NEW YORK, February 8, 2006 – With the gilded prices Peter Som's confections command, there's not much excuse for a pair of dresses that came down the runway with busted zippers. Details do matter, after all—especially at a runway show, where hundreds of the world's most deeply detail-obsessed people are watching a designer's every move. It was a shame about those distractions (which were repeated when the models inexplicably came out again unchecked for the finale), because Som delivered a youthful yet elegant fall collection that had much else to recommend it.

Inspired by the Ascot scene in My Fair Lady, which he described backstage as "graphic and romantic at once," the designer worked primarily in black and white, with an occasional detour into silk chiffon prints. Long shorts, shown in graphite wool or a shimmery flannel, along with a pinafore dress worn with a lantern-sleeve shirt had a bit of Eliza Doolittle before Professor Higgins got his hands on her. But the majority of the looks, from the bejeweled jet-black astrakhan coat that opened the show to the last net-overlaid taffeta gown, will certainly pass muster in high society.

– Nicole Phelps