October’s brisk wind always puts Gato in a nostalgic mood, bringing his mind to past romances and might-have-been affairs.

What ever happened to that independent film actress, Michelle Fiero, who Gato met years ago? What happened to her film, “Burning Urn?” What would have happened if Gato had returned her affection and agreed to stay in her Union Square apartment, rent free, instead of his cousin’s basement in the Bronx?

Oh, corazón, the unpublished romance novels of our lives lost in the second hand store of our memory.

Nostalgia doesn’t have to be filled with regret. Fall and winter fashion this year is modeled on nostalgia that reaches back for a more romantically optimistic time.

Get ready for that all-night date at the diner with the sultry Swathmore College girl who wears her grandmother’s fur coat, uses swear words while speaking about literature, and while the waitress is watching, dares to spike the hot chocolate with airline bottles of amaretto.

You’ll remember that she kisses like the numbing sensation of a Novocain shot swirled with the taste of blackberries.

Fashion is driven by zeitgeist, what Germans call the spirit of the times. In a very real way, the tension of our post-9/11, internet-dating-loneliness world that feels like walking alone on a 15 below January night down a street that’s empty except for swirling newspaper, we are longing for tactile innocence, something to feel magical about.

Fury NYC’s fall line is a perfect example of the revival of exuberance and elegance in fashion.

“This is not your grandmother’s fur,” advises Fury NYC’s founder, Dana. It certainly isn’t.

While the fur accessories are silk-lined in the style of a vintage piece, instead of keeping the natural color of the pelt, the outer fur is colored like bright bursts of laughter filling the streets on December’s first snowfall — blue raspberry and tangelo orange, to name two.

After years of working as a Manhattan-based stylist on music videos for Nsync and Britney Spears, Dana was inspired to start her own fashion line after the events of 9/11. Like so many other people in that city, being so close to a sudden tragedy forced her to take inventory of how she was using her talents.

“Working on videos was exciting but after that day, I started to feel that there had to be something more. I wanted to do something with more permanence,” Dana said.

“I wanted to create clothing that spoke [in a] contemporary voice but could also be a legacy piece.”

With the money she saved from working as a stylist on commercials, Dana decided to start working with imported silk and fur. “The idea of the line at its inception was affordable glamour,” Dana said.

The line took about a year to develop. “It took a lot of time to find the type of imported silks that I wanted to use,” she related.

Dana discovered that she could use the same tweens that Chanel was using by purchasing the ends of fabric runs ordered by the world’s most exclusive fashion houses. “This makes all of the pieces reversible because besides being elegant, fur is practical. It’s been extremely cold here [in New York] for the past few winters,” Dana said.

Fur began showing up in many designers’ fall and winter collections in 2003.

“It was ignored in the ’80s and ’90s,” Dana said, talking about its resurgence, “but I think it’s become more acceptable to use because people began to realize that as long as there were people suffering there are bigger fish to fry.”

“Still I try to be conscientious of the sources I use for the line. All of our pelts come from USA farm raised animals that are also consumed for food, they aren’t used just for the pelts alone,” she relates.

Dana’s Fury NYC creations have received a flurry of praise, drawing attention from both Vogue and a front page in the Style Section of the Sunday New York Times.

Celebrity customers are essential to building the name of the line. “Jada Pinket-Smith has brought a lot of our stuff from Tender, a fantastic store in Birmingham, Michigan that a lot of celebrities buy from,” Dana said.

Most recently, Fury NYC has added Julianne Moore to its celebrity client list.

“Actresses aren’t afraid to be seen in fur this year,” Dana said.

In the Midwest, Fury NYC is available at P45 in Chicago and will be available at the Downtown Chicago Marshall Field’s this winter.

Fur is only one prop in this period piece that will take our hectic whirlwind lives on a trip to a town with a bootstrap attitude and a lot of booze where Katharine Hepburn and Dean Martin share the joint responsibility of the mayor’s office.

Gato would love to give you a one-way ticket but since we are not astronomers, space is not infinite. Next week Gato will take you on that train, beyond Stamford, CT and New Haven, to explore the New Nostalgia in fall and winter lines.

Variation on Irish Coffee

Fall is a time to bring out the warm drinks. Ending a Thursday night date with an Irish coffee is almost as good as being beachside in late October wrapped in a warm blanket, cuddling naked next to a bonfire.

Because Gato’s Irish Coffee uses French Gran Marnier and Irish Whiskey one might want to call it British Resentment Coffee instead.

Start by pouring equal parts — 1 shot each — of Irish Whiskey (Gato loves his Bushmills), and Gran Marnier. Spoon in two tablespoons of brown sugar and let it dissolve in liquor. Pour in one cup of dark roast coffee, Kenyan AA or French Roast, then stir. Top with whipped cream.

Sit by fireplace and enjoy. If fireplace is not available, sit and watch cable-on-demand and enjoy.

Finally Gato would like to talk about Bochichas. Bochichas is slang for gossip. Gato tries to avoid gossip but sometimes Gato has to drink it like cheap Palo Viejo Rum mixed in Goya Mango Juice. It’s a yucky way to get drunk and there is no tackier gossip than bochichas about the Olsen Twins.

Gato had promised to deliver some new dirt on everyone’s favorite Kinko’s color copies of decadence DNA (decadence is on Chromosome 5?) but Gato’s source flaked out on him this week.

Historically, in South America, bad secondhand information could get you disappeared. So Gato will furiously pursue the story and make sure the source does not “Deep Throat” him.