Two Days in Paris.

Last Thursday and Friday I had the pleasure of going to Paris to do yet another round of gallery research. As research goes, this is about as fun as it gets. I'll admit, gallery hopping is my favorite sort of mixing business with pleasure. To make the trip even more pleasurable I met up with my fancy fashion designer friend Natale and adorable bébé Esmé who were up to the task of wandering around the Marais with me.

After checking out abotu 15 mediocre galleries stocked with mediocre work, we all needed a drink. As luck would have it, Natale had been invited to a party Felipe Oilveira Baptista, who she did work for last year. We headed over to the Nike boatfor the AW77 party .....and for free champagne.

Nat's husband Sebastien showed up wearing his Baptista t-shirt that Natale designed for the 2007 collection I believe.

After my first glass of champagne I started to have the weirdest feeling of Deja-vu. Suddenly of course it became clear to me. Fashion parties are exactly like Art Openings. All the usual suspects were there: Hipsters, trust-fund junkies, models & fashionistas, they were all there.

If everyone hadn't been speaking French I would have sworn we were schlepping it around Chelsea on a Thursday night. Fortunately bébé Esmé stole the show of course with her huge blue eyes and her adorable haute-couture fabric "poisson" bib, hand-made and designed by her fashion mommy of course.

After my third glass of champagne I'd finally drank enough liquid courage to ask Felipe to autograph his book for me. He modestly obliged:

Roughly translated:

"For K, I'll love you always the most beautiful in the world (after my wife)."

And I swear I didn't tell him what to write. OK, I did. But whatever. It was the champagne talkin'!