If you happen to spot designer Roberto Cavalli, could you kindly take him aside and explain to him that now is really not the time to introduce useless things like credit cards made out of snakeskin? Putting aside the fact the card comes with useless "perks" like seats at Cavalli's fashion shows and access to "special" sales, we're pretty sure the only people who'd be caught dead with these things are Russians and they don't have any money any more, so why bother? [Luxist]

Ivanka Trump (left) shopping on Madison Avenue with a friend ... Chloe Sevigny walking around in a red hat and red boots ... Kate Hudson leaving her West Village apartment with two friends ... Hugh Jackman hanging out with his kids in the Village ... Maggie Gyllenhaal crossing the street ... Heather Mills heading into the Avalon Day Spa on Christopher Street ... Kate Winslet on a stroll ... Julianna Margulies and husband Keith Lieberthal showing up at Nobu for dinner ... and Jon Stewart watching a Knicks game at Madison Square Garden with his son.

A bit of bad news for anyone hoping to sell their apartment in the near future. A new report released yesterday confirms NYC is experiencing the same pain as other parts of the country: During the fourth quarter, the number of Manhattan co-op sales fell 23.4 percent, the number of listings were up 52.2 percent, and the median resale price dropped 3.6 percent. [NYP]

Like something dreamt up in a joyful vision of the future along with safe tanning, hair that grows blonde out of your head, and Sara Lee chocolate layer cake with negative calories, the Ultrashape machine apparently shrinks the flab on your body without any cutting, pain, or downtime. "It actually breaks down the fat cell and gets rid of the unwanted fat much like liposuction does," says Canadian plastic surgeon Ari Benchetrit. The bad news is it's still in clinical trials in the U.S., so even if you've never felt strongly enough about an issue to call your senator before, now might be the time. If the FDA hurries up and gives it its seal of approval, it might be just the kind of morale boost our country needs right now.

It's just as you've always suspected: Acting like a jerk is actually good for your career. According to a new study, "agreeable" people earn less. And as for all those claims that women are condemned for bitchy behavior in the office whereas men get away with it: It's all true! Neuroticism, defined as being "tense, anxious or moody," has a negative influence on women's earnings, but has no such effect on men's. So go ahead and start off the year the right way: Avoid being pleasant to anyone, and if you're male, take inspiration from some of the masters and give free reign to your most temperamental inpulses.

All those layoffs at the Village Voice must be getting to Michael Musto. The usually-cheerful columnist appears to be having a meltdown! "I HATE when people say "Happy new year," he wrote on his blog. "What does it mean anyway? That some arbitrary calendar system devised way before I was born suggests that we are now starting some ridiculous new cycle or other? So fucking what? I'd have more respect if people said something like Happy Life Day." If you pass Michael in the hallway today, a simple "Hi" will probably do just fine. [Village Voice]

• 50 Cent has dropped the price of his 19-bedroom, 51,000-square-foot Farmington, Conn., mansion by $4 million. It's now $14.5 million, just in case you've been looking for a home with a subterranean nightclub. [Daily Star, KWR]
• Barlas Baylar, the founder of Hudson Furniture, paid $3 million for a three-bedroom pad at 133 West 17th Street. [Cityfile]
• Texas-based banking CEO Kenneth Dubuque paid $3.5 million for a seventh-floor pied-à-terre at 124 East 84th Street. [Cityfile]
• Two apartments at the Plaza are now available for substantially less than their original purchase prices. [Real Deal, Halstead, Warburg]
• Fitness guru Lydia Bach has sold her Victorian-style home in Southampton for $6.5 million. [Newsday]

Winter vacation is over (for most people, at least), but if the holidays left you with a depressing spare tire around your midsection and you need a reminder that nature doesn't discriminate—and plastic surgeons aren't miracle workers—the third picture from the left should boost your spirits. The identities of the four designers after the jump.

• A judge has yet to decide whether Bernie Madoff can stay at home or if he'll have to report to prison for violating the terms of his bail by handing over $1 million jewelry to his sons on Christmas Eve. [NYT]
• The trustee liquidating Madoff's firm has found $830 million in assets. [BN]
• Merrill brokerage chief Bob McCann is leaving the firm now that the sale of Merrill to Bank of America is complete. [WSJ]
• Rumor has it Wesley Edens is exploring the possibility of taking his beleaguered hedge fund/private equity shop private. [FT]
• Who will replace Morgan Stanley chief John Mack? The bank's board is now exploring the options in preparation for Mack's retirement in 2010. [WSJ]
• Flailing billionaire Ron Perelman is hoping to squeeze more cash out of Morgan Stanley as part of a 10-year-old legal dispute. [NYP]

A new poll indicates support for Caroline Kennedy has plummeted the last few weeks. Some 44 percent of voters say their opinion of Kennedy has gotten worse since she started, you now, "campaigning." To make matters worse, Andrew Cuomo has become the more popular choice among Democrats, leading Kennedy 54 to 34 percent. [NBC]

Legendary financier Henry Kravis turns 65 today. This means he can now begin collecting full social security benefits, which he may very well need at the rate he's going. Also celebrating: Julie Chen, the Early Show co-anchor and wife of CBS chief Les Moonves, is 39. Director John Singleton is turning 41. British food critic/TV host Nigella Lawson is 49. Novelist E.L. Doctorow is 78. Trudie Styler, the wife of Sting, is 55. Actress Joey Lauren Adams is turning 41. And volleyball star-turned-model Gabrielle Reece is 39.

