Catherine Malandrino.

SCENE magazine, a member of the Observer Media Group family, turns a year old today, and this chic little baby is ready to party way past bedtime. To toast the occasion, the SCENEsters are all hitting The Wooly in the historic Woolworth Building, Eric Adolfsen and David Tobias’s hot spot (Lana Del Rey once crooned “Blue Velvet” there for a small, intimate group). SCENE’s posse is a diverse one, from uptown to down, young to old. Expected are everyone from power publicist Peggy Siegal to designer Catherine Malandrino to party photographer Hanuk Hanuk, who is never without his Leica, a martini and a smile. Mr. Hanuk will have all three chez The Wooly. Happy Birthday SCENE!

The Wooly, 11 Barclay Street, 8pm-11pm, by invitation only.

Ms. Von Furstenberg spent the evening flitting back and forth between her Washington Street boutique and fittings across the street for her Sunday runway show; she was joined by Molly Sims and Alison Brie. We caught up with DVF on one of her rounds, halfway between a stint at the DJ booth and her entrée into something called the HP Experience Lounge, which uses large touch-screen LCD monitors to make Fashion Week look like it's taking place in a spaceship. "It's just a party with design and music, and people get dressed!" Ms. Von Furstenberg said, aptly summing up the evening's proceedings. A lovely, leggy fan interrupted to say hi, cooing at the evening's star, who cooed right back. "She came all the way from Greece!" DVF told us, clutching our arm.

We also spotted Bravo SVP and noted Housewife wrangler Andy Cohen on the sidewalk outside, lingering near a white Maserati convertible. We couldn't help asking whether Teresa Giudice, of the New Jersey hausfraus clan, left any bruises when she shoved him into a chair on the recent, contentious season reunion. "No! Oh, my God, I'm so clean," he said. Thank goodness! Mr. Cohen said the shows he's most excited for this week include Ms. Von Furstenberg's and Isaac Mizrahi's. Never one to resist the opportunity for a plug, he added, "Oh, I'm excited about the Top Chef finale on Wednesday night! There's an amazing party at Craft celebrating it, and I'm very excited about that, because it's one of the best finales that we've done." Don't worry, Andy--we're DVRing it!

When Catherine Malandrino entered her own store on Hudson Street, she was able to maintain a slightly lower profile than the immediately-mobbed Ms. Von Furstenberg; she casually chatted with fans and enjoyed being the mistress of her own domain. "I just had a woman who was asking me about the same look I'm having tonight, wanting to buy exactly the same [one]. And some telling me about why they buy my dresses... it makes a lot of hard work worth it!" Ms. Malandrino said, her charming French accent fully in evidence. She had just arrived from judging a makeup competition with with Trish McEvoy and Hamish Bowles. "Yeah, at Bergdorf Goodman! It was great! There was a very talented artist that we all agreed to. I think it's a very special night to encourage customers and people that love fashion to be part of a very collaborative world." We're not sure exactly what that means, but we love the way she says it!

"Someone, somehow told Hugh Jackman that I was doing the food for Graydon’s Vanity Fair Oscar Party," Mr. DeLucie told the Daily Transom. "So I walk over to his table and Hugh Jackman says, ‘Hey, I hear we both have Oscar gigs.'"

The affable chef was dumbfounded. "Is there a bigger star than Hugh Jackman right now?"

On Thursday evening, May 14, the 47-year-old Long Island native, dressed comfortably in jeans, a blue blazer, and gray hoodie, lounged on a semi-circular yellow sofa, under an imposing Christophe Pillet-designed chandelier of hand-blown glass raindrops, signing copies of his new book, The Hunger: A Story of Food, Desire, Ambition, and posing for photos with a bevy of beautiful young models, at French designer Catherine Malandrino's posh boutique at 652 Hudson Street.

"This is the genius of Ecco," he said, referring to the Harper Collins imprint that published his memoir, "and their special events marketing division. They do parties in non-conventional places."

Throughout the evening, a fashionable crowd mingled around the Patron table, lining up for margaritas, martinis and a mixed vodka drink called the "grape ape," while regular customers continued to shop and push their way past partiers into the fitting rooms.

"I've been a friend of John's and a fan of his cuisine," explained the shop's proprietor and occasional Project Runway guest judge, Ms. Malandrino. "I was one of the first guests at the Waverly...I think I've become addicted." (She's apparently a big fan of the grilled fish--particularly the non-decapitated version. "I like the visual of the head on it," she said. "It's very French.")

Earlier in the day, Mr. DeLucie appeared on NBC's Today show, giving weatherman Al Roker a tutorial on how to make a frittata. Mr. Roker asked him to explain the Waverly's popularity. Mr. DeLucie offered two reasons--the food is good, and the proprietor, Mr. Carter, is famous.

