The straight hair is back — and she looks amazing! Gwen was spotted running errands solo in Beverly Hills on Thursday.

It took us a little while, but enjoy! It’s a great article and it’s split up into twenty questions to Gwen. She is very candid about her children, her closet, Gavin and how she’s already written new songs with No Doubt and how she can’t stop listening to them. Please, if you post this article anywhere else, please, please, link back to this post and give credit where credit is due, thank you. Also, huge thanks to Robin for sending me in the article!

Click here to read the full article!

The Polo Lounge in the Beverly Hills Hotel has played host to the likes of Elizabeth Taylor and Jean Harlow, so when Gwen Stefani walks in on a sunny afternoon with her Old Hollywood glamour — dark oversize sunglasses, scarlet lips, and platinum tresses swept into a polished updo — she certainly looks the part.

“Sorry I’m late,” says Stefani, sliding into a green velvet banquette amid a fragrant whirl of cocoabutter. “I was getting my color done, and now I feel like a different person. So much better.”

She’s wearing a demure plaid cap-sleeve blazer and pencil skirt of her own design with sparkly diamonds on her ears and fingers, an appropriate look for the ladies-who-lunch crowd. But on closer inspection there are a few givaways that she is, in fact, a Grammy-winning rock star. Stacks of white rubber bracelets are piled on her forearms, a lacy blue peeks our above her threadbare ribbed tank top, and her nails are painted a stark white.

Stefani, 40, an Orange County girl born and bred, has just returned from a lengthy vacation in St. Tropez with her husband of seven years, British rocker Gavin Rossdale, and their two boys, Kingston, 3, and Zuma, 1, for whom she wears two delicate gold crosses around her neck. The successful designer, with seven years at the helm of her LAMB line, couldn’t be more excited to show her latest collection at the upcoming New York Fashion Week.

It’s surprising that Stefani, an unabashed girlie girl, has been hanging out with the fellas her whole life — first No Doubt, her all-male rock band, and now in her houseful of boys. Pushing her sideswept bangs out of her big brown eyes, she leans in conspiratoirally when she whispers, “Do you love clothes?” Content with her response, she grins and squeals, “I love clothes too. So much it’s embarassing. But it’s so fun!”

She shares a photo of adorable baby Zuma on her Blackberry and orders a soy-milk coffee before settling in for some good old-fashioned girl talk.

1. Have you always been obsessed with fashion, even before you started designing?

It’s been the same my whole life. I made so many clothes growing up, and I used to design my own costumes. Like, in college — we’d have a concert coming up and all I would do was just daydream about what I was going to make. And it’s the same now. Fashion gets me so excited.

2. Where did you draw inspiration for your spring line?

I wanted to make a collection I was really going to wear. I was into gray, black and white with just touches of color, like yellow here and there. And a lot of drapery and slouchy stuff, and some tailoring — and looks that were a bit ’80s but also modern. We pull inspiration from everywhere and make it our own. It’s important to me to be involved because it’s about what I would wear, to be honest. It’s very selfish!

3. And what is it about designing that you love so much?

When you find your passion, you can’t help it. I’m generally lazy. I like to sleep, I like to eat, I don’t like to work out, I don’t like to do anything. I want to watch TV, eat in bed, and sleep. And with designing, it’s just fun. I always enjoy doing that. It’s never a drag.

4. After two solo album and two babies, you just completed a 60-concert tour with No Doubt. What was that like?

This tour was so emotional because it meant going back onstage with those guys who were my best friends since I was 17. We’re in such a great emotional space right now. And knowing that it’s not going to last forever makes it even more precious. I had tears in my eyes as I singing certain songs, like “Simple Kind of Life,” where I say, “I always thought I’d be a mom” — and all of a sudden I am, and my kids are sitting on the side of the stage watching me sing. It’s really intense.

5. Do you enjoy performing onstage in front of thousands of people?

I love it. It is so awesome. I love getting ready and getting in costume, and then performing and being physical. If you don’t play live concerts, nothing feels real. It’s just a song on the radio you hear when you’re driving, and it doesn’t affect you. But when you walk ot onstage and there are people who actually spent their money to buy a ticket and they’re singing the songs, it’s suddenly mind-blowing.

