Now that it's December, the holiday party invitations are trickling into the W offices. One of the most intriguing was a card from Roman & Williams, the uber chic design team behind, most recently, the new lobby and restaurant of the Royalton Hotel. The darkly beautiful letterpress card announces the party as the "Gran Slab de Mer" and features an illustration of an opened oyster that slightly resembles a pair of human lungs. (Principals Robin Standefer and Stephen Alesch were early adopters of the taxidermy trend, so the gothic touch is no surprise.) 
We've since learned that Standefer and Alesch have some dramatic plans for the December 13 (invitation only) event. The partners, both former Hollywood set designers, have hired Rick Ellis—a TV and film food stylist who worked with Standefer on the The Age of Innocence—to create enormous Dali-esque seafood towers that will supposedly make Balthazar's plateaux de fruits de mer look like amateur hour. "Robin told me she wants it to be over-the-top," says Ellis, who's collaborating with the caterers Highly Eventful. "The tallest one will be about three and a half feet tall."

When I first heard about Gastronomades, a foodie festival in southwest France that showcases a new wave of young, hip and actually cute Gallic chefs, I knew I had to clear my calendar. And indeed, the event, held in late November, offered proof that this crop of upstarts—part of a group that calls itself Generation C—is out to liven up France's often stuffy restaurant scene. In contrast to the stereotypical chef de cuisine—grumpy, potbellied and dressed in baggy white pants and clogs—the cooks in this crowd are likely to wear slim-cut dark shirts over their svelte torsos (sometimes along with an earring or two) and are eager to share their know-how and put on a fun show. Fortunately they're a truly talented bunch.

In front of an excited audience of food nerds, Eric Guerin, 35, whose restaurant in Brittany has one Michelin star, faced off against Corsican Rouald Boyer in a culinary joust: Guerin was the clear winner, with his oysters in shallot sauce and veal roast served with ginger and pear puree. In less than an hour he also managed to whip up a white chocolate mouse seasoned with thyme. Besides demonstrating his superb technique, Guerin entertained by throwing spices over his veal roast like confetti, from several feet away, and slicing his rutabaga at full speed while having a good laugh with the crowd—without once looking at his fingers.

Patrick Jeffroy, a two-star Breton chef who's a big fan of Japanese cuisine, was another one of the event's stars. While he was unfailing with explanations about the use of various Asian products, he was at his best while running around excitedly and offering everyone samples of top-grade fresh wasabi that had just arrived from Japan. I took a taste, and the root was perfectly emblematic of the weekend as a whole: spicy, provocative and delicious.

Fashion folk may have a rep as a rather, er, frosty bunch, but the assembly of editors at Tuesday's Gryphon sample sale in midtown Manhattan cast aside suspicions that claws pop out when knocked-down duds and the aforementioned ladies are in the same room. Sipping Champagne from cheerful red plastic cups, staffers from numerous magazines offered each other helpful tips on which of the film-noir-esque trenches looked best ("I love the metallic cropped coat in navy." "The wrinkley trench is perfect for layering with that sweater.") Perhaps the year-old outerwear label—named for the medieval creature with the head, talons and wings of an eagle and body of a lion—was less the unifying force than the designer herself, former Vogue fashion writer and all-around popular girl Aimee Cho.  "There are people here I haven't seen in a long time," said Cho, demonstrating the nifty dual pockets of her own cropped peacoat to a few friends. Noted one shopper, "It's like a high school reunion." 

I recently met purple-haired facialist Christine Chin for a facial and microdermabrasion session at her new spa on Orchard Street in downtown New York. A bit Zen, a bit downtown cool, the calm decor does little to prepare you for what lies beyond the bamboo. Chin, who has been dubbed both a 'pore perfectionist' and "Mean Christine," is famous for her take-no-prisoners attitude toward blackheads and for her notoriously sharp tongue. She has little tolerance for late clients (Naomi Campbell has incurred her wrath and been banished from the salon) and those who haven't been playing by her rules (not wearing sunscreen, picking pimples and tweezing stray eyebrow hairs into oblivion). Then again, she has her fans: There are overstuffed books filled with autographed testimonials (Karolina Kurkova praised her "magic fingers," Padma Lakshmi called her a "genius") from clients willing to pay $180 or more for an hour with her. After one session, I can see why. Sure, she took particular delight in showing me the gunk she scrubbed off my skin, but she left no pore unturned, and, I don't want to ruin her reputation, but she actually was pretty nice.

