>>  You probably expected to see Balenciaga's erratic florals trickle down into clothes without a Balenciaga label.  Did you expect the Balenciaga catwalk to get some extra face time after all the well-shod feet clomped across it last October?  Probably not — usually the set is torn down and forgotten.  But here the runway pattern is again, inspiring the backdrop that appears in the February 2008 Vogue Paris editorial "Bon mauvais goût" — which is stunning in its own right, I might add.

>> Is Russh hour over? My favorite Aussie publication Russh has been the subject of rumors about financial trouble recently. 

Supposedly, the magazine has an outstanding debt of $19,000, and both the creative director and a features editor, who were believed to be owed wages, recently resigned. Hopefully it's all not true . . .

**image: russh

This weekend, we caught up with Love Brigade for their A/W 08 look book shoot. In an apartment just blocks away from the Love Brigade Co Op, and resided in by the designer of Brooklyn Royalty, Bob Bland (also a menswear designer for Triple Five Soul), we witnessed the chaos of a photo shoot with four designers, ten models, a photographer, journalists (us!), friends, and one totally crazy neighbor. Our interview with Love Brigade and photos of their shoot, after the jump.

Images shot by Alex Norden for Coutorture read more

We kind of love that the Bill Blass S/S 08 presentation had an atmosphere reminiscent of Wuthering Heights so cold and eerie, that it made your skin crawl. It definitely adds something to dresses that, though beautiful, stand among the dozens of other 'pretty', neutral dresses we saw for the season. The fact that the design seems redundant is no doubt due to the interim between Michael Vollbracht and Peter Som (who starts designing for Bill Blass this A/W 08) and the fact that the inspiration for the collection was, literally, digging through archives of season's passed.

Similar to the growing 'pop-up' trend, guerilla stores are certainly thriving as Commes de Garcon just opened their fourth store in less than a year. Namely, this month saw the erection of a Singapore location. The guerilla store costs little to open (we're talking hundreds of thousands less), will stay in business for exactly one year, and will, as slamxhype predicts, be a huge success. How's that for instant gratification?

While we may have a new look and a new attitude, we're still bringing you the best fashion content, fresh from the blogosphere. Start your work week off right with posts from Savvy Skin, Season Five, Betsy Ross' Journal, Shopahaulic, and Eyeshadow Government.