Fashion’s Night Out, across the city, information and schedule can be found at fashionsnightout.com; Dwyane Wade interview with Rick Stengel, Midtown, invitation only.

Approaching Broadway between 28th and 29th, noise blared around the corner: as was the case from the year before, as-pricey-as-it's-hip clothier Opening Ceremony set up a carnival outside of The Ace Hotel. This year, however, they brought in actual carnival games, where a $3 investment could win you anything from a shirt to a nylon Opening Ceremony tote; if you were especially lucky, you could win an Opening Ceremony stuffed animal.

Onlookers warily approached the booths, cautious out of concern for time—the line to get inside The Ace Hotel snaked around the block—or concern for appearance. It was, after all, Fashion's Night Out: who wanted to look as though they were playing a carnival game? There were a few. At one game, one gentleman ignored the objective or prizes at hand, proceeding to spray his friend in the face with a water gun.

Other booths were simply shilling wares: Brazilian sandal-maker Havaianas had a booth set up, as did Keds, both of which being brands that have previously collaborated with Opening Ceremony. One booth stood lonely: manned by chefs from Ken Friedman-owned Ace Hotel restaurants The John Dory and The Breslin, a few women smiled kindly upon a line neglecting them and their pork sandwiches. They did, however, sell the occasional cucumber-based cocktail.

At the lobby door, bouncers cleared the way, and a bevy of publicists stood guard. "You missed Miss Piggy," one informed The Observer. An editorial staffer from a marquee men's fashion magazine standing nearby was crushed, an emphatic "fuck" muttered under his breath. Indeed, the Queen Bee Muppet—currently set to star in November's re-launch of the Jim Henson's world-famous franchise in The Muppets—was at one point on hand to promote Opening Ceremony's collaboration with The Muppets brand:

She reportedly took questions from the press. It was likely akin to actually living in a Muppets movie, though this is not atypical of encounters with the creatures normally inhabiting The Ace Hotel.

Disappointments aside, we moved forward, what little we could: the lobby of the Ace was packed with carnival booths and warm bodies thirsty for booze.

At the Rodarte booth, a magician stood before two wide-eyed women as he fluttered playing cards before them. Behind him, two women were selling limited edition T-Shirts and cotton candy.

At the Band of Outsiders booth, a woman sat drawing sketches of willing (and paying) participants onto a tote bag.

For $20, one could have the single cheapest item in the entire Band of Outsiders collection, with their face on it, and some designer cookies. The tote bags read:

A nearby publicist and an organizer of Fashion Week shows vented together nearby: "They shouldn't call this Fashion's Night Out," one noted. "They should call it Fashion's Big Mess."

What about 'Fashion's Hot Mess'? we suggested.

"Exactly," she returned. "You know, real fashion people actually hate this night. It's a total shitshow."

And yet, people seemed to be enjoying themselves; even the scheduler enjoyed watching the sketchings on tote bags, perhaps out of voyeurism. She was soon pulled away by her companion: "I want a fuckin' Sno-Cone" it was explained. Indeed, behind her, lime-green sno-cones spiked with vodka were being sold; they attracted a throng of onlookers and eventual patrons.

Outside of the Opening Ceremony store, friends photographed each other vogue-ing with newly purchased bottles of perfume. A photobooth powered by blogging service Tumblr attracted many to grin with friends in front of an old carnival carriage.

They, too, enjoyed themselves.

Inside the Opening Ceremony store, a group of three twentysomething women, all of whom wore black leggings with skirts, stood in a small huddle.

They were having what appeared to be the most intense conversation to ever occur on the floor of an Opening Ceremony store:

"The way we are now, the reason we're here, it's because of how we were friends in the first place, you know?" They high-fived. We trudged through the store, impressed with the amount of Opening Ceremony wares one could acquire at the lowest price-point: a $5 toothbrush in Day-Glo colors, with the Opening Ceremony logo etched across it. A tape dispenser! A coin purse!

We spent a disconcerting amount of time staring at this pin of actress Chloe Sevigny's name.

She has a fashion line with the store. The pin was $5.

Leaving the store, fifteen minutes later, the young, intense women holding a conversation near the front continued: "Honestly, like, don't end your friendship. Just...try to...pull back a little bit."

Pushing further into the Ace lobby, we saw Miss Piggy's stage, laid bare, though Muppet-adorned Opening Ceremony shirts were being sold at what was once her perch.

