A Palazzo on the Seine

"When people visit the Palazzo Pucci in Florence, a lot of them don't really make the connection. So we're bringing a little bit of palazzo to our stores one at a time," said Laudomia Pucci , daughter of Emilio Pucci, at the store's unveiling last night. Now shoppers on the Avenue Montaigne can tune into the Renaissance palace's charms—mirrors, gilt trimmings, purple-veined marble—recast for the twenty-first century and offset by quirky touches like mannequins with high-floating, sculpted tresses, a nod to designer Peter Dundas ' illustration style. And shopping was definitely on the agenda despite the crowds and persistent would-be crashers.



By 10 p.m., crashers and invitees had converged at the city's hottest spot of the moment, Monsieur Bleu, on the Seine-facing side of the Palais de Tokyo. Fortunately, the place had been cleared of its Art Deco-inspired furniture, as guests including Eugenie Niarchos, Iggy Azalea , Bianca Brandolini, Toni Garrn, and Leigh Lezark turned out for a special performance by Solange Knowles .



"I don't want to talk about me, I want to talk about my girls," Dundas demurred as a coterie of admirers and model-slashes (/socialite/singer/stylist) smothered him with adoration. Instead, the girls did the talking: "Peter's got the biggest heart. It just shines through," cooed Ciara . "When I met him, I just fell in love. I even proposed to him," one-upped Poppy Delevingne . "He said yes—in another lifetime." Just as well—Delevingne is set to marry her longtime beau in Morocco next spring.

—Tina Isaac-Goizé

Come in Peace, Stay to Party

"We come in peace!" joked Made's Mazdack Rassi at the dinner his organization and partner MAC threw at Les Deux Magots last night. The disclaimer didn't hurt: The group is taking Paris fashion week by storm. Eight years into its tenure supporting and sponsoring young designers' shows in New York, Made has lately expanded its reach to the City of Light, too. The labels that benefited from its largesse this season—including, among others, Gareth Pugh , Anthony Vaccarello, Piece d'Anarchive, and Jacquemus—are some of the most exciting in the ranks of up-and-comers. Not bad for a city that was formerly chided for supporting only the most established houses. "What I love about Paris right now is there's a lot of young talent," said John Demsey , group president of MAC's parent company, Estée Lauder. "And it's really the center of the world for fashion, no question about it. In what other country does what's happening on the runways make front-page news?"



Elsewhere, Pharrell Williams celebrated his new collaboration with Moncler at the label's recently bowed Faubourg Saint-Honoré store (followed by a dinner at nightlife legend Castel, where Williams sat with the couple he called his fashion "mentors," Jonathan and Ronnie Newhouse ), and on the other side of the Seine, Acne was feting its new Saint-Germain store.



As the night wore on, many decamped to Balmain's after-hours bash at Le Bristol, where Jason Statham and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley chatted gamely with the Brant brothers (oh, to be a fly on that wall!) and there were enough top models to cast an impromptu runway show, if anyone had cared to. (Come to think of it, there were enough Balmain outfits to costume one, too.) But the party of the night was Alexander Wang's light-, sound-, and smoke-filled rave-up for his Balenciaga collection—a taste of Bushwick in Paris, some attendees joked—capped off by a performance from M.I.A.

—Tina Isaac-Goizé, Tim Blanks, and Staff

RTRC

Purple Goes Into the Closet

To hear Closed creative director Kostas Murkudis tell it, his label's collaboration with Purple makes perfect cosmic sense. "Jeans are probably the sexiest garment invented, and Purple the sexiest magazine," he said at a dinner last night at Brasserie Balzar, which was cohosted with the mag, after a successful opening of Closed's new Paris boutique.



The One and Only Purple Jeans are limited to 125 pairs of deep purple jeans handmade in Italy. "We thought it would be fun and timely, and a daring color to wear," Purple's Olivier Zahm explained. "If we do jeans, they have to be sexy and punkish—like the magazine." Expect more on this front—Zahm relaunched Purple Boutique, "expanding our point of view in commerce," he said.



There was plenty to celebrate—not that Team Purple ever needs an occasion. But in this case, the jeans, the launch of a new issue, and the founder's birthday made the event especially lively. Zahm protested that certain milestones are more welcome than others—"I'm turning 50, and it's hard to accept," he said—but soon plates of mille-feuille were being passed and a chorus of "Happy Birthday" was sung by a crowd that included Lanvin's Elie Top and Lucas Ossendrijver , André Saraiva , Aaron Rose, Gaia Repossi, Malgosia Bela, and M/M Paris' Mathias Augustyniak and Michael Amzalag.



As the night wore on, Purple's latest cover girl, Lily McMenamy , and Lou Doillon , snugly tucked into their booth, climbed over the top of their table, the better to circulate. The party eventually drifted to Le Montana, but not Zahm—he'd mysteriously slipped off somewhere, into the purple night.

—Tiffany Godoy

Body of Work

By the time the refreshed Palais Galliera, Paris' musée de la mode, opened its doors at 6 p.m. on Wednesday evening, a line was already snaking down the block. Even the mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, turned up early for a preview of Azzedine Alaïa 's first Parisian retrospective, which opens to the public on Saturday. Marveling at the iconic wool-and-crocodile coat, the mayor exclaimed, "Ça, c'est la classe!" ("Now, that's class!")



The man of the hour was receiving visitors and basking in the adoration, but he kept his usual laconic composure. Asked how it felt to see his work arrayed, he simply smiled politely. But he didn't lack for acolytes to sing his praises. Naomi Campbell was misty-eyed even before she set foot inside the museum. "This is going to be like seeing a timeline of my entire life. I think I'm going to cry," she said. "I am so proud of Papa. He's done so much [to glorify] women's bodies. There aren't accolades enough for Azzedine Alaïa."



"The word sexy is not savage enough when it comes to Alaïa. We need a new word," added the Musée Galliera's director, Olivier Saillard, who curated the exhibition. "He is like a plastic surgeon, but with scissors. It's an incredible body of work. Only a truly great designer can get away with repeating himself for forty years. Owning an Alaïa is like having an Hermès bag. You transmit it from one generation to the next." Ellen von Unwerth concurred, fondly describing her Alaïa zip-front jumpsuit: "It was quite daring at the time, but after twenty years, it's in perfect condition and it still looks fantastic. My daughter took it from me."

—Tina Isaac-Goizé

Tall Tale

The Art Production Fund is used to producing public art installations on a big scale. This is a group, after all, that partnered with Rudolf Stingel to install wall-to-wall carpeting in Grand Central Terminal in 2004. But the unveiling of its latest project last night was on another level. APF's Doreen Remen and Yvonne Force Villareal brought together Marco Brambilla and Hugo Boss to celebrate Boss' newly renovated Columbus Circle flagship with the latest of his signature video installations, Anthropocene. Over the next week, three massive projection screens, suspended in the atrium of the Time Warner Center, will display the piece nightly.



