The Beautiful People were out in full force at the Palace of Fine Arts Theater Wednesday night. We felt like we had really pulled a fast one as we picked up our media accreditation and gift bags (most appreciated item: the Clif Bar we ended up scarfing down halfway through the night) and slipped into the VIP area for a quick drink before the crazy-ass glamour hit the stage.

Our moment of triumph ended as we made our way into the theater and discovered we were seated right behind a perilously swoopy video camera boom that alternately obscured our vision and caused us to instinctively and needlessly duck. Before we could do anything (scream "do you know who we are?" at the organizers? intentionally brain ourselves on the camera and sue?) the strains of Bjork's "Army of Me" heralded the Emerging Stars show, which featured 12 local design students selected by a panel of fashion industry professionals.

We have to admit to a bit of cultural dissonance during this show, as we saw fashion that took us straight back to our Commander Salamander (and we'd give anything to have something to link to here, but you'll have to trust us when we say that it was the place to shop for the "alternative" teen in 1985) shopping days, with music to match.

Matching this nostalgic frame of reference with the youthful designers (this is about the time our date, SFist Krissy asked us "Is the faux-hawk still the most fashionable and cutting edge way to wear your hair?") caused us to wonder if this was more of a reflection of the sensibility of the designers or the organizers, whom we suspect are closer to our ages. Additionally, we wish the show would have been organized in a way that made it clearer what clothing was by whom -- instead, we were left feeling jumbled and confused. Krissy had a far more discerning eye, and noted:

Standouts included Amanda Thomas & Faye Davison’s feminine baby doll dresses with bright sashes and flirty ruffles, and the flowing lines and artful tailoring of Anne Kimball’s designs. Several designers had their own variation on the apron – from a candy-striper look to a screen-printed denim version that would be at home in a backyard barbecue. Aprons -- they’re not just for cooking anymore.

We wish we had some pictures of this to show you, but our crappy seats and that damned boom prevented any SFist worthy snapshots. You're welcome to check out our Flickr for our feeble attempts to capture this and the other shows from Wednesday night. We're especially sad about our lack of decent shots because Brittany, one of our favorite past Top Models was on the catwalk, and we so hoped to capture images of her for all eternity. Such is the fleeting nature of fashion, we suppose.

Our favorite show of the night was probably Lynne Gallagher’s Wee Scotty line. Or maybe it's just because Krissy egged us on to switch seats? From our new vantage point, we could clearly see that (in Krissy's words) "the models ranged from toddlers to teens, and the entire show had that captivating tension of watching the flower girls walk down the aisle at the wedding. You’re hoping littlest ones don’t get confused or make a mistake, but when they do it’s the cutest thing ever."

We entered into this show all "screw kids" but we were so wrong! The clothes, which were a combination of Gallagher's designs and designs of students at the Wee Scotty Fashion School, were so cute! Where was this school when we were kids? (Maybe if we'd gone there, our references would be less Commander Salamander and more...something cool.)

This is about when we ate the Clif Bar.

Mel Rose wasn't really doing it for us. She, too, had celebrity models Coral, of Real World New York (not the one from 10 years ago) and (and we apologize to Krissy for doubting her when she said this) Kimmy G-N! WTF?

Fortunately, she (Kimmy, not Krissy) was saved from Rose's multiple ass bearing bikini and fake fur legwarmer combos (which Krissy claims only work on models, but we're not even sure about that) and instead wore a dress we described in our Hello Kitty Diary as an "8th Grade Dance Dress" (but not ours -- we wore vintage to that shindig, thank you very much). By and large, Rose's designs were charmingly slatternly in that Fredrick's of Hollywood sort of way, but we promise all of you right here, right now, that Chewbacca ankles are never going to hit, and if they do we're moving to Canada.

As you can imagine, we were flagging quite a bit by the time his by her hit the stage, though, to the credit of the event organizers this show ran only about 10 minutes late throughout, surely a wonder of precision and scheduling.

hbh was certainly the most accessible line of the night (in fact, we muttered to Krissy "(we) wear this crap now!", and displayed some beautifully tailored pieces that remained in our minds enough that we just realized that we are dressed identically to the picture to the left.

Daring to seem contradictory given our take on the previous show, though, we might argue that while we can imagine buying almost every piece in hbh's line right now, it struck us as almost too safe. It's clear that their design team is extraordinarilly talented, so now we'd like to see them knock our socks off.

And that was that for the first night of San Francisco Fashion Week 2005. Don't forget that tickets remain available for the rest of the week's events, and we'll see you there!