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}

Truthfully, I didn’t even know Eric Daman, Gossip Girl’s stylist/costume designer, was writing a book until I showed up at its party last night.

It’s called You Know You Want It and it’s a charming, realistic guide to style with fantastic illustrations, quotes and photographs.

Leighton Meester, who popped up in one of Marios Schwab’s 3D dresses, wrote the intro and since you probably aren’t familiar with her writing, here you go:

“Eric is more than a stylist…He’s also a psychologist, a scientist, and an artist. Simply put, he’s a genius.

“Imagine this: you’re on set, in the middle of a frenzy of activity that would make the Energizer Bunny beg for a nap. You’ve had weeks of fittings and been in and out of different looks all day, done a month’s worth of changes in an afternoon. You are getting sleeeepy…the biggest cup of coffee in the world could not rouse you. But then Eric holds up a piece of clothing, a slip of silk dangling on a hanger, and whispers, “You know you want it.” His tone hovers between sly and delighted, as if he knows he’s about to make some kind of magic. And instead of exhaustion, you feel a glimmer of excitement. Because it’s so true. You want it. You need it.”

The Brit’s are taking a cue from our successful CFDA/Vogue Fashion fund; Vogue UK and the British Fashion Council have teamed up for the sake of their country’s flourishing young design talent and formed the BFC Vogue Designer Fashion Fund.

Each year, the fund will award £200,000 to a fresh-faced designer, plus a mentor, to help him or her build a successful brand on “the international stage.”

Britain does, of course, already have similar programs. Topshop’s NewGen, which has sponsored Christopher Kane, Marios Schwab, Richard Nicoll, Louise Goldin, Henry Holland and so many more tends to scoop up the most talented, most broke of St. Martin’s talent and give them the perfect place to show, but the BFC/Vogue fund will have more follow through and individualized attention.

While Target’s making brands like Hayden-Harnett and Rodarte household names, Net-a-Porter’s building a home for lesser known designers and showcasing their work for a crowd already in love with kooky fashion.

Last year they launched an exclusive Marios Schwab section (pre-Halston) and now they’ll host an exclusive holiday collection from Ashish Gupta.

The London-based designer’s carried on a long love affair with sequins and though his latest collection revolved around both a fantasy vacation and a love of Nike, he’s designed a more subdued collection for the online shop.

He tells Vogue UK that it’s “a range of beautiful easy to wear pieces in soft shimmer black and metallics…perfect for easy evening glamour.”

Someone’s started a rumor that Sarah Jessica Parker’ll be the new face of Halston. Let’s count all the reasons we bet on never.

1. Halston is a disaster. Though we’re sure Marios Schwab will end its curse and do something brilliant, a brand can’t have a face for a collection that doesn’t exist (yet).

2. Last time Harvey chose a face, Rachel Zoe, to be associated with a brand, it failed. It really, really failed.

3. As if fashion wasn’t sick enough of celebrity, whatever comes down Lindsay Lohan’s runway for Ungaro this week will probably put off even the most celeb-friendly of the fashion world for a moment.

4. It’d be silly to pay Sarah Jessica Parker to be the face of a brand when Carrie Bradshaw’s been photographed wearing it all over Manhattan, for free, and will be seen on every screen in the same dresses come May.

What’d we miss?

TheOutNet has some new competition.

Browns, the British department store that is kind of like a physical incarnation of Net-a-Porter, just launched a new website called “Labels For Less.” The site offers last season’s merchandise (the good stuff) from both Browns and Browns Focus at pretty severe discounts - up to 70% off.

Dear Rihanna,

I don’t know much about your music. Mostly because I tend to pick up on music from the boys in my life and yours aren’t exactly their go-to tunes. But you’re on my radar (because I don’t live under a rock) and I’m digging your sartorial choices.

I know you have a red carpet/video/tour stylist, but I’m pretty sure when you walk out of the house in something like the Chris Kane dress at left, you’ve thrown it on all by yourself. Between that and your Stella sailor cardigan, the slouchy bag with which you dressed down that Alex Wang dress, your Balmain touches and this necklace you’re rocking all over NYC, we’re impressed.