Created with data gathered from geospatial scanning lasers, the film is a Technicolor acid trip of Central Park, with the buildings surrounding the park presented in solemn gray scale. Last night's vernissage even featured a live musical performance by a troupe of Juilliard musicians and a video introduction by Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Partygoers including Liam Hemsworth , Josh Duhamel , Woody Allen , and Marina Abramovic were ushered out of the third-floor exit of the store onto a balcony for a bird's-eye view of Anthropocene, but many grocery shoppers coming up the escalator from the subterranean Whole Foods were caught off guard by the presentation.



But maybe that's the idea? "We like big because it gets the message across to the public really well," explained Force Villareal. "Public art is about empowering people with new ideas." Brambilla told Style.com that his film was all about the tension between the natural and the man-made. "We wanted to erase the view you see through these windows and replace it with this surreal view of the park, replace it with the energy of New York."

—Todd Plummer

McQueen

The 65th Annual Emmy Awards

Enjoy this slideshow of looks from the red carpet at the Emmy Awards and check back later for our full report.

Twice as Nice

"Sorry, I'm not Sharon Stone," Juliette Lewis said from the podium at this year's edition of the amfAR Milano charity gala. Stone has long been associated with this event and is a famously persuasive emcee when it comes to the auction part of the proceedings, but Lewis used her quirkier brand of humor to hold her own in the role. And thanks to a series of lots that included works by Warhol, Vezzoli, Clemente, and the brilliant British photographer Terry O'Neill—each item introduced by an enthusiastic guest like Goga Ashkenazi , whose company, Vionnet, was one of the evening's sponsors—bidding was lively. The highlight was a highly theatrical duel between Roberto Cavalli and another gentleman for a limited-edition Hublot watch. With the bidding tied at €100,000, it was decided that both men should pay up and receive a watch each. "There goes our Cavalli advertising for next year," one magazine editor in attendance joked. When the auction concluded, Vogue Italia's editor in chief, Franca Sozzani , was honored for her commitment to AIDS research. Then it was on to an adjoining room for the after-party. That included a set by 2 Many DJ's, though judging by an amped-up crowd still going strong in the wee hours, 2 Many is never enough.



Elsewhere, Moschino was celebrating its thirtieth anniversary with a bash immediately following its show. The heaving crowd was equal parts showgoers trying to get out, partygoers trying to get in, and no one getting very much of anywhere. Franco Moschino himself, arch fashion satirist that he was, would undoubtedly have found a metaphor in there somewhere. He's not around to share it, but his presence was felt all the same via the huge video wall playing footage of the theatrical spectacles he once masterminded.

—Dirk Standen and Tim Blanks

Home Field Advantage

A pair of store parties shut down Via Montenapoleone and stopped traffic in the streets around it last night. On one side of the block, Ferragamo's Massimiliano Giornetti was celebrating the label's newly reopened flagship alongside Freida Pinto and Francesca Eastwood , Clint's daughter, both of whom wore Ferragamo head to toe. On the other, Prada was having a store party of its own. In fact, Prada spread the festivities across two of its shops, on Montenapoleone and at the Galleria in the Duomo Square. The Galleria was particularly packed. It could've been the fact that that was where Miuccia , fresh off a genius Spring show, was mingling. On the other hand, it might've been the very tasty chicken nuggets. With 10-plus shows on the schedule and each of them starting about 45 minutes late, nobody had time for lunch, let alone dinner.



But people made time for dancing later, as Alison Moyet performed at the Agnona party at another of the endless fête-ready palazzi that seem to dot this city. Because he has spent the lion's share of his career in Paris and lives much of the time in Berlin, it's almost possible to forget that Stefano Pilati is an Italian designer. But he's now ensconced at Agnona and its brother line Zegna, and as he sat listening to Moyet surrounded by pals like Anna Dello Russo and the Brandolini sisters, the evening felt very much like a homecoming.

—Nicole Phelps and Dirk Standen

Next Stop, Wonderland

Milan, a wonderland? Well, with the twin forces of business power (P&G Prestige) and editorial might (Vogue Italia), anything's possible. And last night's Beauty in Wonderland, a multisensory exhibition designed to mimic a tumble down a very glamorous rabbit hole, made a strong case. Guests wandered through the halls and garden of the fifteenth-century Casa degli Atellani, filled with imaginative sculptures, flora-inspired pop-up books, projections of photography by Sølve Sundsbø viewed through moss-covered keyholes, and mannequins dressed in immaculately folded and draped paper dresses (a standout being the butterfly-printed gown that cascaded down a staircase). Each room was a universe unto itself—representing, naturally, a "P&G fragrance universe" and scented to match.



In attendance was Cate Blanchett , who knows something about alternate universes: Coming up, she'll star as the wicked stepmother in a new adaptation of Cinderella. How to make the switch from gorgeous reality to on-screen villainy? Well, acting, of course—and beauty. "The whole concept with beauty is that we can imagine ourselves into other realities," she said. (She also quipped that she brings "mystery and allure" to her Cinderella role, "but no ugly.") No ugly was a fitting tag for the party, too, with P&G Prestige fragrance faces like Blake Lively , James Franco, Bianca Balti , and David Gandy swanning around.



But a quick stop in Wonderland was only one of the points on Milan's crowded fashion week itinerary. There was action to be seen across town at Stuart Weitzman 's new Milanese flagship, designed by architect Zaha Hadid, where Weitzman and the brand's new face, Kate Moss , were on hand to celebrate. And hometown boys Dean and Dan Caten were toasting new real estate, too: They'd invited a few friends, like Ireland Baldwin , Suki Waterhouse , Anna Dello Russo, and the Misshapes, to check out their newly transformed headquarters, which comes complete with a restaurant, a couple of bars, and a pair of rooftop pools—one for each brother, perhaps. The entertainment complex with its 360-degree view of Milan will be open to the public from 10 a.m. to 1 a.m. daily, and though the menu is predominantly Italian, Canadian-born Dan said he was considering putting a grilled cheese on there.

—Amber Kallor and Staff

Screen Sirens

Teatro Manzoni was once one of Milan's most magnificent movie theaters, a masterpiece of Fascist architecture. It was closed in 2006 for security reasons, but Patrick Kinmonth and Antonio Monfreda have spent the last three months turning this erstwhile dream palace into the venue for an exhibition called, appropriately enough, Making Dreams: Fendi and the Cinema. Though the duo have a long history of staging grand events (exhibitions at the Met's Costume Institute, Valentino's epic envoi in Rome), this may be their most insinuatingly mesmerizing spectacle to date. The bones of the cinema itself lie below transparent walkways that weave vertiginously through the history of the Fendi family's involvement with the movie industry in Italy.



