Kara Laricks with Broadway star Montego Glover at her presentation last week.

As New York shovels up the Fashion Week embers around town after the onslaught, The Observer still has a few loose ends. One thing we wanted to know in all the ruckus was how the new comers had fared.

Kara Laricks, the winner of NBC reality show Fashion Star, is certainly a new face in the crowded sea of designers. Under the tutelage design mentors Jessica Simpson, John Varvatos and Nicole Richie, Ms. Laricks convinced the buyers' judging panel from H&M, Macy's and Saks Fifth Avenue that her creations were worthy of the $6m capsule collection award. The show was a hit: Nielsen TV Ratings Data reported 4.81 million viewers for the finale, and NBC has already renewed Fashion Star for a second season and begun casting. We caught up with Ms. Laricks after her first presentation at Runway@Pier 57 last week to get all the buzz about her début. Were her masculine-feminine-meets-1920s-Japanese matchbox looks a triumph or did she she fall flat?

What did it feel like to finally present your first bona fide fashion week presentation?

I felt vulnerable!  In the past, if my collection was not well received, I was under the protective wing of The Academy of Art University, NBC, Saks Fifth Avenue, Macy's, H&M ... this time, the pressure was all on me.  However, there was never any question as to whether or not I would continue designing post Fashion Star and I knew "sticking my neck out there" would be worth the risk no matter what the response. Now that my first collection has been shown at New York fashion week and the reviews are rolling in, I feel exhilarated, proud and accomplished. Can't wait for the next!

Any dramas or disasters leading up to the big day?

Of course - wouldn't be fashion without a little bit of drama ... one of my models was stuck at a Calvin Klein fitting until minutes before my presentation - thank goodness for my talented (and speedy) hair and makeup team.

What did you do to keep calm?

I am always amazed when people remark that I appear calm, as I am usually a ball of nerves on the inside. However, I instantly calm down when I pause and take a look around at all of the incredible people who support me.

So now that Fashion Star is over, what has been your biggest struggles?

Putting together my first collection hasn't been a steep learning curve, but a right angle. For the first time, I have had to figure out how to produce an entire line, secure PR, a venue, models and the list goes on. The biggest challenge is keeping my fans and consumers informed of the process. Fans of Fashion Star were used to seeing a garment one evening and buying it the following day.  In the "real" world, it takes six months to develop a collection, show the collection to buyers and take orders—then add on another six months for production and delivery to stores.  It's tough not to get the people what they want when they want it!

Are you still tight with the cast?

Absolutely! Nzimiro, Nikki, Sarah and Edmond were at my presentation, cheering me on. I also received well wishes from the rest of the cast that wasn't able to be there. I had no idea a reality competition would turn into real friends, real support and real dreams come true.

What’s one thing you absolutely hate about fashion week?

The fact that when I am presenting my own collection, I do not have time too see other designers' work—I am still catching up— so grateful for Style.com!

Waris Ahluwalia, the jewelry designer and actor, was wearing a denim jacket with a large appliqué across the back that read "UNLOVABLE." We said we were sure that couldn't be true. "There must be some truth to it," Mr. Ahluwalia said. "I mean, I know you're not supposed to believe everything you read, but..."

Mr. Ahluwalia was also wearing black nail polish -- the second instance of it we'd seen on a man that night. "This is my commitment to Fashion's Night Out; I take it very seriously," he said. He'd been to Barneys on his rounds, and had indulged in a manicure.

But that was four days ago! "Yeah, I know, but I can't take it off!" Mr. Ahluwalia said. "I'm under the impression that I've gone this far to have them done -- now I've just got to let nature do its part."

The evening's main event was an intimate performance by the pop singer Robyn, who was wearing a cropped t-shirt over a bandage skirt. We weren't ashamed to push to the front of the crowd -- and we were in good company there; Prabal Gurung and Derek Blasberg were dancing close by (though not, as the Robyn song goes, on their own).

Richard Glosser, executive director of emerging media for Condé Nast Digital, told the Observer that the Boxee team came to a Condé Nast Digital manager's meeting, attended by executives in editorial, sales and marketing, in the early spring. They gave a demo of the platform, which integrates video and other online content from sites including Hulu, the New York Times, NPR and other media companies. But Condé Nast is the first major magazine publisher to officially partner with the software start-up and get online editorial content beyond the computer screen. "Everyone was really like 'Oh, this is really an advancement in how this path will take place--how to move this content into a living room TV environment," Mr. Glosser said about the meeting.

(Perhaps this is what Observer sources were talking about when they said Anna Wintour was beginning to "get the Internet.")

"They are shining a light on a path that is a very important path," he said. "It's an area where I want to be in the room. I want to learn, I want to be able to participate."