6. What initally made you decide to jump from musician to designer?

I wanted so badly to have a backup plan for when I’m not performing anymore. Let’s be realistic: It’s not going to be like this forever. So I wanted to continue having something creative to do. I have to be creative to be happy. I don’t have a strong sense of self-worth unless I’m doing something. I was a different person before I started to write. When I realized I could be a songwriter and that people would listen — that was when I started feeling good in my life.

7. You’ve said you had writer’s block when trying to work on the next No Doubt record. Have you overcome it?

I just wrote a song, which is really exciting! It’s not even done and I’ve listened to it two billion times already. It’s like I can’t stop. I’m embarassed — if my husband comes in and I’m listening to it, I’m like, I’m sorry.

8. Tell us about your boys — what are their personalities like, and which one of their parents do people say they look most like?

They are totally different, and they look totally different. Kingston didn’t like the fans on tour. He doesn’t like having his photo taken or the paparazzi. We call him Sid, like Sid Vicious. He’s a little punk, he really is. Zuma is more of a show-off. He wants everyone to watch him, he’s a goofball, and he’s really silly. He’s a funny guy. People say Zuma looks like my dad, and like me more — and obviously Kingston looks exactly like Gavin from head to toe. It’s crazy how the second child is so different from the first and has the same parents.

9. Does Kingston pick out his own clothes? He has such a cool style, and he really seems to own it.

I know! At that age they like to be in control of everything, so I let him choose. Luckily, everything in his closet is cute, so no matter what he picks, he’s gonna look good. For a while he was into costumes. Now he doesn’t ever want to wear shoes.

10. What do you miss about L.A. when you’re living in London, and vice versa?

I miss my family when I’m in England. And when I’m in L.A., I miss the role I have when I’m in London. I’m not working there, so Gavin spoils me and I get to be really dependent. I don’t drive when I’m there, and I like that. It’s a different lifestyle to be able to walk to the little village to get milk. I take Kingston to the gym with me, with no nanny or assistant, and that would be very rare in L.A. — that I could actually go somewhere on my own. Things can get out of hand with the paparazzi, so I don’t feel safe.

11. Do you or your kids adopt an accent when you’re over there?

Not me, I can’t even pretend. But kids are like little sponges. Once in a while Kingston will pick up a word, like “I’m going to take a bahhth.” And I’m like, really? A bahhth!

12. When I interviewed Gavin years ago, he said he prides himself on being an excellent gift giver. Do you ever drop any hints about what you want?

Oh no, we’re not allowed to do that. It’s just old-fashioned gift giving. He goes all out, you know? He’s romantic, so it’s good. He is a creative guy, and he’s amazingly inspiring with that creativity. We had a really good Christmas last year; it was fun getting gifts for the kids.

13. How do you and Gavin coordinate your outfits for a red-carpet event — is his outfit based on your dress?

We just do our own thing, and it always seems to work. He has such great style. I get ideas from a lot of his clothes for the women’s clothing line because I like that kind of mixture. I use a lot of stuff in his closet. I’ll be like, Ooh, we should do a girl version of this!

14. Let’s talk about your closet. With all your LAMB collections, and pieces of Galliano and Vivienne Westwood, tell us: What’s it like in there?

It’s really a work of art. I have a very, very large closet. Girls fall on the ground when they walk in. They’ll be like, ‘I just want to stay in here!’ It’s awesome. I keep all my main costumes and archive my favorite things, and I’ve held on to so many things I’ve designed in the past seven years, so you can imagine how many clothes there are. It’s insanity. I just cleaned out my closet, and I had like, 20 bags of stuff. Usually I let my friends and family just go nuts, but this time I’m going to do an auction and give it to charity. I mean, why should my sister always get it?

15. You’ve even worn red lipstick while you’re jogging. Is there any time you don’t wear it?

No, I wear it all the time. I wear pink, I wear gloss, I wear everything, but my husband prefers when I wear red. I want him to like me still! I remember the first time I wore dark red lipstick. I was maybe 18, and I can remember the moment I put it on — in my Honda Prelude that I bought for like, $3,000 — and looking in the mirror going, “Good, I like that.” Never again did I stop wearing it.