Nearby, another stand released onlookers with "readings" of their auras, taken for $5. In return, they received blurry Polaroids of themselves surrounded by huge swaths of green and pink light.

Outside, more gathered at the carnival booths. The Observer paid $3 to shoot basketballs at a tied hoop; we won ourselves a nylon tote bag, and then considered the import of the evening:

Even if the majority of the attending retailers' wares are classic cases of conspicuous consumerism, they are doing their best to make luxury brands accessible to the public; it is almost, in this context, compassionate commercialism. Only in the world of high-fashion—a distinctly absurdist setting if there ever was one (see: Zoolander)—is this idea even remotely palatable. That said, if a one-night celebration of small business American entrepreneurship (something currently embattled by a hobbling economy) and a few carnival games on Broadway is wrong, being right is therein wildly unattractive.

We will enjoy the tote bag.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

Pictured, right to left: Drake.

ON THE FOURTH FLOOR of the Versace boutique on Fifth Avenue, just stories above a screaming Fashion's Night Out mob spilling into the street, 24 year-old world-famous hip hop sensation Drake sat on the armrest of a stiff-looking chair, not drinking the bottles of Dom Perignon chilling in front of him. It's a night when any building with a clothing rack is spiritually obligated to wrangle celebrities and crazed crowds—and feed them designer-branded cookies, too—but even in the middle of this uptown scrum the crowd by this particular store out-crazied the others. Draaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaake! a group of girls yelled as The Observer shouldered our way toward the front. "No, we are not leaving," said another of the girls, to her friends. "We're going to get in and see Drake perform."

It's safe to say they didn't get in (the well-controlled crowd successfully avoided the claustrophobia associated with this miasma, a New York Mardi Gras of status-consumerism) but either way, they wouldn't have seen Drake perform. He was DJing.

After a few glasses of bubbly The Observer was whisked upstairs to the suite where Drizzy had been hiding. Which of your infinite sweaters did you choose, Drake? None, it appeared—he had on black pants, black shirt, black jacket. They all fit him disconcertingly well. We managed to grab Drake for a quick moment, to yield policy decisions from the Young Money star himself  about New York nightlife, cardigans, and our girl problems.

NEW YORK OBSERVER: When’d you get in the city?

DRAKE: Like five hours ago.

NYO: You’re leaving tomorrow?

DRAKE: In a few days, after we get some drinks [Laughs].

NYO: You should stay longer.

DRAKE: Yeah, I’ve got ‘til September 28th to turn this album over. I’m in the studio every single night. It’s weird days. Like, I get up at 9 PM and and work until 1 PM , so I sleep my eight hours from one to nine.

NYO: Is it like a nocturnal thing, like you work better--?

DRAKE: I have to work at night, and then I end up staying up longer in the afternoon.

NYO: It’s a shame that you have to leave, your buddy The Weeknd is going to be playing his first US show next week.

DRAKE: Actually, no he’s not, it got cancelled. It’s pushed back.

NYO: Oh really? I was going to go, I thought it was next week.

DRAKE: I think they’re rescheduling for the end of the month. I wouldn't miss that for the world.

NYO: So do you have any more plans for the night?

DRAKE: Yeah, I’m going to go watch ASAP Rocky perform.

NYO: He wasn’t playing with Das Racist was he?

DRAKE: I don’t know, he’s playing at Santos tonight. I’m going to go watch ASAP, go to the club, get drunk [Laughs].

NYO: Do you have a favorite place you like to go to?

DRAKE: I’m not really versed in New York nightlife. I just kinda go wherever people tell me to go.

NYO: Yeah, like Avenue, or 1Oak.

DRAKE: Those are kinda like: been there, done that. I know some mainstream hip-hop shit, like Greenhouse is always cool.

NYO: There’s been much made about you wearing sweaters and cardigans. I don’t know if you read that online; people are really talking. About you, wearing cardigans.

DRAKE: Yeah I don’t know why, man. I never feel like I go that hard with it. I think it peaked the other day when I wore this Missoni sweater on the MTV awards, and you know what? I just like to be comfortable, I don’t really give a shit. All those tight leather jackets--But if I dressed any other way, they would scrutinize that too.

NYO: I guess you’re going to miss out on Fashion Week, since it’s the middle of recording.

DRAKE: I’m getting into the best possible thing though, you know? Like to be here tonight with Versace—this is the brand I support the most. I’m a big, big Versace supporter/fan/consumer. This is it. This is good enough.

