Helena Christensen and Liv Tyler. (Dustin Wayne Harris/PatrickMcMullan.com)

“The clothing’s just the sprinkles on top.” So said tattoo artist Ami James, and it could have been the motto for the evening, especially when the chocolate-sprinkled cupcakes appeared later on, one last treat for a collection of self-proclaimed oddballs, from Michael Stipe to Bono’s wife, Irish business woman Ali Hewson, to a late entry looking like the boy next door, Josh Hartnett.

They were gathered last night for the launch of the “Eccentrics Issue” of Vs. Magazine, which coincided with the official opening—or, anyway, the celebrity opening—of Paul Gerard’s Exchange Alley, the two events hosted by brunette beauties Liv Tyler, whose face in close-up stares from the cover of the new Vs., and Helena Christensen, who took the photo.

Mid-Fashion Week, and celebrating a high-end fashion magazine for the fashion-forward and runway-ready, the event was still somehow an escape from the frenzy, a respite. Yes, fashionistas and models mingled with artists, designers and rock stars, but the party was low key compared with the Marc Jacobs soirée on the same night.  The atmosphere at Exchange Alley, a restaurant that already feels local and loved, was one of nonchalant chic. The décor chimed with the night’s theme, black-and-white Hollywood studio shots matching the grayscale (splashed with pink) magazine cover. Mr. Gerard’s cooking, myriad different dishes with an Ottolenghi palette, also fit. The chef confessed to a Jack Kerouac fetish and modestly described himself as a potential eccentric, “more than your average Joe.”

Pity the poor eccentric. Quirkiness advertised runs the risk of cancelling itself out—after all, what could be more commonplace than clamoring for attention? To catch a glimpse of naked oddity one had to peek from unexpected angles, the only way to register, for instance, the tattoo of a cat on the ankle of Cobra Starship’s Gabe Sapporta. Mr. Sapporta, appropriately enough, was engrossed in conversation with Ami James, arguing that to be eccentric meant “never having to think about what it means,” never having to reduce it to a “label.”

Ms. Hewson said she knew “a lot of eccentric people who look totally normal,” and that it was “harder to find a normal person than an eccentric person.”

In this crowd, certainly, a cast of characters chosen not for fame but for quirks. There was a lot of Gaga talk; think eccentric, think Lady Gaga? Not quite. The point of the issue was not staged eccentricity but rather eccentricity as badge of dedication and passion. Mitchell Feinberg—Bronx-born still-life photographer and favorite eccentric of both Jakob F. S., editor-in chief and creative director of Vs., and Vibe Dabelsteen, the magazine’s fashion director—said, “the best eccentrics are those not extravagantly but thoughtfully so.”

Mr. Feinberg’s two photo shoots for Vs. saw conceptual art deal with the disposable: In one he plastered perfume bottles with powder, in the other he drilled a Patek Phillipe with a bullet fired from a .22 caliber rifle. He said that to be eccentric meant “to look at the world in a different way to everyone else.” According to Ms. Dabelsteen, Mr. Feinberg’s way of looking involves “caring about the finest details—that’s what makes him eccentric. Eccentricity and perfection are very close.”

If there was a queen of quirk, it was Colette. This multimedia artist, pioneer of the living art performance, pre-Cindy Sherman, describes herself as a “true New York eccentric”—the fact that she was born in Tunisia and grew up in the South of France sealed the deal. She had no compunction about wearing her weirdness on her sleeve—or rather her head. Her oversized black-and-white hat matched the décor and threatened to dominate it.

And the eccentrics’ most admired eccentrics? A tricky decision; in the worlds of art and fashion, choices are limitless. There was a vote for Salvador Dalí, for Andy Warhol, for Christopher Hitchens, for Diane Pernet, and—Ms. Christensen’s favorite—a “walking piece of art,” the recently deceased Anna Piaggi. Mr. Sapporta chose his girlfriend Erin Fetherston, “because in her spare time she’s a unicorn.”

The Cools is a social shopping site that's sort of like Etsy, but for people who live in New York or Paris or want to look like they do. A “jamborée,” The Observer learned, is sort of like a party, but with shopping and performances.

To date, life has mercifully failed to imitate social networks. But wandering the three floors of the converted Nolita elementary school was not entirely unlike discovering new designers and boutiques while clicking around The Cools. The site boasts a list of “curators" like Erin Fetherston and Kathy Grayson, who drew a line down the block, but there was no list. 