16. How do you get motivated to work out so religiously?

I like to wear clothes. That’s the only reason. You can’t make a whole fashion collection and not be able to fit in it. Plus, I feel so much better. And if you work out, then you can eat!

17. What advice can you give to women who see your post-baby body and feel inspired?

I have to work out before noon or I won’d do it. You just have to get what you want in your head. It’s hard, but it’s like a domino effect once you see the results. I think I’m like the average person when it comes to all those things, so if I can do it, then I think anyone can do it.

18. What’s your favorite meal to cook, your signature dish?

I don’t cook. I can toast in the toaster. I can pour and set the table. No, Gavin is the one. It’s not even an option, he is so passionate about it. He cooks every day. He loves to go grocery shopping and find different things. I’m really lucky. It’s actally lucky and hard at the same time because sometimes you want to be fit and not eat it, but you have to eat it.

19. Are you and Gavin going to try for a little girl? Someone should get to inherit your wardrobe!

I don’t know. Having children is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. No one could have prepared me for how awsome it is, and how hard. And having two boys — there’s a lot of energy. I mean, it does seem weird that I don’t have a girl, but I feel like I’m running out of time. I also don’t want to spread myself so thin that I can’t even be good for them. Poor Zuma, he’d be the middle guy. I’m not focusing on it right now, but it’s not up to me anyway, you know? These things are miracles, so we’ll see. Otherwise, the clothes are probably to go to some girlfriend of Kingston’s!

20. What do you consider to be your biggest career achievement to date?

Walking through an airport in Isreal, and soldiers with machine guns coming up and beling like, “Don’t Speak.” Or meeting kids who tell you that you’ve changed their lives because the music is so powerful. Or seeing girls who are wearing my clothes and saved all their money to get them, and suddenly they have this style and “this is who I am,” and at that age it’s really important. I get to meet all those people, and it makes me feel so good.

Thanks to Denise for the heads up, nordstrom.com have added some more simpler pieces from the Harajuku Lovers jewelry collection.

Click here to see more HQ photos!

Well that was quick! Thank you so much to babinski for sharing with us, we now have HQ scans from Gwen’s April 2010 InStyle magazine shoot — she looks breathtaking! The photo shoot seems to have dark theme, and we love it! It looks like a shoot that could have took place back in 2004, we can’t wait for out takes.

The full article will be coming soon exclusively to BSO, but a teaser will be posted shortly from the “20 Questions with Gwen Stefani” feature, and we’re told it’s really well written!

The time has come for another week of Flashback Friday! This week we are featuring a newly transcribed article from Melody Maker back from September 2000. An interview with Gwen is in the magazine where she is donning her infamous pink fright-wig and wedding dress. The article is really good and it’s such a trip reading interviews pre-wedding and kids Gwen. It’s amazing to look back and see how pretty much all her dreams have come true. Not only does she talk weddings and dreams, but she also talks about how much back in 2000 was really uninspiring to her and what she felt about Eminem, Marilyn Manson and more. Not only have we added HQ scans from the magazine, but we also are featuring a couple videos of her look in action.

On the third day of the celebrations, the bells of the old church strike out, a storm of glitter and confetti sweeps from the sky and the bride emerges. Bouquet trembling, mile-long train borne behind her by the legion of pink-haired bridesmaids, she makes a circuit of the plazza on the arm of the venerable old Signor Stefani, treading a trail of rose petals under glass slippers. A cheer rises from the hordes of villagers lining the square, the church doors swing open, the organ pipes a rusty wedding march and, lip now begininng to quiver, the bride plunges into the aisle, stumbling and scrambling towards… towards…

Well… towards whom exactly?

