IN A PINCH
Betsey Johnson got a warm congratulations from Russell Simmons after finishing her Monday night show with her signature cartwheel. “Russell pinched my bottom at least five times,” boasted Johnson at her after-party in the Time Warner Center’s posh Stone Rose lounge. “He’s a good pincher.” The 69-year-old was happy to be at a venue that New York magazine once crowned “Best Cougar Bar” in the city. “I love cougars,” added the acrobatic Johnson, who previously hosted a Fashion Week soiree in a club equipped with trapezes. “They’re strong women and they go for what they want.”
STARRY-EYED
Paper magazine columnist Mickey “Mr. Mickey” Boardman, covering his 35th New York Fashion Week, is fine that there have been fewer celebrities hovering around this year’s event. “I like it much more when [a celeb sighting] is a novelty,” Boardman tells Buzz from Chris Benz’s Standard East Penthouse party Monday. He was thrilled to have seen Dakota Fanning at Marc Jacobs’ earlier that day, a show he calls, “One of the best ever.” Boardman may have been even more thrilled had he seen Fanning with Natalie Portman at yesterday’s Rodarte show.
BOURNE IDENTIFIED
A year ago, a party crasher pretending to be the publicist for Matt Damon caused chaos at the L.A.M.B. fashion show by booking a seat for Damon plus two. Photographers swarmed and Damon never showed, just the party crasher. “He’s never been to a fashion show,” Damon’s real publicist, Jennifer Allen, told Page Six at the time. “No one called me to check.” Maybe Damon was inspired. This year Buzz spotted him — with his wife — front and center at Naeem Khan’s Tuesday afternoon parade.
NO KIDDING
On Sunday, 6-year-old Eden Wood, formerly of TLC’s “Toddlers & Tiaras,” unveiled her fashion line, which was designed by momager Mickie Wood and sponsored by Cicciabella. “I don’t know what y’all normally do at these fashion shows, but we’re gonna do it the Mickie Wood way!” the elder Wood told Buzz. On Monday, Eden, who turns 7 Saturday, did a book signing for her tome “From Cradle to Crown,” and yesterday she was slated to perform a 1 p.m. concert. “You never hear, ‘I’m gonna take a nap’ from her,” Mickie Wood brags to Buzz. For reasons unexplained, the concert was delayed and eventually canceled a short time later. Sounds like someone needed a nap after all.
THE RIVERS WILD
A cheer went up at the Badgley Mischka show on Tuesday when Joan Rivers, followed by a camera crew and carrying a white fur stole, did a comically exaggerated model strut down the runway. She took her seat next to Kelly Osbourne, and the pair made quite a contrast: the 78-year-old Rivers with her immaculate bottle-blond coif, and the 27-year-old Osbourne with her hair dyed gray.
Additional reporting by Sheila McClear