It comes down to this: Nina Garcia and Anne Slowey played for separate teams under the same owner. Garcia, the former Elle fashion director who's now connected to the magazine in name only, was a protege of creative director Gilles Bensimon, who did not time to check his wristwatch for incoming Elle editor Robbie Myers, who arrived in 2000. Slowey, the fashion news editor and star of Elle's new fall reality show Stylista, is in the Myers camp, though perhaps only because she wasn't in the Bensimon camp.

Which isn't to say these two never got along — they did — but in the end, it explains why we've heard handfuls of stories, about both sides, trading gossip about each other.

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While Nina Garcia is said to be paid upwards of $70,000 per public appearance, Liz Claiborne chief creative office Tim Gunn — who always has more screen time on the show than Garcia — is paid a measly $30,000 per stint.

Every time Tim Gunn uttered the words "make it work" during the first season of Project Runway, he was paid precisely this amount: $0. And during the second season? Just $2,500 per episode. That's according to his testimony in New York State Supreme Court, where proceedings are underway between NBC Universal and The Weinstein Company, which ripped Runway away from NBC's Bravo for Lifetime. Other tidbits from the ongoing trial? NBC chief Jeff Zucker has instructed Bravo to air marathon repeats of Runway during the same timeslot Lifetime will air new episodes of the show's sixth season. Did we mention Zucker is BFF's with Harvey Weinstein?

Nina Garcia, currently appearing on Project Runway's fifth season as Elle's "editor-at-large," is, as you already know, totally done with Robbie Myers' mag and has not-so-quietly moved on to Marie Claire. And though she doesn't officially start there until Sept. 2, she's already moved into her office — perhaps because the one Elle was keeping for her is lined with glass shards. (Marie Claire denies she's started working there, citing Garcia's contract with Elle; they insist she's only been in the office to coordinate fashion show travel.)

And while Garcia is definitely a commodity worth grabbing for Marie Claire — which is expected to scoop up Project Runway when it moves to Lifetime — it turns out the relationship might not be a match made in couture heaven.

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While Project Runway 4 winner Christian Siriano takes shots at the over-tanned contestant currently trying to out-tagline him on season five, none other than Harvey Weinstein comes out looking like the good guy in this week's round up of Runway gossip. Weinstein, supposedly, was willing to take his name off the Emmy application for the show, since only fifteen producers get to be attached to any single nomination. And since Weinstein has done little for the brand except milk its revenue potential for all the hair and makeup sponsorship deals it's worth, he so graciously agreed not to have his efforts acknowledged with the possibility of winning a silly little statute. How generous, and nicely spun, of him.

Though it's pretty clear that Project Runway is headed to Lifetime for the show's sixth season, NBC Universal isn't taking Harvey Weinstein's bull sitting down, which explains why Jeff Zucker was in a New York court yesterday trying to convince a judge that they lost the show on Bravo because of the Hollywood mogul's shadowy ways. The Weinstein Company wants NBC's breach of contract suit — which claims Weinstein didn't give NBC right of the first refusal option that was promised — dismissed, while 30 Rock wants an injunction to keep the series from going to Lifetime until the trial is over with. Us? We just want this trial to continue forever and ever! Also, photographers in the courtroom.

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We will miss Portfolio's napkin math sessions when the magazine eventually closes. Last month, they calculated the net worth of Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven," supposedly the most profitable song ever recorded, which earned an estimated $572 million. Now, they've moved on to other pop culture fare: Project Runway. Just how much is the fashion reality show franchise worth? Well, The Weinstein Company's new deal with Lifetime pits the show at $150 million over the next five years. But if they were to sell the show? $243.5 million — the insurance policy on Heidi Klum's legs not included.

Ever since NBC Universal execs learned they would officially be losing Project Runway on Bravo, they've been working overtime to tear the brand apart. Why should they bother promoting a show that Harvey Weinstein ripped away from them to take to Lifetime, where he's set to bag a bigger payday from production and product placement fees?

At first, the negativity was subtle. Bravo execs kept quiet as they stole Runway's brilliant production team, Magical Elves, away from the show in an exclusive deal. And then the more obvious signs arrived.

Project Runway's fifth season, and the last for Bravo, premieres on Wednesday. And by the time it arrives, and certainly by the time it wraps, its varnish will be worn, damaged, or gone altogether.

So just how is Bravo systematically sabotaging the Project Runway brand?

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Of the 16 contestants on the fifth season of Project Runway, eight are men, and six of them are out gays. This compares to last season's four openly gay contestants and, when the show moves to the network for women and gay men, Lifetime, next season's 100 percent homo roster.

How do you let the execs behind your show know that you're pissed about all the sweeping changes that they're making? If you're Cindy McCain critic Tim Gunn and have the uncertainty of what lies ahead for Project Runway, you start sniping away at the brand any opportunity you get.