He added that the Boxee partnership will "drive revenue" by adding more video views, attract advertisers and help Condé Nast find a new online audience with Boxee’s 600,000 users.

Mr. Glosser is one of them. He tried it out in his office and his home. "There's so much great content on the Internet and the way that I view it, and I believe many others view it, is I don't necessarily want to sit for a half hour or an hour" in front of a computer screen, he said. With software like Boxee, which he can connect to his TV, he "can just sort of snack on a shorter form content."

This is Condé Nast's second deal to bring online content into the living room. In 2007, Condé Nast Digital (then called CondéNet), partnered with Sony to will bring Internet video to their BRAVIA high-definition televisions via their Internet video link service.

Mr. Glosser said he continues to have meetings with other cable companies and TV set box makers to integrate more of the magazines' online content.

Wired.com and Style.com video and slideshows will be tested, then executives will consider adding content from their 23 other sites, which include Epicurious.com, Glamour.com and VanityFair.com, according to Mr. Glosser. "I keep getting calls from editorial departments saying, 'How do I get my stuff on there?' So I think the interest is there," he said.

Prepare to watch Vanity Fair stylists zhoosh Levi Johnston for a photo shoot--from your couch.

Late last week, the city’s beleaguered retail stores were awash in this mottled-honey hue. Designer Shoe Warehouse was selling tortoise ankle boots by Sergio Zelcer for $179.95. The popular boutique Poppy on Mott Street offered Nicole Romano tortoiseshell earrings for $182. Tory Burch had sold out of tortoiseshell clutches at $425. Fashion Web site Style.com was pushing a Sonya Rykiel leather belt with tortoiseshell bow ($217) as a holiday gift. And let’s not forget the $3,000 tortoise sequin jacket J. Crew presciently introduced this spring.

Tortoiseshell eyeglass frames are classic, of course. Angelina Jolie and Sienna Miller were both spotted in the style recently (Ferragamo and Dolce & Gabbana, respectively); and Kanye West broke out tortoiseshell glasses during Fashion Week in September, rapping with Jay-Z at the Marc Jacobs after-party in a tweed suit. “Tortoise has always been a best-selling color for us,” said Robert Marc, who owns eight eponymous eyewear boutiques in Manhattan and currently sells tortoiseshell frames in 63 styles. “This year, we’ve seen even bigger sales in this color because of the popularization of preppy, geek chic, retro frames.”

But the sudden au courant of tortoiseshell goes beyond geek chic.

We are wearing it because it goes with everything. We are wearing it because it’s subtle, and glaring luxury labels are gauche in a recession. We are wearing tortoise because for most of us, hare and its ilk are too expensive and/or humanely unjustifiable. And maybe we wear it because we, like the tortoise of fable, seem not to be in a winning position right now (though remember that the tortoise is all about perseverance—it lives upward of 250 years, after all).

Sellers of the shade point out that it flatters anyone’s skin tone. “It’s an easy color to incorporate into any outfit,” Mr. Marc said. And: “It always refers to something luxurious,” said Sebastian Marzaro, U.S. president of Italian shoemaker Casadei, which sells tortoiseshell pumps and sandals in several Manhattan shoe boutiques. “Even if it’s not the real thing.”

It hasn’t been the real thing since 1973, when the practice of using actual tortoiseshell was banned under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). Mr. Marzaro, whose company has manufactured tortoise styles for about 50 years, said he noticed a steep increase in the prevalence of tortoise products in general after the CITES signing, as synthetics became more widely produced, and another boom in the mid-’80s, roughly coinciding with the release of Out of Africa. “It goes in cycles,” he said. “It goes parallel to all different prints—exotic prints like leopard, cheetah, zebra.”

Indeed, there is currently an uncanny consensus on Fifth Avenue that predatory mammals and reptiles make excellent shoes and handbags. The gentle, seafaring tortoise has the vague exoticism of furs and alligator skins but is much, much cheaper. (Many retailers specify “faux” tortoise, but most don’t bother.)

At Gucci near 57th Street one recent afternoon, the brand-new “Cruise” collection featured an understated $970 brown shirt with a decorative tortoise ring affixed to the chest, and a $645 black pump with tortoise stiletto; in two weeks, the store will begin carrying the Hysteria Medium Hobo for $1,360 (a patent leather bag with tortoise print). A scruffy sales clerk in a black suit said the collection was “beach-inspired.”

Down the street at Versace, saleswoman Carla Verschuren said a tortoise print had been revived for the fall 2008 collection from the archive of the late Gianni Versace, where it had been in hibernation since 1992. The black and yellow “Turtle” print was adorning two dresses: one jersey ($2,090) and one sateen ($2,495), both with a plunging V-neck.

