Runway Feed

10 Crosby Derek Lam

What would Hanne Gaby Odiele do if she were Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone? Derek Lam envisioned his favorite model cavorting around her apartment as if it were a snow day for his latest 10 Crosby lookbook. FIttingly, the new Fall collection is full of cozy Shetland peplum sweaters, long T-shirt dresses in an amplified buffalo plaid print, and vintage-looking fox fur pieces ideal for quickly tossing over a dress before darting out the door to catch a cab. (There's also a faux fur patchworked sweater that looks so authentic even pelt purists will be jazzed about it.)

Lam is a smart businessman, particularly when it comes to his more reasonably priced line, and he's paid attention to what his savvy customer is and isn't buying. For one, she's still crazy about silk pajama sets, which were updated this time around in a playful yet sophisticated kittens print. He also carried over the tomcat motif to fluid palazzo pants with polka dots that turned out to be balls of yarn when viewed up close. Cute. Another recurring crowd pleaser is the tuxedo-stripe trouser, shown here in Prince of Wales check with a seventies flare leg. Lam might've had Home Alone in mind, but his customers will want to show off these casual-cool clothes in public.
—Brittany Adams

3.1 Phillip Lim

Nothing overtly said, "Ka-Pow!" but today's show found Phillip Lim kicking around the idea of superheroes, a theme he had started to explore in his pre-fall collection. "It's this idea of modern-day superheroes who are walking around us every day," the designer said after the show.

If that sounded slightly abstract, the collection was largely grounded in reality. Lim did open with a cape, but the resounding message of his mostly monochromatic and minimal parade of sleek jackets, deconstructed sturdy ribbed knits, sharply creased trousers, and great tailored coats was simply this: strong clothes for strong women. (Having said that, which of us doesn't believe in the power of clothing to produce something akin to a phone booth transformation?)

Lim also had ideas about duality. There was dark versus light in the punchy graphic interplay of pieces delineated in black and white, and hard versus soft in the weaponlike pointy toes of ladylike pumps. A smoke machine (apparently turned to 11) set a noir-ish stage, telling you all wasn't as it seemed. Nothing evil was lurking, and, quite frankly, nothing too surprising, just the slightly surreal twist of cardigans turned back to front or upside down, along with collarless coats with indented flat collars and trompe l'oeil metal collars.

The strains of "This Is a Man's World" began to play mid-show, though it could have looped throughout. There was only one look that even approximated something cocktail-appropriate. Don't even superheroines need a night off every now and then?
—Meenal Mistry

A.F. Vandevorst

German artist Joseph Beuys has been a mascot-muse for An Vandevorst and Filip Arickx since they began. So it's surprising that until now the Belgian duo never came around to this Fall's conceit: conjuring Beuys' female companion. The thought led them to choreographer Pina Bausch, a creative peer, and a mix of her masculine way of dressing and the bias-cut silks in which she costumes her dancers.

On the runway, the designers' riff had a dreamy serenity, and this was easily one of their best collections to date. As a nod to the artist's felt-covered objects and to preserve his aforementioned companion's imaginary status, this parade of Beuysian belles was appropriately covered up. Stephen Jones made the fedoras—echoing Beuys' own ever-present millinery—that were cleverly perforated in front to pull over the face while avoiding any blinded-model disasters. Scarves in rabbit fur and chunky knit completed the obscuring.

The effect was quite striking, but the clothes served both masters—concept and commercial reality—with lean trenchcoats over drapey silk dresses and nubby grand cozy cardigans and pullovers that were layered and belted in a way that makes you hope that winter isn't a thing of the past. Even the surreal details worked, like the trompe l'oeil prints of fur and hand-knit on spongey silks. The softness gave way to Bausch-esque tailoring, both plain and gold bullion encrusted, and yet more great pieces. If we had to quibble, it would be that Vandevorst and Arickx provided too much of a good thing. Fewer looks would have packed stronger punch. Still, kudos for a collection very well done.
—Meenal Mistry

A.L.C.

"Nostalgic in a modern way," is how Andrea Lieberman described her latest collection for A.L.C. Often multiple nostalgias mixed. The slim checked wool trousers in look 24, for example, conjured up the late-sixties ska era for the designer. The outfit's accompanying leather bomber with a street-ready coyote-fur hood recalled "the late eighties—like when the New York downtown crowd and hip-hop scene came together at clubs like Area and Madame Rosa's," as Lieberman put it. Not that you'd necessarily need to be conversant in the club-going ways of decades past to get in on the action. The DB navy peacoat, shown here with a curly lamb lapel, hit on the oversize, borrowed-from-boyfriend outerwear trend that will be everywhere in the fall. A string of covetable (admittedly non-PETA-friendly) cropped jackets featured various combinations of kangaroo fur, shearling, and baby calf hair. And still-selling silk pajama sets came in both macro and micro paisley prints. Nostalgic or not, Lieberman has a strong sense of the now. Whatever memories these clothes spring from, girls today will be able to make their own in them.
—Brittany Adams

A.P.C.

A.P.C.'s Louis Wong, a spokesperson for the design team, often stays close to home when seeking inspiration. "We actually look at a lot of people in the Sixth," Wong said at today's presentation in the company's Rue des Saints-Pères showroom. "They're traditional bourgeois but a bit arty. Their clothes are always a bit down at the seams, not perfect." That said, the Fall collection ventured slightly further afield than the Left Bank, to traditional English hunting gear. Wong went straight to the source for bona fide Harris tweed, cut into a leather-trimmed cape and car coat with matching skirts. Tartan flannels, meanwhile, got an upgrade into A.P.C.'s sweet, sixties-ish shapes.

In menswear, the reference stayed typically neat and narrow, even with the comfortable slouch of a flannel shirt or a shawl-collared sweater with khakis and gum-soled boots. As the collection cycled through slim suits to cable knits and parkas, the look was consistent: rumpled but quite dapper. "It's a typical A.P.C. collection," said Wong. "Lots of old French movie references." Fittingly, Catherine Deneuve had stopped by earlier to see her friend Jean Touitou, while the spirits of Belmondo and Delon drifted lightly through the air like smoke from a Gauloises.
—Meenal Mistry

Acne

The key word at tonight's Acne show was ambition. If last season's collection introduced a new sense of scale to the brand, then this one doubled down on it: Acne maestro Jonny Johansson seized on a trio of body-obsessed artists for inspiration, blenderized the references, and came up with a vision for Fall '12 that was directional, remarkable, and rather strange.

The key figure in Johansson's art trio was undoubtedly the photographer André Kertész, from whom Johansson took his cues for the collection's distorted silhouettes. (The other artists cited were erotic sculptor Hans Bellmer and the painter Hanneline Røgeberg, who inspired the collection's palette.) Johansson achieved distortion in a variety of ways. There were coats sculpted out of shiny shoe leather, shaved down in special machines, that held the arms slightly aloft from the body. There were fitted dresses paneled together from flesh-toned pieces of fabric in organlike shapes, and cropped, puckered knits. Most intriguingly, there were a variety of trousers that simultaneously raised and sank the waistline, such as the pair of burgundy pants that appeared to be slung low on the hip, over a matching zipped girdle; in fact, it was all one garment. A mannish burgundy suit, trimmed in black elastic, was the most winning representation of this idea.

At times, it was hard to figure out how this collection would play on the street. Johansson is certainly challenging his consumer, but he also presented them with some silhouette-shifting ideas that won't be too hard to digest. The low-slung cut of the pants here will make an impact, for one, as will the collection's wide belting and oversize jackets and coats. On the whole, this collection served notice to anyone who still primarily thinks of Acne as a denim brand: They're playing a new game now, and they intend to play in the big leagues.
—Maya Singer

A Détacher

Despite its pops of neon pink and tangerine, the A Détacher show today was an atypically subdued affair. Designer Mona Kowalska is known for, among other things, her offbeat and often superbright prints, so the somewhat downbeat tone of her latest collection can be summed up by its most interesting print, a giant black-on-black polka dot. Elsewhere, there were fairly conservative checks and florals in shades of navy and brown. You missed the signature eccentricity.

Not that the collection didn't have its eccentric touches.Kowalska's big construction idea was a pleated sleeve that kind of drooped off either shoulder; she used the technique repeatedly, in dramatic capelike coats and jackets, printed blouses and dresses, and thick, cozy sweaters. You had to adjust to the look, which isn't unusual at an A Détacher show, but by the time Kowalska's drooped-sleeve black cardigan came down the runway, it had taken on a lot of appeal. But her other key theme—thick knit skirts and trousers with folded-over waists—never really got off the ground.

There were other ideas, too, more scantily used: Though neon has lost traction on most other runways, Kowalska made a convincing case for keeping the palette around, showing winning neon pointelle knits and blush-and-neon color-blocked silks. And her most successful silhouette was a long tunic, with a kind of armored collarbone construction, worn over narrow cropped pants in matching fabrics. She also showed a handful of very pretty, if rather safe, pieces in a nice cream and navy silk floral. The print had a little of the graphic punch that A Détacher's firm fans have come to expect, but it was quiet enough to entice a lot of new ones. Which may have been the point.
—Maya Singer

Akris

Franz Kline's Painting No. 7 was Albert Kriemler's starting point for Akris this season. The black slashes on the action painter's famous canvas inspired not only the geometric grid print of the opening pantsuit but also the graphic color-blocking and patchworking of different fabrics and textures that informed much of collection. Kline is also something of a totem for Kriemler for the way his work embodied a dynamism and freedom of movement.

Among the collection's highlights were a jacket pieced together from parallelograms of leather, cashmere, and ponyhair; a color-blocked cape; and a patchworked side-zip jacket teamed with fitted, tapering pants. All of these were in varying degrees of black, but Kriemler also embraced color. His clients will get a lot of wear out of double-face cashmere coats in purple and a fiery orange.

At times, Kriemler stumbled. Simplicity isn't effortless. The fit of the low-waisted, pleated trousers could've been better, and the allover paillette embroidery on evening pieces was distractingly sheer; it would've looked more elegant worn with slips. But he ended on an up note: A series of dresses that were belted in front and hung loose from the shoulders in back captured the ease of movement he was talking about.
—Nicole Phelps

Alberta Ferretti

There were a couple of dresses toward the end of Alberta Ferretti's show that reminded us of the designer's usual stance: romantic, floaty, slightly vintage-y. They were a useful reference point in a collection that made an earnest effort to reposition Ferretti. "I'm projecting my woman into the future," she said. "The world is very hard at the moment, and a woman needs to be strong, because she has an important role to play in society."

That instinct translated into a collection built on dichotomy. It was most obvious in the way that a masculine exterior cocooned a feminine interior—or, to be a little less obtuse, the way a tailored pinstriped coat opened to reveal a delicately feathered skirt. The notion of a woman enveloped doesn't seem particularly empowering at first, but Ferretti felt there was strength in the sensual severity of her designs. To make her point clearer, she kept the palette monochromatic. She stripped away the print of her pre-fall, and even in her eveningwear there was a tension between strictness and flou, the structured bodice and the chiffon skirt. The detailed handwork that has distinguished Ferretti's last few collections was represented here by a skirt using an intrecciatolike braiding. It was paired with a sheer blouse wrapped in embroidery, like the wings of a bird of prey closing around the model's torso. The devil may be at the door, but he brought Ferretti a shot of creative revitalization as a hostess gift.
—Tim Blanks

Albino

Albino D'Amato decided not to do a formal show this season. The French-Italian designer is in the middle of a move to Paris after seven years in Milan, so he's scaling back and regrouping. His Fall collection is its own kind of homecoming. The designer studied architecture and industrial design in school, and his earliest collections were full of the sculptural shapes he returned to today. Coats with rounded shoulders and cocoon silhouettes, blouses and tops with full sleeves and low armholes, and dresses with pouf skirts below drop waists situated him in the middle of fashion's new-again craze for oversize volumes. More often than not, D'Amato worked in solid colors—dusty rose, oxblood, lots of neutrals—which made his Rorschach wallpaper prints (especially the one in green and navy he used for a simple shift) and hand-knit tweeds stand out all the more. One clever idea had him piecing together a cable knit with wool flannel on a sporty jacket. So far, this relocation to Paris is looking like a good move.
—Nicole Phelps

Alexander McQueen

The floor of the Salle Wagram still bears the marks of the track that was laid out for Alexander McQueen's show in October 2003, the one that re-created the last-man-standing dance marathon from They Shoot Horses, Don't They?. That particular presentation found savage beauty in darkness and despair. Quintessential McQueen, in other words. But today, Sarah Burton well and truly laid those old ghosts to rest with a show that celebrated, in her words, "a beautiful future, positivity, optimism."

Burton described shapes and patterns that would organically "explode" as the show reeled on. So the first short, shaped skirts were "pods," initially in graphic jacquards, with decoration embedded in the fabric. Then they began to open out, first into cherry blossoms (maybe it was that Japanese connotation that triggered visions of a manga army with the models' uniform white wigs, sci-fi visors, and Rollerball booties), next into "doilies" of laser-cut ponyskin mounted on leather, and finally fur pompoms. Then the pods exploded, like puffballs, into extravagantly shaggy shapes in goat fur, ostrich feather, or Mongolian lamb, their shivering undulation evoking another organic association: anemones swaying in the tide.

"The future's usually shown as stark and cold," said Burton. "I wanted lightness, the sense that the dresses were hovering." One tiered dress, sprinkled with "dandelions" that looked like they were floating on air, had 80 godets, according to the woman who sewed it. The number of dandelions, she had totally lost count of. There were probably a dozen other such stats, underscoring how obsessive Burton's remarkable vision is (a quality she shares with her late mentor). Backstage before the show, nine people surrounded a huge froth of deep pink organza, hand-massaging its multilayers to bring them to life. The dress itself stood to silent attention, like an object of cultish worship—the cult being, of course, beauty.

The show's progression from pure white to the grandest possible finale of red and black felt like a journey from innocence to experience. Burton's own story, in other words. "I pushed myself more," she acknowledged. "It has to move forward." Even those in the audience who queried the absence of anything approaching clothes for the everyday surrendered to the forward movement of the stunning technique. As for pushing herself, Burton has tapped a vein of absolute magic. Its spell is irresistible.
—Tim Blanks

Alexander Wang

Alexander Wang's biggest news of late is a highly ambitious plan to open 14 stores in China over the course of the next year. It's likely no coincidence that what he showed today was his most luxurious-feeling collection to date.

Wang continued the trompe l'oeil theme of his pre-fall collection, this time taking "a surrealistic approach to fabric manipulation," as he explained in a preview. "It's this idea of shrink-wrap, lamination, covering up, lacquering." Nearly every surface seemed to have a slick sheen or gloss. He lacquered the tweeds on coats, hooded jackets, and even chunky wool sweaters. Leathers were glossy and seamless, and suede pants and coats came with waxed panels. The clothes themselves were also covered up. Wang sent out mid-calf-length skirts (with those great, soon-to-be-ubiquitous knee-high boots), buttoned-up coats, and fishnet turtlenecks pulled up over models' faces. This was definitely Wang in a more grown-up, if not dystopian, mode. (Those turtlenecks recalled surgical flu masks.) His designs exuded a new precision, as well as a new, expensive polish. And we're not just talking about the all-gold hardware. Ninety percent of the fabrics here were custom developed, and it showed.

Lately Wang has been shrinking from his so-called downtown reputation. But he also recognizes that his cool factor is part of his stock-in-trade. Witness his T campaign featuring freaky-cool, of-the-moment South African rap group Die Antwoord, who attended the show today. Wang, much like his fellow New York talent Marc Jacobs, is proving he can play to both sides. To wit, his new Pelican bags in vachetta leather. Their raised geometric motif may have been inspired by industrial metal crates, but they looked as structured and finessed as it gets.
—Meenal Mistry

Alexandre Herchcovitch

A typical Alexandre Herchcovitch show cycles through a lot of looks and a lot of ideas. Today's show, in contrast, was pithy and straight to the point: His overarching concept was to combine unlikely materials such as lace and technical nylon or printed silk and shearling and apply them to clean, ladylike silhouettes.

That strategy resulted in a lot of strong looks, in particular the outerwear paneled in tone-on-tone metallic leather and the baroquely gothic tiered dress in gold lace. Aside from the metallic theme, Herchcovitch limited himself—unusually—to a neutral palette, turning out his papery suede and shearling jackets in varying shades of brown, from plumlike to pumpkin-y, and tamping down the gold bling with a simple tan check print. All in all, this was a restrained effort from him, and a solid one.
—Maya Singer

Alexis Mabille

Alexis Mabille adores bow ties. And he's counting on his clients loving them, too, because they were the big idea at his show today. Bow tie prints, bow tie embroideries, bow tie earrings and bracelets, bow ties on the backs of shoes—when we said big, we meant it.

He named the collection Let Me Be Bo-Bow, and he explained backstage that it was designed with the bourgeois bohemian types native to Paris' ninth arrondissement in mind. Young professionals who play as hard as—maybe harder than—they work, and mix day clothes with night and vice versa. Picture rhinestones dolling up a cardigan, and hoodies making appearances under smoking jackets.

It's not a new idea, but it's not a bad one, either. The trouble is those bow ties got in the way. They're his signature—how he got his own start after putting in time at YSL and Dior—so we can't complain about Mabille's affection for them, but we can begrudge him his reliance on them this season.
—Nicole Phelps

Alice + Olivia

"Do you have anything long?" That was the question Stacey Bendet kept hearing from friends on the hunt for a special-occasion dress, so she decided to take Alice + Olivia's popular party frocks and give them the gown treatment. A full collection followed, officially launching for Fall, but only a handful of the floor-length dresses were on view at her presentation. That doesn't mean the collection was low on drama. The characters invoked by the rest of the clothes ran the gamut from Lolita to David Bowie, which is exactly the kind of range the retail-minded Bendet is striving for.

Bowie, you say? Yes, the Thin White Duke showed up once in a louche emerald green and black striped velvet pantsuit and again in a pageboy cap and pair of burnished platinum cargo pants. Those may sound like eye-catching outfits, but the effusive mood of an Alice + Olivia presentation means that even the most extraordinary of combinations are just part of the colorful melee. It would have been nice to see the new gowns on their own. A green and black strapless number with a kicky peplum looked like it had taken time and skill to make, but it got lost amid the canned looks for day. There's something undeniably fun about the kooky world Bendet has cooked up for her customer, but this season it felt like there were fewer pieces of substance to sink your teeth into.
—Alison Baenen

Altuzarra

There are moments in a designer's rise that you're happy to be around for. Tonight at Joseph Altuzarra's show was one of those times. He's had hits before (counting the Altuzarra Fall '11 parkas and knockoffs in the crowd has been a fun way to pass the time between shows this week) but none of them have been quite as ambitious or as all-around successful as this.

Altuzarra chose Corto Maltese, the protagonist of an adult French comic from the sixties and seventies, as his starting point. "He was a sailor, his mom was a gypsy, and his dad was Venetian." That gave the designer a reason to really dig into military-influenced tailoring. Describing the fabulous fur peacoats, velvet blazers, and shearling toggle coats (gold-plated horn toggles, to be precise) would take up too much space here, but suffice it to say there were some real swashbucklers, and that for every jacket, there was an equally great-looking pair of corduroy flares or slim cargo pants peeking out from above thigh-high boots.

But that was only part of the story. Maltese was a traveler and his adventures in Morocco and India provided a premise for the collection's kutch banjara dresses over-embroidered with medallions (we can already see the magazine editorials), as well as more real-world-ready material like chunky yet fitted knits decorated with colorful pompons and printed with tapestry motifs.

In between there was a trio of little black dresses that read as very French, very Belle de Jour. And fans of Altuzarra, meanwhile, will recognize callbacks to previous seasons; a draped jersey dress in a Moroccan carpet print, for example, looked like the descendant of the lamé cocktail numbers from his breakout Fall '09 show. It's not everybody in New York who can riff on their own work and still find something new to articulate.

"I just wanted to do things that women want to wear," Altuzarra said before the show, "to figure out how to make clothes that look rich but feel easy." We'd say he's done it and then some.
—Nicole Phelps

Andrew Gn

The Victorian era has been getting a lot of attention on the Paris runways. Andrew Gn is the latest designer to give dark romance a go. He opened with a narrow, streamlined navy coat, trimmed on the shoulders and the front placket with black mink. It had a faintly military look about it. The silhouette made reappearances throughout the show, turning up with tiny leather leaves embroidered on the shoulders and sleeves and again in black velvet with patent leather zigzagging down the front and around the cuffs. Those coats were the most understated part of the collection.

Gn loves it luxe, and his chosen Victorian motif gave him carte blanche to pile on the jet beads and other embroideries. At times you wanted him to scale back—lose the fishnets, say, or the black lace chokers. A couple of the evening gowns looked too period with their black ribbon lacings. Another dress with elaborate beadwork tracing the torso was too gothic.

That said, though, there were charmers in addition to that first coat. The white blouse with chiffon latticework around the shoulders that accompanied a flippy black skirt had a modern look about it, as did a stretch jersey black dress with hand-cut and -appliquéd lace above the bust and on the sleeves.
—Nicole Phelps

Anna Sui

Anna Sui could spin you a story about how she wove the web of inspiration for her latest collection: the Todd Oldham book about textile designer Alexander Girard, the valentine cards illustrators Walter and Naiad Einsel sent each other every year, the commercial art of Fellini favorite John Alcorn, the caftans Elizabeth Taylor wore in her campiest seventies glory days. The go-go girls on Shindig! But all of that enlightenment would ultimately be surplus to needs, because the clothes Sui showed told their own story, as upbeat and literally transporting as anyone could hope for from fashion at a time when the world craves reminders of enchantment.

Like Marc Jacobs' show the other night, Sui's presentation honed in on the fantasy of fashion. It's scarcely a new impulse with her, but what elevated the collection this time was an extraordinary precision and polish. The detail was off the map, as in a "librarian" dress with a print of books, trimmed in a lace in the same book pattern (made in New Jersey; Sui is, after all, New York fashion's locavore equivalent). Or a print that featured postcards with the addresses of all the Sui stores around the world. Or a smock whose bodice was dressed with laser-cut Plexi butterflies.

A handcrafted owl appliqué was the kind of folkloric touch Sui excels at—it was attached to a velvet varsity jacket over brown corduroy short shorts for a look that popped like Twiggy. But it was the spirit of Jean Shrimpton in her early sixties heyday that guided the glittery plaid shift topped by a matching coat and paired with kitten heels. And, of course, the mighty Liz, invoked in Lily Donaldson's gilded chiffon caftan with intense orange capris.

What could seem like fashion historicism in lesser hands was translated by Sui's sheer passion and eye for detail into something seductively of the here and now. To step from New York streets crowded with men and women in anonymously dun-colored coats and puffas into Sui's world of extravagant color, print, and texture was to be welcomed into a universe of possibilities. If only the universe would say yes to the invitations.
—Tim Blanks

Ann Demeulemeester

Ann Demeulemeester's is sure to be one of the most extravagant tonsorial statements of the season: hair spiked by Eugene Souleiman, charged with feathers like a Navajo warrior, or like a classic fashion illustration by Antonio Lopez. "Construction, shape, architecture," Demeulemeester's three touchstones for the season, were instantly broadcast by her models' heads, yet with a wanton eroticism that automatically elevated the clothes. Imagine the outfits Lisbeth Salander would splurge on when she suddenly felt inclined by her financial chicanery toward high fashion.

Demeulemeester's new designs had Salander's kick-ass, high-performance quality. There was a pointy sharpness to the layered scarf hems on leather jackets that suggested warrior action. As did the stiffened sculptural leather neckpieces. And the strict linear quality of suits made of bias-cut, funnel-necked jackets and pencil skirts provided a fierce new silhouette for the designer.

The designer was so exercised by this new direction that she insisted she had no need for decoration or color. Nevertheless, there was a sumptuously luminous blue ("the color of night," she said) that made the collection so much more interesting. As Demeulemeester's husband Patrick sagely said backstage, "If you do architecture, it has to be something people can live in."
—Tim Blanks

Anne Valérie Hash

The venerable Le Smoking is a crucial element of French fashion, and one that Anne Valérie Hash has visited again and again, both in her ready-to-wear and haute couture. This season, she devoted an entire collection to it. But this was mostly a riff on tuxedo as motif. In other words, if you were looking to re-up on your timeless Yves-inspired classic, you'd be out of luck.

Hash's proposition was deconstructed and quite a bit slouchier, even as her fabrics—heavy mikado silks, metallic velvets, and satins in jewel hues—ran to the flamboyantly expensive and formal. The new jacket came with a rounded drop-shoulder construction in contrast colors that had the effect of a strapless dress, while pants were either tailored but nowhere near strict or veering into near-dhoti territory. Blouses in sheer crinkle chiffon were draped and shadowy, while a button-up version had a trompe l'oeil bow tie in two black triangles painted on its collar. Clever ideas all, certainly the kind of fresh and elegantly twisted pieces that Hash's fans adore. But on the runway the effect became slightly muddled, dragged down by heavy wedge boots. A soupçon of the quiet refinement you saw in the designer's pre-fall collection was the ingredient that would have made this recipe sing.
—Meenal Mistry

Ann-Sofie Back Atelje

In the homestretch of a roller coaster fashion month, Ann-Sofie Back's Fall collection with its references to institutions and asylums seems like an apt metaphor. Sometimes all this is just crazy. The collection was called God 2, the sequel to last season's God. But it was less about religion and more about what's within, the darker impulses fighting the light, which leads to psychoanalysis, and then to plain psycho.

