Something’s definitely blowin’ in the wind, and it feels a tad sinister. I am now totally convinced that there is a new and mysterious conspiracy at work, the goal of which is to divide and subdivide us Manhattanites into ever more specific and peculiar physical types. While the tubby group is increasing by leaps and bounds, so are various other new and strange species. The Coney Island freak show has done a reverse commute.

With cosmetic surgery, eating disorders, drugs (illegal and legal), hair extensions, knocker implants, hormones and butt pads just a mouse click away, transformation has become our mot du jour. The times they are a-changin’, and so are you. But what are you turning into? Not sure? Consider the following categories:

THE SUPERVIXENS

A favorite with P.R. girls and out-of-town department-store buyers, this look—Nicollette Sheridan/Tara Reid/Jessica Simpson—is seen everywhere at Fashion Week, except on the runway. With her fake blonde extensions, fake tan and fake boobs, the Supervixen is the opposite of Marina Rust and Sally Albemarle. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not judging. In fact, I have a horrible feeling that if I were a chick, I would end up in this group. Trading in chic for shags, Chanel for plunging Roberto Cavalli halters and butt-crack jeans, I would happily sacrifice the opportunity to appear on the best-dressed lists in order to live the life of a sassy good-time girl. Some of these ladies are hefty; some are svelte. What do they all have in common? Obscenely high self-esteem and the delusion that their look is “natural.” The best news of all: There would appear to be, for the Supervixen, no sell-by date: see Victoria Gotti + Mother Gastineau.

THE APPLE HEADS

Once, twice, three times Nicole Richie. A former Supervixen, Lionel’s daughter is now the patron saint of this, the freakiest of the currently emerging species. I clocked her at close quarters after the Marc Jacobs runway show. Oy vey! No wonder she’s dancing on the ceiling: You would too if you didn’t actually weigh anything anymore. In fairness to Ms. Richie, she is not the only one. The front row of every show was packed with cadaverously thin, minute celebs—Winona, the Olsen twins, La Lohan—sporting boulder-sized heads (and those massive sunglasses!). Karl Lagerfeld, with his Team America puppet proportions, has paved the way for older foppish men to enter this group. As osteoporosis sets in, I may well follow in Kaiser Karl’s footsteps.

THE DONNA DUCKS

These older, well-preserved women—senior store execs and the like—are in great shape but have, thanks to pixie-ish nose jobs and lip collagen, come to resemble Donald Duck.

THE SHREKS

These overachieving young entrepreneurs would rather eat, drink and BlackBerry than jog. I first witnessed this phenomenon at the Four Seasons in Palm Beach, where every svelte, bikini-clad lady was accompanied by a devoted Shrek-sized male companion in Vilebrequin shorts. Shreks, just like their screen namesake, are warm, generous and loyal and make great husbands. (Shrusbands?) Think Mario Batali. Speaking of whom, Barneys hosted a festive post-show bash for Narciso Rodriguez last week at Mr. Batali’s gorgeous Del Posto restaurant in the meatpacking district. Though Mike Myers, an Olsen and Rachel Weisz were all in attendance, the most talked-about celebrity of the evening was a massive, oversized Bologna sausage—instantly dubbed “the Colin Farrell”—from which hungry Shreks hacked large chunks.

THE BEANPOLES

Models have gotten insanely taller and taller, and their heads have gotten smaller and more doll-like. They are literally telegraph poles with ping-pong balls resting on the top. These Beanpoles are therefore the opposite of Apple Heads. If Linda and Christy arrived on the scene now, they would be considered squat by comparison and relegated to shooting medical catalogs. The flow from Eastern Europe of this otherworldly species has turned into a torrent. Clearly, Estonia and Russia have set up factories that genetically engineer these gals and give them names like Snejana, Behati and Jeisa.

THE G.I. JOES

Many are gay—see the “bear”-inspired John Bartlett show—but a growing number of straight dudes are availing themselves of the benefits of a super-buff, that’s-not-just-from-working-out body.

Who is there to intimidate at Fashion Week? Those bossy Supervixens can always use to be taken down a peg or two.

THE VOSOVICS

As in Daniel Vosovic, the most likely winner of the Bravo network’s Project Runway on the March 8 finale. With his slurpy Sally Hershberger hair and his natural, languid elegance, Daniel epitomizes le nouveau androgyny. Like the dykes on The L Word, he has shed any overt sexual characteristics in favor of a Fred Segal rock-’n’-roll grittiness.

The transgender-bending Vosovics may well be the fastest-growing group of all, as anyone watching the current parade of tweener hopefuls on American Idol can attest. They are also, to my 1950’s way of thinking, the most perturbing group. I predict that, by 2010, it will no longer be possible to tell the Arthurs from the Marthas, and there will be trans-bathrooms on every American college campus as well as the Bryant Park tents.

Come back to the five and dime, Steve McQueen, Steve McQueen!

Something’s definitely blowin’ in the wind, and it feels a tad sinister. I am now totally convinced that there is a new and mysterious conspiracy at work, the goal of which is to divide and subdivide us Manhattanites into ever more specific and peculiar physical types. While the tubby group is increasing by leaps and bounds, so are various other new and strange species. The Coney Island freak show has done a reverse commute.

