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Friday evening isn’t a time you’d usually find students milling about their school auditorium—at least not of their own volition. But for a chat between Parsons dean of fashion Simon Collins, J.Crew’s Jenna Lyons, and Derek Lam, fashion design majors happily packed the house. The two Parsons alums met as freshman on the first day of school as the incoming class of 1990. “You were so chic the first day of school. I’ll never forget it, you were wearing this handmade leather jacket. It was so annoying!” Lyons said with a laugh. The leather jacket, Lam took the opportunity to inform her, was Comme des Garçons.Lyons, who confessed that she was “not a very confident girl” growing up in L.A., found her own path in the big city. (She also got a taste of the wider world. “I never met a gay man until I moved to New York,” she revealed.) Lyons eventually landed an internship with Donna Karan on Seventh Avenue before finding her way to J.Crew. And Lam, also a West Coast transplant (he grew up in San Francisco), took off with a brief stint at Geoffrey Beene and then an extended tenure at Michael Kors. Though after 20 years, could another move be on the horizon? “I would love to go back to school,” Lam told us after the discussion. “I actually studied writing before I went to Parsons, so I’d go back for journalism. Maybe I’ll be a fashion writer!” Sounds good to us—send those pitches our way.

—Bee-Shyuan Chang

Photo: Marty Heitner/Courtesy of Parsons

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On Trend Award
We’ve seen a lot of thigh-high splits on the red carpet lately; the latest reveal came via Leslie Mann at the BAFTA Brits To Watch Event, which was held in LA yesterday evening.

The blonde actress wore a L’Wren Scott Spring 2011 sleeveless dress.

Her nude turtleneck dress is embellished with very fine gold beads which is more visual in the close-up.

Those details were perfectly completed with a gold Judith Leiber clutch, gold hooped earrings and gold peep-toes.

The embellishments and accessories should be enough, but I still feel like something is missing and I can’t put my finger on it.

Credit: Style.com & Getty

Demi Moore joined Ariel Foxman (Editor of InStyle) and actress/photographer Amanda de Cadenet at a private residence in Beverly Hills for InStyle’s celebration and the launch of ‘The Conversation with Amanda De Cadenet’.

It’s so good to see Demi back on the red carpet.

The actress picked up where she left off wearing her favourite colour, black.

Her Lanvin Spring 2012 look consisted of a black sleeveless tuxedo jacket with padded shoulders worn with a cream silk top and black silk pants.

A crystal eagle necklace, a pearl-and-gold chain cross necklace and a gold chain belt all by Lanvin completed her look.

Amanda’s look was in total contrast to Demi’s masculine look.

She wore a Spring 2012 Roland Mouret ‘Herbert’ crepe wool and a blister plisse cream-and-white dress with black detailing which we’ve seen on Amy Adams.

I wish Amanda had opted for a daintier shoe. Instead she opted for the Christian Louboutin ‘Madame Butterfly’ booties.

Wavy tresses and red lippie completed her look.

Credit: Style.com & Getty

I’ve been waiting for what feels like forever for someone to wear something from the Prada Fall 2009 collection, since Eva Mendes wore a look from the collection back in March.

Jessica Alba has fulfilled that wish by wearing a red velvet floral dress, but what the lord gives with one hand he takes away with the other and those thick black opaques kinda dull the excitement.

Nicole Kidman has been M.I.A. on the red carpet for a long while.

She returned in her favourite designer wearing a black fitted L’Wren Scott lacquered tweed dress with red peep-toes.

At this point I’m just grateful that the dress is not white.

Remember that rather crazy phase?

The Stella McCartney Resort 2010 collection keeps going strong.

This time Naomi Watts wears a black cropped jacket from said collection with a white shirt and black pants.

Georgina Chapman has been accused by many of you for not shaking things up.

Well this is the 3rd time she has worn something not directly off her runway, which will hopefully please you non-believers.

I think her dress was modified from the purple strapless Marchesa Resort 2010 dress, as it has a very similar shape.

The pops of fuschia pink are cute and sassy.

Stunning as always.

I’ve run out of nice things to say about her.

CEO of PepsiCo, Indra Nooyi hosted the event looking gorgeous wearing a Giambattista Valli Fall 2009 peacock print coat/dress.

Why celebrities haven’t worn anything from this stunning collection still baffles me.

Uber models Naomi Campbell and Iman struck a pose together.

Naomi wore an angelic white Azzedine Alaïa dress and Azzedine Alaia python & patent strappy heels, whilst Iman opted for more colour wearing a mustard pencil dress which shows that she’s still got it.

Credit: Style.com & Wenn

Demi Moore attended the “Margin Call” Premiere at the Eccles Center Theatre during the 2011 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah yesterday.

The actress appears to be Victoria Beckham’s biggest fan because she wears yet another VB dress.

On this occasion she wore a steel grey Victoria Beckham satin-crepe bell dress from the Spring 2011 collection.

I wasn’t a fan of this waxy looking dress to begin with – even less so in this grey colour – but Demi who loves to wear dark colours makes it work for her.

