NEW YORK, Friday, February 8, 2008 - Everyone in fashion has a good Susan Cianciolo anecdote. After her show last night (last season marked her comeback to Fashion Week), in the car on the way to Zac Posen, Domino's Lauren Goodman remembered, "she did a show at Christie's once and Liz Goldwyn came over and put cucumber-scented perfume on me that Susan had made." Vogue's Meredith Melling Burke said, "One of her collections had the coolest tee-shirt dresses with thread and buttons on them. Her show was always a must-see."

This fashion writer thinks it still is. So must style arbiters Sarah Lerfel of Colette and Paper's Kim Hastreiter and Mickey Boardman - who sat together in the front row. Cianciolo's fall offerings had snippets of patchwork, beading, even tulle.

And they were made of organic and fair trade materials. "She's always been at the forefront of eco-fashion," says Vogue's Jane Herman, who has her own quirky Cianciolo story. "Susan has used recycled denim for a long time. She told me she would distress her jeans by leaving them on the roof of her building for days, which would get her in trouble with her landlord!”

NEW YORK, February 7, 2008 - "It's Minnie Mouse and Helmut Newton. A little sexy, a little sweet," said hairstylist Odile Gilbert backstage at Zac Posen, giving Posen's mom, Susan, the model treatment by pulling her hair into a high, sleek twist like the ones models Karen Elson and Irina Lazareanu wore.

The finished look on the runway was complete with two black cashmere pom-pons (left) pinned like ears on either side of the otherwise minimalist bun - the Minnie part - and a strong, blood-red lip/sophisticated smoky eye combination - the Helmut part. "The girls look 'insouciant'," said Susan Posen. "They're a bit sassy."

NEW YORK, Thursday, February 7, 2008 - Imagine Little Edie Beale from Grey Gardens—messy, tousled up-do and all with a shock of fluorescent eye shadow—and you have the look on New York's runways this season.

There were deconstructed chignons and twists at Rodarte (left) and Narciso Rodriguez; at Michael Kors (right), Orlando Pita added a touch of Amy Winehouse, finishing a teased beehive with a sleek ponytail or twisted chignon at the neck for a "modern version of a Hitchcock blonde." Think Tippi Hedren in The Birds.

Fearless, frequently 80s day-glo color - dusted opaquely over the lids - has been the name of the game at Benjamin Cho (pink, blue, and yellow). Behnaz Sarafpour (yellow, pink, and purple), and Derek Lam (yellow-green).

NEW YORK, Wednesday, February 6, 2008 - To fit or not to fit, that is the question. When it comes to hose, that is.

Over lunch today, post Michael Kors, the conversation turned to the runway phenomenon of tights that perceptibly bag and wrinkle at the knees and the ankles (Rodarte, Koi Sunnawagate).

Frankly, after there has also already been a preponderance of reveal-every-flaw easily snaggable sheer hose on the runways the last few days (and first seen at last month's Chanel haute couture show), I think women everywhere have the right to be asking: "What fresh hell is this?"

Oh celebrity: You will have no doubt seen that while the scriptwriter strike continues, there has been much talk of off-duty stars killing time by clogging up the front rows of the shows. But what about all those not-a-bit of-free-time designers who have been dropping by each other's presentations? In a week of such sightings, yes, that was Phillip Lim sitting at Richard Chai's show an hour - I repeat, an hour - before his own was due to start. Chai returned the compliment sitting at Lim's show.

NEW YORK, Wednesday, February 6, 2008 - I have seen maybe ten minutes of a Project Runway episode (blame it on me not having cable television), so I wasn't that familiar with Alexandra Vidal, a finalist on season one, before meeting her yesterday while she took appointments at the Bryant Park Hotel.

As someone with complete Runway naiveté, I have to say that her collection of long evening dresses and cocktail frocks, loosely based on Elizabethan and Edwardian styles, shows real promise. Vidal already has a fan base with New York's social ladies, which makes sense, as her pieces remind me a bit of other society favorites - Carolina, Oscar, Vera.

NEW YORK, Tuesday, February 5, 2008 - Catching up on the day with Plum Sykes at Behnaz Sarafpour, I asked her what she liked about the Rodarte show earlier. "The knitted black and white suit," she said. "It's like a punk-rock version of ladies-who-lunch. You'd really have to be cool to wear it."

When the conversation turned to politics - as most of them have on this Super Tuesday - Sykes (who's British) replied confidently, "I'd love to see a woman president. If I could vote it'd be for Hillary."

Vogue's Sarah Brown, in a power blazer by Alexander Wang, came back to her front row seat at Behnaz with reports on the scene backstage. "She was really excited about the makeup," Brown said of the designer. "She told me, 'Go look at Lisa Cant, she's got bright yellow eyes. It sounds weird, but it's not!" To which Brown mused that maybe we're on the verge of a trend: fluorescents. Keep your eyes peeled. The biggest question of the day was: When in the midst of this fashion frenzy does one steal away to vote in the Presidential Primaries? Many at Behnaz had plans to do it after her show, en route to Narciso Rodriguez.Not Vogue's Virginia Smith. She cast her vote first thing, fighting the crowds at the NY Giant's ticker-tape parade on Fulton Street before heading to the Tents in time for Badgley Mischka at 10:00 a.m. Well done!