There was layer of clinical-looking nylon over a burgundy wool coat, and coated white cotton shirting echoed nurses' uniforms. The silhouettes were boxy and stiff, and looked almost nailed together with flat metal studs like those you'd see in a padded cell. Back did denim for the first time, dark and unwashed, and left the exposed seams unfinished and fraying, a statement about coming undone. As a finishing touch, silver rings, bracelets, and earrings were modeled after the zip ties that are used as restraints.

Back's Atelje venture is unapologetically conceptual. She has enough of an outlet for more conventional designs in her diffusion Back line and as creative director of Cheap Monday. Clearly those allow her to use Atelje as a sort of laboratory of ideas, and to do so in beautiful, interesting fabrics like the stiff woven organza she placed as a kind of shield on a white shirt, or a great laser-textured black leather cut into baggy paper-bag waist pants—one piece you could see translating easily to real life. Also ready to make the leap: the jewelry, which did double duty as the hardware to cinch a leather clutch. A small dose of insanity goes a long way.
—Meenal Mistry

Anthony Vaccarello

Anthony Vaccarello's Spring collection catapulted him to fashion fame. Karlie Kloss rocking a peekaboo gown that's more bathing suit than dress will do that to a guy.

For a follow-up, the Belgian newcomer decided to put his focus on tailoring. "I wanted something more masculine, more strong," he said of his navy satin suiting pieces with their military vibe. For the record, Kloss chose his collection as her runway re-entry after sitting out New York, London, and Milan—and the buttoned-up shirt, blouson jacket, and high-waisted pants she wore prove that he's not a one-trick kind of designer. Suits have gone mostly missing on the Fall runways, which gives Vaccarello an edge, but even if we'd seen lots of them this season, the sleek two-piecers that followed KK down the catwalk would be worthy of shout-outs.

The task he set up for himself for evening—marrying that tailoring with 1950's lingerie shapes—was more difficult. To start with, his daring jumpsuits and dresses absolutely demand supermodel-caliber physiques. But even if you've been blessed in the bod department, their elaborate construction and cutouts make it tough to get the fit right. A too-tight hem meant a miniskirt rose scandalously high on its model's thighs, and on some pieces, fabric bunched and puckered where it should've been smooth.

Still, his clothes are sexy as all get-out and modern-looking, too. The right magazines will want to shoot them, and the best celebrities will ask to borrow them. Couple those facts with the more commercial but still connected tailoring and we'd say Vaccarello is on his way to building himself a brand.
—Nicole Phelps

Antonio Berardi

The Salander-ish hair at Antonio Berardi came as no surprise. His muse is powerful and smart and certainly uses her clothing as a sort of armor. However, the initial reference for this collection was on the other end of the aesthetic spectrum from the antiheroine hacker. Berardi was looking at the rococo sculptor Giacomo Serpotta, whose molding work he vividly compared to "a wedding growing out of the wall."

You'd hardly call these clothes florid, but you saw Berardi's inspiration in all the arced seams—not a single straight line in the bunch, he claimed—and curving contrast panels, which he used to hint at the body-con curves for which he's known. (The effect was quite striking in the hourglass shape set into the back of two coats.) He gained his hourglass-loving reputation years ago, and he's eager to shake it: Today he showed his skill with other shapes, particularly those full, fifties-inflected A-line skirts with kick pleats. For day they came in a bouncy neoprenelike fabric that's actually a silk and linen weave backed with bouclé and cut against the grain. Its great matte finish and the way it looked sculptural but not stiff gave the first half of the show its sharp modern beauty. And to hear Berardi talk about it is to be reminded that he is a masterful technician.

Masterful but not perfect. Though he does killer cocktail, Berardi admitted that full-on evening isn't his strong suit. Perhaps it's because his ideas are best served in smaller doses, but his gowns felt dragged down, whether by peplums or weighty fabrics. But in all that was a slight stumble during a strong step forward.
—Meenal Mistry

Antonio Marras

Antonio Marras should shelve this fashion malarkey and devote himself to moviemaking. Since John Galliano's retreat, there isn't another designer who paints cinematic pictures as vividly as he does. And that's Marras' challenge—costume is character, but is it fashion?

His latest inspiration was Milly, a singer who, throughout the middle decades of the twentieth century, was a living metaphor for Milan, like Piaf for Paris or Lotte Lenya for Berlin. She was an emotions-larger-than-life character, lover of, among others, the king of Italy, and a perfect candidate for Marras' signature collage technique. He imagined her clothes as souvenirs of everywhere she'd been, everyone she'd loved. A piece of tapestry, a fragment of a man's suit, a dissected fur coat, a swatch of red velvet theater curtain—these were the kinds of elements Marras stitched together for his collection. There were 45 unique bags, and shoes to match.

Milly's signature trenchcoat was reinvented with fur sleeves and tapestry inserts. Her equally signature blouse with the ruffled neckline was duplicated for evening. But, to return to Marras' challenge for a moment, none of this was mere fashion necrophilia or plain costume. He is too in love with his craft. So a funnel-neck jacket collaged from classic menswear fabrics, or a skirt with a red-lined obi fold at its waist, both stood out as ingenious fashion pieces. That said, Marras is really a connoisseur's proposition. True, this collection had the forties line—tailored jacket, severe pencil skirt—that has been seen elsewhere (and, it should be said, Marras' pencil skirts generate major heat), but his use of print and color had a melancholic romance that bordered on the theatrical. At show's end, dark roses flowered across the scrim while Milly's voice crackled down the decades. It was the sort of haunting chord that Marras can strike in his sleep. But sadly it ain't for everyone.
—Tim Blanks

Aquascutum

One of the advantages of heritage companies is they tend to have snappy slogans to inspire incoming creative directors. For her third collection at the house, Joanna Sykes was particularly taken with Aquascutum's "Dressing the Powerful." That used to mean kings, generals, politicians, but what Sykes had in mind was, she said, "a Tarantino woman, dark, provocative, dangerous."

With a new Italian manufacturing deal in place, Sykes claimed she was now free to focus on design. The immediate impression of her new collection was structure, emphasized by cagelike, almost bondage straps running round hems, or angular architectural details like the patent stripes on an oxblood leather coat, or the zippers that streamlined outerwear closings. Bonded fabrics added substance. The tailored silhouette echoed the military precision of Aquascutum's past, in a gray officer's coat or olive jacket cropped over matching pants and a snowy-white poplin shirt.

Where the danger lay with this woman was anyone's guess, but maybe Sykes meant that the whimsy she initially brought to Aquascutum has been shelved in favor of a sleek, sexy hard edge. Any woman willing to don the low-slung pants with the cutout top is guaranteed to kick ass.

—Tim Blanks

Aquilano.Rimondi

"We're maximalists," said Roberto Rimondi, which had to be the most superfluous declaration of Milan's fashion week, given the collection he showed with Tommaso Aquilano. Taking inspiration from the richness and drape of fabrics in Renaissance paintings, from the "sacred jewelry" of the church, and Italian alta moda in the seventies, the duo offered designs of such complexity and depth that they were practically a master class in the capabilities of Italian artisans. Every designer should have access to such resources. But more to the point: What could have been an exercise in fashion academia was goosed by Aquilano.Rimondi so it read like a vision of fierce modernity. Scuba fabric worked with antique tapestry technique? Worlds collided.

The designers emphasized two silhouettes: very feminine—a bustier and an accent on the hips—versus a masculine influence, with double-breasted jackets over skort and trousers. The cross-gender dialogue offered the duo an opportunity to explore extraordinary fabrics, like the micro-jacquard they used for their suits and the double-faced faille used in those scuba dresses with the tapestry overlay. "Black is the new gold," Rimondi said. That meant rich tone-on-tone embroideries, but also black leather, as sleeves on a dress or a cape (if you're inclined toward one of the season's major trends, this is the cape you should be looking at). And often, it meant everything together: ottoman and scuba and velvet and leather in one glorious farrago, with a single long zip snaking down the spine to hold it all together. True, Aquilano.Rimondi's vision is unyielding in its single-mindedness, but this is one instance where generosity of spirit is weakness. Perfection is a hard taskmaster.
—Tim Blanks

Araks

As Araks Yeramyan explained at her presentation, her latest hobby—crocheting—provided the jumping-off point for new collection. Especially around the neckline, the crafty handiwork gave Araks' work, usually low on frills, some nice pop. A long, navy blue turtleneck dress with what appeared to be a crocheted bodice turned out to be a dress with a removable crocheted dickie. (You could untie the neck warmer when things started to heat up.) Elsewhere, the crocheted top of a calf-length gray dress with a wide, circled hem looked, winningly, like the world's tiniest shrug. The dress had a sweet, sporty rib-knit collar that appeared on a few outerwear pieces, as well.

Besides getting hooked on crochet, Yeramyan also discovered the work of the late photographer Seydou Keita, known for his portraits of fellow Malians in the fifties and sixties. Taking cues from the tiered layers and curved lines of Keita's subjects' dress, Araks distilled her silhouette down to a minimal approximation of theirs. A deep green, short-sleeved blazer flared out just slightly at the waist for a kicky peplum effect, while its inset lapel created a piece that was simultaneously streamlined and curvilinear. The voluminous pair of green and blue color-blocked, wide-leg trousers in silk georgette looked comfortable enough to be worn to bed, though they'd be the chicest pants on the street. Speaking of street, the award for the cleverest cold-weather accessory can be handed out here: A stand-alone mink collar that zipped up the back into a hood and doubled as a scarf in the front. Practical but plush, it summed up Araks' sensible separates well.
—Alison Baenen

Azzaro

New designer, new directive? At Azzaro, the answer is both yes and no. Mathilde Castello Branco was named the brand's creative director last year when the spot was vacated by Vanessa Seward, but the mandate remains essentially the same: pretty party dresses and event gowns, with the crystal strass embroideries that put the house founder's name in lights so many years ago.

Castello Branco, who hails from Lanvin, used the crystals sparingly and with some wit. The bow at the neck of a simple dove gray dress was picked out in stones, as was its tulle-covered peekaboo back, and the tiers on a little black number were embroidered with the crystals in a subtle, dégradé style.

What felt newsy was a print of aces, diamonds, hearts, and spades—we can't recall ever seeing a print at Azzaro—and a silver python used for a sweetheart-neckline cocktail frock and a sleeveless coat-dress. Outerwear was never part of Loris Azzaro's vocabulary, and it was the weak link here, but overall, this new incarnation of Azzaro holds promise. Next on Castello Branco's agenda should be finding a space that can accommodate the curiosity seekers. The house atelier doesn't cut it.
—Nicole Phelps

Badgley Mischka

For Mark Badgley and James Mischka, Fritz Lang's Metropolis was their celluloid starting point for Fall. While the German expressionist classic informed both their signature collection and their younger-skewing Mark & James line (presented side by side today), its influence was most evident in the main collection's luxurious gowns.

Models with high-voltage hair (they looked like they'd put their fingers in sockets) immediately conjured up a dystopian-future mood, while the Deco beading and triangular insets on lean, snaking gowns evoked the film's angular architecture. Over the phone a few days before the show, the designers explained they created the palette—shades of burnished platinum, rose, and gold—based on what they thought the colors in the black-and-white film would have looked like.

While a rakish pajama set in gold lamé might have been better left in black and white, the heft still looked rich. Better were pants and vests in metallic tweed from the diffusion line that had a captivating sparkle. In response to customer feedback, the design duo pushed this season's Mark & James girl to a more sophisticated place than she's been in the past. Fans of both lines should be happy with the results.
—Alison Baenen

Balenciaga

The Balenciaga show took place 27 floors up a Paris skyscraper in a space that the house's longtime artist, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, spent months tweaking to designer Nicolas Ghesquière's specifications. It would've provided panoramic views of Paris had it not been so cloudy. Alas, Ghesquière can't control the weather, but he marshaled no small number of professionals to produce this fashion event, and the setting was nothing short of transporting.

This season, Ghesquière was the chairman of the board and the models his employees—both literally and metaphorically. There were VPs and a legal department and interns and IT girls (as in information technology, not "It"). He even put corporate spies on his fluorescent-lit runway. Balenciaga Inc. is unlike any office you've ever seen; it'll have fashion types debating fiercely at the water cooler for months. Why? Because this was the designer in experimental mode, advancing our collective eye forward, even as he seemed to glance back at the same era he revisited for pre-fall, the one when "France decided to be modern" in the late seventies and early eighties.

The designer moved the fashion conversation along today in a few different ways: by proposing new silhouettes with exaggerated, even challenging proportions (bonded leather coats with shoulders out to there, sculptural padded sweaters over stiff A-line skirts with doubled front panels); by deliberately trafficking in items of questionable taste (those black satin sweatshirts with spacey slogans like "JOIN A WEIRD TRIP" and "OUT OF THE BLUE" are instant collector's items); and by continuing to emphasize fabric research.

The IT girls wore jumpsuits made from a hi-tech parachute material, and his animal prints came two ways—as a jacquard snake on the wool bodices of the office rebels' strapless dresses and as leopard spots that looked like liquid mercury on the executives' jackets (they were actually padded appliqués of lamé jersey). Employees at every rung on the corporate ladder will be happy to note that the new Balenciaga heel is lower—the easier to get around in—than previous incarnations.

Not all of it was as pleasing. As in any office, there are people you love and others who leave you cold. All in all, though, a remarkable company.
—Nicole Phelps

Bally

The Bally girl this season is a diplomat's daughter circa the seventies who's gotten into her dad's closet, Michael Herz explained at the company's presentation today. It's not as random as it sounds: The Swiss luxury goods house launched ready-to-wear in 1976. Its Fall oxfords are a modernized take on archival shoes from that year, and the new "diplomat bag" is a shrunken version of a hard briefcase that an important man from the era might've carried.

Herz and his design partner, Graeme Fidler, otherwise resisted the urge to go retro. Rather, the collection felt of this moment, with lots of peplums on dresses and other references to trending topics like the military and motorcycling. A trompe l'oeil print of a biker jacket on a tee and a T-shirt dress was a misstep, though. At Bally prices, pieces like that are no joke.

Leather being the brand's stock-in-trade, outerwear was the standout here. A red leather coat with covered snap closures came with a removable double-breasted panel, so you could also wear it single-breasted, and its bold shearling collar unzipped into an even bolder hood. It's available in black, too, but the cut and the fit are so good, you'd be no less conspicuous in it.
—Nicole Phelps

Balmain

About a third of the way through the Balmain show, Karlie Kloss strutted out in an outfit that made the women in Olivier Rousteing's crowd sit up and take notice. "That's how I'd like to look tonight," they were thinking about an off-white crewneck sweater tucked into a pair of low-slung velvet pants embroidered Fabergé egg-style in thousands of pearls and crystals. Couture, but effortless.

Rousteing is in his second runway season for Balmain, and he's on his way to establishing a promising new direction for the house—one that retains the elaborately hand-worked pieces the label is known for but is imbued with a fresher, easier spirit. The first look out, a leather sweatshirt embellished with a needlepoint cameo that was worn over a snap-front top and simple black pants, captured the new vibe, as did a bottle green leather camp shirt worn with matching embossed velvet flares.

The Balmain jacket has been redesigned by Rousteing. It's as boxy and oversize now as it was shrunken then; from the back, it's almost a perfect square. To cut their masculine look, he paired the jackets with fluid velvet pants, either dévoré or stamped in the Fabergé patterns.

That's not to say there isn't room for improvement here. The least thrilling part of the collection was a series of stretchy dresses embroidered all over in pearls and crystals. They were predictable compared to those high-low mixes.
—Nicole Phelps

Banana Republic

Day-to-evening dressing is hardly an original concept, but it's one that is particularly relevant for Banana Republic's practical yet polished customer who needs multitasking separates. At the Fall presentation last night, creative director Simon Kneen described the season as the time of year when women are perhaps returning from holidays and diving back into the hustle and bustle of their busy work and social schedules. They don't necessarily have the time or interest to decipher what's fashionable, so BR eliminates the guesswork, effectively repackaging the latest trends (the label has the big advantage of showing a month after the final Paris runways).

"It's all about the cropped trouser," Kneen said, gesturing toward the ankles on display. The best look included those cigarette pants, a slim turtleneck, and a double-face wool wrap coat—all done in au courant crimson. The label gets bonus points for the monochromatic color scheme. Other highlights included a selection of smart capelets trimmed in leather as well as faux fur pieces like a chubby vest cinched with a wide belt. Styled with tasseled clutches and broguish booties, the collection had an equestrian undertone. For the men, double-breasted car coats, shawl-collar sweaters, and tailored suits in heritage tweed and herringbone delivered a dapper message. All in all, it'll be difficult to go wrong with most of this lineup.
—Brittany Adams

Band of Outsiders

Band of Outsiders designer Scott Sternberg was tempting fate with the Sergio Leone backdrop at his show today: Before a single model had come down the runway, the headline "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" was surely writing itself in more than a few audience members' heads. But Sternberg foiled those plans. "The Good, the Good, and the Good" may not do much as the title of a spaghetti western, but it serves just fine as a description of this season's Band of Outsiders, Girl, and Boy collections.

As suggested by the set design, Sternberg's mind was on ol' Mexico and the rugged American Southwest, and the theme carried through all three of his collections. First up, the men. In the Band of Outsiders collection, Sternberg made his reference overt, but not literal: This was Band sportswear, for sure, executed in sueded, desert-color materials and conductor stripe, plus some winning puffer jackets and scarves. Sternberg's cheekiest play with his Mexican reference was to apply Oaxacan-inspired embroidery to a chino suit, a riff on WASP whale pants. His most direct move was to make alpaca sweaters intarsia knit with Oaxacan-inspired iconography; the hoodie versions were a slam dunk.

Next up, the womenswear. In general, Sternberg gave his seasonal themes a looser interpretation in Boy and Girl, though Boy did quote some of the menswear ideas. These were breakthrough collections for Sternberg: For the first time, his womenswear was the clear strength of his show. Girl came down the catwalk first, and boasted a panoply of great microfloral frocks; to-die-for hairy, ink-dyed furs; cozy hand-knits; and bonus items like a microfloral puffer vest and navy alpaca coat with a floral print. Boy, per usual, had a more masculine mien, but even here the feminine rose to the top. Indeed, Sternberg closed the show with a couple of clean, flowing gowns—basic black ones, with suspender-banded halter bodices. The gowns were dead sexy and undeniably glam, both unusual notes for Band of Outsiders to strike, and they hinted at the brand's new horizons.
—Maya Singer

Barbara Bui

Fashion's collective eye is trained on China. But for French-Vietnamese designer Barbara Bui, the references in her Fall collection to the People's Republic harkened back to the squaring of east and west she did when starting her career almost 30 years ago. To the exotic dragons and Maoist olive drabs, Bui added seventies glamour, name-checking David Bowie and Bianca Jagger. The first look out was iconic Mrs. Mick Numero Uno, with the twist that its satin tuxedo jacket was quilted in the traditional Chinese style.

Bui's cocktail yielded some fine pieces—a sturdy-chic military overcoat, a slew of ankle-cropped pants, a Halston-esque jersey dress, a leopard coat. That lamé maxi dress and the slouchy pants in metallic leopard triggered memories of a more recent glam heyday, the apex of Balmain-ia. But heck, they're also the pieces you'd shop your closet for sooner rather than later. Still, working an Asian motif is tricky. (Marc Jacobs was smart to take his to a so-bad-it's-good extreme a few seasons ago.) What tripped Bui up were the schlocky crouching tigers, and hidden dragons in prints and hefty embroideries that closed the show, a costume-y misstep in a collection that typically does reality so right.
—Meenal Mistry

Barbara Casasola

Barbara Casasola is an interesting case. She hails from Brazil and launched her label there three seasons ago. She lives in London. As of this season, she presents her collection privately in Paris. And yet, in some ways, she occupies a planet of her own. It's hard to think of another young designer specializing in formalwear who possesses her nerve to be simple: There's nary a bead or sequin to be found in her Fall '12 collection, which is composed largely of elongated dresses of an almost monastic cleanness. That sounds unappealing, but it's emphatically not. A veteran of Lanvin and Cavalli, Casasola comes at her clothes with a confidence in construction and a refined sense of detail; here, she deployed a bare minimum of tricks to conjure a collection that was sophisticated, sexy, and sui generis.

The most obvious trick was her architectural use of color and fabric—one dress in black and ocher, for instance, made a big impact just by setting its two high-contrast colors against each other in a coolly geometric way that flattered the curves of the body. Elsewhere, she used strapping, cutouts, and sheer organza to similar graphic ends. Closer inspection of the clothes likewise revealed the intelligence of Casasola's method—her signature stapled seams let some light, and some skin, into silhouettes that could otherwise have been forbidding, and she made luxurious use of fabric, draping it generously and eschewing side seams. Overall, the collection's affect was regal with a sporty kick—a tone pretty much unique in dress-up clothes. Casasola has emerged with a fully formed point of view; the only question is what she chooses to do with it.
—Maya Singer

Barbara Tfank

A former costume designer, Barbara Tfank often sources inspiration from the cinema. Last season she paid tribute to Elizabeth Taylor, and for Fall she celebrated "the magic hour," that fleeting period before the sun sets when its golden light makes everyone glow: "A daily reminder of enchantment and beauty," Tfank said during her presentation.

The designer's goal this season was to capture the magic hour's ephemeral allure with timeless, have-forever pieces. Timelessness is an interesting concept chez Tfank, where clothes always seem to evoke another era. Pin it on the rich fabrics, like the silk jacquard of a blush colored funnel-neck dress embroidered with orange irises. The box-pleated skirt kept its shape so perfectly8212;up and away from the model's hips—that it looked like there was a crinoline underneath. "It's just the fabric," Tfank promised. "It has a life of its own."

Another box-pleated dress came in embossed gray cloque with a black tulle overlay. You needed to see the dress up close to catch the fine net, but from afar it had a hazy aura that made it shimmer. Dull-gold palazzo pants would look just as great with a simple white tee as they did with a structured black satin tunic, although it's unlikely the type of girl who would go for the first option is eyeing these clothes. Tfank caters to a mature crowd, and this collection, with its classic silhouettes and luxurious fabrics, was definitely pitched to her sophisticated faithful. The magic will happen when these clothes are passed down, which they should be. Beautifully made and superbly fitted, they have a life of their own.
—Alison Baenen

Basso & Brooke

We were two for two in end-of-world inspirations for tonight's shows. (See PPQ.) For Christopher Brooke and Bruno Basso, last days require going for broke with their already, shall we say, optically demanding prints. How then to maximize maximalism? Basso, the print side of this operation, took a page from Matisse. Well, actually several pages and a pair of scissors. The overall look of them was a frenzied collage of relatively simple geometric motifs cut and pasted into one flat surface. The effect was quite cool, a sharper way to continue the fusions they did for Spring.

It was at its best in sharper shapes, like the stiff rubber-back jersey T-shirts or a nipped-waist dress or a simple pencil skirt. (Though at times those shapes trespassed into the Eclectic Ladyland of Marni, particularly with the styling tic of socks scrunched in sculptural wooden wedges.) Brooke, however, attempted to transfer the concept of contrast to silhouettes, like the nearly David Byrne-oversize jackets, meant to offset narrow trousers. It's unclear what the matronly evening gowns with the long sleeves and heavy skirts were designed to counter, but they contributed to the jumbled side of the equation.

Surprisingly, Basso and Brooke have never made a big knitwear statement, but an emphasis on another contrast—that of textures—led them to it now. It's hard to see why they waited so long. In cool slouchy shapes, they looked great. Ditto their new collaboration with the Cambridge Satchel Company of printed clutches—ripe and ready for their Tommy Ton close-up.
—Meenal Mistry

BCBG Max Azria

The show notes at BCBG Max Azria cited the geometric abstraction of the Bauhaus, but that only told you half the story—that of the surface. The shapes that underpinned the collection relied heavily on the loose-limbed look of seventies American sportswear. There were belted trenches, languid wide-leg jersey trousers, and loads of midi-length color-blocked and paneled dresses, either flaring with pleats or cut straight like a long T-shirt and slit up the sides. In fact, as has been the case for several seasons, Max and Lubov Azria placed most of their chips on the frock sector. Practice makes perfect; there were many here that will appeal to their customer. The sporty color-blocking is a trend the Azrias have been riffing on for a few seasons, and here it was given depth by colorful contrasting pleats, though the new direction didn't feel as identifiably their own.

Whether intentional or not, the dress-centric nature of this collection cast other categories into supporting roles. But the smattering of outerwear made up for its rarity by really laying on the luxury. And who needs a sweater (there were none here) when you've got coats with leather and fur sleeves? BCBG has vowed to weather a pair of recent credit downgrades, and here was evidence of heads held high.
—Meenal Mistry

Bebe

At Bebe, the Gibson Girl is out, and Veronica Lake is in. Entering his second season at the womenswear retailer, Charles Benton fused forties Hollywood glam with the imagery of Helmut Newton to create a Fall collection that was "dedicated to the diva, but modern and beautiful." Added the designer: "It's an homage to the power of women."

In order to bring his vision to life, Benton looked to the heroine in the film Blade Runner as a starting point, and let his high-end-design background (his résumé includes gigs with Giambattista Valli and Julien Macdonald) do the rest. The result was an elevated set of looks that appeared more sophisticated and less youthful than the tight-fitting, low-cut clothing that the brand has garnered a reputation for.

