Move over Starbucks, your star is reentering the Earth's atmosphere at a perilously steep angle and your heat shield just got another crack -- McCafe just bought out Fashion Week. That's right, the "official" upper of this year's Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week will be none other than McDonald's own upscale espresso selection. Three months before McCafe's official North American debut, the fast food empire is trying to get fashion elites and opinion makers hooked on their triple, non-fat, two Splenda, caramel lattes.

Except for those of us who still enjoy a Happy Meal every now and again, we're all probably thinking the same thing: what the hell is happening to Fashion Week? With multiple stars of the fashion world scaling back their shows, and now a heavy McDonald's presence, this really feels like a recession-era FW.

On the upside, everybody backstage will be sucking down all the free McCafe coffee drinks they can stand (or otherwise sending out their gophers for Starbucks).Sure, it's free, close by, filled with caffeine, and it probably tastes the same as Starbucks -- but it's McDonalds.

If they can manage to pry the Starbucks out of Anna Wintour's hand and replace it with a McCafe, this whole marketing concept might be more diabolically genius than we've imagined. We're just not sure A-list egos will cooperate.

Apparently, McCafe's strategy here is to "talk to key influencers and trendsetters," and hopefully get the paparazzi to snap pictures of them holding McCafe, so they can get to who they really want: "tabloid-reading young women."

[via Gawker]