As the garage door opened yesterday afternoon at Drive-In Studios, the crowd gathered outside having just attended Thakoon’s show around the corner (more on that later!), was treated to a serious blast of color thanks to Chris Benz.

There was purple, pink, yellow, fuschia, periwinkle. And you couldn’t help but smile. The collection is simply just fun, fun, fun. Any one of those multi-colored sequined pieces just screams party! And rainbow feathers, c’mon, there’s nothing more playful than that.

Chris worked the room, seemingly having much fun himself talking with editors about the collection, always with a big smile. His parents and BFF Eva Amurri mingled about too.

The baby-faced models were all wearing Lancôme’s new peachy Chris & Tell shade which looked gorgeous, but totally different on each girl depending on her skin tone. I snagged a sample and it totally works on my extremely pale skin too.

Good times. Good times, indeed.

Whitney Port, of The Hills and The City, has apparently “designed” a lipstick for Cargo. Of course, I recognize that there is PR value and it’s very lovely that a portion of the profits go to St. Jude’s. But really, I’ve always found these collaborations, if you can even call them that, rather dumb.

I love what Lancôme does in their Pout-à-Porter series with designers like Peter Som and Thakoon. And I can’t wait to see the new Chris Benz shade and find out who won the naming contest! These are literally tied to the runway looks of these designers. In fact, they’re actually used on the models in the show. There’s a context and a point behind the shades.

But I personally could care less when someone like Whitney or Tinsley (that Dior Beauty Ambassador thing still boggles my mind) point at a shade of pink and throws her name on it.

Do you?

Picture This: There’s no video yet from Vanessa Bruno’s short film, just stills. But we’ll take Lou Doillon any way we can get her. {Fashionologie}

And They’re Off: Recession be damned, there will always be couture. Even if Anna isn’t there to watch it happen. {FWD}

With One Notable Exception: A “restructuring” plan has effectively wiped out most of the jobs at Christian Lacroix. {WWD}

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.

We think Arlenis deserves some kind of award. Maybe something like a Most Successful Model in the Least Amount of Time award?

Not even seven months have gone by since we first spotted her at the Banana Republic Fall 08 show approximately one week into her career, and she’s already been in Vogue and WWD, starred in the legendary Black Issue of Vogue Italia, landed a major beauty campaign, and now? Well, now, she’s an angel, having walked in the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show extravaganza this past weekend.

Too bad there aren’t modeling Oscars, but at least she’s got the money.

Wow, this just in from WWD:

The news we broke way back in July - that Arlenis is the new face of Lancome - is absolutely true!

Lancome can’t say exactly for how long the Dominican cutie will front their array of mascaras and lip glosses, but they can say that her ads, shot by Dusan Reljin, will break some time after the new year.

We’re ecstatic that our pick for best new model got such a huge (and coveted) beauty contract so soon out of the gate - remember that just at the beginning of this year, Arlenis was still a student without any idea she’d be posing for several editions of Vogue and walking for big shows like Oscar by the end of what would have been “next semester.”

And do we even have to mention how much we love that Lancome seems to be diversifying their stable of models more and more?

Earlier this summer, Faran reported in Page Six Magazine that Daria Werbowy was sailing around the world all season - no cell phone, no internet, and definitely no modeling.

But it seems she got one more task done before taking off:

She shot a new campaign for Lancome where she demonstrates their amazing, expensive, incredible Oscillator Mascara - yes, the one with the vibrating wand.

The mascara, and the ad, launch this November, but thanks to a little snooping and a lot of Daria and Lancome adoration, we managed to score the sneak peek below.

Enjoy, and yes, the mascara actually does make your lashes do that…

This just in:

Arlenis, the model love of Fashionista who’s signed with Marilyn, is the next face of Lancome!

If there’s ever been a Cinderella story in the world of modeling, this has to be it -

Everyone knows the kind of big bucks a beauty campaign can rake in, especially from a beauty giant like Lancome, which is even more amazing considering this girl’s been modeling for less than four months.

And to think, we just thought she was so pretty.

Move over Daria everybody, this girl’s about to explode.

