The trouble with last night's party at the Met, if I may speak frankly, is that it was a little like being sucked into a sequined wind tunnel. It started with a little breeziness before the superhero displays—Oh, hey, Narciso and Claire! Hi Liya! Alessandra! Isaac! Diane! Tom!—and then, suddenly, people seemed to be flying around the room....But I thought Anna Wintour looked great in her Chanel dress—fantastical fashion....And though I didn't see Victoria Beckham until later, in pictures, her lace Armani coat dress was definitely a look—Hollywood grandeur with a wink. Zac Posen and his date Kate Mara, in outfits painfully inspired by Superman, get the try-harder award. I'll be interested to know who you all thought looked super—and not.

One could probably read as many metaphors about the transformative power of fashion in the silver-sequined, elaborately padded Chanel gown that Anna Wintour wore to the Costume Institute gala on Monday night as one could in Superman's cape, which happened to be hanging in a gallery down the hall. The floor-length dress had curiously curling crescents attached at the hips and the shoulders, giving Ms. Wintour, the Vogue editor and overseer of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's annual Party of the Year, the fuller-bodied appearance of Botticelli's Venus on her clamshell. She seemed to be broadcasting a message of total earthly control. (Or it could have been that all the Vogue assistants standing along the way to Ms. Wintour's receiving line had been strictly instructed not to speak to anyone, not even to people they recognized, or that so many guests were unusually prompt.) With this year's gala titled "Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy," Ms. Wintour pointed out that she was Storm, the "X-Men" character. "I control the weather," she said.

Blake Lively wore black gloves and a snug black Ralph Lauren gown involving feathers. She said that her favorite superhero was "Spider-Man. Cause he's awesome! He gets to swing around, and, I don't know....I've always seen pictures growing up, being a teenager, and thought, 'I'd love to go to that, a night just to dress up in ball gowns.' And here I am!"...Vogue editor and hostess Anna Wintour was the first to arrive, at 6:33 p.m., wearing a Chanel gown adorned with what appeared to be seahorse tails and accompanied by daughter Bee Shaffer, who required two men, including the formidable Vogue editor at large André Leon Talley, to carry the train of her voluminous blue Nina Ricci dress up the stairs....Designer Phillip Lim came with teenage model-of-the-moment Chanel Iman,..."I've been here last year, and this is her first time here, so she's the newbie...it's a lot of pressure."

It was a silver moment for Julia Roberts, wearing a swoop-neck dress by Giorgio Armani, who underwrote the event. Her co-chairs were Clooney and Anna Wintour, the editor-in-chief of Vogue, who wore a Superwoman creation by Chanel with snakes of padding at shoulders and thighs. Fashion's superheroes included Donatella Versace, who dressed Janet Jackson in a cut-away back dress, Karl Lagerfeld, wearing a sparkling silver jacket while he dressed Kate Bosworth in a multicolored patchwork of vintage Chanel; and Valentino, who was with the model Claudia Schiffer wearing a frilled blue dress from the retired designer's last collection....The cast of the newly revived "Hair" sang "The Age of Aquarius" and "Let the Sun Shine In." David Bowie, sitting with his wife, Iman, looked pained at this new rendition of the counterculture musical.

[George] Clooney joked that he had wanted to dress as Batman, but the costume was already in the exhibition, so he settled for a midnight blue Giorgio Armani tuxedo. Anna Wintour, shimmering in silver cyber-couture, by Karl Lagerfeld at Chanel, declared: "I stopped the rain"....The tennis star Venus Williams and American Vogue's editor-at-large, André Leon Talley, shared a red satin, super-cape for two that was custom-made by Chanel. The actress Scarlett Johansson wore a Dolce & Gabbana gown with a large diamond solitaire which announced her engagement to the actor, Ryan Reynolds. The designer Marc Jacobs confessed to wearing Superman underwear beneath his tuxedo....The "Superheroes" exhibition opens with a mirrored illusion of Clark Kent morphing into Superman and features radical catwalk creations by some of the world's top designers and comic book costumes from Hollywood blockbusters such as Spiderman and Batman.

It's the Oscars of the fashion industry, but if the looks on parade at Monday's Costume Institute gala in New York were anything to go by, that industry is in a sorry state of disarray. Hosted by Vogue editor Anna Wintour (in a Starlight Express moment, perhaps taking the superhero theme somewhat literally) and Giorgio Armani (looking as buff, relaxed and fashionably weathered as ever) the normally ultra-glamorous event fell flat as the proverbial pancake, where the frocks were concerned at least....how about Katie Holmes, who's clearly sharing a sunbed with her new best friend, Victoria Beckham? Someone really ought to have warned her that tomato red and orange is a challenging colour combination and that her razor-sharp bob is more Playmobil nurse than intergalactic heroine. And what of the aforementioned Mrs Beckham? Even by this particular fashion car crash's standards, her dress was disastrous. Nancy Reagan circa 1985, anyone? That cool-as-a-cucumber chignon, meanwhile, isn't kidding anyone. A Hitchcock heroine the artist formerly known as Posh most certainly is not.