It's not such a long story. The focal point of the whole show is Conversation Piece, Luchino Visconti's 1974 masterpiece. The Fendi sisters contributed Italian screen legend Silvana Mangano's wardrobe. And they funded the restoration of the film, a version of which is now playing in a bijou little playhouse to one side of the exhibition. Elsewhere, you'll find a making-of doc by Ferdinando Cito Filomarino, a descendant of Visconti's. Transmission from generation to generation: That's the Fendis' story, too. And family becomes more relevant in the saga when you consider how Visconti's crew functioned as a family for him.



Since Conversation Piece, Fendi has provided furs for movies as diverse as Never Say Never Again and Scorsese's The Age of Innocence. (Not to mention Margot Tenenbaum's famous coat from Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums.) As Silvia Venturini Fendi says in her accompanying voice-over, "Creativity has no limits." Kinmonth and Monfreda are sterling examples. What they manage to do brilliantly is divorce visitors from the nuts-and-bolts outdoors and immerse them in the sensual, enveloping darkness of the moviegoing experience as it once was. It's a place you want to stay in forever…or at least until October 6, when the Teatro Manzoni goes back to sleep.

—Tim Blanks

Costume Drama

With couturier Iris van Herpen, Olivier Theyskens , and Prabal Gurung on the bill, last night's program for the New York City Ballet fall gala was one part dance, one part runway show. The three designers collaborated with renowned choreographers Benjamin Millepied (van Herpen), Angelin Preljocaj (Theyskens), and Justin Peck (Gurung) on their one-time-only pieces that were performed last night for the likes of the ballet's fairy godmother Sarah Jessica Parker , Natalie Portman , Drew Barrymore , and 50 Cent .



"This ballet's costume department is incredible because we can make absolutely anything," said the ballet's costume director, Marc Happel, who worked closely with the designers to bring their visions to life. "I remember at first, Ben [Millepied] wasn't so sure we could make Iris' designs work for Neverwhere because they were so complicated and technical," he added. (Made of hundreds of translucent plastic chips, they were certainly not your average tutus.) "But I said, 'No, we will find a way,' and we did." "It was an absolute dream to see this come to life tonight," van Herpen added. "I just hope people liked it."



The results were worth the efforts. As the crowd made their way to dinner afterward, they buzzed about the boundary-pushing performances they had just seen. "Wasn't that just incredible?" asked Sarah Jessica Parker, who is currently filming a ten-part documentary series on NYCB, debuting November 4 via AOL. Of her own attire, a voluminous pink confection by Gurung (the bustier) and Theyskens (the skirt), she said, "Too bad after midnight, this all goes away—if I can get it off. Maybe if I'm really lucky, the boys will let me keep it for one more day."

—Kristin Tice Studeman

Something in the Aria

La Scala's stalls were lined with a who's who of Italian fashion dons and designers tonight. Renzo Rosso , Giorgio Armani , Valentino's Pierpaolo Piccioli and Maria Grazia Chiuri, Peter Dundas of Emilio Pucci, Yoox's Federico Marchetti …The list goes on and on. The occasion was to mark the major investment Condé Nast is making in Italy, awarding five scholarships to promising Italian students for the study of fashion, film, art, and journalism. As a symbol of the partnership, Milan's mayor, Giuliano Pisapia, hosted with Chuck Townsend of Condé Nast and Jonathan Newhouse of Condé Nast International, and the evening's entertainment was a selection of arias by Vittorio Grigolo . The enviably coiffed tenor sang Rossini and Tosca, as well as Italy's answer to "My Way," "O Sole Mio." There were no less than five curtain calls. Chanteuse Paloma Faith , rather enviably coiffed herself with fiery orange-red locks, was suitably impressed. "I thought it was a quintessentially Italian gift," she said. Her date for the evening, Max Mara's Giorgio Guidotti , was rather taken, too. "I was raised with opera, and I think it's great to have such a good-looking guy as a star."

—Nicole Phelps

The Big News in Milan

There was no shortage of good-looking people at a party for the Spring edition of Katie Grand ♥ Hogan, her season capsule collection for the Italian label: Jonathan Saunders , Katie's hubby Steve Mackey (who tag-teamed on the decks with Nathan Gregory Wilkins), a gaggle of models. But they were all dwarfed by Game of Thrones goddess Gwendoline Christie , who was so hands in the air on the dance floor that the Italians stood agog. They would, she's 6' 3". Grand was in the center of it all, where she'd been since eight in the morning, talking up the new collection. "The Della Valles were particularly keen that I move into some sort of clothing, which I completely panicked about and thought, I can't do this—that's the realm of the geniuses I work with," she said. But in addition to bags and shoes, Grand did end up doing two leather jackets. She promises they'll "feel like a vintage jacket that you've had for twenty years."

—Nicole Phelps

Art, Carnies

Some say today's art world is a circus. True or not, super-gallerist Emmanuel Perrotin seemed more than happy to play ringmaster last night at the Russian Tea Room, where he hosted a carnival-themed celebration for his new Manhattan outpost.



All four floors of the storied venue were put into service for the bash, which drew the likes of Maurizio Cattelan and Tamara Mellon . So, too, were a handful of Perrotin's big-name artists, who staffed the county-fair attractions on the top floor. There was KAWS , handing out art trinkets; Daniel Arsham , overseeing the ring toss; and the semi-anonymous French artist JR manning the photo booth. Collectors and other art-world notables queued up to try their luck against a claw machine. Build it, fill it with plush toys by Takashi Murakami, and they will come.



Perrotin—who made a name for himself years ago, at 21, when he organized Damien Hirst's first exhibition—splashed through it all in a Lanvin suit, thanking everyone. "Is it necessary? I don't know," he offered. "I just wanted to throw the kind of party that I would be happy to be invited to."



Housed in a former bank, his new gallery on Madison Avenue is part of a mini-empire that includes spaces in Paris and Hong Kong. Earlier in the evening, Perrotin unveiled a colorful show there by Paola Pivi that features frolicking, feather-covered polar bears and a machine that intermittently spits out money. (The title: Ok, You Are Better Than Me, So What?)



Jeffrey Deitch circulated, a folder clutched to his chest. Pharrell Williams , meanwhile, was happy to play humble spectator. "Who am I to say? I am yet a novice, a mere layman walking around just learning and sponging from people," he explained. "But from what I can tell, it's an amazing environment, and it just puts a different spin on art." One, he might have added, that smells like popcorn.

