We’ve been in New York City this weekend, and, although there’s no better place to see the best Halloween costumes (especially in Union Square at two in the morning), the people-watching, at least from a fashion-addict’s point of view, has been a little disappointing.
This is partially our fault; we came on a weekend, so yesterday was our first shopping day.  Saturday in Manhattan, especially uptown, means mostly tourists and the “B&T” crowd, (meaning the bridge-and-tunnelers, which are the people from the outer boroughs, New Jersey, Connecticut, etc.—not the stylish Manhattanites).  No cutting-edge looks here--just a lot of jeans and running shoes.
Dinner last night was a little more promising.  We ate at Indochine, a trendy-ish little French-Vietnamese restaurant in Soho.  Everyone there was terminally chic—but curiously, it’s the men we remember more than the women.  This is the type of place where people try very hard to look smart and powerful, and, sad as it is to say, men are much better at this than women.  There were a lot of superbly tailored dark jackets and blazers over white or black button-down shirts, carefully distressed jeans, and meticulously messy haircuts.
A group of Slavic-looking female models and their dates (which, it seems, are always short, middle aged men dressed like frat boys) did come in shortly after we arrived, but they were supposedly in Halloween costumes, which consisted primarily of black jeans and boots and some exaggerated eye makeup.  (Apparently slutty pirates aren’t as popular in SoHo as they are everywhere else).  True to stereotype, they didn’t seem to eat or drink very much (the only bottle we saw on the table was Pellegrino), but we heard some suspicious snorting and sniffling in the bathroom stall later, so maybe they weren’t hungry because they had some sort of sinus infection or something. 
We got better inspiration after dinner when we stopped at a popular little bar called the Village Pour House.  It was packed with drunk twenty-somethings (we were with our Top Secret New York Correspondent, who is part of that demographic) and some fabulous costumes.  Once again, it seems that men are better at costumes than women, not only because they take more risks and are not afraid to look ridiculous, but also because they just look funnier when they dress up.  Among our favorites were a pair of Oompa Loompas, which were two huge men perched side by side at the bar guzzling Buds (the symmetry was ruined when they were later joined by a third, slightly shorter Oompa Loompa whose green page-boy wig had been knocked weirdly askew); a very tall, superbly muscled black man dressed as Venus (or was it Serena?) Williams, and a naked clown. 
But today people will be back in their street clothes (at least we hope so, for Naked Clown’s sake) and we’ll be hitting the downtown stores, so hopefully we’ll have at least a celebrity sighting or two.  We’ll keep you posted.


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