Rodarte is the fashion equivalent of a Basquiat: people in the know really love it, but to everyone else it’s inscrutable or a little bit ugly. So it was no surprise that the couture-like label, designed by sisters Kate and Laura Mulleavy, managed to attract to its Tuesday runway show an insider-ish crowd including Anna Wintour, French Vogue’s Carine Roitfeld, famed photographer Mario Testino, Barney’s buyer Julie Gilhart, Paper’s Kim Hastreiter, CFDA chief Diane von Furstenberg, actress-turned-scenester Kirsten Dunst, and Milla Jovovich—onetime star of Bruce Willis action films and more recently co-designer of the critically-praised (now defunct) fashion line Jovovich-Hawk.

One couldn’t imagine Kim Kardashian or Nicole Richie getting past the clipboards here.

Elijah Wood, however, did! Finishing a call on his cell-phone in the front row, he said that Fashion Week “seems pretty chill to me.” He’d also been spotted at Rag & Bone on Friday, but declined to explain his larger interest in fashion. “Well I’m here in support of Kate and Laura, because I’m friends with them and I think what they do is amazing,” he said.

Was this because they live in Los Angeles, too? “They actually live in Pasadena,” corrected Mr. Wood. He would only say he had met them through photographer Autumn de Wilde, a mutual friend.

“I just think they’re incredibly artistic,” he said. “And I think they’re very expressive and the clothes are sort of very dramatic. Every show to me seems like an art project to them.”

(Speaking of: Mr. Wood can be seen—er, heard?—in 9, a Tim Burton-produced animated film in which he voice-stars with Jennifer Connelly and John C. Reilly, later this year.)

The sisters Mulleavy’s collection was, as usual, intricate and collage-like, featuring fewer diaphanous dresses than seasons’ past but far more formidable footwear: the models wore high-heeled gray boots attached to leather straps bandaging their legs to mid-thigh. They had spurs. Or looked like they did. (One could almost picture them front-row at next season’s show!)

Ashley Dupre showed up at Yigal Azrouel this morning and no one at the show seemed to notice. [WWD]

Two of Anna Wintour's three assistants are leaving and the magazine is searching for replacements. [The Cut]  

While Whitney Port may act like she works at DVF, numerous phone calls to her extension went unanswered when a reporter from The Daily phoned. The extension turned out to belong someone named "Natalie." [FWD via Cityfile]  

The McCafe coffee station has been placed in the corner of the tents at Bryant Park, where no one seems to notice it. The coffee, however, is apparently not bad. [Racked] 

Gemma Ward, who seems to be absent from the runways as of late, has apparently gained a lot of weight while pursuing her acting career. [Page Six]

At Thursday night's American Foundation for AIDS Research (amFAR) gala at Cipriani, the attendees were all about the cause and less about Fashion Week, which officially kicked off the next day.

Actress Natasha Richardson, who delivered a heartfelt speech during the evening's ceremony, put into words why there is actually nothing ironic about a glamour event for a life-threatening disease. "It's so important to come out and instead of talking about all the sadness and grief, to celebrate the people who do so much to change the situation," she told the Daily Transom. "Donna is being honored tonight and I am thrilled. She has been, right from the beginning, a great supporter of amfAR." Ms. Karan was honored by Ms. Wintour, who gave a surprisingly personal talk about the designer and her efforts for amfAR. (Ms. Richardson, who followed the Vogue editor onstage, remarked: "And they call her the ice queen!")

But it wasn't just the honorees—who, in addition to Ms. Karan and a very bubbly Ms. Minnelli, included Howard and Cindy Rachofsky, hosts of amfAR's Two by Two for AIDS and Art fund-raiser—who demonstrated their involvement with the battle against the disease. "I'm very involved with raising awareness of AIDS," said model Doutzen Kroes. "I do a lot of work with a Dutch charity as well. It's very important that people know what can be done about it and how to prevent it; that's why it's very important for me to be here."

Model Lily Donaldson agreed. "It means a lot to be here to support such a great cause," she said. "Because, you know, it's glitzy, but it's doing something."

But was anyone looking forward to anything during Fashion Week? "Marc Jacobs," said stylist Rachel Zoe. "Always."

Gossip Girl star Taylor Momsen concurred. "Marc Jacobs, his stuff is always amazing. But also Jen Kao, I think that'll be really fun and different."

"I'm just looking forward to seeing what's new," Mary J. Blige told the the Daily Transom. "That's it. What are people doing with how the recession is—I wanna see what people are doing with that."

Not Ms. Richardson, though. "I gracefully let other people get on with it this year, I'd be too shy," she said. "I'm not skinny enough!"