In one classroom, Anna Sheffield from Bing Bang sold make-your-own friendship bracelet kits. In another, Dustin Yellin presented Nathaniel Lieb, who built an igloo around himself, from the linoleum floor up, using torn cardboard boxes and a hot glue gun. Behind him, guests checked their iPhones and sipped perspiring beers sold by Fat Radish.

The fellows from Chinatown skate shop aNYthing realized a school-aged skater's dream by erecting a quarter pipe in a classroom, flush with the blackboard, and using it. Nearby, Audrey Gelman—Scott Stringer's press secretary, Terry Richardson's breakfast companion, and Girls supporting actress—sold copies of Downtown For Democracy’s “Pocket Guide to Politics.”

Wandering the halls, we encountered a couple of top magazine writers, a handful of attractive artists we recognized from the Internet, their children and/or dogs, the DJ duo Andrew Andrew, and the actor Waris Ahluwalia.

Like us, many of them were drawn to the room occupied by Radio Lily, the official Internet radio station of Serge Becker's Jamaican restaurant Miss Lily's, where "Dancehall School" was in session. A dozen co-eds in cropped school uniforms gyrated in a way that would have gotten them kicked out of our junior prom, which is precisely where the security guards, dressed in suits and flower boutonnieres, looked like they were headed. Sweating, we wondered if a piece of performance art could get so fun it required a cabaret license. What kind of permit does one need to throw an art exhibition/high-brow flee market/barbecue/concert, anyway?

Later, we were told, the police arrived to break up the impossible-to-categorize fun.

The design is surprisingly simple, considering how much Ms. Fetherston enjoys playing with volume and fabrics in her whimsical clothing. The tin is dark brown with a profile of a pencil-drawn tall woman in a short dress and flats, with shoulder-length straight hair and a curtainlike bang (read: Ms. Fetherston) clutching giant long wafers like rolls of fabric. The drawing is against a background of "I Love LU" written in cursive. The tins are available on Amazon for $39 (for a pack of six) starting Sept. 10.

Ms. Fetherston used to show her couture line in Paris, but now designs a ready-to-wear line that she shows at Bryant Park. Her line is favored by actresses like Zooey Deschanel (the brand's face), Winona Ryder and Kirsten Dunst. In 2007, the designer received the prestigious Ecco Domani Fashion Foundation award for emerging designers and was a finalist for the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund. 

Are we to think that this is an extra flow of cash for the designer in a time when fashion houses (i.e., Peter Som, Christian Lacroix, Escada) are struggling? Or is she just a really big fan of the sweets from when she lived in Paris?

“I came to love LU when I lived in Paris as they are a European classic and everyone’s go-to cookie in France," Ms. Fetherston emailed us through a representative. "LU has a long history integrating art and design into its campaigns dating back to the late-1800s.  With LU now expanding into the U.S. I was thrilled to partner with them." Bon appetit!

The Four Seasons Restaurant, modernist shrine of food and power, celebrated its 50th anniversary on Thursday night. It was cold for June, but fortunately the red carpet was made of always-in-season Astroturf. “The red carpet is green,” co-owner Julian Niccolini lamented. “Alex wanted it to be pink.” He was referring to co-owner Alex von Bidder, with whom he was holding court as the party began. “Look who is coming! Look who is coming!” Mr. Niccolini kept crowing.

The parade of notables included members of the power-lunch crowd as well as designers Erin Fetherston and Ralph Lauren. Model Jessica Hart—“Hart, H-A-R-T!” an assistant had to yell to photographers—set flashes on fire. She wore leather pants and shifted her weight constantly, throwing out knees and hips in lanky contrapposto as if freshly delighted by her surfeit of limb. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who arrived a few minutes later, was one of the very few who incited as much enthusiasm. The photographers did not, however, call him “sweetheart.”

Inside, behind the dining rooms’ famous metal curtains, a mixture of classic pop, big band and Motown was playing over the speakers. The restaurant held fast to its mid-century aesthetic, even where it could barely be seen—the bartenders poured Coke from small glass bottles.

Still, some things have changed. Overheard: “Every desperate banker is trying to write a book.”

Waiters roamed carrying sliders, sushi, spring rolls, oysters and tiny desserts.

