“Everyone just expects me to jump now. I think they just think I jump naturally, like put me in great shoes and I jump,” said Caroline Trentini backstage at the Victoria’s Secret show this afternoon.

“Will you ever not jump?”

“No! I mean, as long as people ask me to jump, I’ll jump!”

Once I got that all-important question out of the way, I ran around the room and asked a handful of our favorite girls two critical questions:

1. What’d you have for breakfast?
2. What are you wearing to tonight’s after party?

Chanel Iman said she ate eggs, bacon, potatoes, cereal and fruit. I would have said, “Don’t lie,” but I wasn’t in the mood to pick a fight with an angel and she followed with, “I think eating is sexy.” She wants to wear the Valli dress she wore down his runway, but if it doesn’t show up, she’s sure she can find something “super sexy to wear with my fabulous boots.”

Julia Stegner’s wearing Herve Leger, surprise! (There were two camps of girls, the ones wearing Herve and the ones specifically not wearing Herve because everyone else is wearing Herve.) She’s not a breakfast person, but “I had pomegranate seeds this morning! Only because I’m on antibiotics and I have to eat something.”

My love affair with thigh high boots has been well documented, but I promise this is it.

The search ended last night when I swung by Soho’s Max Azria store to meet a good friend.

(Full disclosure, tucked in my pocket was a gift card the nice people at Max sent sent pre-Fashion Week. I didn’t plan on using it; I’d save it for a rainy day and probably buy something boring like a black Herve mini-skirt because my wardrobe’s pretty boring, but yes, it did make it easier to take the plunge when part of it was paid for.)

When I saw these boots, it was all over.

After months of swooning for out of reach Prada and Stella and crying (not actually) over their less expensive counterparts that hung loosely from my thighs or wouldn’t even pull over my calves, I found the perfect pair. They’re slightly pebbled black leather with a dark wooden heel and the best part is, the two zippers (better seen here) are actually functional which means I just bought a pair of booties, a pair of knee-high boots and a pair of thigh-highs for the price of a single Stella shoe.

I’m headed to DC (for the first time ever) to meet my mom (in from Qatar) and my uber-conservative grandparents (in from California) and since a small part of me is actually in Paris, I think I’ll give them all a minor fashion heart attack.

“That was fucking beautiful,” was Mischa Barton’s reaction to Max Azria’s latest collection for Herve Leger. Amanda Bynes, Hilary Duff, Tinsley, and Lissy Trullie also sat front and center, and right in front of me, causing my eyes to burn from the flashbulb frenzy.

Of course the pieces were super duper fitted. It is Leger after all. But I personally enjoyed the more neutral palette and that nothing felt like the same old straight up bandage dress. The use of denim as definitely an interesting change. This more bohemian, earthier thing kinda works for me.

And there was still plenty of red-carpet worthy cocktail wear to keep Young Hollywood sexily dressed, starving and filling the pages of US Weekly. The magazine’s Fashion Director, Sasha Charnin Morrison even had her twin boys (in “Sorry Girls I Only Date Models tees) front row snapping shots.

We weren’t sure why Erin Wasson, free, homeless-person loving, Alexander Wang-wearing rock ‘n’ roll hippie decided to show her AW10 line for RVCA at the commercial epicenter of New York Fashion Week, the Bryant Park tents.

Because though she’s a Maybelline face and Maybelline’s sponsoring the tents, all of her cool friends will be downtown at Milk Studios.

Now we’re hearing she’s not just showing in the tents, but in The Tent, the massive space in which Herve Leger stuffs their starlets, Zac Posen housed five pianos and Justin Timberlake played host to Carine, Anna and J.C. Chasez.

How, exactly, is Erin Wasson going to fill such a huge space? Why, exactly, does she want such a huge space? No idea, though now we know why they’re taking forever to come out with the damn Fashion Week Calendar — they’ll need a good hour cushion before and after the show if they expect everyone to head uptown.

I was walking through Saks yesterday, overwhelmed by the perfection of Helmut Lang’s pre-fall collection, when I saw the BCBG skirt at left.

It was hot pink in the store, so it jumped out against the greys and blacks, and perfectly banded. The piece was tiny and stretchy with a zipper up the back just like Herve Leger’s signature bandage skirts. At this point, you can find Herve rip-offs everywhere, but it made us wonder what Mr. Azria, the man behind both Herve and BCBG, stands to gain from ripping himself off - like when Topshop ripped off Kate Moss for Topshop’s dress.

London tabloids are currently in a right uproar - not over Posh, or Lindsay, but yes, Elle MacPherson. And all to do with the look she turned up wearing a couple weeks ago to the new Jaguar launch.

Now dubbed “Queen of the Cougars” (in close contention with Madonna and Kylie Minogue), Elle sent the dailies over the edge when she appeared in a custom made Herve Leger gold dress and Loubie heels.

