fashion firsts

Chris Benz told us that his signature pink hair was inspired by the gloomy, gray days of Winter — and that it almost manifested itself as a signature tattoo or piercing.

"It was that Winter in New York when it was like endless, and everyone was dying and it was pouring down rain," Benz said, referring to the blizzard-filled Winter of 2010. "Every single day it was snowing and then it would rain and then it would snow. And I was like, I don't know, I need to get a tattoo or pierce my ears or something, and everyone was like, no, just dye your hair because you can always dye it back and you'll feel like you did something exciting in the midst of this terrible Winter.

"So I went to where I get my hair done, looked at a bunch of colors, and I was like, 'Bleach it white and then we're going to dye it a color and be done with it.' And after it was white, I was like, let's just do it pink. I think it'll be funny and fun. And that was it. And the rest is history."

Benz has more or less maintained his pink hair since then and says he doesn't see himself experimenting with another color any time soon. He treats his locks with Manic Panic's pink hair dye about once a month.

"It kind of gets good when it grows out," he said. "I feel like roots are really important right now."

Photo courtesy of eBay.

Meeting your idols can be exhilarating, but Agyness Deyn told us she wasn't exactly a smooth operator the first time she met Dame Vivienne Westwood, with whom she did her first major ad campaign.

"That was before I've done Vogue or anything — I was 19," Deyn said of the ad. "I loved Vivienne. I remember that was one of the first shows I ever did. She's from up north, right where I'm from. I just remember telling her, 'I'm from where you're from!' while she was in the middle of styling someone during the show, and she was like, 'Oh, OK.'"

Deyn, who recently collaborated on a '90s-grunge-influenced capsule collection with Dr. Martens, says her personal style isn't just limited to her wardrobe and is highly reflective of her mood.

"It really depends on how I'm feeling. Especially with my hair, shaving it and dying it black, then I dyed it orange," she said. "It's something that I like to express in addition to the way I dress." And what was she expressing when she got that buzz cut? "I was just like, let's get it all off. I've done that all the way through growing up. You just get to the point of shaving it all off, and I've gone through years where I dye it, shave it, grow it out, and have fun with it all over again."

— Additional reporting by Chi Diem Chau

Photo courtesy of Dr. Martens

Erin Fetherston's success as a designer — and her charming personal style — have made her a regular fixture on the Fashion Week scene, but she wasn't always included on guest lists. We talked with the flaxen-haired designer about her elaborate plan to sneak into her very first runway show when she was just an 18-year-old intern at a "major" fashion magazine in New York.

"It was September. A couple people from the magazine were invited to the Calvin Klein show at Milk Studios. The art department got a copy of someone else's invitation and they basically made a bootleg copy for me — but totally using their amazing art production equipment!

"I was so nervous. I was completely sneaking in, and I feel like that didn't happen that much back then. Before the digital era and before Fashion GPS I feel like it was harder, because you really needed to have that physical invite.

"I remember going to the show and hiding it [the invitation] with the envelope or folded in half. I walked right in and I remember just being amazed. Once the show was over everyone was kind of hanging out and drinking champagne and there was Shalom Harlow and Amber Valletta. It was just amazing for me."

Fetherston added that she's been showing her collection at Milk for the past few seasons, and she always sees "student crashers. I always let them come in because I was totally the same," she said.

We also asked Fetherston about her signature coif. She told us she focuses on getting haircuts that grow out well (her go-to is Edward Tricomi at Warren Tricomi) and conditioning it with Shu Uemura and Redken products to keep it healthy — but she says she doesn't want her hair to get more attention than she does.

"I've had my bangs for such a long time and I know people really associate me with them," she said, laughing. "You don't want to be defined by something like your haircut. I feel like it was starting to overshadow other things that I do in my life, which I think are more interesting."

Zac Posen went to the Met Gala long before he made his name as a designer. In fact, Posen was a teenage intern for the Costume Institute the first time he attended fashion's biggest party.

"The Met Ball was sort of my first experience as an intern, when I was 16, of seeing what a ball would look like. I was an intern there, so I bought my staff ticket for the Gianni Versace exhibition. I saved up my money for like, three weeks to buy my $50 ticket. It was a really dreamy experience. So when I then became a designer and started going, it just has a very personal significance. I try to make it the most fun possible for me and my date and anybody that's around me. And it's an amazing cause and has an incredible history around it."

Posen also told us about what it was like to see Diana Vreeland's old office at the Met.

"When I was there, Diana Vreeland's office was still intact, and that's where I did my interview. It's no longer there. It was changed to a video archive while I was there, but it was an amazing experience to see all the stuffed peacocks and the Maria Callas photos on the wall. It was just like a closed time capsule, and it all had sort of a '60s vibe to it. All the clothing was archived between Venetian blinds. It was very cold. You have all the Christy Turlington mannequins and tons of vertical filing. And that was where I sort of got the fashion bug — for the history."

Photo: Zac Posen with Christina Ricci at the Met Gala in 2011.