When the dresses hugged the body, they were paired with long overcoats, and blazers added a sleek touch to short shorts. Benton also introduced new fabric treatments this season, such as the plaid featured on a pair of cropped trousers and the textured tweed on a knee-skimming skirt. Yet the carefree nature of the Bebe girl was not completely lost. Models walked the runway in turquoise and red scalloped heels, and handbags were done in bright alligator and leopard prints that are sure to satisfy the retailer's dedicated customer base. As for the company's founder, Manny Mashouf, he seemed totally in tune with Benton's overall theme. "I'm obsessed with women," he said after the show. "And I am thrilled to make women feel beautiful."
—Jessica Minkoff

Behnaz Sarafpour

Behnaz Sarafpour skipped out on a NYFW presentation last season (she did a small capsule just for sales), and focused on Fall instead. The idea behind the designer's latest collection was to show the inner construction elements of a dress on the outside—"kind of like a fashion X ray," she said. A white silk piqué gown with flared shoulders, for example, came with metal coils typically found in corsets accenting the waist. And a strapless lace dress with matching, arm-warmer-like sleeves had a peplum made from the wiry brim of a hat. Many of the delicate looks here would befit a prima ballerina. Sarafpour pointed out the copper-colored jersey lamé number with a handkerchief hem, in particular, as "very Martha Graham." Furthermore, all of the models wore simple ballet flats, which was a comforting gesture (it's painful to watch the stationary girls at presentations teetering on skyscraper heels for hours). Sarafpour spent a lot of time at the barre throughout her childhood, and has referenced dance many times before. Another personal touch was the custom necklaces made from thin, reflective Venetian glass, which the designer avidly collects. She positively lit up while describing her collaboration with an old Italian jeweler on the statement-making pieces. Proof that even after ten plus years in the business, Sarafpour still gets genuinely excited about designing—and that enthusiasm definitely comes through in her precise, graceful clothes.
—Brittany Adams

Belstaff

Sometimes it's up to the Americans to show the British where they stand with their own history—while also being just that little more reverential toward it. Belstaff is one such case in point.

Belstaff was established in 1924, and capitalizing on the vogue for motorsports in the twenties and thirties, it became the pre-eminent maker of high-performance waterproof sporting garments for both men and women. In his debut collection for the brand, the American chief creative director, Martin Cooper, has infused his offering with the romance of the machine age, when the motorbike and the motorcar were very much the pursuit of the wealthy. And very accomplished it is, too—particularly as he was only appointed seven months ago.

Having spent 16 years at Burberry prior to his appointment, rising to the position of design director of outerwear there, it's quite clear that Cooper knows well what it takes to fuse British heritage with contemporary desirability for both sexes. "I did rediscover the brand through the archive, those iconic garments from the twenties onwards," he says. "I wanted a holistic approach for both sexes, and 80 percent of the concepts are the same for the men's and womenswear."

Perhaps this is why there's a certain toughness in the womenswear that adds to its merit, eschewing the girlish folderol that can sometimes creep in when designers approach a fundamentally masculine, utilitarian history. Saying that, some of the standout garments were the dresses, particularly a silk "oil slick" print tea dress and its sheer-backed black georgette counterpart. Reworked to often feature skyscraper heels, the boots are among the most desirable elements of the collection, alongside the reworked outerwear staples. The iconic four-pocketed Trialmaster jacket appears in many fabrics for both men and women, with a particular emphasis on the exotics, crocodile and python. The intense sense of luxury does seep through absolutely everything, and yet Cooper and his team have been clever in not dissipating a sense of practicality and performance, particularly in the menswear.

For us British, this brand, with its roots in Stoke-on-Trent—hardly a town of sonorous high romance—might conjure up images of oily bikers in roadside cafés. Yet the new Swiss and American owners, Labelux and Harry Slatkin, see the more romantic, luxurious side of its heritage. And they mean business, opening up two flagship stores on Madison Avenue, New York, and Bond Street, London, later this year. If Belstaff is anything like our luxury car industry, it is better off in outside hands—and this seems like a decidedly safe pair.
—Jo-Ann Furniss

Betsey Johnson

Betsey Johnson's show opened with an early sixties-era video clip of girls screaming on the tarmac as they awaited the arrival of the Fab Four. What followed on the runway was a high-speed tour of Carnaby Street's golden age, with skinny herringbone suits, boyish coats, and miniskirts eventually giving way to psychedelic prints, maxi dresses, and fluffy faux fur trim. Johnson toggled between being literal with her reference and dropping it entirely—a strapless gold wallpaper-print minidress with a bouffant skirt was nothing other than vintage Johnson. And even the most straightforwardly mod looks were idiomatically Betsey; her looks favored a neon palette and the show-opening herringbone suit, for instance, included a pair of pants that were legging-tight.

As usual, the collection was pretty over-the-top, though it did boast a few down-to-earth pieces, like a cropped motorcycle jacket made from pink-flecked ivory bouclé and a pair of wide-leg, low-rise trousers. Moreover, Johnson's show affirmed the growing suspicion that the key look of New York fashion week will prove to be the extra-long black duster coat: When designers as different as Betsey Johnson and VPL's Victoria Bartlett both show a version of a duster, you'd be well advised to make room for one in your closet.
—Maya Singer

Bibhu Mohapatra

After several seasons of static presentations and a lot of hard work in the off-seasons refining the vocabulary of his brand, Bibhu Mohapatra had earned the right to show on a catwalk, which he did for the first time this afternoon. The moment offered the opportunity to judge whether Mohapatra, long tipped as an up-and-comer, was finally ready to join the front rank of emerging young designers.

What Mohapatra has in spades is a real sense of luxury. His looks for both night and day are executed in rich materials and beautifully finished. It's clear that the designer has thought every detail through; sometimes you feel he's overthinking, actually. Today, as usual, there were a few garments that begged for a bit more simplicity, like a gown with a chainlike embroidery, ombré fade, peacock feathers, and plissé skirt. Still, you have to respect Mohapatra's ambition: His understanding of luxury is that it demands a sense of drama. His daywear benefits from that allergy to the mundane; some of the best pieces today were the show-opening ivory knit tops, with their sculpted construction and basket-weave detail. And Mohapatra also turned out a variety of fun colored furs. This section had an appealing looseness that, more broadly applied, could accelerate the breakthrough the designer's working toward. He seemed to have enjoyed making his cherry red and hunter green popcorn fur coats, and women are going to enjoy wearing them.
—Maya Singer

Bill Blass

Gianvito Rossi designed the shoes for Bill Blass this season, and as the pointy, metal-tipped stilettos and to-the-knee boots came to life, Jeffrey Monteiro found himself wanting to inject some of that sexiness into the collection. As always, he said backstage before the show, the starting point was American sportswear, but Fall had a shot of Italian energy, too.

The first look out, a fitted black wool coat with indigo satin sleeves and a high collar, was militaristic in its precise cut and no-nonsense rigor. Things didn't loosen up from there. Paneled dresses in sheer jersey and stretch twill led the parade of figure-hugging daywear. Most were spliced and inset with different fabrics in variations of the same shade, like an aggressively sexy sleeveless stretch twill dress in cobalt that had a dark blue satin bodice and a sheer navy top. A lush fox-fur coat with a delightfully huge collar made for a nice contrast with all the sleek shapes, but you wanted to see the peacock green dress underneath, with its hint of side cutouts that started under the bodice. Polished and focused, this was a lineup of sportswear for fashion power players.
—Alison Baenen

Billy Reid

For Fall, Billy Reid made the leap to the catwalk after five seasons of presentations. Stylish and idiosyncratic they may have been, but Reid had come round to thinking that the way he'd been showing had given his designs a slightly misleading down-home, bourbon-and-barbecue flavor. There was actually a lot of hand-tailored finery getting lost in the mix. Reid decided that runway was the remedy. "I wanted the focus this season to be squarely on the clothes," he said. "It's all about luxe. No denim, no chinos." And when the Deep South did put in an appearance, it was in the exalted form of dress shoes handmade from Louisiana alligator.

Reid's appreciation of the finer things in life was sharpened by a recent trip with his wife to Paris and London, an archetypal Old World experience that took on all the romantic trappings of a second honeymoon. So there was a lot of love in his new collection, as well as some ingenious souvenirs like the jacket lining that mimicked the crumbling wallpaper in the church of Saint-Eustache in Paris (that's one way to turn a trip into a tax write-off). The womenswear played out like the fantasy of an innocent American abroad: lean, long, pencil-skirted, wide-brim-hatted, sophisticated sorts with whom a young man might have an adventure. The luxe was utterly straightforward in a floor-length suede outfit, the model sporting a mysteriously enormous saddle bag.

The menswear, on the other hand, had a kind of college boy formality—if Reid's women were greyhounds, his men were pups. A gray flannel suit was accompanied by a washed leather backpack. An immaculately realized shawl-collared tux in wool faille was worn with a washed oxford button-down and kilties. Reid artfully layered tailored twill over leather jackets. So the formality was actually depth-charged. But the luxury lingered in the plush fabrics or the shaved nutria collar on a tweed coat, which felt like mink. The dinner jacket in a natural cashmere hopsack that closed the show could be one of the season's most elegantly modern evening options.
—Tim Blanks

BLK DNM

Johan Lindeberg: the man, the brand. If anyone encapsulates fashion's drive to seep into all aspects of life and art, it's him. When he created BLK DNM a year ago, he wasn't satisfied with merely a clothing label. Instead, he birthed a gazette, a series of films, an eyewear collaboration, a fragrance, and a charitable initiative, too. Three hundred sixty-five days in, there's a Soho store, where as of yesterday, workers were busily building out a coffee bar, so Johan's people can congregate. And if you're young (or not), cool, and connected, you're one of them.

Lindeberg cut a wide swath through the contemporary fashion world over the last decade, at Diesel, J. Lindeberg, and William Rast, and he knows his stuff. BLK DNM was founded on three main offerings—denim, leather, and tailoring—and for the price, all are about as good as you can hope to find. This season, a new knitwear program complements the lot. The Lindeberg look is masculine/feminine, like the cropped, pinstriped suit with strong shoulders or the bomber jacket in satin, and jean-centric. The designer himself is rarely seen without his beat-up biker jacket, so he offers versions slimmed down for women, this season in winter white. His girl will even throw hers on over a floor-length lace maxi dress. BLK DNM, he explained, is "exactly what I want to see a woman wear."

Rule-breaking, in other words, is the rule. And even if Lindeberg now has plenty of company in the toss-out-the-playbook game, his commitment to the cause is as deeply felt as anyone's. The student uprisings of Paris in 1968—for which he and his ex-wife named their former label Paris 68—are his primal influence and never seem far from his mind. "2011 has been a new 1968 for me," he said.
—Matthew Schneier

Blumarine

Blumarine began with five fluorescent Mongolian lamb coats, each one more electric than the last. But Anna Molinari and her fearless stylist Carlyne Cerf de Dudzeele were just warming up. The designer's Fall collection was all about metallics, iridescents, and holograms. It was "positively shining," just as the show's title promised—except for a brief sidetrack through the label's perennial head-to-toe animal prints, sometimes as many as six separate pieces in one outfit.

Molinari, it's well known by now, doesn't do anything by halves. Still, some of today's looks—like the one consisting of a turquoise puffer vest, silver hoodie, and sequined pants spelling out "jolie," "wow," and other superlatives—certainly reconfirmed her enthusiasms. And if the show didn't get more gonzo than that, it came close several times. The cocktail and evening dresses pavéd in iridescent studs at the finale? Minimal by comparison.
—Nicole Phelps

Bottega Veneta

There's been lots of talk about oversize this and exaggerated that so far this season, but Bottega Veneta's Tomas Maier is taking a different tack. "It's usually more flowy," he said in his succinct style backstage, addressing his Fall collection's new close-to-the-body shapes; its dense, opaque fabrics; and the ways in which he used print and embroidery to enhance the figure. Enhance it he did; it's still not too late to ship a black velvet bustier evening gown with Art Nouveau-style boning on the torso to L.A. for the Oscars tomorrow night.

Maier opened with strict tailoring: Coat-dresses and suits were marvels of buttoned-up precision, with graphic details at the sides and slightly padded hips that put the accent on nipped and narrowed waists—the New Look again. With the silhouette thus established, Maier touched on curvy day shifts unadorned but for large-scale brooches at the neckline, and sporty, waffle-knit sweaters tossed over peplum blouses.

What impressed about the dresses was their range. Printed numbers that riffed on ones that Maier introduced last Fall hugged the body, while others came embellished with shreds of chiffon that looked like dense layers of feathers. A pair of stretch velvet frocks, one with overlapping multicolor flowers and the other with curling black vines à la cut-paper silhouettes, had an almost naïve innocence. But ultimately elegance ruled. Maier's event dresses, which seemed to elongate their models' already exceedingly willowy frames, will get scooped up by celebrities, even if the timing isn't right for the Academy Awards. High marks all around.
—Nicole Phelps

Bouchra Jarrar

Bouchra Jarrar is making a success of her made-to-measure business. So much so that she's been able to open an atelier and a showroom in the second arrondissement and produce the ready-to-wear collection that she showed today.

Admirers of Jarrar's sharp tailoring and simply elegant dresses will recognize her signatures: the spare tailleurs, the contrast piping on understated A-line shifts—if anything, the pieces here are even more reduced. For a bit of fun, she incorporated the print from her January couture show, using it as the body of a wool sweater that she showed with a generous knee-length skirt in a tiny houndstooth.

There weren't many pieces in her debut, but a hands-on preview was proof enough that they're among the best made that we'll see this week. Jarrar has also launched her first bag. It's classic and uncluttered, like her clothes.
—Nicole Phelps

Brood

Brood's Serkan Sarier made the leap onto the official fashion calendar this season, and set his clothes in motion for the first time with a presentation-turned-runway show. The designer's stock in trade is a techy fusion of sport and chic: He has trained in couture ateliers but draws just as much inspiration from rock climbing gear and athletic wear. Brood's silk faille jackets and cocktail frocks are crisscrossed with plastic zippers and cinched with drawstrings.

This season, Sarier looked to the English artists Lynn Chadwick and Glenn Brown for inspiration. The designer explained that though they seem different—Chadwick's massive metal sculptures versus Brown's limpid painterliness—"they're both expressing the same thought," which was distilled into fabric and print, with an almost geologic looking paint print borrowed from Brown, and a series of metallic gold dresses at the finale adapted from Chadwick. But the most constant thought throughout was Sarier's own, one he's been refining season after season. It's about how garments should be responsive and individual, a notion that borrows, like his aesthetic, from couture (where each piece is tailored to its client) and from sport (where gear can be pulled, snapped, buckled, and belted for safety and fit).

Sarier specializes in a kind of "gotcha" trompe l'oeil piece—jacket and waistcoat combinations that are zipped together into one piece, or dresses that fold down into their own expanding layers. Each is adjustable to its wearer's whims. They occasionally come off too tricky and complicated for their own good (all that choice may amount to a burden). That may explain the loveliness of a series of long, sheer gowns patterned with burnout velvet roses. The silhouette was simple, and, Sarier explained, so was the form: Each dress is essentially a giant square of fabric. His alchemy was to make it much more and, just as much, to secret away the pulleys and gears.
—Matthew Schneier

Burberry Prorsum

For Christopher Bailey, the title of his latest Burberry show, Town and Field, signified two worlds whose codes didn't match. And he wanted to try and make them. It was a kind of metaphor for Bailey's big challenge of the moment—merging Burberry's physical and digital aspects—which sounds like a much more daunting task than sticking herringbone bellows pockets on a tweed pencil skirt, one of the ways field met town in today's show. Another striking match was the brown corduroy jacket belted over a burgundy lace skirt with a substantial peplum.

The peplum and nipped waist were vintage details Bailey carried over from pre-fall, with its echoes of the thirties and forties, but where that collection tended more to the austerity of the war years, this one had a little more flounce. Another key piece was a pencil skirt with a big diagonal ruffle. It had some shimmy to counterbalance the peplum's occasional clunk. And it said "town" whatever piece of cropped outerwear it was paired with. So did floral-print faille and the tiers of fringes on Jourdan Dunn's cocktail dress. "Field" was represented by a herringbone jacket lined in shearling, a waxed cotton parka, and country critters like sparrows, owls, and doggies naïvely embroidered on shirts, and printed or appliquéd on oversize striped tees. A capacious bottle green cardigan was comfy enough for country life, but its stylish swing back gave it some urban smarts.

Such an item suggested that, Bailey's reservations aside, the division between city and country was really somewhat artificial in a collection that wove a story out of Burberry's outerwear expertise and Bailey's ongoing fascination with casually gilded youth. There's something almost melancholy about such an idea. Gilded youth will inevitably tarnish. Maybe that's why rain is a recurrent motif in Burberry-world. Today's show climaxed with an artful thundershower beating down on the transparent tent, while faux rain fell inside on the brolly-bearing models. Then again, perhaps the rain was just another metaphor, this time for all the money showering down on Burberry.
—Tim Blanks

Cacharel

When asked how they're settling into their newish role as creative directors at Cacharel, Ling Liu and Dawei Sun shrewdly circled back to their Fall inspiration of Amelia Earhart, a woman who by their estimation wasn't afraid of anything. (These two might be just as ready for a Republican debate as a Paris runway.) You can see where Liu and Sun find that confidence. As evidenced by last season's debut and today's showing, the pair has serious technical savvy. Their tailoring here of twenties-tinged coats and tapered trousers was full of all sorts of look-Ma-no-hands details. The knitwear was even stronger, with its zigzagging herringbone textures, a motif used, the designers explained, to inject masculinity into Cacharel's girlish DNA. See also the sweetly sexy skater dresses with sun-ray pleats flaring out from either side.

The seed of Liu and Sun's inspiration was ice crystals glimpsed through an airplane window, which led to the prismatic print and chilly blue palette, an unfortunate choice of hue that flatters few. You hoped for other color ways back at the showroom. The print that stood out, however, was the zigzag, quite cute in a pair of blocked palazzo pants that tricked the eye into seeing a slimmer silhouette within the wide.

Liu and Sun may be fearless, and quite capably so, but the element that's still missing is excitement. You have to wonder if the right consultant or stylist—preferably one that shies away from red and white tights—couldn't help maximize their obvious talent.
—Meenal Mistry

Calla

Think of Calla as the Lindsey Wixson of up-and-coming designer brands: Cute as a button and sweet as pie, but check out that body. Designer Calla Haynes' signatures are eye-popping digital prints and body-conscious silhouettes, and she wisely chose to play to her strengths as she made her New York fashion week debut last night.

The new Calla collection was inspired by interior design—or, more specifically, as Haynes explained, by an imaginary woman who is an interior designer—and the key prints were a blown-up wood grain and a granite fleck, both rendered in surreal hues. Haynes applied those prints to a clutch of fitted tops and dresses featuring her trademark sewn-in bodice; it's a standard silhouette for her, and it works. She also developed her tailoring, creating a dense tweed with the French house Malhia Kent (a graphic black-and-white tweed coat was particularly good) and a slouchy suit in navy crepe. One of the collection's standouts was a stiff minidress in a pastel daisy print with a spacey sheen; it would have been nice to see more of that material. All in all, though, it was a fine introduction to the New York fashion scene.
—Maya Singer

Calvin Klein Collection

New York fashion is in a decorous frame of mind. Dresses outnumbered pants on the runways this week, and skirts have descended to mid-calf. Who knows from whence this new propriety came, but you certainly wouldn't have guessed the house of Calvin Klein would be leading the way, not with the founder's legacy of provocation. But Francisco Costa is a different designer. He started feeling for longer lengths a while ago, and he brought them back today in a strong collection that also keyed into the season's new, bigger volumes.

Picking up where his pre-fall lineup left off, Costa put the focus on the waist, cinching coats and dresses made from dense wools or bonded polished leather with metal-banded belts. On other pieces, inverted darts above the midriff and pleats below it created the nipped silhouette. Peplum jackets followed the same curved lines, blossoming out over full pants cropped a couple of inches above the ankles. The fabrics had real heft but didn't feel weighed down, thanks to the clothes' built-in volumes. A few of the dresses had sheer panels on the torso (which should make them appealing to front-row guest Rooney Mara, who's made a red-carpet style statement with cutout frocks). But even without the game of peekaboo, these otherwise modest silhouettes looked sexy. That was Costa's real accomplishment today.
—Nicole Phelps

Camilla and Marc

Maybe it has something to do with the way the seasons work down under, but Sydney-based designers Camilla Freeman-Topper and Marc Freeman came to Fall '12 with a spring in their step. The new Camilla and Marc collection was positively giddy with color—never mind the somewhat obligatory blacks, of which there were plenty, because the standouts here were undoubtedly the dazzling floral print and hand-painted jacquard numbers. In large part, that had to do with the luxury of the fabrics: Freeman and Freeman-Topper have really exerted themselves, in terms of their materials, applying the floral print to silk cotton that had been pleated and fused and developing a wide-wale jacquard with an almost velvety texture. (They also developed a denim jacquard, which proved more compelling in person than it comes off in pictures.) The punchiness of the patterned items was nicely complemented by sculptural pastel dresses and the signature wide-leg Camilla and Marc trouser, this time turned out in hot pink, blush, and peach. The Freeman siblings didn't turn an entirely blind eye to the usual winter prerogatives, however; the shearlings this season were extra sharp-looking.
—Maya Singer

Carlos Miele

The gaúchas, or cowgirls, of Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil's southernmost state) were the inspiration for Carlos Miele's Fall show. Miele, a Brazilian, has always drawn from his country's rich heritage, but this collection, more than others, felt especially indebted to a specific people and place. A prelude of Latin beats spun by the Brazilian brothers Anthony and Sean Souza (sons of Carlos, the popular, long-serving Valentino public relations executive) set the mood, and then the first look out dropped the audience squarely in cattle country. A pair of cropped and roomy crepe pants and a soft wool poncho came topped with a flat, black bolero.

The pants would have been perfect for horseback riding, and the cape was inset with a wide band of patterned woven silk. The geometric interweaving on the cape was Miele's interpretation of the region's traditional embroideries, but the hat, like a few textiles used throughout the show, was a real-deal gaúcha original. With the mood thus established, Miele promptly riffed on the theme, sending out über-chic daywear and evening gowns that would feel out of place, to say the least, among livestock.

For night, the idea of banded embroidery translated into a cocktail dress made of horizontal strips of thinly spaced silk. The ribbons, azure blue, were attached to a nude tulle underlay, and they moved apart as the model walked, creating the impression of a Venetian blind peeking open and shut. Sexy, it got a sophisticated boost from the delicately beaded bolero worn with it. The boleros were a highlight, and their assured simplicity made up for the too-shiny lamé on some dresses and the riot of treatments on another (draped pleats and fringe and metal coin appliqués, for example). But a more-is-more attitude is a central part of this brand's DNA, and Miele succeeded in creating the requisite sense of luxury without going over the top. He obviously felt at home this season. The pampas were a sweet place to set up shop.
—Alison Baenen

Carolina Herrera

New York senator Kirsten Gillibrand occupied the exact spot today where Nicki Minaj sat a season ago. That says something about fashion's range but also about Carolina Herrera, whose red-carpet dresses are a longtime favorite of Renée Zellweger but have also recently found favor with none other than her Royal Gaga-ness.

Certainly, there was range on today's runway. Herrera began in an uncharacteristically dark rhapsody of navy and black day looks, before achieving liftoff into serious ball skirts. Herrera said she had reality on her mind. Sure, that word is relative, but for those who share Herrera's rarefied universe, she offered a form of functional luxury. It meant the casual cool of a soft, robelike coat made to wear over a gown. It meant the speedy glamour (for the elegant but time-starved) of a broadtail and knit sweatshirt over a silver beaded pencil skirt. Add the little wedge booties worn with every look, and things get speedier still.

But one of Herrera's biggest ideas for Fall inched toward the other end of the spectrum: a cropped—almost chopped, really—top or jacket that was meant to create an elongated silhouette. The shape did its work with lean pencil skirts and gowns, though it couldn't save a hefty woolen ball skirt—an idea that probably seems genius only for the few hours that you shiver through a gala on a wintry night. Another idea that worked better in theory was the pop collage print made for Herrera by English print designer Joe Duke, which, if you looked closely, included her daughter Carolina Jr.'s lovely visage. Even range has its limits.
—Meenal Mistry

Carven

The Renaissance keeps bubbling up on the Fall runways. Carven's Guillaume Henry used Hieronymus Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights as inspiration for a colorful print. Don't worry though, girls, Henry hasn't suddenly gotten religious or become a strict moralist. The full, rounded hips of his dresses and skirts may have suggested a newfound modesty, but they were subverted by other things. Hemlines, for one, which inched their way up to mid-thigh. Also: keyhole slits on dress bodices and peekaboo laser cutting on other frocks that evoked stained glass. Despite a print of rose windows, and bouncy wings on the shoulders of a cocktail dress—influenced, the designer said, by a portrait of the Madonna—this collection was every bit as young and fun as usual.

Carven is the kind of show where editors and retailers make personal shopping lists. IPhones were snapping pictures extra fast when a pair of ribbed sweaters that were split at the sides over pannier miniskirts came down the aisle. Same goes for a khaki mac with red satin lapels, and the other neat and trim outerwear. If there's one quibble, it's this: It'd be nice to see Henry apply his design savvy to pants next time.
—Nicole Phelps

Catherine Malandrino

"Virtue and vice" was how Catherine Malandrino described her latest collection. Her inspiration was a 1942 horror flick called La Féline, in which the temptress protagonista transforms herself into a man-killing cat-woman by night.

The clothes did indeed have a femme fatale feel to them. There was enough stretch vinyl, embossed-crocodile leather, and corsetry here to fill an erotic emporium (we're not exaggerating—the word "erotica" even came plated on a crystal-bedazzled belt). But these provocative pieces also mingled with more viable ones, notably a mohair variety jacket. Still, it was the racy, audacious evening gowns—complete with laser-cut leather strips and Swarovski accents on sheer mesh—that left a lasting impression, and took the lineup from suggestive to seductive.
—Brittany Adams

Cédric Charlier

Less than a year after his out-of-left-field dismissal as creative director at Cacharel, Cédric Charlier made his eponymous debut today on the Paris calendar. The force behind him is, not coincidentally, Cacharel's licensee Aeffe, whose head, Massimo Ferretti, made his unhappiness with the decision public then and is now putting money where his proverbial mouth is.