The Daily Transom wanted to know: is the food at Waverly really that good?

New York Times critic Frank Bruni awarded the flashy venue only a single star.

"I think the food is very accessible," Mr. DeLucie said. "You go there, the menu says roast chicken and you get a great roast chicken. It delivers on its promise. I think that’s why it’s so popular."

Much of the initial buzz about the Waverly surrounded its cost-prohibitive macaroni and cheese with truffles, advertised at an astounding $55 a pop.

Mr. DeLucie pointed out that's actually just the base price, depending on the cost of its highly sought-after seasonal ingredient. "When the truffles are $3,000, it goes up to $95," he noted. (Right now is the cheapest time to order, he added.)

"What people don’t realize is, if you go to Da Silvano and order pasta with butter and truffles on top, it’s $125," Mr. DeLucie said. "So, it’s a bargain at the Waverly!"

Mr. DeLucie has been working on his book for almost five years, beginning when he was a cook at La Bottega at the Maritime Hotel. (Maritime owners Sean MacPherson and Eric Goode are also Mr. Carter's partners in the Waverly.) "It wasn’t a Waverly book on its inception--it became a Waverly book," he said, laughing.

"I was very committed to making the book funny," Mr. DeLucie noted. No easy task. "Which is why I needed expertise," he said. So he turned to longtime pal and writer Ken Carlton. "He’s a good friend of mine--much funnier than me," Mr. DeLucie said. "I would toil over my Apple at Morandi every day and he would structure it for me. And we’d fight. I would say, 'It’s an and!’ And he’d say, 'No, man, it’s an or!'"

Mr. DeLucie intended the book to be "aspirational," he said. "Because I was a corporate drone. I was a headhunter for the insurance industries. Awful! I did it for four years until I was 30. Eventually I said, 'I can’t do this one more day. I can’t put on a suit and I can’t shave one more day.' And I had this Italian background. I was cooking at home as a hobby. I decided I’d take this little class at the New School. And I found out I have the aptitude for cooking. I got my first job at Dean & Deluca, slicing prosciutto. So I hope someone will read it and say, 'You know, there’s something I want to do and if this idiot can do it, I can too.'"

For the moment, Mr. DeLucie said he was happy to be out of the kitchen and in "full book tour mode," noting, "I can drink tonight, although my Diet Coke is mocking me right now."

The fashion and retail industries are funneling double the amount of contributions into Barack Obama's campaign than they are into John McCain's campaign, even though retail execs usually like Republicans, due to their more relaxed stance on taxes. [WWD]

The Brooklyn Industries store in Park Slope has put Barack Obama masks on all its mannequins. [Racked]

Catherine Malandrino on her new Los Angeles store: “Los Angeles is so much a part of the worldwide scene that it’s not about just this market, but about the customer overall — a worldwide traveler, a sophisticated woman who could live anywhere — Los Angeles, New York, Paris."[WWD]

Victoria's Secret has bought out the Lounge space on Broadway between Prince and Houston in order to create a 24,000 square-foot superstore, which will open next year. [P6]

"It’s really about not changing anyone but really helping identify—finding their fashion soul," Mr. Gunn told the Transom at a huge Soho Grand bash thrown in his honor. "Because these women have self-declared, it’s not an intervention—we know that they know that there’s something in them that they want to grow and expand on."

Ms. Malandrino declared herself pleased with the transformation of initial guinea pig Rebecca. "She found a whole new personality through clothes, being herself and having more strength and more confidence,” she said in her sexy French accent.” I think it shows that clothes are important for a woman they can really help to express yourself."

Ms. Malandrino expressed herself on the runway on Saturday, Sept. 8, drawing singers Janet Jackson and Mary J. Blige, French First Lady Charlotte Sarkozy and socialite Paz De La Huerta.