Nearby at Just Cavalli, a $645 canvas blazer had a green-tinged, unmistakably tortoise-ish vibe, but a salesgirl begged to differ. “We call it cheetah,” she said. “It’s our take on cheetah.”

At Michael Kors on Prince Street, meanwhile, where tortoiseshell sunglasses are standard-issue fare (in particular a high-contrast model called the Madison, said a salesgirl named Carly), we also found a tortoise acrylic bracelet watch for $195 (without crystals) or $225 (with crystals). And the brand Lee Angel has debuted tortoise bracelets with crystals for fall ($260) in New York boutiques like Intermix and Montmartre.

“It reminds me very much of France in the ’50s, where people used to use it for hair accessories all the time, before we stopped killing tortoises, thank God,” said Roxanne Assoulin, the bangles’ designer. “People want value now. Tortoise is going to be an important trend because it’s classic, it’s something you see in Hermès, it’s very upscale-looking. And it goes with everything.”

mbryan@observer.com

Take, for example, Recessionista, sparkly Style.com's "new regular feature in which [the editors] inform you how to be cheaply chic and chicly cheap." Sounds good! Of course, it's hard to appreciate the sentiment when the effort seems so lackluster. 

Maybe it's too soon to judge, given that they've only done one post so far (and it was unbylined), but do the editors really think their readers are interested in foldable plastic vases? Particularly when the item is sandwiched between an account of a Roksanda fashion show at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum and a "postcard" from the star-clogged opening of Dubai's $1.5 billion Atlantis Hotel? 

"The Hope Forever Blossoming vases add a Pop art touch to any surface," the writer insists. "And at $12 each you can afford to mix and match." 

Sure, you can afford it, but do you even want to? Sites like Style.com are supposed to be aspirational. We doubt the majority of their readers were running out to buy $850 satin Ferragamo sandals before the recession hit, anyway, so why spoil the fun of oogling their impossible suggestions with the reminder that that all of one's Christmas dresses will come from H&M this year (assuming there are any Christmas parties to attend)?

“I’m so happy that people came out,” said Ms. Pratts Price in her trademark throaty voice as dermatologist and socialite Lisa Airan waited expectantly to greet her. “It’s not all doom and gloom. We got what we wanted—a new regime!”

She was speaking of the president-elect, for whom she’d shilled in several of her popular animated stream-of-consciousness video-blogs, or CandyCasts.

Designer Zac Posen arrived in a black suit and lined up for a scream and hug before stepping aside to chat with Vogue editor Anna Wintour and her son Charlie Shaffer.

“It’s serious, my love for Candy,” said Mr. Posen. “There’s exuberance, and joy … it’s fierce. The moment I met her she was in my life, and a joy and a good friend and supporter.”

“She’s an icon,” said Calvin Klein designer Francisco Costa, fighting to the back of the restaurant for a copy of Accessories, which was commissioned by the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA). “She has this love of fashion and that’s so apropos, it’s so right for right now, to have Candy be celebrated. Because we really need excitement that’s genuine and loving for fashion! Especially now with the whole economy and everybody being so shaky.

“And her blog is amazing!” he said. “I love it.”

CFDA president Diane von Furstenberg was perched on a nearby table with legs folded under her in vaguely pinup fashion, running her hands through her hair. “Well, first of all I have known Candy for 30 years,” she said. “And she’s always on the cutting edge. And she’s very … how can I say? She’s very much hip and this, and then you have the other Candy, who’s a great cook, who has a wonderful husband. She’s a real mensch.”

Ms. Pratts Price, 58, was born Candida Rosa Theresa Pratts to Puerto Rican parents in Washington Heights; she attended Catholic school and then the Fashion Institute of Technology. A well-known accessories editor at Vogue early in Ms. Wintour’s tenure at the magazine and a onetime creative director at Ralph Lauren, she was rehired by Ms. Wintour in 2001 to head Style.com’s fashion coverage. “She embraces talent, she disciplines talent,” Ms. Pratts Price enthused, speaking by phone the morning after her book party from her 58^th Street apartment, which she shares with her husband of 28 years, artist Chuck Price, and their white-haired fox terrier (the couple also have a home in Watermill). “You can run in there with an idea and she allows it to grow or she can just tell you how to corral it.”

The site is one of CondéNet’s few success stories, with 2,152,092 unique visitors and 140,978,531 page views in October. Over the summer, Ms. Pratts Price was awarded the CFDA’s Eugenia Sheppard Award for excellence in journalism; the presentation featured a video of Kate Moss doing a throaty Candy impression, enthusing about Hermès.

Of course, these are hardly boom times in media. “I think there’s a major panic over what’s going on,” said Ms. Pratts Price. “And it’s not going to be easy to fix. But you can’t stop doing what you’re doing, because when it comes back, you’ll be gone. You gotta keep your brand awareness, and try to make it work during this doom and gloom.”