NYO: Well, I’m sure wherever you go out tonight they’re’ll be tons of models.

DRAKE: Yeah, I hear there’s some coming in here.

NYO: Yeah, you can get all of Fashion Week in one night. Have you ever dated models?

DRAKE: Uh, what kind? What’s your definition of a model?

NYO: It’s obviously a broad definition. A woman...intimidatingly beautiful--

DRAKE: Yeah. And we’re just not. We’re just men, like one of three billion people.

NYO: It's true.

DRAKE: I don’t know; models in today’s world are women that have big asses and...take pictures of chocolate sauce on their ass. [Laughs]

We soon parted Drake with a kind farewell from him; attending to the main floor to witness him eventually take his spot behind the turntables.

Over the speakers, some Lil' Wayne songs blared over the crowd. Models with chocolate sauce on them never emerged.

nfreeman@observer.com | @nfreeman1234

Band of Outsiders' Scott Sternberg and Momofuku's David Chang.

For those who don't know, Band of Outsiders is the crazy-popular brand started only a few years ago by a former CAA agent, Scott Sternberg. They hand-sew fashion-standard based stuff—suits, oxfords, polos—with minimalist Americana tones in uber-slim cuts. Mr. Sternberg is a professed fan of cookies; he even has a cookie blog.

Also, for those who don't know, 'Momofuku' is shorthand for the restaurants of David Chang, who soared to popularity shortly after opening the East Village's tiny Momofuku Noodle Bar in 2004. They became famous for their crack-like noodles and pork buns, and Chang has since opened up three additional restaurants (Ssam Bar, Ko, Ma Peche) and three iterations of the Momofuku Milk Bar, his dessert shop (the most recent, of course, in Williamsburg), in addition to having released a massively popular cookbook, a quarterly magazine with McSweeny's, and appearing as himself on television shows both fictional (Treme) and non-fictional (No Reservations).

It wouldn't be hyperbole, then, to suggest that a cookie...given to you

In crashpad-of-the-young-and-well-to-do of the moment The Ace Hotel,
at uber-spendy boutique Opening Ceremony's Fashion Night Out party,
that comes inside of the one-night-only Band of Outsiders' Fashion's Night Out tote bag,
made by the Momofuku Milk Bar...

....stands to be The Single Hippest Cookie In The Universe.

And this is it:

And this writer ate it.

And The Observer can confirm that, as far as cookies go, it was magnificent: a flaky, peanut butter and pecan compost core wrapped in a chewy shelter of—what was that, clouds?—and given a coating of powdered sugar, like a Zeppole who lost depression weight off of his puffy, deep-fried past after following The Allman Brothers on tour until Duane died, at which point, it just decided to remain living among the Kudzu in Georgia, unable to move forward, until finally being imported to New York City by Scott Sternberg and David Chang for a final moment of life's rapture, as much as one cookie could feel it.

The tote bag the cookies came in cost $20; a package of Momofuku Milk Bar truffles typically runs one $4. The cheapest thing one can find in the Band of Outsiders store is a $100 bow tie.

The package was a steal.

The cookie was amazing.

We feel indelibly changed.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

Anna Wintour, Fashion's Night Out's hostess (Patrick McMullan)

Wednesday, September 7

Reever Madness

They’re making another Superman flick with some British gent—don’t they know that for screen magnetism as well as real-life heroism, the buck stopped with Christopher Reeve? The beloved screen icon, who became an advocate for the paralyzed after a horseback-riding accident, is remembered at the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation’s “Night for a Cure,” a fund-raising celebration of Spinal Cord Injury Awareness Month. (It snuck up on us again!) Guests are to include W’s party-bot Stefano Tonchi (apparently unthreatened by the Fashion Week storm looming on the horizon!), that crazy, stupidly lovable Julianne Moore and little-known local musician Moby. If your summer-long yen for charitable endeavors hasn’t been satisfied, stop by.

Mondrian Soho, 9 Crosby Street, 7 p.m.; visit christopherreeve.org for tickets and information.

