SCENE & HERD.

Department stores are the new In place to meet designers. They appear in early evening, like starlings,

at selling-floor cocktail parties, meet-and-greets, and launches for books about themselves. It's a tough world out there: Competition is fierce, and designers have to navigate the quicksand of nonpriority time slots and dodge the hyenas of the B-list.

Barneys New York has been in the news lately, having just been purchased for $400 million by the Jones Apparel Group. But as "bourgie" as this turn of fortune appears, Barneys actually scored spring's chicest retail coup: an exclusive on the season's most talked-about collection, Lanvin. The store threw a big trunk-show bash for Lanvin's designer, Alber Elbaz, cohosted by Vogue's own Marina Rust (star of the evening in a Lanvin black velvet coatdress) and Lady Albemarle. These two social beacons offered themselves up, ever ready, for the nonending photo op.

Yes, it was held in a store, and, yes, it was only 6:00 p.m., but this party was special. Elbaz's sophisticated jewel-tone clothes were arranged on quirky mannequins in the huge second-floor Lanvin boutique to look like a gaggle of girls lounging on a VIP banquette in some elegant club. As you can imagine, it was a mad crush of fashionistas-less a perfunctory preview of spring clothes than a gathering of the fashion herds who migrate like wildebeest night after night up and down Madison and Fifth in hopes of satisfying an everlasting hunger.

PACK MENTALITY

The wildebeests were on their best behavior over at Bergdorf Goodman, a few blocks away, where the handbag designer Nancy Gonzalez was throwing a very impeccable drinks party that same night. As I arrived, Gonzalez stood on the marble steps near her ground-floor boutique-in a beautiful silk-satin Lanvin dress, sable stole, and leopard-stenciled Manolo court pumps-greeting Natalie Cole, daughter of the late, great Nat "King" Cole, and Denise Rich, the famous Democratic fund-raiser.

Inside, a salsa band called Mo Guajiro serenaded the throng as it ogled the matte crocodile bags and pretty-in-pink clutches with pink croc bows.