>> While we get plenty of interviews from the house of Marc Jacobs, we are more deprived of words from another tastemaking house: the formidable house of Balenciaga. 

Recently, however, two key members opened up.  Nicolas Ghesquière — who has no formal fashion training and got his start in fashion filing, photocopying and cataloguing fabrics at Jean Paul Gaultier — has run the ship for the last 11 years.  But only after  he designed the lowly licensed lines, including office uniforms, bridal gowns and Japanese widows’ dresses for Balenciaga, first.

Now, he has the pull to have models come in for fittings five times in the two or three day period before the Balenciaga show.  And he designs dress like the latex and silk concoctions he came up with for Fall — that retail from $46,000-$86,000 apiece. 

Meanwhile, at his side is Sigrid de l'Epine, Balenciaga PR extraordinaire (above left); the woman who is likely behind Kanye West not getting an invitation to the most recent show.  So devoted is she, that her son is named Cristobal . . .

*image: nytimes

>> There's Nina Ricci and Reese Witherspoon, Carolina Herrera and Renee Zellweger. . . why not Missoni and Leighton Meester?  She's worn the Italian brand for her past two big events this month — the New Yorkers For Children Fool's Fete gala last night and the LA premiere of Remember the Daze on April 8 — and looked stunning in both.  If Margherita Missoni had any hand in this, she's doing her job as brand ambassador well.
*images: getty, wireimage  

>> I'm still hard into fringe and feathery goodness, but something new has caught my eye for Fall.  I know it's a little farfetched, but after watching the hair flow around the heels at Behnaz Sarafpour (left), such great movement stuck in the back of my mind.  By the time I saw that Sergio Rossi (right, top) and Pierre Hardy (right, bottom) had the same idea in mind for their Fall collections, I was sold: Gotta get some hair up in here.

*images: style.com

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