Ms. Pratts Price has some ideas of how her site can stay relevant in the changing advertising and consumer climate. “I’m a big fan of a crawl—you know what a crawl is?” she said. “On television? I’ve been trying to put a crawl in at Style, to break things like ‘10 miniskirts down Fifth Avenue; could this be a trend?’ I would love to have a crawl. ‘Breaking news: Hats are back!’

“Of course, that’s technology, that costs money to build,” she conceded. “So I have to ask Mr. Newhouse to expand the budget, and I don’t think it’s a good time to do that.”

She pointed out that Style.com has weathered hard times before in its short life: “After 9/11”—which happened in the middle of Fashion Week—“we were there for the industry, because we were able to deliver the pictures. We also saved a lot of the designers when they couldn’t show.”

And now? “We’re not making a concerted effort to like say get a rose-colored Rolex for $64,000,” she said. “But we still believe that somewhere, somehow, you have to keep the enchantment of desire and want and luxury, you know? You just can’t say ‘Stop shopping.’”

mbryan@observer.com

Things were even better in Paris, after Ms. Roitfeld had had a chance to view some of Mr. Schuman’s work. “She literally stopped her car on Rue St. Honoré,” he said with satisfaction, “and said, ‘Oh, come here! I really like your photographs! Take more of me.’” An upcoming issue of French Vogue is slated to feature that photograph, along with ones of others by Mr. Schuman, including mega-stylists Emmanuelle Alt and Anastasia Barbieri.

C’est incroyable! Since it began in September 2005, The Sartorialist (thesartorialist.blogspot.com) has become a heavily frequented pit stop along the information superhighway for style watchers in and out of the fashion business. “It is sort of a mini–Who’s Who of the fashion industry,” said Nick Sullivan, the fashion director of Esquire magazine, the first traditional print outlet to publish shots by Mr. Schuman (in its August 2006 issue). “Real people. Ordinary guys on the street, like bankers trying to get it right.”

Thanks to photos such as these—mostly of men expressing a plurality of dress sense—Mr. Schuman came to the style establishment’s attention. “We were just fans of his blog,” said Dirk Standen, editor in chief of Style.com, the online home of Vogue and W. “We were sitting around one day planning our coverage of the Milan and Paris shows: ‘Instead of scratching around for a photographer,’ we thought, ‘why not send Scott?’ That was the eureka moment.”

And, suddenly, the Sartorialist was transformed from dilettante to demographer. Now under contract to Style.com, he jets from collection to collection—on Saturday, Feb. 17, it was back to Milan—documenting the comings and goings of the fashion flock. Like his biggest influence, gray eminence Bill Cunningham of The New York Times (Mr. Cunningham was traveling and unavailable for comment on his young upstart counterpart), Mr. Schuman rarely captions his subjects’ identities: It’s primarily about how clothes are worn, not by whom. But for those fascinated by the demimonde of editors, stylists, etc., there is much to gawk at—Wait, isn’t that guy in the beige trench coat and stovepipe jeans Jefferson Hack?

At 39, Mr. Schuman stands just over 5-foot-6, with a compact frame and steel blue eyes. Originally from Indiana, he worked in women’s fashion sales and marketing in New York for 15 years before starting his own showroom to promote emerging designers like Peter Som. The fallout of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks killed that venture, and Mr. Schuman, whose wife of 18 years, Christa, is a design director at the retail conglomerate the Limited, decided to stay home and raise their two little girls, Isabel, now 8, and Claudia, 4. Without formal training in photography—he still knows very little about the technical end of things, he said—he began snapping shots of his tots on the go, modeling outfits that he himself had put together, before turning to the public at large. Mr. Cunningham was not his inspiration, he said. “My major influence is Bruce Weber.”

“He’s the elegant voyeur of just people on the street,” said Michael Hainey, deputy editor of GQ, which has signed Mr. Schuman as a contributing editor with a monthly photo-essay page entitled, naturally, “The Sartorialist.” The Condé Nast takeover is complete this week with the debut of Mr. Schuman’s new page, “The Sartorialist Jr.,” in Cookie, Condé Nast’s “kid culture” magazine.

“It’s not just the people he chooses; it’s also the backgrounds he uses,” Mr. Hainey said. “He can take a gray, cold, grimy Milanese street, and all of a sudden it looks warm and lush and intriguing.”

In one of Mr. Schuman’s recent shots—of an Audrey Hepburn look-alike descending a flight of stairs—Mr. Cunningham, camera in hand, is caught in the background, casting a kind of curious glance. “Bill, everyone tells me, doesn’t have a computer,” said Mr. Schuman, himself clad in floodwater pants and brown suede desert boots under a navy DKNY parka. “He recognizes me now. I don’t know if he really knows what I do or where my photos are going—but he sees me.”