With cosmetic surgery, eating disorders, drugs (illegal and legal), hair extensions, knocker implants, hormones and butt pads just a mouse click away, transformation has become our mot du jour. The times they are a-changin’, and so are you. But what are you turning into? Not sure? Consider the following categories:

THE SUPERVIXENS

A favorite with P.R. girls and out-of-town department-store buyers, this look—Nicollette Sheridan/Tara Reid/Jessica Simpson—is seen everywhere at Fashion Week, except on the runway. With her fake blonde extensions, fake tan and fake boobs, the Supervixen is the opposite of Marina Rust and Sally Albemarle. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not judging. In fact, I have a horrible feeling that if I were a chick, I would end up in this group. Trading in chic for shags, Chanel for plunging Roberto Cavalli halters and butt-crack jeans, I would happily sacrifice the opportunity to appear on the best-dressed lists in order to live the life of a sassy good-time girl. Some of these ladies are hefty; some are svelte. What do they all have in common? Obscenely high self-esteem and the delusion that their look is “natural.” The best news of all: There would appear to be, for the Supervixen, no sell-by date: see Victoria Gotti + Mother Gastineau.

THE APPLE HEADS

Once, twice, three times Nicole Richie. A former Supervixen, Lionel’s daughter is now the patron saint of this, the freakiest of the currently emerging species. I clocked her at close quarters after the Marc Jacobs runway show. Oy vey! No wonder she’s dancing on the ceiling: You would too if you didn’t actually weigh anything anymore. In fairness to Ms. Richie, she is not the only one. The front row of every show was packed with cadaverously thin, minute celebs—Winona, the Olsen twins, La Lohan—sporting boulder-sized heads (and those massive sunglasses!). Karl Lagerfeld, with his Team America puppet proportions, has paved the way for older foppish men to enter this group. As osteoporosis sets in, I may well follow in Kaiser Karl’s footsteps.

THE DONNA DUCKS

These older, well-preserved women—senior store execs and the like—are in great shape but have, thanks to pixie-ish nose jobs and lip collagen, come to resemble Donald Duck.

THE SHREKS

These overachieving young entrepreneurs would rather eat, drink and BlackBerry than jog. I first witnessed this phenomenon at the Four Seasons in Palm Beach, where every svelte, bikini-clad lady was accompanied by a devoted Shrek-sized male companion in Vilebrequin shorts. Shreks, just like their screen namesake, are warm, generous and loyal and make great husbands. (Shrusbands?) Think Mario Batali. Speaking of whom, Barneys hosted a festive post-show bash for Narciso Rodriguez last week at Mr. Batali’s gorgeous Del Posto restaurant in the meatpacking district. Though Mike Myers, an Olsen and Rachel Weisz were all in attendance, the most talked-about celebrity of the evening was a massive, oversized Bologna sausage—instantly dubbed “the Colin Farrell”—from which hungry Shreks hacked large chunks.

THE BEANPOLES

Models have gotten insanely taller and taller, and their heads have gotten smaller and more doll-like. They are literally telegraph poles with ping-pong balls resting on the top. These Beanpoles are therefore the opposite of Apple Heads. If Linda and Christy arrived on the scene now, they would be considered squat by comparison and relegated to shooting medical catalogs. The flow from Eastern Europe of this otherworldly species has turned into a torrent. Clearly, Estonia and Russia have set up factories that genetically engineer these gals and give them names like Snejana, Behati and Jeisa.

THE G.I. JOES

Many are gay—see the “bear”-inspired John Bartlett show—but a growing number of straight dudes are availing themselves of the benefits of a super-buff, that’s-not-just-from-working-out body.

Who is there to intimidate at Fashion Week? Those bossy Supervixens can always use to be taken down a peg or two.

THE VOSOVICS

As in Daniel Vosovic, the most likely winner of the Bravo network’s Project Runway on the March 8 finale. With his slurpy Sally Hershberger hair and his natural, languid elegance, Daniel epitomizes le nouveau androgyny. Like the dykes on The L Word, he has shed any overt sexual characteristics in favor of a Fred Segal rock-’n’-roll grittiness.

The transgender-bending Vosovics may well be the fastest-growing group of all, as anyone watching the current parade of tweener hopefuls on American Idol can attest. They are also, to my 1950’s way of thinking, the most perturbing group. I predict that, by 2010, it will no longer be possible to tell the Arthurs from the Marthas, and there will be trans-bathrooms on every American college campus as well as the Bryant Park tents.

Come back to the five and dime, Steve McQueen, Steve McQueen!

The movie’s star, Jennifer Aniston, spent the weekend in the company of her favorite accessory, her gay hairdresser, Chris McMillan; for press interviews, she was accompanied by her co-star, Catherine Keener.

And the crowds, normally more blasé, literally chased her limousine down the street at the end of the screening.

But while the film is attracting raves and may be one of the more viable products at the festival this year, it was quite possible to believe that Ms. Aniston’s followers were chasing after the Jen of “Who Told Jen?” and “It Should Have Been My Baby!” tabloid-headline fame, not the frumpy stoner maid and man-stalker of Ms. Holofcener’s film.

Because Sundance isn’t about films.

Sure, Gwyneth Paltrow was also in Park City—for five minutes, give or take a few, to promote a short she directed. Yes, Sting stopped by a Motorola party on Saturday night with his wife, Trudie Styler, who is promoting A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints. Absolutely that was Rob Lowe—whom Hollywood is buzzing about once again for his cameo as an agent in Thank You for Smoking—at the Self magazine swag suites, scoring a new BlackBerry.

