Nina Agdal, Max Azria, Lubov Azria in Hervé Léger, Dania Ramirez and Rico Love are all smiles at The Boom Boom Room.

Rebecca Taylor was not at Lincoln Center. Had we not been slammed with events, emails, editorial projects, tweets and social babysitting of our entourage, we would have easily noted this. Rebecca Taylor was scheduled for 2 p.m. on Saturday at Highline Studios Downtown. Yet we had eagerly arrived at the Mercedes-Benz complex, bewildered and irritated. American Express to the rescue. The Observer made the smart move to get in touch with the skybox mavens for a little good old fashion week S.O.S. And rescued we were!

Within ten minutes, The Observer was ushered to the dark and stylish skybox, Champagne in hand and fruit on our plate. Amen. Keen on a break from the masses, we schmoozed with publicists, AmEx VIPs and other media gurus. Before long, we watched from our elite little post high above, as Mara Hoffman paraded her vibrant, billowy frocks and caftans down the runway.

More than content to combine work and play, we handed off our Hervé Léger seats to a cohort and hunkered down for the show, refreshed and content.

After the show, one of the producers of the lavish hideaway announced that Lubov Azria herself would address the intimate coterie for a brief discussion.

“I am his midlife crisis,” joked Ms. Azria about her fashion mogul husband.

When asked about if she had experienced any drama on the day of the show, she reported that look No. 4, Maria, had a panic attack.

“She couldn’t breathe,” Ms. Azria revealed and went on to explain that the models are teens. “That’s why they have those bodies!”

Model drama aside, Ms. Azria was composed and engaging throughout the chat.

Things got even better, when Max and Lubov Azria invited The Observer to their Fashion Week after-party later that evening, which was presented by star-power media magnets Billboard and The Hollywood Reporter. The Top of the Standard was brimming with beauty—Daisy Fuentes, models Jessica White and Jessica Hart, and Dania Ramirez sightings come to mind—but the best attraction was delivered by DJ Harley Viera-Newton and DJ Kiss who had us sloshing and swaying deep into the night.  Before our exit, we just couldn’t resist one more exchange with Ms. Azria and dove in for a kiss-kiss, which she gracefully welcomed.

Fashion Week backwash: Ptooey! It used to be that Daisy Fuentes was the de facto spokesmodel for our Latina sisters, but then J. Lo and her monstrous rump took over the MTV airwaves …. Anyway, today that staggeringly successful post-post-feminist magazine, Lucky , helps Ms. Fuentes launch a new clothing line, and we'll just feel "lucky" if said line doesn't include those silly knit caps with the flaps that tie under the chin; Manhattan is just bursting with those lately. Crash strategy: a prissy skirt and sweater set-yes, according to The New York Times Styles section, sluttish dressing is finally out ! Meanwhile, Manhattan's high-culture vultures throw a gala preview of the Art Dealers Association of America's Art Show, benefiting the Henry Street Settlement (a social-services charity). You got your de Kooning, your Pollock, your Hopper, your Picasso, your Lichtenstein and a "bold" Henri Matisse line drawing from 1947 (the last time sluttish dressing was out)-also, ageless lady philanthropists Agnes Gund and Kitty Carlisle Hart.

[Daisy Fuentes Collection launch party, Splashlight Studios, 529 West 35th Street,

6 to 8 p.m., 877-902-6633; the Art Dealers Association of America Art Show gala

benefit preview, Seventh Regiment Armory, Park Avenue at 67th Street, 5:30 to 9:30 p.m., 212-766-9200, ext. 248.]

Thursday 19th

Marlo or Meryl? Badlands anchorman and thinking woman's sex symbol Tom Brokaw is honored tonight by the Museum of Television and Radio at the bechandeliered Waldorf after 38 years of honorable service to NBC …. He's gonna rip off the clip-on mike for good soon and put on his rubber fly-fishing waders ( slosh ), leaving us to that bland boob, Brian Williams - sob ! Your honorary chairs: super-evolved, sensitive couple Marlo Thomas and Phil Donahue (he hosted a talk show once, she gave the world the touchy-feely 1970's anthem collection Free to Be … You and Me ). Downtown, meanwhile, actress Meryl Streep and her cheekbones and her undeniable but sort of tedious talent show up for the opening night of a play she produced, Bridge and Tunnel , by playwright/actress Sarah Jones . The plot: Fourteen characters "travel the roads of assimilation" to tell the story of American change in an ever-changing America. "A whole bunch of different characters are going to converge on 45 Bleecker and wreak havoc for an hour and a half-that's the best way to put it," said Ms. Jones. Turns out this entire bunch of characters is gonna be played by … Ms. Jones! "It's a lonely cast party," she said. "I'm not in my writer's head, I'm not in my actor's head. I really make an effort to sort of zone into eight other people's heads and let them do all the work." In earlier eras, we believe this was referred to as "multiple-personality disorder."