Despite the slow-start day, Charlier pulled a small but solid retail and editorial crowd. And he stood at the entrance politely greeting show-goers, thanking them for their attendance. Things were less polite on the runway, which defiantly lacked any residual sweetness from the designer's last gig. Instead, Charlier merged the classic Parisienne's tailored wardrobe with futuristic edge in zips, buttons, and flat-mirrored sunglasses—a collaboration with Cutler and Gross—in a bright copper that recalled industrial wiring. High turtlenecks in metallic shades rose from white collars, while sexy-smart shifts came in a shiny fabric that looked electrified. Call it bourgeois-meets-bot.

Charlier showed that he's capable of creating a beautiful coat and some very perfect-looking pants. But he wants his new vocabulary to focus on the body, he explained backstage, comparing his cutting to that of a scalpel. It's perhaps not so far off. What looked like a dress here was sometimes three pieces that were made to play together very nicely. There was ample experimentation to let you know that Charlier has more tricks up his sleeve. The minor shock of two paint-print dresses amid the navy-and-burgundy stream, for instance, felt sophisticated.

Many looks came with bags; there were five styles in the show, along with five styles of shoes. "For me it's really important thinking about the silhouette in a complete way," said Charlier. It also means that this solo mission—albeit with a strong production partner—is ready for merchandising liftoff in T minus four months.
—Meenal Mistry

Celine

The beyond-imminent birth of Phoebe Philo's third child influenced her presentation today—no big deal, an intimate delivery for a handful of guests. But it had no influence—so she insisted—on the clothes she showed. "Maybe, if I can't lose the weight, there'll be empire lines next season," Philo said.

In the meantime, every seat had her usual grab bag of images, which may—or may not, she claimed—have been lurking in her subconscious while she was thinking about Fall. Images of brutalist architecture, for instance (paging Rick Owens). As a West London girl, Philo would be all too familiar with the long shadow of brutalist masterpiece Trellick Tower. That particular tower block was a stalwart of punk iconography, but so were zippers. Which happened to be a defining detail in this collection, opening up knees, running down calves, curving round torsos. They gave a literal edge to the clothes. There was even a hint of Trellick blockiness in the top that matched diagonal bands of black, white, and fluoro pink fur. The abstract track-pant stripes were, of course, quintessential Portobello Road, but, in London's Olympic year, they also had the sporty raciness of national pride.

All of which pointed to a punky zest in Philo's Celine. When that same pink fur showed up as the last gasp of a collection of drop-shoulder jumbo-size overcoats, it was pause for thought. All the coats had big half-belts in leather. "Martingales," said Philo. "I love the sound of that word." She called them a "punctuation," but they gave the coats a big old party-time swag. That too felt like a memory of a moment when sharp girls threw vintage overcoats over cropped pants and tees—the moment, in fact, when people were listening to Portishead's "Glory Box," offered here in multiple versions as a soundtrack.

The coats were the collection's headliner—there was wickedness in the one that spun to reveal a furry tail of red—but the women who look to Celine for a wardrobe update might find news in the ever-so-casually draped tops, which were actually artfully structured. There was silhouette action here. But no empire lines…yet.
—Tim Blanks

Central Saint Martins

One of fashion's oddities is the hive mind, the way a single idea takes root in a season and infiltrates any number of collections (so everything seems to be coming up green or red or polka-dotted at the same time). Among the 20 designers from the Central Saint Martins M.A. fashion course who presented their graduate collections tonight, it was fascinating to see how many of them opted for penitential shrouds, long, layered tunic shapes (for men and women), and asymmetrical silhouettes that swept the floor, evoking monks and knights in equal degree. The clothes stood away from the body, often genderless, never reverting to fashion clichés like prettiness or seduction. "It's not shoulder to knee," exulted living-legend professor Louise Wilson, who is celebrating 20 years of guiding the M.A. course. "I'm fed up with a decorated dress."

But it would be too pat to say that, in their rejection of such a notion, the clothes celebrated individuality. They didn't. They were simply about a different kind of tribalism. The Occupy movement has refreshed a spirit of militancy in the popular debate, and there was a real edge of that here. It was easy to imagine the abrasive, passionate Wilson as a warrior queen leading her students on a crusade. There was even a crusade readily at hand. This is the last M.A. class to graduate from the old Saint Martins premises on Charing Cross Road, the seedbed that produced under Wilson's guidance the staggering list of alumni included in the show notes. The move to the new complex in King's Cross, where the college is now the linchpin of an urban regeneration project, has been a difficult, controversial one, with the ever outspoken Wilson ever speaking out. That's been her crusade, but like all such endeavors, it's a lost cause. Maybe that's why there was such an air of melancholy, even pessimism, in the clothes tonight. Yes, these people might have been crusaders at some point, but their battles were over and now they were hunkering down in survivalist communities, ingeniously crafting their clothes from the detritus of the civilization that had abandoned them.

There is some sweep to that generalization, because, obviously, there were exceptions. Like Erna Einarsdóttir's flecked sweater and gilded tweed skirt combinations or Hiroko Nakajima's color-blocked felts over knit leggings, which had something of Issey Miyake's esoteric athleticism about them. But the winners of the L'Oréal Professionnel Creative Award, whose collections conveniently topped and tailed the presentation, were a perfect summation of the evening. Luke Brooks opened his segment with a model wearing a chaotically hand-painted smock topped by a tattered headdress of the Olympic rings, timely enough in light of London 2012 except that it looked like it had been dredged from the depths of the ocean centuries after the event. Trailing skeins of wool, spattered finger daubs of crusted paint, rips, tears, and radical deconstruction (and more headdresses, including a vaguely accusatory "Old Hat" attached to—what else?—an old hat) compounded the confusion. But the chaos was breathtakingly crafted. And that was a reminder of why Saint Martins—and London's other fashion education institutions—have always been so vital to the health of the fashion industry worldwide.

The vision offered by the other L'Oréal winner, Craig Green, was poles apart in its precise monochrome layering, but it still had a melancholic out-of-time feel with clothes that implied a Middle Ages/Middle Eastern narrative of masters and servants. Or maybe that was simply because Green's last looks suggested men in full burkas, as provocative a comment on powerlessness as you could expect to find in a fashion show.
—Tim Blanks

Chado Ralph Rucci

Ralph Rucci opted out of a runway show this season, which had both its negatives and its positives. His clothes have a lot of drama in them, and some of that got lost in his Broadway showroom.

On the other hand, feeling is believing, and Rucci uses some of the most sumptuous materials known to man. There were racks of double-face cashmere skirtsuits with his signature 3-D quilting techniques, but even more luxurious was a double-face alpaca jacket and coat with satin trapunto details.

You could have your pick of furs: Mink in both sheared and knit varieties was nice, but if you really want lavish, and Rucci's clients often do, there was an ivory bouclé coat fully lined in Mongolian lamb, modeled after a Chanel number that Coco was working on before she died. Rucci crafted another style from strips of Russian sable and leather braid; it was as warm as it was weightless.

In the mix were everyday dresses in wool ponte and "nun's veiling" sheer wool gauze. "Not every occasion is a state occasion," joked sales director John Lindsey, but occasion dressing is where Rucci's heart lies. For Fall, his strongest offering was also his simplest: a black silk velvet column gown with a horsehair back. It looked smashing under a leopard velvet coat he had specially loomed in Italy.
—Nicole Phelps

Chadwick Bell

"A perfect woman in an imperfect situation," is how Chadwick Bell describes the theme of his latest collection. As he explained backstage before his show, his primary touchstones were two radically different, yet spiritually similar, works of art: Picasso's Boy with Pipe and Arlene Gottfried's Midnight, which in turn led to his discovery of a series of Bob Richardson-lensed photographs of Anjelica Huston. "She's well-kept but dangerous," he explained, elaborating on his imagined muse, "and her hair looks like she fell asleep in a cab."

For his models, this inspiration translated to a sort of Frankenstein chic: With teased hair and bright red lips, they walked under flickering lights to ominous music straight out of a horror flick. Still, the clothing was anything but scary. Bell demonstrated his ability to create alluring looks with a variety of materials, from fur (a stunning silver fox coat worn with stockings and spotted platform heels) to silk (a completely backless printed jumpsuit). And let's not forget the python and leather separates and tuxedo jackets with matador embroidery, complete with pompoms. All in all, it's safe to say the designer has stepped up his game—and reminded us how very enticing imperfection can be.
—Jessica Minkoff

Chalayan

It felt like Hussein Chalayan was getting impatient with the bombardment of questions coming at him after his show. "Did you enjoy it?" he asked one journalist. "That's the main thing." But when a man admits to creating a print inspired by "bacteria and ship parts" he's going to get grilled. And when he offers a presentation that is not particularly clear in its conceptuality, enquiring minds will quite obviously hound him to the grave.

A backdrop of abstract photographic images and cryptic texts created a series of scenarios into which Chalayan dropped his new collection. Take the first one: "No Dark No Light," read the text, against which he paraded strong, linear clothes with a color intensity sufficient to light the darkness. There was also an illuminating holographic accent. And right there, the pattern of the show was established.

In Chalayan's mind, the subsequent seemingly random texts and visuals underscored the fact that his collection had no theme. For the audience, untroubled by such considerations, it quickly became simply about the clothes. And one of the most fascinating things about Chalayan is that, for all his cerebral convolution, he is actually a designer who makes clothes that provocatively acknowledge the physical and the sensual. Here, there was one fawn shift, cut out to reveal a sinuous inner skin of holographic stretch, that was utterly simple but equally striking. Chalayan used palladium, an ore that is both strong and light, to create a neckpiece on a long-sleeve cocktail dress. Again, the creative impulse was cerebral, but the result was a graphically appealing, modern take on jewelry.

"I've been doing this for so long; a lot of it is instinctive," Chalayan said. On the runway, that translated as ease, confidence, and subtle strength. This from the man who made furniture walk!
—Tim Blanks

Chanel

Karl Lagerfeld thrives on the new. And he's happy to share his thirst for novelty with the massive audience at his biannual Chanel spectaculars. In today's often enthralling show, there was the new proportion of a three-piece suit—jacket, skirt, and pants. (Well, almost new. Lagerfeld has tried that before, but this time, he got it right.)

There was new music (Michel Gaubert soundtracked the proceedings with a not-yet-released number by Tristesse Contemporaine). And there was a credit no one would have seen at a fashion show before: eyebrows by Lesage, the legendary couture embroidery house. The strips of crystal that defined each model's brows were a microcosmic rendition of the show's grand design, which featured a set that looked like the Fortress of Solitude.

"Nature's the greatest designer," said Lagerfeld, pointing at some of the more spectacular crystalline excrescences. "These shapes are millions of years old." He lavished crystals on hems and cuffs as the trim on coats and the heels of shoes. And he indulged his new mineralogical bent with the mica sparkle in the dark tweeds that opened the show, in jeans with the streaky grain of rock formations, in the knits that looked like layers of sediment, and in a scatter of moonstones across a sweater dress.

But Lagerfeld also found a man-made co-relative for Nature's geometry in an exhibition of Czech cubism he saw in Prague. So there was angular cubist articulation in sleeves—a new silhouette, in other words—and in the polyhedron decoration of coats. The abstract color-blocking also had a vaguely cubist feel.

Ah yes, color. Karl felt it was time to bring it back, after last Fall's monochrome and Spring's pastels. But as it turned out, the colored pieces didn't fare so well against those penumbral tweeds, or the oily glisten of the feathered pieces that closed the show. It was much easier to imagine the younger customer that Lagerfeld has so successfully courted for Chanel being drawn to the dark side.
—Tim Blanks

Charlotte Ronson

Continuing last season's evolution, a move toward a cleaner, more refined aesthetic, Ronson sharpened her silhouettes for Fall and steered clear of grunge. Waists were accentuated with slender belts, and pert collars peeked out from beneath dresses and tops. (The collars were actually part of backless dickies, a clever way to add a touch of schoolgirl to a look without the added bulk of a button-down.)

Another ladylike touch came courtesy of the accessories. Bags, a new addition this season, were paired with complementary hats and gloves for a complete, chic set. There were still those sheer, breezy dresses in bohemian prints (a Ronson staple) but they looked fresh and sophisticated alongside the charming knits and proper pencil skirts. "I wanted to design a modern wardrobe for a real girl," Ronson said before her show. Mission accomplished.
—Alison Baenen

Chloé

Fall is Clare Waight Keller's second season at Chloé. For direction she looked to her own experience as a Brit in Paris. Backstage she explained that she tried to mix the casual vibe of English sportswear with the dressier sensibility of the French. That's the concept that informed the red knit sweatpants she paired with a pop-over lace blouse, or a floral embroidered sweatshirt worn with a quilted satin pencil skirt.

Sporty outerwear in the form of a peach duffel coat, or a bomber in the same powdery shade, was the collection's main strength. Knitwear, with which she has lots of experience from her years leading Pringle of Scotland, came in second. A hand-knit turtleneck in heathery pastels will have admirers. The big problem here was what that sweater was matched with: droopy leather bloomers with elasticized hems that hit slightly south of the knees. These abbreviated pants made multiple appearances, and they weren't doing the models any favors.

Waight Keller has a good handle on the breezy, uncomplicated frock that is Chloé's claim to fame. She proved that last season, and she confirmed it here with a deep red drop-waist T-shirt dress and an ivory shirtdress with a lace skirt. These would be a good place to start when she sets to work on next season.
—Nicole Phelps

Chris Benz

According to Chris Benz, women have finally come back around to the art of dressing up (he may have a point, based on a few of the ostentatious front-row fixtures spotted this week). "I remember sitting in my mom's bathroom, watching her get all dolled up while listening to The Judy Garland Holiday Special," he mused. "And now girls are making the effort to be glam like that again."

Channeling this nostalgia, Benz presented a Fall collection that at times felt like watching a Turner Classic Movies marathon. Costume wigs, pillbox hats, cabaret soundtrack music, and a gold sequined backdrop amplified the retro vibe of the clothing. For example, tea-length frocks with voluminous petticoats were paired with shrunken cardigans reminiscent of fifties sweater girls. Slim cigarette pants shown with astrakhan pullovers trimmed in mink could've been pulled straight from Holly Golightly's closet. The playful colored fur coats here were a high point, and there were several more straightforward pieces like a structured wool raw-edged topper and printed wide-leg pants that would integrate seamlessly with a modern wardrobe.
—Brittany Adams

Christian Cota

Beset by well-wishers at his packed presentation at The Standard Hotel, Christian Cota took a minute to display a by-product of his labors: his hands, which bore a faint but distinct black tint. "I've been painting and dyeing fabrics all week," he explained cheerfully. Cota, who likes to get down and dirty in the design process, gave himself plenty of opportunities to play this time around. Inspired by the textiles and handicrafts of his native Mexico, the designer created a polished, exuberant collection featuring 13 original prints and embroideries—all riffs on indigenous graphics—jumbled up on draped cocktail dresses and slinky silk pants.

This explicit focus on prints, long a signature of his, marked a return to Cota's creative roots as well. And he approached them with a new sophistication. To make sure the colors of the embroideries—handcrafted by a women's collective in Mexico—popped, he went over the threads with a paintbrush. (This explains the stained hands.) The print-on-print trend appears to be sticking around, and Cota's use of texturally rich embellishments ensures these pieces will stand out. There was a definite confidence to this collection, something that has been lacking from his work in the past. "I wanted to do what I love," Cota said of this season's approach, "even if it's a risk." Risk rewarded.
—Alison Baenen

Christian Dior

The Christian Dior show today was a frustrating experience. The dither that has surrounded Dior since John Galliano's departure demands resolution, if only because you never again want to hear one single morsel of groundless speculation. With Dior's couture collection in July, it felt like Bill Gaytten was courting resolution by laying out his very capable wares. With today's show, it felt like he was putting them away again.

"Soft modernity" was Gaytten's theme. It was a notion whose nebulosity dogged the catwalk, where deflated New Look looks simultaneously evoked Dior's stellar past and its lunar (as in moonstruck) present. The show began well enough. The focus was on the waist—well, it would be, wouldn't it?—emphasized by a peplum's flare or a skirt's fullness.

Classic portrait necklines were literally twisted in leather. Equally classic houndstooth was exploded into an abstract pattern. The models' knit skullcaps were a streamlined touch. But then, where, in the past, you might have expected takeoff from such a restrained start, there was just more of the same. Perhaps there was some well-reasoned commercial point to that—and rumors suggest the label has been doing fine under Gaytten—but it felt like Dior by the numbers.

Program notes mentioned "a ballet femininity," and the full silk tulle skirts that made up the collection's evening component had a feel for that (particularly a shorter-skirted, long-sleeve raspberry outfit), but there was an intangible lifelessness to the clothes.

Maybe it all comes back to the peculiarity of Gaytten's challenge. How do you muster enthusiasm for your work when you have no clue what tomorrow may bring?
—Tim Blanks

Christian Siriano

The cleanup act that Christian Siriano began exactly a year ago continued this season. In fact, this was quite easily his most subdued and streamlined collection to date. His inspiration was the 1933 film Vampire Bat. "The funny thing is that it's this quirky horror film," Siriano explained backstage. "But Fay Wray is just so glamorous and stunning in the whole movie." Still, Siriano laid out his aim as simplicity with a focus on the details, and thus took a light hand at translating his source material. Nothing read overly retro, though a quick glance at the black-and-white film on YouTube did show Wray in a sheath with a ruffled collar like one Siriano showed.

Rather, from it he extracted his moody, tough palette of barely there grays and blacks, with measured doses of deep red. (The dense and fuzzy abstract print he showed in a bang-on-trend look of printed blouse tucked into matching soft silk trousers, as well as a simple circle-skirted dress, was meant to look like TV static.) A black satin sheath had an inverted widow's peak neckline, while the tube-like embroidery on a satin dress and the stamped print on a motorcycle jacket had a swirly motif Siriano dubbed "bat vein." He likened the pretty caped sleeves on dresses and gowns to wings.

This is probably the first time that Siriano hasn't included a showstopper gown, the kind that gets his adoring audience clapping and on its feet. That restraint did him well. There were at least three here that were quite chic. In a recent New York Times profile, the former reality TV star talked about his struggle to be accepted by the fashion industry. Interestingly, he mentioned that his simpler fare—things that the industry and his stylist seem to prefer—doesn't sell as well as when he lays on the drama. It's possible that some of his clientele may find this collection less to their taste. If that critical approval is essential, surely there's a balance. Or he could just be himself.
—Meenal Mistry

Christophe Lemaire

The news at Christophe Lemaire was knitwear, which ranged from skinny ribbed essentials—some sheer like underpinnings—all the way to rugged fare like your classic army-surplus crewneck, now in mohair with satin patches. A new brick in the wall holds more sway here than it might elsewhere. That's because Lemaire isn't looking to blow your mind each season, but rather to methodically build a wardrobe, or an "alphabet of sartorial forms" as he called it. But there's subtle beauty in his workaday utility, which was on display today in twenties-inspired dropped waists and Poiret-esque coats.

As with the men's collection Lemaire showed a month ago, there was an amped level of luxury here, as well as other resonances. Lemaire carried over the Donegal tweeds, patchworked neatly into a coat and even better in a back-to-front contrast suit and a sturdy felted wool peacoat. It's hardly surprising, considering the designer's womenswear is quite masculine in its minimalist, Eastern-focused way. There's something a bit millennial Annie Hall in its jauntiness. A flippy little pleated knit mini, worn with a tabardlike vest, provided a relatively sexy counterpoint to a collection that otherwise got quite serious. Still, there's plenty of sizzle available elsewhere for those who want it, and this designer stands out in knowing his way around a luxurious product. You could see how the particular woman who likes Lemaire could easily be cultish. Now that he's settling into his role at Hermès, Lemaire is growing his own label, with a push into the U.S. Next Fall could see a whole new batch of converts.
—Meenal Mistry

Christopher Kane

Given his track record to date, Christopher Kane could probably retire the award for Most Arcane Influence. His latest was a career best: Al Pacino's gay serial-killer thriller, Cruising, which inflamed the early eighties. Kane imagined the kind of girl who might infiltrate the lurid sex clubs depicted in the film, quietly playing voyeur. She'd have to be a very odd bird, indeed—and a pretty tough cookie, maybe like the girl in a photo from Joseph Szabo's Teenage series, another personal favorite of Kane's.

Anyway, all of that—the lurid, the sinister, the scandalous—came together in a collection that used extraordinary technique to induce visions of darkest sin. Kane reveled in it. He took to moiré, for instance, because it reminded him of "the inside of a coffin." He compared the red he used to "a vial of blood." It was one component of a morbid, synthetic palette—black, purple, hectic blue—which, when it shaded florals or leopard print or that moiré, brought to mind Baudelaire's The Flowers of Evil or Huysmans' Against Nature, masterpieces of nineteenth-century decadence. The big black blooms flocked in black velvet on purple tulle mesh said all that and more. The thick black leather cording that belted and hemmed sheathlike dresses implied more up-to-date transgressions.

The collection couldn't have been more of a 180-degree from Spring's mesmerizing airiness, but the lacquered, oily artifice of these clothes exerted its own kind of attraction, at the same time as it daringly courted revulsion. Once again, Kane beaded and embroidered flowers, but where they were heavenly last season, here they were hellishly tangled and clotted, paired with cashmere knits densely threaded with wire. Maybe that was a mad mirror image of the pinstripes that opened the show. And were they a subtle evocation of Wall Street, another New York-in-the-eighties benchmark—and another world where bad things happen?
—Tim Blanks

Christopher Raeburn

The development is coming fast and furious at Christopher Raeburn. Last season saw the launch of the designer's jersey separates and a capsule collection of women's ready-to-wear; this time out Raeburn began adding accessories to his brand, and for the first time presented his womenswear collection on its own. Still, for the time being at least, the heart of the Christopher Raeburn brand remains his excellent outerwear, which serves as a jumping-off point for the rest of his collection. There were numerous examples of top-notch coats and jackets here, starting with the very first look—a black wool oversize parka with external nylon pockets—and ending with the very last. That final look, a high-waisted, shiny white anorak that nearly reached the floor, was the only piece of outerwear that really broke the Raeburn mold, but the detailing on the rest of the coats and jackets showed a continuing refinement of his style.

The jersey and the ready-to-wear, meanwhile, continue to come off as works in progress. Raeburn treats his jerseys as a kind of base layer; aside from the eye-popping polka-dot print, he keeps the pieces rather unassuming. This season he showed snug pencil skirts and hooded tops. The ready-to-wear felt more provisional yet: The parachute skirts were a nice idea, and a full yellow wool skirt was attractive, but the striped grosgrain ribbon on a couple of garments looked somewhat tacked on. Wool ski pants quilted in a zigzag pattern were more chic, but you wondered how they'd look on anybody not model-size. As for the new accessories, there was only one: a squared-off backpack with a detachable exterior bag that could serve as a clutch or an iPad case. Clever, and a very good starting point.
—Maya Singer

Clements Ribeiro

A bit bohemian, a bit badass. Suzanne Clements and Inacio Ribeiro started off their show trying to steer a folk-y Slavic inspiration into edgier, more modern territory. At its most basic, their solution could be summed up as "just add pleather." The first look out was a rich scarf-y floral-print top paneled with black synthetic leather and tucked into a glossy dirndl in the same stuff.

But a Clements show is never one-note. A crucial element to the mix-mastery was the color-blocked intarsia cashmeres, which were once a signature item beloved by the label's fans. They recently returned to them with a big push in the newly relaunched men's and women's pre-fall collections, both shown last month. In fact, many of the hip-length or longer cardies were actually from the men's collection. (They're expanding the range of men's sizes in order to effectively make it unisex.) The sweaters' bright geometry informed the show's eighties New Wave look, while their slouch added a menswear swagger to great-looking wide, hip-slung trousers.

In all, there was a sense of newness here where the last three collections felt like they had more of a continuous thread. But the shift wasn't entirely smooth. Piece by piece, there was a lot to win new fans and please loyalists, but as a whole there was something that felt less exquisitely rendered than you expect. Blame it on growing pains. There's more clicking and whirring than ever in the house of Clements Ribeiro, and that includes a new Web site, which went live just yesterday. "I'm trying to make it as un-corporate as possible," said Clements. "It's going to be my mini-magazine."
—Meenal Mistry

Collette Dinnigan

Collette Dinnigan opened her show to Blondie's "One Way or Another," an indication that the designer's usual prettiness was getting a punk makeover. The tip panned out, but for the most part it was the result of styling (though a little silver beaded shift did give you an edgy Joan of Arc-meets-Balmain vibe). Dinnigan finished her parade of dresses with the wayward touch of little back-seamed lace socks dotted with winking crystals and slouched into killer studded Louboutin pumps.

"This stuff can all get a bit too ethereal-fairyland, and it's like floating in too much mystery," she explained after the show, which was curiously called Fairy Tale. But some tales are more believable than others. Mystery was kept to a minimum in Dinnigan's mostly un-tricky silhouettes that let the material and embellishment speak for themselves.

