Ms. Wasson is busy this week: on Friday night alone, she has three appearances to make, at Opening Ceremony, Henri Bendel, and a Vogue event. "I need to like, metamorphosis into an octopus so that I can completely deal with all of it," she confided.

We also chatted with Ladyfag, who sported a Michael Angel dress and her signature augmented eyebrows, and fashion vet Lynn Yaeger, no stranger to distinctive makeup herself, who told us that when she started covering Fashion Week, she thought she had a duty to attend up to eight shows a day. (Four shows plus a party is a more reasonable upper limit, Ms. Yaeger recommended.)

As for the men of the hour, Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren, we seized a moment to ask about their famous muses-which have included, in addition to Ms. Goldfrapp, Róisín Murphy, Tilda Swinton, and Tori Amos. Is there anyone special they're hoping to work with?

"Yeah--but we are very superstitious!" Mr. Snoeren said, in a particularly Dutch sort of way.

The routine:

Here is what I do every single morning, in between teeth-brushing and waiting for the coffee to boil: I turn on my laptop and type "baby locket" into eBay. This is followed by "baby brooch" and then either "sweater 1930-46 (Depression, WWII)" or "antique enamel charm bracelet" or "Becassine doll." I do this because I am an avid, some would argue rabid collector.

This is borne out by the accompanying slideshow: the photos of her apartment depict a monkey collection, a number of reindeer sweaters, Louis Vuitton luggage,  and (action shot!) Yaeger herself shopping on eBay.

There were Mr. McMullan's friends from the old days, like gossip columnist Liz Smith, social fixture Anne Slater, and Iman the supermodel. There were newer friends like socialites Byrdie Bell, Olivia Palermo, and Ally Hilfiger. And there were the sorts of guests we rarely see out at New York parties that commence later than the cocktail hour, like interviewer Charlie Rose, Gayle King, and Rick and Kathy Hilton.

Around the room, Mr. McMullan's photos from decades past were blown-up and displayed prominently. A photo of the photographer with Hillary Clinton hung over the bar; another shot of a teenage Leonardo DiCaprio, wearing '90s-appropriate flannel and being carried by a few of his buddies, was on the opposite wall.

The guests wanted to make a few things clear about "Patrick." One, he is good at taking photos. Two, he is very nice. And three, his good photos are very nice to his subjects. 

"Patrick is the head of the diplomatic corps," Glenn O'Brian, editorial director of Interview, told the Daily Transom. "You have to have good manners to do what he does and remember people's names. Patrick is great with people so he charms everybody and makes them feel at ease. That's why he gets the good shot. When I met him he was following Stephen Saban around for Details. Stephen would write his nightlife column and Patrick would follow him around and take pictures. But he's always had that Irish confidence."

Socialite Lydia Hearst, dressed in a floor-sweeping Herve Leger gown that kept getting caught under the feet of nearby guests as the place filled to capacity, took her praises of Mr. McMullan a step further. 

"Patrick is New York. When I think about Manhattan, I think about Patrick," she said. "I've known him since I was born; he's always been a very close friend of the family."

The Daily Transom inquired whether socialites like herself favor Mr. McMullan over other party photogs when getting their picture snapped because his shots are almost always flattering. 

"Yes!" Ms. Hearst replied and flashed an angelic smile. The socialite told the Daily Transom that she couldn't wait for fashion week to begin; her good friend, actress Michelle Trachtenberg, will be arriving in town in a few days and they will be hitting some shows together. 

Writer-socialite Anthony Haden-Guest was pushing his way through the crowd to get to the bar. And how long has he been acquainted with Mr. McMullan? 

"Probably since the Byzentine epoch," Mr. Guest replied, in his charmingly apathetic British accent.

"You know, I've been thinking a lot about what makes an artist survive. It's partly about keeping going, and he just keeps going," Mr. Guest said of the photographer. "I had an interesting conversation with Chuck Close once. When Chuck Close takes a photograph for a portrait, he wants complete complicity with his subject rather than ambush his subject. Patrick is definitely of the Chuck Close fashion. He likes familiarity."

Former Village Voice fashion columnist (and soon-to-be New York magazine fashion blogger) Lynn Yaeger pointed out one other reason to admire Mr. McMullan.

"I've actually known him for about 15 years, since I first started writing about fashion. He was very friendly and if you started in the fashion world back then you remembered who was friendly," said Ms. Yaeger. "And he's interested in shooting everyone, not just famous people. And, I don't know, he's just ubiquitous."

Outside, earlier in the evening, the crowd of smokers had grown quiet as they peered over each others' shoulders to gawk at financier Bruce Wasserstein strolling out of the restaurant with his new wife, 35-year-old Angela Chao. Mr. Wasserstein was well aware of the whispers and stares. He clutched Ms. Chao's hand, warily looking around as the two walked some 10 feet to a chauffeured SUV and drove away at the reasonable hour of 9:30 p.m.

"I looked like a giant elf, a giant old elf," said Ms. Yaeger, who is known for her quirky yet high-end style, china-doll makeup, and flame-orange bob. (She declined to reveal her age.) "This was not the outfit you would pick if you thought you were getting fired. For me, a shredded Comme des Garçons look or a more sober gothic nun sort of thing would have been more appropriate. With advanced warning, I could have done an outfit!"