How do we know summer is over? Simple : The scar tissue on our feet from all those lesion-inducing strappy sandals. Today, cobbler Manolo Blahnik -whose shoes would cost us a month's rent on our shoebox of anapartment-puts his brood on display at Phillips, de Pury and Luxembourg. "They're gag-worthy! I was drooling yesterday and beside myself!" said a publicist for Style.com, "Heather," who-like Bono, Pink and God-possesses no last name. Also on display are sketches from Mr. B.'s private archive and stills from films like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof that have inspired his designs. The exhibition is presented by Style.com, the online home to W and Vogue , so expect a horde of Condé Nast fashion editors ( clomp, clomp, clomp … ). Meanwhile, in protest of the soft-core gastro-porn of Nigella Lawson (the Monica Bellucci of cooking), Dewar's and frisky chef Mario Batali (Babbo, Lupa, Po) have whipped up a cooking class, "Dewar's Man with a Pan," for the bachelor set. Who'll be burning water tonight: Bill Hemmer (CNN anchor), Isaac Mizrahi (designer), Jay McInerney (wine writer), Jeff Tahler (Miramax V.P.). Meanwhile, in another sign that summer's over , all three people who gagged their way to the end of "journalist" Ed Klein's puerile book on John and Caroyln Bessette Kennedy sell their copies to the Strand …. And in a sign that fall is here, Ellen DeGeneres , who made a career not out of the fact that she's funny -she ain't -but out of the fact that she's-yep!- gay and had a romance with a space alien, has yet another TV show. This time it's a talk show and the suckers are NBC. How long before she books Hillary?

[ Manolo Blahnik … The Shoe: A Celebration of Design , Phillips, de Pury and Luxembourg, 450 West 15th Street, third floor, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., 212-940-1200; Dewar's Man with a Pan, 578 Broadway, 7 p.m., www.dewars.com; The Ellen Degeneres Show , 10 a.m., NBC.]

Thursday 11th

New Yorkers pause to remember the day no one needs to be told to remember. Various appropriate events-retired firefighter Mike Lennon screens the documentary Brothers … On Holy Ground ; the New York Public Library displays 9/11 photographs; the New York Aquarium and Maimonides Medical Center conduct a blood drive-are on offer, though most folks will likely opt for huddling under the covers.

[Donnell Library Center, auditorium, 20 West 53rd Street, 6 p.m., 212-621-0618; New York Aquarium, Education Hall, West Eighth Street and Surf Avenue, Coney Island, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., 718-265-FISH.]

Friday 12th

You might think that the fashionistas would have waited more than 24 hours after the second anniversary of Sept. 11 to kick off their weeklong carnival of self-congratulation, but let's be real, these are not civilized people …. And so Fashion Week is unleashed upon an innocent public. After the tents empty out, everyone heads to the launch of Salvatore Ferragamo's new store, where your hosts include wise-crackin' (and, really, not that funny) Whoopi Goldberg , golden-haired Bridget Hall , ambisexual Alan Cumming , actress Jennifer Esposito (riding the "sexy Latina" wave; see Eva Mendes, Idina Menzel , Cartman on South Park … ), underrated actor Kyle MacLachlan (rent Blue Velvet and let 'er rip!) and the incandescent Liv Tyler. Worthy cause : Child Priority and Free Arts , which benefit disadvantaged and abused children. Or watch former VH1 V.J. Bobby Rivers, below, make his stage debut in I Look Thinner on TV! We found Mr. Rivers (who's watched Wheel of Fortune with Lucille Ball ) in his Chelsea studio with the TV blaring. "I watch Oprah and take the show seriously. Remember the episode about stepping outside the box? Oh, giiiiirrrrl , can we talk?! That's what got me into it! Oh, Oprah's on - I think it's the one where the guy who used to weigh 500 pounds is surprised with the car. It makes me cry! Remember? He always wanted to fit into a Porsche and so he gets surprised with a Porsche?" Tonight, Mr. Rivers talks about being African-American and gay in New York show business. "If you're a gay male in New York and over 42, you might as well be wearing a button that says 'Ask me about the Aztecs.' There's just not a lot of datin' going on there! Very few guys my age want to date guys my age-they want Justin Timberlake! One time I placed personal ads on five different Web sites and, after four months, I got one response from someone who said, 'I'm 72-year-old leather daddy living in Brooklyn,' and I thought, ' Perfect !' I'd put that my 'preferred age range' was 35-50, and ended up with some old coot who probably dresses like a piece of carry-on luggage."

[Salvatore Ferragamo, 655 Fifth Avenue,

8 p.m., 212-756-6515, by invitation only;

I Look Thinner on TV! , the Ground Floor Theater, 312 West 11th Street, 8 p.m.,

212-978-3758.]

