Heidi Klum launched her line of Jordache Jeans at Bloomingdales in Beverly Hills yesterday. The 34 year-old model and mother of three answered a reporter’s question about comments from model Iman, who hosts Canada’s version of Project Runway. Iman said that she has much more experience with high fashion than Klum, who hosts Project Runway in the US.

Klum said that Iman was right and that she is more qualified to host a fashion design show:

“She [Iman] has done all the big big fashion shows that I’ve never done. She’s been doing it for a little while longer, and she has met all the big big designers in the world.”

The 5′ 9 1/2″ 130 pound Klum also added that she doesn’t have the slight build required for a high fashion model: “I never really fit in the clothes. I tried. But I never got to walk in Paris and do all the big big fashion shows.”

[Quotes transcribed from E! Online interview, available below]

So much for any feud between Heidi and Iman. Heidi Klum bugs me sometimes because her wide mouth seems to plaster nearly every drugstore and billboard in Germany where I live. She always comes across as funny and gracious in interviews, though and she certainly handled this issue well.

For her part Iman seemed like she was answering a specific question about the differences between herself and the US host, Heidi, and she was honest and not too snotty about it. She said “Definitely Heidi and I come from two different places. I’m not belittling Heidi Klum, but I have been in fashion much more than she has. Not to toot my own horn, but I have been one of the best runway girls.”

Most of you agreed in the comments that Iman was just being upfront about her experience, and Heidi thinks so too.

52 year-old Somali-born former supermodel Iman currently hosts Project Runway Canada, and she’s not shy about touting her qualifications for the job. Iman says she’s much more qualified to host the fashion-judging contest than Heidi Klum, the host of the US version. Iman starts by saying “Not to belittle Heidi Klum…” and then goes on to sort-of do just that, saying that she has so much fashion experience while we’re supposed to come to conclusion that Klum is less knowledgeable about the industry:

She says, “Definitely Heidi and I come from two different places. I’m not belittling Heidi Klum, but I have been in fashion much more than she has. Not to toot my own horn, but I have been one of the best runway girls.

“I know clothes, and I know about working hand in hand with designers, I mean, I’ve worked with Calvin Klein, Marc Jacobs, John Galliano. Yves St Laurent - he created a whole collection for me. Tom Ford, Valentino. Versace. Jean Paul Gaultier. Thierry Mugler… I could go on and on.”

[From Starpulse via Gossip Rocks]

Iman has been married to rock legend David Bowie for over 15 years, and they have a daughter together, Lexi, 7. Iman also has a 28 year-old daughter from her first marriage to basketball player Spencer Haywood, and is the stepmother to Bowie’s 37 year-old son from his first marriage. Iman says she’s a “total domestic diva” and that she cooks every night at home. She has her own cosmetic company and published a book in 2005 called The Beauty of Color: The Ultimate Beauty Guide for Skin of Color.

When I read this story I was surprised that Iman would say this as I remember seeing her on Oprah and she didn’t seem full of herself to me. I also watched another interview with her on YouTube and again she didn’t give the impression that she was stuck up. Maybe that goes along with the territory when you’ve been a supermodel though, and it’s possible this quote was taken out of context and someone asked her specifically about the differences between herself and the US host of the show. Heidi Klum isn’t exactly famous for her high fashion experience and is best known as a swimsuit and Victoria’s Secret model, although she certainly has catwalk experience.

Iman is shown at “A Night of a Thousand Lights” Benefiting Saint Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital on 4/23/08, thanks to PRPhotos. She looks amazing.

Church and local officials are saying they won’t put their stamp of approval on Tom and Katie’s wedding, which is said to be taking place in the Italian town of Bracciano in just over a week. Tom and Katie haven’t filed the paperwork to make a civil marriage legal in Italy, and it sounds like they don’t have enough time left to do so:

The priest with jurisdiction over the dreamy lakeside castle tipped as the chosen location for the wedding says his parish won’t marry Cruise, and the mayor says she can’t because the couple haven’t done the official paperwork.

