>> Joseph Altuzarra may be a bit of a Vogue Paris darling — he told The Daily he credits Carine Roitfeld for encouraging him to start his own line, she's supported him by wearing a coat of his to Paris Fashion Week in March, and her former assistant and Vogue Paris junior editor Melanie Huynh styled his Spring 2010 show — but it sounds like he's committed to New York; he told The Daily: "We want to establish the brand as an integral part of the New York scene."

Altuzarra, like Alexander Wang, switched up his look this season, explaining to the New York Times: "When you start a collection, you have to push yourself to limits that may make you uncomfortable but that are also challenging.”  Instead of building on the body-conscious jersey minidresses from his Fall 2009 collection, he decided to channel the '70s with lots of olive suede and white ruffles.  The show, in which both muse Vanessa Traina and Dewi Driegen walked, attracted Colette's Sarah Lerfel, Giovanna Battaglia, Carine Roitfeld and daughter Julia Restoin-Roitfeld, Steven Kolb, Fabien Baron, plus Alexander Wang, who showed up midway through (his show was slotted right before Joseph's) and watched from the back next to Cathy Horyn, who had gotten up from the front row to stand next to the photographers right before show started.

Altuzarra expanded from 18 looks last season to 29 this season, and dreams of continuing to move further forward; as he told The Daily:

I basically work and live in the same place, which can be really good or really bad. We want to grow by baby steps, but I'm very happy now . . . A few more clothes and a large shoe and jewelry line would be nice, though. Our immediate goal, of course, is to find an office space and move operations out of my apartment.

>> I've been noticing a more concerted effort by designers to cast models of color this season, but so far, Sophie Theallet takes the cake. For her New York runway debut, the Brooklyn-based Parisian designer sent out an entire cast of black models — Kinee Diouf, Honorine Uwera, Ataui Deng — the works. It was her training — ten years under the wing of Azzedine Alaia — that first brought the likes of Vogue's Grace Coddington, New York Times's Cathy Horyn, Lou Doillon, and Vogue Paris' Melanie Huynh out of the woodwork, but I bet as they left the Altman Building this morning, the model imagery was on their minds — it was on mine.
*image: source