>> Tomas Maier is ever working the understated, the investment dress angle at Bottega Veneta — and the Grace Kelly twist he took for Fall 2009 seems so right. The gauzy goddess gowns with rectangle-shaped tiers in the skirt were full-on glamour of the best kind; sure to be snapped up for a red-carpet appearance here, an editorial there. But even the simple chocolate nappa leather or mauve velvet strapless dresses resounded — warm tones in a season full of cold blacks and grays. Resisting full-on ladylike, Maier slipped in "sly fetishistic" underwires and seams cupping the breasts into his dresses, and first-hand viewers called the collection "breathtaking" and "dreamy." The only lack of beauty shown? Apparently the pit photographers screamed at the models in Italian, and the "front row was appalled."
*image: source
>> INSIDER WIRE —No one ever said Valentino was easy to work with, but former Valentino CEO 
>> IN THE LOOKING GLASS —The portfolio — and some outtakes — Ellen von Unwerth photographed in 
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>> INSIDER WIRE — Pre-Fall collections are widely recognized as an incubator for a designer to try out ideas before use in a main collection, but for his Fall 2009 Burberry collection, Christopher Bailey seems to have more than just evolved ideas from his Pre-Fall collection. Rather, he appears to have re-used or only made slight adjustments to Pre-Fall looks before sending them down the Fall 2009 runway — prints, shapes, and silhouettes on a number of looks appear the same in both collections. [
>> INSIDER WIRE —Steven Meisel's obsession with the Brit it-girls continues. It all started when he photographed 
