TINSELTOWN SPYWITNESS.

Byline: Elizabeth Snead

BUFFALO GALS: A gaggle of past, present and future cover girls (and their dates, hubbies, managers, agents and publicists) gathered Wednesday nightto dine and dance under the stars on the Buffalo Club's brick garden patio and bar. Their common denominator? Allure.

The very exclusive party for the beauty/fashion/celeb magazine was well-attended in large part because cameras are kept out during the meal so no embarrassing photos of starlets with stuffed mouths can be snapped and sold by paparazzi.

But even without the frenzy of flash bulbs, the style show was impressive. All the au courant trends were on full display: colorful silk dresses, lots of halter tops, plenty of sheer and sequins, head-to-toe white, bohemian hip-huggers to Annie Oakley prairie skirts, gauze tops, wide belts and boots. Allure's cover girl Amber Valetta and pal Selma Blair wore red and pink silk fancy frocks, respectively.

Trace Ross went hippy with a low-slung, sheer embroidered skirt and fringed top. Rebecca Romjin Stamos, star of Brian de Palma's new thriller ``Femme Fatale,'' was in a classic all-white evening gown with diamond jewelry while ``Dawson's Creek'' cutie pie Katie Holmes strutted by in hip-hugger denim with her steady Chris Klein in cowboy boots. Red carpet darling Ashley Scott, now a brunette after ending her blond-on-blond love match with ``Dude, Where's My Car?'' star Ashton Kutcher, also wore all white and happily mugged with two other white-wearing pretty young things, Monet Mazer and January Jones, for Women's Wear Daily's camera. ``This is the death of all-white,'' pronounced one in-the-know style reporter.

Presiding over the affair was Linda Wells, elegant editor in chief of the magazine.

Not everyone wore fancy designer names. British actress Emily Mortimer, arm in arm with her squeeze, hunky actor Alessandro Nivola, went wild wild West with her mum's black flounced skirt and a peasant top she found at a London thrift shop.

After the surf-and-turf dinner ended and the drinking and dancing began, ``ER's'' Julianna Margulies, ``NYPD Blue'' gals Charlotte Ross and Garcelle Beauvais and a much blonder ``CSI'' star Marg Helgenberger made the rounds while Debra Messing, Allure's upcoming October cover girl, giggled with Ross and Stamos.

``Sex and the City's'' Kyle MacLachlan huddled with the show's creator, Darren Star, and ``Boston Public's'' Jeri Ryan in sheer beaded pants and halter, headed for the bar (``I need a drink!'') and chatted with Julie Bowen (``Ed'') and David Spade (``Just Shoot Me''), the hot new separated-at-birth Hollywood couple.

Both are blond, blue-eyed, tiny and perky with identical choppy haircuts. Kinda creepy. Must be like kissing a mirror. The three TV stars commiserated about traffic on the way to the set and marveled at how much Ryan is enjoying her new show (``Boston Public'') after being so miserable on her last one (``Star Trek: Voyager''). Bowen, looking very Julie Christie in a turquoise Pucci print mini dress, was stunned to hear about the cancellation of ``Dark Angel,'' but the bearded, khaki-wearing Spade eased the pain with another Jack Daniel's and Coke. Then he demanded that the ciggie-puffing Bowen give up her bar stool perch because he was tired of standing.

My, how gallant!

DOME SWEET DOME: It was a ``Lovely and Amazing'' opening night for the IFP/West Los Angeles Film Festival on Thursday night at the Arclight Cinerama Dome in Hollywood. InStyle magazine and Target sponsored the star-studded gala for the film, which stars Brenda Blethyn (``Secrets and Lies''), Catherine Keener (``Being John Malkovich'') and newcomer Emily Mortimer, and was written and directed by Nicole Holofcener.

Quite an impressive roster of stars came out for the premiere, including the quirky film's stars Keener and her crew-cut hubby, Dermot Mulroney (``My Best Friend's Wedding''); Mortimer (``Elizabeth,'' ``Notting Hill'') and her squeeze, Alessandro Nivola (``Best Laid Plans'' and the upcoming ``Laurel Canyon''); James Le Gros (``Scotland, PA'') and his wife, Maura Tierney (``ER''); Natascha McElhone (``Ronin,'' ``The Truman Show,'' ``Surviving Picasso''); and a bearded Aaron Eckhart (``Erin Brockovich,'' ``Your Friends and Neighbors'') and his pal, the equally bearded writer/director Neil La Bute (the upcoming ``Possession'' with Gwyneth Paltrow). Writer and director Joel Coen piled a plate with food from the buffet for his waiting actress wife, Frances McDormand (``Fargo''), before they made a beeline for the VIP patio.

The biggest name of the night had to be ``Star Wars'' hunk Ewan McGregor, spotted wearing jeans and tennis shoes, chatting with Mortimer, his co-star in the upcoming film, ``Young Adam.'' But the British-born, Oxford-educated brunet actress, soon to wed Nivola, whom she met three years ago on the set of ``Love's Labors Lost,'' was definitely the evening's darling. Her touchingly comic portrayal of Elizabeth, a witheringly insecure aspiring actress, wowed the audience, especially in the scene in which she gets out of bed, stands full frontal and begs her actor lover to brutally critique her naked body.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1) MAZER (left), JONES, SCOTT: Allure's angels.

(2) MULRONEY, KEENER: The lovely couple.

Lee Salem