Photo courtesy MAO

If you've ever attended the shows at Fashion Week, you know that reading Lynn Yaeger's diary about that experience is a lot more fun that partaking in it first-hand. This time around, Yaeger gets distracted by Forever 21, dissed by Diane Von Furstenberg, sees a boob at Betsey Johnson's show, and witnesses the unbelievable at the Sean John show: a model makes it all the way down the runway with toilet paper trailing from her shoe! Oh, the horror. It's too good. (This reminds me of when my sister would pray for the baton-twirlers to drop their stick during the Macy's parade.)

But the best part might be this:

It's nice to know that we are not the only freaks thinking about/worshiping the Olsen twins this week. Lynn Yaeger marvels at their modern glamour in her column:

Actually, when it comes to glamour, believe it or not, the first name that springs to mind is someone—OK, two people: the entity that played Michelle, the ugly baby on Full House. This creature may not have been much of a looker in her early years, but she—they—have grown up to be the style icons of the 21st century.

I'm not kidding! I love the Olsens! I love the way they mix vintage and unbelievably expensive designer stuff, the way they wrap their little emaciated bodies in yards and yards of fabric, their no-holds-barred trash-bag aesthetic.

In fact, the piece is not really about MK and Ash, but about Dita Von Teese, who Yaeger spent some time with recently. Check it out, people.

You heard it here first. John Varvatos made it official today that he is bringing his $3,495 leather jackets to the defunct CBGB spot on the Bowery, but Yaeger was onto the news already. Varvatos may not have been ready to chat about it last week, but Yaeger got a little someone called Debbie Harry to reminisce about the Bowery's previous fashion connotations:

"The bum stores along Houston Street," she recollects fondly. "They sold a lot of fun, interesting stuff from barrels or racks out on sidewalks. You'd find great stuff for a nickel in those days." When even a nickel was too much, she says, "it seemed like there was really good garbage. I'm not in the garbage business any more, but when I first moved here and we didn't have any dough, we found great stuff in the garbage." It was all part of an aesthetic Harry calls the Lower East Side look, a style composed of "trades, vintage junk, and ripped-up stuff."

Oh God, she's so cool.

Lynn Yaeger, a self-proclaimed shopping bulimic (chronic buyer and returner), discovers the Path train this week ("like the subway, but cheaper! Different!") to visit Kohls and try on Vera Wang's entire low-priced line there. She also ventures to Target, with dissapointing results, H&M, Barney's, and Patricia Field's, where the Drag Queen queen has brought platforms to Payless. We, being cheap and hoping to be cute, love this trend. For those of you who do, too, be aware that Roberto Cavalli's line debuts November 8.

With excruciatingly conflicting feelings of nostalgia and consumerism, Lynn Yaeger, with Robert Sietsema as her guide, takes on Bleecker Street in its current state this week.

Where there was once a Turk-run bodega, there's now a Steve Madden store; the antique toy shop that inspired Yaeger's own collection (and maybe her makeup routine) is now one of many Ralph Lauren stores.

But then again, our critics are not nearly the first to complain about the demise of this street. Sietsema recalls a few examples of stores whose arrivals seemed to signal the end of Bleecker, and those have now been replaced once or twice over. And Yaeger finds this quote from 1872:

Twenty-five years ago they were homes of wealth and refinement. Now . . . the old mansions are put to the viler uses of third-rate boarding houses and restaurants.

Lynn Yaeger is at it again this week, writing about fashion for the people. She wonders what level of style is really available to bigger girls -- even average-size women? To find out, Yaeger leaves Manhattan, which we've seen many times, but usually she's heading to Paris or Tokyo, not Brooklyn. She also takes a meeting at Burlington Coat Factory, a bit of a bummer, unsurprisingly. And she ingests the alarming Skinny Bitch books, which recommend starving in order to stay thin. There's an idea. Of course, Yaeger manages to find a steal at Burlington. But could you?

In this week's Voice, an H&M-clad Lynn Yaeger takes on the philosophical/moral question of copying in fashion. Anthropologie, a brand that specializes in Marni- and Marc Jacobs-esque designs, is suing Forever 21 for copying. Anna Sui, who has remade looks by designers from the 60s and 70s, is suing too, and she's even pissed enough to have produced the T-shirt worn by the model above, which shows Forever 21's owners. It's all so silly, and hearing these designers whine about Forever 21 is a great mix of infuriating and amusing. Thankfully, Yaeger puts it in perspective, and them in their place.

Lynn Yaeger did fashion week so the rest of us don't have to. And thankfully, she describes her week in a diary full of hilariously unglamorous moments: being in hot rooms, throbbing crowds, boring parties, pretentious conversations. Here's one of our favorite moments:

4:28 At Yeohlee, my seatmate, who is affecting a denim-and-diamonds look, whispers, "Are you a cape person?"

This week, Lynn Yaeger hung out behind the scenes of fashion week to bring us a little slice of life among male models. We have a few friends who would be quite jealous of this proximity to waifish pretty boys. As the designers of Duckie Brown searched for the right all-American looking "boys," Yaeger watched and tried to chat with them. (Did they not have much to say because they're shy? Nervous? Or do they just not have much to say?)

Today, our head hurts and we're feeling hateful. Maybe it has something to do with spending two hours on the A train last night, only to end crammed onto a shuttle bus full of homicidal straphangers?

Anyway, it's really great timing for the ridonculous news that Leona Helmsley left $12 million to her freaking dog, Trouble, and $0 to two of her grandchildren, who apparently know what they did to piss her off. And even more convenient, our own Lynn Yaeger, who hates pets, reports today on Pet Fashion Week, from the doggie perfume to the $400 collars.