Fresh off a No Doubt reunion tour and the spring show of her fashion line, L.A.M.B., Gwen Stefani touched down in New York recently to introduce the latest iteration of her Harajuku Girls fragrance franchise (this time, the fab five are reimagined as tanned, bikiniclad Sunshine Cuties). An inspiring blend of superstar and supermom, Stefani was in full regalia—sharp brows, pink-painted lips, gobs of gold jewelry—while Zuma, her faux-hawked one-year-old (“my bunny,” Gwen cooed), attempted a sweet escape from her lap.

Fans love that your look wasn’t dreamed up by some music exec. It’s authentic.
No Doubt was together for nine years before we even got on the radio, and I’ve looked pretty much the same since the beginning. In one of the first interviews I ever did, I’m sitting on the floor, gluing together this jailbird costume—basically the same one I wore two years ago in the “Sweet Escape” video. I still use the same references: old Hollywood– Marilyn, chola girls, Anaheim girls, English schoolgirls, and Japanese Harajuku.

You seem to have an abiding love affair with Japan.
Whatever trend is happening there, it’s everywhere—like, oh my God, lots of zippers! I look at millions of Japanese magazines, and my design associate goes there on inspiration trips. I’ll be in bed at 11 p.m. and she’s sending me pictures: “Want this $350 fleece motorcycle jacket for [son] Kingston?” I’m like, “Yes, he definitely needs a $350 motorcycle jacket—not.”

Was the makeup at your spring runway show inspired by your own look?
I’ve basically done the same makeup since ninth grade: eyeliner, a strong brow, not much eye shadow, and red lips. For the show, we did the big, thick liner I’ve always done, but in pop colors: red, blue, and
yellow. I thought it was going to look tough, but under the lights, it was soft, pretty.

What’s the secret to doing your own makeup on tour?
Sweatproofing. I don’t know how many calories I must burn every night. I’m dying up there! You can get waterproof stuff at the beauty supply, but it’s mainly about layering. And double lashes: I stick two rows of false lashes together. Luckily on this tour, I had a little break to go backstage and re-spackle.

Do you ever leave the house without makeup?
I’m not in full-on makeup every day, but my husband and I just had our seventh anniversary—he makes an effort for me, I make an effort for him. It doesn’t take me very long. I’m fast!

Well, you have professional experience, right?
When I was 20, I worked in a department store—basically a mature women’s shop with, like, polyester slacks. The clothes were horrible, but I really enjoyed helping women pick outfits. Later, I graduated
to be one of the stuck-up girls at the makeup counter, which was a big deal. I never thought I’d get there [laughs]. I got to smell all the fragrances and be with all the pretty girls and intimidate everybody. Well, I didn’t, but they did.

Where are you headed next?
Back into the studio for a new No Doubt album…I hope. I’ve had writer’s block for a while, maybe because I was too homebound. How was I supposed to be modern when I was sitting there with this postpregnancy body, in the house, banging my head against the wall? On tour, I freed that all up and got inspired.

From Elle.com

The film is called “Everyday Sunshine” and is due out this spring.

What do Chuck D, George Clinton and Tim Robbins have in common? The same thing that would keep Flea, Gwen Stefani and Ice-T engaged in conversation, were the three ever to find themselves trapped in an elevator: Fishbone, the long-running California band that’s the subject of a new documentary due out this spring.

The film, ‘Everyday Sunshine,’ will feature interviews with all of the aforementioned stars, as well as a handful of other famous fans. Laurence Fishburne — selected, one hopes, not just because his last name sounds a bit like Fishbone — provides narration.

“When I was a kid, I liked their stuff, and I always figured if I was going to do a music documentary, it would be Fishbone,” director Lev Anderson tells Spinner. He says the film will likely debut at SXSW in March and then see wider release later this year.