The absence of seated dining was a source of concern to Candida Royalle. Ms. Royalle, a producer and director of female-friendly pornography, had gotten separated from the friend who brought her and was looking for someone—anyone—she knew.

Star Jones was perhaps the only woman who, on arrival, grabbed Mr. Niccolini more enthusiastically than the other way around. Perhaps she was feeling frisky thanks to the oysters, which she'd tried for the first time this evening.

“If you’re gonna do it,” she said, “you do it here.”

Author Salman Rushdie and his girlfriend, Pia Glenn, were not interested in talking to The Transom. “We’re sort of in party mode,” Ms. Glenn explained.

For Mr. Rushdie, this seemed to involve sitting quietly on a banquette at the back of the room. Author Jay McInerney, however, was at the center of activity. His favorite memory of the Four Seasons? “Watching a girl jump into the pool after taking her top off.” He paused. “It was a while ago,” he said, as the crowd sucked him back inexorably into the Pool Room. “It was good.”

The venue was the New York Botanical Gardens in the Bronx, which earlier that day announced it too would be reducing its workforce by 10 percent in response to budget constraints. But whatever! "Who's your favorite celeb fashion crush?" an US Weekly stringer held out a digital recorder at the platinum-haired fashion designer Erin Fetherston, who answered once another guest had finished tripping on the lengthy train of her flowing lace gown. (Answer: Zooey Deschanel, whom Ms. Fetherston calls a "good friend.")

A diamond gleamed from Ms. Fetherston's chest; it was so massive the Daily Transom was tempted to call it "kiwi-sized." We asked if she'd been following the rumors that Vogue editor Anna Wintour might soon be axed.

"I love Anna, I think we're all better off for having her," said Ms. Fetherston, who is certainly herself better off since Ms. Wintour began appearing at all her fashion shows, featuring her dresses in the magazine and nominating her for all manner of prestigious awards following her debut at the 2005 Paris couture shows, thereby catapulting her into the ranks of designers supposedly famous enough to warrant their own Go! International lines at Target by age 27.

This year is different though. Not even deep-discount designer fashion is safe. Shoppers have flocked to Wal-Mart, sending same-store sales at Target down 10 percent last month and Vogue's December ad pages down 22.3 percent. Straight men throughout the Botanical Garden's magestically-lit foyer had huddled into packs to discuss the latest bulge bracket bank layoffs and Obama cabinet appointments, and the fortunes of the companies in which their various private equity firms had invested. "Fourteen out of 15 companies are down," one fortysomething man said glumly, adding that the recession was going to be "much worse than anyone thinks" before a friend tore him away from the conversation. ("Robert, you're talking about the economy when you should be having a good time tonight. Your wife is going to kill you.") On the other hand, a doctor in town from California who seemed to be actively avoiding his companion was eager to talk about what he called "the most unnecessary economic crisis in the history of the world," a disaster he blamed on mortgage bankers who "made Nixonian used car dealers look like Saint Francis of Assisi."

Joy Marks and Leif Bringslimark, a couple in their sixties who divide their time between the Upper East Side and the Hamptons, talked about how the economic crisis had affected the commute-"The driving time has gone from three and a half hours to two!" exclaimed Mr. Bringslimark, who owns a construction company-and the merits of the Barack Obama victory, for whom neither had voted. "The message [of the Obama campaign] was a little scary, taking from the rich to give to the poor," said Ms. Marks. Her companion, however, seemed to have transferred much of his disillusionment to the members of his own tax bracket. "Everyone knew this was coming, but no one thought it would happen this way...[the investment banks] waited until they couldn't hide it anymore," he said. "I'm not sure any president can fix this."

Ms. Fetherston was more vague, and upbeat, when another reporter asked her about business conditions. "It's not easy," she said, smiling sweetly. Then we discussed her haircare regimen: She trims her signature very blunt bangs every few days (every day when she's feeling "obsessive.")

"There is this weird schizophrenia at events like this," mused Margherita Missoni, the model-actress and heir to the Italian fashion house, who was standing nearby waiting patiently for the throng to clear the way toward the ballroom. "We know it's happening, but obviously it hasn't hit us yet. Of course we've been affected, anyone with a business has been affected, but if you were really hurting, if it were really affecting you, you wouldn't be here! I find it a bit ridiculous actually, almost like it's the cool hot topic to talk about at fancy parties is the economy, which seems very decadent."

