Runway to Reality

It was a night of firsts for Anthony Vaccarello. There was the new shoe collaboration with Giuseppe Zanotti, which debuted on his runway. There was Karlie Kloss, who staged a catwalk comeback at his show after a much blogged-about absence from New York, London, and Milan. And—maybe most memorably—there was Caviar Kaspia. Zanotti hosted a dinner for Vaccarello there, and the designer's supermodel posse—Kloss, Anja Rubik, and Arizona Muse—all turned up in looks from the new collection. Kanye West was in the house, too.

The slinky, deconstructed dress Karlie wore didn't leave much room for caviar-smothered potato, but the girl was game. Picnic table feasts of blue crabs with Old Bay seasoning are a family tradition at her grandmother's Chesapeake Bay home, she reported. Turns out Karlie's a bit of a foodie. She's just back from her first trip to Thailand—business and pleasure, she said—and she apparently gourmeted her way through the place. "The seafood was the best in the world, but there were bugs, I think, too, and I'm still a bit queasy from those." Queasy or not, she celebrated her return to this culinary capital by cleaning her plate.

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Caviar Wishes and Teenage Dreams

Karl Lagerfeld's arrival at Le Maison du Caviar caused a stir, as it always does. But he had nothing on Katy Perry, who turned up at the dinner Hogan was hosting last night to celebrate Lagerfeld's fourth collection for the label in a skin-tight dress and blue hair. "It's either Las Vegas showgirl hooker or it's Balmain," the pop star said. "It's actually my first time wearing [the French label]; I'm moving up."

Perry sat across from Hogan's Diego Della Valle at the head table and spent most of the evening showing off her ring to jewelry freaks like Daphne Guinness and Lady Amanda Harlech. Shaped like a diamond pavé syringe and filled with tiny rubies, it was made by her date for the night, Markus Molinari, who designs under the name J. Molinari. Lagerfeld favorite Saskia de Brauw and the new Bond girl Bérénice Marlohe were the dinner's other big attractions.

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Perfect Ten

When the curtain opened after last night's show celebrating Alber Elbaz's tenth anniversary at Lanvin, the designer himself was on stage. He thanked all the people in the audience who helped him realize his dream. "I love you," he said, then sang the first few lines of "Que Sera, Sera," before twirling down the runway to a standing ovation. "It's pure joy in here," remarked an editor not prone to overstatement. She was right.

Before the first model hit the catwalk, Champagne bottles by the dozen had been emptied and people were treating themselves to eclairs from the eclair trees. The clothes were fantastic—colorful, glamorous, irresistible. If you didn't fall in love with Aymeline Valade as she Pat Cleveland-ed her way down the runway, it might be time to find another job.

The evening's headliner was New York nightlife legend Joey Arias, backed by Portland, Oregon's little orchestra Pink Martini. As they led the crowd in not one, not two, but three rounds of "Happy Birthday," a giant cake lit by sparklers was rolled across the dance floor. "Is Alber going to pop out?" Alas, no, but there was a veritable blizzard of gold confetti.

Not long before midnight, an enthusiastic partygoer tweeted that David Bowie would be performing. The Thin White Duke didn't make an appearance, but Tilda Swinton, Jessica Alba, and Pharrell Williams were making the rounds. Proof that it was a night to remember? As we walked into our first show of the day this morning, we saw flecks of that gold confetti on the floor.

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Shock of the New

"Normal" is a contested word in fashion. Are the space-seductress suits and psychedelic sweatshirts that have marched down the runways this week normal? Maybe not. But as Dasha Zhukova, editirix of the recently launched Garage, put it, part of the fashion pro's job is to "redefine what 'normal' is." So maybe a small party for friends isn't normally the sort that draws two generations of Pinaults (father François and son François-Henri, with wife Salma Hayek); runway stalwarts like Lily Donaldson, Karlie Kloss, and Arizona Muse; just about every editor in fashion's galaxy; designers like Gareth Pugh and Miuccia Prada; and the legendary Jean-Paul Goude. At Garage's cocktail in Paris last night, reality was redefined. Welcome to Dasha's New Normal.

Garage's Summer issue focuses on fashion, but through the lens of sex and relationships. (It includes a cover of pregnant cartoon critters "wearing" Jil Sander and Prada and a sex quiz by poetess Anne Carson.) But the from-left-field approach is exactly what excites its newfound fans. "It's respectful but definitely different from a wholly fashion magazine," said Pugh. "It's a sensibility that fits with my idea of creating." The goal: nothing less than revolution—hence Giovanna Battaglia's editorial for the issue, "Revolution in Heels." "Working with Dasha is a total free zone," she said, explaining that she styled the shoot over Skype. "You're so modern," marveled Carine Roitfeld. "I could never do that."