Many American fashion editors, including Nina Garcia, will not be heading to Paris for haute couture shows this season due to significant budget cuts. [FWD]

Alexander McQueen has teamed up with Puma to design a sports-inspired clothing and accessories line for men and women. [WWD]

According to director R.J. Cutler, his new documentary The September Issue, about Anna Wintour and Vogue, includes "a moment in the film where, what might lead to the end of her time at Vogue comes up and is addressed. I don’t want to give away story points but it is something that she speaks to.” [WSJ]

Saks, having survived a dismal holiday shopping season, is reportedly eliminating 1,100 corporate and store positions, which is 9 percent of its entire workforce. [WWD]

Oscar de la Renta said that he has designed a pink and grey embroidered dress for Hillary Clinton for the inaugural balls, but added that he and the Secretary of State-designate often disagree about her neckline. [People]

Justin Timberlake's line, William Rast, will be showing at the tents at Bryant Park this year, but don't expect a performance from the singer. [WWD] 

While her husband rescues the economy, Michelle Obama will save the fashion world. [NY Times] 

Jimmy Choo has teamed up with Hunter and created a Wellington rain boot with crocodile print, a gold buckle and leopard lining. [Vogue UK] 

House of Valentino has spoken out to clarify that its retired designer, Valentino Garavani, was not affected by Bernie Madoff's scheme. [WWD]

DKNY has followed the example of Betsey Johnson and Vera Wang, bowing out of the tents at Bryant Park for fall 2009 shows. The runway show will instead be at the Stephen Weiss Studio on Feb. 15. [WWD] 

Jerry Hall will appear in Chanel ads next season, playing the older woman to a younger man in photos shot by the house's creative director Karl Lagerfeld. [Vogue UK] 

Anna Wintour is reportedly heading to the Dominican Republic for the holidays with Oscar and Annette de la Renta. [FWD]  

Responding to reports that Olivier Theyskens may be out as the designer for Nina Ricci, president of Ricci parent company Puig Fashion, Mario Grauso, said that Mr. Theyskens will remain at the house at least through the expiration of his current contract in October. [WWD] 

Despite somewhat troubling times in the fashion industry, Giorgio Armani plans to open a new 43,000-square foot store, built out like a giant glass cube, on Fifth Avenue in February. [Vogue UK]  

Soon after Lehman Brothers fell, and New York business writers found themselves smack in the middle of the biggest story of their careers, Fortune’s managing editor, Andy Serwer, convened a staff meeting on the second floor of their Sixth Avenue home.

He wanted to say thank you! Not only did the magazine have a series of timely covers—Hank Paulson was on one, and they had a profile of AIG’s former chief Hank Greenberg coming down the pike—but it was responding fast on the Web, and its Web coverage was impressing everyone in the building.

“I have to tell you, fortune.com is working out brilliantly,” said Mr. Serwer, according to one former staffer.

After his opening remarks, he singled out individual Web writers for all their breaking news. For those exclusive enterprise stories on the Web. Those ticktocks, and those trenchant second-day stories.

The speech, staffers said, made the horse and cart of the print and the Web seem to chase each other around the maypole. Which is dominant? At any rate, the Web did matter.

Well, less than two months later, the Web team at Fortune has been all but disbanded. With Time Inc. under the gun to lay off 600 staffers, each magazine has had the burden of deciding who’s disposable.

Fortune decided the bulk of its editorial cuts would come from the Internet: There were roughly a half-dozen layoffs at the Web site, and now it’s left back in the hands of the good people at CNN Money, the parent Web site that fortune.com used to be folded into.

“It’s nothing now,” said one recently laid-off staffer. “There won’t be any more fortune.com original content in the near future.”

By all accounts, Mr. Serwer’s comments at that meeting were thoroughly genuine when made. But with cuts going down all over the industry, it appears a portion of the magazine world, which was never a quick adapter to the Web anyway, is responding by shoving their Web people right off the boat first. “You’re never going to get the traffic that really matters,” said one publisher at Condé Nast. “So it’s a traffic thing, but also, how do you monetize the traffic that you have? It’s impossible.”

The operating policy now, particularly at Condé Nast, basically reads: Revenue first! Future later.

And the printed page, the luxury object, is still where you find the money these days.

“The print reader’s worth a whole lot more [than the online reader],” said publisher Jann Wenner in an interview with Advertising Age last week.

“It’s never come up before,” said one senior editorial staffer who works at the Wenner Media empire. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone in my position or higher talk about the Web.”

And where it was talked about, it’s quickly being forgotten!

Portfolio, a magazine that had one of the boldest Web sites in the Condé Nast empire, let that experiment go two months ago when it dismissed 25 of the 30 people who worked full time and as freelancers for the magazine’s Web site.

And why? Partially to save the magazine.

