While freelancing at CondeNet years ago, I took one month off to go upstairs and fact check for Vogue. The first time I saw that bob down the hallway I froze. I walked past Anna Wintour unable to even say hello. Later I saw Grace Coddington waiting for the subway at Times Square. Vogue editors take the subway? A few months later while visiting my former research editor, I rode the elevator upstairs despite having just left because the one and only stepped into the lift. There she was–Anna Wintour. As it was winter, she was glad in a tweed Chanel suit. This time I was able to speak a few words. I told her I’d freelanced in research and that I was so impressed with how she dealt with the Big Ol’ Boys. As the elevator approached ground level, she turned and said nonchalantly, ”Oh it’s really not that hard.”

Photo by Michael Buckner/Getty Images for Mercedes-Benz

I missed this profile of the fashion Queen Bee, Anna Wintour. If you don’t know who she is, than you probably think fashion is fluff, rather than a multi-billion dollar industry that involves agriculture (cotton!), manufacturing, advertising, sales, marketing, editorial, retail, and now, flash sale sites abound. Anna is at the helm, the one choosing which trends will survive. The amazing Bloomberg TV show Game Changers profiled the Briton. I thought it would be fitting to post this ahead of Fashion Week.

Fashion Week is upon us and yet we are still struggling to make ends meet, even those of us with jobs. For the first time in our lives, for those in Generations X and Y, we truly understand what it means to appreciate having any job. This personal and global credit crunch is just one more reason to bow to the holy gods in Minneapolis, yes the folks at Target that keep us entertained and clothed. Target keeps us satisfied without forcing us to break the bank and disobey Suze Orman’s rules about living within your means, saving the maximum for retirement, and starting a rainy day savings (~six months of expenses). Start saving, any way you can, even if it is only $20 per paycheck. Try ING since their savings rates are better than the average bank and you won’t be tempted to use it, since there are so few ATMs. In the meantime, we snagged some images of the Jean Paul Gaultier collection for Target.

Spring/Summer Work Attire: Good Girl Gone Bad?

Jean Paul Gaultier at Target. These are words we never imagined in one sentence but fashion does what is must to survive and JPG is not to be questioned. He is among the geniuses, like Karl Lagerfeld, Coco Chanel and Marc Jacobs, the latter of which is Just Saying No to Celebrities. It’s not about the jetsetera, it’s about the clothes, the art…Meanwhile, who will entertain while he continues to start his shows two hours late? But back to JPG.

He has mastered the art of bringing conflicting styles together, making opposites attract-the rough with the romantic. It’s like the first time I saw someone wear an above-the-knee floral print dress with brown, broken in boots, half laced. It was thread love.

Biker Babe Meets Urban Chic

Sweet Home Alabama-In Gotham City

Prep School Cum West Village

Target seems to have made these images and the accompanying press release impossible to find, just hours after I downloaded them in the early hours of the morning. If memory serves well, this collection will be on sale from March 7 through April 11. You know where to go and leave the kids at home. This might get ugly.

Does skinny equal pretty? Will carrying a Louis mask one’s fatness? These are the questions that streamed through my mind while shop hopping on the windy Thursday evening that was the world’s inaugural Fashion’s Night Out. The evening was a mass effort to get Americans out to celebrate fashion week and swipe the plastic. We are in a bad state when Vogue forces Anna Wintour to go to a mall in Queens.

But, Americans are shoppers, if nothing else. Most of our output as a nation comes from consumer spending. Translation: 70% of our output (GDP) comes from what Americans consume, not what other nations buy from us. It’s pretty scary but it is part of what makes America the land of opportunities, the place where any invention might make the average individual a household name with 10 homes.

A few realizations from the evening:
-Free is better than paid.
-An open velvet rope is better than a commoner’s queue.
-Designer and mass differ because of three things: brand, material and tailoring.
-Socializing is necessary for career trajectory.
-Mini champagne bottles and mini cupcakes are always a winning party option.
-Bergdorf Goodman better secure crowd control experts for next year.
-If retailers actually want consumers to consume more than the free drinks next year, they better concoct loyalty and free gift programs.