But what about the biz? “Film Fest Flurry,” cried yesterday’s Variety—but that supposed flurry only confirmed news of the second film acquisition of the festival. Not quite a blizzard.

Between the C-list Hollywooders and the outer-industry culture hoboes, the real celebrity set and the few folks actually buying films must have been a bit lonely.

All around town, you could find Lizzie Grubman with her Power Girls; Trista and Ryan from The Bachelor; Jason from Laguna Beach; James Van Der Beek, late of Dawson’s Creek and not much else; Shannon Elizabeth from American Pie; Minnie Driver, who is supposedly performing a few songs at a party; the fabulous Bai Ling, who has been out every night till at least 2 a.m.; and that woman who plays Dr. McDreamy’s wife on Grey’s Anatomy, who went straight for the Kooba bags at the Marquee Hospitality Suites. And those are just the strivers you recognize.

There were plenty of transplanted New Yorkers just hanging out, too: Dori Cooperman, a friend of Ms. Grubman’s and a New York girl about town; Mandie Erickson, the proprietor of Seventh House P.R., who’d brought her friend Simon Hammerstein, the grandson of Oscar; Dani Stahl of Nylon magazine, who was hawking her Lia Sophia collection of costume jewelry and supporting her boss, who’d made a documentary about Good Charlotte in Japan; John McDonald of Lever House; and enough fashion and lifestyle publicists to found a new, heavily publicized country.

“Hi, I’m calling to get a car for Emile Hirsch and Carmen Electra,” one publicist squealed into her cell phone on Main Street. “I need the nicest one you’ve got.”

“I’m just here pushing myself,” said linebacker Dhani Jones of the Philadelphia Eagles. No real celebrity would ever be so blunt, but in a nutshell, he described exactly what everyone was doing here: getting photos of themselves out there, getting their names in In Touch, reminding everyone that they exist. After all, wouldn’t we forget that girl from the San Francisco Real World if she didn’t show up time and again to show her face?

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?" THE D.J. SAMANTHA ROSEN ASKED an entertainment editor from Condé Nast. They were both enjoying a free lunch up at the Café Yahoo in Park City this weekend past. The entertainment editor was actually working, looking for future story ideas and cover subjects. Indeed, Ms. Ronson was working too, D.J.-ing at a party at Tao.

Everyone’s working on everything, and everyone wants you to know it. Movies, sure. But also: books, electronics, music, life-story rights and that most ephemeral product of all, lifestyle.

In other words, the tangible commodity being exchanged at Sundance is publicity. And Sundance is now just another blip on the cross-platform festival circuit, a stop on the party train, where people in the less-glamorous industries go to try to rub a little stardust on their cheeks, and hope it sticks.

Hollywood, in comparison to the other, less-hefty culture industries, clearly has the real money—no matter how loudly the trades claim it was a bad year. So publishers and agents and club promoters and musicians and restaurateurs and art dealers glom onto Sundance, hoping for some of Hollywood’s spare change. And get some they will, because every idea is fungible now in another form.

Case in point: Back in Manhattan on Monday night, up at the Guggenheim Museum, the Sundance Theatre Laboratory presented a preview of Grey Gardens, the musical by Doug Wright, Michael Korie and Scott Frankel that will open at Playwrights Horizons next month.

Sure, the authors admitted to a conceptual struggle with their adaptation of the famous 1975 documentary by the Maysles brothers. “As far as I know, a documentary has never been translated into musical theater,” said Mr. Frankel from behind the piano. “Once something is sung, it can no longer be fact,” said Mr. Korie. And the expert: “It must be historical,” the film’s (and musical’s) star, Edie Beale, who died in 2002, had written to Mr. Maysles of the forthcoming work. But come now: Fact? Fiction? In the post-Frey world, does it matter? Let’s sell an idea!

How long will it be until a movie is made of the musical of the movie? After all, didn’t we just see a film from the play from the film of The Producers? And how long until the one-woman-show version of Joan Didion’s nonfiction The Year of Magical Thinking is re-brokered by Scott Rudin and rewritten by Michael Cunningham for Christine Vachon?

Tina Brown and the Weinsteins and Talk magazine had it right about synergy and platform-agnostic and all that. They were just too early. Now anything can be anything, and anyone can be anyone. Polymorphous publicity.

AROUND 4 P.M. ON SATURDAY IN PARK CITY, AMANDA DEMME WAS RUNNING around the W Hotel Lounge at the Village at “The Lift” at the bottom of Main Street. A bi-level heated tent—the kind you find in Bryant Park during Fashion Week, where W Hotels gives out free drinks and, in the case of Utah, white golf pencils as well—the W Lounge was going to be the place to be Saturday night of the Sundance Film Festival.

Ms. Demme, the widow of the late Ted Demme, is a West Coast fixture, their Amy Sacco. With Teddy’s at the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood, she has made nightlife in Los Angeles hot again. Recently, she sealed a deal with W to create lounges in many of the chain’s hotels. She had flown in specifically for this event (reported cost: $700,000) tied to the Sundance Film Festival, which was being used—go figure—to publicize and market the W Hotel’s new residences in Las Vegas.

Ms. Aniston’s co-stars—Catherine Keener, Jason Isaacs, Scott Caan and the experimental-theater guru Simon McBurney—posed for photographs and chatted with journalists on the makeshift stairwell, while Ms. Demme prepared vigorously and obliviously on a couch, surrounded with various headset-clad assistants.