The small Italian town of Bracciano has been swimming with picture-snapping paparazzi since Il Messaggero newspaper reported that Castello Odescalchi in the town was chosen by the couple for their wedding later this month.

But rules of the local bureaucracy and the Roman Catholic Church appear to be a lot tougher than any of the macho super-secret spies Cruise’s character regularly defeats in the “Mission: Impossible” movies.

Mayor Patrizia Riccioni told Reuters she would like the wedding to take place, but that it was unlikely any celebration would be blessed with state recognition given that the couple have not provided the needed documents.

“I don’t think it will be legal,” she said. “On an Italian level, there are papers and documents that we certainly don’t have (for a wedding).”

But Cruise and Holmes’ Los Angeles-based publicist dismissed the notion that the American couple’s nuptials depended on official sanctioning by Italian authorities.

“They are making all the proper and necessary arrangements for their marriage to be legal,” said publicist Arnold Robinson.

Cruise and Holmes announced in October that they would marry on Nov. 18 in Italy, with Giorgio Armani designing Holmes’ gown.

Oops, it looks like Italy might not have been the best location for a wedding after all, if TomKat can’t get their act together enough to take care of all the red tape ahead of time.

Mike Walker of The National Enquirer offers a little more insight as to why the TomKat wedding might not be legal. A Roman Catholic official has to preside over a church wedding according to Italian law, but Tom wants to bend the rules of course and still have a Scientology-style church wedding instead of a civil one. He may have to get married to Katie in the states first to make it legal. Katie’s parents are not happy with that fucked-up Scientology-style mysoginistic wedding, and want a Catholic ceremony:

Despite reports that plans for how the ceremony will be conducted are set in stone, sources say Tom’s still pushing his people to cajole Italian authorities into bending the custom that a Catholic priest must “officiate,” or a big church wedding isn’t automatically legal! And it’s highly unlikely that a Catholic church would allow a Scientology minister to officiate. An Italian civil ceremony would legitimize the union, of course, but insiders say Tom’s okay with making it legal before a church wedding by having a prior U.S. civil ceremony. But Katie’s parents are NOT happy that he’s dead-set on a Scientology - officiated wedding, with a Catholic priest present only to “bless” the union. Mom and Dad keep repeating their heartfelt request: Let our daughter be married by a priest! Last-minute pleas are being beamed to CruiseControl… but so far, My Favorite Alien’s unbending.

Maybe Tom thinks that everyone will bend over backwards for him just like Madonna.

Here are Tom and Katie at the Black Ball in NYC yesterday. Iman and Alicia Keys hosted the event, and David Bowie performed. Anne Hathaway is also pictured. Proceeds went to the “Keep a Child Alive” foundation, which benefits AIDS victims.

Hopefully Tom will get his hair cut before the wedding. And is it just me, or does Katie look really annoyed like she’d rather be shopping? Pictures from KatieHolmes.com

I know this is my second Liv Tyler post today, but she’s just so likable that I want to hug her every time I see her picture, kind of like Jennifer Garner or Jennifer Love Hewitt. Here she is at the opening night of the Metropolitan Opera hobnobbing with Naomi Watts, David Bowie, and his wife Iman. She was also photographed with with an opera-type guy that I need some help identifying designer Zac Posen.

I love these pictures of Liv as she just exudes enthusiasm. I once saw her kiss David Bowie’s hand when she met him on David Letterman. She was just showing her respect, and it came off as innocent and reverential.

Celebrities were in attendance at the opening night of The Met, where they watched a riveting performance of “Madame Butterfly”:

I’ll use this occasion to tell the story of the time my husband took me to the Metropolitan Opera. It was just two weeks after we started dating, and he had tickets to see a six hour long German opera, “The Meistersinger of Nuernberg,” with his parents. He took me along and we played footsies the whole time. I mean, the opera was beautiful and all but it could have easily been two hours instead of six. There were two intermissions it was so long. After sitting through that I can easily take on a four hour opera, so maybe he was just breaking me in.