With New York Fashion Week on the downhill stretch, celebrities show no sign of slowing down. Here are some of the stars who made the rounds Wednesday:
Usher’s latest razzle-dazzle
Usher, the hot star of “Chicago,” turned out for Michael Kors’ spring 2007 preview at the main tent in Bryant Park and invited the designer to see his Broadway performance before his stint as smooth-talking lawyer Billy Flynn ends Oct. 1.
The 27-year-old R&B singer said he came to Fashion Week both to support his friends and to break up his Broadway routine.
But the self-proclaimed “ultimate entertainer” also had a confession: He is thinking of creating his own clothing line. A designer at the top of his collaborator wish list? You guessed it, Michael Kors.
“I respect him so much,” Usher said.
Also in the Kors camp were Hilary Duff (who asked for a photo with the designer) and “Chicago” veteran Bebe Neuwirth, who will return to the show on New Year’s Eve as Roxie Hart instead of Velma Kelly. “So I have to learn the whole show to the left,” she said, referring to the dances the two characters do together.
Neuwirth, wearing a black Michael Kors dress and carrying a black Michael Kors handbag, said she was headed to a ballet class later as she prepares for her new role.
With the theme of Kors’ show centered on dancing, Neuwirth suggested he treat the models like real dancers, who often pamper their tired muscles with a pungent salve.
“I asked Michael if he was going to slather the girls with Tiger Balm,” the 47-year-old actress joked.
A few degrees differenceGood thing Erika Christensen was at the Peter Som show Wednesday — it sounds like she could use something to cover up with.
Back when she was filming the pilot for her new ABC show, “Six Degrees,” which debuts Sept. 21, the weather in Manhattan was a little bit chilly.
In one scene, the 24-year-old actress recalled, “I take off my top, which was very cold because I was on Fifth Avenue at 4 o’clock in the morning.”
“You only see the back on the show,” she said, but plenty of cab drivers waiting for the morning rush could see a bit more. “It was the most dramatic seminude scene I have done because it was in public.”
Looking radiant in a silver Peter Som dress, Christensen said she was shopping for clothes to wear to next week’s premiere festivities for “Six Degrees.”
The actress, who starred in Steven Soderbergh’s “Traffic,” said she has been coming to Fashion Week for several years.
“The insanity of Fashion Week still surprises me,” she said. “Like five parties every night. But I do not go to the parties. I get all the invitations and I look at them all and say, ‘I am going home. I am going home and taking a nap after this.”’
A recent Los Angeles-to-New York transplant, Christensen said Manhattan agrees with her.
“I miss my car, my family, but I love the energy of New York,” she said. She also likes the way people get around on foot. “I will not walk two blocks in L.A., but in New York I will walk 20 blocks — it’s a mental state.”