The film traces the band’s entire 30-year history, telling the story of six kids from South Central Los Angeles that dared to mix ska, punk, funk, metal, hip-hop and virtually any other genre they could think of, creating a sound no one had heard before. The final scenes focus on singer Angelo Moore and bassist John Norwood Fisher, the only two original members still part of the band. In addition to celebrity interviews, ‘Everyday Sunshine’ will include rare live footage from throughout the band’s run.

“We’ve got one show that must be before they signed to Columbia, 1984, maybe,” Anderson says. “There’s a lot of footage we’ve gotten from fans of Fishbone that have shot stuff, [plus] great Fishbone shows in ‘87 that were on public TV, one in Minneapolis, one in St. Louis.”

Anderson says the diverse list of luminaries he was able to interview for the project proves what a unique group Fishbone was and continues to be.

“All of these people you can bring in, and I don’t think you can do that for too many other bands,” he says.

Speaking on No Doubt’s current status, Stefani noted that while her bandmates had worked on some material while she was on her solo tours, now “things are kind of starting over, you know what I mean? We might revisit some of that stuff, but it’s the same old chase. It doesn’t matter how we get there — we want to get there, we will, and we’re having fun doing it.”

Stefani also said that the band has been inspired lately by the music of the ’80s. Stefani said, “The last few weeks, we’ve been listening to the worst of the ’80s, in the sense of bad but good. Pop songs, one-hit wonders, nifty songs, things like that. You just go back and find things that you love, and try to figure out how they made them. We just listen to good songs, and then writing our own stuff, we try to pull it out wherever we can.”

When asked, “What was the last thing I was listening to?,” she replied, “Lionel Richie. I love him.”

From FMQB

The No Doubt star says she’s no catwalk queen.

“I do get nervous right before the girls go out, and I don’t like going out there myself,” she said.

“The catwalk is just a different place to the stage. I find it so much more scary. Everyone is there and can be critical about your work. I’m proud of my work but it’s a daunting place to be.”

Stefani recently admitted the success of her fashion line has taken her by surprise.

“I’m still so blown away that we’ve got this far,” she said in September last year.

“When I first started, I really didn’t know what I was doing at all.

“I mean, I’ve made clothes my whole life, but I was just naïve about the fashion world. “But I think it’s [successful] because I’ve been really involved, you know?

“Picking the samples, inspirations, color palette. I have a great team of people helping me.”

From Showbiz Spy

“It was a challenging couple days with the blizzard, Chinese New Year, Federal Express, child with an earache,” Stefani told us. “But I feel like all that stuff brought on a lot of creativity. We came up with a lot of looks that we wouldn’t have thought of without the pressure.” The show must go on, right? “It crossed my mind that we didn’t have all our looks, but I didn’t think about canceling,” she said, adding that she’d managed to get to bed around 1:30 the night before her presentation. She seemed intent on setting an earlier curfew this night and was long gone by the time Josh Hartnett came by and got a kitchen tour from Surf Lodge chef Sam Talbot.

Also party-hosting within the multi-space Milk location were LnA’s Lauren Alexander and April Leight. The L.A.-based designers celebrated their first-ever New York show with a crowd that included Heidi Mount, Ally Hilfiger, and Genevieve Jones. Late night, the suddenly ubiquitous Patti Smith took the stage for a set that included crowd favorite “Because the Night” and a song she dedicated to Alexander McQueen. She left the crowd with this: “If we have lost loved ones, the best way to cope is to celebrate life.”

From Style.com

Her design aspirations:
I just want to make stuff that I want to wear . . . Stuff I want to wear every day that’s to the left enough that it makes you feel unique and individual, but also you can wear it. That’s my ultimate goal . . . I think the collection has a lot of that in it . . . That’s the hardest thing to do. It’s easy to make some glamorous dress and put all of your energy into that. To make that T-shirt that you just throw on that’s actually cool and funky and makes people go, “Whoa!” When they’re jealous, that’s what I want to do.