A small-hipped woman with wavy, dark, curly hair, she had winnowed the list down to 110, telling people there would be “absolutely no plus-ones” and that she would vet everyone at the door if necessary. (Her own publicist was apparently not even invited.) Ms. Demme had also flown in several New York party promoters: Richie Akiva, Scott Sartiano of Butter and Eugene Remm. Meanwhile, their rival, Noah Tepperberg of Marquee, had opened a version of Tao in a huge dive bar a few blocks up.

“They’re all here doing this one little party,” said Mr. Remm as he surveyed the movie publicists, photographers and hangers-on, who were equally oblivious to the preparations going on for that evening. A handsome twentysomething with a shaved head who has previously been linked to Shannen Doherty, Mr. Remm works for Level V in the meatpacking district, getting the Lindsay Lohans and Wilmer Valderramas into the club—and then, of course, into Us Weekly.

And the fact that there were probably more people planning the W Hotel event than had supposedly been invited to attend was not lost on him. Nor was the idea that he had traveled across the country to attend a film festival with no intention of even seeing a movie.

“I don’t even know where they take place,” Mr. Remm said. “I honestly wouldn’t know where to start.”

THE W LOUNGE IS ALL PART OF A LARGER COMPLEX for which celebrities and their entourages must be credentialed. There is a Yahoo diner, where the food (naturally) is free and, while the celebrities snack on mac ’n’ cheese, a publicist keeps tabs on the spellings of their names in order to feed what they ordered to the gossip columns; a Philips Electronics lounge, where select celebrities receive things like Sonicare toothbrushes and electronic razors; a Fred Segal “store” offering Le Tigre, Timberland and Rocawear products; and an Uggs “showroom.”

When an unsuspecting couple strolled up to the Uggs store on Sunday afternoon, hoping to just purchase a pair—they were perhaps the only couple in Park City for the weekend who didn’t know the meaning of schwag—a security guard laughed in their faces. “There is nothing for sale here,” he said, then turned them away.

Likewise, Americans, in general, seem nonplussed about what they’re going to buy and what they’re going to see—how else to explain the $26.8 million weekend intake of Underworld: Evolution? Despite critical acclaim, last year’s Grand Jury Prize winner at Sundance, Forty Shades of Blue starring Rip Torn, barely even received distribution. As for this year’s festival line-up, so far only Little Miss Sunshine, a comedy about a dysfunctional family at a children’s beauty pageant starring Steve Carell and Greg Kinnear, seemed poised to truly break out after it was purchased for $10.5 million by Fox Searchlight.

As crowds exited a packed screening of Wrestling with Angels—a staid, unthrilling film about Tony Kushner which emblemizes the idea that to be truly successful these days, not only must you be a widely admired playwright, write a musical and work with Steven Spielberg, but you must also be the subject of a documentary—a small gathering of people were sitting on the tented ground outside the theater, eating cold cuts out of a Ziploc bag and playing travel Scrabble. They were waiting in the cancellation line for a screening of the Shorts Program IV.

These were not your typical Sundancers. Indeed, your typical festival-goers wouldn’t know that Bobcat Goldthwait premiered a movie called Stay (about what happens after a woman performs oral sex on her dog) or, perhaps, even who Michel Gondry is (Mr. Gondry’s follow-up to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, called The Science of Sleep and starring Gael García Bernal, has been another festival favorite).

Those festival-goers exist in the Sundance of Robert Redford myth: a place of discovery, a place where filmmakers like Steven Soderbergh could make their names.

THE NIGHT OF AMANDA DEMME'S PARTY WAS FRIGID COLD; it had snowed all day. Indeed, Ms. Aniston and her compatriot had worried they wouldn’t be able to get back to L.A. that night—remember, the real celebs don’t actually want to spend time in Sundance. But at 1:30 in the morning, Ms. Demme’s event was still hopping.

Maggie Gyllenhaal was on her way out the door, and one must give her some credit: Though she’s been popping up lately in Reebok ads, she was in Sundance in actual support of a film. In Sherrybaby, she plays a convict released from prison who wants to reconnect with her child (and, in the old Sundance tradition, she shows her breasts perhaps eight times).

Representatives for Levi’s would later boast that Ms. Gyllenhaal hadn’t taken any free clothes. As per their “gifting suite” regulations, she had given money to charity in exchange for the new slim-cut jeans. “That’s our exclusive,” the publicist said.

There were no other celebs, however, left at Ms. Demme’s party, but as D.J. AM mashed the Verve with Beyoncé, the room was full of dancing New York and Los Angeles transplants. The Bungalow-style filler was certainly not, one might think, part of Ms. Demme’s original 110 invitees, mostly because they wouldn’t exactly be recognizable to a Wireimage photographer.

But still, they filled a room, just as they’d filled the Motorola party up Main Street, and just as they’d filled Tao, which was at least five times the size of any other event space. And they’d all been there, privileged enough to go from Art Basel in December to Aspen for New Year’s and then straight to Sundance. It’s not the worst kind of life.

Indeed, Dori Cooperman—caught on her way into the Fred Segal schwag suite—might have summed it up best. “Babe,” she said, a glimmer of humor in her eyes, “would I ever miss a great party?”

The movie’s star, Jennifer Aniston, spent the weekend in the company of her favorite accessory, her gay hairdresser, Chris McMillan; for press interviews, she was accompanied by her co-star, Catherine Keener.

