'Cat People' Punk Fashion Week

POSERS "Elisabeta and Nicolae Petrescu" The big sensation at this season's New York Fashion Week isn't a designer or a celebrity but a pair of mysterious socialites from Romania. Calling themselves Elisabeta and Nicolae Petrescu, they've been swanning about town in a vintage Rolls Royce, accompanied by a violinist and an aide who strews flower petals in their path. Invariably, they're carrying a large, fluffy Persian cat named Leo, earning them the sobriquet "the cat people" from mystified showgoers. (Today's Daily carries a photo of them captioned "The Talk of the Town.")

If this sounds to you like a low-concept prank or performance art piece, welcome to the club.

Journalists who've inquired into the Petrescu siblings' background have received vague responses about who their parents are ("nobody you've heard of"), where they're staying ("with friends from boarding school"), and what they're doing in town ("making contacts"). One editor was told they're represented by Williamson PR, which the firm denies. Nexis and Google searches of their names turn up virtually nothing, and certainly no one matching either of their descriptions. (Nicolae Petrescu-Comnen, a Romanian diplomat, died in 1958.)

Assuming it's a put-on, who's behind it?