Caps and frowns: Yesterday, playwright Tony Kushner delivered the keynote address to Columbia's Class of 2004 , while its underachieving, sexually confused sister Barnard had to settle for author and social critic Barbara Ehrenreich . Today, they all throw their hats in the air and find out just what that pricey Ivy League education will buy them (try a 300-square-foot studio apt in Bed-Stuy ). In more Ivy League news , authors Andrew Solomon (Yale, Cambridge), Tom Dolby (Yale, scion of that family), publisher David Ebershoff (Brown) and attorney Philip Galanes (Yale) sprinkle themselves with fairy dust and gather at Readings by Out Authors …. Even if the Strokes are no longer what they used to be (svelte, single, superlative), their opening act, composed of Harper (son of Paul) Simon , childhood chum Sean Lennon and Sonic Youth's drum machine Steve Shelley , ought to placate tonight's SummerStage opening-night concert audience sufficiently. Hey, remember Greg Gutfeld , the editor of Stuff magazine who once crashed a Fashion Week show dressed like a bear? Well, Dennis Publishing is shipping its favorite curmudgeon off to jolly olde England to helm British Maxim . "I'm a little nervous because the Brits use different words over there," he told us. "Like instead of 'color,' it's 'colour.' And instead of 'program,' it's 'programme.' And instead of 'armpit sex,' they call it 'bagpiping.'" There goes the nabie! Tonight, he gets piped by former staffers and friends at a sendoff party at the increasingly swampy Marquee .

[Readings by Out Authors, Therapy, upstairs, 348 West 52nd Street, 6 to 9 p.m.; SummerStage opening night, Rumsey Field, Central Park, 6 p.m., by invitation only; Greg Gutfeld's goodbye party, Marquee, 289 10th Avenue, by invitation only, but it's not as if they're gonna keep you out.]

Thursday 20th

Fashionistasofsummer! Memorial Day is next weekend, and you bet your croquet mallet every Annabelle or Claire is gonna be sporting the same Ralph Lauren cricket jumper dress. Pick up some alternatives at today's sample sales: Vivienne Tam (dragons, lace and leather) and Catherine Malandrino (ethereal sweet-pea goddess who we still can't tell apart from Rebecca Taylor and Tracy Reese … ). Need a watch to go with that? Check out discreet Swiss watchmakers IWC's new "Aquatimer" watch at the Time Warner Center, alongside never-before-seen photos of Jacques Cousteau's first voyage . John Mayer-pouty pop star and former boyfriend of Jennifer L. Hewitt- "has, like , seven of them," according to a flack at IWC. Meantime, Ermenegildo Zegna's walls get papered in cashmere to show off baby-sister line Agnona to Senator Hillary Clinton , whose gleeful smile these days may be attributed to the fact that John Kerry ain't exactly surging , which equals "Hillary for Prez 2008!" (By the way, has anyone checked to see if Ms. Clinton was the one who mischievously recommended that peekaboo dress to the lovely Alexandra Kerry at Cannes a few days ago?) Anyway, gilded celebristocrat couples Chris 'n' Tory (cricket jumpers, anyone?), Jamee 'n' Peter , Arie 'n' Coco and Dennisse 'n' Larry host the Zegna bash …. In international news, the 60th anniversary of D-Day is coming up in a few weeks, and the French Institute Alliance Française shows two documentaries : U.S. Through the Scope of French Television and Operation Open Arm . Try to ignore the fact that the French guy next to you has snuck a pestilential pâté sandwich into the theater ….

[Catherine Malandrino Sample Sale, 275 West 39th Street, sixth floor, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., 212-840-0106; Vivienne Tam Sample Sale, 550 Seventh Avenue, 20th floor, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., 212-840-6740; 60th anniversary of D-Day, Florence Gould Hall, 55 East 59th Street, 6:30 p.m., 212-355-6100.]

Friday 21st

Sound check for the G.O.P.? At Madison Square Garden , the pop station Z100 unleashes a teeny-popper scrum called Zootopia . Who's howling: not-so- Newlywed Jessica Simpson (who's bringing back housewife chic), overly flatironed angsty teen Avril Lavigne , former naughty songstress Liz Phair and so-out-he's-back-in American Idol loser Will ("She Bangs, She Bangs") Hung . The Backstreet Boys slip in the back door to do some a cappella.

[Z100's Zootopia 2004, Madison Square Garden, 7 p.m., www.z100.com for tickets.]

Saturday 22nd

So half of us are tan, half of us are pasty , raising the question of when is it officially O.K. to start fake 'n' baking again? Perhaps inversely proportionate to the Memorial Day rule: After the holiday you can wear white, but should no longer be white? Meantime, the ubiquitous Jessica Simpson (who's taking classes at the Tara Reid School of Tanning Till You Resemble a Photo Negative ) teams up with the tawny gals at Allure for the mag's "Play Safe in the Park" Concert. "Before Jessica sings, there will be a beauty village under tents, so it's tented , and there are little stations and you can kind of jump around getting free makeovers, grabbing products and skin-care advice," said a flack. Playing more dangerously, Tracey Ullman busts out her zany, madcap shtick tonight as host of a bash honoring Lyn and Norman Lear and condiment heiress Teresa Heinz Kerry . It all goes down at the home of producer Richard ( Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas ) Foos. Your green goes to the Friends of CHEC for the Environment .