“When I first got into kindergarten,” Gwen Stefani sighs, glassy-eyed, “they asked me what I was gonna be when I grow up. I said I was gonna be a bride. I used to fantasise about it and me and my cousin would always get those bride books and through ‘em. I definitley wanna have, like a wedding wedding. One of my fantasies lately would be, like, Italy, a small amount of family members and a fancy dress, and you know how they walk around the little plazzas and an old church and then go have a big fat Italian dinner? Just close friends and family, but make it like a vacation.”

She plucks at the lace of her wedding gown and giggles girlie-girlishly.

“I don’t know what it is. I guess it’s something about dressing up as a princess.”

She shakes herself out of the fantasy and looks around. Not quite what she would have wanted. An LA photo studio with all the romance of a burnt-out Bosnian aircraft hangar. The dress is perfect, but where should be a veil has been plopped a gigantic pink fright-wig that makes her look like Cyndi Lauper with her tongue in a plug socket. No wedding march from the stereo, just a live version of her band’s contagious-as-a-sex-based-e-mail-virus new single, “A Simple Kind of Life”, spinning out her nuptial fallings: “And all I wanted was the simple things / A simple kind of life / And all I wanted was a simple man / So I could be a wife.”

A simple man, huh? Well none of the three suitors lined up to take her hand today quite fill the bill. Tont Kanal, the bassist guy, he dumped her years ago, leaving her nursing an album’s worth of heartache, Tom Dumont, the guitarist fella, they’re just good friends. And Adrian Young, the drumming nudist, he’s turned to woo her without wearing trousers. And so she sits alone in her marriage tresses like a punka Miss Haversham: nothing old, nothing new, nothing borrowed, nothing blue, not even a chuffing groom to speak of.

Oh, and false tits.

“You have these things that are jellies and you have to put them in your top and it gives you a little cleavage,” Gwen confides, “I don’t really have one of those.”

Then the song spins to it’s most hilariously disturbing line and Gwen cheers up. Hey, one day her prince may come. And even if he doesn’t maybe she’ll strike lucky, get up the duff by accident and drag some unsuspecting schmuck up the aisle before you can say, “pro-life tendencies.”

“I always thought I’d be a mom / Sometimes I wish for a mistake” – “A Simple Kind of Life”, No Doubt

“Sometimes you think, ‘Well, then it’s out of my hands, I’m forced into the next stage’,” Gwen Stefani says, nonchalantly discussing unwanted pregnancy like a heavily tranquillised “Little House on the Prairie” character. “Planning it out, saying ‘I’m gonna get married and make a commitment to that and then I’m gonna have a baby’, that’s a lot of responsibility. But if it just happens, then it’s like, ‘Well fuck, man! Here I go! I’m gonna be a mom!’”

So, er, you have actually wished for a mistake?

“I always do. It’s funny because for me you spend your whole life trying to not get pregnant, right? But sometimes mistakes can be blessings in life. They can be that little push that you need.”

Um, isn’t that a bit desperate, like?

“I would say that I get desperate loads of times,” says Gwen, starting to sound like the president of Bunny Boilers Anonymous. “All of us do. I get desperate for change. You get caught up in your own little world and sometimes you need a little push. Kids are something I’ve always, always, always wanetd. I was ready when I was 21. I was like, ‘I’m ready! I want a kid right now! I want four kids! I’m ready!’ Then as time goes by, I guess I get further and further away from it and it seems like more and more of a fantasy and something that’ll never come true becuase I’m so in my life, y’knowwhaddimean? With the band, it takes everything.”

She plucks a long strand of pink-wig hair from her bodice.

“I love the idea of marriage, she continues. “I love the idea of finding somebody and saying, ‘No matter what happens, I’m gonna be there for you.’ I always thought that’s what I would be the best at, being the best girlfriend in the world. But I don’t seem to be getting it. My life has turned out nothing like I’d thought it would be. I think I’m a lot more than I thought I’d be, so I’m a bit like, ‘Woo-hoo! My eyes have been opened!’ So I don’t know what my wedding will be like. I don’t even know if I’ll ever get married! Heh heh! At this rate!”

Perhaps you could get yourself a catalogue husband from the Philippines.

“Heh heh! I don’t think so.”