But like the other two Voice employees let go that day—including longtime columnist Nat Hentoff—Ms. Yaeger hadn't anticipated the news.

"It was funny because even as I was the voice of gloom and kept saying, ‘Oh, we're all going to get fired,' I was totally shocked that it was me," said Ms. Yaeger, laughing at herself.

Ms. Yaeger had been at The Voice for 30 years, starting in the classifieds department while finishing a graduate degree in political economy at the New School. She made friends quickly. And when the paper learned of her interest in fashion writing, they encouraged her to pursue it.

Ms. Yaeger's column, originally titled Elements of Style and later renamed Frock Star, had a witty, confident voice that accessibly dissected everything from couture fashion to Oprah. And its author, while being openly fond of innovative designs by threeASFOUR, Isabel Toledo, and Comme des Garçons, did not hype, as her peers at other magazines and newspapers often did, a certain designer or trend every season to please advertisers. Instead, she became known for her unapologetic frankness and for encouraging an individuality that many speak of but few practice in an industry that can seem overly self-important.

"I tried very hard to represent fashion in a more expansive way," she said. "That whole myth about fashion as an exclusive province for just a few skinny people with money—it was fun for me to sort of punch holes in that."

With this sort of attitude, Ms. Yaeger's column gained fans inside and outside the fashion industry, many of whom filled her inbox with sympathetic emails within the few days following her firing. Ms. Yaeger was especially fond of a note sent by Barneys' (and The Observer's) Simon Doonan, who wrote, "You are the only decent/bearable/lucid fashion writer on the planet. The VV was insane to let you slip away... Whatever!!!... Screw them! You're fabulous! Love, SD."

The day she was let go, Ms. Yaeger went out to lunch, as she's done every day for a decade, with her colleague and close friend Michael Musto. At Telephone Bar on Second Avenue, Ms. Yaeger, not having much of an appetite, ordered carrot soup.

"I was pretty stunned and upset, but we didn't let it disrupt our lunch plans," said Ms. Yaeger. "It wasn't one of our usual haunts, but every place seemed crowded and nothing seemed quite right."

Once the reality of being one of the newly unemployed began to set in few days later, the first thing Ms. Yaeger did was return $3,500 in recent purchases, including a $1,000 Lanvin bag from Barneys, on sale from $2,500, and some jewelry.

"You get laid off and you come home and you're like, a $1,000 Lanvin bag? Like, why?" said Ms. Yaeger. "I might re-buy it, though, if my luck shifts.

"It's sort of an exciting world out there despite the hideous economic situation," she continued, speaking as if she were a recent divorcée. "I don't think I'm somebody that can go into an office in the morning and stay there all day. But certainly, I wouldn't mind having a column."

In fact, the former fashion columnist's luck may already be changing. Ms. Yaeger, who is an occasional contributor to Vogue and T magazine, has been taking lunch meetings with book editors and considering various writing offers. And she'll blog for New York magazine during Fashion Week in February.

"I always say that I would rather spend a week at Rikers Island or the hospital than do Fashion Week. Don't you think it's like school? It's sort of divided up into periods and it has mean girls and you go from one class to another. It's the worst," said Ms. Yaeger. "I hate it, but the prospect of not being at Fashion Week didn't make me happy, either. Do you think my seat will get better or worse? Maybe my currency in Fashion Week will go up, who knows."

Cathy Horyn gets to the bottom of what's wrong with Vogue. (Summary: The magazine has gotten sort of boring.) [NYT]

The clothing company established for Kira Plastinina, the 16-year-old daughter of Russian billionaire Sergei Plastinin, has officially filed for bankruptcy. [Bloomberg]

Natalie Massenet, the founder of high-end shopping site Net-a-Porter, is set to launch an outlet in Feburary. [The Cut via Telegraph]

With that in mind, we gave chase, following the blue-suited Mr. Cunningham through racks of clothes as part of the shifting, seemingly impenetrable ring of friends and admirers that surrounded him as he made the rounds. After a few false starts (“Just a moment, I must talk to this woman from the museum” followed by many obliging smiles), we finally cornered Mr. Cunningham and asked him to tell us about some of his favorite photographs.

“Oh, I don’t think of it that way,” he said. “I just look for beautifully dressed women.” We wondered what it was like for the normally reticent photographer to be the center of attention, gesturing to the collages of his work that lined the walls of the store: “Well, I’ve never thought of anything like that. It’s something that doesn’t interest me. I think it’s better to be invisible, you know.”

Why be invisible?

“Oh, the camera, of course! I don’t become the subject.”

Did he have any special plans for the shots he had been joyously lobbing back at his legion, camera-wielding devotees over the course of the evening?

“Oh, you never know. I never know. I just take what I like and later I think about it.”

We also spoke with the Village Voice fashion columnist Lynn Yaeger (a Cunningham photo of whom is prominently displayed in the Bergdorf window). Her thoughts on the current incarnation of Fashion Week?

“Well, it’s a crazy year! The market is crazy. You’re designing clothes for a season—this spring—when you don’t know how much money people will have or who will be president," she said. "I think those things, you know, inform what you see. Because it’s hard to know what the mood is right now. It’s skittish now, so it’s skittish on the runways.”