>> Raquel Zimmermann, who has been missing from the runways all season, finally made an appearance at Alexander McQueen — projected on a screen behind the runway, topless, with a snake writhing around her; she later morphed into an arm-waving sea creature. Two cameras, each mounted on a robotic arm that glided back and forth on the runway, moved over the audience, replacing the video of Raquel on the screen and signaling the start of the show, titled "Plato's Atlantis."

Stiffly sculptural minidresses started out in mirrored snakeprints, moving into owl and insect territory, and finally the aquatic.  Hair, which began in cornrows with crimped tufts, ended in two gravity-defying horns, and the hologram catwalk operated on motion-control technology. Some of the white-faced models had prosthetics around their eyes, giving them alien-like bone structure, which took three hours to apply.  And if the Fall 2009 Nina Ricci shoes needed an editorial replacement, McQueen has it for Spring 2010 — hoof-like platform booties that Imogen Morris-Clarke says were ten inches high.

The collection, embellished and couture-like as it was, will be reinterpreted to be more wearable for retail, but if the livestream — which couldn't handle all the people who tried to tune in — is any indication (full video can now be seen here), people do love their McQueen spectacles.

>> Last night, Anna Wintour hosted a premiere of The September Issue (which opens Aug. 28 in NYC, Sept. 11 nationwide), and no one dared be late.  Arrivals were scheduled to start at 7 pm, but Anna appeared and was joined (despite all the digs about her appearance she receives in the film) by September 2007 cover girl Sienna Miller promptly at 6:45 pm.  Even Sean Combs and entourage, when realizing they were late, "sprinted across the lobby," the New York Observer reports.

Despite the general consensus that the film's true star is Grace Coddington, last night was all about Anna.  Grace and Andre Leon Talley both avoided being photographed on the red carpet, and it appears that Vogue staffers were required to wear t-shirts for Fashion's Night Out (Anna's pro-shopping pet project) to the event.  Grace did comment on her portrayal in the film, however:

I hate to say it, but true to life! A very annoying person. But it’s not really bickering. It’s a process you have to go through for the job we do and it just makes everything stronger. Whatever gets through is then very valid and very strong. I think they focused on me in the movie because I’m a bit more outspoken and because I don’t care about the cameras, I’ll say whatever I want to say and I won’t hold back.

Bee Shaffer, who attended in Proenza Schouler and reminded her mother to put on her sunglasses while on the red carpet (which Anna duly did), thought her own scene in the film was "so embarassing":

It’s funny because that was two years ago and I wanted to go to law school then and that’s basically all I’m talking about and now I don’t want to go to law school at all so . . . [I] still don’t want to work in fashion, that was never a possibility. Now I’d like to work in theater.

Marc Jacobs, who was apparently speaking with a French accent, had his own Anna tribute to share. "She’s a risk-taker unafraid of taking chances. She doesn’t suck up,” he said. “And she’s been very good to me on a personal level as well. When I was having some personal problems, Anna was always there for me. She’s very maternal and caring to people she cares about."

>> After sending Angela Lindvall to the beach for Spring 2009, Hermes has delved straight into Winter scenery for Fall 2009: Eric Valli captured a fur-hooded Raquel Zimmermann around Sweden's cinematic Ice Hotel.  The only curious thing about this first set of three?  In the shoe shot, Raquel's bootie doesn't seem to be actually touching the snow between the paw prints . . . 

>> Placing a male and female model together against a gray studio background is quickly becoming a Jean Paul Gaultier campaign signature — it was that way with Daria Werbowy for Fall 2008, and an ankle-wrapped Lara Stone for Spring 2009; but for Fall 2009, the campaign's usual photographers Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin played with the formula a little bit.  Instead of hiring a male model, Raquel Zimmermann posed in the past few months in both the masculine and feminine roles. This upcoming month before all the Fashion Weeks get under way, she's planning to go to Vienna and then surfing in Hawaii.

>> It turns out the image of Anja Rubik curling around a handbag against a black background was for Gucci's Pre-Fall 2009 collection; the first couple of images from the actual Fall 2009 campaign, photographed by Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin back in April, are here.  So far, Natasha Poly, Anja Rubik, Raquel Zimmermann, and Myf Shepherd are all pictured — as styled by Emmanuelle Alt — but Jacquetta Wheeler, Freja Beha Erichsen, Abbey Lee Kershaw, Dree Hemingway, and Jamie Bochert have also been mentioned as part of the campaign.

>> Some thought that Vogue Paris's August 2009 cover with Daria Werbowy all decked out in Burberry check looked too blatantly like an advertisement, but in the context of Inez van Lamweerde and Vinoodh Matadin's 65-page accompanying editorial inside — with a plethora of models, each embodying a different brand's identity — it all makes sense.  

It's a few of the magazine's usual suspects — Anja Rubik doing Gucci's "glam star" in fauxhawk, Kamila Filipcikova striking an eyepopping McQueen silhouette — plus a few new faces like Regina Feoktistova and Ranya Mordanova in Gianfranco Ferre and Junya Watanabe, respectively.  The trifecta of stylists that produced these images — Joe McKenna, Emmanuelle Alt, Carine Roitfeld — prove that there is creativity to be found within the bounds of a studio shoot, after all.

Full editorial here: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5; gallery below NSFW.