Thursday, September 8

A Night of Torrid Fashion

Once again, it’s the night Anna Wintour devised for the hoi polloi to have a part, however small, in Fashion Week—while the even hoi polloi-er will see their evening’s progress interrupted by crowds mobbing boutiques to degrees unseen the other 364 evenings of the year. Gucci debuts its automotive collaboration with Fiat, providing silk scarves and sunglasses so that visitors may achieve that Lindsay Lohan-striving-to-be-Sophia Loren look; the polo star (is there more than one?) Nacho Figueras hosts a party at Ralph Lauren; chic lingerie boutique Agent Provocateur shows off its glamorous and scantily-clad models; and alice + olivia stage a so-called carnival (complete with Sno-cones and cotton candy, if you’d like to break your diet). The night out is spread across the city, so choose a neighborhood upon which to concentrate (may we suggest the meatpacking district, home to 63 events?).

Gucci, 725 Fifth Avenue, 6 p.m.-10 p.m.; Ralph Lauren, 109 Prince Street, 6 p.m.-10 p.m.; Agent Provocateur, 675 Madison Avenue, 7 p.m.-9 p.m.; alice + olivia, 755 Madison Avenue, 6 p.m.-10 p.m.; visit fashionsnightout.com/fno for information.

Friday, September 9

Showtime

Fashion’s big (fiscal) week began yesterday, but the more high-flying designers tend to make late entrances. (Ralph Lauren’s not showing until the 15th!) Today’s clotheshorses are still early enough that you won’t be jaded by the couture overflow—after a while, the fancy togs stop looking like art and go into the mental pile labeled “We couldn’t wear this to Starbucks.” Today’s shows include Tommy Hilfiger (we hope his delightful rebel-rapper son, Rich Hill, is in the front row!), cutesy schmatte-shaper Cynthia Rowley, and the finalists from Project Runway. Hint: don’t go if you’re a Project Runway obsessive and don’t want the ending spoiled—or if you stopped watching the show, as we did, two years ago. This fashion show is for die-hard Tim Gunn gawkers.

Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week—today’s events include Project Runway at the Theatre at Lincoln Center location, 9:30 a.m.; Tommy Hilfiger Men’s at the High Line Chelsea Market Passage, 14th Street and 10th Avenue, 5:30 p.m.; Cynthia Rowley at the Stage at Lincoln Center location, 7 p.m.; visit mbfashionweek.com for information.

Saturday, September 10

Big Papa

Tonight’s the final preview of Elevator Repair Service’s adaptation of The Sun Also Rises, entitled The Select, which opens tomorrow. The company  previously produced adaptations of The Great Gatsby (an eight-hour production, in which the book was read aloud, cover-to-cover) and The Sound and the Fury. In preparation for the exhilarated exhaustion we shall feel about halfway through the expatriate exegesis, we’re writing the rest of this blurb in the style of Hemingway. This will be a good show, and we will watch it. We will go to the theater and watch the actors reading and it will be good. They pretend to be in Europe and they drink and celebrate being young and strong. They are strong actors and they have studied their Hemingway. The book they read is a good book and it is not overly long. It is about men, and also women. There is a—okay, this is too exhausting. But if you’re hungry for the tale of an impotent man and a very potent lady, and you find it too early in the fall to devote yourself to actually sitting and reading the book (that’s what November’s for!), then check out the nonparody—or self-parody?—Hemingway rendition.

New York Theatre Workshop, 79 East Fourth Street, tomorrow’s opening at 7 p.m., tonight’s preview at 7 p.m.; visit elevator.org for tickets and information.

Sunday, September 11

Ten Years Hence

The National September 11 Memorial will be dedicated today. In a ceremony featuring Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Governor Andrew Cuomo and President Barack Obama, the name-inscribed reflecting pools officially become a part of our city. The memorial, part of a site that has, in many of its particulars, been an object of contention and debate over the past decade, is to open tomorrow, putting to rest a small part of the history of local politics. Another history—that of our processing a now-10-year-old catastrophe—remains, of course, ongoing.

The National September 11 Memorial is to be dedicated today and will be open tomorrow from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.; access is available from the northeast corner of Albany Street and Greenwich Street with a pass, available at 911memorial.org.