The magazine lost close to $20 million this year, and with the magazine’s Web site losses also totaling in the millions, Condé Nast group president David Carey, along with Condé Nast editorial director Tom Wallace, played a large part in convincing Condé Nast chairman Si Newhouse and CEO Chuck Townsend to keep the magazine afloat at a reduced publishing schedule. But to essentially gut the Web site.

Across Condé Nast, publishers are making a calculation about the revenue of the present versus the promises of the future.

“We work in the high-end market,” said our Condé Nast source. “We’re going to stick to it and we might be the last one standing, but that’s our philosophy. The Web isn’t really a priority.”

And Condé Nast editors certainly remain focused on the printed product.

On Dec. 4, all-star editors Graydon Carter, David Remnick and Anna Wintour talked about why magazines would be just fine.

“I think we’ve been in difficult times before and we’ve come out of them and I’m sure that we will again,” said Ms. Wintour.

Katie Holmes has been asked to be the new face of Miu Miu, following predecessors like Kirsten Dunst and Vanessa Paradis. [Vogue UK]

With shoppers deserting Madison Avenue, the Madison Avenue Business Improvement District has set up a by-invitation-only shopping suite at the Hotel Plaza Athénée next weekend, where the selected retailers' most important clients can come shop in private. [WWD] 

Perhaps in an effort to dispel rumors of Anna Wintour's departure, "industry sources" are saying that Vogue was Conde Nast's most profitable title this year.  [P6]  

While it is already known that Barack Obama will be wearing a Hart Schaffner Marx single-button, notch-lapel tuxedo on the evening of the inauguration, designers like Thom Browne, Paul Smith, and Tommy Hilfiger have submitted sketches to Women's Wear Daily of the sort of suits and tuxedos that they think he should wear. [WWD] 

French First Lady Carla Bruni is suing the clothing company Pardon for making a handbag depicting a nude image of her that was taken early in her modeling career. [Vogue UK]  

We celebrated 20 (or 40, depending on how you're counting) years of Vera Wang's career at the opening of her Soho store.

Michael Bloomberg and Lauren Bush agreed on recyling strategies at the UNICEF Snowflake Ball at Cipriani. 

The Reader screenwriter David Hare told us he preferred Kate Winslet to Nicole Kidman at the film's premiere. 

15-year-old Taylor Momsen acted like a 15-year-old at the opening of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's Annex. 

Anna Wintour dismissed rumors of a planned departure from Vogue at panel discussion at the Plaza Hotel. 

We talked politics--but failed to solicit any dance tips!--with Lance Bass at Citrine.

"I know your publisher, he's adorable!" the designer Vera Wang told the Daily Transom at the opening of her first ready-to-wear store in Soho last night. "Unfortunately, I think I could be his grandmother, but if I could date him I would." (We assured Ms. Wang that we would pass her message along.)

Ms. Wang, sipping a bright yellow cocktail and air-kissing whole groups of people as they arrived, was feeling nostalgic.

"This is a party that is meant to be real friends rather than real VIP lists and every celebrity I could find. It is really a personal night for me because I waited a long time for this store," said Ms. Wang. "I last opened a store in New York in September of 1989. Bobby Short played uptown! This is my follow-up."

And is anything different this time around?

"Well, first of all, I'm able to be downtown and I'm able to realize my dream, which was never to be--and i don't mean this derogatorily--but just a bridal designer," she said. "This is my work and my learning curve. It's everything I worked for for 20 years in my own company and before that at Vogue and at Ralph Lauren. So, really, it's a 40-year-celebration." (The designer spent 16 years as a senior fashion editor at Vogue and left to become the design director at Ralph Lauren after losing out the editor-in-chief position to Anna Wintour.)

Of course, just as in 1989, Ms. Wang is opening a brand new store in a time when many high-end boutiques are going out of business.

"I've been anxious about the economy, but I haven't been anxious about my store," said the designer. "Of course I'm nervous, but this is planned three years ago. You can't predict three years in advance."

The minor anxiety about the economy could hardly be detected in the stark white space on Mercer Street. Lobster and crab hors d'oeuvres were being passed around. Paul Sevigny was DJ'ing. Tory Burch stopped by to say hello. And the 2,500 square foot space that somehow seemed much larger due to the tall ceilings and the sunken floors that extended to the far back was so crowded that the air buzzed with "pardon me" and "excuse me."

"Look at the spinning mannequin!" exclaimed one guest, looking up at a mannequin suspended from the ceiling, outfitted in one of Ms. Wang's intricately crocheted dresses.

Ms. Wang recalled the party in 1989 being just as lively, but one thing was different.

"Last time, my mentor Ralph Lauren was there, but he couldn't come tonight," said Ms. Wang. "He sent me a huge bouquet of flowers and said he was thinking of me. So that made my night."