I originally thought this dress was look 15 back to front, but Demi is actually wearing look 16 with the exposed zipper pulled down half way.

Tights, booties, a black clutch and a Cartier Platinum diamond and onyx Panther body wrap ring completed her look.

Credit: Style.com & Getty

Being shy is all well and good, unless of course you happen to be a very popular girl around town and having your first solo photography show. Then you’ve got to turn on the charm. That’s exactly what stylist-turned-lenswoman Frances Tulk-Hart did last night at the Soho Grand Hotel, where Shy Sunday, her debut exhibition, now hangs. Apparently she considers herself something of a shy gal, though you wouldn’t know it from the packed house that came to celebrate her for three-plus hours, from fellow stylists like Lauren Goodman to social types like Sabine Heller. (As ever when this many pretty partiers gather, Hanuk was on hand to shoot, too.) The photos themselves are lovely, depicting haunting, solitary moments, and printed extremely small—a comment, according to Tulk-Hart, on the shy theme. “It’s been a very gradual and organic process,” she said of the transition from stylist to full-fledged photog. “I always had my camera on me, so it seemed like a natural transition.” Several old friends and clients seem to agree: She’s already got an editorial for British Vogue and a campaign for Marc by Marc Jacobs under her belt.

“Skinhead” may have become a dirty word, unsalvageable in North America in light of its Neanderthal neo-Nazi associations, but when Duckie Brown’s Steven Cox was a teenager in London, it was the style the coolest boys picked up at Merc on Carnaby Street, and that’s what he was remembering with Duckie’s latest. It wasn’t just period, it was place that made this collection a departure for Cox and Daniel Silver. Family matters have taken Cox home a lot more in the past 12 months, so there was a distinctly English feel to the clothes. But if the cropped pants and bovver boots (Duckie for Florsheim) were maybe too specific to find favor with the average man-fash fan, the sleek black and scarlet crombies and the sharp, broad-shouldered tartan jackets—their hard-to-master saddle/rope shoulder a mark of Cox’s acute experience with tailoring—were more than enough to seduce modern dandies. The chord of decadent ambiguity that always gives a Duckie collection its peculiar spice was struck here by an abbreviated trench in an acidic lime shade and a bellows-pocketed jacket in a sugary tweed. But best in show for me was actually a humble jean jacket in dark Japanese denim. In its own subtle way, it was the most effective advertisement for the Duckie mastery of flattering fit.For full coverage of the Fall 2010 menswear shows, visit www.gq.com/fashion.

Marissa Ribisi and Sophia Coloma’s L.A. label, Whitley Kros, centers around the line’s fictional muse and namesake, and for holiday, Whitley is going to New York for some festive parties. “We hate to put her into a decade, but we were thinking a little bit eighties,” said Coloma. Cue the gold-flecked miniskirt and sweater jacket with exaggerated shoulders and velvet detailing, along with red-carpet-ready incarnations of on-trend jumpers in satin and flocked paisley. But festive attire aside, the designers are acknowledging the pressures of the recession with their latest endeavor, the Whitley Kros Basics, set to launch at the end of October. Available year round, the collection will include a blended mix of the casual staples the label has become known for (think seamless cotton tees and knit separates) in a versatile palette of neons and neutrals.—Alexis Brunswick

Photo: Courtesy of Whitley Kros

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The digitally altered photo of model Filippa Hamilton (left) and an unaltered runway photo. Photo: AP

A former Ralph Lauren model whose image in a roundly criticised advertisement was digitally slenderised has claimed the fashion label did not renew her contract because she was ”too large”.

Polo Ralph Lauren Corp is contending that it dismissed Filippa Hamilton because of a contract dispute and that the photo was mistakenly released.

”They fired me because they said I was overweight and I couldn’t fit in their clothes any more,” 23-year-old Filippa Hamilton, who worked for the company since she was 15, said. She said she considered Polo Ralph Lauren her second family.

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The company acknowledged in a statement that the image of Hamilton that appeared last week in a Tokyo mall had been digitally altered.

Hamilton, a New York resident who is half-Swedish and was raised in France, has been looking for another job since she was let go in April but has not decided whether to sue.

The photo’s emaciated depiction of her, with hips about as narrow as her head, could make young women ”think that it’s normal to look like that – and it’s not,” the 180-centimetre, 54-kilogram model told US television. ”I saw my face on this super-extremely skinny girl, which is not me; it’s not healthy, it’s not right,” she said.

Polo Ralph Lauren claimed she ”was too large”, she added, saying that she’s a size four and that her weight has remained constant during eight years as a model for the iconic American brand.

The company said the ”very distorted image of a woman’s body” – Hamilton’s – was ”mistakenly released” and displayed in the Japanese department store. Bloggers also posted the photo on several websites, fuelling the controversy.

Polo Ralph Lauren released a statement that read: ”We take full responsibility. This error has absolutely no connection to our relationship with Filippa Hamilton,” who is a ”beautiful and healthy” woman.

AP