Saturday 13th

You knew it was coming …. Yes, it's time for the inevitable crafts festival, that dreaded preamble to every fall season. Ceramic, pewter, black smythes and crocheted tea cozies abound outside Lincoln Center. Inside, City Opera opens Lucia di Lammermoor with un problema piccolo : The title character is singing for two! Director James Robinson -sounding like one of those baby-hungry husbands insisting a child "won't change a thing!"-has said that the leading lady being six months pregnant won't make any difference. Speaking of divas and high emotion, model Naomi Campbell has established her own P.R. company, called NC.CONNECT, which tonight will be handling the after-party of Brazilian bikini designer Rosa Cha's fashion show. The bash is at "PM," a soon-to-open lounge in the meatpacking district which is designed to suggest "a forsaken gentlemen's club in the tropics," according to the club's press materials, which has a vaguely colonialist/racist ring to it, don't ya think, as "gentlemen's clubs" in the tropics didn't tend to be frequented by the indigenous population ….

[ Lucia di Lammermoor , New York State Theater, Lincoln Center, 63rd Street and Columbus Avenue, 1:30 p.m., 212-870-5570; Autumn Crafts Festival, Lincoln Center Plaza, 64th Street and Columbus Avenue, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., 973-746-0091; PM, 50 Gansevoort Street.]

Sunday 14th

Street-fair orange alert! Nolita hipsters are aghast as the Feast of San Gennaro takes over Mulberry Street, and the neighborhood is suddenly filled with the smell of sizzlin' sausages and people in Sansabelt slacks …. Expect high-school marchingbands , fresh-off-the-PATH-trainguysin tightblack shirts without sleeves , stray Sopranos cast members ("Honey, I think that guy is Big Pussy! I'm sure of it … ") and 9/11 tchotchkes with an Italian flag haphazardly glued on. Meanwhile, pro–Iraqi war Times columnist Thomas Friedman has been turning Dubya over his knee and giving him a spanking as of late (whack, whack, whack !) Tonight, the mustachioed columnist (looks like Dr. Phil with hair) holds court at the 92nd Street Y .

[Feast of San Gennaro festival, Mulberry Street between Canal and East Houston, www.sangennaro.org; Thomas Friedman, 92nd Street Y, 1395 Lexington Ave., 7:30 p.m., 212- 415-5500]

Monday 15th

Is New York getting honest-er? An employee from Equinox gym (where one of our ex-paramours used to go to "get huge") recently found our lost wallet, returned it personally with our money still intact and refused a reward. Who says this town is going to Hell in an Hermès handbasket? Meanwhile, Sotheby's unlocks its doors for art director Henry Wolf's 50 Years of Design exhibit. "He's legendary in the art-director magazine circle!" said publicist Carla Greengrass. "He shot Brooke Shields when she was practically a baby! I think there was a story about some company not wanting to use the photo because she looked so womanly as an 8-year-old." Any favorites? "The Harper'sBazaar coversare amazing! I love this one where a woman in this greatswing coat is climbing up a ladder and putting up the first'A'in 'Bazaar' …. Just fabulous!" The photography and paintings will be on display all week, but tonight is your only chance to clink glasses with Mr. Wolf's pals, including Robert Benton (co-wrote Bonnie and Clyde , directed Kramer vs. Kramer) , Harper's Bazaar editrix Glenda (the Good Witch) Bailey , and Esquire editor David Granger, who's got to be a wee bit worried now that GQ and Details are getting lots of ink.

[Sotheby's, 72nd Street and York Ave., 7 to 9 p.m., 212-957-4107, by invitation only.]

Tuesday 16th

Best news we've had in a long time is that it's International Gay Square Dance Month! If you promenade downtown to P.S. 3, there's a gay square dance near you. "Tonight is our open house, so beginners are welcome," said George Voorhis, a member of Times Squares Square Dance Club since 1991. "We have theme dances, too. There's a Halloween dance and a Valentine's Day dance. We have a prom! There are clubs all over the world: Australia! Denmark! Canada! It's huu-ge in Japan!" Of course it is. So how do you determine who leads? "We try to perform what is called 'all-position dancing,' where we try to get away from the boy-girl thing. A lot of our dancers are bi-dance-ual and can switch off …. Did you know that there was a bill before Congress to make square dancing the national dance of the U.S.? I don't know what happened with that." Probably got lost in all the silly war stuff …. Meanwhile, the French clothing line Façonnable takes a cue from the aforementioned Isaac Mizrahi (see Wednesday) and opens a flagship boutique ( sacre bleu! ) at Rockefeller Center. There's a party tonight, with proceeds going to the Lenox Hill Neighborhood House. Who you'll run into: top restaurateur Daniel Boulud , fashion heirs James and Gina de Givenchy , hotelier/playboy Vikram Chatwal , socialite Cristina Greeven Cuomo, and Brit-couple-about-town Euan Rellie and Lucy Sykes. Try to talk them into going to the gay square dance …. Meanwhile, we think naming your rock band Evanescence is kind of like titling your movie Straight to DVD , but tonight the goth rockers materialize at Webster Hall. We recall their being at MTV's Video Music Awards last month but were too busy digesting Britney and Madonna's "spontaneous" kiss (please!) and Beyoncé Knowles writhing on a chaise while being groped by men in black catsuits. Was anyone else feeling bad for her dad right about then?

