The thing about Balmain’s party dresses is that if they weren’t made quite so skillfully out of of such exquisite fabrics and crystals etc., they’d run the risk of looking downright trashy.

Christophe Decarnin’s perfected the tight sexy thing and made it work among the fashion crowd because, well, it’s so well done—which makes the girl look and feel the same. And isn’t that the point of looking hot on a night out?

Because even if you rock this Bebe knock off with its spot on asymmetrical hemline and triangular zig zags, you’re not going to look like Anja Rubik at the Met Ball. However, if you buy something that’s not supposed to look like something else inexpensively copied, something for well under $179, you just might look better than Anja.

Though you probably know that.

Also, while we’re on the subject of Bebe, these are heart-breaking.

Avedon Chance: The International Center of Photography’s launching a Richard Avedon exhibition next week. It focuses on his work in fashion in particular from 1944 to 2000. {TheMoment}

Fairy Dust: Pixie Geldof’s interning at LOVE. Apparently she talks too much and befriended a meerkat — or they’re just as fun and silly as we thought. {LOVE}

Circus Time: Paolo Roversi shot a Lucinda Chambers-styled Guinevere Van Seenus for the new Vogue UK. The results - gorgeous, if not a little creepy - make us wish shirts were optional in real life. {Models}

Time Will Tell: Just in case you still have hundreds of thousands of dollars handy and you’re shopping around for a pretty watch, VF’s lined up some winners. {VanityFair}

The Met Ball might have been Monday but the fashion pack just keeps going and going, so we made the three obligatory stops last night and this is what we saw:

— At Derek Lam’s store opening, curved glass walls separate different sections of the store - think shoes from bags from dresses from coats - and totally distort your vision, but look amazingly cool.

— Every editor was there - Anne S., Robbie M., even Anna - though we didn’t read NYMag’s Rihanna tweet until after our cab made it above Houston. Too bad, we would have greatly appreciated seeing RiRi’s new blonde highlights in person.

Inside Scoop: Your only look inside last night’s ball. #36 is an incredibly uncomfortable picture of Anna and Blake Lively. {Vogue}

Met Times: Eric Wilson on the ball, Kate Moss’ wad of gum and Helena Christensen’s silly dress. {NYTimes}

Come On Boys: Jack Bauer Kiefer Sutherland headbutted Jack McCollough at SubMercer last night and that half of Proenza’s still in the hospital. Reports say it’s over a girl but it’s pretty obvious that can’t be right. {Guest}

Which designer woke up this morning and promptly bashed Kate’s outfit? He “positively hated” it.

Kate Moss refused to shake which model’s hand in the receiving line last night? Hint, they hail from the same country, have the same hair color and have held the same title - though they’re over ten years apart.

“Why does it always rain on Met day? I wonder if Mother Nature hates Anna. Anna probably asked her to wear short tonight and she was pissed.” —Derek Blasberg’s tweet, aka, our new favorite reading material.

The big day is finally here and since we have a previous evening commitment, Gossip Girl, we spent the morning with Marc and Anna and Hamish and Harold and even a model or two at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The exhibit itself is spectacular. It opens with life size elephant cut outs and a mannequin wearing Dovima’s Avedon Dior. A hallway of Irving Penns pays tributes to the originals - Suzy Parker, Lisa Fonssagrives, Dorian Leigh and co. There are New Look coats and dresses, Charles James and a Madame Gres. You turn the corner to David Baileys, iconic images of Twiggy and Veruschka wielding her shotgun. Music blares, “Talking ‘bout my generation,” and the mannequins wear Cardins, Paco Rabbanne link dresses and a YSL Mondrian. Then it’s onto Lauren Hutton, Rene Russo, Jerry Hall and unreal Helmut Newton photographs before turning the corner to Versace clad models carrying, seriously, broken champagne bottles. Lastly, the supermodels and the 90s in a graffitied room stocked with Marc Jacobs’ Perry Ellis, Ellen Von Unwerth photography and mind-boggling pictures of Kate.

It’s this room, according to the Costume Institute’s Director Harold Koda, that Anna didn’t feel was “quite grunge enough” late Friday night. And so Oscar winning set director, John Meyer, stayed up Friday and into Saturday, tagging the walls with “Daria,” “Twiggy,” “Kate,” etc in army green, silver and black spray paint - it’s the best part of the whole thing.

Marc said he’s, “honored, flattered, thrilled, grateful to have anything to do with this institution,” and called his involvement, twenty years after his first Met, “a dream come true.” And Koda said he was a pleasure to work with - his only demand that “the exhibit be lively.”

We could gush some more, but basically, the exhibition lives up to the standard set by 06’s Anglomania. So go.

Revlon just named Jessica Biel their newest brand ambassador.