Monday, September 12

Gaga-a-gogo

We’ve had enough Gaga-on-TV for a while after her simply exhausting appearance on MTV’s Video Music Awards. (Hey, we had plenty of emergency liquor left after Irene and needed to commemorate not losing cable somehow.) The lady vamped as an unstyled New Jersey dude, Joe Pesci minus the rudimentary acting ability, for the benefit of the gossip blogs that can’t stop covering the pop star! Nevertheless, we’ll drag ourselves to the television for the special Gaga by Gaultier, not for Ms. Gaga, but rather for the chance to see the iconic designer Jean Paul Gaultier (who designed Madonna’s cone bra, back when she was the pop star testing boundaries of taste and patience) in a 75-minute special. Not to mention the fact that it’s airing on teenybopper mini-network the CW, which gives rise to more cognitive dissonance than any couture-donning chanteuse could ever hope to evoke by dressing in drag. The promotions would seem to indicate that Mr. Gaultier is interviewing Ms. Gaga, and we imagine his questions for her would be rather more perceptive than hers of him. But heaven help him if he tries to put the new, butch, dressed-down Ms. Gaga into a cone bra.

Gaga by Gaultier airs from 8 p.m. to 9:15 p.m. on the CW.

Tuesday, September 13

3D Movies With 2D Critic

Two events tonight indicate the values of storytelling in very different fashions. David Denby, the contemplative, chelonian New Yorker film critic addresses the future of movies in an address titled “Do Movies Have a Future?” (We vote yes! But then, we just loved the new Planet of the Apes.) It’s going down at the New York Psychoanalytic Society—the perfect spot for Mr. Denby to plop down on a couch after the speech and talk about all the issues he plumbed in his porn-and-bad-stocks memoir American Sucker … Meanwhile, Mr. Denby’s magazine colleague Adam Gopnik joins the heterogeneous crew of Bravo hostesses Padma Lakshmi and Gail Simmons, beloved-beyond-belief chef David Chang, and predictable insult-jock Lisa Lampanelli at an evening of storytelling about food. Each storyteller is to speak on the subject for 10 minutes, without notes—just broadly, anything that comes to mind! (Anyone seeking insight into what it’s like to force oneself to gorge on reality show contestants’ half-baked soufflés will enjoy the Lakshmi-Simmons double dose, we’d imagine.)

“Do Movies Have a Future?” The New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, 247 East 82nd Street, 8:15 p.m., R.S.V.P. recommended for limited space; email admdir@nypsi.org for RSVP or information; The Moth, Great Hall at Cooper Union, 7 East 7th Street, 6:30 p.m. doors open, 7:30 p.m. stories begin; visit themoth.org for tickets and information.

Wednesday, September 14

Museum of Modern Rock

We know we said we’d had enough of Lady Gaga, but we meant only that we couldn’t bear to listen to her speak about her theories of art and gender anymore. However, her conscription into a gallery show of pop-music-themed art—as the subject of a portrait by Bonnie Engelbardt Lautenberg, wife of New Jersey’s Senator Frank Lautenberg—allows her to do what pop stars do best: act as a muse. Tonight’s opening of RH Gallery’s “Melodymania” exhibit showcases artwork about pop music—including a new portrait of Nirvana rocker Kurt Cobain by Mark Seliger, a cleverly titled print called Violins/Violence by Bruce Nauman and a photograph by Matthew Barney inspired by Norman Mailer’s The Executioner’s Song. (O.K., in that last one the tie to popular music may be a bit conceptual.) Other musical muses channeled by the visual artists on display at RH Gallery include Ennio Morricone and Joy Division—the first time those two have been landed in the same place since our iPod! The concept of pop-inspired art may seem a bit gimmicky to non-radio-listeners—but it’s at least in tune (get it?) with musicians’ tendencies to view themselves as artists and artists’ tendencies to tap into the more venal aspects of our cultural mosaic for inspiration.

Opens today (reception Sept. 13 at 7 p.m.), RH Gallery, 137 Duane Street; visit rhgallery.com for information.

ddaddario@observer.com :: @DPD_

Later that evening, after hopping around the packed Soho streets for Fashion's Night Out, we found ourselves in an even more aggressive mob scene: the line of people desperate to join us at the Pop magazine party at Don Hill's. Dubbed the party of the week before it even happened, the bash at the new venture from nightlife barons Nur Khan and Paul Sevigny attracted the evening's biggest names. As Iggy Pop rocked on the stage, Gwen Stefani sat perched on a ledge cradled by husband Gavin Rossdale; Mary-Kate Olsen stood on a bench to make up for her height; and Nicky Hilton chatted to the woman of the hour, Pop editor in chief Dasha Zhukova, girlfriend of one of the world's richest men, Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich.

