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Natasha Poly at Joseph Altuzarra fall 2010 show: from today's New York Times : February 14, 2010 Three Nominees for Who’s ‘Next’ By CATHY HORYN Joseph Altuzarra is a Swarthmore-educated Paris-bred son of an American mother and a French father. Prabal Gurung grew up in Katmandu and trained at Bill Blass . At 25, Alexander Wang is the hitmaker of contemporary urban fashion, his $25-million business already surpassing that of many established designers. If fashion didn’t routinely select a new group of designers to acclaim, it wouldn’t be fashion. There must always be someone waiting in the wings, the “next” one. These three designers now appear to be the leading candidates. It is clear that Mr. Wang has managed to give his collections the properties of high fashion — top models; coveted accessories; a cool, insolent sensibility — while making affordable clothes that many women, not just skinny hipsters, can wear. His show again achieved the illusion of being something more than a co...

Natasa Vojnovic in todays New York Times : Photo Michael Falco for The New York Times NO FRILLS The designer Alexander Wang with the models Missy Rayder, center, and Natasa Vojnovic in his New York studio. In five years Mr. Wang, 25, has built a $25 million company by Ruth La Ferla DON’T tell Alexander Wang that blue is the new black or that wedge-heel boots are the season’s must-have. Such airy edicts would most likely make him laugh. “No one talks like that anymore,” said Mr. Wang, whose keen sense of what young women want to wear is matched only by his no-nonsense approach to his, um, métier. “Fashion in some people’s eyes is very untouchable and super-indulgent,” he said. “For me, it’s just clothes to be worn. And at the end of the day, the point is to sell the product.” That sounds pretty hardnosed, coming as it does from fashion’s latest It Child, a lanky, tousled 25-year-old design-school dropout who, in a scant five years, has leapfrogged from toting garment bags for Vogue to ...