Jessica Szohr, Ashlee Simpson & Katie Cassidy looking thrilled in the front row at Herve Leger yesterday. Photo: Getty Images

Almost exactly one year ago, Jessica Szohr and Leigh Lezark sat side-by-side at the Herve Leger by Max Azria spring ’11 show. With their face-framing raven hair, they almost looked like twins. At today’s spring ’12 show they weren’t neighbors, but both showed up rocking bangs. Lezark’s fringe, which she debuted this summer, takes the edge off of her normally severe look. Szohr, meanwhile, looked nearly unrecognizable with her new bob (if it weren’t for her electric blue bandage dress, she might have slipped under the radar). You could call the look, with its sweeping, jagged bangs, a break-up cut; after all, it was only recently confirmed that she and Gossip Girl had split. Her front row neighbor, Ashlee Simpson, could commiserate: She’s been rocking an Edie Sedgwick-style white-blonde pixie ‘do for about as long as she’s been separated from Pete Wentz. And what better way to get over a break-up than daydreaming about all the fun you’d have in a really sexy Herve Leger dress. “I loved the beading,” said Simpson of the macramé and woven second-skin ensembles shown on the runway, adding, “I thought it was beautiful.” But would the shoes, which wrapped up the knee, like a gladiator sandal, be comfortable enough to wear out? According to Simpson, “they actually did!”