There is absolutely no denying that Peter Som’s collection for Bill Blass is a marked departure for the historically safe collection. Whereas Michael Vollbracht rarely ventured into the all dress up version, Peter Som did just that for Blass’ fall collection. There was always a mix of sport, dress-up, casual, and formal with Vollbracht. Even with the pre-fall showing back a couple of months ago, Som almost mislead into thinking it would be business as usual. Alas, it was not to be. What is to be for Fall and what folks can look forward to is a bit of retro Blass (think the golden late 60s early 70s) mixed in with Som’s enigmatic styling.

(as an aside: we were late in getting our photo galleries up, but there’s a bunch of detail shots going up later today) For more runway photos visit here.

Mon Dieu, this is perhaps the best photo of Rihanna in a magazine ever. It has less to do with the gorgeous singer who many say our editor in chief resembles (Michelle you do kinda look like her, especially when your hair goes short girl), it has more to do with Alexander McQueen’s Gray mohair jacket dress. While only a handful of figures can really appreciate this dress (women with boobs need not apply), it is a very beautiful piece. In best Lela Rochon from Boomerang impression…gold star for Alexander…the dress is yummy.

Sometimes you can see a mistake coming two or three miles down the road. There are plenty of ways to stop it, but for some reason, the accident is unavoidable. At first glance an idea like affordable Valentino seems like a great one. Everyone wins yay! Then you start to think, hey… isn’t the whole point of the big V in fashion is that not everyone can have something, anything Valentino? So when new CEO, Stefano Sassi told WWD that:

“The only way to woo a trendier and more price-conscious clientele is with younger looks with more accessible price points.”

The eyebrows on this side raised a bit questioning the wisdom in what Stefano was saying. While it’s all but certain that Valentino won’t be near Wal-mart or Target anytime soon, one has to wonder exactly what he means when he says he wants to woo trendier and more price-conscious clientele. He can’t possibly mean taking the brand downmarket…unless that is exactly what he means and soon we’ll be seeing Valentino items…gasp… of the rack. You can almost see the petitiononline.com petitions going against this now.

Papierdoll Recommends:

This is a sale you won’t want to miss. James Jeans has been rated multiple times by staff at Papierdoll as one of the most comfortable pair of jeans you’ll ever wear. In our completely unscientific testing of wearing the same pair of jeans day in and out, we’ve found that James is tops in the denim department. As the flyer says, they are having a sample sale next week so if you’re in Gotham, you’ll definitely want to head in and get jeans at $25 to $90…way less than their selling price of upwards of $200.

photography Anna Arefin/Nylon Magazine

If we could provide a photo of the month award to the various magazines this would be a top 3 finalist. Not only because you will crave these Miu Miu pumps like everyone in the office did, the patent leather against the porcelain makes the shoe look indistinguishable from everything else in the photo. Almost makes you want to have tea out of the shoe.