Taking the Fifth

Pamela Skaist-Levy, Penn Badgley, Blake Lively, and Gela Nash-Taylor   more photos ›

It couldn't quite compete with Tuesday night's spectacle of hipsters dancing in the streets of the East Village and Williamsburg, but yeterday's over-the-top opening of the Juicy Couture flagship on Fifth Avenue was still heavy on the feel-good factor. Founders Pamela Skaist-Levy and Gela Nash-Taylor, in matching black gowns that were part Alice in Wonderland and part Alice Cooper, served Champagne and cake amid birdcages, ballerinas, and toy soldiers on stilts. As Sarah Silverman, Blake Lively, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Jay McInerney ran a gauntlet of male models dressed all in black save for pink peonies around their necks, the reigning queens of incongruous cool shared their secret pre-party ritual: "Drink a lot of wine." Then they ran off to greet Martha Stewart. The lovefest that ensued went something like, "Juicy loves Martha!" and, slightly deeper now, "And Martha loves Juicy!"

Breathing a collective sigh of relief that the White House went to Obama, the decidedly partisan crowd wasn't quite ready to give up talk of politics. Does Michelle Obama have icon potential? "She could wear a potato sack and pull it off," said Gina Gershon. The actress, looking fabulous in feathers, could apparently wear part of an ostrich and do the same. But can our First Lady-elect hold her own on the international stage with the likes of Carla Bruni-Sarkozy? The hostesses didn't want to take sides. "They're just so different," said Nash-Taylor. Skaist-Levy added what might be the last unknown fact about America's new first family: "They were just spotted wearing Juicy."