On the evening of Wednesday, Nov. 12, Style.com’s executive fashion director, Candy Pratts Price, was standing in the bar of Bergdorf Goodman’s seventh-floor restaurant wearing a black Calvin Klein minidress and black bejeweled Edmundo Castillo ankle boots, surrounded by 200 of her nearest and dearest, there to celebrate her new book, American Fashion Accessories.

“I’m so happy that people came out,” said Ms. Pratts Price in her trademark throaty voice as dermatologist and socialite Lisa Airan waited expectantly to greet her. “It’s not all doom and gloom. We got what we wanted—a new regime!”

She was speaking of the president-elect, for whom she’d shilled in several of her popular animated stream-of-consciousness video-blogs, or CandyCasts.  read more »

At socialite Allison Sarofim's annual Halloween party last Saturday, Oct. 25, the theme was Japanese anime. Female dancers in purple wigs and revealing electro-violet garments swayed to the music on pedestals. A young woman wearing skimpy lingerie and a giant head of a Japanese comic-book character with fake hair reaching down to her rear was placed atop the mantelpiece and instructed to stay put. Another woman in a metallic unitard and extraterrestrial headgear walked around with a mini-buffet of Japanese candy. And the male waiters, passing out just-made sushi and cocktails, were topless.

Ms. Sarofim, who relocated to New York seven years ago from Houston, is the daughter of Egyptian-born financier Fayez Sarofim, known on Wall Street as “the Sphinx.  read more »

In early July, Julia Frakes, a fashion blogger at Paper Magazine, arrived at the Christian Lacroix couture show in Paris with her mother, Jane Alperin. Ms. Frakes wore an $8,000 floral Balenciaga dress from the spring 2008 collection that resembles feminized body armor. She posed for photos with Vogue editor at large André Leon Talley, who struck up a conversation. The next day, Women's Wear Daily ran item called “Who's That Girl?”

 “I found that whole thing completely hilarious,” recalled Ms. Frakes last week. “I was just trying to find something to wear that day and it was, like, the only dress I can find.  read more »

At the Whitney Museum Gala on Monday, Oct. 20, gallerist Mary Boone told the Transom she has been through three economic downturns: the first when she opened her gallery in 1977; another in the late ’80s; and finally a third directly following 9/11. And so the petite Ms. Boone, whose 5-foot-1-inch frame and tame, pitch-black hair make her seem deceptively mousy, is not particularly concerned this time around.

“In November of ’89, only 20 percent of works were selling at auctions,” Ms. Boone said. “But the works then went on the market at the right prices. So it’s all a correction.  read more »

“I was one of Geoffrey’s oddball friends,” said Paper magazine founder Kim Hastreiter on Monday evening at the Diane von Furstenberg store in the meatpacking district, where she sat behind a long desk signing copies of her new book, Geoffrey Beene: An American Fashion Rebel, for guests like Erin Fetherston, Yigal Azrouël and Narciso Rodriguez.

“He was a very fancy uptown designer showing at the Pierre when we first met, and I was like this ragged downtown artist with no money,” recalled Ms. Hastreiter. “I remember he invited me to one of his shows and sat me in the front row with all the rich ladies and I thought, ‘What am I doing here?’ But he befriended me and I got to know him in this other way.  read more »

Two weeks ago, Maxim deputy editor Chris Wilson published a short essay on sex addiction in Page Six Magazine. “Humans are as addicted to sex as we are to biological imperatives like eating, breathing and taking long bubble baths while listening to soft jazz,” it began. A few lines down things took a turn to the dark side: “The other night I was flying on American Airlines, which recently began offering unfiltered Internet access, and the guy next to me was either pleasuring himself to online porn, or whittling something under his blanket. Thankfully, I had a copy of Departures to shield my face, but it was still pretty uncomfortable.  read more »

In a year of economic uncertainty and political anxiety, the Transom wondered what New Yorkers would be wearing come Halloween. Would gaggles of frazzled stock brokers, Sarah Palins and Barack Obamas, and Ashley Duprés and Eliot Spitzers flood the Central Park Conservancy Halloween Ball, Allison Sarofim’s costume party, and Suzanne Bartsch’s bash? And surely some couples will go as Samantha Ronson and Lindsay Lohan. (The real Ms. Lohan and Ms. Ronson, meanwhile, reportedly plan to dress up as Todd and Sarah Palin.)

Socialite and interior designer Celerie Kemble is dressing as an FLDS wife. She described her outfit thusly: “Leg of mutton sleeves, pale blue long starched cotton dress, white socks, running sneakers, and round Harry Potter glasses.  read more »

Call him the Teflon Don of New York nightlife!

As suspected by nightlife blog Down by the Hipster and others, nightclub impresario Noah Tepperberg’s Marquee was not shut down earlier this summer solely because of a water main break. Documents from the Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control filed on July 8 charge that a months-long undercover sting yielded seven different occurrences of “storage, possession, use or trafficking of a controlled substance” at the club, and one instance of “storage, possession, use or trafficking of marijuana.”

The alleged body of evidence resulted in charges against the club owners, Noah Tepperberg and Jason Strauss, for failing “to exercise adequate supervision over the conduct of the licensed business,” and on July 18 an emergency summary order of suspension of their liquor license was put in effect.  read more »

When reached by phone the other day at her new apartment at Greenwich and Jane streets, socialite and actress Annie Churchill apologized for her scratchy voice. She had been out until 2 a.m. the previous night, she explained—a party for artist David Foote on Pine Street, a quick stop at Marquee, dinner, then Socialista. “I only drank water and an energy drink,” she said, adding that she quit drinking alcohol two months ago to focus on her new online venture, which Ms. Churchill first told us about during New York Fashion Week. Since then, she said, “I find that I’m exerting so much more energy when I’m out networking that I end up getting a sore throat.  read more »

On Monday evening, a passel of young women were observed entering the Chelsea Hotel and telling the front desk attendant that they were going to the penthouse apartment of the photographer and documentary filmmaker Sam Bassett. Holding court in Mr. Bassett's rooftop garden was the party photographer (and iPhone magazine publisher!) Patrick McMullan and the artist Laurie Ogle. The pair, who dated in the '80s, are the parents of Liam McMullan, who was celebrating his 21st birthday that evening with close friends and family. (A larger party is planned for later this month at the Marc Ecko showroom.)

Patrick buzzed about, snapping photos and making introductions between Liam's old friends from middle school and new friends like Ally Hilfiger.  read more »