[Intro Square Dance Open House, 490 Hudson Street, 7:30 p.m., www.timessquares.org; Evanescence, Webster Hall, 125 East 11th Street, 7 p.m., 212-353-1600; Façonnable, 636 Fifth Ave., 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., 212-367-9475.]

Wednesday 17th

This just in! Sublime actress Julianne Moore and her new hubby, director Bart Freundlich, evidently spent their wedding night at the Soho House , which might possibly be the worst thing we've ever heard. We hope Miz Moore is stopping by Fashion Week, because that "dress" she wore to the Oscars -well, let's not discuss it …. Today at 7th on Sixth, scooped-out bagels reach critical mass when the scooped-out fashion media joins Glamour magazine for breakfast, blowouts, manicures and pedicures before a long day of sitting on their asses and make-believe scribbling on clipboards. If you're still around at suppertime, follow the psychedelic fabric to the tent of Lilly Pulitzer …. "The tent's designed to look like Lilly's home, which is actually dubbed 'The Jungle' because it's overgrown with lots of plants and flowers and it's really, really tropical!" said the publicist. "She's always barefoot and ready for guests." Guests will gorge on "Lillyto" cocktails, peanut butter wrapped in bacon (umm, is that some kind of weird WASP thing? ) and mini-burgers. Invitees include plummy actress Rosario Dawson , Buffy bopper Sarah Michelle Gellar and movie director ( Mask) and Sopranos regular Peter Bogdanovich.

[Morning Tea and Touch-ups, Bryant Park Hotel, 40 West 40th Street, Raymond Hood Suites, 23rd floor, 8 to 10 a.m., by invitation only; the Lilly Tent, Bryant Park Cafe, enter on 42nd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, 7 to 9 p.m., 646-825-9023, by invitation only.]

That's much of the appeal of Craft, an oddly conceived new restaurant in the Flatiron district launched by Gramercy Tavern chef Tom Colicchio.

Craft, we are told, is built upon tenets of simplicity and selection. Diners are provided with hypersized menus that resemble spreadsheets and list dozens of meat, poultry, fish and vegetable options; the only adjectives on the page are "raw," "cured/marinated," "roasted," "sautéed" or "braised"; meals arrive with ingredients plated one by one, near-naked, on plain white plates or in shiny copper pots.

In essence, Craft puts the responsibility for a high-priced meal not on the fancy chef, but on you , the fancy customer. Naturally, this makes the restaurant something of a haven for control freaks. Are you one of those people constantly pulling the waiter aside and ordering off the menu? Then step to the plate: Craft is your kind of joint.

"It seems like a natural New Yorker fantasy," said Style.com gossip columnist Jill Kopelman. "[New Yorkers] tend to be controlling–what they want, when they want it. Everything [at Craft] is so specific."

But Craft is also about growing up and fending for oneself. This is the perfect restaurant for New Yorkers who have indulged a little too much over the past few years, people who have soaked themselves in oyster sabayon and tripped over oxtail vinaigrette and curried tomato polenta. It's a restaurant with clear psychological benefits for people with attendants and stylists and handlers and in-house personal trainers.

After all, if you've had those perks, there's little doubt you're feeling a tad guilty about it now, in the post-affluent, post-downsizing haze of the New Economy. And so here comes Craft, a nice restaurant that forces you to grab hold of yourself and make some choices, and stop letting others take care of you. And in doing so, it makes you feel good. It makes you feel mature.

"[People] feel very satisfied when they feel that they've tackled the menu," said Craft's service manager, Victor Salazar.

That's a little scary, of course–that people can feel better about themselves merely because they have chosen properly from a menu offering rabbit ballotine, foie gras terrine, prosciutto, dried sausages, duck ham, chicken, porterhouse for two, loin chops of lamb, sirloin, squab, sweetbreads, guinea hen, more foie gras and veal shank (recent "meat" selections at Craft). Or successfully picked from yellowfin tuna, Wild White King Salmon, Arctic char, octopus, sardines, lobster, cod, diver scallops, Wild King salmon, skate, halibut, monkfish and black sea bass (recent "fish" selections).