[Tom Brokaw salute, Grand Ballroom, the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, 301 Park Avenue, by invitation only; Bridge and Tunnel , 45 Bleecker Street Theatre, 7 p.m., 212-307-4100.]

Friday 20th

Chomskying at the bit: Spitfire academic Noam Chomsky gets "the treatment," such as it is, in N.Y.U. instructor Noel Salzman's play The Loneliness of Noam Chomsky (Performance) . The lucky linguist will be portrayed by Aya Ogawa , 29, a programming assistant at the Japan Society by day-and a woman . Odd. "The amount of information in the man's brain is astounding and amazing!" said Ms. Ogawa, whose previous bizarre acting credits include J. Robert Oppenheimer. "He just takes the facts of what has happened and reveals how those facts have been distorted by the media or hidden from the public. To read him is just a process of unveiling facts." She then admitted that the best part of the role is "the glasses."

[Chashama Theater, 113 West 42nd Street, 7 and 9 p.m., 212-592-4644.]

Saturday 21st

Film wonks! Only a week or so till the Oscars, and our bushy-haired, bushy-tailed "showbiz" correspondent is dusting off his spats, formulating the tough questions …. Tonight, there's a screening of the animated and live-action short films -that's right, the ones nobody actually bothers to see, except pallid N.Y.U. cultural-theory grad students with bountiful trust funds and house accounts at the Angelika. The event is hosted by Robert Osborne , who'll sign his handy reference work 75 Years of Oscar after the show and is part of some "Monday Nights with Oscar" series-wait a sec, isn't it Saturday tonight? What the bleep? In other hot news, The New Yorker quietly, discreetly celebrates its 79th anniversary today; editor David Remnick is girding his loins for the imminent plop of former New York Times "cultural czar" and all-around boy genius Adam Moss upon New York magazine in nine short days. Meanwhile, the anxious tippety-tap of freelancers freshening up their résumés can be heard across the city …. By the by, whatever happened to Radar ?

["Monday Nights with Oscar," Academy Theater at the Lighthouse, 111 East 59th Street between Park and Lexington, 2 p.m., 888-778-7575.]

Sunday 22nd

Break out the Birkenstocks, socks and lox: A bunch of lefties, like Princeton prof Cornel West and Ian Williams , who wrote The U.N. for Beginners , are gathering for the last day of "Life After Bush," a three-day conference about workers' rights, racism and LGBTQ activism, whatever that may be …. Meanwhile, uptown, one of Ernest Hemingway's many grandkids -a 36-year-old guy called Sean -is lecturing on Poppa's life and plugging a compilation of his work called Hemingway on War , then joining in a "buffet brunch" and an "informal conversation." Our own "informal conversation" with young Mr. Hemingway was something of a bust: He called from Carroll Gardens (that's Brooklyn) and confided he'd recently gone hunting ( "mostly geese and ducks" ) and fishing ( "trout … on the Missouri River" ), and that was about it.

["Life After Bush: Youth Activism and the Fight for Our Future," CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., 212-727-8610; Sean Hemingway on Ernest Hemingway, 92nd Street Y, 92nd Street and Lexington Avenue, 11 a.m., 212-415-5500.]