So please wear more Chris Kane, check out Charles Anastase and maybe grab one of Marios Schwab’s 3D dresses? Also Ann D’s ribcage belt probably has your name etched along the spine and we’d love to see you in some Rodarte knits.

In closing, thank you for branching out where so many wear faded white tees and leggings - you’re like Michelle Obama for the Hollywood set and we kind of love you for it.

The British Fashion Council’s just appointed Sarah Mower its first ever Ambassador for Emerging Talent.

You already know Sarah from her stories in Vogue and her brilliant Style.com show reviews. And now she’ll play an even bigger role in shaping the face of up and coming talent - so much of which comes out of London.

She’ll be in charge of the NewGen committee, the Topshop-sponsored council that provides financial support (and often show space) to the young designers and recent grads showing the most promise. Think Marios Schwab, Chris Kane, and Danielle Scutt.

Sarah said, “In Britain we have a phenomenon on our hands at the moment: a uniquely
vibrant, varied and collaborative flowering of talent that is some of the most exciting on
the world stage.”

So all that power basically makes her the cooler, hipper Anna, right?

After months of speculation, Halston’s announced their newest creative director, Central St. Martin’s alum Marios Schwab.

The half-Greek, half-Austrian designer’s headed his own label since 2005. Now he’s picking up for a move to New York and planning to debut his first collection for Halston, Fall 10, next February. He told WWD, “While Halston’s DNA is crucial to its future success, I very much wish to move the brand forward and make it relevant for today.”

The announcement comes after a season in which Halston fell apart (again) and Schwab, with his psychedelic, architectural Fall 09 collection, established himself as an industry favorite. It’s easy to see how after that collection, one editors watched delightedly through their 3-D glasses, Schwab could do anything.

And yet we’re more relieved to hear he’s keeping his own line than we are excited to see what he does for Halston.

There was a mini-debate going on in the comments section of a Paris post.

One person decreed that blogs aren’t press and therefore shouldn’t sit in the press section of a show while another pointed out that we obviously aren’t buyers which together puts us in a rather awkward category. Blogs are, according to most publicists, considered press, and our seating assignment is usually a testament to that classification.

However, this season we noticed a new seating trend pop up. For the first time, those reporting for blogs and magazines’ online departments were often seated together which meant we had daily run-ins with reporters from Elle.com, Papermag.com, Glamour.com, Showstudio, DazedDigital, Fashionologie and more.

For example, at Marios Schwab, bloggers had their own Front Row section (alongside the Conde section, the ELLE section, etc), which created a real commune-style discussion of, “Well, I can’t report this for my site, but you totally should use what I heard earlier!” Fun, and certainly effective for spilling your thoughts onto Twitter in mere minutes.

Which makes us wonder, are the days of acting like bloggers aren’t real media members finally over? Because it looks like they are, at least in fashion. Especially now, when major editors from The Times are tweeting and Vogue editors like Filipa Fino are writing for Vogue Daily and WWD posts multiple times a day. We’re just saying, the line is getting awfully blurry.

WHICH editor looked so bored front row at Marios Schwab that her tongue literally rolled out of her mouth? Guess she didn’t share our opinion of the show.

Marios Schwab’s stiff white invitation was embedded with squares of red and blue film to make a handy pair of 3-D glasses.

It was also at the Topshop venue, which means food. So I hauled myself to the University of Westminster - in the battle of hunger versus exhaustion, the former almost always wins - and, despite last season’s disappointing show, absolutely loved Schwab’s Fall 09 collection.

I also loved watching Daphne Guinness in the front row - watching the way that woman dresses and conducts herself is like watching an editorial come to life, a really great one.

Anyway, Schwab’s dresses were beautifully built, creative and colorful - so much color this fall. It’s like he started with shifts and constructed frames around them, folding and dipping fabric to position the basic dress within a sort of shell. The bold prints stood on their own, without help from the 3-D glasses. In fact, everyone lifted their invite at the first sign of a psychedelic print, shook their head and put it down. You didn’t want anything in the way of you and these clothes.

