Paris on the Hudson

The biggest parties of New York Fashion Week so far have been decidedly French—promoters from the Paris club Le Baron rolled into the Bowery Hotel, along with Belvedere vodka, to banish the recession from the minds of weary tentgoers. All were invited: “homeless people, starving artists, lonely rich people and international superstars,” the invitation proclaimed cheekily. The brainchild of the cult fashion editor of Purple, Olivier Zahm, and artist and D.J. André Saraiva, the parties featured music by James Murphy, Mark Ronson, and Paul Sevigny blasted in the intimate space. Meanwhile, at a private Manhattan club, Norwood House, the promoters of leather daddy-and-drag queen Paris export Club Sandwich threw a packed (and impossible to get into) soiree that fashionistas are still talking about.