—PHOTOGRAPHY BY JEREMY KOST

—PHOTOGRAPHY BY JEREMY KOST

We expressed some concern earlier about whether or not Erin Wasson would be able to fill the largest venue at Bryant Park for her RVCA show. But fill it she did with a rowdy crowd for the evening show.

I was surrounded by some hard-partying downtown types who seemed to have a huge fondness for whiskey and getting in the way of me taking pictures. So apologies for these kinda sucking!

Also on hand, Little J, doing her own downtown indie rocker thing, complete with sheer thigh high tights and messy hair extensions. Bruce Willis and model/wife Emma Hemmings came in just before the show started and smiled for a few pics. And while I couldn’t see them, I heard from @Modelinia that Behati and boyfriend Jamie Strachan were smooching in the front row.

Gang Gang Dance played live, complete with a dude whose sole purpose seemed to be waving a garbage bag flag. I was definitely not musically groovy enough to have known who they were right away. But the experimental indie-ness of their sound is exactly what I imagine Erin Wasson being into.

Freja opened in the show, baring midriff. And Lily closed in a floor length Victorian bed jacket ensemble. In between there were lots of denim, slouchy tees, and Irina in stripes. It was hipster meets hippie meets Erin Wasson, who danced out to raucous applause and cheers at the end of the show.

And seriously, if anyone can explain the garbage bag flag, shoot me an email.

In October, Nick Knight and SHOWstudio announced they’d be launching an epic exhibition at Somerset House to coincide with London Fashion Week SS09 and the BFC’s 25th Anniversary (the celebrations for which we’re already SO excited).

Well, now we know that the exhibit will showcase the site’s collaborations with designers, artists and models including Alexander McQueen, Liberty Ross, Gareth Pugh and Julie Verhoeven, as well as new collaborative films made specifically for the celebration and it’ll run from September through December.

One room will function as a photo studio, housing Nick Knight and his team preparing for on-site shoots. So you can watch his preparation live, instead of edited into a slick video. And while they’ll be shooting one hundred portraits of London’s hippest models, actors, musicians and artists, he’ll also be working with a major model.

And considering his taste in girls- Kate, Natalia, Irina, Daria, Lily - we’re kind of dying to know who it is. Guesses?

We’ve started to think of Chanel as a little family.

A royal one of course, with Karl and Lady Amanda Harlech holding court as king and queen, Sebastian playing court jester, and a circle of courtesans, some of whom are in for life (Karen) and some (Irina, Heidi, Lara) who move in and out of favor.

Anyway, the family gathered in Venice yesterday for Chanel’s Cruise ‘10 (ah!) show and while it didn’t go off without a hitch, the clothes held their own in front of the Venetian sunset. The king was late and the queen suffered a mosquito-stung eye, but after the audience took to their wooden deck chairs the girls - Freja, Ikeliene, Siri, Tanya, Liu, Jourdan - strutted down the beach in stripes, tweeds, florals, pajama-like silks and even harlequin prints. There were loads of jewels, strappy sandals, plastic booties and even lace-trimmed biker shorts that make all our thirteen-year-old style dreams come true.

We hope someone packed up the Marchesa Casati-inspired wigs for this weekend’s Life Ball in Vienna while we imagine a dress or two is already headed to Cannes.

There’s an interesting bit stuck into one of Derek Blasberg’s posts for Style.com, especially in light of so many people wondering why Irina Lazareanu walked barely any shows this season.

After Sonia Rykiel, she said to him, “After that, I’ve retired from shows for good - I mean it!”

Derek doesn’t seem to believe her, but since it seems like Irina (who once walked a record 76 shows in one season) walked in only a few shows this time around, we think it sounds believable.

We know she’s going to front Tiffany’s soon, but that couldn’t possibly be all - maybe she’s finalizing a date for that album of hers…

Sorry if this post is less coherent than usual.

My head’s still reeling from Lenny Kravitz saying, “Hey baby,” when he squeezed in front of me at Rick Owens and we took each other’s picture.

I thought the show was starting late because Carine was on the phone, but it was Lenny and rockstar daughter Zoe, sporting some serious extensions, holding up the smoke explosion that introduced Mariacarla Boscono.

