The good, stylish people over at I Am Fashion are hosting Carnivale of the Couture VII and recently posted their topic. Their “if-only-it-were-true” scenario is as follows.

Suprise darling! You have just won the lottery! How will you, the super fabulous fashionable blogger, spend your US$10m winnings? Tell us all about your money-spending plan!!

So, I’ve decided to post my response here, and welcome everyone else to do the same! I Am Fashion will link to all the responses periodically, but the deadline is Friday.

Some people are being all philanthropic or responsible and saying they’d pay of student loans and stuff. And someone mentioned that after taxes it’s something like 6 million. But, hel-lo, this is a fantasy. I am restricting myself to frivolous, fashionable purchases and not worrying about the tax (or the math for that matter, I’m guestimating.)

For my biggest expenditure, I would create my own fashion label and invite all the rejected designers from Project Runway to come design for me.

So, the designers win, what? $200,000 on the show? And say 20 of them accept my invitation -so that’s 4 million.

Also as part of that venture, I would invite all the rejected girls from America’s Next Top Model to participate in our runway shows.

By this time I will obviously be a regular talking head on VHI, E! and Style and all the morning shows. So I would need a great wardrobe for each of my appearances. Since I cannot play favorites among my own design team, I would have to stick to more established designers. This would cost me at least $500,000, don’t you think? I don’t want to limit myself or anything.

The first fashion items I would buy on a trip to New York where I would stay in the Plaza (watching Eloise on a loop - corny or classic, your choice) would be a Hermes Birkin and some staple bags from Prada, Loius Vuitton and Chanel, sticking to the non-logo variety, thank-you-very-much. And I’d hit all the shoe stores - Louboutin, Jimmy Choo, and Manolo (hi, I’m 5′2″ - completely necessary). Neimans, Barney’s, Saks, etc. So lets say this first trip costs me another $300,000.

Then, in order to keep up with the collections, I would need 1 mill. abodes in NY, Paris, London and Milan. I’m up to 8.8 million.

I would also require year-round maintenance at the best salons. I’m talking biweekly highlights, hair and makeup at my beck and call, as well as weeklong refresher spa trips for me and my gal pals. 100,000.

I would also be able to afford to be totally animal friendly in my beauty purchases (you try it on a drugstore budget).

I think the rest I would spend on my friends, I know they’d be too jealous for words and wouldn’t be able to live with themselves if they didn’t get some designer duds of their own. I would also concede a non-fashion purchase and build my husband a music studio.

There, 10 million dollars. Done. In half an hour. On totally frivolous luxuries.

Should I be proud or ashamed?

- Andrea

Camilla Staerk’s fall 2006 collection is what happens when you mix Westwood and Dior. While by no means plaigirizing, you can definitely see the influence. This is never more present than with the leather dresses, the punkish fishnet stockings, the risque’ one piece undergarments and the see-through sheer tops. The only thing missing were the outrageous tee-shirts of Westwood fame. Staerk forges her own identity though when it comes to the amalgam of materials used and the varied styles. One model wears a slimfitting long leather dress in 2 inch heels, whereas another model -5 minutes later- came down wearing a strapless short dress in cowboy boots in fishnets. The wide variety shows not a lack of direction, but the skill and ambition of the designer.

Jessica Ogden based her fall collection this year on Alice in Wonderland. The designs shown were whimsical, creative and to a certain degree, wearable. Only the most daring maven would wear the complete outfits from her show out, much less down the yellow brick road. But in combinations, Ogden’s designs reigned supreme. The attention to detail on dresses (I picked my favorites in the photos above) in particular one with the white, gray and black with striped stockings was so very well done. She made me a believer.

I died and entered Thai heaven. I swear this line was inspired by fashions straight out of Thailand. The Siam dream started with black, white and gray hued dresses. There was a auburn satin dress that I did not fall in love with simply because it was ill-fitting on the model, then Isham rolls out COLOR! Something severly lacking from the fall shows at London were a variety of colors. Elizabeth Lawrence said, Everyone must take time to sit and watch the leaves turn. Isham must have taken note. There were orange and gold halter evening dresses, models came down the catwalk in black and gold pieces with elaborate headdress and catlike makeup inspired by the far east. It was sensory overload. While not every piece dazzled (oddly, the dresses with the most vivid colors underwhelmed), the design and spectacle more than made up for it.

The prim and proper showing of John Rocha’s fall line demonstrated how hot and cold the design world can be. There never was more a dichotomy than in his design. Rocha used very muted colors on his pieces but also made use of elaborate designs. His use of elastic and tapering brought life to dresses that would otherwise be considered as dull. A black asymmetrical top in particular gave the illusion of satin, the ruffles and white flower on the side though said elegant fall. His boldest use of color came in the form of a deep red dress.

As an aside, I must say that his hats were amazing. The one below in particular made me swoon.