she's so my style; Model Erin Wasson puts the spring in Alexander Wang's first show.

Byline: Jane Herman

Here's how it happened: Eight months ago, 23-year-old designer Alexander Wang started working on the spring collection for his self-titled line. He was playing with combinations of "business basics" and "mix-matchy model style" in general. He was thinking about Melanie Griffith in Working Girl and the model Erin Wasson, whose sun-kissed face and fearless high-low fashion sense he loves, specifically. One day Wang got into an elevator going up to his East Village apartment, and, coincidentally, there was Wasson. It turned out the 25-year-old Texas native/California surfer had a place in the building, too. He introduced himself, the two got talking, and they became fast friends. So when Wang asked her to style his first-ever runway show in New York, she, despite never having done one before, said yes.

They agreed to start by creating an editorial look book of the collection for inspiration. For this they hired photographer Dan Martensen (a friend of Wasson's who once took a picture of her that, Wang said, epitomizes the youthful sexiness he's going for with his line), and they drove to a marina on Dead Horse Bay in Brooklyn to shoot Wang's clothes one hot, hot day in early August. Wasson brought a suitcase full of her own vintage shoes-woven-leather oxfords, spotted cowhide loafers, and buckled ankle boots-to pair with Wang's offbeat office essentials and flirty polka-dot pieces. When Wang said he wanted a "working woman made funkier," Wasson put a boxy cherry-red blazer on model Natasha Vojnovic as if it were a dress, for example, and accessorized all the looks with her own fine and junky silver jewelry.

"This collection is the most 'me,' " said Wang. "Erin totally gets it."

Cut to September 4: "It's fun being on the other side," says Wasson, who still does runway here and there. She's sitting on the floor of Wang's studio, waiting for the next model to arrive for a fitting. It's two days before the show at the ...