Love Strong: To sit front row this season, you needed an invite and an Eddie Borgo spike bracelet. If we’re taking trend cues from Rihanna (and really, who isn’t) you’re going to need a gauntlet come February. Meanwhile, the spike bracelet’s still sitting on top of my Christmas list. {Barneys}

Double Duty: Marios Scwhab and Raf Simons discuss designing their own line while designing another. The former thinks designing Halston brings something new to his own label while the latter switches on and off between Jil Sander and his eponymous collection. {VogueUK}

Color Us Surprised: Claudia Schiffer wants her own line. As my mom would say, “If everyone else jumped off a bridge, would you really feel the need to do it, too?” {Telegraph}

The Styled Life: Keegan Singh might be a bit young for a retrospective, but who doesn’t want to stare at his Abbey Lee/Rodarte shoot from The Last Magazine over and over again? {TheMalcolm}

Last night Teen Vogue celebrated their super cute handbook with a little cocktail party at the Rose Bar at the Gramercy Park Hotel.

Amy Astley and her crew were of course all there in the cozy confines, with Amy’s kids and their friends taking over the pool table. The rest of the crowd out to toast the book included Vera Wang, Jenna Lyons, Thakoon, Keegan Singh, Eddie Borgo, Henry Holland, and Chanel Iman. All in all a very lovely party.

As far as EICs go, Amy’s definitely regarded as one of the nicest in the business. And she’s certainly built upon the Vogue brand in a great way since the launch of TV. Thanks to the book, she’s doing a little mini-tour of speaking engagements. Next up is Cali. So if you live in LA, we highly recommend turning out to see her when she heads west. There’s a signing at Book Soup on Sunset at 4 pm on the 18th. FIDM folks can catch her on the 19th at 10 and 11:30. And that evening, she’ll be speaking at Otis at 7pm. It’s free, but space is limited so click here to reserve a spot.

Go. Listen. Learn. It just might give you a leg up at your next interview.

On Sunday night (a bit delayed, sorry), I headed to MILK to watch Gareth Pugh’s Ruth Hogben produced film. I’d expected a preview of the collection, but instead I watched a giant cube in the middle of MILK’s loading dock. Each side represented an element and the top of the cube, which was essentially the ceiling, represented the fifth element, the ethereal.

It was pretty to watch, but I was too tired and too sober (and maybe not cool enough) to absorb it on any sort of philosophical level, so instead Faran and Blue and I made up Hollywood names for fashion couples - not necessarily make out couples, but we-go-to-everything-together couples. Yes, we know we’re getting increasingly delirious as the week goes on:

1. Cecilia Dean & Steven Gan: STEVELIA
2. Lauren Santo Domingo & Derek Blasberg: DELAUREN
3. Becka Diamond & Byrdie Bell: BYRKA
4. Fabiola Beracasa & Tallulah Harlech: FALLULAH
5. Keegan Singh, Kate Lanphear & Mark Holgate: KEEKARK

Who’d we miss?

Last night Jen Kao finally showed her collection on a proper runway (we love a presentation, but runway energy can’t be beat) and even after day two, it’s the best thing we’ve seen.

The clothes were sexy, but cool sexy without screaming hipster. She used cutouts and texture and most importantly, seams to build streamlined silhouettes that look like they’d actually work on my 5’4” size 6 body. Her dresses and skinny pants, usually paired with slouchy sheer tops or paneled blouses, came in a dusty color palette of grey, pink and blue.

And as if the clothes weren’t enough, Eddie Borgo’s jewelry (his boyfriend Keegan Singh styled the show, too) and the chain mail shoe’s made me swoon. Every season there’s one shoe I can’t stop thinking about and these are holding steady in first place - even among the sea of thigh high boots in the front row.

The designer has a solid stable of cult fans - Julia Restoin Roitfeld and LSD sat front row - but once one of the two gowns she showed pops up on the red carpet, we expect she’ll be quite major.

Meet Keegan.

He’s a super stylist - you’ve seen his work whether you’re a Teen Vogue kind of girl or a Purple kind of boy because he’s all over the place.

He’s also one of the sweetest people I’ve ever met in this crazy mixed up industry and since I’ve wanted to know just what a stylist does all day since the moment I learned styling was a career, I asked if I could follow him around.