Armani dressed Clooney and Roberts. "He asked me very sweetly if I'd be his date," Roberts, wearing a platinum Giorgio Armani Privé gown, said about the designer, who also outfitted other A-list celebrities, including Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes, Beyoncé Knowles and John Mayer....Clooney was taking it all in stride. "I get to have a drink. It's easy for me," he said. As for the superhero theme, he said he had a favorite when he was a kid: "Well, you know, I loved one that no one ever talks about, the Green Hornet. He was really cool." [Thandie] Newton, in a short dress in black lace with a long cape, said, "I like this because it's one look — and two looks. She made up her own superhero inspiration. "I'm Love Woman," she said. "I wanted to do a bit of skin."

"I think the secret of a good exhibition is when it happens very easily, which is what happened here," Anna Wintour told us of the Metropolitan Museum's Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy installation. We had many more looks in the exhibition than we could use, so [the idea] is obviously, once you start to look, really out there. It was largely Andrew [Bolton, the exhibition curator]'s vision that brought it all together but we've been very fortunate that at the same time," she added. "All these movies are coming out and the Olympics are coming up, so it all sort of came together."

Holy Stars, Batman! It was a celeb-studded affair at the Metropolitan Museum on Monday night as the world's fashion elite and Hollywood heavyweights met on Fifth Ave. to kick off the Costume Institute's latest exhibit, "Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy." And while the night's theme celebrated cat suits and unitards, the red carpet featured far more glam getups: Co-hosts Julia Roberts and George Clooney giggled together as they strolled in wearing Giorgio Armani. "I wore the dress because he made it for me," said Roberts, who gave the designer, who sponsored the evening with Vogue magazine, a hug....Fashion darling Zac Posen took the theme seriously, rocking out Clark Kent-worthy spectacles and revealing his own secret identity. "I worked here as an intern for three years," he said. "I got paid $60 to do the event."

"One patient only wore big, heavy earrings, and part of the reason was that she was trying to cover her stretched-out ears!" Dr. Sobel said. "She didn't realize that the big earrings were only making the earlobe stretch more. When the hole gets too big it starts to pull the ear down.

Anyhow the story is really remarkable, in that it doesn't seem to discuss the issue of what happens if your giant earrings slice your earlobe right in half, like they did with my friend Heidi, who doesn't seem all that embarrassed about it. It's just about aging people who are really embarrassed by the sight of saggy earlobes — and even more embarrassed about being so embarrassed they got surgery — "so reluctant are ladies to talk about the ear-plumping experience, you'd think they we were discussing vaginal rejuvenation surgery here." Oh god, we can't wait for the story about all the procedures the plastic surgeons of the future invent to correct the unsightly sagging of piercings there. By which we mean, we totally can!

Lobe Jobs [New York Observer]

Plot summary: Sometimes Carrie feels so romantic around Mr. Big, like when he talks about how he used to be poor and salt-of-the-earthy, and then she plays around in the snow suggesting she was maybe salt-of-the-earthy, and they take a sleigh around the ski town and she gets him to buy her a $4 trinket in exchange for a blow job (OMG they should make a Christmas carol out of this!) and they talk about things a little — not actually in any sort of direct or forthright way, because that would spoil the mystery! — and it is so very clear they are meant to be together.... But then they go to a party and everyone drinks and smokes pot and talks in their terribly witty and clever New York banter (Sample exchange: Mr Big: "I didn't know you were a birdwatcher." Sanford Hercules: "I'm not looking for birds. I'm looking for tail." Short pause. "I'm checking out the private jets so I'll know what kind to buy." Double entendrelous!) and Carrie drinks and smokes pot but does not eat because she is from New York where they do not eat, and pretty soon she confronts some willowy young admirer of Big and also vomits out every last hors d'eourve. It's how she stays skinny! And also — long sigh — single.

Separate Bedrooms In Aspen [New York Observer]

Here's how it ends:

Carrie took a long time to light a cigarette. Then she said, "What is wrong with you?"

"Nothing," Cici said. "The only thing I care about is my career. Like you."

Single, Female and 25: Love Among The Ruins [Observer]

Bunny was 40-ish, still beautiful, L.A.-tanned, a sometime TV actress, but before that, she'd been around New York for years. She was the quintessential party girl, a girl so wild no man would consider marrying her, but plenty tried to get in her pants. "I want a table in the back. Where I can smoke and no one will bother us," Bunny said. "Please, darling," Bunny said. "Men like Jingles, and there's a whole group of them in New York, are not the type of guys you marry. The make great friends—attentive, always there when you're in a tight spot. Late at night when you're lonely and desperate as hell, you whisper to yourself, Well, I could always marry a guy like Jingles. At least that way I wouldn't have to worry about paying the rent. "I moved into a friend's apartment," said Bunny, "and about two weeks later I met Dudley at Chester's—that East Side bar for young swells. Within five minutes of meeting him, I was annoyed. He was wearing spectator shoes, a trilby hat and a Ralph Lauren suit."

"I love New York, it's totally my city," she continued. "It's not about clubbing or drinking, it's all about people around you. Even on the street eating ice cream, you can have more fun than going to club getting drunk."

Funny you should ask! Tanya Chubko hails from Stryi in the Lviv Oblast of the Ukraine. When Ms. Chubko was a freshman in high school, the Lviv Oblast's harvests fared the worst of all the Oblasts's harvests in the Ukraine. So, um, yeah, malnourishment may be how that happened. Too bad it's too late for us!

Princesses of Prince Street [New York Observer]
Related: Stick-Thin Still In For Models At NY Fashion Shows [Reuters]