The more frenetic the backstage scene becomes at fashion shows, the more predictable it seems.

While the din of cameras, editors, publicists and now bloggers has steadily intensified backstage at New York Fashion Week -- sometimes outdoing the action on the runway -- those in the trenches, namely the makeup artists and hairstylists, keep plugging along year after year, for the most part staying as focused as a pitcher on the mound of a raucous stadium.

Thanks to Marc Jacobs, the big conversation during New York Fashion Week was the lack of celebrity presence at shows. Because if Marc is bored by celebrities, then so are we.


In fact, let's forget we saw Demi Moore, Brooke Shields and Susan Sarandon at Donna Karan; Jessica Biel at Oscar de la Renta and William Rast, designed by her boyfriend, Justin Timberlake; Kerry Washington, Kate Bosworth, Isabel Lucas and Naomi Watts at Calvin Klein; Michael Douglas and Laura Linney at Michael Kors; Kirsten Dunst, Jason Schwartzman and Natalie Portman at Rodarte; Ed Westwick, Ashley Olsen, Penn Badgley and Hayden Panettiere at Tommy Hilfiger; Selma Blair and Chloë Sevigny at Proenza Schouler; Ellen Barkin, Mick Jagger and Christina Hendricks at L'Wren Scott, and Carey Mulligan and Justin Bartha at The Row, by Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen -- not to mention a score of other bold-faced names at shows hither and yon. Celebrities attending fashion shows are out. On the other hand, celebrities who have fashion shows, like the Olsens, Victoria Beckham, Timberlake and Katie Holmes, are in.

 
Collectively the industry -- editors, bloggers, p.r. flacks, film runners -- is intent on becoming famous, if not in the name of survival, seemingly more than ever. Aside from the usual throng of Japanese photographers, for whom we gamely pose without the slightest idea where that image will end up (has anyone ever bothered to ask?) you couldn't trip to your fifth-row seat without practically being clotheslined by an overstyled editor with a camera crew in tow. But not everyone can be optioned for their publication's new Inside Fashion Week Webisode series. If that's you, don't worry. Just TYFAO (tweet your f---ing ass off). You'll get there. But don't act like fame, freelance or upward mobility is your motive, like the writer who bemoaned the fact that the p.r. at DKNY had just snapped her picture and posted it to Twitter.


"Ugh," she said, walking out of the show. And then: "Oh, my god. Now I have four new followers." 

Much has been said over the past few days over the issue of celebrities in the front row. Give or take a few exceptions, they -- and the mayhem they bring with them -- have been largely absent from the shows this season, which, for editors who cover the collections and retailers who look to buy them, can make a show so much more pleasant. There is one runway phenomenon, however, that continues to surprise me every time and that few people care to discuss: the noncelebrity, front-row crasher.

Amy Adams, Matthew Goode and John Lithgow were among the cast on hand at the Directors Guild of America Theater Wednesday night for a screening of their latest flick, "Leap Year." In the romantic comedy, Adams stars as a woman who, fed-up with her boyfriend's procrastination, chases him through Ireland in an elaborate scheme to propose to him on Leap Day.

And it seems the leading men don't mind being chased. "Just as long as it doesn't involve knives or numchucks or anything like that," said Goode.

On Wednesday night, we stopped by Marc Forgione's restaurant in TriBeCa to say "hi" to Christian Cota, who was holding a benefit for 2009 CNN Hero Doc Hendley's charity Wine to Water. The designer showed us looks from his eHoliday collection, created exclusively for his new e-commerce site. "We made them from extra fabric from the fall collection to bring down the price and make everything affordable," Cota said of the pieces, which retail from $60 for a T-shirt to $950 for a cocktail dress and will be available from Dec. 1 through Dec. 30.

New Yorkers will never look out their windows the same way again.

In his latest work, "City Out My Window: 63 Views on New York," illustrator Matteo Pericoli has recreated the city landscape as seen from the offices and homes of renowned urban dwellers including Mikhail Baryshnikov, Mario Batali and Philip Glass.

"Women don't have to hate men to get ahead," former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said.

And she should know.

"I used to want to be a journalist," said Albright, who was among a score of successful women who headlined the sixth annual Woman's Conference on Tuesday that drew about 15,000 people to the convention center in Long Beach, Calif. "But when I told my husband's boss what I planned to do, he said, 'Honey, you better find something else to do. So I did."

You may not be able to buy word of mouth, but YouTube is more and more becoming a place to capitalize on it.

Woodstock now as then is shaping up as one big media trip for Henry Diltz.

Diltz, rock photographer supreme and owner of the fine-art photography Morrison Hotel galleries, has been on the phone more times than he can remember in the past two months, bombarded with calls from Japanese magazines, German documentary filmmakers, and eight book authors. "Now, the newspapers are calling me," said Diltz, 70, who was the Woodstock Music and Art Fair's official photographer by way of his friend, lighting director Chip Monck, whom he knew from his days playing banjo on the college circuit around three years earlier.

At Tuesday's open casting call for extras for "Sex and the City 2," a cross section of New Yorkers vied for the chance to share the big screen -- albeit a very small part of it -- with Carrie Bradshaw and the gang.

Knowing the four fashionable ladies wouldn't mingle with anyone less than the best-dressed, hopefuls pulled out their most notable outfits in their efforts to woo casting directors. An assortment of tight spandex dresses, oversize designer handbags, and various Italian labels paraded around a full Manhattan block toward the Metropolitan Pavillion.

As they marched along, WWD asked a few about their look for the big audition, and what role they'd be best suited for.