Fresh from his victory over Andy Roddick at the U.S. Open, Roger Federer checked out the Oscar de la Renta show during New York Fashion Week Monday and got some star treatment.
Before the show started, Vogue Editor in Chief — and tennis fan — Anna Wintour, wearing a black-and-white de la Renta dress, greeted Federer with a hug and a pat on the back. Federer, trading his tennis togs for a navy suit and open-neck shirt, looked sharp and glowing. The pair sat together during the show.
“I love tennis, so I loved having Federer there,” de la Renta said as he was leaving.
Barbara Walters, also having a big month what with the new lineup on her ABC show “The View,” was in the audience, too.
“This is the only show I will be attending during Fashion Week,” she said. “I love Oscar’s clothing. I wear his clothing all the time.” On Monday, she was decked out in an olive plaid skirt suit with yellow stripes from a previous collection.
Where’s Renee?Carolina Herrera’s show always sees its share of socialites and high-profile guests. But where was No. 1 celebrity fan Renee Zellweger Monday?
Herrera’s daughter, Patricia, said she’s exactly where she wants to be — keeping a low profile: “Renee wants the shows to be about the clothing. She came three seasons ago and it was a mad house over her and the press.”
But Zellweger likes to come to the show room afterward for a private viewing, she added.
Runway risks
Sherri Saum, late of FX’s “Rescue Me,” has been braving Fashion Week as a celebrity and a model, debuting on the runway during the Scanty PJs show.
Compared with acting, the runway is a breeze, she said. “All you have to do is smile and walk.” With one exception: She kept seeing audience members “checking out any panty lines.”
A fashion fan, Saum says she regrets that her celebrity means she likely won’t be able to again wear the silk champagne number she wore to the Emmys.
“I will probably put my dress on eBay,” she said.
Low money makeoverFrederique van der Wal, host of the new TLC program “Cover Shot,” plans a model-heavy party Tuesday to kick off her new project, which makes over regular women and then plasters their photos on a Times Square billboard.
“The show is not really only about a makeover, but about women appreciating themselves,” she said. “It is more the process of being a supermodel.”
But van der Wal, who has modeled for Victoria’s Secret and Revlon among other campaigns, says her new look these days is decidedly downscale.
Her weekends are spent going to her farm in upstate New York and “wearing my old clothes and rubber boots” with “no makeup, no nothing.”
A big fan of New York discount legend Century 21, van der Wal says she even recently caught herself coveting her personal assistant’s handbag, purchased on eBay for $35 as an overstocked item.