We started out listening to Hole at his office/apartment in Chelsea before heading uptown to pull jewelry from Eddie Borgo for a shoot. Then we skipped downtown to KCD’s press preview and were about to go to Dossier’s party at the Tribeca Grand when we realized, wait, that’s tomorrow - because when you’ve got this much going on and your assistant’s on spring break, it’s kind of hard to keep up.

Central Saint Martins grad Mary Katrantzou showed her collection right after Mark Fast’s.

Her bold prints were inspired by perfume bottles, sometimes abstractedly and sometimes so literally that I could see the Hermes ribbons and the shape of Lancome’s Tresor.

The prints were the easiest thing to notice but the dresses themselves were beautifully made. A long column in black and silver cut down the middle to reveal a panel of sheer grey fabric begged to be walked down a red carpet.

Mary began her career as a jewelry designer and stylist Keegan Singh accessorized the dresses with bold chunky gold and black necklaces and bracelets that were just as covetable as the clothes.

They’re the kind of dresses you can only wear once - but you want to wear them everyday.

To understand just how cool Jen Kao’s Fall 09 collection - only her third - is, you must first simply look at it: Ooh, this looks cool. But then it must be studied: Wow, amazing.

She explained to us this afternoon that she was inspired by the triangle and its place as, in her opinion, the strongest of the geometric shapes. If that sounds insane to you, consider the visual translation: Suede and denim triangular-paneled dresses, clingy tops made of jersey that somehow looks much stronger than a fabric best known for its easy draping, leather tops perforated with tiny triangles that look more like mesh but feel like a thick spider web, and triangular, metal sequins that lend the appearance of armor but with the quiet glitz of something you’d actually wear.

The collection, which was incredibly small for something that could suffice for a wardrobe - dresses, pants, shorts, leggings, hoodies, tops, they were all there - was complemented by jewelry from Eddie Borgo, who’s previously worked with Marchesa and Phillip Lim. Cosmically, Eddie was feeling the triangle for Fall 09, too, and his minimal yet high-impact designs around the girls’ necks and wrists really brought the idea full circle. Each girl looked kind of tough and strong, but not in an over-the-top neo-punk way, just enough so that you got the idea without any overkill.

Jen Kao is definitely someone to watch - and that’s the best possible final note for New York Fashion Week.

What follows is a list of why Alexander Wang is the most perfect Valentine.

1. This isn’t a fashion show, it’s a rock concert at Roseland Ballroom.

2. He’s incorporated both chocolate and tequila into his pre-show cocktails. They might taste foul but it’s a valiant and appreciated effort.

3. Ok, so he has nothing to do with this one but walking into a venue shoulder to shoulder with a Margiela clad Sarah Jessica Parker is kind of cool.

4. The black bandage leggings - like an Herve dress for your legs - make me wish I was sitting next to Rachel Zoe so we could die together.

5. My box of Sweethearts are 90% white and that never happens.

6. He opens the show with “Welcome to the Jungle” which means the front row - Fabiola, Lauren Santo Domingo, Erin Wasson, Pamela Love, Keegan Singh, Jen Brill, the Richards sisters, Derek Blasberg - is seriously rocking out. I like to think Anna, Bee, DVF and SJP are rocking out, too.

7. He takes his bow wearing a backstage pass around his neck, as if they aren’t going to let him in.

8. This is unrelated to his Valentine qualifications, but there was fur. Discuss.

We hear Julia Roitfeld is working on a new project, an indie magazine called The Last.

The giant new glossy will actually be made of newsprint, and creative directed by Magnus Berger, the artist currently dating Ms. R.R.

Julia will do projects with graphic design, following her past work with V Magazine, Zac Posen, Peter Som, Luella Bartley, and Teen Vogue.

Also involved is fashion wunderkind Keegan Singh, the stylist and all-around hot boy who’s worked for Vogue and a gazillion It Girls.

The project sounds like it has real potential to be the first art book created by a new generation of movers and makers, and we absolutely cannot wait to see it.

Go kids, go.

Update: We’re hearing now that Julia isn’t set to be the Editor (the project is mainly Magnus’), just a big fan and supporter. But here’s to hoping she does come on board! - 6/4