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You might not be aware, but the fifth season of Project Runway, and the last for Bravo, kicks off just one short week from today. Even we, usually so adept at knowing when these sorts of cultural phenomenon are making their return to the horizon, have been caught off guard. So too, television critics — because Bravo hasn't sent out any screeners of the upcoming season, nor do they plan to. And they haven't even unveiled the upcoming cast of contestants, and won't do so until Monday, just 48 hours before the season premieres, even though it's been the network's practice to tell all weeks in advance.

"A representative for the network said it was part of an effort to 'protect the secrecy' of the fifth season," blogs Maureen Ryan. HAHAHAHA, please. You know the reason.

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Harvey Weinstein's brilliant, and inevitable, business model for Project Runway now includes a new cash infusion: dollars from the magazine. When he was first shopping the show around in the early 200s, most magazines passed on the opportunity to be attached, and Elle was the only taker. It's been a brand boon for the Hachette fashion book, but after the fifth season, they're gonna lose it. And whoever wants the opportunity to work with Runway, now on Lifetime, will have to pay for the privilege. Seven figures, anyone?

Sad news, gays. Project Runway season four contestant Jack Mackenroth, who had to leave the show after a staph infection, will not be auditioning for the show's fifth season. "During my short stint on season 4, I was never in the bottom three and I won the menswear challenge, which is my field of expertise, so I feel like I accomplished most of what I started."

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Earlier today we brought you news that Nina Garcia had signed an editor-at-large contract with Elle that would keep her there through Sept 1, just long enough to shoot the fifth (and Bravo's final) season of Project Runway. Interesting that the announcement came with an expiration date, we noted.

And here's why: We were just told Nina is heading to Marie Claire as fashion director, effective .. Sept. 2.

Well so much for Fashion Week Daily's "exclusive" news that Nina Garcia was heading to Hearst's Marie Claire after her dust-up at Elle. News just arrived that she's signed a deal to stay on at Elle, as editor-at-large, through Sept. 1, 2008.

And how many job announcements do you see that come with an expected termination date?

Right, just this one, because it means Garcia gets to stick around for the fifth season of Project Runway while Elle's Robbie Myers figures out how to hang on to the TV show, now that Cosmopolitan, Glamour, In Style, Harper's Bazaar, as well as Marie Claire, are all said to be vying for a deal.

Putting to rest any notion that Nina Garcia would take Elle's Robbie Myers up on her offer to stay on in some fashion, the Project Runway judge is heading to Marie Claire, as was rumored. [FWD] She'll officially join the staff in September, as fashion director, replacing Tracy Taylor, who left. Sadly, there's no update about whether Runway will hop beds from Hearst to Hachette Hachette to Hearst, but Harvey Weinstein is said to love Garcia, so if keeping her on the show means switching to MC, perhaps he'll do it.

"A spokesman for The Weinstein Co., which produces the show, said the reports were inaccurate. Contract negotiations between "Project Runway" and its primary judges — Michael Kors and Garcia — are still continuing, and according to sources close to the show, negotiations for sponsorships and magazine partners for season six have yet to begin. Garcia is also still negotiating the terms — or the severing — of her relationship with Hachette Filipacchi Media, Elle's parent company." [WWD] And this concludes the explanation for why the future of Nina, Elle, and Project Runway is dragging on longer than the sale of a daily newspaper. (NB: Poo on Women's Wear for calling The CW's Gossip Girl "Gossip Girls.")

Nina Garcia has finally made her decision: She's not sticking around Elle to be Joe Zee's playtoy. She's heading to Marie Claire, which, not so surprisingly, has stole the lucrative Project Runway magazine contract away from the Hachette title. [P6] She probably won't even have a real office over there at Hearst; simply a place to stash her handbag while running to PR tapings.

Dan Cutforth and Jane Lipsitz of production company Magical Elves are the duo responsible for turning Project Runway into ratings and publicity gold. That's why NBC was angling for 'em, and now they've got 'em, signing the twosome to an exclusive deal, effectively stealing them away from the Weinstein Co.'s fashion franchise just as they're moving from Bravo to Lifetime. Cutforth and Lipsitz will remain producers for Bravo's Top Chef and NBC's Last Comic Standing.

Oh, what's that? NBC owns Bravo? Yeah. It was basically Jeff Zucker's way of brushing the top of his hand underneath his chin at Harvey Weinstein.

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Marie Claire's Joanna Coles is said to be leveraging Elle's up-in-the-air status as a Project Runway partner to scoot her own magazine in the door as the heading-to-Lifetime show's magazine brand.

In other semi-PR related news, Ugly Betty, the ABC sitcom that's been serving as a dumping ground for Runway personalities Christina Siriano, Nina Garcia, and Elle's own Robbie Myers and Joe Zee, will see Lindsay Lohan grace the set. She began shooting her cameo on Saturday for the same episode Elle v. Mode softball game that had Naomi Campbell at bat. "Lindsay arrived on set 45 minutes early," a source told Us, which totally means she's on the wagon again.