Ms. Missoni surveyed the scene and shook her head, setting free a few locks that had been loosely tied into her chignon. "Sometimes I wonder, are these people going mad? Am I in the sinking Titanic? I think I'm in the sinking Titanic."

Since then we've learned that Carolina Herrera nearly lost her mind when Renee Zellweger showed up over 25 minutes late to her Monday morning show. And Monday's 1 p.m. Thakoon show was reportedly held up for 57 minutes due to Kanye West’s late arrival. 

When we ran into Thakoon Panichgul at Gramercy Park Hotel, where the designer was attending a Vogue party thrown in honor of Maria Sharapova’s collaboration with Cole Haan, he denied that Mr. West had anything to do with it. 

"It wasn't the celebrity. It was all about a model who was running late from a previous show," he said. "It just gets more and more crammed every year, and we have to wait for the models, so what are you going to do?”

Dylan Lauren, who grew up a Fashion Week brat through her father Ralph Lauren's shows, offered her take.

“Yes, the shows should start on time, but it's really hard because there are so many variables," she said. "You have to wait for the models and the editors to get there from the last show. I think people know by now that everything will start a little late." 

But Katie Lee Joel, with whom Ms. Lauren was chatting, said that while the shows may always begin late, she is always punctual and is a "stickler" about those sorts of things. 

"It's a domino effect really," said designer Erin Fetherston, who had her show last Friday. "Your show can't start on time if no one is released from the previous show on time. The rule is you have to start within the hour." 

Ms. Sharapova, the host of evening and a guest at both the Herve Leger and Peter Som show this week, offered a view from the other side of the runway. 

"If you're there to see the show, you're going to wait until the show starts," she said. 

And Mr. Som, for whose show Ms. Sharapova brought along gymnast Nastia Liukin, suggested that the cause is rather hopeless.

"You get an A for effort for being conscious of it and trying to begin on time," he said. "You don't want to keep people waiting too long. It's not… polite." 

"It's an ideal, but we can dream can't we?" 

Adjacent to the space—fittingly, it seemed to be constructed from the same building material used to turn Manhattan living rooms into second bedrooms—was the new Highline Park, which guests were invited to tour during the party (the park is not yet open to the public).

Once inside, the place looked something like a very glamorous high school quad—a slate-colored staircase ran the width of the building, most of which was occupied by seated cliques of attendees sipping drinks and appraising the entryway. The stairs led to a second level and eventually to the Highline itself, which was lined with white roses, lanterns, and picnic benches (Ethan Hawke, a longtime supporter of the project, told us the setting reminded him of the filming of his 2004 film Before Sunset).

Impressive as all of this was, we wondered if any of the high-profile revelers would be able to outdo Mr. Klein in terms of birthday vision.

First up was designer Erin Fetherston. What would she have constructed for her birthday party? “I’d have a castle,” she told us. We also asked her about the high point of her Friday show: “Just seeing all the clothes together on the models…when you work with those clothes for so long, it’s really never as alive as when they’re all together.” Her favorite look for autumn? “Vibrant florals.”

Fellow designer Lucy Sykes expressed a less traditional sensibility. Her birthday structure would be “An amazing, incredible tent—sort of Indian and beautiful. It would be in a field in Gloucester England.” And her favorite autumn trend? “I’m really loving those chunky, unbelievable shoes …. I have a pair at home and they’re not really working with anything right now, but I’ll find something.”

Kimora Lee Simmons, flanked by boyfriend Djimon Hounsou, told us she would build something “fabulous and elegant and grand—a giant carousel. A huge one with little horses and fabulous divas.” Favorite look for fall? “I still like a lot of color—or black. It works for me, no? But don’t be afraid of color.”

Calvin Klein’s own menswear creative director, Italo Zucchelli, stayed on message. His birthday structure? “Similar to this one—I like spare spaces without a lot of fluff.” He also described his favorite recent design: “A webbing jacket—it’s a very complicated jacket in construction but it looks very simple. It really represents my vision.”

Lipstick Jungle’s Rob Buckley imagined “a bouncy house that big,” pointing to the CK structure. This dream was seconded by Cheyenne Jackson, currently performing in Xanadu, who recalled his childhood as a “really big kid”: “Half the time I was too tall for those things. I was too big to get in! So, it would be a giant, massive bouncy castle.”