—Darrell Hartman

Child's Play

New York fashion week is over, but it didn't take long for the parties to wind back up again. After taking the weekend to recover from the endless slew of events and runway shows, the fashion set pulled out its gowns and tuxedos for the first benefit of the fall season last night, the 14th annual New Yorkers for Children gala.



"You do have to relax after the craziness and you hear everyone complaining fashion week was difficult, but it was a fabulous time," said model Crystal Renn as she made her way inside Cipriani 42nd Street. Renn admitted she was nursing a cold after the busy week, but she wouldn't have missed last night's black-tie affair, a New York institution celebrating and supporting youth in foster care. "This is the one gala of the year that you always look forward to—it's the perfect evening," she added.



Gayle King , who was standing nearby, was just as excited about another marker of fall: football season. "Basketball is my favorite sport, but I just love watching football," she said after catching up with Giants star Justin Tuck. "They had a great game last week even though it didn't go our way, but with the two Manning brothers, it was great."



Once guests, including New Yorkers for Children founder (and honoree of the night) Nicholas Scoppetta , Veronica Webb, Selita Ebanks , and Hugh Jackman , took their seats at the dinner tables, Mayor Michael Bloomberg launched the speeches and fundraising portion of the event. "Cipriani has a reputation for its glitter and glamorous clientele, and that's certainly true tonight," he said as he surveyed the crowd. "Who would have thought, two people here at the same time—Hugh Jackman and Mike Bloomberg. What a night!" He might have added Common to that list. The rapper performed to close out the evening.

—Kristin Tice Studeman

Sweater Weather

Another evening, another opening: Last night saw the official debut of Pringle of Scotland 's new Mount Street store. And while London has played host to a bevy of ribbon cuttings this season, Pringle's felt like a more civil and collected affair than most—cushioned, perhaps, by the label's swaths of cashmeres (now available as well as part of a new Grace Kelly-inspired capsule collection). On hand to celebrate were Central Saint Martins' Louise Wilson and actress Hannah Murray (of Skins and Game of Thrones fame), but the biggest draw of the party was longtime Pringle champion (and sometime Pringle face) Tilda Swinton , in a black, semi-sheer column dress and signature platinum coif. What drew her? "For Scottish people, Pringle is sort of…a mother's milk," the Scots actress opined. "But," she quickly added, "likewise for golfers! And also for football hooligans!"

—Nick Remsen

The Party Never Stops

"I'm so nervous. I feel like I'm about to go onstage." So commented Alison Mosshart , vocalist extraordinaire of the Kills, at last night's party at the Village Underground given by the brand Equipment. Mosshart's partner, Jamie Hince , looked on wryly as she spoke. "I have to keep reminding myself," Mosshart continued, catching Hince's eye, "that I've actually already played this gig." The subject of Mosshart's rumination, and Hince's deadpan, was Paris Spleen, a film of an epic, sold-out Kills show played at Paris' legendary venue L'Olympia two years ago. Courtesy of Equipment, in whose campaign Mosshart and Hince currently star, the movie was being screened at the party for the first time. A glam fashion week crowd filed into the East London space as Mosshart explained the film's genesis: At the last minute, having realized that their L'Olympia concerts stood to be a once-in-a-lifetime kind of event, Mosshart and Hince scrambled to find a film crew and to convince the L'Olympia proprietors to let them shoot. Which they accomplished—and then, after all that effort, Mosshart said, she and Hince left the footage to languish on a shelf. "It's really expensive to finish a movie—the editing, the sound mixing, whatever. I figured," she went on, "it would be stuff we'd look at in twenty years and think, oh how amazing." But then someone at Equipment got wind of the situation and offered to pony up. "We have no idea how they found out about it, frankly," noted Hince.



But they did, and pals such as Leigh Lezark and Zoë Kravitz were on hand to support the Paris Spleen debut. As for new Kills material, Mosshart and Hince let slip that some may soon be forthcoming. "It's such a process, you can't really give a date," Mosshart said. "But we will be playing a gig—a real one!—in New York in December."



In Mayfair, Belstaff fêted the opening of its new flagship with motorcycles and one Mr. David Beckham —announced last night as the house's latest spokesperson. "I'm busier now than when I was playing football," said Beckham. "Obviously I'm spending a lot more time with the kids, but I'm involved with all these other projects." He noted that he was excited to join Belstaff because of its "historical" English roots, and "because Steve McQueen was one of the first people to be a part of it."



Despite the rain, those above-mentioned bikes paraded through a shut-and-spotlit Bond Street, ripping past with guttural exhaust befitting of both their vintage era and Belstaff's latest collections of ribbed jeans and greased-up leather perfectos. Just the day prior, Beckham shot the label's Spring '14 campaign with Peter Lindbergh on the outskirts of London. "It was one of the best shoots I've ever done—I didn't want it to stop."



Less than 24 hours before his show, Tom Ford celebrated the opening of his own London flagship. On the guest list: Daphne Guinness , Daisy Lowe , Paloma Faith , and Jodie Kidd , all naturally decked head to toe in Ford's Fall collection.

—Maya Singer and Nick Remsen

Chunnel of Love

In a starkly lit triplex on Regent Street last night, the French brand Longchamp celebrated the opening of its brand-new London flagship—the label's largest store in Europe. And leave it to the house that's tapped Kate Moss and Coco Rocha for its ad campaigns (both, by the way, stopped by) to pack those three floors to the rafters, replete with near-endless Champagne and a lot of Instagramming. The celeb quotient was, if you will, through the roof.



"I love the fact that Longchamp is family owned," gushed Rocha. "I feel like I'm a part of it—but a second cousin!" Accompanied by a Top 40-heavy soundtrack, guests from all corners of the social pyramid arrived: Kate Foley , Chelsea Leyland , Harley Viera-Newton, and Leigh Lezark held down the It-girl contingency; Zoe Saldana represented Hollywood; Edie Campbell (who noted that Longchamp's popular carryalls were "the bags that all the kids had at school that I really wanted") stood up for the catwalker crew; and then there was the man, myth, and legend himself, Mick Jagger .



"It's consistently elegant," Saldana said of Longchamp. "And I always lean toward elegant." Dressed in the brand's airy white chiffon top and matching shorts, the actress, who has been filming in London this summer, added, "I love it here. It's like New York in that everybody looks great, everybody's working really hard, but everybody parties really hard, too."