And they did. No amount of the Undertones and Garbage on a soundtrack can distract from the fact that these dresses are made from exquisite stuff, particularly the custom laces. Check out the perfectly engineered placement of scallops on Dinnigan's lace tees, and the polka-dot motif at the hem of a dress that echoed the paillettes at the neckline. One aberration was the woolly yarn-loop embroidery that would appear to be a nod to winter in this rather un-wintry collection, but felt a bit crafty and wrong in this context. To stay warm, a better choice was the velvety black coat with a barely there trim of lace petals on the pockets and back. It's the kind of thing that might be chosen by Stevie Nicks—a woman who knows how to work romance with a different brand of darkness.
—Meenal Mistry

Comme des Garçons

The trend guru Li Edelkoort once noted the disservice done fashion by online coverage, which reduces the work of designers to a sequence of head-to-toe front-on images that take little account of three-dimensionality. Perhaps my colleagues at Style.com will soon perfect the 360-degree view, but until then, Roland Mouret's show yesterday was a real case in point. All that detail going on in back, but who was aware of it, bar the few hundred people in the live audience? Maybe that's why so many designers have been talking about "tri-dimensionality" this season. And maybe that's why the ever you-go-north-I'll-go-south Rei Kawakubo chose this particular moment to present a show that glorified the flat.

"The future's in two dimensions" was its provocative premise, and fans of Flat Stanley would have wallowed in the cutout paper-dolliness of looks like the red and pink felted coat-dresses that opened the show, or the lilac jacket and pants that followed. The only thing missing was the little paper tabs. But as the collection moved on, it felt less like Rei was being a contrary Mary than that she was actually making a comment on the state of the industry.

If the fashion industry was happy with coverage that reduces its most elevated endeavors to two dimensions, then Rei was going to reduce the industry itself to an equally flat proposition. Hence, a handful of ultra-clichéd fashion patterns—camo, leopard, florals, polka dots. Likewise the felt, the velvet. And while we're at it, why not strip away the show soundtrack and parade the clothes in a silence punctuated only by the thump of the models' cloggy footwear and the trill of cell phones? That's flat. Then, to remind us of the silence, introduce a surge of plangent electronica for a final passage of "eveningwear" à la Comme. Sequins, the ultimate evening cliché, naturally. That's flat too. And when the audience claps and claps… and claps, disappoint them by remaining resolutely behind the curtain, like the Wizard of a new kind of fashion Oz.

If it had been a Dada performance in Zurich's Cabaret Voltaire in the second decade of the twentieth century, its genius would have been galvanic. As a fashion show in the second decade of the twenty-first century, its satire felt a little obvious. But its savage point was well taken. The us-or-them reductiveness of the popular discourse is turning our round world flat.
—Tim Blanks

Commuun

Commuun's Kaito Hori and Iku Furudate decided to skip a runway show in favor of showroom appointments this season. They'll use the money they're saving for the store they're planning to open here in Paris later this year. The designers looked to the Andreas Gursky book Wald for their forest print, and to late fifties/early sixties photographs of haute couture for their silhouettes. But ultimately, the big idea here was putting their customers first. Meaning that the designers continued to edit out the also-rans and the almost-rights in favor of wearable pieces like slightly cocoon-shape jackets with half-raglan sleeves; peplum tops and full-leg trousers; and a sleeveless dress made from tiers of chiffon, double crepe, and a fake fur that resembled black-and-white tweed.

The clothes nodded at the trends rather than bowing down in obeisance. And the wearability factor remained high even when Hori and Furudate got more arty, as they did with dresses that were encircled with softly pleated wide ruffs. The coolest evening look was one of those ruffs turned into an asymmetrical bustier over a pair of their low-slung, wide pants in convincing faux leather. Playing up the cruelty-free aspects of their label should be job No. 1 when that store opens.
—Nicole Phelps

Costello Tagliapietra

Jeffrey Costello and Robert Tagliapietra's dresses always have movement, but the designers' Fall collection gave you a particular sense of it, as if everything were somehow floating upward. Backstage, their inspiration made logical, if abstract, sense. "It started with the prints," Tagliapietra explained. "Jeffrey painted them and they looked like Beetlejuice, quirky and almost spooky. So we started thinking about the idea of hauntings, that feeling of something spectral."

Luckily it was only a feeling—these were still dresses grounded in the practicalities of the physical world. As ever, Costello and Tagliapietra's skills were apparent in the graceful tucks and twists of fabric they cut into their patterns. What felt new was a fun and slightly outré energy in some of the dresses in smudgy or swirling prints and rich silks with draped volumes cinched at the waist. You could almost see shades of eighties Emanuel Ungaro, though streamlined for today's girl. More Ivanka than Ivana.

The pair continued their nod to eco-consciousness with the AirDye technology they've been employing for a few seasons. This time around they used a dual process to create light single-ply fabrics with contrasting colors on either side, seen to best effect in a standout silvery-gray silk dress that offered up glints of aqua in its twisted-and-tied waist. When it came to the small selection of eveningwear, the lightness seemed to sag, which was mostly the result of low-slung ruching and side drapes that pulled downward. But it was a minor hiccup in a strong collection.
—Meenal Mistry

Costume National

After an atypical flirtation with pink last Spring, Ennio Capasa headed back into the darkness. You might call it his comfort zone, if there wasn't so much skillful experimental tailoring that hit refresh on the usual edgy all-black fare.

The major story was asymmetry and cutaway silhouettes, occasionally layered and crisscrossing in flaps. The effect was elegant in gently curving arcs sliced out of the sides of leather and wool coats and jackets, and a bit more jarring in sharper angular chops. But credit Capasa's skill for making the conceit wearable more often than not.

He called the collection New Wave-No Wave-Dark Wave. That cocktail of movements lent the proceedings a sort of tough luxury that at times was Matrix-slick and at others alluringly witchy. A white shirt with a barren-tree motif tucked into a great, lush black leather skirt and worn with killer just-over-the-knee boots struck the balance. Sitting nearby, Capasa fan Marina Abramović leaned over to pronounce it beautiful.

The label's other fans will be similarly pleased with this collection, not only for its fab outerwear—that eventually blossomed into other moody hues like bottle green—but also the selection of great big baggy trousers, some with dipped and curved leather waistbands that echoed those cutaways. One pair came all in leather, right on track with a few we've seen this season. If it wasn't already, a trend is born.
—Meenal Mistry

Creatures of Comfort

Creatures of Comfort impresario Jade Lai has made impressive strides since she launched her store's namesake brand in 2010. Initially, the Creatures of Comfort label comprised ultra-basic jersey pieces plus a smattering of long skirts, appealingly awkward jumpsuits, and buttoned-up button-downs that hit the nail on the head of the then emergent mumsy hipster aesthetic. (Think Alexa Chung.) This collection, Lai's sixth, proves that Creatures of Comfort has grown up and grown out: Though she still has her finger on the Bedford Avenue/Shoreditch High Street pulse, Lai has broadened her clothes' appeal. To wit, the tailored shorts and trousers in a luxe silk wool blend were accessibly sophisticated; the pieces in white, in particular, looked really chic.

Elsewhere, she's added a flirtatious note, with schoolgirl minis, fitted knits, and peekaboo dévoré velvet polka dots. (The dots were a theme; the collection included a variety.) There was still a sense here that Lai remains overfond of the purposefully awkward silhouette—some of her dresses were a touch shapeless—but she's gotten better at adding the grace notes that give a covered-up look verve. On a simple shirtdress, for instance, the dropped waist counted for a lot; likewise the waterfall effect on a dotted mid-calf skirt. Here's hoping that Lai doesn't outgrow her awkwardness entirely—it's idiomatic to the Creatures of Comfort brand and the reason the most straightforward pieces in this collection still stood out. But it's nice to see her giving her ugly ducklings permission to be swans.
—Maya Singer

Creatures of the Wind

Shane Gabier and Chris Peters picked up a runner-up prize from the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund last November. The Chicago-based duo is no doubt getting advice from all sides now on how to turn their tiny label into a thriving bigger business. In a preview of their Fall collection they pointed to new pieces with more-accessible-than-usual price tags, like stripey mohair sweaters, silk slipdresses made in collaboration with Araks Yeramyan, and an A-line popover top in clashing prints (which, admittedly, was paired with a skirt made of expensive French brocade). But standing in the crowd today in the refectory of the Desmond Tutu Center in Chelsea (a stunning room), it was clear that they aren't compromising an inch on their unique, offbeat vision.

The collection, they explained, was inspired by The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns, and Fairies, a seventeenth-century book by the Scottish Episcopalian minister Robert Kirk in which he collected his parishioners' tales of the supernatural. If there wasn't anything otherworldly, per se, about the clothes, there was certainly something dreamy about their construction. Cases in point: a white button-down blouse embroidered by Hand & Lock (Alexander McQueen's embroiderers, it turns out) with a quote from the fantasy classic The Last Unicorn. Or a trim blazer constructed from distressed leather and Lurex-shot striped wool with a heat transfer of multicolor Swarovski crystals on its back. Or a lace skirt dipped in silver. The overall feeling was folksy, but with a couture touch.

Perhaps not a recipe for surefire retail success, but Gabier and Peters might have something better: a finale gown made from tiers of pale blue chiffon and taffeta with a silver lace yoke that, should it land on the right starlet come Oscar night, could earn them more renown than that Fashion Fund win.
—Nicole Phelps

Cushnie et Ochs

Pedro Almodóvar's gorgeously twisted The Skin I Live In was the uncanny starting point for Carly Cushnie and Michelle Ochs this Fall. The story of a plastic surgeon obsessed with turning a patient into a perfect simulacrum of his dead wife—one nip and tuck at a time—was a fitting choice for a pair who've made their name by shaping and sculpting the female form with second-skin dresses.

Indeed, it looked as if the pair had traded scissors for scalpels this time around. Eye-shaped cutouts above the breasts on body-molded dresses recalled a surgeon's careful incisions in skin. The negative space created by these and other apertures looked at once like peeled-away layers of the epidermis and bandages placed just so. Disarmingly sexy, they were perversely powerful. A few dresses referenced bandages more literally, with ribbons of fabric woven through the garment that created textural volume on the sleek shapes. For more embellishment, silver zippers made for a groovy, tactile graphic across the bust and down the sides of an attenuated LBD.

Still, not everything was tight, tight, tight. Silk crepe dresses in brilliant azure and emerald fell suggestively from the body; they were just as sexy as their in-your-face counterparts. The closing dress, in black silk crepe, looked like a skirt with a half-unzipped bustier top. Closer inspection revealed that the pieces were attached by a thin sliver of zipper that controlled the amount of skin on view. Almodóvar would approve.
—Alison Baenen

Custo Barcelona

Backstage before Custo Barcelona's Fall show, Custo Dalmau talked about his continuing evolution of the brand's DNA. "It's a fusion of colors, graphics, and materials," he said, explaining that this season they focused on combining traditional fabrics with tech fibers. The goal, he added, was to make something that was "experimental and contemporary."

Experimental's not a bad way to put it. The mash-ups that occurred when, for example, tufts of hand-loomed wool were grafted onto a synthetic leather cocoon dress had a science-experiment quality to them. The collection's thigh-grazing minis were accentuated by strappy, open-toe boots worn with socks that had a coat of silver fuzz growing along the back calf. Sounds odd, but they looked right at home among the patchwork knits and Chewbacca furs.

For the guys, there were skinny herringbone suits, tinfoil pants, and half-one-thing, half-another blazers. But it was the girls who got to have the most fun. What Little Monster wouldn't flip at the chance to wear a hooded green confection covered in thick fringe? It looked like what Gaga herself would wear if she appeared again as Kermit the Frog, but this time he was stationed in Patagonia. All in all, these are statement-making clothes for an adventurous crew.
—Alison Baenen

Cynthia Rowley

Car trouble? Cynthia Rowley can help. Coveting the ease of a coverall, the designer looked to mechanics and their workwear for Fall. "I liked that you could put one piece on and have barely anything else and look tough and sexy," she said backstage before her show. That said, Rowley couldn't resist a little bit of layering—or a smattering of embellishments.

Sleek turtlenecks were slipped under almost everything; they provided a clean finishing touch and a sweet contrast to the kaleidoscope tortoiseshell prints that were splashed across shirtdresses. A few of the turtlenecks boasted bejeweled necks, courtesy of the Dannijo girls, and a cozy, oversize black sweatshirt was dotted with clusters of baubles. A denim dress in a dark, subtle plaid looked smart under a matching engineer's coat lined in shearling. Sure, it was two pieces, but it married a garage worker's pragmatism with a fashionista's spirit.
—Alison Baenen

Daks

English heritage brand Daks has undergone a stealth reinvention. Sheila McKain-Waid quietly took charge of the house's womenswear last season, and just as quietly made her debut with a Spring '12 collection that had an almost meditative cleanness. Today's Daks show had a similarly Zen quality to it, but it made for a high-volume announcement of its emergence as a brand to watch.

Despite Daks' Englishness—the brand has three royal seals, and a history that goes back almost 130 years—the house is actually a rather international concern. Its biggest market is in the Far East, and not only is McKain-Waid American, but she arrived at Daks following stints at Halston, Donna Karan, and Oscar de la Renta. It's not altogether surprising, therefore, that this collection had as much an international feel as an English one: The designer's woven detailing and cocoonish outerwear silhouettes owed something to Japan, and her pared-back approach to the clothes owed something more to the look and attitude of classic American sportswear. (Claire McCardell is one of McKain-Waid's oft-cited references.)

All of that served a distinctly English sense of reserve, with the Daks checks artfully exploited. The most successful use of the check was in inventively constructed outerwear: McKain-Waid amassed an army of pattern-making techniques for the coats and jackets, including circular seaming, paneling, and bias-cutting, which provided the pieces with an unexpected sense of volume and movement. Elsewhere, her high-waist, wide-leg trousers were dramatically chic, and a group of check-referencing burnout velvet pieces gave the dévoré a graphic update. With today's show McKain-Waid nicely positioned Daks as a minimalist's answer to Burberry.
—Maya Singer

Damir Doma

"Modern Renaissance" were the words Damir Doma used backstage to describe his new collection. That's a tricky proposition. We know the era best from costume dramas and art museums—where are the connections between the Renaissance and real life as it's lived today? Some of Doma's propositions erred on the historical side: A quilted leather tabard, worn like a coat of armor on top of a fur jacket, cut a striking figure, but it also looked like an extra step that postmillennial women probably don't have the time or inclination to take.

Fortunately, Doma didn't rely too heavily on such pieces. The crux of the collection was up-to-date tailoring in shades of black, brown, dark red, and orangey pink. The only thing that said sixteenth-century about his suede blazer, button-front blouse, and crossover-waistband pants was the oversize cross pendant they were accessorized with. A black lace cardigan and T-shirt worn with dévoré shorts looked equally contemporary. Doma also gets points for his commitment to flat slippers and boots—that's a step a modern girl can really get behind.
—Nicole Phelps

Danielle Scutt

Danielle Scutt has a strong, sui generis design point of view. Actually, she has two of them: There's the Scutt who showed up on the Spring 2012 runway, all slouchy denim and rudegirl attitude, and then there's the Scutt of this season's forties-inflected collection. What unites the two is a lack of prissiness: Whether in her tomboy mode or tapping a vein of glam, Scutt is a designer with a commitment to conveying female strength through her clothes. That's almost enough of a through-line to stave off whiplash. Still, it's hard to look at the new collection—a tightly edited group mainly comprising well-wrought, full-skirted dresses—and not wish that it had been infused with Spring's streetwise sneer. Just so, last season you found yourself looking in vain for some of the effortless womanliness in plain view here today, and in Scutt's collection for Fall/Winter 2011. If and when Scutt manages to bring the womanliness and the toughness together, she'll be a force to be reckoned with.
—Maya Singer

Daryl K

Daryl Kerrigan's decision to close her East Village store at the end of March after withdrawing from New York fashion week in February may have led some to believe that things were changing for the designer—and not for the better. But a preview of her latest Daryl K collection says otherwise. The Dublin-born industry vet's cool yet sophisticated aesthetic remains the same. "The downtown attitude that's synonymous with fashion has always been my signature look," explained Kerrigan. "Most of the things you see here have existed before." Still, every woman's day-to-day wardrobe requires a bit of sprucing up, Kerrigan's customer included, and the inspiration this time around was a "girl in a stable yard."

That vision translated into a tailored wool jacket with leather and velvet accents that was nipped in a bit at the waist, just the thing for pairing with Kerrigan's leather leggings, this time done in black with a contrasting red sideways stitch. Trousers are a thing for the designer, who has playfully dubbed her label "Pants-R-Us." New for Fall were a cropped leather boot-cut style and a wide-leg pair with a zipper detail. And for the girl who doesn't like pants? With this collection's silk "9 to 9" (as opposed to 9 to 5) dress, complete with an elastic waistband, Kerrigan's got her covered, too.
—Jessica Minkoff

David Koma

The message from the first few looks out at David Koma seemed to be: Don't mess with me. The technical fabric looked bulletproof, and the sculpted greyhounds that formed the wedge heels of pointy shoes appeared ready to come to life and attack.

Koma had a handful of references: Louis Icart's Deco greyhound paintings, Boldini's paintings of Marchesa Casati, Thierry Poncelet's portraits of dogs in aristocratic attire, twenties-era menswear, and the minimal side of sixties fashion (a bit o' Courrèges, a touch of Rabanne). If that sounds like a lot, quite often it was. Alas, Koma's in growth mode—he debuted knits here with Hawick Cashmere—and bursting with ideas.

As the look evolved into something less ballistic, there came a flurry of body-contouring cutouts, peplums, specialized geometric jacquards, and rectangular silver buckles set into dresses and coats. You also saw the hardware on those high—almost canine and far from comfortable-looking—collars. Things lightened up slightly by the show's end, particularly with the appearance of a joyful candy-striped silk and a slightly mod pop bounce. You almost wished he would have developed those ideas into a full collection and perhaps achieved some of the sophisticated coherence he's shown before.
—Meenal Mistry

Dean Quinn

You can't help but be drawn in by 25-year-old Dean Quinn's fashion fairy tale of a story. At 16, he left his small town in Ireland for London, where he called every single person and finally scored an internship with Zandra Rhodes. "I learned so much. Then she said, 'You need to go to Central Saint Martins,'" Quinn gleefully related at tonight's presentation. "I had never heard of it. I thought it was a religious school." The happy ending: He went and graduated with the Womenswear Designer of the Year award, which prompted Donatella Versace to come calling. After a year, he struck out on his own.

Now on his second season, the designer is proving himself to be more than just good copy.The 14-look collection—all dresses and gowns—had a bright, sporty-sexy look that, while impactful, might not grab you with its originality at first glance. But Quinn's talent is sweating the small stuff. Take a closer look at the hand-cast gold zippers, the couturier's pintucked pleats, and construction that lets these body-con beauties move with the ease of Spandex even though they're cut in crepe, and you'll start to understand why Quinn's debut spring dresses at Barneys New York have all but sold out.

He's also managed to keep his retail prices strategically under $1,000, evidence that he's got an eye on reality. "In the past couple of years, there's been a culture of showpieces and demi couture," he explained. "That is definitely not where I want to be. I want to be a business. I look around and ask, 'Who's going to be around in five years?' I want to take it really slow."
—Meenal Mistry

Dennis Basso

With a blast of a whistle and the sound of wheels on a train track, we were off on the Orient-Express. For Fall Dennis Basso sent his girl packing on the famed transcontinental locomotive, though she could have been anywhere fabulous. The train shtick was just an excuse for Basso to show off some of his sumptuous luggage, like a carry-on case swathed in Russian broadtail. Of course, the true test of a carry-on these days is if it will fit in the overhead bin or under the seat in front of you. Basso is enamored of a bygone sense of glamour, and this collection was aimed at today's first-class flyers.

Over the past few seasons, Basso has slowly expanded from fur into ready-to-wear, noting before the show, "Almost every designer does fur now. And now I'm doing ready-to-wear!" When you put it like that, why not? It's hard to raise an objection to a soft leather skirt in warm topaz, or a perfectly cut cashmere sheath in pearly gray. Basso loves to crossbreed his furs and exotics, pairing mink with lynx and python with raccoon, but he has always showed restraint with his sophisticated daywear, and this season was no exception.

Still, it was hard to see under all those pelts. A chinchilla and lynx bomber jacket in a brilliant shade of orange (Basso called the color cayenne) popped so loudly against the clothes' cool hues that it commanded all the attention. The color looked great as an accent, inside a hooded parka or on the collar of a long, quartz-colored chinchilla vest with deep cashmere patch pockets. About that parka: Basso took a classic puffer, slimmed it down in broadtail, and lined it with double-face cashmere. Sound decadent? It is, but it had a day-to-day wearability that most statement furs don't. If you can tear your eyes from the house specialty, there are plenty of other pieces in this collection that are worth a look. But that's a big if.
—Alison Baenen

Derek Lam

"Thoughtful, quiet, a little more sober," is how Derek Lam described his new collection. On each seat, his PR team placed a paper bookmark that read "The Library," and the opening series of Persian floral prints was influenced by the frontispiece of an old book he came across. But you'd hardly call his Fall girl bookish, not with her paisley brocade bodysuit, leather pencil skirt, and gold-dipped oxfords.

Lam's show had a sixties vibe that went beyond the bouffant hairdos and smoky cat eyes. Ruby Aldridge's white peacoat, poplin shirt, V-neck, and full black skirt conjured visions of some quirky coed, only in real life her jacket probably wasn't shearling, the sweater wouldn't have been cashmere, and the skirt most definitely wasn't black patent. As always, there was great outerwear here, but Lam de-emphasized fur in favor of down, cutting a jacket and vest in neat, trim shapes.

When it came time for the final passage of eveningwear, we were firmly in the present. Only a high-tech mill could pull off those Aran sweaters made from twisted nylon tulle, and only a modern-thinking designer would pair them with long chiffon skirts trailing trains.
—Nicole Phelps

Diane von Furstenberg

Rendezvous was the name Diane von Furstenberg gave her Fall show. "It's about seduction," she said backstage beforehand, pointing out the close-to-the-body dresses and the soft, oversize coats that covered them. "Glamorous at a moment's notice," her program notes elaborated.

True to her word, DVF and her right-hand man, Yvan Mispelaere, sent out a dressed-up collection that showcased what von Furstenberg called her design partner's "beautiful palette." The show may have opened with a black wool jersey dress spilling off one shoulder, but more often than not it was about bold, sophisticated color combinations: a pearly pink long-sleeve top tucked into a bordeaux pencil skirt, the whole look bisected by a wide red leather belt; or a chartreuse bouclé coat over a yellow top and raspberry pants. Prints, of course, are part of the DVF DNA, and this time around she and Mispelaere decided to give them a surreal spin (we're sensing a trend). A pair of interlocking hands clasped the shoulder of a body-hugging black dress, while other pieces were decorated with music notes, jigsaw pieces, and chains. These came off a bit heavy-handed. The surrealism streak was more successful on the handbags, which were shaped like hearts or clock faces.

To finish, the designers showed four draped, unstructured dresses. It was their bold, fearless colors that people were talking about as they left.
—Nicole Phelps

Diesel Black Gold

Sophia Kokosalaki stayed at home for Diesel Black Gold's latest show (she's expecting a baby), but over e-mail she said that the brand's well-received pre-fall collection became the foundation for this one. That meant a continued focus on outerwear—a leather trench with a slouchy knit turtleneck stood out—and a strong dose of menswear. Kokosalaki also injected a bit of humor for Fall, opening the show with a pop art image of a pixelated girl in tears on a black-and-white sweater. OK, maybe that's not funny, exactly, but it set the tone of irreverence the designer was going for. For a little more cheek, slouchy shorts in treatments from shiny leopard print to pony hair were layered over men's boxer shorts in a blue and white stripes. It looked like the kind of outfit a rocker girl might make up after rolling out of bed with a banker.

Skirts came slung low, too; they hung just at the hips with the help of wide, sexy belts that attached at the back. For a denim prediction, it looks like prints aren't going anywhere soon. The jeans in this collection came splatter-painted or patterned and were cut with a bit of give, to just below the knee. These were fresh reworkings of street staples, laid-back and super-cool.
—Alison Baenen

Dion Lee

Before his presentation today, Australian designer Dion Lee explained—rather meekly—that he saw his London fashion week debut as "an introduction."

Suffice it to say, London fashion week was very pleased to meet him. Lee is incontrovertibly the leading light of fashion Down Under, and as his new collection confirms, he is certainly ready for a larger stage.

It's tempting to describe the appeal of Lee's clothes in terms of their technical accomplishments: the geometry of the silhouettes; the innovative, architectural quality of the construction; the unexpected materials artfully deployed. You can't avoid talking about those elements of Lee's work, and they form a tremendous part of its appeal. In this collection, for instance, he created strands of high-visibility fiber, and wove them into light-reflecting knits, and draped them off sheaths. (Perfect for cycling back from a party at night, maybe.) Another dress, suspended from nearly invisible mesh, appeared to hang on the body as if by magic; elsewhere, garments made from layered tulle and organza looked as though they were held together strictly by light. There is a cool intelligence operating here.

But what makes Lee really interesting, and eventually, perhaps, significant, is that his intellect doesn't work at cross-purposes to the unavoidable sexiness of his clothes. There is something deeply Australian about that: For whatever reason, designers from Oz seem to have a totally non-vexed relationship to sex and body-consciousness, and Lee embraces that, mitigating the potential aridity of his designs by integrating vampy notes. This collection felt relatively small in its ambitions and incredibly precise in surpassing them. Now that Lee has introduced himself, it will be fascinating to see what he does when he starts dreaming big.
—Maya Singer

Dirk Bikkembergs

Dirk Bikkembergs is determined to put himself on the women's fashion map. He has an uphill road ahead of him. Ask a women's editor who he is, and you're likely to get a: "Isn't he the guy that puts athletes in underwear?" As a matter of fact, yes. But he was also a member of the Antwerp Six, reminded his newly installed creative director, Paola Toscano, at a presentation today. Her plan, she explained, is to bring some edge to his sporty schtick. You saw it in a fitted motorcycle jacket with heavy-duty zips, as well as in molded leather peplums that snapped onto the waists of sleeveless silk dresses. For the most part, though, this was a collection of snappy sportswear, in the bright green of football pitches, marigold yellow, purple, and blue. The highlight was a thickly striped sweatshirt with short sleeves and low armholes that gave it an urban spin. Toscana wasn't breaking new ground, but with that look, she landed on something that could connect with the tough women's crowd.
—Nicole Phelps

DKNY

The basic divide in the house that Donna Karan built has traditionally been main collection for work, and secondary for play. Today's show notes promised Poetic Rebellion, inspired by the Beat Generation, but there was something quite efficient and polished here that read more office-bound than On the Road. It was partly the effect of all that black—a perennial Karan favorite and quintessential New York hue. But it was also several smart looks like a little leather skirtsuit or a boxy wool jacket with leather sleeves over narrow, creased trousers, not to mention the equally smart accessories like glossy leather portfolios with shiny gold hardware. The models' barely-there makeup and sleek, side-parted ponytails completed the picture.