Monday 23rd

Smug rocker couple! Dweezil Zappa (Frank was his father) and Lisa Loeb (had, like, one hit song sometime back in the 1990's) are still shacking up together, and they called from a hotel in Chicago to discuss their new show on the Food Network, Dweezil and Lisa -think Dinner and a Movie , except no movie. "It's about how the food fits into our lives," said Mr. Zappa, 34, one of whose sisters is named Diva Muffin. "It's not like a musical film where suddenly there's a song about tomato sauce." "We're just completely obsessed with food!" added Ms. Loeb, a neither-here-nor-there 35. Tonight, the duo plays the Bowery Ballroom-bring pies, hurl them. Or you can go hear two Tonys, Bennett and Randall , belt tunes from Guys and Dolls -only thing is, it costs at least $1,000 (oh, Adelaide!) … but it does benefit a worthy cause, the Iris Cantor Women's Health Center. Option C: The View 's Meredith Vieira (the one who's not old, fat nor formerly fat) M.C.'s Rodale's "Books for a Better Life" awards. Suze Orman (Oprah's finance guru) and Karen Duffy (Revlon spokesbeauty) will honor Dr. Wayne Dyer, author of It's Never Crowded Along the Extra Mile . (Heck, it's even less crowded at home under the covers.)

[Lisa Loeb and Dweezil Zappa, Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancy Street, 866-468-7619; "Books for a Better Life" awards, Millennium Broadway Hotel, 145 West 44th Street, 6 to 8 p.m., 212-463-7787; Guys and Dolls benefit, Imperial Ballroom, Sheraton New York Hotel, 811 Seventh Avenue, 7 to 10 p.m., 212-821-0560.]

Another babe authoress! We found 22-year-old Cecilia Ahern at home in Dublin, resting from a whirlwind tour for her debut novel, P.S. I Love You . The plot: After her husband dies of brain cancer at 30, Holly is surprised to find that he has left her a letter for each month of the year containing a list of things to do to overcome her grief. "It was really an idea that just jumped into my head when I was daydreaming one day," said Ms. Ahern, a pretty colleen who just happens to be the daughter of the prime minister of Ireland, and apparently quite a manic talent. "I started at 10 p.m. and went till 7 in the morning. I'd sleep till 3 in the afternoon and then start all over again. I just work much better at night. My brain works much better, and there are no interruptions because no one's ringing." Who would she like to star in the movie version? "I really, really wouldn't mind anyone who's good at acting. I think Jennifer Aniston would make a great Holly, and I like Gwyneth , too." Brace yourself: The kid's already written a second book. It took four months. What's it about? "I wish I could tell you, but I can't." Begorrah !

[ P.S. I Love You reading, Barnes and Noble, 2289 Broadway, 7:30 p.m., 212-362-8835.]

Tuesday 24th

Fashion Week backwash continues as designer and noble soul Kenneth Cole -who we think is married to a Cuomo or something-fills his store windows with articles of clothing donated by Sharon Stone (actress), Lance Bass (spacey Backstreet Boy) and Oscar de la Hoya (the hottest boxer on the planet; not to be confused with designer Oscar de la Renta, who we must say charmed the pants off us a couple of weeks ago!). Are the donated garments, well, quite fresh? "Um, I assume they're all washed," said Mr. Cole (the same!) from the fancy part of Florida. "But they're also all signed, so … I would imagine that they're all sanitary, if that's your concern. But if there's anything that appears anything less than sanitary and sterile, we will, in fact, make sure it is such before we deliver it." Phew!

[Kenneth Cole/Help U.S.A. auction, Kenneth Cole at Rockefeller Center, www.kennethcole.com for more information.]

Wednesday 25th

"It's a great way to live," said erstwhile Daily News editor Pete Hamill from Cuernavaca, Mexico, where he lives when he's in hard-boiled "writer" mode. "I always say, 'Between the vowels of Mexico and the consonants of New York, I might get a decent sentence out of myself,'" Mr. Hamill said modestly over the click of castanets and the swish of petticoats. "I can do all the reporting in New York and then hole up and … just write! My friends, the Knicks fans, don't call me up after every goddamn game!" Mr. Hamill's finishing up a book about downtown Manhattan, but today he'll fly in to join Norman Mailer and Arthur Schlesinger Jr. in fêting the centennial of James T. Farrell , author of the classic Chicago tome Studs Lonigan . And speaking of studs, you'll find your share of Buddhist beefcake at the Tibet House 's party for the New Year (it's the Year of the Wood Monkey -which sounds silly, but it's better than astrology), with performances by David Byrne (Talking Head), Ray Davies (bluegrass) and "serious" composer Philip Glass, who spoke to us of his love for the Dalai Lama. "You might say, 'I wish I had been alive to meet Gandhi, or I wish I'd been alive to meet Abraham Lincoln,' or someone like that," said Mr. Glass, with fervor. "Well, here's a guy who's around now . And he's not as close as you're gonna get-he's what you got." That's nice, dude, but is Uma coming?

