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Last fall, New Yorkers were bowled over by the giant white spaceship that landed in Central Park. It was a Day the Earth Stood Still moment, and no less arresting once the doors opened to reveal a collaborative art exhibit from a variety of the world's most current, avant-garde experimentalists. Funded by Chanel, "Mobile Art" stood for just over a month and gave visitors a taste of whatever the MoMA and New Museum didn't already show, as well as New York's strongest taste thus far of the artistic offerings of Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid. That is, until Lacoste stepped in (literally).

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I’m here to recount in exhaustive detail the utter fabulousness that was last night’s Chanel party celebrating the opening of the Zaha Hadid-designed Chanel Mobile Art pavilion (open to the public in Central Park’s Rumsey Playfield until November 9). Upon arrival, I was politely ushered past the lengthy red carpet (at which Chanel’s Kaiser, Karl Lagerfeld, and his date Kate Bosworth, as well as Eve and Sarah Jessica Parker all stopped to show love for the paps), and subsequently greeted around every bend with, "welcome to Chanel," and promptly handed a fresh glass of champagne. The party consisted of the Zaha Hadid installation, an outdoor bar, and a separate structure, which housed, in addition to a jam-packed crowd of exquisitely dressed and very skinny bodies, a second bar and a stage.

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Rubber shoes will not die. Just as Croc sales dropped off, a new breed of ugly rubbers has emerged wit the help of Lacoste and architect Zaha Hadid, who designed the Chanel Mobil Art exhibit opening in New York this week. At least I think they're rubber -- they undulate! New York mag got hold of some images of the shoe Lacoste previewed at the Frieze Art Fair in London.

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Chanel’s Zaha Hadid-designed pavilion, which debuted last year at Venice’s Art Biennale and will circulate in Asia, the U.S. and Europe for a total of two years, will take up temporary residence in Central Park’s Rumsey Playfield this Monday. Made of 700-odd parts, the structure, which “houses 18 modern artists’ odes to the iconic Chanel 2.55 handbag,” will likely put Jeanne-Claude and Christo’s late gates to shame.

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Expect a flood of new footwear options come spring. “Today’s news in WWD was all about shoes,” Fashionista notes. See by Chloe is stepping into shoe design, a new development sure to launch fashion lovers into a frenzy given the hysteria that typically revolves around the line’s namesake, Chloe -- a luxury brand synonymous with covetable footwear. Meanwhile, labels Proenza Schouler and Hussein Chayalan will likewise introduce original footwear into the mix in just a few months.

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