And the crowds, normally more blasé, literally chased her limousine down the street at the end of the screening.

But while the film is attracting raves and may be one of the more viable products at the festival this year, it was quite possible to believe that Ms. Aniston’s followers were chasing after the Jen of “Who Told Jen?” and “It Should Have Been My Baby!” tabloid-headline fame, not the frumpy stoner maid and man-stalker of Ms. Holofcener’s film.

Because Sundance isn’t about films.

Sure, Gwyneth Paltrow was also in Park City—for five minutes, give or take a few, to promote a short she directed. Yes, Sting stopped by a Motorola party on Saturday night with his wife, Trudie Styler, who is promoting A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints. Absolutely that was Rob Lowe—whom Hollywood is buzzing about once again for his cameo as an agent in Thank You for Smoking—at the Self magazine swag suites, scoring a new BlackBerry.

But what about the biz? “Film Fest Flurry,” cried yesterday’s Variety—but that supposed flurry only confirmed news of the second film acquisition of the festival. Not quite a blizzard.

Between the C-list Hollywooders and the outer-industry culture hoboes, the real celebrity set and the few folks actually buying films must have been a bit lonely.

All around town, you could find Lizzie Grubman with her Power Girls; Trista and Ryan from The Bachelor; Jason from Laguna Beach; James Van Der Beek, late of Dawson’s Creek and not much else; Shannon Elizabeth from American Pie; Minnie Driver, who is supposedly performing a few songs at a party; the fabulous Bai Ling, who has been out every night till at least 2 a.m.; and that woman who plays Dr. McDreamy’s wife on Grey’s Anatomy, who went straight for the Kooba bags at the Marquee Hospitality Suites. And those are just the strivers you recognize.

There were plenty of transplanted New Yorkers just hanging out, too: Dori Cooperman, a friend of Ms. Grubman’s and a New York girl about town; Mandie Erickson, the proprietor of Seventh House P.R., who’d brought her friend Simon Hammerstein, the grandson of Oscar; Dani Stahl of Nylon magazine, who was hawking her Lia Sophia collection of costume jewelry and supporting her boss, who’d made a documentary about Good Charlotte in Japan; John McDonald of Lever House; and enough fashion and lifestyle publicists to found a new, heavily publicized country.

“Hi, I’m calling to get a car for Emile Hirsch and Carmen Electra,” one publicist squealed into her cell phone on Main Street. “I need the nicest one you’ve got.”

“I’m just here pushing myself,” said linebacker Dhani Jones of the Philadelphia Eagles. No real celebrity would ever be so blunt, but in a nutshell, he described exactly what everyone was doing here: getting photos of themselves out there, getting their names in In Touch, reminding everyone that they exist. After all, wouldn’t we forget that girl from the San Francisco Real World if she didn’t show up time and again to show her face?

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?" THE D.J. SAMANTHA ROSEN ASKED an entertainment editor from Condé Nast. They were both enjoying a free lunch up at the Café Yahoo in Park City this weekend past. The entertainment editor was actually working, looking for future story ideas and cover subjects. Indeed, Ms. Ronson was working too, D.J.-ing at a party at Tao.

Everyone’s working on everything, and everyone wants you to know it. Movies, sure. But also: books, electronics, music, life-story rights and that most ephemeral product of all, lifestyle.

In other words, the tangible commodity being exchanged at Sundance is publicity. And Sundance is now just another blip on the cross-platform festival circuit, a stop on the party train, where people in the less-glamorous industries go to try to rub a little stardust on their cheeks, and hope it sticks.

Hollywood, in comparison to the other, less-hefty culture industries, clearly has the real money—no matter how loudly the trades claim it was a bad year. So publishers and agents and club promoters and musicians and restaurateurs and art dealers glom onto Sundance, hoping for some of Hollywood’s spare change. And get some they will, because every idea is fungible now in another form.

Case in point: Back in Manhattan on Monday night, up at the Guggenheim Museum, the Sundance Theatre Laboratory presented a preview of Grey Gardens, the musical by Doug Wright, Michael Korie and Scott Frankel that will open at Playwrights Horizons next month.

Sure, the authors admitted to a conceptual struggle with their adaptation of the famous 1975 documentary by the Maysles brothers. “As far as I know, a documentary has never been translated into musical theater,” said Mr. Frankel from behind the piano. “Once something is sung, it can no longer be fact,” said Mr. Korie. And the expert: “It must be historical,” the film’s (and musical’s) star, Edie Beale, who died in 2002, had written to Mr. Maysles of the forthcoming work. But come now: Fact? Fiction? In the post-Frey world, does it matter? Let’s sell an idea!

How long will it be until a movie is made of the musical of the movie? After all, didn’t we just see a film from the play from the film of The Producers? And how long until the one-woman-show version of Joan Didion’s nonfiction The Year of Magical Thinking is re-brokered by Scott Rudin and rewritten by Michael Cunningham for Christine Vachon?

Tina Brown and the Weinsteins and Talk magazine had it right about synergy and platform-agnostic and all that. They were just too early. Now anything can be anything, and anyone can be anyone. Polymorphous publicity.

AROUND 4 P.M. ON SATURDAY IN PARK CITY, AMANDA DEMME WAS RUNNING around the W Hotel Lounge at the Village at “The Lift” at the bottom of Main Street. A bi-level heated tent—the kind you find in Bryant Park during Fashion Week, where W Hotels gives out free drinks and, in the case of Utah, white golf pencils as well—the W Lounge was going to be the place to be Saturday night of the Sundance Film Festival.