[James T. Farrell Centennial Celebration, Celeste Bartos Forum at the Humanities and Social Sciences Library, Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, 6:30 p.m., 212-930-0855; Tibet House Benefit Concert, Carnegie Hall, 881 Seventh Avenue, 7:30 p.m., 212-247-7800.]

How about: Stop wearing them? How about: Be glad that the boots are back-ordered from the manufacturer until the spring; be glad that they're going for three times their $150 price on eBay, impossible to find, etc. That's good . It will give you time to stop and think before you buy, you big ol' fashion sheep.

Ugg boots originate in Australia (where else?), but like many other "but they're sooo comfortable" trends of the past year-velour track suits, etc.-the blame for their popularity may be pinned squarely on Southern California. Embraced 25 years ago by shaggy, tolerant surfers, Uggs caught on more recently with celebrities like Jessica Simpson and Pamela Anderson. Their sleek Barbie beauty is supposedly thrown into stark relief by the dowdy boots-which simply make the rest of us look like militant lesbian activists.

"I despise them," said Matt Heien, a New York publicist who grew up in California, of Uggs. "I am quite bummed out that they are making such a comeback."

Uggs are, in a word, awful. They make thin women look fat, sexy women look frumpy, smart women look dumb. New York ladies have always prided themselves on looking polished, pulled together, "sharp"-armored for anything-and these are just the opposite: dissolute, sloppy, yielding.

More damningly, while they might indeed be " sooo comfortable," as universally acknowledged, they lack one essential quality that ugly boots have always had: practicality. News flash: Uggs are not waterproof! Yes, you can buy an $8 protective spray-but we all know how well those work. One false move in the city slush and you basically have a pair of bacteria-bearing bedroom slippers on your feet. It's just not respectful to your fellow citizens, not to mention yourself.

The city wasn't always so welcoming to Uggs. Once we had backbone. On the company's official Web site, you'll find the story of how the product flopped in Manhattan in the hard-headed disco days of 1978. (The "reception was not a friendly one.") It must feel like karmic payback for the Aussies when their soft, shapeless boot product appeared in a Bill Cunningham photo spread in the New York Times Sunday Styles section on Dec. 7.

Stefani Greenfield, the co-owner of the Scoop boutique chain, was on the forefront of the current wave of Uggs, buying her first pair over two years ago on the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica.

"Every one of my Scoop people were like, 'What are those ?'" she said. "Nobody got it. Everyone was like, 'Do you think you're on the ski slopes? Do you think you're at Aspen?' Then, all of a sudden, it became this thing ."

If you think it's bad in New York, come West, where the unpleasant spectacle of women stomping around in fuzzy hausfrau footwear is supplemented by a basic illogic: It's not even cold.

And they're multiplying like Tribbles.

At the Hollywood Wilshire YMCA: 15 pairs of Ugg boots lined up outside a Saturday 10 a.m. yoga class.

Two days after Christmas on the third floor of the Beverly Hills Barneys: European women in Uggs were chattering in foreign languages. Downstairs, the MTV personality Daisy Fuentes was poring over the jewelry counter, wearing a suede jacket, Nordic sweater and faded blue jeans tucked into big, black Uggs.

"I got them a while ago, in Aspen," she said. "I love them. My favorite way is to wear them at home in Malibu, with pajamas. I was hosting an MTV thing in Texas and wearing them, and people were like, 'Are you waiting for a snowstorm?' I was like, 'No, you don't get it-they're cool and warm at the same time!'"

A few miles east, the West Hollywood Nordstrom, the boots' major U.S. distributor, is solidly sold out of Uggs. The store was pushing a look-alike brand called Qwaruba. Women crowded around, fondling them. A male Nordstrom shopper was asked what he thought of the style.

"I think, 'Why aren't you in a ski lodge with your feet up-and maybe one leg broken?'" he said.

Indeed, men's refreshing hatred of Uggs crosses entire time zones and generations. They remind Lance Wills, 30, an artist who lives in Hollywood, of a scene in Dumb and Dumber : "When Jim Carrey gets totally overdone with the Sasquatch boots and the ridiculous, Taos-looking hybrid snowsuit," he said. "People laugh at that on the screen, but then just slip 'em right on and think that they're hot and fashionable!"