[ Allure 's "Play Safe in the Park" Concert, Central Park, Rumsey Field, Fifth Avenue at 69th Street entrance, 2 to 5 p.m., www.ticketmaster.com; Friends of CHEC for the Environment party, home of Shari and Richard Foos, some fancy apartment prob'ly on the Upper East Side, 7 p.m., 310-899-9191.]

Sunday 23rd

Before Mom gets into the gin again, take her to Mamapalooza , a mom-honoring music festival with mother artists. Festival organizer and all-around badass Joy Rose (lupis survivor, kidney transplant recipient and the lead singer of Housewives on Prozac) said, "People are astounded by the talent. It's like they think mothers just turn into a big cow and go out to pasture! We have a song called 'Fuzzy Slippers,' the first line of which is, 'I wipe my baby's chin with my college diploma.' And there's another called 'I Only Wanna Pee Alone.'" Then break out the Ritalin, because the latest Harry Potter installment ( Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban ) hops a Nimbus 2004 ( bzzzzzzzzz … ! ) and zooms into Rockefeller Center for the world premiere. If they keep cranking the films out this fast, we'll be spared the sight of a 35-year-old Daniel Radcliffe playing a teenager ….

[Mamapalooza, Riverside Park South, enter at the Hudson River at West 68th Street, noon to 4 p.m., 212-477-5262, www.mamapalooza.com; Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban premiere, Radio City Music Hall, 1260 Avenue of the Americas, 4 p.m., by invitation only.]

Monday 24th

Jake Gyllenhaal- upon whom an ex professed to have a "man crush", which should have been our first clue -has a new disaster movie, so tonight he stops nuzzling Kirsten Dunst (talk about disasters, how 'bout that haircut? Me-OW! ) and joins Dennis Quaid -the last real man in America-at the premiere of The Day After Tomorro w , a movie which will likely result in paranoid parents all over town rushing to sign their tykes up for swimming lessons …. A few blocks away, Al Gore (who is just about due to start teaching a class at the New School any day now) rides the film's coattails by staging an environmental rally . Want to scare the crap out of the Kerry campaign? Call them up and say, "Great news! Al Gore is about to endorse John Kerry on national television!"

[ The Day After Tomorrow premiere, American Museum of Natural History, Central Park West and 79th Street, 7 p.m., by invitation only.]

Tuesday 25th

While Bill and Hillary snored …. The trio of banker Jeffery Sachs , former U.S. ambassador to Nigeria and South Africa Princeton Lyman and do-good cobbler Kenneth Cole host the publication of Greg Behrman's The Invisible People at the pish-posh Harmonie Club . The book is about how the U.S. slept through the global AIDS pandemic . All good boys deserve Cartier: Somewhere in the no man's land of Curry Hill-at the Armory, to be specific-Cartier decided they ought to celebrate the 100th birthday of the Santos (the original trusto watch) by honoring seven disparate individuals for making a difference , just like Brazilian aviator Alberto Santos-Dumont , original purveyor of the name. For pioneer work in the field of pink high tops and wild boar , Mario Batali ; for pioneer work in the field of harem pants and genius complexes , Zac Posen ; Russell Simmons for veganism and sweatsuits , David LaChapelle for pioneer work in the field of Amanda Lepore and … you get the picture. Now go ask Mummy and Daddy for the watch.

[ The Invisible People book party, the Harmonie Club, 4 East 60th Street, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.; by invitation only; Cartier party, the Armory, 68 Lexington Avenue, by invitation only.]

Wednesday 26th

Hello, sailor ! Pull out the smelling salts, men of Chelsea, it's Fleet Week! The seamen in their starchy whites will be strolling the streets, making even the most spruced-up Wall Streeter look positively naff and surely resulting in a New York Times Styles section "think" piece about how sailors are … sexy ! Uptown, future Westchester moms and their pocketfuls of Xanax flock to Barneys' renovated bridal registry and home-furnishings department, Chelsea Passage. Elle Decor 's editor, Margaret Russell, and Barneys chairman Howard Socol invite you to "frolic, imbibe and jubilate." But please wipe up after. We asked Ms. Russell what her Upper East Side apartment looks like. "Why does everybody always ask me that?" she laughed. "It's very white and loft-like. I'm surrounded by so much stuff in the office, I tend to be pared down at home. I'm not a particularly messy person, and I also travel a lot, which helps keep the whites white."

[Fleet Week, South Street Seaport, www.fleetweek.us; Chelsea Passage grand opening party, Barneys New York, ninth floor, Madison Avenue and 61st Street, 7 to 9 p.m., 212-909-2605.]