Ms. Demme, the widow of the late Ted Demme, is a West Coast fixture, their Amy Sacco. With Teddy’s at the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood, she has made nightlife in Los Angeles hot again. Recently, she sealed a deal with W to create lounges in many of the chain’s hotels. She had flown in specifically for this event (reported cost: $700,000) tied to the Sundance Film Festival, which was being used—go figure—to publicize and market the W Hotel’s new residences in Las Vegas.

Ms. Aniston’s co-stars—Catherine Keener, Jason Isaacs, Scott Caan and the experimental-theater guru Simon McBurney—posed for photographs and chatted with journalists on the makeshift stairwell, while Ms. Demme prepared vigorously and obliviously on a couch, surrounded with various headset-clad assistants.

A small-hipped woman with wavy, dark, curly hair, she had winnowed the list down to 110, telling people there would be “absolutely no plus-ones” and that she would vet everyone at the door if necessary. (Her own publicist was apparently not even invited.) Ms. Demme had also flown in several New York party promoters: Richie Akiva, Scott Sartiano of Butter and Eugene Remm. Meanwhile, their rival, Noah Tepperberg of Marquee, had opened a version of Tao in a huge dive bar a few blocks up.

“They’re all here doing this one little party,” said Mr. Remm as he surveyed the movie publicists, photographers and hangers-on, who were equally oblivious to the preparations going on for that evening. A handsome twentysomething with a shaved head who has previously been linked to Shannen Doherty, Mr. Remm works for Level V in the meatpacking district, getting the Lindsay Lohans and Wilmer Valderramas into the club—and then, of course, into Us Weekly.

And the fact that there were probably more people planning the W Hotel event than had supposedly been invited to attend was not lost on him. Nor was the idea that he had traveled across the country to attend a film festival with no intention of even seeing a movie.

“I don’t even know where they take place,” Mr. Remm said. “I honestly wouldn’t know where to start.”

THE W LOUNGE IS ALL PART OF A LARGER COMPLEX for which celebrities and their entourages must be credentialed. There is a Yahoo diner, where the food (naturally) is free and, while the celebrities snack on mac ’n’ cheese, a publicist keeps tabs on the spellings of their names in order to feed what they ordered to the gossip columns; a Philips Electronics lounge, where select celebrities receive things like Sonicare toothbrushes and electronic razors; a Fred Segal “store” offering Le Tigre, Timberland and Rocawear products; and an Uggs “showroom.”

When an unsuspecting couple strolled up to the Uggs store on Sunday afternoon, hoping to just purchase a pair—they were perhaps the only couple in Park City for the weekend who didn’t know the meaning of schwag—a security guard laughed in their faces. “There is nothing for sale here,” he said, then turned them away.

Likewise, Americans, in general, seem nonplussed about what they’re going to buy and what they’re going to see—how else to explain the $26.8 million weekend intake of Underworld: Evolution? Despite critical acclaim, last year’s Grand Jury Prize winner at Sundance, Forty Shades of Blue starring Rip Torn, barely even received distribution. As for this year’s festival line-up, so far only Little Miss Sunshine, a comedy about a dysfunctional family at a children’s beauty pageant starring Steve Carell and Greg Kinnear, seemed poised to truly break out after it was purchased for $10.5 million by Fox Searchlight.

As crowds exited a packed screening of Wrestling with Angels—a staid, unthrilling film about Tony Kushner which emblemizes the idea that to be truly successful these days, not only must you be a widely admired playwright, write a musical and work with Steven Spielberg, but you must also be the subject of a documentary—a small gathering of people were sitting on the tented ground outside the theater, eating cold cuts out of a Ziploc bag and playing travel Scrabble. They were waiting in the cancellation line for a screening of the Shorts Program IV.

These were not your typical Sundancers. Indeed, your typical festival-goers wouldn’t know that Bobcat Goldthwait premiered a movie called Stay (about what happens after a woman performs oral sex on her dog) or, perhaps, even who Michel Gondry is (Mr. Gondry’s follow-up to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, called The Science of Sleep and starring Gael García Bernal, has been another festival favorite).

Those festival-goers exist in the Sundance of Robert Redford myth: a place of discovery, a place where filmmakers like Steven Soderbergh could make their names.

THE NIGHT OF AMANDA DEMME'S PARTY WAS FRIGID COLD; it had snowed all day. Indeed, Ms. Aniston and her compatriot had worried they wouldn’t be able to get back to L.A. that night—remember, the real celebs don’t actually want to spend time in Sundance. But at 1:30 in the morning, Ms. Demme’s event was still hopping.

Maggie Gyllenhaal was on her way out the door, and one must give her some credit: Though she’s been popping up lately in Reebok ads, she was in Sundance in actual support of a film. In Sherrybaby, she plays a convict released from prison who wants to reconnect with her child (and, in the old Sundance tradition, she shows her breasts perhaps eight times).

Representatives for Levi’s would later boast that Ms. Gyllenhaal hadn’t taken any free clothes. As per their “gifting suite” regulations, she had given money to charity in exchange for the new slim-cut jeans. “That’s our exclusive,” the publicist said.

There were no other celebs, however, left at Ms. Demme’s party, but as D.J. AM mashed the Verve with Beyoncé, the room was full of dancing New York and Los Angeles transplants. The Bungalow-style filler was certainly not, one might think, part of Ms. Demme’s original 110 invitees, mostly because they wouldn’t exactly be recognizable to a Wireimage photographer.

