Laliberte Fashion Week Diary: F*cking Fashion's Night Out

The maelstrom that is Fashion Week started with an orgasm. Well, not really, but Roger Federer tends to have that effect on me. The tennis champ was one of the uber celebs who turned up for a dinner celebrating the iconic store's third floor opening. Hosted by Vogue, Charlize Theron and Saks's Steve Sadove and Ron Frash, there were more Vogue girls (avec Anna Wintour, natch) than the elaborate candle fixtures at the new football field-sized space.

With a gigantic central table that stretched farther than guest Blake Lively's legs, my date, Natalie Leeds Leventhal, and I navigated between Lauren Dupont, Bonnie Morrison, Maggie Betts (who's doc chronicling AIDS in Zambia starts shooting this year), Euan Rellie, and Astrid Munoz in a scene straight out of Labyrinth to find our place cards. The one-course meal, to help accommodate Federer's grueling schedule, was electric eye candy to celeb spotters and designer die-hards.

With one-namers like Carolina, Oscar, Zac, Vera, Christian (Siriano), as well as the US Weekly dream-team of Alexis Bledel, Taraji B. Henson, Penn Badgley, and Rachel Zoe, copious vino blanco helped me keep my eyes firmly fixed on my food (well 90% of the time)....

The next night brought both the B&T ballas and fierce f'nistas out in unmanagable droves, as a Halloween atmosphere took over the streets of Manhattan (and Brooklyn & Queens, right?). In a bizarre twist of fate, Little Italy also hosted its San Gennaro festival. I skipped the fried dough and $10 lemonades in favor of uptown martinis on Madison, where I met with Miguelina Gambaccini for a strictly organized map of her "must-dos." Sadly, the best laid plans of mice and men go often awry, as the expression goes, as we ended up hustling up Madison for impromptu stops every 10 feet.

The highlights: Kris Von Assche (and Michael Macko) at Barney's, Roberto Cavalli getting papped in front of the boutique, hottie with a body Brian Atwood (who, along with Nate Berkus and moi, is one of Mig's "three little Mussolinis") rocking the turntables at Bally, Carlos Souza being generally fabulous at Valentino, and signing the Graffiti wall at Rachel Roy (look closely at the picture...).

The night ended on the C train in Soho, a wine glass in my hand as I watched giddy revelers exchanging cell phone pictures of Sienna Miller. This was on the subway, having spent my last shiny nickel propping up the Anna Wintour-driven economy.

-- Kristian Laliberte