Wednesday, September 7
Reever Madness
They’re making another Superman flick with some British gent—don’t they know that for screen magnetism as well as real-life heroism, the buck stopped with Christopher Reeve? The beloved screen icon, who became an advocate for the paralyzed after a horseback-riding accident, is remembered at the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation’s “Night for a Cure,” a fund-raising celebration of Spinal Cord Injury Awareness Month. (It snuck up on us again!) Guests are to include W’s party-bot Stefano Tonchi (apparently unthreatened by the Fashion Week storm looming on the horizon!), that crazy, stupidly lovable Julianne Moore and little-known local musician Moby. If your summer-long yen for charitable endeavors hasn’t been satisfied, stop by.
Mondrian Soho, 9 Crosby Street, 7 p.m.; visit christopherreeve.org for tickets and information.
Thursday, September 8
A Night of Torrid Fashion
Once again, it’s the night Anna Wintour devised for the hoi polloi to have a part, however small, in Fashion Week—while the even hoi polloi-er will see their evening’s progress interrupted by crowds mobbing boutiques to degrees unseen the other 364 evenings of the year. Gucci debuts its automotive collaboration with Fiat, providing silk scarves and sunglasses so that visitors may achieve that Lindsay Lohan-striving-to-be-Sophia Loren look; the polo star (is there more than one?) Nacho Figueras hosts a party at Ralph Lauren; chic lingerie boutique Agent Provocateur shows off its glamorous and scantily-clad models; and alice + olivia stage a so-called carnival (complete with Sno-cones and cotton candy, if you’d like to break your diet). The night out is spread across the city, so choose a neighborhood upon which to concentrate (may we suggest the meatpacking district, home to 63 events?).
Gucci, 725 Fifth Avenue, 6 p.m.-10 p.m.; Ralph Lauren, 109 Prince Street, 6 p.m.-10 p.m.; Agent Provocateur, 675 Madison Avenue, 7 p.m.-9 p.m.; alice + olivia, 755 Madison Avenue, 6 p.m.-10 p.m.; visit fashionsnightout.com/fno for information.
Friday, September 9
Showtime
Fashion’s big (fiscal) week began yesterday, but the more high-flying designers tend to make late entrances. (Ralph Lauren’s not showing until the 15th!) Today’s clotheshorses are still early enough that you won’t be jaded by the couture overflow—after a while, the fancy togs stop looking like art and go into the mental pile labeled “We couldn’t wear this to Starbucks.” Today’s shows include Tommy Hilfiger (we hope his delightful rebel-rapper son, Rich Hill, is in the front row!), cutesy schmatte-shaper Cynthia Rowley, and the finalists from Project Runway. Hint: don’t go if you’re a Project Runway obsessive and don’t want the ending spoiled—or if you stopped watching the show, as we did, two years ago. This fashion show is for die-hard Tim Gunn gawkers.
Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week—today’s events include Project Runway at the Theatre at Lincoln Center location, 9:30 a.m.; Tommy Hilfiger Men’s at the High Line Chelsea Market Passage, 14th Street and 10th Avenue, 5:30 p.m.; Cynthia Rowley at the Stage at Lincoln Center location, 7 p.m.; visit mbfashionweek.com for information.
Saturday, September 10
Big Papa
Tonight’s the final preview of Elevator Repair Service’s adaptation of The Sun Also Rises, entitled The Select, which opens tomorrow. The company previously produced adaptations of The Great Gatsby (an eight-hour production, in which the book was read aloud, cover-to-cover) and The Sound and the Fury. In preparation for the exhilarated exhaustion we shall feel about halfway through the expatriate exegesis, we’re writing the rest of this blurb in the style of Hemingway. This will be a good show, and we will watch it. We will go to the theater and watch the actors reading and it will be good. They pretend to be in Europe and they drink and celebrate being young and strong. They are strong actors and they have studied their Hemingway. The book they read is a good book and it is not overly long. It is about men, and also women. There is a—okay, this is too exhausting. But if you’re hungry for the tale of an impotent man and a very potent lady, and you find it too early in the fall to devote yourself to actually sitting and reading the book (that’s what November’s for!), then check out the nonparody—or self-parody?—Hemingway rendition.
New York Theatre Workshop, 79 East Fourth Street, tomorrow’s opening at 7 p.m., tonight’s preview at 7 p.m.; visit elevator.org for tickets and information.