The clothes? Impossibly cool, of course. Owens designs for the woman who doesn’t give a shit what anyone thinks because she knows she’s wrapped in otherworldly leather - and she’s used to heads turning wherever she goes. It was fascinating, and a bit intimidating, to be in a room full of his heavily booted fans cheering on his barely there Spring designs and nun-like headgear.

And yes, that’s Irina in her first show of the season. She showed up backstage half an hour before the 5 o’clock start time, got kicked out for smoking inside and had to be dragged back in for hair and make-up.

Irina speaks! En Francais (she’s at Dior couture),…until she gets to Bob Dylan…

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.

We hear the spindly babe is the new face of Hugo Boss for Fall ‘08.

That’s good news for her, because that campaign pays way too much.

It’s also interesting because it means S.O. will be taking over for Irina Lazareanu, whose bohemian lifestyle and rocker sensibilities were transformative to the industry over the past five years - would Meghan Collison and Daisy Lowe have garnered such stomping hype if Irina hadn’t paved their path? We don’t think so, and we’re also not convinced that Karl Lagerfeld would have glommed onto Amy Winehouse so hard if he hadn’t glammed Irina first.

The shift from IL to SO in the Hugo campaign might be signaling a bigger shift in the upscale mass market, away from rock riot and towards another wave of peasant chic.

Or maybe Irina was just too busy recording her album and running through the Eurorail with Pete Doherty to get her photo taken in straight leg slacks and crisp collared shirts again.

The upcoming May ELLE with Madonna on the cover includes more than just fun pictures of the Material Girl gyrating for the camera.

It has something even better - way more models than usual.

In fact, the new issue seems to be so high on model love, that they even have this image of Irina and Freja, still dressed from the Earth Pledge show, in a bit of a lip lock.

Our friends at ELLE sent over a high res image of the shot, just especially for our reader friends.

How’s that for a Wednesday morning treat?

Thanks, ELLE!

Faran just got back from London, where she reports that girls have thinned out their Irina-Lazareanu bangs of last year, turning their blunt and long bowl cuts into something shaggier, thinner, and more shredded.

In short, all the girls are now copying the haircut of Daisy Lowe - meanwhile, all the gay boys are copying the haircut of Agyness Deyn, and have even been dubbed “The Ag Hags” by Grazia Magazine. Amazing.

But while mimicking Agyness is understandable, the rumble for Daisy is slightly stranger:

She’s not quite famous, not so visible, and generally more under the radar.

Of course, that seems about to change:

We hear that Daisy has indeed clinched a campaign spot with Burberry, although those rumors might stem from her recent appearance at the Teen Vogue / Burberry Brit party in their Soho store -

Ms. Lowe was recruited by Amy Astley to host the event, though for her part, Astley didn’t change her trademark bob to show her admiration of Teen Vogue’s latest muse.

Back before the Fashion Week madness, we reported that runway favorite ThreeAsFour was doing a capsule collection for Gap as part of the deal that Gap struck with the CFDA/Vogue fashion fund after a hefty donation.

Now WWD fills in the rest reporting that 3.1 Phillip Lim, Band of Outsiders, Michael Bastian and Philip Crangi will also design limited-edition collections (all having to do with the white shirt) for the mass brand this year.

The clothes hit stores next month, but you might have to do some hunting for some of it - as of right now, it looks like only Phillip Lim’s designs will be available in most Gap stores (including Gap Canada, UK and Japan.) So if distribution is decided by popularity or name recognition, we’re not sure where ThreeAsFour will land - but we’re hoping right on Broadway so we can just swing by on our way to work.

In the meantime, we’ll be sure to put up the ad as soon as possible, featuring guest appearances by Chanel Iman, Jessica Stam, Lily Donaldson, Du Juan, Catherine McNeil, Anja Rubik, Doutzen Kroes and Irina Lazareanu.

And they made YouTube videos about it!

We know we shouldn’t be laughing so hard, but oh, we totally are.

Guess if you’re going to put your self at risk for another night in jail, it should only be for the muse of Chanel and Balenciaga?

Karen Elson - pre-fall at Zac’s Fall Show

Freja, Coco, Irina, Chanel - Just posing pre-Posen…

—PHOTOGRAPHY BY JEREMY KOST

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