Betsey Johnson

Almost a week after we learned designer Betsey Johnson would be featured in a new reality show, Betsey And Lulu, comes the announcement that the spritely 69-year-old's fashion line has filed for bankruptcy. As a result, over 300 Betsey Johnson employees will probably lose their jobs. To top that off, most of Betsey Johnson's 63 stores will close.

All is not lost, however. Ms. Johnson still has the eponymous show in the works (as far as we know) and according to Forbes, this certainly isn't the end of the brand name:

Steve Madden, who has owned the brand’s intellectual property rights since 2010, said in an email that the group will continue to support the Betsey Johnson brand and ensure existing orders will be produced and ship on time. Betsey Johnson clothing will still be sold at Saks Fifth Avenue, Bloomingdales and Nordstrom.

Brand Chief Financial Officer Jonathan Friedman issued a statement regarding the action that indicated the move is intended to "address Betsey Johnson LLC’s cash flow problems."

Betsey Johnson and her lovely ladies (Patrick McMullan)

Out of all the shows we've gone to during this longer-than-a-week Fashion extravaganza, Betsey Johnson's was by far the most fun. Does that come as a shocker to anyone? The 65-year-old knows how to give her legion of fans--who run the gauntlet from punk-rock 15-year-olds to Russell Simmons--what they want, and we're not just talking about her infamous cartwheel/splits routine that she's become infamous for.

A half hour after the show was supposed to begin in Lincoln Center, interns with black headsets began to look the other way as people grabbed closer seats in the giant theater to get a better glance at Ms. Johnson's fall line. We were able to snag fourth row, along with a French photographer and a Japanese man with a camera who asked us what The New York Observer was approximately six times over the course of the 15 minute show. In between the Beatles soundtrack and the screaming ladies ("We love you Betsey!"), we managed to make out a couple of front row chatter. But the real lavishing began at the after party, held at the Stone Rose Lounge on the top of the Time Warner Center, where Ms. Johnson was joined by Kris Humphries ("How do you spell Kardashian?" The New York Observer heard one guest ask her friend,) Richie Rich, and Dani Stahl in celebrating another great season.

Nicki, Nicki's hair, and Anna Wintour.

"It's Lady Gaga!" Anna Dello Russo, the editor of Vogue Nippon, exclaimed as a woman dressed like a cartoon candy-cane walked onto the runway at the Prabal Gurung show. But it wasn't Lady Gaga, who hasn't made a Fashion Week appearance in a few seasons (despite popping up on tip sheets from time to time). It was the eye-popping, pink-reinventing tongue twister Nicki Minaj.

It wasn't her first appearance, either  -- Ms. Minaj has been in the front row for a number of shows, each time in an outfit that could trip up a model on the catwalk and hair that makes the chair behind her the worst seating assignment in Lincoln Center.

And while others may beat her in sheer numbers, Nicki seems to be everywhere more than anybody. Last February it was Aziz Ansari, but he's yet to be seen in the tents during the day, and hasn't partied in Meatpacking a single night. What happened, Aziz!

Well, Nicki Minaj is more than making up for his absence. She was at the Giuseppe Zanotti store for Fashion's Night Out, where she dressed conservatively (well, by her standards) in a black wig pricked through with chopsticks. After her appearance, she said hello to Young Money buddy Drake at Versace, where he was DJing and not wearing a cardigan.

But her visibility reached a peak when she started hitting the runways. Prabal Gurung had the honor of inspiring her to break out the pink pretzel necklace, and she showed up between Stefano Tonchi and Anna Wintour at the Carolina Herrera show. For that, she wore a top decked with rainbow-dyed cotton balls, like a first grade art project gone fabulously awry.

And last night she arrived at Betsey Johnson -- a line apparently inspired by her -- in a sherbet-splashed dress and jangling chunky bracelets. After the show, Betsey came out and did her customary splits and cartwheels, landing right by The Observer's seat, and then went right up to Ms. Minaj for an embrace. Right then, Nicki's verse from David Guetta's "Where Them Girls At" burst out of the speakers, her melismatic, consonant-popping glissando flow caroming across the runway. For at least a minute, Nicki Minaj really was everywhere.