“I don’t really want a big thing, ever," Gossip Girl’s Leighton Meester told us. "I usually just love having a nice dinner.” Co-star Matthew Settle was willing to get a bit more elaborate, if somewhat perplexing: “A chairlift to the top of Mount Everest and a statue of my family to greet them when they get off.”

Estelle, who performed later in the evening, requested “A big chocolate cake that I jump out of.” Isn’t the idea that someone else jumps out? “I would jump out of it,” she said, standing her ground.

Actor Alan Cumming told us that, since his birthday is in January, wanted "a swimming pool, somewhere where I could do summer activities. Or, ideally, I’d like a train. There’s a train you can rent upstate … a train with an open deck, that sort of thing.” And his thoughts on fashion week? “I was just in Denver at the convention. [Fashion Week] is sort of like any convention. It’s sort of people who all do the same thing and they just get drunk and shag each other.”

A pregnant Naomi Watts was sentimental: “Oh my God—something that architectural would be amazing. I don’t know…just getting my favorite people together takes a huge amount of organization because they’re all over the world--a big net.” Jared Leto had similarly humble desires: “I’d probably do nothing. I would probably do something simple, in the wild, in nature, and kind of let that be the backdrop--sorry, was that boring?”

Project Runway’s Nina Garcia was a little less game: “A penthouse apartment,” she said simply, before rushing into Brooke Sheilds’s arms before we could ask for the location. Similarly, an ambivalent Kevin Bacon finally told us, “A nice grill with a big piece of fish would be great.”

And finally, Martha Stewart’s birthday structure? “Oh, a pyramid.” Would the famously creative Ms. Stewart want it made out of anything in particular? “Stone,” she said, rather deliberately.

Earlier, at Bryant Park, up-and-coming designer Erin Fetherston (Target’s greatest hope in the wake of Isaac Mizrahi’s departure for Liz Claiborne), back-pedaled from last season’s well-received whitewashed workday looks and turbans to a campy girlishness that featured fake black flowers—on the models’ heads, handbags, and on all of the front-row seats—diaphanous prints, and one black-clad teenager clutching a rosary. Sitting with the Vogue contingent were actress Anne Hathaway and her boyfriend, Italian businessman Raffaello Follieri, who leaned back in his seat and tapped his foot with a mixture of boredom and amusement, in typical straight-man-at-a-fashion-show fashion. Meanwhile, designer Tommy Hilfiger’s daugher Ally arrived in oversized sunglasses, with an entourage that included blonde teenage soap star Leven Rambin and Jason Preston, the spiky-haired former escort and on-again boyfriend of Marc Jacobs. Ms. Hilfiger and Ms. Rambin posed for pictures at length before settling into their seats, displacing, at one point, Mr. Preston. “Sit on my lap!” Ms. Hilfiger was overheard protesting as Mr. Preston stood. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had a man on me.”

Steven B. Markovitz, a trader that admitted four years ago to illicitly buying and selling mutual funds while the market was closed, has sold his 3,555-square-foot apartment in the Sugar Warehouse Condominium at 79 Laight Street. According to city records, the 26-year-old fashion designer Erin Fetherston paid $4.33 million for the three-bedroom loft earlier this month.

Listing broker Susan Gilder Hayes, a Corcoran Group vice president, wouldn’t discuss the deal, but she said: “The owner had the most beautiful aquarium put in the house. And it had all these great tropical fish in it! But a lot of people that were going to buy didn’t like the idea that they had to care for live fish.”

So the fish aren’t there anymore. But once there was everything from “spider crawly fishes to beautiful blue ones; interesting crabs that would come out; some of the most beautiful coral I’ve ever seen,” the broker said.

That’s what you get when you work for a $4 billion fund like Millennium Partners. But Mr. Markovitz left that firm in 2003 after an investigation by then Attorney General Eliot Spitzer; the S.E.C. banned him for life from associating with investment advisers, and fined him a few hundred thousand dollars, too.

As for his buyer, The Observer profiled Ms. Fetherston just last week. She and her fiancé, an artist, will apparently keep a pied-à-terre in Paris. “The values of my collection—a sense of whimsy, a sense of romance, girly-cute style—there are a handful of celebrities who to me totally embody that,” she said, “and I adore them.”