"Keep 'em behind locked doors," advised Mr. Wills. "It's kind of like wearing your most comfortable, ugliest pair of slippers that your dog has used as a chew toy for years."

Naomi Glauberman, a fiftysomething writer who lives in Venice, has been coveting Ugg boots for her daily bike ride to yoga, but her 18-year-old son, Sam Jacoby, forbade the purchase.

"Have you seen those little skirts with the boots?" he asked. "Oh God, that just makes me sick."

A 29-year-old entrepreneur who didn't want his name used-let's call him "Horace"-called from New York to weigh in.

He said he first became aware of Uggs about three years ago, in L.A., when his brother's girlfriend, a stylist from Vermont, wore them with a skirt.

"She was of smaller stature, petite, and it was cute," Horace said. "She was always a bit edgy, and somehow made it work. It's like, little Asian women can get away with that stuff, but normal-sized white women can't."

Fast-forward to Hanukkah 2003. Horace's own 5-foot-7, blond, Caucasian, big-footed girlfriend received a package in the mail.

"She's ecstatic," he said. "I was like, 'What could possibly be in that box that makes her so excited?' And she's unwrapping it-and then she holds up what I believe to be one of the ugliest pieces of footwear I had ever seen. Because it was huge . It wasn't little or cute; it was big and furry."

The girlfriend pulled on the boots and began "shuffling along like a Snuffleupagus," as Horace put it, up and down the corridor of her Gramercy Park apartment. "'My God,' I thought," he said. "'Maybe I never noticed it before! Maybe she's not as graceful as I imagined her in normal shoes! Maybe she slouches!'

"She no longer walked in beauty," he concluded sadly.

"My husband calls them the depression boot," said Ms. Greenfield. "He's used to seeing me in strappy Manolos. He goes, 'Usually, when you walk, you're wearing high heels, you're standing proud, tall. You go from strutting … to schlepping along in these boots!' He's like, 'If they make you happy, they make me happy'-but no, he doesn't find them sexy. At all."

There's a word that springs to mind to describe men who tolerate or, God forbid, praise Uggs: whipped .

"I love them," crooned Matt Goss, a balding British pop star who was accompanying Ms. Fuentes at the Barneys jewelry counter. "They're too legit to quit! Nothing's more sexy than a woman who's comfortable."

"I'm thinking of getting him a pair," Ms. Fuentes said, nudging him affectionately.

At a Boxing Day party in Silverlake, Rebecca Coleman, 27, who works in advertising, was rhapsodizing about her Ugg look-alikes, which she learned about from an MTV stylist. She said she wanted to buy her husband Bart a pair of Uggs, but she couldn't find any in his size 14.

"I went to Boston last month, and I have never been so happy in a cold place ever," she said. "And I wasn't even wearing socks with them! It's not just fashion. It's super- comfortable and really warm."

Does her husband like the way she looked in them?

"He doesn't care. He was like, 'Oh, cute whatever.'"

Some might argue that female attachment to Uggs represents a feminist stance against the patriarchal pressure to doll ourselves up.

"But the funny thing is that this feminist stance is-a slouch !" Horace said. "It's not 'Stand tall on your Nikes and Reeboks and propel yourself forth,' like the goddess mentality of 'Go do sports.' It doesn't even support the arch. They're not structurally sound. You know, we've come so far in shoe technology-it can't be good for your feet to walk on plain pieces of rubber. I mean, I'm not asking you to float on seven-inch heels like the models. Who expects that? But there's a compromise. It shouldn't be Ugg boots or bust."

Zach Hafer, 27, a lawyer who lives in Brooklyn Heights, has a girlfriend (also a lawyer) who was craving a pair of Ugg boots something bad after she saw the Sunday Times layout.

"She's always cold," he said. He tracked down a pair of ultra-tall, size-eight sand Uggs on eBay and got them Airborne Expressed to his office from Arizona two days before Christmas.

"I don't want to say for how much, because I might look like an idiot," he said. "But I looked at it like getting tickets: You want to see a playoff basketball game, you gotta pay a premium."

And is he pleased with the way they look on her?

"I kind of like 'em, actually," Mr. Hafer said. "I hate those pointy boots that everybody wears-I mean, I wasn't drooling, but compared to those pointy-toed shoes …. But then again, I went to Dartmouth."