Belles At The Ball

Monday night saw the rich and famous strutting their stuff on the red carpet at the entrance to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, in aid of fashion's biggest event - the Costume Institute Gala, complete with superhero theme.

Many a celebrity was in attendance, including the Beckhams, Julia Roberts, Eva Longoria, Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise - but what really matters around here, the models, are the ones who really stole the show.

A good amount of the industry's most prominent models were there as guests of the top designers. The best dressed of the night included regular guests Gisele Bundchen and Tom Brady, wearing Atelier Versace and Tom Ford respectively (pictured); Jessica Stam in Proenza Schouler; Karolina Kurkova in Vera Wang; Natasha Poly in Phi; Liya Kebede in Jonathon Saunders and Kate Moss in Stella McCartney.

Relative newcomers to the guestlist included Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, looking stunning with new bangs and in Burberry Prorsum (pictured); Lily Donaldson, also in Burberry Prorsum; Doutzen Kroes in threeasfour, Anja Rubik and Coco Rocha, both in Pucci and Jourdan Dunn in Bill Blass.

Overall the night was an overwhelming success on the model front, and witha wide choice of afterparties to keep them going into the early hours, it's really no suprise!

It's A Walkoff!

We're just crawling in from the Paper Nightlife Awards, and hands-down the best moment was this: When Perez Hilton tried to introduce Coco Rocha and Behati Prinsloo onto the stage, but he couldn't say her name.

"I'm not even going to try," sighed Perez before turning to Coco. "Who is she? Where is she from?"Perez was psyched when Behati said she was from Namibia ("Really? Are you serious? That's so hot!") but the real action came when he realized two of our favorite faces were standing blankly on stage."I think you need to have a walk-off," he announced. "Can you do a little walk? Just for me?"The audience went crazy.

The girls went into supermodel mode. And then Perez said, "Okay great, now kiss!"It didn't happen, but that didn't stop Erin Fetherston from almost falling out of her chair from laughter.

fashionista.com

Cuckoo For Coco

Friday afternoon in Harlem was like a trip to Ireland with the arrival of the Eire Born dancers from Vancouver. Coco Rocha brought her childhood dance troupe to New York City for an afternoon of dancing to benefit the Children's Aid Society. "It's something fun and different for them," Rocha explained. "It wasn't a huge crowd, but these are kids who are interested in dance. It was all a matter of how can we bring this dance to the Children's Aid Society? This is what I know and care about. I can't say I have experienced cancer, and I just don't want people to think I'm fake. I wanted to do this so they can see that there's more out there and it really can be someone's life support and you don't have to do a typical job. And it's also just an hour of nothing but fun for them. The girls are just so excited to see it."

Though the children weren't completely familiar with Coco, the model captivated them as she does the fashion industry: they proceeded to scream her name immediately after they were introduced. A dancer since the age of five, the model spent the afternoon learning the steps to an hour long performance just to bring entertainment to the children. And afterwards, the dancers brought the kids to the stage, teaching them a few steps, which the kids quickly interpreted with their own forms of dance.

"It makes it easy to be on the runway," Rocha explained of her transition from dancing to modeling. "It's all about putting on an attitude. I had to learn to perform in the sense that it's just playing around up there. Photographers can tell who was a dancer and who wasn't. Walking is just so 'plain Jane.' I put on the runway attitude, but shows like John Galliano's, where you can sit on someone's lap if you like, are just so fun."

As far as Irish dancing costumes are concerned, Rocha laughed. "It's not à la mode, but it's tradition and that's really what Irish dancing is about. You can say they're tacky, but it's the tradition of years ago when this was a form of entertainment. People would just get up and dance."