods of women. Comprised of various tones of gold with hints of diamonds glittering from here and there, Lana Unlimited Jewelry is a small enterprise based in Chicago that has been spotted on big name celebrities like Cameron Diaz, Kate Hudson, and Sandra Bullock. It doesn't sound like it will be small for long, though, based on both popularity and Lana's big dreams for expansion into accessories, clothing, and a whole enterprise she might someday refer to as "The House of Lana."

Via BusinessWeek

It's not easy to be successful in Hollywood as an actress these days -- the competition is pretty fierce. Making it big is defined in a few different ways, from winning the best awards to getting the best parts to making the biggest money. And although careers go up and down on a dime and everything can change overnight, somebody has to be making the biggest money of them all. That somebody right now? Reese Witherspoon.

She's doing well for herself, earning between $15 and $20 million per movie -- despite her latest work "Rendition" not doing all that well in theaters. And she's in good company, too, with actresses like Cameron Diaz, Julia Roberts, and Jody Foster joining her in the ranks of the top 10 highest paid actresses.