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Winged Victoire

Victoire de Castellane has a thing for doing the unexpected. Since her arrival at Dior Haute Joaillerie 13 years ago, she's made a point of shaking up the staid world of precious baubles with wild and wacky pieces, which are the subject of a lavish coffee-table book published by Rizzoli last week.

But that was last week. Last night, she switched the game again, greeting 1,200 guests at a lavish soirée in the Hôtel Salomon de Rothschild with a total 180 degrees: The new My Dior jewelry collection, which draws straight from the source, spinning Dior's hallmark cannage, or caning, and textured threads of gold into rings and large cuff bracelets studded with diamonds and other colorful gems. A lucky few—Tali Lennox, Bianca Brandolini d'Adda, the Richards sisters, Andie MacDowell's daughters Sarah Margaret Qualley and Rainey Qualley, and Josephine de la Baume among them—were already wearing them. "I love change and I was ready for a new exercise in style," said de Castellane, who brought Raquel Zimmermann along for the ride by casting her as the Dior woman across the decades for video portraits by Steven Meisel. "I love that there's this almost Ottoman feel about these pieces," said Christian Louboutin, fresh off the dance floor with de Castellane and Bianca Jagger. "I've been begging Victoire to do a men's collection for years."

A few classics were dusted off for said dance floor, with a live concert by King Creole and the Coconuts and Olympia Le-Tan deejaying eighties hits (Captain & Tennille, anyone?). But while it's a fair bet that the coolest people in the crowd weren't clubbing (or even born, for that matter) in Creole's heyday, the irony of the musical moment was lost on no one: When asked if she knew them, Annabelle Dexter-Jones shot back, "Of course I know them, they're that cool old garage-y disco band. Are you trying to trip me up?"

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Songs in the Key of G

"I'm just in love with Riccardo and Givenchy!" cooed Alicia Keys at last night's Givenchy party. She expressed her love with Tisci's favorite song, "Empire State of Mind," encouraging guests like Joan Smalls, Laetitia Casta, and last-season's performer, Sky Ferreira, to sing along.

Keys' performance more or less set the tone for the evening. And that tone was love fest. The likes of Sean Combs and Marina Abramovic crowded into Paris' L'Arc nightclub, and the ever emphatic Catherine Baba might've spoken for any of them (albeit in language very much her own) when she crowed, "J'adore! Divine!" The weather in Paris has been wet and wretched, but it takes more than that to stop this party. "I got stuck in the rain for a minute, but I'm English, so I'm used to it," laughed Lily Donaldson, who turned up in a pleated white Dior frock. And certainly no one expected anything as ordinary as the weather to hold back Anna Dello Russo. "I love fashion so much. If it's raining, snowing, whatever, I always enjoy the shows," she said, decked out in a white Givenchy look from Spring.

All affection wasn't lost on Tisci, who walked in with an ear-to-ear grin. "I'm so happy," he said, en route to the VIP section, where tables were garnished with black and white macarons and Moët bottles embellished with "Givenchy" in crystal. "It's been a very positive but very intense beginning of the year."

Intense is one way to describe the designer shake-ups that have gripped Paris and the ongoing speculation about Dior. With Stefano Pilati's final YSL show set for today, the topic was on everyone's mind. "This season is like changer la dame, like at the ball," Dello Russo said. "But I think it's a good thing. Change in fashion is always good because fashion is all about change."

That may be so, but at Givenchy, consistency seems to be working just fine.

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The Kid Stays in the Picture

Movie casts don't often procreate, but if they did, it would be hard to imagine a better gene pool for it than the one that makes up Friends With Kids. Jon Hamm, Kristen Wiig, Adam Scott, Maya Rudolph, Edward Burns, and Megan Fox all star in the indie, written and directed by Hamm's longtime girlfriend, Jennifer Westfeldt, who also plays a leading role. (For the record, she and Hamm don't have kids.) "It's the dream cast," Westfeldt, in a fitted vintage LBD by Vicky Tiel, said at the Cinema Society-hosted screening on Monday night.

The film centers on six friends who navigate the murky waters of growing up and settling down, territory that's as ripe for drama as for comedy. The film has some undeniably tense moments, but the comedians in the cast were well positioned to keep things light. "He was a complete distraction on set," Parks and Recreation's Adam Scott said of co-star Chris O'Dowd, familiar to moviegoers as Bridesmaids' Officer Rhodes. "I think it's fair to say that," O'Dowd responded. "I always had my dick out. I never zipped up my fly."

Flies stayed zipped, however, at the post-screening party at the Top of the Standard. With Hamm in the house, the talk turned to the upcoming season premiere of Mad Men, just a few weeks away. "It's always strange," the actor said of seeing himself in billboard form all over town. "Especially given the long layoff, we're getting very excited for people to see it." The people are excited, too, judging by the response Hamm was getting from fellow guests. "I watch the show because of him," Trudie Styler said, nodding at the actor. "I feel like I'm his stalker."

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