But hey, welcome to New York. After foie-gras foam, truffle fondue and beef-cheek ravioli, it shouldn't be so surprising that this city falls for a restaurant that on a recent night offered 16 different vegetables, six mushrooms and six kinds of potatoes .

Of course, free will can also be daunting. There are those who freeze up when offered such control over their meals, never mind their lives; if your dining motto has been, as McDonald's famously put it, to have others "do it all for you," Craft's menu might roll over you like a 10-foot swell.

"It's a little overwhelming," grumbled fashion publicist Melissa Gellman after a recent dinner there with friends, where their "simple" meal came to $100 per person. "It's aptly named Craft, because you could build an entire housing complex by the time you eat. Adobe would taste good by that point."

Craft has attempted to adjust for these perplexed customers. Since opening in March, the restaurant's menu has been scaled back somewhat, from a staggering 74 items to a still-impressive 50. "Seventy-four's confusing. Fifty's not," said Mr. Colicchio, citing some strange culinary math.

Nevertheless, Craft can still be hell on waiters. If you've ever worked tables yourself, you know there's nothing worse than a table full of blank-faced customers, clueless types who need a sherpa to gently guide them from drinks to apps to entrées to desserts. Because of its exhaustive menu and block-by-block Legoland philosophy, Craft is full of such diners. The restaurant's current turnover rate is a tortoise-like one-and-a-half times per table. (By comparison, Babbo flips a table three times a night.)

One recent night at Craft, we asked our waiter whether it takes people excruciatingly longer to order there than at other restaurants. "It definitely does a little," he said. "I try to help them narrow it down …." He was being polite. A lot of Craft's early customers have indeed been directionless. To wit: After too many tables of inexperienced diners ordered avalanches of food they couldn't possibly eat, Craft is now instructing its staff to keep people from over-ordering. Is there another restaurant in New York that does that?

Even experienced city diners can feel swamped by Craft.

"There's this period where you're thinking, 'You've got to be kidding,' especially by the time you get to the dessert menu," said Mitchell Davis, a cookbook author and director of publications at the James Beard Foundation. He referred to Craft's 48 sweet selections. "It's a bad restaurant for Libras. I mean, who can decide?"

In fact, instead of being a heavenly gift, Mr. Davis thinks Craft is something of a comeuppance for control-freak diners. After all, people who go into restaurants and fussily make changes to the menu don't do it because they want something else, he said. "It's because of power." Craft calls the picky eater's bluff. "When they get so many choices, they don't want to eat anything."

If you do want to eat, however, you first must tackle your fear of screwing up. New York diners forever worry about the ordering mistake, the culinary faux pas (truffle vinaigrette with braised shortribs ?) that triggers a humiliating roar of laughter from the waiter and the rest of the table. With all of its menu options, the potential for screwing up at Craft seems far higher.

But Mr. Colicchio, gruffly handsome in his buttery leather jacket and starched shirt, insisted that such goofs are impossible. "You can't make a mistake," said Mr. Colicchio. "Proteins work with all vegetables. It's only when you start working with vegetable-vegetable that you can start to mess things up. So whatever you decide to take a bite of, whether it's spinach and some truffle jus and turbot, how bad can it be ?"

Clearly, many of Craft's early customers have thrilled to this D.I.Y. approach. Craft's devotees are like newfound yoga enthusiasts who enjoy contorting themselves into crow poses in front of stiff-limbed friends. "There's a feeling of creating something that's so exciting. By the second time, we had it down," said psychologist Susan Burden. "I'm staggered that people find this complicated."

Mr. Colicchio, too, sounded somewhat surprised at the suggestion that Craft was stirring up trouble. "It's funny. I'm not trying to do anything that groundbreaking," he said. "People say, 'Ah, I see what you're trying to do. You're trying to–'And I'm like, 'I'm not trying to do anything! Make good food, that's it!'"

Still, Craft does represent a severe challenge not just to the culture of the star chef, but also to culinary submission–the idea that by entering a restaurant, one tacitly surrenders to a chef and his or her talents. At Craft, Mr. Colicchio's talents are only part of the show; the diner has an equal responsibility in the success of a meal.

"What's funny is the name: Craft," said Mr. Davis. "'Craft' presumes there's a craftsman there making beautiful things. If you want to work your own lathe and make your own ugly chair, then don't call it 'Craft.'"

Whether Craft perseveres or becomes another bump on the New York restaurant road remains to be seen. So far, things are looking very good; the place is bustling. But there is something very now about this restaurant–this notion that, after too much carefree extravagance, improvidence and heavy cream sauces, we want to take care of our spoiled little selves again.

"We maybe need to have a shrink on staff full-time," joked Mr. Colicchio. "It's definitely bringing up some issues ."