She joins a long list, including Jennifer Connelly, Elle MacPherson and Halle Berry and will eventually be shot for an international campaign and participate in all of Revlon’s charitable causes.

Initial thought? How does one land such a massive beauty contract when one does nothing but date an insanely successful guy? But WWD anticipated that question and explained that the actress does in fact have a few major movies coming out, one with Jake Gyllenhaal and another with Colin Firth.

And of course she’s busy playing “muse” to Justin Timberlake and Trace Ayala. She’ll wear a custom William Rast gown to tonight’s ball - with Revlon lipstick?

Funny Face: Can someone who know something about beauty tell us how to get that perfectly red-rimmed eye without looking diseased? Thanks. {TheMoment}

Already Wins: Andre Leon Talley helped Marisa Tomei decide on a “lemongrass” Madame Gres toga-like dress for next week’s Met Ball. This will be in our top five. {VogueDaily}

And He’s Back: Christoper Kane’s doing Topshop again - this time bigger and better with shoes and bags added to the range. Guess that explains his New York presence earlier this month. {Grazia}

We want to tell you what dress Kate Moss is wearing to the Met Ball.

We wish we could tell you what shoes she’d be wearing, whose arm she’ll be on - ok that’s Marc and Justin - but we can tell you what she’s wearing on her head.

The supermodel, who’s hosting the ball, has been having a blast sketching turbans with Stephen Jones. She apparently can’t wait to wear their joint creation on the red carpet next month.

It does sort of make sense that her head gear takes precedence.

All hail Queen Kate.

If last year’s Met Ball is just a hazy memory, and you never bothered to check out DVF’s Wonder Woman line anyway, here’s another chance to get in on the never-dying comic trend:

Marvel, one of the biggest names behind comic books, is pushing further into the women’s fashion market with a full-on line of clothes, bags, accessories and makeup for 2009.

Obviously, we’re most interested in the makeup, and the fact that they definitely won’t advertise, even though we think Stam would make a great Sue Storm (left). Just imagine a pink lip balm called “Stam Bomb”. Oh yeah, we went there.

“Tom and Katie just walked right up to the front, and we were like, Who the f*ck are they? They’re not even in fashion!” - Kate Moss, on having to wait to get inside last year’s Met Ball, in Vogue UK.

“That’s like telling me we’re going to the D&G store on West Broadway after the Met Ball.” — Derek Blasberg upon hearing the crowd was moving to Denis Simachev’s boutique for drinks Russian Vogue’s tenth anniversary party.

Before Marc hosts the Met, he’s hosting an even more important gala.

Well, maybe not if you asked Anna, but if you asked just a handful of homeless people living with AIDS and HIV in New York they’d probably answer that Housing Works’ Fashion for Action auction is infinitely more important.

The opening gala is Thursday November 13th, though the sale goes until the 16th at the thrift store’s Chelsea location. They’ve procured more than a million dollars worth of designer merchandise including Gucci bags and Doo.Ri and DVF dresses and priced it 50 - 70% off.

They’re hoping to raise $500,000 this year so even if you can’t splurge on a $100 ticket to the Marc-hosted benefit, swing by the store for some severely discounted goods - and an even better cause.

Yesterday, we suggested that Men’s Vogue is the new Fashion Rocks - a rather irrelevant supplement that pops up twice a year in the back of your actual Vogue and gets relegated to the bottom of the magazine stack, if not the garbage.

Well, WWD confirmed our analogy this morning.

Fashion Rocks and Movie Rocks are no more. And no Fashion Rocks supplement means no Fashion Rocks concert. Did Justin Timberlake know this before the rest of the world and sign up to host the Met Ball as his fashion event replacement?

We also suggested Conde cut back on coffee runs and black cars. But we don’t think we’ll be reading confirmation of that in WWD anytime soon.

It’s been more than a month since the Met Ball (you know, the super-hero bash with the widely ignored dress code), which was months after we’d already been seeing superhero and comic book themed collections popping up everywhere from Luella to Iceberg.

But, honestly, who’s wearing this stuff?

We’ve yet to see anyone walking down Prince with Wonder Woman-sized cuffs or Catwoman-like glasses from Linda Farrow, and since the wannabe trend is getting rather stale, we doubt we will anytime soon.

The fashion planet toted superheroes and comic books as the season’s biggest inspiration, from high up on the runway down to Topshop, which even created a special collection of starred rain boots and Superman logo pajamas and undies. And they’re still trying to push it further - witness the Comic Relief roundup in the new July ELLE.

We actually find comic book prints and Spidey-webs fun and they bring us back a few years. We wouldn’t mind a cute Batman watch or even a tank with BAM! written across it. But we wouldn’t take it much further - you know, like into Jeremy Scott’s territory.

So what do you think, would you wear Spiderman’s web or maybe Wonder Woman’s crown? Or is this one of those trends that fell straight off the runway?

—KYLE HAYES