The irony was, when I first saw the dress, my main concern was whether Elle was ripping off Kate Moss’s gold one shouldered dress from the Met ball. The tabbies were concerned about two different things altogether:

1. Whether a woman pushing 50 should be wearing a teeny tiny gold dress

2. Whether her knees passed muster. (They say not)

It seems we keep running into a little problem as we search for cute suits for upcoming Memorial Day trips. Not every designer is making them water-ready.

While some of us here find this concept mildly baffling, I have a confession to make.

I have purchased, and wear, one of said (non) bathing suits. It is reserved strictly for the sun deck. I’m even scared to go near a too-full cocktail in the thing.

I realize that it’s not necessarily practical to shell out hundreds of dollars on a swimsuit that you can’t use for… swimming.

But maybe it’s different if there’s no way in hell you ever plan on immersing yourself in water, or you have an extra $750 to blow on this Herve Leger “sunsuit”?

A handful of former Nordstrom employees are suing the department store for allegedly stealing their commission.

The plaintiffs are upset that Nordstrom deducted commissions on returned items from their paychecks.

I worked at Nordstrom in California - where the lawsuit is taking place - the summer after my freshman year of college. Yesterday, I got a letter in the mail asking me to sign on to the suit.

When you work in commission-based retail, you make money when you sell product and lose it when it gets returned. So if I sell you a $1200 Herve dress, but you bring it back next week, I make nothing, which is totally fair.

Reader Aaron sent us this documentary on the life of BCBG pre-Fashion Week.

The rough cut documentary gets up-close and personal with Lubov Azria, Max’s wife, as she heads to New York to prepare for three major fashion shows: BCBG, Max Azria and Herve Leger.

She discusses the importance of celebrities wearing their clothes and delves into the major differences between the three brands. It’s interesting to see, as an outsider, how six months of work culminates in ten minutes on a runway.

As for Max? His main point of discussion is his wife’s perfectionism. Between the two of them, it’s no wonder Herve’s revival’s been so wildly successful.

Parts II & III after the jump.

—CARSON GRIFFITH

Those Balmain shoulders, the sharp eighties silhouette Christophe Decarnin so successfully reinvented last season, popped up on almost every runway, from Behnaz to Topshop, from Herve to Pringle. But a few designers weren’t satisfied with mere shoulder pads and actually ballooned their silks into real life leg-of-mutton sleeves.

Roksanda Ilincic’s silver, almost angular sleeves added an edge to her glamourous pastel shifts while Dolce & Gabbana’s worked in the opposite direction. Their rounded shoulders gave linear dresses womanly curves.

Julien Macdonald’s steroid sleeves are a bit less dramatic but maintain the bubbly upper arm that skinnies at the elbow - because a sleeve of Dolce’s proportions on Macdonald’s already 80’s-loving, zippered, bedazzled mini might be a bit much.

Fact: There’s nothing like jumping on the Herve Bandage Dress revival to say, “I’m a starlet, and you know it.”

Fact: It was only a matter of time before somebody rummaged through Herve’s laundry bin and reappropriated the dress in a slightly inappropriate fashion.

Fact: It was Larsen Gray, with their “Banded” dress, at right.

The funny thing is, girls don’t forego dinner to sling themselves in a bandage dress for the way it looks - the dress is secretly famous for “sucking you up” with a full body Spanx effect, while making other people (men) think you just look like Gisele. So if Larsen Gray’s version’s made of anything other than the magical stretch fabric Herve uses (it is), then the purpose of the dress goes out the window, and you’re just left with a vaguely familiar stripe pattern on 100% cotton.

PS. Does anyone else think it’s a little gutsy for these knock-offs and semi-knock-offs to tout names so evocative of the originals?

Jill Model (it’s Fashion Week! So we’re in the clear)

Got Her: at the 7Eleven Gallery Opening

Stalked Her: Because her form-fitting dress made us notice her the minute we saw her on the sidewalk.

Shot Her: Because we never actually thought we’d see an Herve Leger bandage dress out in the real world - We thought those only existed on socialites at parties where half the guests have photo creds.

We Say: A hot dress, Louboutins, and a skull encrusted clutch in short, it’s sick.

—LEAH MELTZER

Standing in the “lobby” of the Bryant Park tents during Fashion Week means being pelted with copies of WWD and Fashion Week Daily while buying ‘wichcraft sandwiches, coffee from an awkward sponsor and dodging street style bloggers.

But if you’re looking for more intelligent pursuits in the ten minutes between Herve and DVF you can swing by the CFDA’s health booth. Among all the crazy ideas we’ve heard about monitoring the industry’s skinniness - this might be the most rational.

At Diane’s behest, the CFDA’s teaming up with the Renfrew Cetner, an eating disorder treatment facility, “to answer specific questions, provide referrals and basically perform overall outreach to any person who might be interested in treatment or may be worried about someone they are working with,” said Steven Kolb.

