Marcus Wainwright

>> "No themes for Pre-Fall; it's just clothes for how our girl really dresses," Marcus Wainwright said of his and David Neville's latest Rag & Bone collection. In a lookbook shot against their office's elevator shaft, red leather pieces styled with grommeted belts and tinges of black and blue round out the offering.

>> Surf's up is not the way of Rag & Bone Resort 2012. “We’re not dressing her for a trip to St. Barth’s,” quipped David Neville, adding: "This collection is about how our girl dresses." Instead, focus fell on a working winter wardrobe. “Just two straight guys faffing around with chiffon,” joked Marcus Wainwright, indicating a sheer panel peeking out from a two-tone peacoat. Joking aside, the designers know their money pieces — their colored denim, currently selling like hotcakes, is reincarnated for Resort in a variety of colors, including one plum pair with a print derived from their paint-splattered studio floor (which was once occupied by the artist Matthew Barney).

>> For the second Fall season in a row, the Rag & Bone boys have created a lot of want in the ten some-odd minutes it takes for their run of show. The futuristic bent that was introduced in their Spring 2011 collection stayed, but this time worked its way into a number of the Rag & Bone staples — cropped fitted jackets, kilts, knee socks, and cape coats. This was mashed together with a newfound fascination with texture: cow hides, nubby knits, neoprenes, shearlings, wools, and fringes were all represented.

As Marcus Wainwright noted backstage, "It started with Inuit people — the indigenous people of the Arctic circle — and on the other side of it, there was a French skiier called Jean-Claude Killy — so '70s ski — and it just went from there." As for the brilliant blue that was used so liberally in the second half of the show — where did that come from? "In looking at all of these pictures of the Arctic and the snow and the sky bounced against it," Wainwright explained, "that unbelievable blue — Klein Blue — that kind of blue of the sky, was just amazing against the ivory and the grey of the beginning [of the show]. It's a fun color."

The cool Rag & Bone girl was well-accounted-for as usual, both front row (Erin Wasson, Jessica Stam, and Alexa Chung), and on the catwalk (Bette Franke, making a runway return after taking a season off, Arizona Muse, Joan Smalls, Fei Fei Sun, Saskia de Brauw, and Britt Maren). Boots tended to be thigh-high and low-heeled. As for the clutches, which were strapped to the models' hands by glove-like contraptions, leaving their fingers free — would those be put into production? "It may well do if people like them," Wainwright answered. "I don't know. We just did it just for the show, we always do those things ourselves, but yeah, probably." He and Neville had both cracked open Peroni beers immediately post-show, while their children ran around backstage. So what's the plan now that the show is finished? "I have had one beer," Wainwright replied. "I'm going to have a few more. I feel pretty good about it. I was excited about the music [done by Thom Yorke], and it's good."

We have a project for you this weekend. Street style has become a major part of contemporary fashion, and Rag & Bone designers David Neville and Marcus Wainwright are taking the personal perspective one giant leap forward. Instead of doing a traditional Spring ad campaign, the designers handed cameras to their favorite models — Sasha Pivovarova and Abbey Lee Kershaw among them — and let the girls produce their own shots, wearing their own Rag & Bone duds. How do you fit into this candid camera campaign? By printing out the image PDFs from the Rag & Bone website and plastering them all over your city. Snap a pic of your guerrilla marketing, email it to the peeps at Rag & Bone, and you might just find yourself at New York Fashion Week in two weeks! Click through to see the model snaps.

>> Instead of hiring a professional photographer to shoot their ad campaign, Marcus Wainwright and David Neville handed Abbey Lee Kershaw, Edita Vilkeviciute, Sasha Pivovarova, and Lily Aldridge a digital camera and asked them to take pictures of themselves in Rag & Bone clothes — with full creative freedom. “We have always been very inspired by the girls who do the show,” said Wainwright. “Rather than do what every other brand does and have a high-end photographer take very polished shots, we thought, ‘Let’s flip it on its head to get the girls to take over.’ We wanted it to be very real.”

Wainwright and Neville are hoping the guerrilla ad campaign, which included plastering more than 1,000 posters on walls and against deli boards below 14th St. in NYC, will lure fans to their new e-commerce site, which features social networking elements such as a blog and videos. The duo also enlisted Elettra Wiedemann, Details magazine’s Eugene Tong, Marie Claire’s Taylor Tomasi Hill, V’s Jay Massacret, Julia Frakes of Bunny Bisous, and Sean Sullivan of The Impossible Cool to submit their own images for the site, which will be showcased later in a gallery. “It’s about real people and real clothes, clothes that we want people to wear and feel good in,” said Neville.

>> Last week, Rag & Bone shot their Pre-Fall 2011 collection lookbook on Hanne Gaby Odiele, who Marcus Wainwright refers to as a muse of sorts: “All our girls have amazing style. Hanne and Frida [Gustavsson] have this eclectic way of layering, and Freja [Beha Erichsen] always walks in here with a great biker jacket.”

The collection ships in May and June of next year, and took shape by experimenting in fittings. "It all began with a maxi dress,” Wainwright explained. “Then we cut it up and messed around with the length.” And: "When in doubt, add leather," Wainwright said, explaining that the material sells well for the label. In fact, the leather wrap skirts are apparently a hint at what might come from Wainwright and David Neville for Fall 2011.

>> Last night, the 2010 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund winners were announced, but before they could be named during the dinner gala at New York's Skylight Studios, the results were leaked on WWD's Twitter: Billy Reid won outright, and Prabal Gurung and Eddie Borgo were both named runners-up.

Style.com's Nicole Phelps wrote that the results were a bit of a surprise: "Many in the audience had pegged Gurung and Joseph Altuzarra as the front-runners." But nevermind: the prizes were even bigger this year, with Reid granted $300,000 (up from $200,000), and Borgo and Gurung each taking $100,000 (up from $50,000). "The main prize is the mentoring we provide," CFDA president Diane von Furstenberg noted of the increase, "but a little cash never hurts."

The rest of this year's finalists — Christian Cota, Robert Geller, Oliver Helden and Paul Marlow of Loden Dager, Pamela Love of Pamela Love Jewelry, Moss Lipow and Gregory Parkinson — were treated to a keynote speech by Karl Lagerfeld, who talked about how much fun Yves Saint Laurent was "before Pierre Berge" and advised: "Young goes. But good? If you're good, it may all last."

>> After last season's wildly successful collection — favored by editors and buyers alike — Rag & Bone's David Neville and Marcus Wainwright took a chance for Spring 2011. The utilitarian roots were still the same — military-grade fabrics, pictures of Wainwright's father and grandfather in their military uniforms for inspiration — but for the first time, the designers really experimented with color.

The departure from their comfort zone meant chiffons printed with a vacation snapshot Wainwright took on the island of Bequia, use of a mylar-like material, and a harness bra collaboration with lingerie designer Jean Yu (only some will wholesale). Some weren't quite convinced of the new direction — Style.com's Nicole Phelps wrote: "The appeal of this brand has been how strongly tethered to reality it remains, how much it reflects what the cool girls want to look like on their best day. Not enough of this collection met the bar they've set for themselves." But most seemed pleased: WWD deemed the departure "well worth the trip."

Friend of Rag & Bone Jessica Stam sat front row, chatting with Jessica Szohr throughout the show, and RJ Cutler, who worked with the designers on a minidocumentary last season — see the video here — was present, too. The only person missing? Halle Berry, who was tipped at the show, but supposedly her plane landed too late to attend.