Speaking of which, the listing broker, Ms. Hayes, an ex-model, is married to the majestic attorney Ed Hayes, who inspired the Tommy Killian character in Tom Wolfe’s The Bonfire of the Vanities. She said the apartment opens to a clear-glass gate (with iron decorations) and full-on Hudson River views: “You get off the elevator; you walk out, and immediately go, ‘Oh my God. Wow.’”

Forget long years of anonymous apprenticeship in the shadow of a Donna Karan or Marc Jacobs—still the norm in Paris and Milan. Today’s designers come to New York with the expectation of more immediate, personal success. And they are getting it.

The other day, Ms. Fetherston, a striking blonde with blunt-cut bangs, was seated on a fluffy white couch in the old studio, wearing a massive, chunky black vintage sweater and a pair of slim navy blue jeans from her Target line. “They’re pretty good!” she said. “What I’m really excited for is just to see the clothes on people in the street. I think that’s when I’m going to really kind of flip out.”

Until now, Ms. Fetherston’s light, ethereal fashions have been critically acclaimed, but hardly recognizable on everywoman—and perhaps that is part of their appeal. “I think she’s very talented,” said Sally Singer, the formidable fashion features director of Vogue, who has championed Ms. Fetherston ever since the latter lived in Paris, where she attended design school at the Parsons School of Design’s sister campus. “She’s part of a generation of quite talented and singular designers, in the sense that they have quite unique visions and they stick to them regardless of where trends are going.”

During the most recent Fashion Week, Ms. Fetherston seemed to be everywhere—at Glamour’s party for the charity Malaria No More, for which she designed a T-shirt; at British publisher Jefferson Hack’s party at the Bowery Hotel—in sky-high heels and short dresses (always) of her own design, practically levitating. She stands 5-foot-10 and has excellent posture, and like the models in her shows, she often wears creative white headgear. The color of her hair blends with the color of her skin, all of it glittery and translucent. “You always know where she is in the room,” said Sarah Easley, co-owner of Kirna Zabête in SoHo, the first Manhattan retailer to sell Ms. Fetherston’s clothes. “She’s like a living fairy.”

Ms. Easley said that the draw of a Fetherston collection is not its timeliness but its timelessness. “It’s not 2008 particularly, or 15 years ago, or 15 years forward,” she said. “You can’t really place it. It’s sort of floating above. She really operates in a vacuum of what Erin likes. Kind of like how the most stylish people just dress for themselves—it’s like Erin designing for Erin. And we like Erin.”

A FRILL A MINUTE

Ms. Fetherston was born and raised in the Bay Area; she refused to say what her parents do for a living. She moved to Paris after graduating from Berkeley in 2002 with a degree in interdisciplinary studies. It was there that she met her fiancé, Hedi Ferjani, 32, an artist, with whom she recently began cohabiting in Tribeca (they will keep a pied-à-terre in Paris), at a brunch in someone’s apartment. “It was a total, as they say in French, coup de foudre—lightning strikes, love at first sight,” she said.

Likewise, the designer completed her studies in a brisk two years. “I just wanted to get in, absorb, and get going,” she said. “I casually thought, ‘I’m going to start making the clothes I’ve always dreamt of making, and we’ll see what happens. I was working with lace, cutting pieces out, hand-painting them; I really went nuts.”

With just one seamstress, Ms. Fetherston assembled a collection of 33 “looks” to show during the January 2005 Couture Week in Paris (albeit off-calendar; only eight houses are officially sanctioned as couture). This, she said, helped her escape a common Catch-22 facing young designers: “To be bought, you need to have some press. And to get some press, you need to be selling somewhere.” In couture, a designer’s retail viability is less a concern than “my vision, my aesthetic, and my name,” as Ms. Fetherston put it, and soon enough, American Elle had tracked down her phone number. “I didn’t totally pre-calculate it,” she said. “But it all sort of worked out.”

Next came ready-to-wear. “I was like, ‘Let’s really get those clothes out there in the world.’” Ms. Fetherston said. It helped that she had befriended fashion photographer Ellen von Unwerth, as well as the actress Kirsten Dunst, who was filming Marie Antoinette at the time. “I just sort of met her, no big story,” the designer shrugged.

The three women decided to make a short film based on the collection. “We just wanted to create something beautiful,” Ms. Fetherston said. “And it was sooooo fun.”