Thom Browne will host the first proper fashion week show for his new women's collection in New York in February. [WWD]

Next season, get ready for the Midi: the skirt that hits mid-calf as shown on the runways by Nina Ricci, Oscar de la Renta, and Dries van Notten. [Vogue UK]

Sephora has a new iPhone app. [WWD]

Lauren Bush will be giving out carrots to trick-or-treaters this year. [Grub Street]

Later, Betsey stepped behind the DJ and got ready to address the crowd. She gave a personal shout-out to Kelly Osbourne, who was at the party (Yes, she looked skinny). And despite a slight misfire when making an extended allusion to Lou Gehrig — she stumbled over the famous "luckiest man on the face of the earth" line — the sentiment came across just fine. 

"You make my dreams come truuuuue!" she yelled into the mic. "Now, any questions? Let's talk."

It was a fairly pertinent question: the designs that would soon grace the runway were submitted by RISD students, most of whom just graduated, and most of whom would very much like to do just that — move to New York City and make it in fashion. 

Elle would soon make that dream just a bit easier for a few lucky art school grads. At the end of the show, the judging panel — an esteemed group that counted among its members Elle Editor-in-Chief Robbie Myers, Nicole Miller and downtown fixture/jewelry designer Waris Ahluwalia — would award one student a $25,000 grant, with Maybelline and Kate Spade awarding two more. 

Also in attendance were actress Alexis Bledel and designer Betsey Johnson, though she had to cut out early.

Waris, sporting a jean jacket with a patch that said "unlovable" sewn on the back, pregamed the runway with his drink of choice: chamomile. "It's Egyptian," he told us. "It's how I start the day. I need to keep it toned down a little bit. You can't get revved up this early in the morning."

As for the rest of the week, Waris casually mentioned Paul Sevigny's Fashion's Night Out party at Don Hill's — as if the rest of the city wasn't already dying to go. "I have to plug my friend's place," he conceded.

The top prize went to recent RISD grad David Woo, who turned heads with a top hat that had a top hat coming off it. But even after Myers announced his as the winner, Woo feigned modesty.

"I'm still very young and I have a lot to learn," he said.

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“I’m just the bellhop,” one of them shrugged as someone chose to forego the rapidly forming line outside.

Betsey Johnson, as expected, threw herself a party last night instead of just a regular runway show. The models stood on a stage in strapless dresses and rainbow shirts, drinking Champagne straight from the bottle and passing around a joint.

Bad models.

Norwegian rock singer Ida Maria played super-loud on a second stage while the models, getting increasingly less lucid, shimmied and shook, some awkwardly, others kind of like strippers.

“Find a cure for my life,” Ms. Maria sang, the distortion from her guitar blaring above all other noise in the Plaza Hotel. With her black jumpsuit and hair gelled straight up to the sky, she looked like she was in Eraserhead.

“This is the only show I would play. Betsey Johnson is fabulous,” Ms. Maria said. “She’s so rock and roll!”

Ms. Johnson came out howling with laughter and stormed the stage wearing a yellow dress and black mesh corset, falling on top of her models.

The crowd was also sipping Champagne--mini-botles, through pink straws.

Ms. Johnson rushed the other stage where the band was playing and took the microphone. She didn’t say much. Just “Thank you, thank you,” and ended with a loud “yay!”

“Any questions?” Ms. Johnson asked the crowd.

Even though it seemed to take a backseat to this carnival mess of a fashion show, the collection was actually really impressive. Ms. Johnson’s designs, which included lingerie-inspired party dresses, had their usual general feeling of costume-lke, overexaggerated absurdity.

We started the year worrying that pom-pomed moccasin boots were here to stay. Thankfully, we now know they were not.

Meatpacking district original Florent Morellet failed to understand the skyrocketing rents on his "shabby" bit of Gansevoort St. 

