Karolina’s full-court press
SWAN LAKER
The 6-foot daughter of a Czech pro basketball player, supermodel Karolina Kurkova certainly has the genes to play hoops. But hanging out at Lincoln Center’s Mercedes-Benz Star Lounge yesterday, Kurkova told us she’s not the type to play rough. “I started playing basketball after [having done] gymnastics and ballet for seven years. So imagine going from that, where you’re very elegant, and then you play basketball!” she says. “So I played basketball like a swan. It was beautiful to look at, but I wasn’t very aggressive.”
CATWALK COMIC
Chace Crawford was more interested in cracking jokes than watching the Diesel show at Pier 94. Planted front-row between Vanessa Hudgens and Paz de la Huerta, the “Gossip Girl” star kept his seatmates laughing as the models strutted the runway. “They were secret jokes,” de la Huerta told Buzz after the show. “But they were funny.”
MAXED OUT Max
Max Weinberg, (above right) former bandleader for “The Tonight Show,” told us he hasn’t spoken to his old boss Conan O’Brien since O’Brien started his new cable talk show. “He is very busy with his show — a daily show is a grind, and he’s doing everything he can to make it work,” he told us at the launch of his residency at the Maritime Hotel’s Hiro Ballroom. Weinberg, who bangs the drums for the E Street Band, also revealed that an album and tour are on the horizon with the boss of all bosses — Bruce Springsteen. “The vibes are feeling right, maybe in the next year, to do something.”
PLAYING THE FIELD
Sure, Betsey Johnson’s runway extravaganza was a hoot, but the encore was just as good. After the flawless models showing off Johnson’s new line left the catwalk, the lights went out and a second wave of models — of all shapes and sizes and wearing blond, stick-straight Betsey wigs — sported items that reflected the designer’s classics. (Think cropped tops and floral prints.) When the 68-year-old Johnson (inset, below left) appeared, she dragged her pal Patricia Field, who turned 69 over the weekend, out of the front row and onto the catwalk, where the two of them enjoyed a quick waltz and a lip lock.
JOE SOMEBODY
Who was the Rod Stewart lookalike (below) being photographed frantically at the Betsey Johnson show? “I have no idea, but I’m shooting the hell out of it, because it’s hype, you know?” said one photo–grapher. Turned out it was Nicholas Graham, also known as Joe Boxer, the founder of the men’s underwear company. Graham tells us that his most embarrassing fashion moment came in Japan nine years ago, when “I got out of the car with no pants on and I shut my finger in the door, so I was standing there in front of a thousand Japanese people,” many of whom snapped photos. And why was he not wearing any pants? “Oh, that was just an idea I had.” This Fashion Week, Graham says he’ll be on the lookout for other people’s embarassing mishaps.
FRENCH HOST
Mon Dieu! French pop singer and former Chanel model Vanessa Paradis (left) is making her American solo debut at Town Hall tonight. Paradis says she sees style similarities between New York and Paris, where she’s a living legend: “The way people are always moving around so quickly, even in their high heels.”
IT’S NICE JUST TO BE NOMINATED
“[With] a lot of these gowns, you can tell we were thinking of the Oscars,” Pamella Roland confessed to us after her Tuesday show. Alas, the person Roland says she’d most like to dress, Kate Winslet, wasn’t nominated this year. “She’s so beautiful, and I would love to dress her.” Oh, well. On the bright side, we hear Jeff Bridges still hasn’t yet committed to an outfit.