Shop Boy

Economic recession be damned. February is for shopping -- at least in fantasyland, when the big-screen adaptation of novelist Sophie Kinsellas Confessions of a Shopaholic hits theaters. Just off-center of the spending maelstrom is Nick Cornish, playing hot Brooklyn boyfriend Tarquin to Suze, best friend and roommate of the films star, Rebecca (Isla Fisher), whose voracious appetite for the next haute thing can be tempered only by life lessons from her misadventures in publishing. Think The Devil Wears Prada minus the fashion-closet fairy tale but with Patricia Fields expert styling. She was like a whirlwind on set, Cornish says of the Oscar-nominated, Emmy-winning costume whiz behind Sex and the City and Ugly Betty. All pink hair and crazy good-looking clothes -- and very, very quick with the details. But did dipping a toe in designer mania release Cornishs inner shopaholic? Luckily, no, he says, offering up a potential mantra for the credit-strapped in 2009. I enjoy having a life that is not determined by debts I have to pay. Restraint is nice. Confessions of a Shopaholic opens nationwide February 13.