It was by no means all business in the vein of one of the many labels out there with the purpose of outfitting young professionals. There was a hard-edged frisson of sex—more Paris than New York—in the animal prints, flippy skirts, wide pointy-edge belts, and loads of leather trim. Though for a creative job, you could do worse than a simple long mohair navy sweater over a leather trumpet-hem skirt. But then all work and no play… A floral grouping, which included the now ubiquitous head-to-toe print suit, took care of that.

Perhaps in a quest for grown-up polish, Karan attempted to lay on the luxury quite thick in beastly shearlings with croc-stamped leather. But it pushed the quest for sophistication just a notch too far, like a little girl playing dress-up. By comparison, an unadorned but nicely tailored fuchsia wool coat felt miles more confident.
—Meenal Mistry

Dolce & Gabbana

Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana set the stage for their latest show with chandeliers festooned in real flowers and vines along with an enormous gilded mirror that was propped at the end of the runway. It was unabashedly lavish, but it had nothing on the duo's new collection, which was dripping in gold bullion. Once again, the designers found themselves plucking ideas from Domenico's native Sicily, specifically its baroque religious traditions. It truly is the birthplace that keeps on giving.

Capes played a starring role, just as they had at the label's men's show last month. When they were long to the knee, especially, they recalled a cardinal's vestments, albeit rendered in black and gold. White lace frocks, meanwhile, put some in mind of communion dresses. In general, the silhouettes weren't as va-va-voom as they can be here. In fact, more often than not, they were away from the body, which gave them a newness that's been lacking for a few seasons chez Domenico and Stefano. Given how sheer they were, though, they weren't quite holy.

Colorful needlepoint florals and prints of cherubs also contributed to a sweeter-than-usual mood. The finale parade consisted not of the usual corset tops, bralets, and bloomers but of more black lace coats, dresses, and skirtsuits embroidered in metallic gold thread. Dolce & Gabbana pushed its vocabulary with positive results, but it wasn't unfamiliar enough to dampen the religious devotion of its fans.
—Nicole Phelps

Donna Karan

It's been a good week so far for Marlene Dietrich. Jason Wu hitched a ride on the Shanghai Express last Friday, and today Donna Karan channeled The Blue Angel, topping off nearly every look with one of Stephen Jones' jaunty mini fedoras. You know what comes next: suits. Karan is fixated on them for Fall, but naturally, it went way beyond blazers and pants here. On the one hand, she folded, tucked, and pinned pinstripe wool into a sexy bustier dress or plunge-front cocktail number; and on the other, she added lapels to a red draped wool dress and used silk cummerbunds as a neckline detail on another evening frock. What looked like a pinstripe jumpsuit was actually a "body jacket," i.e., a clever bodysuit tucked into a pair of slim pants, bisected by another one of those cummerbunds.

When Karan did turn her attention to an unreconstructed double-breasted jacket or coat, she gave it exaggerated shoulders that read a bit too mannish or maybe too 1930, the year The Blue Angel came out. The sleeker part of Karan's new man/woman story was the better one.
—Nicole Phelps

Doo.Ri

"Doo.Ri" and "draping" are virtually synonymous at this point, whether Doo-Ri Chung likes it or not. For the past few seasons, the designer has been kicking against her reputation as New York's draper extraordinaire and emphasizing her collections' tailoring and knits. Today, however, Chung came home to herself, helped along by the inspiration of Butoh dance and its poetry of motion. This collection boasted some of her strongest draped silhouettes in a while, notably the twist-top blouses and dresses. Here and elsewhere, necks were high, which gave the form-fitting silhouettes an air of barely suppressed sexiness. A sleeveless ink-blue wrap dress with a twist top, for instance, came off like something Halston might have produced after a stint at a Buddhist monastery.

Meanwhile, the collection's knits and tailored pieces were nicely done, if unexciting. Chung's most interesting idea, literalizing the Butoh reference, was to create jackets and coats that looked like two overlapping garments. There was also a nice color story on the runway today: The tonal combinations of pale pink and shades of brown and eggplant looked particularly fresh. The one really off element was the laser cutting on several pieces: It's a technique Chung has used to good effect in the past, but it may have run its course.
—Maya Singer

Douglas Hannant

Douglas Hannant titled his Fall collection Gentry and took as his muse Wallis Simpson, the couture-loving divorcée who married way, way up. Was Hannant having a Madonna moment, then? No, the designer said backstage before his show. He only learned about the film W.E. after he had started designing his collection, though he was pleased to find his girl was in the zeitgeist.

A leaf-strewn runway filled in for the grounds of an English manor. For a well-appointed weekend in the country there was plenty of plaid, tweed, and houndstooth; and, for horse lovers, a pair of saucy black leather jodhpurs. Sherlock Holmes had been invited, too, and his influence could be seen in a fitted, salt-and-pepper jacket that fluttered into a cape.

A model in one of Eric Javits' darling hats and a matching black-and-white-check bias-cut sheath could have been his chic sidekick (sorry, Watson). Hannant skipped the volume for evening, opting instead for a languid silhouette. A black, panne velvet mermaid gown with a beaded décolleté fit the bill, but the best dress was much less glamorous: A clingy jersey sheath color-blocked in purple, emerald, and tan, which felt unexpected and new. It may not have been in Wallis' repertoire, but it evoked the here and now.
—Alison Baenen

Dries Van Noten

The first clue to the essence of a collection is often the invitation to the show, especially in the case of a thoughtful, detail-obsessed designer like Dries Van Noten. Today's was a stiff card, one side matte white with time and place embossed tone-on-tone, the other side a deep, glossy anonymous black. A blank slate, in other words. Or an inducement to contemplative serenity.

Run with that particular ball and you end up in a show with models gliding at a stately pace through a gilded salon in the Hôtel de Ville (which has to be the most beautiful town hall in the world). And this was all set to a hypnotically attenuated mix of Bon Iver's "Woods." Dries has a habit of pulling off such special effects, where an enormous amount of research yields a result that appears gracefully effortless. Here, for example, the archives of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London had been plumbed for Japanese, Chinese, and Korean iconography. Kimonos and dragon robes were laid flat, photographed, and digitally printed onto silk, crepe, and matelassé in chopped ways that abstracted the intrinsically costumey and turned it into something accessible. That was especially the case when the prints were cut into coats, jackets, and pants that borrowed the linear precision of menswear. A white pantsuit infected by a flurry of kimono silk color was one of the strongest looks in the show.

In its glory days, Antwerp was a crossroads of the world, a place where the exotica of far-off lands collided with the European familiar, and, like the good old hometown boy that he is, Dries has always had a knack for capturing that collision. Today, for instance, he weighed the fragility of kimono silks with the roughness of military khaki or the sturdiness of gray flannel. The master touch was a filigree of gold embroidery: Storks took flight across a belted military blazer; a phoenix coiled down the sleeve of another jacket. There were golden dragons elsewhere. These were clothes to spark dreams. But a man-tailored topcoat in burnt-orange alpaca wasn't far behind. Maybe not contemplative, but definitely serene.
—Tim Blanks

Dsquared²

Other designers in Milan may be feeling dark and moody, but not Dsquared²'s Dan and Dean Caten. To prove it, they staged a high school prom, dimming the lights and switching on a pair of disco balls midway through their 9:30 a.m. show. The sign on the wall said Class of 2013, but the vibe was more early sixties—from the top of the models' bouffant hairdos to the tips of their diamanté and leopard-spot pumps. In between, they wore snug brushed mohair sweaters over button-downs and lamé skirts; toggle coats and rolled-hem jeans; and a green croc jacket with cropped pink pants. Hands down the most charming piece was a rugby sweatshirt in striped mink.

Often the Caten brothers prefer their girls more bad than good, but that wasn't the case here. The only things that these pretend high schoolers' parents would disapprove of were their cigarettes. Even after the disco balls came on, things never took a turn for the provocative. Hewing more closely to the current trends than what preceded them, a trio of black column gowns were all about the hips. Pure sweetness from Dsquared²? Trust us, we were surprised, too, but pleasantly so.
—Nicole Phelps

Duro Olowu

At first blush, Duro Olowu's high-impact designs seem to be made for a very specific woman—someone high-powered who gravitates toward feminine shapes and bold, even eye-searing patterns. And indeed, for that woman, Olowu's clothes are catnip. But give his collections time to work on you and a more universal appeal reveals itself. Take the short flapper-y dress in his latest collection: Made of hand-pieced strips of printed silks, it's got a punchy eloquence that is unmistakably Olowu's. Let your eye adjust, however, and it's also a flat-out pretty party dress; some nervy starlet should try it out on the red carpet.

Olowu is well known for his mixed prints. But there's a method to his madness: His cuts are sharp, his silhouettes digestible, and the prints themselves are always combined in a disciplined way. This season, he achieved painterly results by going for more tonal print mixes, a strategy inspired by his obsession with the Egon Schiele painting Self Portrait in Peacock Waistcoat. The collection defaulted to shades of green and teal, with the palette girded by tones of brass, cream, and black, and spiked with hits of red and pink.

All that could still make for sensory overload, if not for Olowu's judiciousness as a designer, as well as his warmth. The warmth is an overlooked but unifying aspect of his work: He can do froideur perfectly well—witness his tailored black coat with daggered lapel, or the bias-cut black gown straight out of a Bette Davis picture from the thirties—but he'd rather be inviting. That coat, for instance, came in another, more memorable version, in color-blocked red and green striped tweed. It's a neat trick when a designer can simultaneously tamp down the formality of a garment and amp up its drama.
—Maya Singer

Edun

As Sharon Wauchob explained before the Edun show today, her strategy in taking the creative reins at the label was to start quietly. Now that it's been a year, she says she finally felt ready to raise the volume. Well, job done: This season's collection claimed stronger color, greater textural variation and more ambitious silhouettes than the brand has been known for in the past. In general, it boasted a clear point of view.

The color was mostly in Wauchob's jungle-inspired prints, which the designer twisted, wrapped, and draped in a variety of sculptural ways. Pops of color could also be found in the collection's graphic knits, a strong but small group that could have gotten more airtime in the show. Alongside the dresses, Wauchob's principal proposition was a fitted, often asymmetric top worn with baggy leather or dense wool trousers with an elasticized hem; the look was sharp and urbane, if not exactly groundbreaking. But the real standout of this collection was the outerwear—the slightly oversize bombers and parkas, in particular—and the lacquered hand-knit sweaters and leather skirts. The black skirt and sweater with coats of blue lacquer were seriously cool, with a futuristic mien.

The main quibble here is that, for all the sharp-looking stuff on the catwalk, Edun hasn't marked off any territory as clearly its own. With the possible exception of the print dresses, you wouldn't be terribly surprised to find many of these clothes on another brand's runway. That's the next notch on the volume, and Wauchob has positioned herself well to turn it up.
—Maya Singer

Elie Saab

Oscar nominee Bérénice Bejo wore a mint green couture confection by Elie Saab at the Academy Awards last month. With that feather in his cap, the designer put the accent on daywear today. Urban Elegance was the name he gave the collection. For the most part, it was as gray as the skies have been all week here in Paris, but it offered more variety than you usually find on a Saab runway.

The oversize tailoring that has dominated other catwalks this season isn't this designer's thing. His skirtsuits and sheaths are cut to fit, with hourglass color-blocking made to further enhance a woman's shape. A dove gray one-sleeved blouse looked simple and chic tucked into high-waisted black pants. Saab is a little less sure-handed when it comes to prints: The bronze tree branches on both knee-length and to-the-floor numbers looked busy.

For evening, Saab showed some sparkly emerald green column gowns followed by a few more in gold or silver sequins. A couple of the slits extended dangerously high up the leg—that's the wrong kind of exposed lingerie. But presumably, details like that will be sorted out before the dresses make their inevitable way to Hollywood.
—Nicole Phelps

Elie Tahari

Among the many, many brands showing at New York fashion week, Tahari is one of the handful that appeals directly to the mainstream consumer. Real women wear it, in their real daily lives. So it was only fitting that this evening's presentation—staged informally at the brand's showroom—used "real women" as models. One was cradling a baby. Several chatted away with each other, sipping Champagne. If you wanted a preview of how these clothes are actually going to be worn, Tahari provided it.

As for the clothes themselves, the showroom setting offered proof that the collection on show was but a small representation of the Tahari offering as a whole; racks and racks of additional pieces lined the room. The big theme, onstage and off, was color: Designer Elie Tahari went tonal in a big way, creating color-block, tone-on-tone and painterly variations of tealish blue and green, red and fuchsia, and navy and purple. Throughout, office silhouettes predominated: Trousers were either extra-long and narrow or wide-legged and laced in the back, blouses came with gypsy touches, and jackets, like one in a combination of tweed and brocade, featured a lot of textural variation. Fur and reptile skin abounded. The casual mien of the presentation sometimes made it hard to read these looks for an overarching statement, aside from the big color story, but the women wearing the clothes looked happy to be in them.
—Maya Singer

Elizabeth and James

Give the customer what she wants—that's Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen's mantra for their contemporary collection Elizabeth and James. That means the Fall lineup touches on familiar trends like parkas, pajama dressing, peplums, and flower prints—all well executed. It's not only the knit furs that look more expensive than they in fact are. This may not be the passion project that The Row is, but these focused sisters clearly do their homework.

At their presentation today they explained that they offer a variety of heel heights in their shoe line because "the client wants the range." And pointing out a white button-down with a longer hem in back, Ashley said, "This is for the girl who wants to keep her butt covered." To which an editor in the crowd quickly replied, "Oh, I understand that." A handbag range is scheduled to launch sometime next year. After that? Elizabeth and James stores.
—Nicole Phelps

Emilia Wickstead

It shouldn't be read as pretentious that Emilia Wickstead came out before her show to greet guests and explain the collection à la old-school couture. After all, until last season Wickstead's business was entirely made-to-measure and run out of the sleek Belgravia atelier that the intimate but influential crowd jostled into today.

An English country inspiration is making the rounds, but Wickstead gave it a modern spin. The clopping of hooves on the soundtrack was the most overt manifestation. She went thematic in a landscape print of Windsor Castle with tiny horses galloping across full skirts and neat waists, but it was nearly abstract. Otherwise, her take on classic femininity is too squeaky clean to really go there.

Wickstead is not edgy. As such she seems more suited to New York or Milan, where she's worked respectively for Narciso Rodriguez, Proenza Schouler, and Giorgio Armani. But, oh, does this girl know her way around pieces that women want to wear. You could almost sense the making of mental shopping lists—and by women with highly varied sensibilities—for a red tea dress, for all the pleated pieces, and for the pink jumpsuit with bell sleeves and natty mannish trousers. Kate Middleton should surely take note, but you could see Kate Moss grabbing something, too.

There is, of course, a little frisson of something here. She'll be selling some of those pleated skirts as sheer as they were shown. And the combination of powder pink and poppy red provided a little jolt, especially when a model in a pale shift made a turn to reveal an unexpected shock of bright pleats in back. If she balances that seesaw just right, Wickstead's got a big future.
—Meenal Mistry

Emilio de la Morena

Emilio de la Morena fans were in for a shock today. The designer has earned a fervent following for his kicky frocks, with their sexy winks of skin, punchy color combinations, and fit-and-flare cuts; meanwhile, the first look at the designer's Fall 2012 show was a head-to-toe black ensemble comprised of narrow—gasp—trousers and a belted wool mantilla. Quite the 180, suffice it to say.

But the change in direction was welcome, and not just because it saw de la Morena trying on a new, long and lean silhouette and experimenting with leather and daywear. The biggest change here had to do with the intent in the clothes, and the feeling behind them. De la Morena is by nature an intellectual designer, and in past seasons he's shown a tendency to abstract himself with references from art and architecture. This time out, he worked from the heart, seizing on his Spanish roots. And so, for all the superficial severity of this collection, there was a nice warmth of tone. Much of that came through in the collection's mix of textures—wools, leathers and patent leathers, slinky silks, cabled hand-knits. There were also textural gestures—ruched leather detailing, leather in a marbled print—that added to the collection's tactility.

Somewhat surprisingly, de la Morena showed a real knack with his tailoring. His kick-pleated coats and jackets were really sharp, and though the leather trousers could have used some finessing, the slim wool pants were well-done. And he had an interesting thought in applying daywear materials to his evening pieces, making gowns with high-waisted skirts of tailored wool. Not everything worked here, but there was a lot of promise on the runway; it would be nice to see de la Morena continue to refine his new ideas.
—Maya Singer

Emilio Pucci

At Peter Dundas' Pucci, Brigitte Bardot in her gypsy phase was out; Emilio Pucci and Vibeke Knudsen were in. Vibeke who? Knudsen's name may be less well known than Bardot's, but Helmut Newton's groundbreaking 1975 shot of the model in YSL's Le Smoking is permanently seared into the fashion consciousness. It's what Dundas tapped into for a fab collection that put the focus not only on men's tailoring but also on a newly covered-up silhouette.

Don't get us wrong, Dundas hasn't gone demure. A trio of little black dresses with chiffon-covered slashes set the tone. If there was less bare flesh on display, the collection was still plenty sexy—as a formfitting little number in crocodile with a slit up to there, and a T-shirt gown with a sheer back embroidered in crocodile velvet appliqués both suggest.

Tailoring, meanwhile, has always been part of the picture with Dundas, but here it was the star. Joan Smalls' white dinner jacket and beaded-neck black halter gown made for a modern way to do black tie—that look will be making the rounds on the fashion-party circuit. Ditto a sky blue version of the same tux worn with a sheer T-shirt; smartly cut high-waisted, cropped trousers; and a suede cummerbund. A nude patent peacoat and a beaver fur coat also get shout-outs for their sharp looks. He recruited the tailors who make his Pucci menswear to create this show's substantial coats. This was Dundas in peak form, and good timing, too. Too-obvious flashiness is on the wane elsewhere in Milan. Plus, a new Pucci store on Madison Avenue will be up and running by September, right about when these clothes start shipping.
—Nicole Phelps

Emporio Armani

It's tempting to think that Giorgio Armani was anticipating a certain amount of criticism when he named his latest Emporio collection Little Winter Follies. There was certainly one element of folly here: To wit, the collection's wholesale endorsement of knee britches (the show notes called them bermudas), sometimes paired with skirts or dresses. In velvet, with jackets to match, it was hard to escape associations with Thomas Gainsborough's classic eighteenth-century painting The Blue Boy. Not in itself such a bad notion, but a tricky sell, you imagine, for a contemporary woman. Although maybe it wasn't women exactly that Armani was targeting. The staging of the show had a girlish glee, the models looked like fresh-faced ingenues as they strolled the catwalk arm in arm, smiling conspiratorially. The flat shoes helped.

There were moments when the britches had a period elegance: A black taffeta jacket and midnight velvet knickers were almost a dangerous liaison. Above the waist, Armani offered such a feast of jacket options that you could see window displays for days, especially in a luminous amethyst blue.

In fact, the collection used color in a way that was so strikingly un-Armani that it was practically bouleversé: Brightly hued plaids and psychedelically hand-painted Mongolian lamb jackets were folly at its most delightful.
—Tim Blanks

Erdem

It's not just because today's venue, the new White Cube gallery space in South London, was so spectacular that you might think the art world serves Erdem Moralioglu well. Last Fall's scenario of the spurned lover who takes fierce revenge on her artist boyfriend was the basis of a breakthrough collection for him. This Fall, his woman had moved on. Now, he said, she buys art rather than destroys it. But she was still a creature of dark, distinctly adult appetites, and that made her—and her style—infinitely more interesting than the pretty-girl Lolita-land that Erdem entered for Spring.

It also offered him some provocative new elements to play with in his ongoing pursuit of the wrong in his work. Black rubber, for instance, the kind you'd buy in a sex shop, but delicately embroidered with lace, or used as a laminate for classic tweed. The proper made improper—so wrong, and Erdem loved how it unsettled him. He mentioned Hitchcock again, but a more appropriate cinematic reference might be Hitchcock's more lurid disciple Brian De Palma, exercising perfect control over random acts of violence. Kind of like Erdem, cutting his pin-sharp little dresses from a turbulent mass of floral print, scattering colored stones across dresses or stringing them around necklines—and making chartreuse and fuchsia his main color accents.

It will be interesting to see how many of Erdem's followers engage in this collection's dialogue between latex and lace. "I want to make my customer feel strong," he said post-show, even if the route he'd chosen was decidedly eccentric, in keeping with Peggy Guggenheim, the cultural doyenne whose style was on the designer's mind when he was working on Fall. Well, the art world hasn't let him down yet.
—Tim Blanks

Erin Fetherston

To mark the one-year anniversary of launching her lower-priced, more accessible ERIN line, Erin Fetherston whisked us away to an enchanted forest where a harpist (in one of the designer's gowns, of course) greeted guests at her Fall presentation. While such sweet whimsy is almost to be expected of the designer, the pieces on display tonight proved that she is indeed exploring new territory.

Inspired by the work of artist Barry Underwood, Fetherston described her collection as a "new-age fairy tale." Certainly, there was the expected sea of ethereal party dresses embellished with everything from bugle beads to metallic snowflakes. But the designer went a few steps further, showing voluminous skirts and structured frocks, knits, and printed separates that recalled Underwood's images of nature illuminated by neon light. Standouts included a pair of silk crepe de chine pants done in a bright yellow floral (a nod to Mary Katrantzou?) and a cropped jacket made out of marabou feathers.

Also worth mentioning was a herringbone hooded parka, Fetherston's answer to a classic problem for party girls at this time of year: What to wear over a sleeveless dress when it's below zero? The jacket could easily be paired with any one of the collection's dresses—or even jeans, for that matter. It was good to see the designer demonstrate that dresses aren't her only forte.
—Jessica Minkoff

Etro

Kean Etro has so successfully established an image for the Etro man—a thinking man with an appetite for adventure—that you kind of feel sorry for his little sister, Veronica Etro, who has had to carve a niche out of nothing. She's looked here, looked there, but she's just been fishing. All too rarely has she latched on to something that feels right for the brand. Still, she's getting there. Today's show was a clearly defined statement of intent. Etro's Mitteleuropa dandyism translated appealingly into lean, tailored looks that used the family's signature paisley as a building block. Not in a particularly respectful way, mind. Laser-cut into a patchwork on a net gown, printed on a sheer top, woven into trousers that were legging-tight, paisley proved itself to be a profoundly alluring thing. As alluring, in fact, as a tracery of tattoos on skin.

Perhaps it was that sensual association that spurred Veronica on to such extremes as the perforated leather ruff that limned a velvet jacket, or the hard-edged combo of black leather and fishtailed velvet. If there was one word that worked for the whole collection, it was flare. Flare in the leather peplum belts, flare in those fishtailed gowns, flare in the godet skirts. It took discipline to make them all work. Veronica is clearly little sister no longer.
—Tim Blanks

Farah Angsana

Ladies, hold on to your hats: You're in for a wild ride with Farah Angsana's latest Fall collection. Backstage before the show, the jet-setting designer explained that she makes clothes for women like herself and the particular circle of young-money socialites she flies with—"someone who loves to travel to places like Shanghai, Hong Kong, Mumbai, and Dubai," as she put it. The first model out set the show's over-the-top tone: a heavily bejeweled strapless gown with a stiff gazar cutaway skirt meant to evoke a blossoming flower.

There were a few cocktail numbers that succeeded in their relative restraint—an ivory wool crepe dress with structured cap sleeves, notched V-neck, and a hint of a peplum, for example. But more often than not, more is more for Angsana's customer, who isn't afraid to appear more expensive than everyone else in the room (and with these statement makers ringing in at around 3,000 euros a pop, she might be). The pièce de résistance was her finale: a completely sheer, strapless tulle column embellished with a few strategically placed shimmering peacock feathers that the designer likened to a dragon's scales. Showing everything down to the model's nude Calvin Klein thong, it elicited quite a few oohs, aahs, and gasps. If it leaves you wondering who actually goes for this glitz, it's worth noting that Angsana reports that business is up. Modesty could be overrated.
—Brittany Adams

Fashion East

As is widely acknowledged, the London fashion industry is second to none when it comes to supporting and developing new talent. Fashion East, among all the local programs for emerging designers, remains the keenest talent spotter; director Lulu Kennedy has excellent, eclectic taste. The trio of designers on the Fashion East runway this evening certainly represented a motley crew: First up was Maarten van der Horst, an accomplished tailor and a bit of a ham; next down the runway was Marques'Almeida, a brand almost dirgelike in its grunginess; the final act was Fashion East veteran James Long, a menswear designer and knitwear specialist who has definitely earned a solo spot on the London fashion week calendar next season.

