>> The annual CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund winner collaborations kick off today — but this year, instead of Gap, J.Crew is the partner of choice. Billy Reid's 7-piece menswear collection is already online and runs through May, while Prabal Gurung's five-piece collection will be available online and in select J.Crew stores in June, and Borgo's pieces hit in July.

While Borgo's and Gurung's pieces have yet to be previewed, all three designers re-created pieces from their previous collections in new colors and materials for the collaboration, and J.Crew head of women's design Marissa Webb wore a pair of pants from Gurung's J.Crew collection to the launch party last night.

As for prices, Gurung says of his pieces: "Everything is under $500. I'm going to buy it for my sister, my cousins — everyone." And Borgo added: "I'm just excited to see what happens with this new customer. The cross-pollination of places like J.Crew and luxury brands — it's part of modern dressing."

>> Three days after the royal wedding comes another one of this year's big events — the Costume Institute Gala. In preparation, Vogue just launched an iPad app this morning dedicated to the spectacle, which features five years of behind-the-scenes footage, a preview of this year's Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty retrospective — with peeks into the museum’s storage vaults — and a personal tribute to McQueen by Anna Wintour.

As the May 2 gala gets closer, the app — which costs 99 cents — will be updated with a video of event designer Raul Avila disclosing this year's decor details, and then after the bash, it will update again with a video covering the party and its featured celebrity performances.

Hamish Bowles, who provides an introduction on the app, says that the details of the event only come together the night before, when the workers are let into the Metropolitan Museum of Art to work through the evening: “It’s like an amazingly industrious ant colony, all with their part to play. So it has to be so scrupulously planned and orchestrated, because they have this finite window of opportunity in which to make the magic happen. The work is really phenomenal. The app gives you some sense of that."

Bowles also admits that even though he's attended the event for several years, he still gets butterflies: “I mean, it’s intimidating. The whole process of thinking of what you’re going to wear when all eyes are going to be on everyone. As soon as I know the theme, I have ideas rumbling away [on what to wear], but sometimes, it can be surprisingly eleventh hour.” And when asked whether his friends pester him about tickets to the event, he replies: "Nothing ventured, nothing gained."