It could work - even we need a reminder to eat during Fashion Week. And we never forget to eat.

What we saw last night, in between looking at the art, dancing under the disco ball and stalking Moby:

- Doutzen Kroes, frustrated, spelling her name to a PR girl who couldn’t figure out why she was there and if she should let her in. Also, she’s the most stunning, perfect human being we have ever seen in our lives. We are not exagerrating.

- Sean Lennon dancing with an Irina look-alike, who definitely wasn’t Irina.

- Barbara Bush dancing with Derek Blasberg, who we thought was Jack McCullough of Proenza, but wasn’t.

- Model kickball. OK, not really but Coco, Behati, Hana, Doutzen, and Elettra, (all in skintight, envy inducing Herve but Coco), huddled in a circle while their dates/friends huddled in a protective outter circle while Rachel Zoe tried to eye her way in.

- The girl in back of us in the bathroom line, asking Lou Doillon, who was in back of her, where she was from, why she was in New York and how she finagled her way into the party. Weird, because Lou is so beautiful it’s kind of obvious she belongs in all the cool places.

- Vogue’s Stephanie LaCava rocking these Dior shoes (left) like they were her favorite Repetto ballet flats.

- Rachel Bilson, waiting in line for champagne, just like us, checking out Natalie. Yes, Rachel, she actually is smaller than you.

Who knew Victoria Beckham could actually move clothes?

Last season, she deigned to wear an Herve Leger dress to the Marc Jacobs show, but Marc didn’t seem to mind since he cast the Soccer Mom in his latest ad campaign (next season, Kate Moss? We’re still waiting).

Anyway, now the Posh Dress has finally hit stores, and it seems to have caused an internet shopping frenzy.

Despite retailing for $1375, the bandage gown has essentially crashed the Intermix server - click on the dress, and get a lot of maddening code instead of an easy way to buy it.

One more observation: The dress sells for $25 more than any other Leger dress, despite the fact that it’s got the same construction as all the others.

$25 seems trifling in the face of $1300, but still - we can’t help wondering whether the Posh effect has boosted the price for everyone.

Sunday morning at the tents: we watched Stam, Tanya and Freja while everyone else watched Sophia Bush take notes, Melissa George bond with Rose McGowan, and Joss Stone shift uncomfortably in her skin tight dress.

We can’t imagine the difficulty of designing a line for a name as recognizable as Herve Leger. Max Azria fumbled at the start with coats and dresses sewn with parallel seams that just looked unfinished, not like Leger’s signature bandages.

But as the collection moved toward classic bandage dresses with floral details in rich fall colors, heads finally turned away from the Hollywood starlet row and toward the runway. There were organza bustles peeking out from under dresses, feathered capelets, and edgy ruffles sewn down the front of Stam’s dress.

Our favorite look was a simple tube dress with white peeking out from between strips of navy blue, but we bet the girls in the front row will fight over the glittery dresses replete with feathers for their next red carpet event.

We’re actually surprised it didn’t happen sooner.

Herve Leger rip-offs, that is.

H&M should have launched bandage dresses over a year ago, once Lindsay, Posh and every other red carpet regular decided it was time to revive the BCBG owned brand. But instead, we walked past an Express window yesterday packed with short, neon, skintight dresses that are more than just an homage to the designer who now goes by the Karl Lagerfeld sanctioned name, Leroux.

The only piece available online is black, which is probably the only color that works for a band-aid tight dress on a normal body. It’s similar to Leger’s most basic designs, including the one on the left worn by Jemima Khan last year.

So stop by Express if you need to attend a red carpet event, want to blend in, and won’t spend $1500 on a dress that you can only wear post lemonade diet.

We’re not sure why Mr. Blackwell’s annual list of the worst dressed celebrities is such a momentous feat.

The man behind it, born Richard Selzer in Brooklyn, transitioned from actor to fashion designer in the late-1950’s, dressing everyone from Jayne Mansfield to Nancy Reagan. He was apparently the first fashion designer to show his collection on TV. (Was he also the last? We’ve never heard of such a thing, unless Blackwell birthed QVC.)

But when fashion changed dramatically in the 80’s, Blackwell was unable to change, too, and thus turned into the bitter fashion critic better known for rhyming and alliteration than design or creativity.

Much like the worst-dressed pages at the end of US Weekly, Mr. Blackwell’s list leaves us thinking, “Good for her for rocking that outfit!” It’d be funny to see Mr. Blackwell rate the runway shows - he’d surely disapprove of our favorite McQueen creations and flip out over this spring’s Balenciaga.

We might not be able to wear vintage like Mary-Kate or Herve Leger like Posh, but we like to think that if given the chance we’d take as many fashion risks as they do.

And if we ever are in the public eye, we might actually rejoice in making it on his worst-dressed list every once in awhile - at least we’d know we had lived (fashionably speaking).

*bonus points if you know who said the title…