—Nick Remsen

A Night at the Guggenheim

Many of the fashion world's most notable stars and their muses gathered at the Guggenheim last night to celebrate Estée Lauder's latest eau, Modern Muse. Makeup artist Tom Pecheux was flanked by Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, Linda Evangelista arrived on the arm of Estée Lauder Group President John Demsey, Prabal Gurung escorted Joan Smalls , Phillip Lim came with Tao Okamoto in tow, and of course, the face of the fragrance, Arizona Muse , was in the house. She brought her mother. Underneath the James Turrell light installation in the rotunda, the Dolls' Mia Moretti and Caitlin Moe spun tracks accompanied by violin, including their new single "Southern Swing."



Other guests included Drew Barrymore , Hailee Steinfeld , Julianne Hough, Coco Rocha , and Alek Wek. The model named both Susan Sarandon and her mother as muses: "Whenever I think a day is difficult, I just think about what my mom went through and I say to myself, 'What have I got to complain about?' " The maternal theme continued with fellow catwalker Iman , who also mentioned her mom: "She always instilled in me that character is much better than beauty."



The evening ended early, with many decamping for the Calvin Klein fête downtown —or their beds, in an attempt to recover from the New York fashion shows.

—Amber Kallor

Hang Ten

Calvin Klein Collection had more than a new batch of clothes to celebrate last night: namely, ten years at the helm for designer Francisco Costa and the release of a new fragrance, Downtown. Accordingly, the label scaled its usual end-of-fashion week festivities way up. A huge crowd descended to the Tribeca party venue, where the house seemed to have outfitted enough A-listers and models for a second runway show. There was even a tailor on-site. When Hanneli Mustaparta tore her archival dress stepping out of the cab, he fixed her up—a first, she noted. "I've never been sewn together on my way inside!"



No details were left uncovered. In Costa's world, that often means attentive reductionism. The cavernous party room was as stripped down as possible, with nary an intrusive light fixture or visible bottle at the bar. "It is minimalist," Costa said of the event. "But it's maximalist, because of the people." That roster included Nicole Kidman , Pharrell Williams —who performed with a gaggle of dancers pulled from the audience—and Rooney Mara , whose spot for Downtown (directed by David Fincher) is suddenly all over New York's taxi cab TVs.



Of course, the girl with the Dragon Tattoo on her résumé is no stranger to the spotlight. But a CK campaign brings a slightly different sort of exposure. "It's overwhelming," recalled Alexander Skarsgard , who starred in one earlier this year. "I remember when it came out; I was in New York and I saw that huge wall with the billboard on Houston Street. I looked like Godzilla there."



Men's designer Italo Zucchelli celebrated his decade-long tenure with the house in June, in Milan. "You see what you've done, see what you want to do," he noted. "You see it really went fast." And Mara, what was she up to ten years ago? "I was 18 and starting my first semester at George Washington University," the actress recalled. The prospect of one day being a fashion star, she added, "was not on my mind at all."

—Darrell Hartman

Do You Want to Party?

Early in the evening, Pharrell Williams and Daniel Arsham unveiled a joint art project at the penthouse in the East Village's Standard Hotel. Arsham had made a series of casts of an important keyboard—the one that Williams made his first music on, in the late eighties.



One was made of hardened volcanic ash, one of powdered crystal, and one of rusted steel. Arsham had poured in conflicting materials to achieve an eroded effect, giving the instruments the look of remnants from some apocalyptic meltdown. The artist hovered near the glass case that contained them, explaining the idea—"taking something from the recent past and projecting it over the present into the future"—to the likes of Terry Richardson and André Balazs . Meanwhile, guests in the adjacent rooms posed for photos with a fourth keyboard. That one, they were allowed to touch—provided they put white gloves on first. Steps away, Williams kept a crowd of well-wishers and autograph seekers happy.



Mario Sorrenti summed up this season's Purple magazine get-together best: "Where's the dinner?" A smaller affair than usual, this one doubled as an after-party for Proenza Schouler. It went down at Paul's Baby Grand, a surprisingly genteel new club in Tribeca from Paul Sevigny, where waiters in bow ties passed around trays of finger food and strawberry-garnished cocktails.



Paul's is, for a certain crowd, the hot new place. Robert Longo offered some perspective on that. "Hot new places don't mean anything to me anymore. They mean soon-to-be-not-hot new places," the artist said, before recalling memories of raucous times in the eighties at The Odeon just down the street. "I spent a couple nights there in the basement. You go down to the bathrooms and there's a broom closet where you'd go in and do drugs and stuff like that, or fuck. Or sleep."



Jack McCullough could use some of that (the sleep, that is). He and partner Lazaro Hernandez had moved their show from their usual evening slot to noon, and paid a few consequences. "We wanted natural daylight, just to switch up the palette a little bit—but it's hard. That last night is a killer."



The bigger, later Purple party at the Boom Boom Room coincided with one that André Saraiva was throwing next door at Le Bain. Traffic flowed freely between the two spaces; Leonardo DiCaprio rolled in a little after midnight. But the wilder bash may have been over at the Hudson, where M.I.A. , A$AP Rocky , and legions of the designer's devoted fans showed their support for Jeremy Scott .

—Darrell Hartman

Brand Building and Cocktail Swilling

Last night, Barneys threw a party at The Jane that combined a pair of hot properties: Inez & Vinoodh and Lou Doillon , who teamed up for the haute retailer's Fall campaign. Doillon's got a new album out, and van Lamsweerde and Matadin have released a book, a jewelry collection, and a Byredo fragrance, all in the past week alone.



The three-day shoot involved a bit of multitasking as well, they explained. It included a video of Doillon performing her single "Devil or Angel," which she also opened with during her acoustic set at The Jane. The photographic duo is getting a lot more requests for short films these days, they added. (They directed Lady Gaga's recent video for "Applause.") "It started with everyone wanting a behind-the-scene video," van Lamsweerde said. "But who wants to see behind the scene? You don't want to lose the magic. It's much more interesting to make a moving-image campaign, something that's a stand-alone piece. So that's what we did." They also enlisted experts in animation and puppetry to bring Doillon to life in multiple avatars. The chanteuse was all for it. "I love being a puppet!" she enthused. "I find it wonderful."



Over at the Top of the Standard, a hip crowd—including Eve, Atlanta de Cadenet Taylor , and Harley Viera-Newton —came together to celebrate the Illesteva and Lou Reed collaboration. "He's the most iconic sunglass wearer," explained Justin Salguero. His co-designer, Daniel Silberman, added, "These days there are so many collaborations with young artists, we really wanted to pay our respects to old-school."