• Madonna's interest in Alex Rodriguez appears may have waned (she's been spotted with a young Brazilian model in recent weeks), but there's another rich, older, equally Kaballah-obsessed woman happy to take her place. At a New Year's party in Parrot Cay last week, Donna Karan seemed smitten with the slugger, although A-Rod "refused Karan's advances" since he's "still hung up on Madonna." [P6]
• Not only are most people on Mustique happy the Noel family stayed off the island this year, but a bar even created a "No Noel" cocktail to celebrate. [P6]
• Lindsay Lohan says on her MySpace blog that she and Samantha Ronson have not broken up, just in case you've been up all night worrying. [People]
• Officials in the Bahamas have completed an autopsy on John Travolta's son, Jett, and claim the death was caused by a seizure. [CBS, NYP]

We all have to cut costs these days and clearly Ron Perelman is no exception: He's in the process of selling his yacht for $67 million. The 190-foot Ultima III comes with eight bedrooms and a Jacuzzi and is where, according to the Guardian, the billionaire financier has "entertained" Gina Gershon and director Penny Marshall on the "yacht's lengthy sun deck in recent years." We can't imagine serving up drinks to an aged Penny Marshall will go down as Perelman's most memorable moment at sea, but you're welcome to chalk up Gershon's presence as further evidence of her questionable taste in men. Assuming the thought of Perelman and Gershon romping around in the hot tub doesn't put you off—and you have the aforementioned $67 million to spare—you'll find the full brochure here.

• Why is Karl Lagerfeld pro-fur? Because if we didn't kill animals, they'd kill us, naturally. Oh, and don't complain about skinny models until the "zillions" of fat people get "taken care" of. [Telegraph]
• Don't hold your breath, but Topshop has scheduled its opening party for March 26. [NYM]
• Gemma Ward is taking a break from acting to return to modeling full-time. [Sassybella]
• Ecco Domani's annual Fashion Foundation award winners have been announced. [WWD]
• Claudia Schiffer is launching a line of beauty products. [DM]
• Fashion mags are very thin this month, in case you haven't noticed. [NYT]

Who would have guessed there was so much demand for pubic hair dye? Nancy Jarecki's Betty Beauty, which produces "specially formulated color dyes for the hair down there," has filed suit against a competitor called Smart Beauty for copying its thong-shaped logo as well as "content" from its "instruction sheet." [NYP, previously]

• The Cipriani family is planning to close the Rainbow Grill on January 12th, although the bar and banquet space will remain open. [AP]
• The troubled Palm Court inside the Plaza closed last week. [Eater]
• A pizza-making school is coming to Bleecker Street. [NYT]
• Upright Citizens Brigade is contemplating an East Village outpost. [GS]
• The success of Simon Hammerstein's The Box is leading more nightclubs to consider adding live entertainment. [NYP]
• Restaurant Week reservations are now being accepted. [NYCGo]

A well-rested Bernie Madoff walked out of his apartment building for the first time in two weeks earlier today. The alleged scamster headed downtown for a bail hearing, accompanied by his attorney and a private investigator assigned to protect him. His lifestyle seems to have already been downgraded, alas—the car waiting for him was a four-door Ford Crown Victoria. But Bernie's fondness for shady behavior remains unaffected. Prosecutors ordered the bail hearing because they learned that Madoff mailed more than more than $1 million in jewelry to his sons on Christmas Eve. [FBN, NYP]

It's the new year, otherwise known as the peak money-making time for anyone who purports to help people rid themselves of their holiday-acquired chub. As you know all too well, starvation regimens, exercise routines, juice fasts/cleanses, and full-body liposuction all involve an annoying degree of effort, money, or pain. (And you're probably also aware that diet pill pushers are liars.) But what else is left to sell to the eager and gullible public? How about the promise of permanent weight-loss simply by changing the way you think?

If you were thinking that author Daphne Merkin would have a good deal to say about the Bernie Madoff saga—and she must considering her brother is Ezra Merkin, the man who lost $1.8 billion of investor cash as part of the scheme—you're probably going to be disappointed by her piece on Tina Brown's website The Daily Beast. Merkin offers up few specifics about the events in question (or whether her own finances were affected), although you can probably take this as a thinly-veiled defense of her embattled brother:

So you're looking to conserve cash now that you've been laid off from your job. You've even contemplated moving back in with your parents. A horribly depressing scenario? It doesn't have to be, says Page Six magazine, which reports that lots of twenty and thirty-something New Yorkers choose to shack up with their parents during career lulls, even glamorous social scenesters like Charlotte Ronson and Fabiola Beracasa. Both ladies, the mag points out, have since decamped to abodes of their own, although in Fabiola's case her move out of mom's Fifth Avenue penthouse probably had less to do with spreading her wings than another recessionary trend: the rising foreclosure rate.