New York Fashion Week in dangerous detail. Read between the lines at your own risk.

WEDS

Fashion Week. The power tripping, the sleepless nights, the dirty glances of mealy mouthed editors and (sigh) people wearing the same overpriced clothes as you. I'm feeling so terribly afraid. Fashion Week is looming and the faxes are oozing from the machine. Even worse I've assured a Time/Warner TV crew flying in from LA that I'll guide them through the hierachial world of Backstage and get them into the All The Best Parties ("No problem!") Me and my big mouth.

THUR.

At super-stylist Karen Levitt's imperial insistence, I pop my Fash Week cherry at the Elena Bajo/ Ace Gallery event. Sight that majestic Company model Amy Nemec stalking back and forth in the name of avant garde intervention. That was really a bad decision not to use her for that Raygun shoot because this girl is going to be major. Run into every single member of the downtown coscegneti and have to make endless Warholian small talk.("Hiiiii." "You look greaaaaat!") Drift up to Lot 61, for Christina Ortiz's Lanvin party. That immortal Wilhemina/DKNY franchise Mark van der Loos and Esther Canadas are holding court in a booth packed with the Alex Lundquists and Jason Lewis's of this world. Oh the Teutonic Splendor of it all. Responding to a totally innocent joke about their convenient and fashion perfect coupling, a grinning Mark holds up Esther's finger to show off a sparkling new ring. As in the kind of ring just perfect for an engagement between a boy and a girl. Can you imagine what the babies would look like? Can you imagine what their making that baby would look like. Let's visualize this together. (Ooooooh). Anyway this party boasts a stimulating mix. Its rather Noah's Ark non? The drag queens, the ravers, the b-boys, the models, the suits. Bizzarely enough I'm actually enjoying myself.

FR1.

Curiosity drags us to the Montgomery at Lot 61, scene of last night's debauchery. How innocent it all seems by day. Bump into cult designer Epperson. "So who the hell is this Montgomery guy?" I ask. "It's a she and she's pretty good. She does things things in a tie-dye direction." He offers. Ulp! After trying to hide from my peers (the mealy mouths, the dirty glances) I give up and go to my way too visible seat. Bad idea. Its all about backstage from now on. I'm sincerely trying to read that New Yorker Margiela article (Rebecca Mead rocks!) when I overhear an esteemed colleague braying in response to a compliment on her coat, "Its Prada. Muiccia has one, Madonna has one and as far as I know I'm the only other person who has one." Does that sound like a New Yorker fashion issue cartoon or what? The show itself is, shall we say...brave. They have severe girls like Alek Wek, Georgiana Robertson, James King (what's she doing up so early in the morning) Valarie and Shanna Shank and that makes a difference. Miss the Rubin/Chapelle and the Illig store opening at The Tunnel in favor of the Marilyn Inc. affair at the newest boite in town, Bond St. Guess Nur didn't get that liquor liscence in time, huh. The party is hot with talk of a certain young actor who has bolted from his Soho hotel suite to seek refuge in a Rivington St apartment, all the better to indulge in the local pharmaceutical delights of that picturesque neighborhood. Isn't it odd how no-one has a private life in this city? And what's up with that YSL/Bank party. I didn't run into a single soul who went. Did you? Rather mysterious I think.