And now, for the report. On that evening, our first stop was to meet Benefit Co-Founder Jane Ford at the Sephora in Times Square. She is one of a kind, a strong, witty no bullshit woman, our favorite kind! We bombarded her with a series of questions on tough topics such as cosmetics regulation and the tween market. Her candid responses showed great strength and character. To the first question, her response was something along the lines of regulation is a bitch, because a global company must meet the regulations of every place it is sold. First the United States, then Europe and then Asia. It complicates the process by detailing what is allowed to be used in products in what nations. Your food is less regulated than cosmetics, Ford added. When queried about the tween market, she thoroughly impressed us. An easy target with allowance in hand, the youth of America are heavily marketed to but Ford said she won’t even give a makeover without an adult present. “They shouldn’t be spending their money on lip gloss,” said Ford. It’s about education at that age, she added. Still, our favorite thing about Benefit is that their products make you a better you, NOT a different you. Applause, applause, applause.

After our chat with Ford, one the company’s San Francisco-based makeup artists gave us a clean face and a light smoky eye, largely thanks to Badgal pencil. Brush it on the lid until it resembles a drunken eye job, start blending with a brush. Up and out, he said. Two motions are required!

Makeup improved, glam factor up, we departed for Bergdorf Goodman where we wish there’d been crowd control, a red carpet roped off and heaters. The place was a mad house. Zac Posen, the Olsen Twins and the promise of Victoria Beckham was too much. The place was at capacity, with probably a hundred gals piled on Fifth Avenue, awaiting entry as the overwhelmed doorman wielded his imaginary sword. So we popped across the street to the men’s store, where the bartender/aspiring model casually chatted while we pined for a glass of white. Perusing the golf-like attire in the nearly empty store, we admired the leather-down blend winter coats before heading to DKNY on Madison to see NY Observer Playground Editor Lyss Stern and expecting model Karolina Kurkova.

There we learned models are models because they are fabulously tall and beautiful and love posing for the camera. I think she trumped all preggers women as the most beautiful pregnant woman I’ve ever seen. Wearing four-inch ankle boots and a black dress with a belt to create an empire waste, she seemed at least 6’ tall and was happy to take pictures with all her fans. Lyss was sweet and enthusiastic too and has a natural beauty that is quite rare for the UES crowd that often seem permanently stoic thanks to their dermatologists. Plus, how many Uptown moms are down-to-earth enough to dance shoeless with children, while tons of video and camera wielding attendees and media folks watch? A mother of two and entrepreneur (Divamoms.com), she told us the first issue of the Observer’s parenting pub took five months to assemble. The cover is none other than Weeds star and local mommy Mary-Louise Parker.

Finally, after perusing the parties on Fifth—Chanel, Louis Vuitton—and passing on more C-list white wine, we heading for party hosted by Website The Luxury Spot, the media presence of party planner, socialite, mother and publicist Bryce Gruber. Yes, she is all that at 25 years old. The media mogul in training that turned down a spot on The Housewives of New York produced a party that attracted—wait for this—a crowd with straight men. God knows we love our gay men and we all love to be a fag hag, but sometimes us straight girls need some eye candy and men with shag potential. That’s where The Luxury Spot comes in. At Aspen Social Club, we sipped a “Basil Fizz” thanks to liquor sponsor Basil Hayden. The crowd was quite mixed and the spot proved a great party venue, with many nooks and rooms, great attention to detail from the walls to the ceilings, and convenient access from the 49th street subway station.

Thumbs up to all the party planners and retailers for a great evening. We hope your receipts were satisfactory. As for us, we are headed downtown to check out the Target pop-up store. Anna Sui on a budget sounds dreamy right about now.

Spotted: Herald Square, NYC

Name: Maki

Age: 32

Hometown: Yokosuka

Current ‘hood: East Village, NYC

First language: Japanese

Other languages: English

Job: Between jobs, worked as a sales assistant in fashion and textiles

Ethnicity: Japanese

Religion: Buddhist, non-practicing

Favorite Condiment: Soy sauce

Favorite Nut: Walnut

On your iPod now: Red Hot Chili Peppers, Led Zeppelin

What’s In Your Makeup Case: Eyebrow pencil, eye shadow, Chanel lipstick

Favorite Movie: The Godfather

Dream Job: I’m not sure yet.

Wishlist: To have a beach house near the Mediterranean in Europe.

