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16th February 2011After being beckoned by what one could say was the most beautiful invitation of the week, friends and family arrived at the unveiling of Alexander Wang’s very first New York store in SoHo last night.
For all practical purposes, New York Fashion Week is a modern debutante ball. Make a splashy debut during the collections and you've arrived! The spring shows belonged to 23-year-old Elisa Sednaoui, the model and actress who is equal parts leggy temptress and sweetly smiling beauty. When she sauntered into shows like Proenza Schouler and Jason Wu last September, necks craned and tongues wagged.
But that's not because she was in the type of statementy runway plumage that gets the street-style photographers a-snapping. It's quite the opposite, actually. "I like things that are very minimal, and I never wear too many accessories," Sednaoui explains. She dresses with panache yet keeps it simple with barely there makeup and loose, natural hair. Yes, there's the occasional hat or edgy shoe, but Sednaoui forgoes over-the-top frippery. She selects elegantly low-key looks from favorite labels like Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent, Haider Ackermann, and Rad Hourani. But still, there's something about Sednaoui and her green-eyed beauty.
So who's that girl? Well, for starters, the "spiritual goddaughter" of stiletto sensei Christian Louboutin. (Sednaoui's half-French, half-Egyptian father is the architect of the shoe designer's Luxor house, a commission that begot a fast friendship.) She's also a newly minted member of Karl Lagerfeld's glossy posse and the designer's frequent red-carpet arm candy. Most recently, she's the face of Giorgio Armani's spring campaign.
Part of Sednaoui's charm comes from her delicate, hard-to-place accent. It's evidence of a childhood spent in her mother's native Italy, Cairo, and finally Paris, where she began modeling at the age of 15 and acting three years later. In 2006 she moved to New York, where she currently lives.
Along with bagging a major campaign, Sednaoui has been flexing her acting chops. She recently starred in Eastern Drift, by Lithuanian director Sharunas Bartas, and French director Christopher Thompson's Bus Palladium. She also cherishes her role as a saucy Saint-Tropez clubgoer in Lagerfeld's short film Remember Now, which debuted at Chanel's resort show last May. "Karl is such a smart, cultured person," she says. "He has taught me so much in one year." Good thing she's such a quick study.