And that was only the second show of the best day of the season.

The British Fashion Council just announced this season’s recipients of their New Gen award.

Topshop, the sponsor behind the award, will back twenty-four up and coming designers with space in the London Fashion Week tents throughout the week. The tents stand on the grounds of the Natural History Museum next to the main runway venue and get serious foot traffic from editors and buyers killing time in between shows.

Eight of the winning designers, including Henry Holland, Danielle Scutt, Louise Goldin, Meadham Kirchhoff and Peter Pilotto, will also get sponsorship for their runway shows. Which means, most importantly, a free venue. Last season’s Topshop space (an underground garage), was home to Christopher Kane, Marios Schwab, delicious food and an atmosphere more suited to partying than working.

Which we’re sure that bunch’ll be fine with.

We’re familiar with almanacs when it comes to farming, astrology, economics, just about anything except fashion really.

But now we have one for our own industry thanks to Laura Bradley, the Editor-in-Chief of The Fashion Almanac.

The Almanac will be published twice a year, conveniently timed to coincide with Fashion Weeks in late September and late February. It will be a slight one hundred pages and sell for for £5.00 ($10) a pop. If you can’t wait for February (because between this and LOVE, we can’t), there’s already content on-line.

The magazine will stay true to its almanac label as “a reference book, composed of various lists, tables, and often brief articles relating to a particular field or many general fields.” So in the case of fashion, this entails an analysis of designer bows, an ‘identification guide’ for various fashion items and an ‘object lesson’ which, in this issue, dissects a Marios Schwab dress. Each article comes with textbook-like illustrations and pictures that make us feel like we’re doing something at least half-way studious when really we’re just learning more about the things we already love.

Now, if only we could get a PhD in magazine-reading.

—HAYLEY PHELAN

A lot of people were psyched for Marios Schwab’s Spring show.

Therefore, a lot of people were disappointed with Marios Schwab’s Spring show.

The young, Topshop-sponsored designer began his show with suede, which is almost impossible to make chic, in dress form. There was also a shiny, half jersey / half silk story in a lot of the same bon-bon colors we’ve seen since we landed in London and some rhinestone dresses so heavy they fell below more than one boob.

We did, however, love the rainbow playsuits. But that’s probably because they’re for a totally different customer than the rest of the collection.

As Faran said, “This is what happens when you tell a great designer to play it safe. It sucks.”

Well, it definitely wasn’t awesome.

We love clips that are too weird to really understand.

Some crazy kids (Marios Schwab, photographer Ben Charles Edwards, Piers Atkinson of Daily Rubbish) somehow convinced Zandra Rhodes (or was it the other way around?) to star in a three-part series of videos that could only be described as…surreal? The series, “Chapter 7: Eat Your Chiffon” culminates in a dinner party filmed in Zandra’s own personal penthouse.

Watch the first of the triptych, above, if you want to be kind of freaked out - and make sure to catch the second if you want to know that Zandra once dressed Freddy Mercury, that she wishes she could dress Dita von Teese, that she knows how to cook what one can only assume is a witches’ brew, etc.

The third clip won’t be out until next week - and we hear it’s supposed to include some “suprise guests”…

In the wake of Cathy Horyn’s proclamation, Style.com chooses their top shows for Spring ‘08, including Marc and also Lanvin, Rodarte, Prada, and Marios Schwab (yeah!).

And while we debate whether to list our own favorites - do you really want to know? - we’ve noticed something fun about the Marc show itself:

The zaniest trends from his runway managed to reappear all over other catwalks.

We’re not saying anyone copied Marc’s madness - they couldn’t have, since their samples arrived at the same time as Marc’s (in fact, judging by the show delay, probably earlier). But since MJ has arguably the most visibility of any fashion show, his trends might actually catch light, and lead to more sales and editorials for these other labels.

We’ve compiled a chart of the weirdest Marc trends below - and where else we saw them - but we’ve got to confess: We’re already plotting how to get the weird sunglasses, which look like The Corpse Bride on her honeymoon.