Update, September 5, 2008: Though Arlenis’ agent vehemently denied that Arlenis is the new face of Lancome (he even had a lawyer badger us to take this post down), it seems that this in fact is true, just as we always knew. Clearly, we don’t think much of how Marilyn handled the situation, but we do love Arlenis, so we guess we might be able to let this one go.

And now, a note from Faran…

Last night, I couldn’t find my mascara, so I grabbed my Lancome liquid eyeliner and gently painted my upper and lower lashes with its little, skinny brush.

I think it’s the best eye makeup I’ve ever had.

Instead of sticky clumps or threads, I just got a row of simple black lashes that looked quite natural and a little bit shiny.

I think it’s going to be my new routine, but I’m curious - does everyone else do this, too, and I’m just clueless? Or have I stumbled onto something so obvious, it’s perfect - you know, like the “xoxo” tagline in Gossip Girl?

Lemme know. And to the left is Chanel Iman, whose prowess with liquid eyeliner is astounding, considering when I was seventeen, I could barely use a hairbrush. Seriously, there are yearbook pics to prove it.

This just in from WWD:

Gucci Westman, makup genius extraordinaire, has just been named the new Global Artistic Director of Revlon.

She ended a nearly five year-long career at Lancome, as their International Artistic Director, this past December.

She’s been widely credited with building Lancome’s bridge to Hollywood super stars and to hyping up the brand’s presence during New York Fashion Week - feats she will no doubt again perform for Revlon.

Gucci Westmann did the makeup at Thakoon this season, and it was really beautiful. But it also conjured a lot of bizarre images in our head, and we thought perhaps we’d share them…

*Jem and the Holograms

*’80s Power Blush

*Battered wife-of-an alien syndrome

*Georgia O’Keefe watercolors

*Misguided prom prep

*Mallory Keaton sorority rush episode

*Only if you’re wearing a bun

*Only if you’re wearing couture

*Only if your mom lets you out of the house like that.

What else are we missing?

Like fools, we totally missed out on Christopher Kane’s TopShop collection.

But now there’s a second chance to own a little bit of Kane for a whole lot less than normal (albeit, not the really good stuff).

NYLON reports that Kane and Lancome are launching a series of limited-edition lip glosses, an extension of Lancome’s wildly successful Juicy Tubes line, meant to be the perfect on-face accessory to Kane’s S/S ‘08 collection.

The glosses will be available at all Lancome counters, though we’re not sure how long they’ll last - but if you’ve already RSVP’ed to the February 2 launch party, then they’re as good as in your bag.

Only somewhat related: Do you think the shades will be named after anyone?

Like, “Cocoa Rocha”? How about, “Heidi Plum”?

As it so often happens, the rumors about that pretty celebrity were true:

This year, Anne Hathaway will debut her first campaign for Lancome, following months of speculation that the beauty brand owned by L’Oreal had signed another actress in the wake of Kate Winslet’s campaign for Tresor fragrance.

It should be noted that after Winslet’s commercials aired, Tresor sales went up 20%, although we would speculate that’s partly because Tresor so rarely advertises, especially on television (and we say this despite the fact that Kate Winslet is our favorite actress ever).

Now Hathaway will work with the broader Lancome brand to entice smart young things to pick up a blush brush, which should be an easy task for the Vassar graduate who’s made a pretty solid career out of transforming from gawky to gorgeous in each one of her movies.

The new contract will allow her to do the same thing in ad campaigns - except this time with branded $23 mascara (which - confession - we use every day).

It looks like the execs at Lancome love Daria as much as we do, since they’ve given her a promotion.

She’s not just their spokesmodel anymore - now she’s their newest cosmetics creator, with a new line out that benefits Centro Espacial Vik Muniz, a Brazilian charity for children.

Daria’s limited-edition collection (a lipstick, lipgloss and eyeshadow quad,) will be sold exclusively at Sephora this April, and although it’s the latest in a long line of Lancome collaborations - they’ve made colors with Peter Som, Behnaz Sarafpour, and Proenza Schouler in the past - it’s the first time Lancome has let their models do anything other than pose.

Lancome is already hinting at continued collaborations in WWD, and we bet we know who’s next:

Elettra Wiedemann, the political science junkie and daughter of Isabella Rosselini whom Lancome keeps pumping as their next big thing.

—NATALIE HORMILLA