At a Bergdorf Goodman Fashion Week party, a slightly manic Isaac Mizrahi explained why he does not attend fashion shows. Later on, at Cynthia Rowley, Parker Posey told us she doesn't like runway viewing because it makes her sweat. And Victoria Beckham almost prematurely revealed the winner of Project Runway.

A couple weeks later, we continued to talk fashion at the Westminster Dog Show: “You never want to wear anything that outshines the dog, you want to wear shoes that won’t slip, and you never want to wear anything that clashes with the carpet.”

On the one-year anniversary of The Box, now-embattled owner Simon Hammerstein told us: “If you look at the program from last year till now, certainly we kept pushing the boundaries of what we thought people would be able to take. … It paid off because people really responded well to stuff that I thought they would get creeped out by." How things change in a year!

L.A.-based institution Wolfgang Puck dissed hometown hero David Chang. 

We attended a non-fund-raising fete in honor of the Jagger Dagger--a specially designed $250,000 ice pick that Jade Jagger created for Belvedere vodka--and Alexander Wang, Tara Subkoff, and Tatiana von Furstenburg were all confused. 

Even after quitting his (recently resurrected) Gatecrasher column, Daily News gossip Ben Widdicombe found the time to fill us in on New York chatter from Istanbul.

Sarah Jessica Parker played rock star at the premiere of Sex and the City. 

A post-Padma Salman Rushdie shilled for the Kama Sutra at a steamy Barnes & Noble reading. 

Summer rolled around and we pondered the wearability of the season's ubiquitous maxi dress.

At the 30th anniversary of Betsey Johnson, the designer mourned the death of downtown. More recently, the old-school club kids at Susanne Bartsch's Christmas toy drive proved that they're still having fun. 

Out in the Hamptons, we tried--and sort of succeeded--to wheedle information out of a freshly divorced Christie Brinkley.

We made a study of Chuck Bass--er, Ed Westwick's--carefully crafted photo face in preparation for a very special Gossip Girl party.

At the DNC in Denver, the celebs of the Creative Coalition wondered how to get in touch with the common folk. However, by the end of the week, they were more than happy to relax at Google and Vanity Fair's fancy get-together.

Over at the RNC in Minnesota, buddies Danny Meyer and Tom Brokaw unwound over junk food and fly-fishing chat.

Fashion Week: Round II brought us to a glittery party hosted by Interview at the unfinished Standard Hotel and a premiere party for The Rachel Zoe Project, where Ms. Zoe's mother told us some cute stories about her daughter (our next run-in with Ms. Zoe was less warm). Andre Leon Talley hoped for a new generation of less emaciated models, and Andre 3000 informed us that dressing well doesn't mean you're gay. To top it off, we stumbled upon a quietly A-list party on West 31st St. 

At an Accompanied Literary Society party (co-hosted by Diesel), literature (sort of) met fashion. We met Fiona Apple, who was there with author-boyfriend Jonathan Ames. 

Toby Young returned to New York to promote the film version of How to Lose Friends and Alienate People. 

We got pre- and post- election assessments from the literary and media set at the New York Public Library Lions benefit and a screening of After the Party, respectively.  

We found out that Katie Holmes and Suri Cruise eat at the Zaro's across the street from our office (sometimes)!

The art and social worlds were forced to note the tanking economy. 

Finally, to close out the year, we were treated to a discourse on hip-hop by Tom Wolfe. 

Betsey Johnson has also dropped out of showing her collection in February at Bryant Park, a venue that typically costs at least $100,000. [WSJ]

Gareth Pugh plans to design his first menswear collection, which he'll show during Paris Fashion Week this year. [Vogue UK] 

Miu Miu opened its third New York location at 57th Street and Fifth Avenue last week with an opening party attended by Claire Danes and Ciara. But this week, the company seems to have quietly closed their other uptown store at Madison and 69th Street. [FWD]  

Despite reports about Zac Posen getting ready to design a secondary line, all efforts are currently on hold until the economy brightens up. [WWD]