In “Marry Me”, from your recent, nuptially obsessed “Return of Saturn” album (a record that seems to keep time by the ticking of Gwen’s biological clock), you describe yourself as “a creature conditioned to employ matrimony”.

Gwen shrugs. “Aren’t we all? It’s something we’re brought up thinking that that’s what you do and it’s the right thing and we’re all alone here trying to search for someone else to temporarily ease the pain of the idea that as creatures we’re gonna die.”

Most people would think they’re more than that.

“I’m not. I’m just that.”

Have you ever considered selling your eggs on the internet?

She frowns. “Selling my what?”

Your eggs. You could make a lot of money.

“Oh, my female eggs,” Gwen laughs. “No, I’ve never considered that. Wow, can you imagine? Famous people would probably get a lot of money. I’ve never thought about trying to make money off my body parts.”

She pauses, suddenly realises something.

“Besides,” she says, “I guess I do, because, in this business, I sell myself all the time, right?”

If Gwen comes across as a doe-eyed Bambi waking up from a blissful dream of mumbled vows and breaking waters and finally smelling the Black Box Recorder, you can only blame her fairy-tale life story. Raised in an Orange County Catholic household so well-adjusted it made the Waltons look like The Fall on bad crack, she fell into a career in music when her brother Eric formed No Doubt in 1986 and she kinda joined by default — “I was just this young girl on the couch watching TV, saying ‘What am I gonna do’”

There followed nine years sweeping the cellar of chirpy-all-ska-rock, while the ugly Nirvana sisters refused to let them go to the grunge ball and then — ping! — up skanked a fairy godmother in chequered baggy trousers, waving a magic rhythm stick and yelling, “There shall be a ska revival!” The twin mice of “Don’t Speak” and “Just A Girl” were transformed into chart-vaulting stallions, No Doubt’s second album, “Tragic Kingdom”, shrilled 10 million copies sharpish and suddenly Gwen was a generational icon of the girl-next-door-dom, the karate-kicking belle of the ball twirling on the arm of Prince Gavin of Bushfordshire. And they all live happily ever…

Oh no, hang on. Around the middle of 1998 the clock struck midnight, Saturn returned and it all went a bit pumpkin-shaped.

“The last couple of years I was really not cool,” Gwen admits sheepishly. “I was confused with who I was. Everyone says it’s this whole return of Saturn thing (Saturn takes 29 years to orbit the sun, and thus 29 years to return to the same position it was in at your birth, heralding a reassessment of life – Cosmic Ed) and that was a good title for the disease I felt I had at that time, which was this confusing state. I always had a real beautiful life. I never had any depression. My ex-boyfriend Tony would always be depressed, because he was going out with me, obviously! I’d just go, ‘Go eat some ice-cream and you’ll be fine!’ I couldn’t understand it. But now I kinda do. Sometimes you just get in ruts and there’s nothing you can do about it. I’ve only barely grazed on what it’s like to be depressed.”

I now pronounce No Doubt band and strife. When they emerged from a two-year writing exile for “Return of Saturn”, Gwen was a changed woman, hair the color of Edna Everage’s knick-knacks and enough teeth braces on show at last year’s US Fashion Awards to straighten dentures of a hundred Janet Street-Porters. Psychologically, of course, a drastic image change is generally a sign of a recent emotional shake-up.

“That makes a lot of sense to me,” Gwen nods. “Me and my boyfriend were having problems, obviously, as everyone does, and we’d kinda split up and that’s when I did my hair pink! I didn’t mean to do it forever I just did it for that week. We got back together, like, two weeks later or some high school shit like that, but I wrote ‘Ex-Girlfriend’. The braces wasn’t about that. My whole life I always wanted to have braces. All my friends had braces and I never got them because my parents didn’t think my teeth were bad enough. It was out of pure vanity, wanting perfect straight teeth, I went in there and the next thing I knew they were on. Then I showed up at the Fashion Awards and everyone went, ‘Oh my God! Gwen has braces!’”

You weren’t even doing it because you’d gone totally blinkin’ doolally from an oestrogen overdose and nappy envy, then?

“No way!” Gwen yelps. “Do you think I’d go through that pain for that? I did it for real!”