Gen Art will commence New York fashion week event on September 4 in Midtown, with an after party at Opera. The show will spotlight emerging designers, with six women’s wear designers, two makers of men’s collections and three accessories designers. The next day, Mercedes-Benz FashionWeek New York stars with a host of collections that will start with BCBG Max Azria on Friday and culminate with Ralph Lauren and Project Runway the following Friday. In between, one of the busiest days might be Wednesday, when shows include the new collections from Michael Kors, Phillip Lim, Carlos Miele and Anna Sui. Other designers showing in New York include Twinkle by Wenlan, Vivenne Tam, Reem Acra, Naeem Khan and Luca Luca.

The London Fashion Week events far surpass runway shows with stoic attendees and waify models. Running from September 14-19, fashionistas will have one day to travel from NYC to London to see more than 50 shows that will take place at the Natural History Museum. The main party sponsored by the British Fashion Council and The May Fair hotel will be located at the hotel on September 16, the same day Dolce & Gabbana open a menswear store with a cocktail party. In celebration of the movie showing at the Venice film festival chronicling Valentino’s life and work, Samsung is sponsoring a party the next day at The Hospital Club. On September 18, the hip crowd will head over to The Wapping Project for the party for Melissa and Zaha Hadid. The same day at the Diesel at Kings Cross, a launch party with Showstudio will commence for the new book, 100 New Fashion Designers. As for the actual shows Allegra Hicks will show on Sunday; Luella and Temperley London are up on Monday; Aquascutum is among the Tuesday group; Basso and Brooke shows Wednesday; Erdem shows on Thursday ; and MAN rounds out the week on Friday.

After New York and before Paris, the glitterati will head to Milan, where they’ll likely avoid the pasta and go double on red wine (read: polyphenols) from September 20 through September 27.

The Paris spring/summer 2009 women’s ready-to-wear collections will show from September 27 to October 5. The events are sure to get busy starting Monday September 30 when Vivienne Westwood and Yohji Yamamoto round out the evening. The next day, bright and early, Balenciaga will start Tuesday’s shows, followed by Junya Watanabe, Viktor & Rolkf, Ann Demeulemeester, Comme Des Garcons and always a show stopper, Jean Paul Gaultier. Wednesday, Karl Lagerfeld starts the shows, followed by Emanuel Ungaro, Costume National, Christian Lacroix and Hussein Chalayan, among others. The earth-friendly Beatles baby Stella McCartney shows on Thursday before Guy Laroche and Yves Saint Laurent. Valentino follows Chanel on Friday, after which Alexander McQueen closes the day. The weekend will see shows including Chloe, Elie Saab, Lanvin and Miu Miu.

The Los Angeles Fashion Week events for the spring/summer 2009 collections run from October 10-17 throughout the city, with Gen Art’s Fresh Faces in Fashion on Friday October 10 and the Los Angeles Fashion Awards on Friday October 17.

The Fashion Design Council of India confirms the Wills India Fashion Week for the spring/summer 2009 collections will run from October 15 – 19 in New Delhi.

Art collectors and critics will descend on Russia’s capital city in a few weeks to attend the fifth annual Moscow World Fine Art Fair (MWFAF), a center for work from the U.S., Europe, Asia and the Middle East. The show runs from May 27 to June 2 and offers a broad variety of art work in varying mediums, ranging from painting and sculpture to fine jewelry and decorative arts.

Zoricto Dorzhiev’s painting “ Morning” is a rendering of every day life through a sultry portrait of a woman, whose elongated features echo Modigliani and Greco, and whose cheeky tone sings of John Currin. Lui Wei’s untitled landscape has a soft feeling and though the style sees the features blur, there is a strong message. Tang Zhigang’s untitled painting in the Meeting series broaches a more serious topic: politics, and power of the authority figures in certain nations. Finally, the most wearable of the fine jewelry collections being showcased is an amazingly striking white gold, ceramic and diamond cuff from Chanel.

Bonus:
This year, President and fair Founder Yves Bouvier asked international auction houses to participate and the following confirmed plans to attend: Bukowski from Sweden, Dorotheum from Austria and Hotel Drouot from France.

Where:
For more information, visit the Moscow World Fine Art Fair website.