Fashion Frenzy

Can I tell you...about the parties during New York fashion week. Right after Labor day weekend, fashion week frenzy got a jump start with Tom Ford's party at his new emporium on Madison avenue. He invited all 500+ of his best friends to artist Marilyn Minter's monograph. The store was so packed it was giving everybody claustrophobia. Despite the crush, people kept coming in.
We were just waiting for the Fire Department to close the party down. Tom knows how to throw a great party. Editors, models, socialites, artists, designers, rock stars & Eurotrash, they all came. It was a little difficult to take photos because I could barely lift my arms. Believe me, the event had a 'can of sardines' ambience to it.

I went with my girl Christine Y. Kim who was brandishing her latest "Joy" snake clutch in anthracite. Marilyn was signing books as fast as they were being sold. I reserved one to be sent to me instead. No point lugging it if you're headed to another party.
We headed downtown to Soho for Glamour's party "Fashion Gives Back" to benefit Malaria No More. The magazine had chosen a select list of designers and paired them with actresses to dress for the party and creat one of kind T shirts to be sold and all the proceeds go to raising funds for the organization.



My friend Peter Som dressed Ginnifer Goodwin. Thakoon Panichgul dressed Amanda Peet.
That was a great party as well. All the pretty young things came out en masse and debuted their newest frocks.
Let me make a special mention of the 'hot' waitstaff. It is fashion week and we need as much eye candy we can get.
Christine and I ended the night at Cendrillon. It was her first time to eat Filipino food and she loved it. What's not to love?!

Tennis Match

Can I tell you...about my first US Open. Our Xerox provider got us 2 box seats for Saturday as a perk. I've never been and have wanted to go forever so I wasn't going to miss the chance. I took my friend John Hulka, an architect for Ralph Lauren. He had just come back from Hawaii to work on Ralph's stores and was curious to see the Polo stores at the stadium. Ralph had scored a coup by being the official uniform for US Open. Talk about great co branding. They had 2 pop up stores. One oustide the stadium and one inside. There was a line to get in the stores! I guess if you're going to buy a souvenir it might as well be a Polo.
The game we saw was between Vaidisova and Peer, women's semi finals. I really wanted to see James Blake against Fabrice Santoro, which was after the girls but by the time we looked at our clocks it was 10:30, we were starving and the game wasn't even close to finish. The girls gave it their all and it was a great game but we were getting tired. Needless to say we skipped out and headed home. Maybe next time I'll eat a nice dinner before then go. Even if the box had food, there's only so much hotdogs and roast beef sandwiches you can eat.
Watch out James Blake, I'm coming for you next year!

Dinner Date

Can I tell you about...Anne Watanabe,supermodel, fellow blogger and artist. Last Labor day weekend, I called up Anne to have dinner with me. She had just arrived from Tokyo in time for go-sees and fittings for New York fashion week. She was craving for Filipino food of all things and I wasn't one to refuse her. I have the same craving...weekly. I was happy to indulge her and ... me.
I took her to Cendrillon in Soho, my favorite Filipino restaurant. Romy Dorotan is an accomplished and published chef, well respected by critics and other chefs. Along with his wife Amy Besa, they recently published a book called "Memories of Philippine Kitchens" and it's selling like bibingkas(Filipino hotcakes) and he is about to go on tour in London to promote the book. It was quite a treat to have him there and Anne was thrilled to meet him. She took her share of photos of the food and took notes of their names because she has her own blog and wanted to post this dinner on it. Who doesn't blog these days?!
Anne has developed a taste for Filipno food after several trips to the Philippines for photo shoots. She's been to more places than I have been. You can bet I'm jealous, and she has beautiful pictures to prove it.
We gorged on inasal, lechon kawali, Amy's Spring roll and Ukoy. Yeah, we pigged out! Despite what people might think, some models actually really eat.
Let me tell you, this girl can eat but she can also draw! She showed me a sketch she just made in her little notebook of a model from a magazine. She did it with an ink pen and without erasing or any preliminary pencil rendering. I was so impressed. We're kindred spirits. She said she does this when she's waiting at airports or waiting for the shows to start. I also have a sketchbook that keeps me from going insane. I doodle all over it and write down ideas for the next season. I have a ton of these notebooks and they're interesting to look into every now and then. Reminds me of where I was at and what I was inspired by. A visual diary of sorts. When you log on to www.rafe.com you see an opened page to my sketchbook as the landing page.
We walked a bit after dinner and she took the subway back to her hotel. No limousine service required for this supermodel. She's down to earth, real and talented. My kind of girl!