Down in Soho, Bottega Veneta hosted a cocktail-party-cum-announcement-ceremony to fete the New Exposure contest, a year-old initiative designed to attract and support next-gen photographers from around the globe. "More than anything, we were looking for somebody who does their own thing, somebody who takes a risk," Bottega's Tomas Maier told Style.com. "That's how it is: You jump into the cold water, and I think it usually pays off." Guests—including Erin Fetherston , Lauren Remington Platt , and Carlyne Cerf de Dudzeele (who also served as a judge)—perused the finalists' portfolios, oft pausing at contender Matin Zad 's ethereal snaps of denim-clad boys surrounded by wildflowers. Zad ended up winning the U.S. prize, saying, "the concept was really simple—just gardeners tending to their charges."

—Darrell Hartman, Todd Plummer, and Nick Remsen

Septembers to Remember

Sasha Pivovarova, the cover girl of the latest issue of The Last Magazine, gave birth this spring. "That seems to be a theme," cofounder Magnus Berger said last night at a dinner that Last threw, with eBay and Absolut, at Acme. "We're all growing up, and our cover girls are getting pregnant and having babies.



But friends of the magazine, which is now in its eleventh issue, aren't getting too settled to come out during fashion week and toast Berger and his partner, Tenzin Wild. "I never miss this party," Richard Chai said. "It's a staple. This and my show—they're the two." Nearby, Anna Dello Russo was cooing to Lindsey Wixson about the latter's new shag cut.



As usual, there are plenty of personalities inside the pages of the latest issue, too—Lykke Li and rapper Mykki Blanco among them, but also a builder of handmade hi-fi amps and downhill skier Mikaela Shiffrin. Offered Berger: "It's easy to fall into this thing: 'OK, who's the cool Lower East Side—well, now I guess Bushwick—artist?' And models and designers. It's kind of more fun to mix it up." Which is just what happened downstairs a bit later, at the after-party.



The Meatpacking District's as-yet-unopened Monarch restaurant served as the venue for Interview's September "Model Issue" party. Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell , Linda Evangelista, Christy Turlington, Amber Valletta , Daria Werbowy, and Stephanie Seymour are the cover stars, and the promise of a sighting drew the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio . Campbell was the only cover girl to turn up, but she was enough for Martha Hunt , who told Style.com that walking behind Campbell in the Atelier Versace show this summer was a career high: "Naomi had her own dressing room built around her rack backstage. Seeing that made me want to be one of those old-school supermodels."

—Darrell Hartman and Todd Plummer

Tommy Time!

Plus One, and One, and One

"Dude, I am only here for the male models," said one female guest last night at the Dream Downtown, where One Management's Scott Lipps was celebrating the debut of his new book Poplipps: Plus One. There were ample doses of both male and female catwalkers in attendance last night—the average height at the party must have been more than six feet.



Leading the pack was Karolina Kurkova , who, decked in head-to-toe white, had just come from the U.S. Open. "I went to see Novak Djokovic!" she said as she arrived at the The Gallery with her husband, Archie Drury. "What I love about Scott is he is always available, and I can call him anytime—he works really hard and has a great attitude."



After joining his bandmate Courtney Love onstage for an acoustic set in the vein of MTV Unplugged, Lipps talked to Style.com about the new project: "As if I wasn't already busy enough, running the company and being on tour and all that, we decided to do a book." Love, who was seated in a booth at the Electric Room with Lipps, said, "I think that sound system was from, like, RadioShack, for $90—it was terrible!"



Rita Ora gave a performance of her own, down on Wall Street, where she serenaded Donna Karan with "Happy Birthday." DKNY turns 25 this year, and everyone from Karlie Kloss and Joan Smalls to A$AP Rocky and Iggy Azalea came out to party.



Meanwhile, Thom Browne was celebrating with a dinner at La Grenouille hosted by Bon Appétit. A whiplash-inducing blend of propriety and perversion has always been at the heart of Browne's enterprise, so it was no great surprise that the man who showed a hair-raising cast of latex-sheathed Joker-faced maidens at his show would be comfortably ensconced at a temple of East Side politesse. As Bon Appétit's Adam Rapoport recalled in his toast, Browne is a regular: He'd even designed the wedding dress for Gilt's Brooke Cundiff, sitting a table over, for her wedding at the restaurant. And five years before that one, Rapoport himself had been married at the site. Maybe something about La G bespeaks love and commitment. No word on whether it set the wheels turning for Dree Hemingway , in attendance with her boyfriend, Phil Winser.

—Kristin Tice Studeman and Matthew Schneier

"Hey, Everybody, Let's Get Drunk and Dance"

Prabal Gurung had friends over to his apartment before his after-party last night, to do some warming up. "We weren't dancing dancing—just being silly," he reported from a banquette at Bar Naná. No doubt Gurung was saving some energy for the evening's special guest, Ciara . With a drink in hand, the sleeves of his white T-shirt rolled all the way up, he seemed the very image of a happy designer flexing a little muscle now that the day's reviews were in.



Alexander Wang . His name was all over the clothes he'd shown earlier in the day, and the festivity-loving designer put just as much of a signature on the celebrating that followed. What's changed about his outsize parties over the years? Not much, Wang insisted during a postshow dinner with friends at EN Japanese Brasserie. Well, he added, maybe one thing: "A bigger budget!" He convulsed with laughter, which only increased as a handler scolded him.



Wang's touch has, of course, landed him a lead role at Balenciaga, not to mention big friends such as Samsung. His backpack tote for the electronics giant just came out, and he'd been taking its soon-to-be-released "smartwatch" for a spin. "The whole voice command, the sneaky pictures," Wang explained, "it's actually quite in line with the collection, because it's slightly perverse."



After dinner, Wang and his dinner pals (a group that included Behati Prinsloo and Zoë Kravitz ) boarded a party bus for the main event at Pier 17. Brilliantly, the designer had taken over two floors of the touristy mall at the South Street Seaport. It's about to shutter; the closed-up shops advertised closeout sales, and the lower levels had a Dawn of the Dead feel. Head up a couple escalators, though, and you found yourself at the throbbing center of a Shibuya-inspired fun house: nail salon, video games, kitschy handouts, and black lights turning blond hair green.



A saucy performance by Nicki Minaj capped things off. "It's good that this is not like other parties," declared Eniko Mihalik, one of the many models populating the neon haze. "It's not a fashion event. It's a celebration. It's, 'Hey, everybody, let's get drunk and dance!'" And grab some Hello Kitty swag for the road.

