Part L.A., part Japanese street style, part ho chic, Erin Skipley, without even trying, in this picture becomes the hot, slightly tongue-in-cheek vamp version of the Space Needle behind her. She's outside the Baltic Room, where a runway show—her third of the month—is featuring her own clothing designs, which she's wearing. For the show, Skipley hired a hairstylist named Vision who does celebrity hair in South Beach. She wanted big and fabulous 'dos, "like something exploded out of the model's head." Just days before, Vision had done Kate Moss's mom's hair, which in photographs always looks nice: shoulder-length with long bangs, light brown with gentle highlights, wispy, soft.

CUSTOM COTTON SLEEVES WITH FABRIC-PAINT FAUX SEQUINS by Yoshimi, $45–$85 (depending on the design) at Pretty Parlor (119 Summit Ave. E, 405-CUTE, or www.yoshimidesigns.com).

They are the soul of the outfit, upgrading the wearer from sexpot to style maven. Linda Moss, Kate Moss's 56-year-old mother, might become a style maven herself. She has had a turbulent year, it's true. In January 2005, her daughter met and fell for Pete Doherty, the notorious crackhead and junkie singer for Baby Shambles, and Linda vehemently disapproved. (Morrissey, implausibly, calls Kate the corrupting agent of the two.) Linda's worst fears came true when Kate, mother of Linda's 3-year-old granddaughter, Lila Grace, was photographed snorting coke in Baby Shambles' studio. When Kate checked herself into rehab in Arizona, Linda set aside their differences—the two had fallen out over Pete—and rushed to the U.S. to take care of her daughter. Now, Kate is working again and supposedly no longer with Pete, who last month reportedly played a private solo show for Mike Tyson in a hotel room, after which the two men became fast friends. But the up-to-the-minute point is that Linda has recently been approached to start her own glam-granny modeling career.

BLACK POLYESTER DRESS by Yoshimi, $75 also at Pretty Parlor.

Skipley's rock-and-roll-inspired outfit reflects her label and her personal outlook. She struck out last year, quitting her corporate gig as a makeup artist for Dior in order to launch her label. Most popular are her leggings and sleeves, but you have to get the basics right, too, like this dress.

WILD WEST HOLSTER BELT by Wild Card, $175 (www.wildcardcollection.com, 415-595-4988). Leather boots with ankle and calf buckles by Rebels, which Skipley bought for $125 at a San Francisco boutique whose name she can't remember anymore.

CHUNKY SILVER RING IN THE SHAPE OF A HORSESHOE AND A BIG NUMBER 13, $135 at Serious Clothing (7569 Melrose Ave, Los Angeles, 323-655-0589).

This ring is on Skipley's left hand, out of sight. But it adds the element of chance to the risk-taking getup. One of the reasons horseshoes are considered lucky, according to the website www.answerbag.com, is that their crescent shape invokes the "sacred vulva" symbol of pagan moon goddesses, thereby inviting their protection. According to the same source, one of the reasons the number 13 is considered unlucky is that Judas was 13th at the Last Supper table. Fear of the number 13 has its own name, triskaidekaphobia, and 1 in 10 people suffer from it, according to a 2003 report in the London Observer. Skipley is keeping both symbols close.

PLAIN SILVER BAND, gift, from Tiffany & Co. (600 Pine St., #100, 264-1400).

That's the one you can see.

GAUDY SILVER EARRINGS, $10; LURID MORANGE LIPSTICK by Mac, $14; and SHINY BLACK EYE SHADOW (called Nightbreed) by Nars, $22—all from Nordstrom (1617 Sixth Ave, 628-2111), where Skipley works as a makeup artist on the side, when she's not designing Yoshimi.

The Flaming Lips album Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots inspired Skipley's choice of name for her line, she said. "Yoshimi is a drummer in a Japanese band called the Boredoms. She was actually battling cancer. Battling the pink robots was actually battling cancer. I don't even know if she lived. I hope so." The good news is that drummer Yoshimi Yokota, AKA Yoshimi P-We, is alive (and in fact never had cancer as far as we know) and is now in a band called OOIOO. She let out a scream that the Flaming Lips recorded and used on Yoshimi, but the real suffering girl was a friend of the band in Osaka whose sisters narrated her illness and death from a heart ailment (not cancer) in e-mails written to the musicians in broken English. The Lips wrote their song "It's Summertime" for the sisters.