But still, they filled a room, just as they’d filled the Motorola party up Main Street, and just as they’d filled Tao, which was at least five times the size of any other event space. And they’d all been there, privileged enough to go from Art Basel in December to Aspen for New Year’s and then straight to Sundance. It’s not the worst kind of life.

Indeed, Dori Cooperman—caught on her way into the Fred Segal schwag suite—might have summed it up best. “Babe,” she said, a glimmer of humor in her eyes, “would I ever miss a great party?”

Los Angeles held its first official Fashion Week a month ago. It took place at the downtown Standard hotel, complete with $25 valet parking, vitamin water and the stray Hilton sister. There were plenty of creative designs, and I wished the whole operation well. But the very concept of a Fashion Week in Los Angeles seems, frankly, doomed. After all, the entire fashion system is predicated on the change of seasons-from "fall" to "spring" and back again and again.

In New York, the ever-changing weather is a challenge and an opportunity, demanding a wardrobe with depth and breadth-trench coats, boots, sweaters. Here, the minimal climate shifts are managed by men and women alike with something called a "hoodie": a light, zippered, pocketed sweater with an attached hood. You take your hoodie everywhere; when the temperature drops, you burrow down into it, like a suckling infant in swaddling clothing. Occasionally a monsoon drenches the town (provoking two-inch headlines), but encased in the weatherproof capsule of your car, you need only occasionally pull your hoodie above your head in the 30-second dash from restaurant to carport. Looking like a criminal.

The car-centricness of L.A.-carcinogenic, ha ha-begets many other fashion "issues." You can forget about spring's much-touted miniskirts, unless you want to give every parking valet you encounter a glimpse of your crotch. You can forget about any coat longer than your hip. (There's something almost 19th-century about this, like dressing for horseback riding.) You can forget those big Herve Chapelier bags you lugged around in New York with all of your work in them. Because, No. 1, you can always go back to the car for your stuff. And, No. 2, no one here is ever seen working.

The stuff that passes for footwear here-bedroom slippers, more like it-is horrifying. A contrary bicoastal acquaintance insisted that the West Coast is precisely the place to bust out the kitten-heeled Christian Louboutins. "You can wear unwearable shoes here," she argued, "because you don't have to walk anywhere." But what if you don't have a chauffeur? A week ago, bravely venturing out in the favorite brown three-inch Costume National heels that I nabbed at my dearly lamented Barneys warehouse sale (there is nothing like that here, nothing at all), I made a frantic lunge for the brake, missed and almost plowed my little silver coupe into a Hummer. In a city where your car is undoubtedly your most important accessory, this was not a good move.

I'm resigned to owning entire flights of shoes that will never again see daylight. Luckily, there is plenty of space for them here. There's apparently a reason why New York's premiere custom-cabinetry company is called "California Closets." Since I wear the same thing every day-jeans and a hoodie-my spacious clothes room, with its sliding mirrored doors, has essentially become a museum, a miniature Costume Institute for one. And entire new wings are opening up! Los Angeles is one of the best places in the world to shop, especially if you are a fan of vintage clothes (me) and bargains (me again). A lot of old people come out here for the aforementioned consistent weather, many film-industry habitués with racks of glamorous, well-preserved silk smoking jackets, exquisitely beaded sweaters, glittering costume jewelry-and that's just the men. When they die, there are estate sales in luscious, goddessy hangouts like Bel Air. Since much of the L.A. community bears a nouveau riche skepticism toward anything pre-owned, these garments tend to sell for far less than they do in New York, where luxury auction-house divisions devote entire divisions to vintage clothes. Even at the expensive boutiques like Lily et Cie in Beverly Hills, since I have New York tastes (tweeds) and a New York body (hips), the selection is that much greater.

But alas, there is no place to wear any of this bounty-nor any particular reason to wash one's hair (see: Brad Pitt). "You used to look like a work of art," said my husband, referring to the neurotic hour I used to spend every morning in New York selecting and matching accessories. "Now you look like an artist." Meanwhile, he's a happy kid again: shoving the button-down shirts to the back of the closet, ditching his Docksiders, tiptoeing through tulip-colored sneakers.

I miss the sight of powerful men in suits. A few weeks ago, we attended a Seder in the Valley and were jarred to see a male television writer (excuse the redundancy) dressed in one. Everyone agreed that he looked like an agent.

Except during award-ceremony season, when hordes of stylists descend to instruct formality-deprived actresses how to dress up, Hollywood entirely lacks a sense of occasion, of pomp (at that Seder, people sang Haggadah blessings set to show tunes). People show up to dinner parties poised to lounge by a hypothetical pool. Movie premieres are plentiful, hence casual. "You can get away with any sort of jeans and a great top and it's no big deal," said Jeanne Yang, who works with the Cloutier Agency outfitting celebrities on both coasts. If you're a successful woman who is not an actress (that is, you're a producer), you put on an Armani pantsuit and leave it at that, sucking sex out of the equation. Meanwhile, the supposedly more fashion-forward spend a mint to look bedraggled and deconstructed. The stock at the Saks Fifth Avenue here, where Winona Ryder was so famously busted, looks like the Manhattan stuff run through a shredder. There are no "grande dame" department stores. At Fred Segal, the ivy-encrusted upscale shopping mecca on Crescent Heights Boulevard, female shoppers prowl the grounds looking for all the world like they're attending a luxury swap meet. " I couldn't imagine walking into Bergdorf or Bendel's wearing a Juicy Couture velour track suit and flip-flops," Ms. Yang said. "And in L.A., it's totally acceptable."

