One of the best things about being in London is seeing what everyone in New York will be wearing in six months.

Sure enough, peplums were already in the window of every high street store, everyone’s rocking Alice Dellal-like grungy booties, and there were an inordinate amount of super stylish fashion show-going girls with a perfectly plaited braid wrapped around their long wavy hair.

Each time we saw one of them we’d wonder, how’d she braid that so perfectly? How is it staying in place just so? Until finally, when we had thirty minutes to spend in Topshop on the very last day, we saw a wall stocked with fake braid headbands and felt like an ass for not realizing they were fake three days before.

We’ll blame it on exhaustion, being far away and blurred fashion vision at this point - but for all the railing we’d do in an argument against fake hair, we couldn’t even tell the difference.

Which makes us wonder, would you wear a fake braid on your head? Because all the cool girls are doing it.

The next logical step after the last year’s stripper platforms?

A while back, Rick Owens started releasing a series of fur monsters - first the bunny clutch made of mink ($700), closely followed by The Monster ($850).

And now? Marc’s released a skull face watch, which we find a little too scary-looking for ordinary life (and $200).

So what’s with designers obsessing over busted faces? (Remember that Kidrobot made a mean bunny, too.)

Relatedly, Britt thinks the Marc watch must have been inspired by Jack from The Nightmare Before Christmas.

But for us, this just means we really think Tim Burton should take this trend and run film.

The next logical step from Ray-Ban, via WWD this morning:

Following the success of the Wayfarers revival (so successful we’re sick of them), Ray-Ban’s reintroducing another oldie/goodie from their archive, the Clubmasters, from the golden year of 1986, already recently spotted on the likes of Agyness and Rachel Bilson.

The style will get six new bright colors added to its repertoire (in addition to classic black and tortoise), launching at a small concert at the Bowery Ballroom on December 9th.

Each pair will retail for $129. But if you can’t wait (and feel like this season’s sales need to be respected), you could throw a pair onto your Amazon holiday order for $99 - that is, of course, if you won’t want to flick them off people’s faces by New Year’s.

Maybe it’s because I’ve just returned from a long weekend in the country, or maybe it’s because I’m particularly eagle-eyed when it comes to hair, but did anyone else notice last night’s prime time hair switch?

First, I watched Blair Waldorf help save a young girl from 1 Oak sporting a side braid more reminiscent of Lauren Conrad’s cool-California girl style than her usual UES stiff. And that was funny and fine.

But then I noticed Lauren Conrad sporting a black headband (and was that a bow on it? Tilted to the side?) more reminiscent of Blair Waldorf’s uppity signature look, which always makes me think of Shannon Doherty in Heathers.

An intentional Monday night hair swap? Or an East Coast / West Coast hip-hair rivalry?

You know we doubt it’s either, but it’s just so fun to say shit like that.

Obviously, ruffles are one of the big trends for Spring 09 - and this is just a sampling.

They were at both the expected (Catherine Malandrino, Luella) and the unexpected (Ohne Titel), and we now expect to see them at all the usual suspects (Forever 21, Topshop, H&M, J Crew, Blair Waldorf, etc.)

But don’t expect them on us - at least, for now…

…Because they were all over the New York runways for Spring.

They came huge (Threeasfour, Jenni Kayne), they came small (DVF, Alexandre Herchcovitch, Phillip Lim), they even came minuscule and in body art-like swirls on sheer tops and leggings (Ohne Titel).

We fully expect to see them in every store come February, but the bigger question remains: Will we see them on every girl come April?

Only if we don’t mind looking like disco balls (or Sienna Miller circa 2006)…

One of the most notable trends color-wise from New York’s Spring 09 Fashion Week was the lack of color - we overheard a lot of mumbling about the shows looking “very Fall” which we think had a lot to do with the muted, sometimes morose, color palette.

Not that there weren’t some bright spots here and there (more on that later), but isn’t Spring about bringing back electric yellow after months of black coats on every back down Broadway? We think so.

Now that New York’s part of Spring 09 is over, we can start connecting the polka dots and thinking of the whole blur as a whole, maybe to great effect, maybe just for fun.

Eric Wilson’s weekend article on the sheer trend seen at Marc, Calvin Klein, Ohne Titel, and Cushnie et Ochs got the ball rolling - did we notice that there were, in fact, so many nipples on the runways? Did we care? Not really, but here’s another thought -

We’ve been thinking about the sheer trend as one of the many symptoms of a general flashiness witnessed at the shows. The other symptoms - otherwise known as trends - include sequins (more on that later), ruffles, excesses of fabric (floaty dresses, exaggerated harem pants), super short hemlines, super high shoes, and the same super heavy costume jewelry from Fall 08 creeping up onto models’ heads, as seen at DVF and Behnaz.

But haven’t we always heard that tough economic times are mirrored on the runway, in the form of longer hemlines, more conservative dress (read: none of the under-boob cleavage as seen at Cushnie), and a general boring tone? Yes, this Fashion Week was a little humdrum, but the clothes were showy if not stale, kind of like a day-old cupcake. Is it because we know we’re not exactly listening to the news that backgrounded our daily fix of fashion news from The Daily? Like, news that one of the country’s oldest and largest investment banks died hard while we considered the most appropriate diameter of sequins for a mini dress?

Or do the flashy looks prove it’s just a fun theory not meant for serious analysis? We do know there are some people who think the opposite - that designers glam up their clothes in harder times so consumers are more enticed to part with their dwindling dollar supply.

But of course, that makes it so much stickier.

—KYLE HAYES

MK was the first fashion lover we noticed embracing the full finger ring back in December, and we loved it. Now, we’re spotting Rihanna wearing one (and sometimes two) during her ongoing media blitz - most recently at the the awesome BET Awards.

While the trend takes cues from calvary armor of the 16th century, the ring variation has typically been reserved for more hardcore Goth culture. We still don’t know whether to call them “Gauntlet Rings,” “Full Finger Rings,” “Armor Rings,” “Over the Knuckle Rings,” or some variation thereof - but Googling will turn up some pretty diabolical results. And everyone still thinks we mean “Brass Knuckles”. Definitely not.

Vivienne Westwood has been making her “Armour Ring” for years, but it’s a little expensive and we’re on the hunt for a more delicate looking variation, like the filigree version Rihanna’s sporting at left. Maybe it’s a sign, but we’re not having much luck.

So in the future, if you see us on the street giving someone the finger, at least you’ll know why.

— JAZZI McGILBERT

We had a good laugh in the Fashionista office a few weeks ago, when The New York Times declared chipped nails to be trendy, and we were like, “Well shit, then we’ve been fashionable since fifth grade!”

Now Vogue UK wants to get into the messy makeup act, too, giving us instructions on “how to do Stam’s ‘starlet - post tearful tantrum’ look” as illustrated at left.

For the record, we’ve never seen or heard Jessica Stam throw a tantrum, but she looks awfully convincing as a girl seething glitter at left.

Vogue UK is awfully stoked to smear their makeup this summer, and it’s leading us to think there might be a general and very silly trend going forward:

Has fashion become so accessible that in order to truly seem “in,” you have to violate it in the most against-your-instinct ways? Like never washing / brushing your hair, chipping your nails, smearing your eyes… really?

It’s an interesting trend to discuss, and an interesting theory to volley, but we won’t examine it too much because frankly, our specialty is looking low maintenance. If being messy right now means being fashionable, then we might finally have a shot at that Vogue Best Dressed List… cough, Alexandra Kotur, cough!