We’ll always have Paris (as a marketing opportunity)

Paris Hilton’s detour to the house of many doors may have put a crimp in her celebutante lifestyle, but it’s proved an irresistible marketing opportunity. The Mirror discovered this first-hand on a recent visit to its favorite card store.

Arriving at Pulp, 456 S. La Brea Ave., shortly before the store opened, the Mirror was kindly escorted through the stock room by a store manager who let it drop that the currently incarcerated Ms. Hilton had used a similar ingress just days before she was packed off to the pokey. He said she’d come by to purchase some “prison stationery” and had come through the back to avoid the paparazzi.

The store, which stocks a shockingly wide range of greeting cards from the sweet to the border-line obscene and all manner of wrapping paper, note cards, invitations and card stock, had been the wayward heiress’ destination for what was described as “writing paper, postcards and a few photo albums.”

But Pulp’s efforts pale in comparison to the public-relations flacks shilling for Los Angeles label kate & kass, who took it upon themselves to alert the entire free world that Nicky Hilton dropped in to visit her sister at the Twin Towers medical ward sporting one of the brand’s “cotton gauze short-sleeved, thigh-skimming dress[es]” (made of 100% cotton gauze and selling for $190, the press release noted).

Which must come as good news for all those young women around the Southland wondering what on Earth they should wear next time visiting day rolls around at the state penitentiary.