Move over, Ladurèe: Princess Gloria Thurn und Taxis has some high-fructose goodies that she'd like the world to try. The Princess is getting ready to launch her own brand of gourmet confections, starting with biscuits, chocolates, jams and teas. During one of her recent jaunts to Paris, Gloria gave me an early taste of the line, which is being produced by arty French confectioner Nuit Blanche, maker of those Keith Haring cookies you might have seen at Colette in Paris or Jeffrey in New York. Gloria's own line will be packaged with an image of her ancestral castle and available at Berlin's trendy concept store The Corner beginning in December, followed by other shops next year. So why is the Princess, whose family fortune is estimated at $2 billion, venturing into the food business? Not for extra pocket money, she says, but to revive an appreciation for teatime and for the lost art of schloss living, "in a fun way. Everyone has thousands of things to do all day. But if you can stop for tea, even if it's only for 15 minutes, at least you know those 15 minutes will be marvelous." The tea blend, called Allegria, wasn't yet ready for me to sample, but I loved the hollow pink orbs, made of white chocolate surrounded by crunchy candy shells—even though they looked like bath products. "When you see them you think, Wow, soap!" the Princess says. "Then you put one in your mouth and you get a very nice surprise."

Photo: Frederic Boyadjian

Despite its rock'n'roll history, London's Chelsea neighborhood isn't exactly known for its fashion cred. It's where Kate Middleton-types hang out in safe cashmere clothing and Ugg boots and small jewelry. The Shop at Bluebird, though, is the exception to the rule: The shop floor is packed with edgy, directional British designers like Danielle Scutt, Richard Nicoll, and Luella. Hollywood beauty guru Ole Henrikson has just launched a day spa there, too.

For workout fiends in New York, the hottest invitation around is to Nike's Project Classified. Since October 2006, Project Classified classes have popped up every few months, always held in secret, unorthodox locations. Loyal exercisers (whose names are given to Nike by the city's top instructors) receive their mysterious invitations a mere two or three days before the event, usually with little more info than a date, time and address (the type of class often remains unknown). I snagged an invite to the most recent event—at 583 Ballroom—and decided to go see what the fuss was about.

My first red-flag moment came when I entered the ballroom and was handed my "sword." Great, this was a Forza class, a sword-wielding workout that's gained a cult following around the country. While my sword wasn't a real one—heavy and made of steel—it wasn't made of Styrofoam, either. It was wood, more than three feet long and with a sharp, pointy, very sword-like end. Being entrusted with this thing made me break out in a sweat even before the workout began. The ballroom was large, but so was our group. All 150 of us, packed in, shoulder to shoulder, sword to...the neck of the woman two feet in front of me. I was much more concerned about what I might do to her than what the woman behind me might do to me.

When instructor Ilaria Montagnani, creator of Forza, walked onto the stage, the reaction was that of devoted worshippers hailing a guru. The roar was deafening, but it got me juiced. And so the chopping, swiping and lunging began. An hour later, sweaty and immensely invigorated, I felt like a student Samurai (of course, the next day, I could hardly move my arms, much less type). "This is my second one," said Robin Givhan, whose neck was in front of me and who'd been tapped for P.C. by her own instructor, not because she's a Pulitzer Prize-winning fashion journalist at the Washington Post. "My first was Power Strike [kick boxing; no swords]. "I can't believe that with all these women in this one room, no one got hit!"

As I walked out of the hall with my parting gifts of my own wooden forza sword and some very chic ergonomic hand weights, two thoughts crossed my mind: Check into Ilaria's class schedule as Equinox, and, what kind of insurance did they need for 150 sword-crazy women?