Fashion Designers

Rachel Zoe might be the in-demand celebrity stylist who made famous her own brand of bohemian chic several years ago among such partygoing celebutantes as Nicole Richie, Lindsay Lohan and Mischa Barton. But it was her two warring assistants, Brad Goreski and Taylor Jacobson, who found themselves at the center of the action during the first season of Bravo's buzzed-about reality series "The Rachel Zoe Project." Goreski, 32, a former Vogue magazine staffer with a penchant for bow ties, became the frequent target of Jacobson's fiery temper, leading to any number of emotional meltdowns that quickly relegated Zoe's eye for wearable haute couture to the background.

Michael Jackson couldn't have picked a better time to make a comeback. There he was on Thursday, the fashion muse of the fall season, announcing his "final" tour in London while dressed in a sparkly, "Thriller"-era jacket that looked a lot like the ones coming down the runway at Balmain just hours before at Paris Fashion Week.

The spotlight is shining more brightly than ever on Jason Wu, the 26-year-old designer who shot to stardom last month when Michelle Obama chose his ivory chiffon confection, embroidered with organza flowers, for her inaugural ball gown. So it's no wonder that there was huge interest Friday in Wu's fall runway show, the first big event of Fashion Week.

It's amazing how often in fashion that a moment from the past brings into focus what's happening in the present. Such was the case over the weekend at New York Fashion Week. Signs of the recession are everywhere here -- the missing faces in the front row, including Saks Fifth Avenue fashion director Michael Fink, who was laid off last month; the empty storefronts on Madison Avenue; the scaled-back shows.

It's THE world's fastest handbag. Meet the Bugatti Veyron Fbg par Hermes, a $2.4-million, 253-mph, 1,001-horsepower hypercar, a collaboration between Bugatti and Hermes' elves on the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore.

She STRUTS into the Ivy with leg to spare and a long ponytail swinging behind her. She's working a super short, silver polka-dot dress, which she designed herself, and some seriously gooey lip gloss. She's got a makeup artist in tow, along with two publicists and a bodyguard who's not afraid to stand down Robertson Boulevard's crazy roller dancer. Is it Paris? Miley? Ivanka?

Kira PLASTININA isn't the only Russian heiress playing the international fashion game. Meet Dasha Zhukova, the "Kova" behind the sexy Kova & T line and one of the new generation of privileged young Russians known as the "spoilt bratskies." Zhukova is a regular on the global social circuit, partying with Joy Bryant and China Chow at Chateau Marmont, shopping with Camilla Al Fayed in London.

DESIGNER Christian Audigier was a few hours from opening his first nightclub last week, a swanky spread that looks out at the Las Vegas Strip from Treasure Island, but he was already moving past all that. He's got loftier plans. Much loftier. An airline, in fact. "It's going to be nice, comfortable, with nice waitresses and nice food, a cool drink and a nice movie," Audigier says, igniting one of three cigarettes laid out neatly for him by an assistant along with a yellow lighter.

Heidi MERRICK may not be a globe-trotting socialite from a high-profile family, but she is royalty. Surf royalty. Her father is Al Merrick, the legendary board shaper whose Channel Islands surfboards are what surf gods Tom Curren and Kelly Slater ride. Growing up in Santa Barbara and working in the store where her father made boards and her mother sewed shorts and Hawaiian shirts made an impression on Heidi, who started her own line of ultra-feminine dresses and jackets in 2006.

Squeezing real-world curves into lean-fitting denim -- few things are more frustrating. Thighs get sausagey, derrieres get flattened (or worse) and you can't bend over without offering innocent bystanders a free peep show. A few years back, Not Your Daughter's Jeans rode to the rescue with a line of functional denim -- jeans that promised to flatter what you have and hide what they should.