By all accounts, flip-flops are beginning to catch on in New York, but I implore you: Remain en garde against elastic waistbands! Brace yourself against the lazy slide into comfort clothing that has entirely enveloped your West Coast brethren! Dressing in New York is like dressing for the stage: "Comfy" should not be a consideration. L.A. is not a stage so much as a womb, with young starlets in slinky little things and scarves gestating under the courtyard heat lamps at the Chateau Marmont. "Everyone here pretends to be laid-back," said my bicoastal friend. "But it's a very calculated laid-back."

For those of you who have not encountered the dirtbag look and have no idea what I'm talking about, here's the deal: This style of dressing was first popularized by highly paid hair and makeup professionals in the late 1990's. The look is very John Walker (as in the Taliban recruit) at the time of his arrest, but with denim. Le dirtbag has now been adopted by a wide spectrum of male urban groovers and, most disastrously, by middle-aged people who should know better. The progeny of grunge, the dirtbag look results from a chronic fear-on the part of a particular segment of the fashion cognoscenti-of looking fashiony and prissy.

Dirtbaggers are resolutely post–Prada/Gucci/Dolce in their clothing sensibility; they are into "keeping it real." High-profile dirtbags and bagesses include Tommy Lee, Saturday Night Live 's Jimmy Fallon, Kid Rock and-shockingly-Shalom Harlow and Carolyn Murphy.

Though dirtbag affecters can be found all over Manhattan, they are primarily located south of Houston. However, the highest d.b. concentration in America is in the parking lot of L.A. clothing purveyor Fred Segal. Here you'll also find the haute couture version: These skanky, unwashed, Night of the Living Dead dudes-and occasional chicks-would rather die than risk getting lice by rummaging for garments in thrift shops. They think nothing of plunking down hundreds of dollars for a mangled Alabama hand-crafted T-shirt ($275 to $350-available in N.Y.C. at Barneys) and chewed-up Rosebowl Levi's ($198 at Selvedge, 250 Mulberry Street). They then drive back to their Laurel Canyon cribs in their gazillion-dollar automobiles. The scroungier the dirtbag, the more shekels in the bank.

But enough about dirtbags-it's time to talk about your new 2002 resort wardrobe. And do I have good news for you or what: Fire up that old samovar, because the Ukrainian look is back! Those nifty little folkloric blouses are not just the perfect beach cover-up, they are the very essence of spring 2002. Yes, it's that California hippie look again, but this time it's more Ali MacGraw than Squeaky Fromme. Authentic hand-embroidered Ukrainian "blooskas" can be purchased from Surma (11 East Seventh Street, 477-0729; prices range from $75 to $150).

Your MacGraw-ish resort wardrobe is incomplete without two silk/cambric caftans by Muriel Brandolini, a petite French/Vietnamese Jacqueline of all trades who, when not designing luxe, rich-hippie interiors, slogs her way to Jaipur and whips together caftans from insanely colorful fabrics of her own design. You need one short ($200) and one long ($315, from Scoop). Kiddie caftans ($98)-for that mother-and-daughter moment-are also available.

Re swimsuits, there are only two things to keep in mind:

1. It's pointless to spend a lot of money. Well-cut suits now abound at all price points. Buy two cheap ones, wear them to death and toss them in the trash.

2. If you want to get attention on the beach, wear a solid one-piece. All the other tarts on the plage will be falling out of their snazzily printed thongs and bikinis, and you will look like the only classy crumpet.

Target sells a simple navy and yellow one-piece by Cherokee with tummy control for $29.99. If you are long-waisted, go for the Cherokee Tankini sport top with matching shaper bottom (above), also with tummy control ($14.99 per piece; call 800-800-8800).

The money you saved on swimsuits can now be blown on a pair of Robert Clergerie calfskin sandals. The new Coulis platform ankle-strap number (below, $375) has just enough of that clunky 1940's look to be flattering. Choose from black, natural or red at Robert Clergerie (681 Madison Avenue).

And where the hell are you going? How about joining the Hemingway pilgrims and preppy sailing set on Bimini in the Bahamas? This tiny island, where Papa wrote To Have and Have Not , is a short plane-ride from Miami ($226.70 round-trip on Chalks Airlines). There's a spooky underwater formation known as the Bimini Road, which press releases claim is a vestige of Atlantis. Ponce de Leon's fountain of youth is also (press release again) said to be lurking somewhere on Bimini. Rent a cottage at either the Bimini Big Game Fishing Club or the Bimini Blue Water Resort, ($208 and up; call 305-931-6612), read magazines and waft around in your caftan.

If your bloke refuses to relinquish his dirtbaggery, then there's always Montana-and I don't mean Claude. Every March at the Big Sky Resort in Big Sky, tourists and locals come together to celebrate Dirtbag Day. Attendees parade around in hideous get-ups consisting mostly of filthy 1980's ski attire. In the evening, the festivities reach a freaky conclusion with the Dirtbag Ball, at which the Dirtbag King and Queen-that could be you!-are crowned by the local ski patrol. Admission is $10. For more info, call Dax Schieffer at 800-548-4487.

Bonne chance !