Van der Horst brings a lot of wit to his clothes, and a great deal of technical know-how. For this collection, his second, he put a sexy spin on menswear shirting, turning crisp poplins and striped cottons into tailored bodysuits, and setting them off with cheesy satin florals. The bodysuits weren't altogether convincing, but the satin stuff worked, in particular the collection's quilted blazer-style jackets in white-on-white and red printed florals. Van der Horst definitely has a strong point of view, but he's still in the process of fleshing it out.

Marques'Almeida doesn't lack for point of view, either: Marta Marques and Paulo Almeida distress denim with a single-minded gloominess. The look is striking; this season's skate-inspired black and yellow clothes, all oversized and ripped to hell, had a kind of desolate grandeur. The collection was a little one-dimensional, but these pieces will be pulled a lot by fashion editors, and some of the more circumspect looks, like the frayed skate shorts and decayed knits and leathers, will attract shoppers. (Pieces from the debut Marques'Almeida collection for Spring 2012 were picked up by Opening Ceremony—a store that's no slouch at seeing a niche market.)

James Long was taking his third, and final, turn on the Fashion East runway this evening, and the collection he showed was proof that he's used his tenancy to hone his womenswear to a fine point. This was a strong, well-made, distinctive collection, commencing with a series of hugely appealing intarsia knit dresses limbed with gold. Long showed that he can do more than just knits: His printed velvet pieces were knockouts, and the quilted leather jackets with hand-knit sleeves were both beautifully executed and a lot of fun. Onward and upward.
—Maya Singer

Felder Felder

From the start, one of the principles of the Felder Felder look has been the label's rock 'n' roll influence, witnessed especially in sharp black leather jackets and accessories and studded everything. Designers Annette and Daniela Felder must have suspected that their rock signature was getting them into a bit of a rut, because they dispensed with it almost entirely this season and went for an altogether more grown-up tone for Fall.

This was a show with a lot of texture, featuring nubby shearling jackets, fringed handknits, and dresses and skirts in a plissélike micro pleat. The palette was earthy, based in deep tans, plus mineral hits of dark red, plum, and gold. The Felder twins made some canny adaptations of their trademarks here, such as affixing barely-there gold studding to mannish wool jackets and applying a matching print to the wide leather belts accompanying several soft dresses. A lot of the silhouettes were familiar, in particular the Felder Felder fit-and-flare minidress, but the new palette helped to refresh the look. Not all the developments were successful—some of the handknit dresses looked awkward, for instance, and the beaded fringe was a little weird—but the Felders made some really impressive strides here. The standout look at the show was a polished and sexy long red dress, which bespoke a confidence in understatement that hasn't been seen in a Felder Felder collection until now.
—Maya Singer

Felipe Oliveira Baptista

You shouldn't have wasted time rooting around under your seat for show notes at Felipe Oliveira Baptista. There weren't any—an intentional omission. "I wanted to try to do something that has its own impact," he explained before the show. "I just wanted to do desirable clothes, well, try to, anyway." If you're a fashion writer who's heard her share of hanging-by-a-thread inspirations, clothes about clothes aren't an altogether bad thing. What might incite pure desire here? Certainly any of the coats in rectangular silhouettes, pieced together with wool, leather—both patent and matte—and shearling, as well as a pair in a luxurious pebbled navy leather that were curiously alluring despite their handbaglike thickness.

Not coincidentally, outerwear is this up-and-coming designer's strongest retail category. The show wasn't, however, entirely a reference-free zone. When pressed, Baptista mentioned being moved by the hard lines of communist architecture, and Belle de Jour. And perhaps just a hint of Courrèges, as in the collection he showed just over two weeks ago for Lacoste. Those standaway shapes and graphic pastiches of zebra print and color shards undeniably had a sixties pop and fizz, though perhaps somewhat filtered through the more recent lens of Nicolas Ghesquière. Baptista explained backstage that he finds it exciting to start each season with a blank page. However—although his edgy-sporty voice is starting to emerge—it might be nice to carry over a few lines from season to season in order to resonate more strongly in a city filled with serious fashion.
—Meenal Mistry

Fendi

Browsing the racks before the show today, Silvia Venturini Fendi claimed that life as a Roman means living with layers of history, from distant yesterdays to pell-mell tomorrows. There those layers were on the Fendi catwalk—hair that looked like a lift from classical statuary, skirts that were futuristically spliced, a dozen contrary ideas in between. Tying them all together was the signature notion of the hybrid: uniting leather jacket and wool coat in one piece; combining shine and matte, kilt and skirt, cape and shirt; bringing together plant and animal in a fur coat that vibrantly captured the colors of a wild orchid. Fur looked like candy-hued synthetic, wool looked like nubbly multicolored fur. A bag that appeared to be cut from animal hide was actually rubber; another handbag—the most significant in the collection—was an iPad carrier, reflecting Silvia's addiction to the information-gathering possibilities of the Internet. "I'm always checking things at dinner," she said.

Technology's influence on Fendi also comes courtesy of noted digitalist Karl Lagerfeld, who was saying that there's no need to refer back to the past when the online world is awash with late-breaking info. Nevertheless, there was a curious and charming retro edge in the Fendi collection, evident in details—a puff sleeve, a fichu, a bustle—that could almost pass as folkloric were it not for the fact that they were delivered in such an incongruous way. That bustle, for instance, bunched from navy blue croc or antelope hide. Incongruity may, in fact, be even more of a Fendi signature than the hybrid. It guarantees that this label's collections will always defeat expectations, in the best possible way.
—Tim Blanks

Francesco Scognamiglio

Not far into Francesco Scognamiglio's Fall show, a fellow editor leaned over and said, "A lot tamer than usual, no?" It was certainly less risqué than last season's strong outing in which every piece, without exception, was sheer. Today by contrast, in what looked like a play at commercial viability, Scognamiglio introduced crochet knit sweaters and neo-conservative tailoring in a stiff woolen with a slight metallic sheen. He even, believe it or not, sent out a few of his models with briefcases tucked under their arms.

But Scognamiglio could only hold back his eccentric impulses for so long. Midway through the show there appeared a button-down shirt printed with a pair of whales and grapefruit slices. Animals and fruit were popular tropes for Spring, but only the designer's psychiatrist could plumb the meaning of that combo. Later on, a bias-cut column gown came out with hip panniers in stuffed grapefruit slices—if nothing else, the exaggerated padding was on-trend. Truth be told, Scognamiglio is best in avant-garde mode. A fuzzy overcoat with splatches of electric green car paint had a sit-up-and-notice-me quality that some of the safer pieces lacked. Negotiating that divide will be Scognamiglio's challenge going forward.
—Nicole Phelps

Gabriele Colangelo

The contemporary British artist Jason Martin has replaced Gerhard Richter as Gabriele Colangelo's new muse. Martin, not unlike Richter, creates textural, three-dimensional canvases with acrylic paint. Colangelo modeled a swirling print on his work, as well as a jacquard with an uneven surface that juxtaposed matte and shiny. As always, innovative fabrics were a big story here. A coat that shaded from charcoal through olive, white, and red to black is in a category of its own this season, cool and unique.

The other part of Colangelo's plotline was silhouette. Christian Dior's New Look by way of Phoebe Philo was the inspiration for tailored jackets with rounded shoulders, full sleeves, strongly nipped waists, and exaggerated hips. Tunics worn over tapering pants or pencil skirts followed the same hourglass lines. With other designers putting an emphasis on peplums and bustles for Fall, Colangelo has placed himself firmly within the fashion conversation. It's a relatively new position for him, but he belongs there.
—Nicole Phelps

Gareth Pugh

Something about Gareth Pugh brings out the philosopher in his collaborators. Soundsmith Matthew Stone was talking about "the archetypal human need for religion." Makeup artist Alex Box was brooding on the penitence of nuns. Pugh himself shied away from anything directly tied to the dinner party's favorite conversation killer, but maybe that's because he felt his designs had done the talking for him. The fiercesome insularity of his clothes suggested a world where women had dispensed with the fripperies of civilization—i.e., men—in favor of a faith in female power. Nothing as blandly noxious as girl power, mind you. More a kind of cannibalistic, Amazonian, mutant force. And that sure made for a great fashion show.

Petals of black had scarcely stopped cascading from the ceiling when Joan Smalls marched onto the catwalk in a yeti shag and Aztec headdress, like the high priestess of a techno death cult. Furriness and fringing in multiple variations followed, creating a liquid, indefinable silhouette. When Pugh drew that silhouette back to the body, he used snakeskin on a jersey backing, a sinuously elemental effect which automatically evoked the poor misbegotten serpent who tried to wise up Adam and Eve to their state of unblissful ignorance in Eden. But if Eve took the rap for Adam's fall, Pugh was determined to restore some semblance of her dignity. His women were battlefield-worthy in their funnel necks and spiked shoulders. And their enemy? Could it be God Himself, textured through Stone's soundtrack by Twitter voices saying His name? The conceit was an audacious one, but it's hard to ignore the niggle that Pugh needs something bold at this point in his career to knock him up to the next level. Alien beauty has a shelf life, after all.
—Tim Blanks

Gary Graham

Gary Graham is the kind of guy who would probably make a killing on Jeopardy. A history buff and autodidact, his mood board each season is chock-full of obscure references. For Fall, he was inspired by the Manchester International Theater Festival he attended in July, ancient Iranian wrestling tunics, and WWI naval "dazzle" camouflage. That's quite the combination, but it fit Graham's magpie aesthetic, which emphasizes convertibility and ample layering.

At a preview in Graham's downtown Manhattan store, he piled up a vintage quilt-print dress with fine-gauge sweaters and a deconstructed army vest, then completed the look with a Dickensian wool topper. Styled in a more realistic, pared-down manner, the pieces here would still stand out—particularly the outerwear. The burnished cardinal fingertip-length coat evoked, as the designer put it, a sense of "leftover royalty," while a safety orange padded vest with a split-zip hood added a refreshing touch of sportiness. Graham's clothes aren't for everyone, but aspiring female dandies ought to fancy his unique brand of awkward elegance.
—Brittany Adams

Genny

Structured tailoring is essential to the heritage of Genny, an Italian label that's trying for a revival at the hands of Milan up-and-comer Gabriele Colangelo. Fittingly, Colangelo opened his second collection for the brand with an innovative riff on the tuxedo, converting it into a red cocktail dress with plunging satin revers and a sheer tulle back. Coat-dresses in the same sleek, streamlined vein followed; they were the most confident things about this uneven show. In contrast, a dress made from fitted python on one side and pleated floral-print organza on the other was misjudged. Likewise, flesh-colored bandeaux with a single horizontal stripe through the middle didn't suitably address the see-through issue on other frocks and blouses. The way forward for Colangelo at Genny is not to come up with wardrobe problems, but solutions.
—Nicole Phelps

Giambattista Valli

Scene of the fashion crime: the Sound Factory, legendary New York nightspot. Exhibit one: Orlando Pita's hair, a swirl intended to duplicate the tonsure of a boy sweat-soaked from dancing, warped with the long, straight tresses of the girl he was with. Exhibit two: Val Garland's makeup—icy swooshes, conveying a don't-care urgency.

That's how you create a fashion mood, kids. Or at least, that's how you make the casual New York mood that Giambattista Valli wanted. Just as he (and Orlando and Val) used to go dancing at the Sound Factory 20-something years ago, the Valli girls went way downtown with this show.

Now that he has a couture collection in which to indulge his most exquisite impulses, Giamba felt free to sharpen his edge. The first look—an oversize marled-wool sweater over cropped black pants—immediately established a more aggressive mood than we're used to from this designer.

A black-and-white graphic dominated the collection, interrupted only by hits of red and croc-stamped gold. Valli is so tuned in to the desires of his clients that one has to assume he was responding to their suggestions when he offered that big, chunky sweater. But it could only be his idea to later pair it with a chevron-patterned fur skirt.

Did it work? Valli is a client-driven designer, and his ever-faithful girls were perfectly happy that he'd given them something cool. The sequin sheaths that lurked underneath the chiffon veils of the evening finale? Well, that was one way to suggest the sparkly soul of the wearer. Still, the feeling nagged that Valli had shed his uptown skin without fully completing his downtown transition.
—Tim Blanks

Gianfranco Ferré

With all the ups and downs at Gianfranco Ferré over the past couple of years, many people stopped paying attention. Stefano Citron and Federico Piaggi, now in their second season at the label, deserve a look. Not because they assisted the late designer prior to his death in 2007 (these days, it takes more than brand affinity to make newly installed designers successful), but because they have something fresh to say about dressmaking.

In a Milan season in which many designers laid on the gewgaws—piles and piles of them, in fact—this duo focused on cut. And the cut of a series of gowns at the end of the show was quite striking, especially a black satin on-the-bias number with an asymmetrical, one-shoulder bodice, and a more formal gray column in what looked to be gazar. It had a high neck, one deep pocket on the hip, and pleats kicking out from a high slit. Three knee-length dresses in the same fabric had equally strong, architectural silhouettes.

Their daywear didn't have the same restraint: Double-face cashmeres, while luxe, looked bulky, and a fur jacket felt similarly grandiloquent. Still, those efficient evening looks are enough to go on for now.
—Nicole Phelps

Giles

The tale Giles Deacon began to spin for Fall was that of a stately country home accidentally ablaze on an arctic winter's night. "I just had this idea of someone rushing out of a beautiful house," Deacon said backstage before the show. "It's burning down, and what are you going to take?"

One very acceptable answer to that could be these clothes. This collection yielded some truly beautiful things, romantic with macabre bite, pumped up by a couturier's eye for detail. What's impressive is how they fit Deacon's new direction of well-made clothes for women of means, while still nestled comfortably into the narrative at hand.

Deacon set the darkly enchanted tone with the first exit: a high club-collared tuxedo accessorized by a menacing black plumed scarecrowlike helmet—this season's version of Spring's swan headpieces, also made by Stephen Jones. He quickly segued from governess strictness to lady-of-the-house softness. A painterly print echoed a burnt tapestry; it was cut into a chiffon blouse, tucked into a matching skirt of sharply razored organza ruffles that spilled dyed-to-match feathers at its hem. The thorns from Deacon's frozen garden were transformed into laser-cut satins and a rich metallic lace. And in this fairy tale an icy blue brocade tapestry—populated, if you looked closely, with unicorns and other mythical creatures—seemed to have been ripped from the wall and transformed, through some sort of fashion wizardry, into a strapless mullet-skirted dress or an evening jacket to elegantly cover up a burnt and water-stained tulle gown. Catastrophe was rarely so chic. And though the collection might have skewed a bit prim and proper for those who love Deacon's antic side, inside it still burned with a magical and mischievous spirit.
—Meenal Mistry

Giorgio Armani

The morning after the Oscars, and Giorgio Armani's catwalk was significantly free of anything that could be classified as a red-carpet look, bar, perhaps, the black sequined jumpsuit that had a dramatically lit spot all to itself at show's end. Easy Chic was his title for the collection. The dressiness of his closing looks, with their jackets of pavé sequins and dresses of crystal, all in hot orange, was something he imagined appealing to a younger constituency than the red-carpet crowd. And that's why those tricky bermudas made a reappearance from the Emporio show the other day. Admittedly, they were a much chicer proposition here, more formal in neatly creased black organza, but they were still an oddly polarizing anchor for a collection. Maybe they exemplified the "modern eccentric" note the designer feels his women seek from him, along with the classic Armani chords he struck with the great elongated jackets and pleated pants that opened the show. "Rockabilly," he called those looks, worn with mutant fedoras and flat shoes.

A few seasons ago, Armani showed a tour de force ready-to-wear collection inspired by Saharan skies at night. Here, the accent colors—oranges and pinks—suggested desert sunsets, but Armani also used the tones in more playful ways: in an in-your-face faux fur, for instance, or a velvet coat that was decorated with what looked like brightly hued capsules. His signature collection is usually a more sober, self-contained affair, but there was plenty here to suggest Armani was keen to engage with and maybe even provoke the world. He'd clearly told his models to look at the audience as they ambled down the catwalk, as opposed to sticking with the usual frosty thousand-yard stare. The wide-brimmed hats made it awkward, but nevertheless, the designer made his point.
—Tim Blanks

Giulietta

When Giulietta debuted a year ago, Sofia Sizzi made a big impression right out of the gate with her modern take on sixties-era Italian femininity, scoring accounts with big retail guns like Barneys and Net-a-Porter. "She had a remarkable ability to define herself from the first collection," said Barneys fashion director Amanda Brooks at today's show. Brooks, joined by chief women's merchant Daniela Vitale and CEO Mark Lee, reported that Giulietta's sales so far exceeded expectations.

Moments like this involve a delicate balance for a young label. You've got to move forward to show you're capable of developing a vision, and yet in the process you don't want to jettison what made you successful. For Fall, Sizzi mostly did a fine job of walking that tightrope, adding pops of color (a harbinger of things to come for resort, she hinted), a dash of baroque, and more volume to her typically austere lines. (Though it was partly undermined by a few growing-pains glitches like a broken zipper and belts that sat askew.)

Sizzi says she was inspired by the Visconti film The Leopard, the 1860's through the lens of the 1960's, and the idea of palazzo life, from morning prayers to fancy-dress balls. "It's more whimsical," Sizzi explained in a preview. "I want it to feel traditional but happy and playful." For day, the collection was prim and tailored. While some of the stiff white collars might not be for everyone, existing fans will find their way to the simplicity of a chocolate tunic and cropped pants, or an ivory sheath worn over an eggshell bow blouse. You understood the point of the square pilgrim buckle belts, but at times they added a less-than-welcome retro heft. Part of Sizzi's appeal is her authenticity, and she continued that in the tile-like Trevano motif from her native Florence in a luxe-looking brocade cut into little pants and culottes, and made into a custom jacquard knit.

Full-on evening, however, was uneven. The two dresses that ended the show didn't entirely make their case, but a frilled white dress, inspired by the gown worn by Claudia Cardinale in The Leopard's ball scene, had just the right dose of sugary sweetness for a convincing closing argument.
—Meenal Mistry

Givenchy

It was a nippy 41 degrees in Paris tonight, and it felt colder inside the cavernous Lycée Carnot waiting for the Givenchy show to start. Not even the celebrity heat of Alicia Keys, Kanye West, and Sean Combs could stop you from shivering. But the second galloping horses began pounding on the loudspeakers and the neon lights started pulsating to the beat, Riccardo Tisci had the crowd going. Seven years into his tenure at Givenchy, he's as confident as they come.

For Fall, he gave his super-influential tailoring an equestrian spin. Jackets were boyish from the front, but all girl from the back with peplums, bustles, and tails. There were more pants here than he's trotted out lately, and they had an easy jodhpur shape—full through the upper thighs, then stuffed into knee-high boots with heel-covering sheaths. There was also a lot of leather: on a second-skin turtleneck dress that flared below the hips, as well as on a black coat reversed in red with kimono sleeves. Furs were patchworks of red, brown, and black.

The feminine side of the collection was influenced, Tisci's show notes explained, by the seventies photography of Guy Bourdin. Suspended from the shoulders by delicate straps, cocktail dresses were mere wisps of silk embellished with lace and rows of rhinestones. A red and black number recalled an early show Tisci did for the house, but the version that paired sky blue and orange silk with a purple belt was the keeper here.

Today's outing wasn't the silhouette changer that last season was. (You'll have noticed by now that peplums, Tisci's news for Spring, have been absolutely everywhere this month.) While he's been consolidating, others have been catching up. But it's simply a mark of the influence his Givenchy has attained the last few seasons that we look to him to stay out in front of the fashion pack. In any case, we'll be seeing plenty of this collection in the front rows and beyond next season.
—Nicole Phelps

Gregory Parkinson

After his all-white collection last Spring, Gregory Parkinson returned for Fall to his O.G. maximalist ways. "I think I have to continue with what's my strongest point," he said at today's presentation. "Everyone's doing print and color. I have to show them how to do it."

That might sound boastful, but Parkinson's quite the mix master, and his recent palate-cleansing season seems to have further refreshed his vision. His clothes were sharp, sleek, and more luxurious than they've ever been—nearly every look glowed with shine. He chalked it up to greater resources, evidence that business is good. Yet Parkinson knows how to take the stuffing out of potentially precious pieces, like cropped jacquard trousers with raw-edge lace tuxedo stripes, or even fur, which he had knitted into floppy little cardigans and trimmed with vintage lace. His models resembled ruined tsarinas, their finery now tattered enough to be cool.

Parkinson says his dream is to have his own store, an environment to showcase his world and put his clothes in context. Still, he doesn't impose his kaleidoscopic aesthetic as an all-or-nothing proposition. "I like the way that my clientele work my things into their wardrobes," he explained. This collection is sure to see quite a few women doing just that.
—Meenal Mistry

Gucci

Frida Giannini said she had nineteenth-century decadents on her mind when she was designing Fall. The mood, not unlike at her men's show last month, was dark—with rich tapestry jacquards, plush velvets, a hothouse floral printed on a ground of black, and a palette that revolved around plum, bottle green, espresso, and jet. Romantic was the word she used backstage, "but not cute-romantic; it has a confidence," she said. Nocturnal is another good word for the collection, which delivered more capital F fashion than we're used to here, while also feeling more personal than previous Giannini outings—pour us a glass of absinthe.

To begin with, the confidence came through in the emphasis on menswear, much of it oversized. Giannini opened with a military jacket paired with a slim, long velvet skirt, and there was a great-looking cropped leather peacoat with an away-from-the-body swagger. Capes figured prominently, too, complemented by full-leg pants with a real slouch that felt new for Gucci. They were stuffed into crocodile riding boots—Arthur Rimbaud never had it so good.

As for the romance, it had an edge that went beyond the Scarface soundtrack playing in the background. Blouses were provocatively sheer, with Pre-Raphaelite sleeves and artfully placed scrolls of silk or velvet on the bodice. Dresses, for the most part, cleaved the lines of the body, but when they didn't, as with the pair in vibrant leopard jacquard, they dipped to the midriff, with slits inching up the thigh. One dress, covered neckline-to-hem in oil-slick coq feathers, looked almost wicked.

The show crescendoed with a series of dramatic peekaboo gowns in jewel-embellished tulle that seemed to reveal more than they actually did. Siren gowns all, they were the literal crystallization of Giannini's dark glamour theme.
—Nicole Phelps

Guy Laroche

The major takeaway from Marcel Marongiu's slick, noir-ish collection for Guy Laroche was its experimentation with textures. In the first look out, the smooth, high shine of a patent skirt was played off a black ribbed and molded turtleneck. Marongiu then segued to more tactile fare. He seemed to be taken with disturbed surfaces, as in a nubby wool that looked as if it been nibbled on by a creature of the night.

That idea was at its best in pieces with sequins that were bristled up here and there. They worked rather nicely when paired with basket-weave knits—a more casual breather from the collection's somewhat rootless seventies-inflected severity. The hard-edged sensibility softened slightly as Marongiu juiced things up with a grouping in rich pumpkin orange, followed by one in gold. A third jewel tone grouping would have been a stronger finish than the heavy gold tribal embroideries looks that closed the show.
—Meenal Mistry

Haider Ackermann

Haider Ackermann is back in sinuous mode. Last season saw him exploring a boxier, more masculine silhouette. Today, with Frank Sinatra crooning about "Autumn Leaves" to back him up, he was more interested in organic shapes. "I try to be pure," he said backstage. "But I can't help myself, I love to wrap." The waisted silhouettes that were the results of all that draping were the best he's ever done—a spot-on mixture of the sublime and the salable, and he's got the most sophisticated color sense of anyone in Paris.

He opened with a pair of looks that put a greater emphasis on salability than his reputation as a design iconoclast might suggest—the first was a trim, cropped jacket in sage green over a stretchy black turtleneck dress cinched with a blush gray molded leather belt, and the second was a silk blouse partially tucked into high-waisted, full-legged trousers. Leather coats and jackets with motorcycle detailing should likewise have the retailers calling.

It wasn't long, though, before Ackermann's inner wrap artist came out. Jackets were exuberantly peplumed and bustled below those new molded leather belts, and dresses were draped from a single point below the breastbone. Double-layer skirts in which the top layer was shaped like a simple leaf and split up the middle were deeply sensuous without exposing a hint of flesh. They may be too heavy in leather, but they'll be a hit in other, less weighty materials.

As for the colors, who else could pull off the pumpkin orange and marigold yellow mix of a tailored crombie and tapered pants? Or the cobalt blue of a cropped jacket worn over an oxbood vest, gunmetal scarf, and copper pants?

You can add this to the short list of shows this season that brought the crowd to its feet.
—Nicole Phelps

Hakaan

With photographer Mert Alas of Mert & Marcus fame for a creative director, Hakaan Yildirim's shows have been must-sees since he landed in Paris two Septembers ago. But despite his high profile, he's still new to this fashion week thing. As he's been settling into the routine over the last few seasons, he's tried on different styles with varying degrees of success: body-con to begin with, then more androgynous, followed by Spring's see-through moment. Today, his show's After Hours soundtrack was a clue: Yildirim went back to the 1980's stylings of Claude Montana and Thierry Mugler.

Bold shoulders and rounded sleeves gave his silhouette the inverted triangle shape associated with the decade. Other pieces came with built-out hip panniers, but significantly more pronounced than the ones the designer was experimenting with last season. Shiny lamés in blue, bronze, and black added flash, while quilting gave visual interest to otherwise simple boxy sweatshirt shapes. There were slits up to there on a handful of dresses, but overall, this collection was less overtly sexual than it's been in the past, though still edgy. That could mean good things for the designer's bottom line.
—Nicole Phelps

Helmut Lang

Fall is Nicole and Michael Colovos' second season putting their Helmut Lang collection on the runway, and their confidence is growing. If their Spring outing erred a bit on the repetitive side, this was more freewheeling, yet still within the recognizable framework they've set up during their five-plus years at the brand. Recognizability counts for a lot, going by all the big-name retailers in the front row tonight. From the first look out—a white leather lapel-less blazer, glossy black skinny jeans, and black thigh-high wedge boots—you knew where you were. After that, the Colovoses touched upon their other staples: the wrap leather and fur jacket with the funnel neck; the draped jersey dress; the asymmetric sweaters and cobwebby knits.