—Darrell Hartman

Icons Everywhere You Look

When you've participated in as many art shows as Peter Lindbergh has, and taken as many pictures—his archive now boasts over 250,000 images—it's difficult for an exhibition to feel fresh. So when Vladimir Restoin-Roitfeld offered to curate a show in his own town house off Fifth Avenue, Lindbergh's interest was piqued: "I've done tons of big museum exhibitions throughout the world, and it's a different feeling here. The pictures look totally different." Roitfeld explained how renting gallery spaces doesn't feel right anymore, so he just cleared out his furniture and had the show at home. Linda Evangelista commanded the room as she posed for a picture next to a giant Lindbergh portrait of herself. Said Roitfeld: "In the end, I wanted to do something special for fashion week, and I wanted to work with, if possible, the most iconic living photographer. Mr. Lindbergh really is that person."



Later on, at Le Poisson Rouge in Greenwich Village, Lady Gaga hosted a bash in honor of V Magazine's Stephen Gan . "No one has thrown me a party in my entire life, not even a birthday party!" Gan told Style.com. "So for Lady Gaga to do it is amazing. When you look at her, you see this wild creature, but inside she is truly one of the most caring people." Jessica Alba , a slew of models, the Hilton sisters, and Yoko Ono all turned out. When Gaga finally stepped onstage to perform, the first thing she did was give a shout-out: "Thank you, Stephen, for putting me on the cover of your magazine, where I'm always given a place to shine, a place where we could…we could belong together."



Speeches were also the order of the night at the dinner Glamour editor in chief Cindi Leive held for her latest cover star, Kerry Washington . In the cozy back room at Carbone, a crowd that included Tory Burch , Jason Wu , and Gayle King heard words of mutual admiration from Leive and Washington. The most moving speaker, though, was the actress' father, Earl, who said his daughter made his heart swell with such pride that his shirt needed "Velcro, not buttons."

—Todd Plummer

Four Top

"It's like the first day back at school!" said Hanneli Mustaparta as she arrived at the Saks Fifth Avenue Dior dinner last night, eager to see friends and colleagues now that summer is over. Mustaparta was wearing a voluminous pink confection of a Dior dress, not unlike the one she said her mother sewed for her first day of school, back in Norway. Only this one is a little fancier. "It's a bit more luxurious than what my mother sewed," she said. "I feel like a modern-day princess!" There were plenty of them on the store's third floor. The evening's hostess, Jessica Biel , Hilary Rhoda , and Daria Strokous all wore Dior.



A few blocks east, at the Four Seasons, another French import was being celebrated: The premiere of the new Carine Roitfeld documentary, Mademoiselle C, drew the likes of André Balazs , Karlie Kloss , a slew of other top models who claimed Carine "discovered them," and even Kanye West, who made a late-night appearance. At first, Roitfeld said, she was nervous about letting the cameras see so much. "I was not so sure, because to talk about fashion, it's very easy to be caricaturelle. I wanted to show it in another way, and maybe the audience will realize people working in fashion aren't so mégalomaniac." Director Fabien Constant confirmed Carine is intensely dedicated to her craft. "At a shoot, she is always the first one on set at 7 a.m., waiting for the clothes to arrive and talking about hair and makeup. She easily could have retired after French Vogue, but she wakes up every day and has to create pictures."



Downtown, at the Electric Room, Jason Wu hosted an intimate postshow gathering, where Jessica Paré and Bryan Grey Yambao cozied up behind the DJ booth. "It's all over until pre-fall starts," said Wu. "Which I started last week, so it's never really over!" A surprise visit from Kerry Washington, around 1 a.m., caused a stir. "Your party is the final destination tonight!" said one guest, to which Wu promptly replied, "Please, it's the only destination."



Nearby, at Omar's, H&M designer Ann-Sofie Johansson was talking about her new Spring '14 collection, a suede- and tassel-heavy line inspired by such perennial icons as Françoise Hardy and Jane Birkin. "It's one part bohemian, one part tomboy, and there's always a little bit of rock 'n' roll spirit there." She could have just as easily been talking about the party's guest list, which brought together a mix of rock 'n' rollers like the Jonas Brothers and fashion mainstays such as Karolina Kurkova and Doutzen Kroes.

—Todd Plummer and Ashley Simpson (H&M)

Five Years at the Top

They say nothing gold can stay. Still lustrous after five years, The Top of the Standard, a.k.a. the Boom Boom Room, has gone ahead and proved them wrong. Half a decade—in New York's ever-changing nightlife scene, that can seem like a lifetime. It's certainly an excuse to celebrate, as owner André Balazs did last night with a roomful of revelers that included Neil Patrick Harris, Zachary Quinto , Maria Cornejo, and Jane Mayle .



The accents up on the eighteenth floor were more gilded than usual: gold balloons, gold-flaked cotton candy, gold on guests. ("Gold, Black & Sparkle" was the dress code.) In the early going, a New Orleans jazz band blew out everything from "When the Saints Go Marching In" to a brassy rendition of Daft Punk's "Get Lucky."



They even, at one point, trotted up the steps to the club's new rooftop space. (It's a nice addition—and a boon to smokers.) The city glimmered. "I've had a few crazy times here," Dsquared²'s Dean Caten acknowledged, adding that there's nothing like the place—"not this glamorous, not this chic"—in his home base of London. He was passing through New York to look at retail spaces, and is next off to Miami and Los Angeles to do the same.



Retreating to a quiet corner for a moment, Balazs compared building and overseeing the high-elevation party nest to raising a child. "You're always challenged and attentive to nuances and growth. You need a place alive, and that means staying aware of what it is—music, people," he said. "It's not just about real estate." The hotelier added that he's got a special place in his heart for the Halloween bashes that Boom Boom has played host to over the years, usually in conjunction with Purple magazine. The wild pageantry of them is one thing. But for a place as see-and-be-seen as this one, the Halloween parties bring another twist. Noted Balazs, "Everyone is unrecognizable, and therefore free."

—Darrell Hartman

3.1 Phillip Lim for Everyone!

Filling up Spring Studios—the newly opened, cavernous floor-through loft in Tribeca—is no easy feat, but to say the crowd was packed for last night's Phillip Lim for Target launch is no small understatement. Superb people-watching aside, the focal point of the party was an enormous digital screen that ran the length of the space and offered different interactive features, each from a scene shot in a different city. "Instead of thinking about our lives in a bubble," explained Lim, "I wanted to go across the nation and look for local street style and tastemakers, and bring them back here to New York for fashion week. It's incredible." Incredible it was: Blow on some pinwheels here, and balloons on the screen started to move. Hold up your camera phone there, and a seated Mr. Lim turned around to pose with you for a selfie.



When guests weren't busy playing with the installation, they were shopping. One of the first styles to fly off the shelves was a "Boom!" sweater, a riff on the "Ka-Pow!" knit Lim did for Pre-Fall last year. Why so similar? The designer told Style.com, "I wanted this project to be parallel to what we do with the main collection, so you can look at it, without seeing the label, and say, 'That is Phillip Lim!'