Did you ever come close to having a breakdown?

“I can’t remember. I think I’m blocking it out now. In a band, you get pulled a lot and you’re giving a lot and you’re expected to be what everyone wants you to be the whole time. But at certain points, you just wanna go, “Stop looking at me! I feel really fat right now! I need to go and eat some cookies and hang out with my family!’”

Or perhaps Gwen was off-balanced by a relationship that seems more on-and-off than Liam Gallagher at a Portuguese rock-throwing contest. There has been lots of speculation about you and Gavin…

“I know!” she shrieks, bouncing in her seat. “It’s such a joke! It’s playground. There’s been ups and downs like everybody and there’s been times we’ve broken up and that didn’t work, so we tried getting back together. The weird part is to see pictures of him with other people saying, ‘Gavin with this girl!’, but nobody really knows what’s going on except me and him. I want to keep that one thing for myself. Gavin’s not really like that. He thinks it’s cute to have pictures together and this and that I guess. I’ve gotten more comfortable with it. But I feel like I’m cheapening it by doing that. And we never know exactly what’s going on with us, so why should everyone else know?”

Whenever I’ve seen him, he’s always been taking a shitty stick to his hordes of admirers.

“Poor thing” Gwen smiles affectionately, “he was just blessed with this amazing… he’s cute, y’know what I mean? I never wanted to go for the cute boys. Why would you wanna have a boyfriend that’s cuter than you are? But with us, we’re trying to find a way like everybody else. We live in two different countries, we have the same life, but we’re in different places all the time. It’s the long-distance thing. Our relationship is all about the hope of the future, rather than the here and now. It’s all, ‘Well maybe I’ll see you then and I miss you so much.’ It’s all about yearning. He’s at my house at the moment and we’re having a really fun time right now, but he’s leaving, you’re taking him away. He’s going back to London to write.”

So we can say that it’s on at the moment?

She shrugs secretively. “You can say it, but who knows if it’ll be true when your magazine comes out.”

Right now, No Doubt are more concerned with kissing and making up with their demographic. The Tank Girl toddlers who carved “Don’t Speak” its plaque up there in bubblegum heaven have swapped their Gwen dolls for Justin from N-Sync vibrators. Meanwhile, the new wave of US pocket money guzzlers are only girl-next-foor to the extent that they’d like to spy on her undressing from their bathroom window, cosh her, tie her in a sack and drop her off the nearest pier under cover of darkness. Surely the current profusion of sexism and violence in rock must make Gwen feel all… icky…

“Music in general right now is really uninspiring for me,” she admits. “I like bands like The Smiths and The Cure, bands that were making music with melodies and saying something. The Cure knew how to be serious, but they knew how to have fun too. I wanna be both. A band like Blink 182 is a band I’ve known for a long time. And I love them. They’re funny to me. I like potty jokes and that’s what they’re all about. They’re a joke band and they say they’re a joke band. They say it’s amazing that they’ve made a career out of it. I have enough sense of humor to get it. Boys will be boys and girls will be girls and it’s our job to go, ‘Fuck you! Don’t treat us like that! Don’t say that about us!’ and it’s their job to poke at us. It’s playground.

But at the same time, some of those Eminem songs! It is shocking. He asked us to put a sample of ‘Don’t Speak’ on the song where he’s killing his girlfriend. I think the tracks are incredible, but at the same time there’s me being a 30-year-old woman and there’s kids out there that I don’t know how seriously they’re taking that stuff. I mean, obviously, everyone should be able to do what they wanna do and if you don’t let them listen to it, but of course they’re gonna hear it anyway.”

She sighs. “It seems like a really violent time right now, violence for no reason. Why are you so angry? What’s wrong? I don’t see the poing, I don’t get it. He writes about how fun it is to rape people? Where do you go from there?”

What about Marilyn Manson? Don’t you want to strap the evil bastard down and give him a right good exorcism?

“He was at my party the other night!” Gwen laughs.

Eh? Little Bo Beep is mates with the Dar Lord Himself?