Their movie, Wendybird, features a jubilant Ms. Dunst and several pretty young models frolicking around a lake full of birds, wearing frilly dresses they find hidden in a chest under a tree. Shot in black and white, set to slow versions of “Summertime” and “You Showed Me,” it portrays a rapturous, otherworldly idea of femininity in which frills constitute a kind of freedom. “They’re supposed to be clones,” Ms. Fetherston said of the characters. “And when they find these clothes, it kind of breaks the spell on them.”

For the Target collection, she and Mr. Ferjani collaborated on another short, Dollhouse, in which two girls on bicycles discover a doll house in the woods and shrink to its proportions; dress-up again ensues, this time more campy and set to music reminiscent of The Nutcracker. There’s also a tea party.

Ms. Fetherston’s first Bryant Park show, for spring 2007, was accompanied by another collaboration with Ms. von Unwerth—a series of photos themed “Urban Flowers.”

“I was walking in New York, feeling really deprived of nature,” the designer said. “I’m from California, and even in Paris we have a lot of parks, and I was feeling like I had not seen a living green thing. And literally on Canal Street, it was so dirty, and I saw this little daisy growing out of a crack in the sidewalk, and I was like, ‘You’re so lovely and wonderful!’ I just saw it as being a great metaphor for who I kind of think the Erin Fetherston girl is. Because she really takes you by surprise, and might not necessarily belong, but is really beautiful and uncontrived, sort of thriving in a tough environment. I got together a whole band of girls who I thought embodied that idea.”

The photos, shot by Ms. von Unwerth in Williamsburg, feature the actress Zooey Deschanel, artist Sarah Sophie Flicker, model Karen Elson, designer Catherine Holstein, the Traina sisters (Danielle Steel’s daughters) and Ms. Fetherston herself, smiling against backdrops of weedy, graffitied decay.

Next came a collaboration with Ms. Deschanel, who opened Ms. Fetherston’s fall 2007 Bryant Park show with a solo performance of “Dream a Little Dream.” “She has this great jazz voice,” Ms. Fetherston said.

Despite her glamorous chums, Ms. Fetherston has mixed feelings about using famous people to promote her clothes. “The values of my collection—a sense of whimsy, a sense of romance, girly-cute style—there are a handful of celebrities who to me totally embody that, and I adore them,” she said. “It’s really exciting to see the dress go on the right kind of personality.” But “it’s almost like celebrity is currency. It’s kind of a rough business.”

Ms. Fetherston’s most recent Bryant Park show, her third, attracted an impressive numbers of socialites, editors and celebrities, including Lauren Davis, actress Brittany Snow, It models Irina Lazareanu and Agyness Deyn, Ms. Deschanel and Anna Wintour, who arrived early and was photographed alone in the front row, waiting patiently.

The collection was an assortment of white and gray dresses and trousers, soft and monochromatic and worn by models with bleached eyelashes and softly feathered hair. Many wore white turbans (“I can’t imagine not finishing an outfit with a headpiece,” said Ms. Fetherston). She even sent her first pantsuit down the runway—soft, flowing and white, but a pantsuit nonetheless. “I’d never really thought of her as someone who does trousers,” remarked Ms. Singer.

Back in her studio, Ms. Fetherston played the Target commercial, which debuted Monday during MTV’s The Hills—a three-minute short film that features a girl getting dumped by her boyfriend and then attending a big soiree. “Whether you’re planning the party or having your own pity party,” Ms. Fetherston says in a voice-over. “What you’re wearing is important.”

It’s a distinctly un-Fetherston statement—a jolt of modern marketing reality into her dreamy aesthetic. “I think that there is a great element of escapism to my whole universe,” Ms. Fetherston admitted. “I was a little unsure about the commercial concept at first. It was a little too real for me, the girl getting broken up with; I was like, ‘Yuck, yuck, yuck!’ But I came around, because I think the message was, these things do happen. They happen to me all the time. But the clothes can help to transport you to that state of mind.”

She had donned a white turban from her spring 2008 collection—“very Grey Gardens”—with a subtle bird head protruding from its front, like some sort of antique feminine spelunking light.

“People say, ‘Are you ready to be a household name?’” Ms. Fetherston said. “And I guess we’ll have to see if that’s going to be the case.”