Of course, Chloë Sevigny wouldn't miss out. She had on a T-shirt and jean skirt befitting the gritty Don Hill's feel, and told The Observer that her brother's place would be the city's new hot spot. "It's what it was like at the Beatrice, and it's probably been missing since the Beatrice," she said. (What she didn't say, of course, was that the Beatrice Inn was closed in 2008 for overcrowding and "inadequate means of egress"--problems that hopefully will not plague Don Hills.)

On Saturday night, at the after-party for Charlotte Ronson's spring collection, Ms. Ronson, wearing a fitted, frilly blue dress, told us she was feeling good after her show, and said the rest of her week will be filled with "meetings--hopefully positive ones!" Her twin sister, Samantha, explained the personal significance of her final musical selection from the show, Lisa Loeb's "Stay": "That was an ode to one of my sister's and my best friends from when we were kids. She died a few years ago, and that was like our song together." Rashida Jones, on the other hand, wasn't feeling chatty, but she was clearly thirsty, as we witnessed her pour a hefty amount of vodka straight from the bottle into a empty coconut-water carton.

More action at Alexander Wang's party. The young designer topped his gas station soiree from last year's Fashion Week with a full carnival, built from scratch in a parking lot at 18th Street and 10th Avenue. Dree Hemingway, Terry Richardson and Agyness Deyn all turned up for the pulled pork sandwiches and skee ball.

The wildly enthusiastic Mr. Wang talked to us for a few moments, but didn't have time to stay put. "Will you walk with me to the bar?" he said as we dodged the cameras and flashbulbs. "We need alcohol! We need alcohol! Sorry!"

We asked Mr. Wang, who had on a black T-shirt, black shorts and black sneakers, about the theme for his over-the-top party. "The carnival is the new performance. Everyone can be a performer now."

We asked him to elaborate. "I just want people to have fun," he said. "Just get drunk, have fun, have a good time."

Our fashion crawl came to a close on Sunday night at the Tommy Hilfiger 25th Anniversary after-party, where we got a little literary with Mad Men's Christina Hendricks. "I just finished The Way the Crow Flies, which I absolutely loved," she said. Next on her night stand is One Hundred Years of Solitude, which she's started three times but never made it past the first chapter. "I know it's going to be worth it if I just go for it. ... I know the payoff will be there," Ms. Hendricks said. We also ran into Kelly Osbourne, who told us she was looking forward to hearing the evening's musical performers, the Strokes, play for the first time in New York since 2006. "Before there was the Strokes, I really liked *NSYNC and, like, really big pop music. And then the Strokes came out and they are what made me change my taste, I guess you could say. In my generation, I think that happened with a lot of people."

Asked what his favorite moment of the party was, Mr. Hilfiger said, "Having all of my friends there, including Jennifer Lopez, Bradley Cooper, Rebecca Romijn, Jason Lewis, Lenny Kravitz, to celebrate with me, and the Strokes' performance. It was one of the best nights of my life."

editorial@observer.com

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!

At Barney's, the Olsen twins, Proenza Schouler and Simon Doonan will judge a karaoke contest, awarding the winner a purse and leather leggings. Also there will be a ping pong tournament. At Bergdorf Goodman, visitors can enjoy a cookout with the Fire Department, or perhaps an Isaac Mizrahi cabaret. And Open Ceremony will again be having the party for the oppressively cool.

We can only assume that the greatest night ever will once more involve hors d'oeuvres.

Page Six reports today that Ms. Wintour's retail-boosting fall fashion event will have no fewer than two spots on television. CBS will be airing a one-hour special about the event at the beginning of the following week, and CW has also worked the event into an episode of Gossip Girl, featuring a cameo by Vogue editor Hamish Bowles. We like to imagine Mr. Bowles arguing with Andre Leon Talley over this honor. Mr. Bowles no doubt reminded Mr. Talley that he already has America's Next Top Model and Taxi TV.

This year's edition of the global shopping event, scheduled for Sept. 10, will be preceded by a public fashion show at Lincoln Center on Sept. 7. The open-air show is being billed as the largest of its kind ever to be held in New York, and it will take place right in the heart of Lincoln Center at Josie Robertson Plaza. The show will feature trends from the fall collection modeled by 200 models in front of an audience of 1,500 - taking up the entire area between the Metropolitan Opera House, Avery Fisher Hall and David H. Koch Theater.

Anna Wintour explained, "We felt it is important for people to see what wonderful fashion will be in stores at that moment."

For not only does Fashion's Night Out seek to benefit the underdog purveyors of luxury goods, it also strives to enlighten you, the consumer.