To hear what else Gwen said and to see her Fall ‘10 line, read more.

On the Fall collection:
The collection is kind of based on this vintage, naughty Hollywood girl — starlet girl, and then a little bit of a modern, futuristic girl, and a little bit of a soldier girl . . . What I’ve learned is that you kind of have the inspiration, you have the picture, you have an idea, and what I love about fashion and about doing it is that it just sort of evolves into whatever it’s going to be . . . A lot of things drop out, a lot of things don’t make it, but at the end of the day it’s like the creative process of that picture and that drama that makes you very creative and come up with things that you wouldn’t. And some of my favorite looks of the show are things where we were like, “There’s nothing on this rack!” And then you put it together, and there is actually something on the rack. I can’t wait to see it all together, with the music, and the girls, and the girls look so beautiful. They blow my mind.

On trend she’s looking forward to:
I just love when things that I love come back into trend. It’s funny because it does recycle, doesn’t it? I don’t really know what the trends, are; obviously my team kind of does that thing and I listen, whatever I like I just kind of go for.

Current trends she’s loving:
My whole life I always wore men’s pants, trousers, and would be that look. And I had to fight for years to try to get people to like want me to — and now they’re in. They’re gonna always be in for me. Like when they’re out, I’ll still wear trousers.

From Fab Sugar

“Tony and Gwen are rocking the synth. Our little studio is warm and candlelit, above the glowing city. Tom,” guitarist Tom Dumont tweeted on Wednesday evening.

Dumont has been tweetingabout their progress for the past week, with the first landing on January 20. “Back in the studio together writing today. Synth horns=cheesy but fun. :),” he tweeted.

The following day brought even more work for the group as Dumont tweeted a close-up picture of bassist Tony Kanal in the studio with singer Gwen Stefani.

The bandmembers worked on new material without Stefani for some time. “Tony, Adrian and I have been busy preparing material for the album since this time last year,” Dumont told MTV News in an e-mail in 2007. The following year, drummer Adrian Young talked loosely about the new material. “It seems like we’ve always come from an eclectic background musically,” he said. “But we seem to always gravitate towards reggae. I can’t say that’s what our record is going to be like, ’cause it’s too early to tell, but what makes us feel really good is reggae music. I can play reggae music to my grave.”

Last May, the group used an appearance on “American Idol” to preview what Stefani called “the procrastination tour” (with Paramore opening), and made a cameo appearance on “Gossip Girl,” covering Adam & the Ants’ 1981 track “Stand and Deliver.”

The band hoped to use the tour as a way to reconnect and find inspiration for their new material. “Once we reconnect onstage and reconnect with all the people who have supported us, I think it’s going to inspire us to make an amazing record,” Kanal said before the tour.

From MTV

Feel free to leave your thoughts on the layout in the “comments” section of this post!

Up until those final seconds of panic, Diddy performed, as did Jay-Z and Bush (which is funny because Gwen Stefani and No Doubt were also on hand to perform), Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson cuddled and Christina Aguilera chatted with Carson Daly.

As the final countdown took place, the clock struck midnight, confetti fell and the world (obviously) didn’t end. But just in case, No Doubt was on hand to ring in the New Year with the classic R.E.M. tune, “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine).” How ironic! They then segued into their own tune, “Ex-Girlfriend.” The fact that the world didn’t end doesn’t leave us very much surprised, but you may be surprised to know that in 1999, Gwen Stefani had pink hair, blunt bangs and braces. We wonder what look she’ll use to ring in 2010 with?

*For those of you who may not be familiar with the problem, yourdictionary.com defines it as: “The predicted malfunction of some computer systems prior to or at the beginning of the year 2000 because of their inability to distinguish between dates in the 1900s and dates in the 2000s. This inability results from the coding of year dates in some software and chips with only the final two, rather than all four, digits.” Anyways, it doesn’t matter because it didn’t happen, but that’s what we were worried about ten years ago.

From MTV

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