“I’ve known him for a long time,” Gwen nods. “I met him when he was a nobody… Well, I didn’t know who he was. He was on our label and he was at a dinner party that they threw for us and I walked in and you can imagine, this creature with one blue eye and he was like, ‘C’mon, Gwen! I love your song! Buddybuddybuddybuddy!’ He was there the other night. I threw a big party at my house the other night for Adrian and Tony.”

So the wolf lies down with the lamb and gobbles it’s veggie vol-au-vents. Are you not offended by his use of the Good Book of Andrex?

“Well I’m not a fan,” Gwen says. “I didn’t say I listen to his music, but I know him and every time I hang out with him he’s really nice to me and he’s not like a scary monster and he doesn’t say to me, ‘Show me your tits’ or try to be rude to me. But the things I gravitate towards are things I can relate to and have a little more of a heart. I’m not into the male testosterone shit that’s going down right now. It doesn’t pull my heart. I can see a band like Rage Against The Machine, they have that aggression, but they have something behind it. They have their heart which is what they believe in and I think that’s awesome. But other bands, like for instance [Limp Bizkit's] ‘Nookie’, it’s an undeniably good song, but my heart is not going to get attached to someone that’s talking about, ‘I did it for a cookie’! Whatever! Good for you!”

Do you find it sad or offensive?

“I think it’s sad for the kids. I grew up in the Eighties and there was music with melodies by people who were expressing things. That’s what I liked. Then there’s all the bubblegum pop records. All of those girl and boy bands that are put together by whoever puts those groups together… there’s room for everything, but I don’t get it. How do the kids get attached to it? There’s nothing there to grab on to. You listen to Morrissey and you’re, like, ‘Yeah! I feel you!’”

If anyone here present knows of any true cause or impediment to the union of No Doubt and superstardom, don’t speak, just forever hold your piece. “A Simple Kind of Life”, despite essentially being a small, round, shiny Mary Whitehouse, is easily their most huggable slice of momrock yet and “Return of Saturn” is an album mature enough to cast off it’s Care Bear and embrace Care In The Community. Mind you, with her upstanding belief in family values, her squeaky-clean image and her diplomatic dealings with the evil dictator types, if No Doubt ever went tits up, Gwen could always run for President.

“No, I’d never do that,” she laughs, “but when I was in the fifth grade we had to do a story about the White House. My mom told me that I wrote that I wanted to paint the White House pink.”

She stands, swirls her wedding skirts and pouts briefly, before skipping off into the cartoon sunset.

“The world is just such a disaster, isn’t it?” she frowns like Dorothy from “The Wizard of Oz” finally grown up. “I don’t think I could save it.”

Older, barmier, more reflective. But if you’re reading this, Gav, we suggest you keep checking Mates wrappers for pinholes.

Huge thank you to Jason for sending in — Gwen is on the cover of the April 2010 issue of InStyle magazine, and she looks AMAZING! More photos and the article will be coming soon!

Gwen, Zuma, her assistant Pete, and sister-in-law were spotted out shopping at the Grove on Tuesday afternoon.

But according to BSO fan Denise… they told her the same thing. Does anyone else know about this “cosmetics line from Harajuku Lovers?” They are said to be hitting shelves on Friday.

Thanks to Amanda for sending in, apparently Harajuku Lovers jewelry is being featuring in Kitson’s weekly email advertising how they are getting the line first.

Thank you so much to Jessica for sharing with us, but more pieces from the new Harajuku Lovers jewelry line has hit nordstrom.com! More sets of earrings, charm braclets, and necklaces are available. Prices seem to be the same that were listed on shopkitson.com, ranging from $25.00 – $150.00.

And thanks to Christina for sending in, according to a sales rep for Macy’s down in the Los Angeles area, Macy’s are expecting thier shipment of the jewelry sometime this week! Apparently they have the Harajuku Lovers area set up already, so make sure you head down there and let us know what you see! More pieces are hitting stores every three months.

No Doubt.com — I am very excited about running in my first marathon! It will happen on March 21st in Los Angeles. I hope my knee holds up for 26 miles! Keep your fingers crossed for me.
-Adrian