"The 'Boom!' print is about being an everyday hero," he added. Solange Knowles planned to buy the sweater for her mother, telling Style.com, "One minute, she has my sister calling her for baby tips, and the next, I'm calling—I'm buying a house in New Orleans—asking about termite damage! And somehow she makes time to do it all." (Solange's sister, in case you didn't know, is Beyoncé.) If the empty racks at the end of the night are any indication, it looks like this collab is going to be a hit with Target's everyday heroes.

—Todd Plummer

Music Men

You might say that fashion week has arrived in New York with a little extra fanfare this season, what with all the musicians trumpeting at last night's preliminaries. Not that the performing artists didn't have something to celebrate themselves. At the Surface to Air shop in Soho, for starters, Theophilus London launched his new collaboration with the French-label-cum-creative-shop. It's a NASA-inspired bomber jacket, a concept London had more or less already designed in his head when he first met S2A creative director, Aldric Speer, in Paris. "A lot of artists come to us and say they want to do something but don't know what they want to do," Speer recalled. "But he had his really defined idea. He even knew the color of the zipper puller."



The S2A studio just finished a perfume campaign for Givenchy that should be out soon, and Speer reported that he has a pair of design collaborations in the works with Parisian electro talents Brodinski and Gesaffelstein. Inside the Soho shop, London rapped with Travis Scott.



Both were spotted later at Milk Studios, where Kendrick Lamar headlined the first of many drink-sloshing evenings scheduled for MADE Fashion Week. (Mini Jambox sponsored this one.) "Make some noise now, New York!" Lamar urged from his stage in the building's loading dock, and the crowd obliged. "I'm gonna feel this bass later tonight," Anndra Neen's Phoebe Stephens predicted. She insisted she was relaxed, though: She and her sister, Annette, had shown their collection earlier in the day. "Now we can enjoy the rest of the week," she sighed.



A few blocks over, at No. 8, Robin Thicke sent his Blurred Lines album into the world with an intimate performance of—well, no points for guessing that one. His partner for the evening was Treats! magazine; the racy glossy's latest issue features the resurgent R&B star on the cover, accompanied by a crew of models wearing high heels and not much else. It's no accident that the shot evokes the already infamous "Blurred Lines" video—Thicke confirmed to Style.com that he and the video's director, Diane Martel, used the magazine's openly sexy style as a "visual reference." Asked about his appreciation of the magazine, he kept things brief: "What's not to like?"

—Darrell Hartman

Looks Like He's Made It

"Michael Kors is a mensch," said Fern Mallis at this afternoon's FIT Couture Council luncheon at Lincoln Center, where the designer was honored with the Award for Artistry of Fashion. For those not in the know, mensch is a Yiddish word that basically means the best guy ever. "He is such a mensch," concurred Simon Doonan. "And he's always been the most passionate, committed designer and philanthropist. I just adore him," he added before recalling that infamous moment when, in 1991, the ceiling caved in at Kors' show in a New York loft. "Anna Wintour was picking plaster out of Suzy Menkes' hair!" laughed Doonan. "It was that show that caused me to organize fashion week [at Bryant Park]," said Mallis.



Crumbling ceilings aside, it seemed that everyone at the afternoon fete, which drew such fashion fixtures as Linda Fargo, Andrew Bolton , Iman , Alexandra Richards , and Couture Council chair Yaz Hernández, shared warm feelings about the man of the hour. Doutzen Kroes, who donned a spotted Kors frock, first met the designer during a fashion week fitting. "He made me feel very comfortable. He's a big deal, but he doesn't behave like that. And I remember he liked my tan," she said. "He has a tremendous empathy with women, and he really understands his customer," added Valerie Steele, the director of the Museum at FIT.



"I love being menschy. I'm a New York guy! A nice Jewish boy! I'm so lucky that I knew early on what I wanted to do with my life. Then, to be able to do it and do it well? I've gotta give back," said Kors, who, it should be noted, recently donated a $1 million scholarship to help FIT students.



After the likes of Iman and Chanel Iman had settled into their seats, Hilary Swank , dressed in a flirty printed Kors dress, took the stage. "He's the king of American sportswear," announced the actress, who accompanied the designer to the Met Ball in 2012. "But what resonates with me above all is Michael's genuineness…. He's real…. And, to me, that is so much more attractive than any design could ever be."



After accepting his accolade—while wearing his signature sunglasses, of course—Kors addressed the crowd, discussing everything from how far he believes sportswear has come since he began designing thirty-two years ago to his incompetence with sewing machines. Before leaving the podium, he offered, "People say to me…'When did you know you made it?' And, you know, I've always believed that the minute you think you've made it…you're done. Well, guess what? I'm not done."

—Katharine K. Zarrella

Rodeo Show

Hermès celebrated the opening of its Beverly Hills flagship last night with not one, but two celebrations. Guests were first welcomed to the newly renovated tri-level space on Rodeo Drive, which features the heritage brand's full collection, from tannery to tabletop. "The U.S. has always been very important to us. It saved us at one point and almost destroyed us at one point," said Axel Dumas , CEO of Hermès International, referring to the Great Depression. After closing its New York store in 1929, it was L.A. that welcomed the company back to the States years later. "The way we reentered the U.S. was through Los Angeles, and our first freestanding store in the U.S. was in 1972, on Rodeo Drive," he said, noting that after 41 years, they've just bought the building. "We really want to be here for the long run."



Shopping gave way to a complete sensory experience as partygoers such as Lisa Eisner and Balthazar Getty made their way to an industrial space housing custom-built artistic and digital installations at 3 Labs in Culver City—an homage of sorts to Hermès' innovation, art, and craft. While Jessica Alba posed for photos in a driving simulator on a projected Rodeo Drive, a Ginger Rogers-and-Fred Astaire-style pair danced in a converted soundstage, accompanied by a silent film. A poolroom replicated a special L.A.-themed scarf print with Hermès tiles projected onto the walls and floor and synchronized swimmers performed choreographed numbers. "It's French but still Los Angeles, with all of the film references," said stylist Petra Flannery.



The last of the destination rooms was a sunken wood-paneled library, displaying some Hermès vintage pieces owned by stars over the years, including Sammy Davis Jr.'s customized liquor case. Actress Teresa Palmer summed up the feeling of the evening: "It's glamorous, it's chic, it's incredible, and I would totally have it. Any of it."

—Alexis Brunswick

Whole Lotta Carlotta

Watch This Face

Good-Bye Summer, Hello New York Fashion Week