"All this for a lipstick?" wondered Princess Superstar. Arriving at Wednesday's Lever House dinner for Chanel's new makeup collection, Rouge Allure, the indie rapper came upon a hive of activity. Rufus Wainwright, former MTV VJ Serena Altschul, Helena Christensen, Amy Sacco, Yvonne Force Villareal, and Alan Cumming (yep, party boy is back) were busy chatting, sipping Champagne, and swiping the free lipsticks decorating the tables inside. "I've taken a bunch, six to be exact," said Christensen. "Everybody I know will want one: my mother, my sister, my agent. Feel my bag!"

Event planner Bronson Van Wyck had further adorned the candlelit dining room with scads of scarlet flowers and—as a finishing touch—had arranged for Coco Chanel witticisms to be written graffiti-style in red lipstick on the bathroom mirrors. The evening prompted Dominique Moncourtois, the company's veteran director of makeup creation, to recall his mentor, Mademoiselle herself: "She was very cute. She would say to me, 'Jeune homme, I like the way you do makeup. Jeune homme, do this, jeune homme do that.' She was involved up until the very last minute. That was when I was 23, and I've been here ever since."

Downtown, meanwhile, Paper magazine threw a party at the restaurant Village to celebrate its current cover boy, Zac Posen. "I'm totally in the mode of creating right now," said the designer, whose fall show is exactly a month away. "I don't sleep at all. I take breaks only for coffee and emergencies." And apparently, for intimate little gatherings attended by the likes of Pat Field, Bryce Dallas Howard, Stella Schnabel, and Richie Rich of Heatherette. "He's like the reincarnation of Cary Grant—the epitome of Hollywood glamour," said Field of the man of the hour. "And that's a huge inspiration to me." Posen, for his part, was beaming from ear to ear. "You know," he said proudly, "this is my first cover!"

—Sarah Cristobal (Chanel) and Tracey Lomrantz (Paper)