The freewheeling part came via the details. A stretchy dress was inset with the same armadillo-stamped leather that was used for the sleeves of a blazer. The fur on a belted jacket was dyed a rich shade of ruby red, a color as yet unseen in a collection from the Colovoses, who typically favor neutrals. And a red ponyhair jacket was laser cut in a delicate repeating motif. The prints were borrowed from nature—leafless branches of trees and hardened swirls of lava—but their shapes were resolutely urban. The only misfire was the low-slung, inverted pleat, full-legged trouser. It'd be a shame to cover up those killer over-the-knee boots.
—Nicole Phelps

Hermès

From its equestrian roots to the apogee of modern luxury that it now embodies, Hermès has stood for travel. Travel is movement. With his show today, Christophe Lemaire adopted the stance that no movement is more modern than the nomad's. He opened with the gaucho—knit serape, baggy leather pants tucked into boots—and closed with pieces that were printed with folkloric patterns from the Russian steppes.

In between, Lemaire roamed the Hermès archives to find a fellow traveler in Martin Margiela and the work he did for the brand in the late nineties. The sight of Cecilia Chancellor in a big coat over a generously sized suit and sweater, all of them in the most meditative shade of gray, instantly evoked Margiela's Hermès shows: so still, so respectful, so androgynous.

That fits Lemaire's own aesthetic to a cashmere tee. The collection he showed today moved with serene confidence through a shadow land between mens- and womenswear. One of the strongest outfits was a suit—the trousers with a knit cuff—over a buttoned-up white shirt and a sweater with a V-neck that almost reached the waist. It was severe but erotic.
—Tim Blanks

Hervé Léger by Max Azria

With the bandage dress as a baseline, the question each season at Herve Leger is in which direction will Max and Lubov Azria spin their tale. To their credit, the Azrias manage to take something that could feel a bit like boiling an egg—a little softer one season, a little harder another—and nudge it forward onto new ground. This season's theme delved into the darker side of equestrienne motifs. These girls were more horse than rider, with leather harnesses fastened around shoulders and waists and even long, straight, blunt-cut ponytails swinging from side to side.

In fact, there was a strain of mythical woman-as-beast in the body-hugging outerwear—a developing non-frock category—of python-stamped black leather trimmed with swaths of wild black fur. What felt newest in the dresses were the patterns and prints—an op-arty ombre beat out an odd chain-link jacquard—as well as the pleating, which gave the usual shrink-wrapped silhouette a chic modicum of freedom. You could see the long-sleeve diamond-pattern dress with a flippy skirt in look four, for instance, attracting a whole new customer. That's the kind of uncharted territory any designer can get behind.
—Meenal Mistry

Holly Fulton

With her eye-popping graphic style, more-is-more approach to color and embellishment, and overall campy attitude, Holly Fulton practically dares you to hate her clothes. Somehow, that proves impossible. The collection Fulton showed this morning was a case in point: Rainbow-hued and covered in ecstatic hothouse-inspired patterns, the clothes had a certain irrepressible chic. They were about as hard to dislike as a milkshake.

In some ways, this was Fulton at her most circumspect. Embellishment was kept to a relative minimum; silhouettes were simple and sophisticated. Working with a canvas of A-line minidresses, turtlenecks, boxy jackets, tailored sheaths, and pencil skirts, Fulton applied her prints in a painterly way, working with the garments' shapes. That made for some knockout evening looks, such as a hot pink, butterfly-print sheath with a crisscrossed, body-baring bodice, and a high-necked, frond-printed turquoise minidress with a tasteful drip of crystal on the sleeve. There were also a few looks with a hot rod placement print and shots of patent leather that, however redolent of Spring '12 Prada, fit easily into the Fulton idiom and just plain worked. Elsewhere, Fulton sent out some very convincing daywear, in particular her artful intarsia-knit cardigans and sweaters. For all their punch, the knits were really very accessible. Decorous, almost. Only the most militant minimalist could hate them.
—Maya Singer

House of Holland

Henry Holland has come a long way from his punchy slogan tees, and it's to his credit that his development as a designer hasn't muddled his sense of pop. The House of Holland collection on the runway today showed a ton of finesse, but it was happily unpretentious, featuring mod shapes tricked out in bright stripe, zigzag, and houndstooth patterns. Holland's best ideas here centered on the houndstooth: He magnified the print, turned it out in gradient hot pink and purple or in a more subdued, shiny blue, and then came back with several garments embroidered in a kind of disembodied version, one in which some of the checks had randomly dissolved or disappeared. Elsewhere, his color-blocked dresses in a fine stripe had a youthful punch; on the runway, at least, they looked great paired with skinny-striped bell-bottoms. Holland also had some winners in his multicolored zigzag silks and intarsia knits. The show could have used some editing—all of Holland's big ideas were repeated more times than absolutely necessary, and there were a few stray garments, like a red leather skirt with ruffled hem, or a fitted workman-style jumpsuit, that seemed a little out of place. (That said, they were perfectly nice pieces taken on their own.) On the whole, though, this was a strong outing for Holland—possibly his strongest yet.
—Maya Singer

ICB

Japanese company Onward Kashiyama launched ICB with designer Michael Kors in 1995, a time when what we now know as the contemporary market went by the less than alluring term "bridge." Before shuttering the label in 2002, it had gone through phases of being designed by a studio team as well as by Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren.

But this season ICB, which stands for International Concept Brand, is returning, with Prabal Gurung at its helm. It's an interesting time for ICB, now that there are far more contemporary labels that have a distinctly designer point of view, from Carven to Phillip Lim.

Gurung, in a preview, called his debut "just fashion-y enough," an assessment with which we'd have to agree. What stood out most were the fab prints, some abstracted ikats in silk dresses and pants, and a baroque-looking brushstroke motif that was close to the ones Gurung showed in his last two collections. Little was basic. Even the tailoring wasn't played safe, snagging visual punch from acid-bright colors or sculpted shapes.

Dark wool coats trimmed with fur, or cable knits with split hems, were strong, but are the kind of pieces that many designers show. But here you saw recognizable hits of Gurung in dip-dyed lace blouses and lace print dresses that closed show—the first digital-only affair.

Gurung described his customer as "the girl who has an interest in fashion but not necessarily the means." But everyone loves a nice price and there will surely be an audience broader than that. What's encouraging is that this isn't meant to be a fleeting collaboration. "When they hired me, it was a long-term strategic plan," said Gurung. "We want to build it carefully and slowly." It was a good start. ICB? How about: I Could Buy or I Covet Badly.
—Meenal Mistry

Iceberg

Iceberg's Paolo Gerani wasn't the only designer to give a shout-out to Marianne Faithfull this season. Rachel Zoe beat him to it in New York City. In fact, they sent out nearly matching outfits: white pantsuits with black shirts, and black long-hair goat jackets tossed over the shoulders. Somewhere there must be a picture…45 years on, the rock chick turned singer-songwriter's image still holds a mystique, despite countless comeback tours and a long-playing revival at the hands of Balmain's Christophe Decarnin.

Parts of Iceberg's Fall show felt like Balmain-lite—the disheveled sexy look, minus the couture-quality workmanship, could be seen in the sequin numbers, the sharp, lapel-less jackets, and the second-skin leather pants riding low on the hips. Where Gerani put the Iceberg stamp on things was with the knitwear. There were sweaters here that will give shoppers a reason to go into the label's stores, starting with look number 1, a long-sleeved clingy dress in black and ivory shot through with gold. Crewnecks in bright intarsias looked fresh, too, as did the little furs that echoed them with their multicolor patterns.
—Nicole Phelps

Imitation of Christ

Minutes before the start of her Fall presentation—which had a campy magic show theme—Tara Subkoff was in full-on stage director mode. "Pretend that you're in The Artist!" she urged the models, who were encouraged to vamp it up in their role as magician's assistants. "Can you try doing a dramatic reveal and twirl with the cape?" The Imitation of Christ designer, after all, loves the theatrical side of fashion, and her clothes often have a costumey quality about them.

This season featured a collaboration with bespoke tailoring label Doyle Mueser, and the collection was full of fitted pantsuits (think Jerry Hall in the seventies) and sexed-up spins on menswear. There were a couple of fun ideas: Subkoff scooped the arm and shoulder out of a crisp white button-down shirt and paired it with a slit-to-there pencil skirt. And playing on white-tie dressing, she reworked the men's formalwear vest into floor-length satin, adding cool grosgrain belt details in back. The collection as a whole, however, was a bit more gimmick and Gatsby-era romp than real magic.
—Brittany Adams

Isabel Marant

Isabel Marant is opening her second U.S. store this September on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles. No wonder the French designer came up with a frontier-girl theme for Fall. Marant loves Americana, and so do the fans: Her Navajo-inspired knits from last year are still going strong. This time around, the look is girlier—more Calamity Jane than Buffalo Bill, what with all the lace doily tops and the pleated and frilled silk miniskirts. We're talking about well-trodden ground here, no doubt, but Marant makes it new.

Something about her relaxed yet sexy approach gives an item as clichéd as a yoked cowgirl shirt an instant It quality. And the studded, embroidered, and quilted jean jackets? They're collector's items, capable of spawning miles-long wait-lists at her shops. The fashion cognoscenti have started to find the slouchy yet skinny jeans, the half-tucked shirts, and the tooled leather ankle boots a bit too predictable, but it's hard to argue with the cool factor of a red leather top laser-cut in an eagle design, or an Ultrasuede dress with the same motif picked out in micro-studs. But it wasn't all familiar territory, either. Amid the shrunken this and the fitted that, the oversize cavalry coats looked like a growth opportunity.
—Nicole Phelps

Issa

Marching in step with a couple of today's other shows that also plumbed the rich detail found east of Germany, Daniella Issa Helayel's show notes spoke of a Trans-Siberian journey from Moscow to Beijing. She began on a promising note, hitting the head-to-toe print trend—a touch on the late side, but it's still going—in dresses layered over coordinating leggings. Some models also had printed scarves tied around their heads like modern matryoshkas. And when you added in sturdy navy ribbed knits and tall brown leather harness boots, it all had a horsey-chic snap to it. But back to the journey: This is an itinerary that's ripe for cliché and for confusion. For instance, Chinese model Liu Wen wore a swirly paisley-printed dress with kimono sleeves and a fur hat—a look that was telegraphing a mishmash of messages. And dresses with little caps of fur trim on the sleeves worn with the odd addition of velvet leggings seemed to take the idea of Siberian eveningwear a bit literally. That said, the model in the sheer black tulle flapper dress with only a handful of gold sequins for propriety certainly could have used a pair. In the midst of this theme turned slightly awry, a single unadorned princess coat looked out of place. You'd have to literally live on Mars to miss the way it evoked thoughts of Helayel's most famed client, Kate Middleton. Purpose served.
—Meenal Mistry

Issey Miyake

The presentation of Yoshiyuki Miyamae's second women's collection for Issey Miyake was a reminder of the subtle but impressive ingenuity of Japanese showmanship. The show opened with a practical demonstration of "steam stretch," a new fabric technology that uses applications of steam to shape clothes woven from a combination of silk and stretch yarn. Within seconds, anonymous squares of fabric were completely transformed into sinuous dresses. It was a spectacular effect, subsequently compounded by a show that featured more of the same. There was never a dull moment, because there'd be another innovative something or other along within seconds.

Alongside "steam stretch," there was a subtext called "mineral miracle" that used the angular refractions of minerals as the inspiration for geometric prints. A trompe l'oeil waffle knit added deceptive texture. The mesh laid over quilted pieces was another way to introduce unexpected movement to clothes.

Underpinning the show was a live soundtrack by a duo called Open Reel Ensemble. Working reel-to-reel, they taped and mixed live sounds (the steam of an iron, for instance) into an electronic score. "A physical intervention in music and time," was the way they described what they did, but their combination of old- and new-tech and timeless emotion seemed like an absolutely perfect analogy for the spirit of Japan's new fashion wave. Chapeau, as the French say.
—Tim Blanks

J.Crew

J.Crew's Jenna Lyons has become a street-style star. The photographers chase after her the same way they track supermodels and billionaire socialites. Her influential preppy-eclectic style was reflected at the brand's Fall presentation: loads of colors, loads of prints, loads of textures. Tom Mora, the new head women's designer, said the focus was on head-to-toe dressing. The snake-print top paired with the snake-print long skirt was one of the presentation's most directional looks, along with a pink schoolboy blazer worn as a suit with matching pants. But offbeat, mix-and-match layering still rules here.

Among the most winning combinations were a red, navy, and camel abstracted Fair Isle sweater tucked into a slim python pencil skirt, and an ivory Aran sweater embroidered with silver bugle beads that was teamed with a bordeaux leather dirndl. (We prefer our layers on the light side, so we were less inclined to be won over by an outfit that combined an Eisenhower jacket with a hacking jacket with a striped sweater with a button-down, and that was just above the waist.)

Lyons has turned statement pants into a growth market for J.Crew, and we clocked plenty more on the model platform at today's packed presentation. Sequin bows appliquéd on Italian flannel might be a step too far, but not so the paisleys and the foulard prints.

May we make a suggestion to team Mickey Drexler and Jenna Lyons, though? Find a new show space. The venue and the format are no match for the crowds anxious to see what you do next.
—Nicole Phelps

J. Mendel

Today's J. Mendel show was a mellifluous affair: Making a U-turn from last season's sharp silhouettes and color-blocking, designer Gilles Mendel sent out a collection that emphasized soft shapes and a neutral palette. His experiments largely centered on the construction of his furs, in particular the coats that knit together various fur textures, and voluminous yet lightweight dégradé furs mounted on tulle. Elsewhere, Mendel focused on dirndl-shaped short skirts in crepe and wool breezy pleated ones made from chiffon. He girded all that movement with architectural cutouts and structured tops and jackets; his paneled crocodile and metallic tweed jackets were particularly fine.

Alongside the furs, gowns are the J. Mendel stock-in-trade, and with Oscars looming, Mendel didn't stint on the glam eveningwear. That said, there weren't any gowns at this show that screamed to be seen on the red carpet. One possible exception to that rule was a strapless, gold-beaded sheath; otherwise, his beaded and hammered charmeuse bias-cut gowns were very nice, but not jaw-dropping. On the whole, this was a collection full of ultra-luxe elegant looks that will go down easy with the high net worth J. Mendel customer. That customer is also likely to be very pleased with the debut of J. Mendel bags: The designer introduced the range with a natty, oversize crocodile handbag, lined with mink and alpaca.
—Maya Singer

J.W. Anderson

J.W. Anderson called his show Chamber of Isolation. The clinical white quilting of the first two outfits looked like it'd been stripped from the walls of a padded cell. The third outfit could have been an institutional gown cut from PVC so it would wipe clean easily. Anderson dubbed his pre-fall collection Domesticity of Monogamy. Here, he imagined a woman so oppressed by that domesticity that she'd flipped her wig. The makeup was intended to suggest bitten lips. That was one of the details that made the show somewhat impenetrable. The questions Anderson posed backstage were these: "Where are women? Are we in a flat-line?" Maybe he was attempting an update on Freud's notorious "What do women want?" The flat-line certainly made its presence felt with the padded nylon pieces, the fishermen's hats, and the PVC bibs that strapped on like Kevlar vests, all alternately readable as constrictive or protective of female fragility (both, by the way, Anderson's readings).

"Awkward modernity" was another of the designer's reference points, and in that he was successful with his choice of proportion and fabric. He has often found beauty in the bizarre. There were skirts here in crystal-studded puffa fabric that had an oily glamour, only slightly muted by the blurry blanket-check tops that partnered them. The padded vest in pinstripes with matching pants had the skewed strictness that has distinguished Anderson's work in the past. A mad housewife could do a lot worse than the long sweaters over longer plaid skirts.
—Tim Blanks

Jasmin Shokrian Draft No. 17

Jasmin Shokrian launched her main line ten years ago, and she used her Draft No. 17 collection this season to celebrate the anniversary. The clothes here were self-reflective in a witty way: Shokrian used trompe l'oeil-like color blocking on shift dresses to suggest old silhouettes and created a similar effect using sheer overlays on blouses. (A "Xerox" technique, she explained.) In essence, she was quoting herself.

But then, Shokrian is always sort of quoting herself: As a designer, she hews very close to her signatures, such as circular patternmaking, geometric color, and loose, cropped trouser silhouettes. This collection featured all of the above. But it was also atypically expansive, thanks largely to Shokrian's new emphasis on outerwear—a wool duster and burgundy anorak were particularly striking—and her focused detailing. To wit, the leather tie on a pair of karate pants, the petal collar on a button-down, or the slit up the back of a silk tee. She also turned out one seriously cool evening dress—a loose-fitting job in red that was cut down the front, up the leg, and along the side to make for a much sexier item than its shrugged-on silhouette would suggest. All in all, this collection proved that, after ten years, Shokrian hasn't run out of new tricks.
—Maya Singer

Jason Wu

With a cymbal crash, an enormous set of doors bathed in red light opened at Jason Wu and the first model stepped out wearing a military green wool cape coat overlaid in black lace, with long silk tassels dangling from her ears. We were in China. But before you go assuming that this was another grab for the Asian country's gangbusters market (Louis Vuitton's Spring '11 show comes to mind), remember that Wu was born on the neighboring island of Taiwan and didn't learn English until he was 10 and had moved to Canada.

Before the show, his most confident to date, Wu explained that he went back to Taiwan a year ago with his dad and that the trip had him asking himself, What is Chinese? "It's a funny question for a Chinese person to answer," he said. Maybe that's why he came up with three different ideas. There's the military China, which inspired the Mao jackets and shirts, as well as the army green and red palette of the sportswear that dominated the collection. The belted puffy jacket with armorlike quilting on the shoulders is destined to be a hit. There's the historical China of the Qing Dynasty, which informed the lushly opulent embroideries that Wu has made his calling card—that was shaved black mink embroidered onto the front of the epaulet dress that was the show's most winning piece. And there's the thirties and forties Hollywood version of China. "Inauthentic," the designer called it.

"Anna May Wrong," snarked one onlooker in the audience, playing on the name of the Asian-American movie star who was often cast in the role of the "exotic" in that era. And yet, from the looks of Arizona Muse's strange tasseled hat with the gold knob on top, Wu just may be in on the joke. Certainly, the red and black lace evening dresses were more florid than anything we've seen from him before. But if those numbers will be too costumey for Wu's crowd, there was plenty of that reliably strong sportswear to march away with.
—Nicole Phelps

Jean-Charles de Castelbajac

Jean-Charles de Castelbajac called his collection Fire on Ice, and invoked Iceland as the magical land of volcanoes that spawned Björk. It resulted in something enchanted and tribal, with a sometimes heavy-handed avian motif that the designer juiced up with primary comic-book colors.

There was evidence of the upgraded sensibility de Castelbajac professed last season, particularly in fifties couture standards. He opened the show with an elegant boxy sheath top recast in yellow neoprene and graphically printed with arcs of eagle wings. A black silk kimono cocktail coat was printed on the back with an erupting volcano, and a little wool skirtsuit had an ombré effect that approximated falling ash.

The merger of de Castelbajac's good behavior and his more antic side is still in its early stages, so it's understandable that it isn't always smooth. You're just not sure what to do with something like a perfectly fine charcoal tweed suit that has a cartoon eagle head on each shoulder. Other things made more sense: A rain slicker covered in massive patch pockets would be a staple for a JCDC acolyte, and you could envision a head-obscuring dress appliquéd with volcanic flame in a Lady Gaga video. A high point of the middle ground: an elongated wing-print varsity jacket—a cute spin on the new fashion staple.

De Castelbajac is a showman, which made the live performance of an entire song by the orchestral folk act Woodkid before a single model exited OK. But 56 looks pushed the boundaries of patience. A zippier edit might have added some fairy dust to de Castelbajac's magic.
—Meenal Mistry

Jean Paul Gaultier

Jean Paul Gaultier, the Frenchest French designer there is, conjured visions of New York on his Fall runway. There was a Silver Factory foil paper backdrop, and the Velvet Underground and Nico played on the speakers. The caution yellow invitation was tagged graffiti-style in black and red, and giant spray-paint bubble letters decorated many of the pieces. Other looks came in a multicolor surreal print that included vintage car grilles, license plates, and street signs that spelled out "Gaultier."

It wasn't his most subtle work ever, but it was only one of the directions he took. Gaultier reworked the trench one more time, coming up with twofer constructions that in one case turned a hem into a second set of sleeves and collar, and in another turned the coat itself simultaneously into a skirt. The furs—intarsias of different colors and dissimilar lengths—were the freshest things on the runway. Overall, though, this collection felt a little rootless.
—Nicole Phelps

Jean-Pierre Braganza

If the fashion industry gave out awards for Most Improved Designer, Jean-Pierre Braganza would win this season in a walk. Sure, it's still relatively early days for Fall 2012, but Braganza—heretofore one of London's less buzzy names—came out of the gate this afternoon with a show that was impressive in pretty much every way. Rich, innovative, technically accomplished, with a coherent and distinctive point of view: check, check, check, and check. Best of all, Braganza's collection was completely realistic; his clothes will have a life on the sales floor.

Braganza's starting point this season was Victoriana, and he gestured toward the reference with high necks, nipped waists, emphatic sleeves and collars, and a group of tailed mid-calf skirts that suggested something of the movement of a bustled gown trailing along the floor. More generally, he got at the covered-upness of Victorian clothes, and their sense of discipline, but he did so in a modern, personal way. One winning look, for instance, was a high-neck, long-sleeve pencil dress; the tautness of the silhouette and the dress' allover, lavender-toned granite print gave it a contemporary or even futuristic mien. Braganza has dystopian leanings, and in this show that was reflected in a certain geometric coolness: Shoulders were squared off, and draped dresses featured architectural paneling. There was also something Matrix-y in Braganza's terrific stiff jacquards. On the whole, even if this wasn't an absolutely outstanding collection, it was definitely a breakthrough one. Stay tuned.
—Maya Singer

Jen Kao

Jen Kao's show notes (accompanied by an original poem each season) are often a touch fanciful: "A foxy approach, polished but cagey. East meets West for nightcaps," said the program this time around. A cryptic statement, to be sure. But as the models stalked down the runway to a very David Lynch-ian soundtrack, Kao's cinematic vision for Fall began to unfold, and the result was actually more wearable than what we've come to expect from this imaginative young designer.

The opening series of military-inspired fur barn coats added a masculine tenor to the lavish oriental silk robes, dip-dyed fringe, and needlepoint Swarovski mesh. Kao's favorite piece—a cassis-colored, lacquered trenchdress with fan pleating—best illustrated the balance between rigid and fragile she was aiming for, while exotic python briefcases and statement crystal strand earrings played up the quixotic side of the lineup. These were the kind of clothes you could picture real-life rocker girls like Zoe Kravitz (who sat front-row tonight) wearing out on the town after sunset.
—Brittany Adams

Jenni Kayne

A "proper English gentleman's hunting wardrobe" was the inspiration behind Jenni Kayne's latest collection for cool, classy girls. If that makes you think of Downton Abbey's Cousin Matthew, you're on the right track, but Kayne's embrace of a theme is always gentle. Classic British fabrics like tweed and herringbone made appearances, but Fall was as influenced by Kayne's favorite decade, the nineties, as it was by manor living, so a digitized Prince of Wales check in burnt orange and blue was a cheeky modern update of an old trope. If that print, on a sheer blouse and slim matching pants, looked a little like Tetris (in a good way), a purple and pale chartreuse floral print was all girly garden party. The blooms came on a long, navy, bias-cut skirt and sheer, sexily slouchy top that, worn together, passed for a dress.

The idea of matching sets carried over to cocktails, a reflection of Kayne's personal preference. "I'm totally into separates for evening," she said. "I like the idea of offering something chic that's not a dress." A to-the-floor black skirt, sheer but for a mini, curve-hugging underlay, came paired with an artfully revealing black tuxedo top, sleeves rolled to the elbow. That was alluring, but the conversation pieces were two skirts—one black, one white—made from a pouf of feathers. The model in the white one wore hers with a white mohair sweater; she looked entirely at home in the tony library of the Chatwal Hotel, lounging by the couch. "I call that my Clueless sweater," Kayne said, confirming it was mohair. "In a good way."
—Alison Baenen

Jenny Packham

If it was a coincidence that Dita Von Teese was in the front row at this morning's Jenny Packham show, it was a mighty convenient one. This season found Packham trying her bad girl on for size, showing bias-cut gowns and embellished pencil skirts that paid obvious homage to the forties femme fatale.

The collection wasn't particularly racy, though. Packham's default setting is sweet, and despite all the lipstick red and noir-ish black on the runway, and the sexy dive of some of her deep V-necks, there was nothing here that would raise any eyebrows at a charity gala. (Or at Buckingham Palace, for that matter.) There were some solid gowns, though, several of which looked likely to be whisked straight off the catwalk to Oscar fittings in L.A. Packham's gold and black beaded bias-cut gown and voluminous floral printed silk were particularly memorable; a strong-shouldered black bias-cut gown with a plunging neckline, meanwhile, made for a fine approximation of the kind of thing that Barbara Stanwyck or Lauren Bacall might have worn at the Copa, back in the day. The problem here was with the emphasis on embellishment—Packham can be awfully heavy-handed, and a few dresses covered in crystals and sequins looked terribly weighty. Still, there were enough winners here to keep Packham's star on the rise.
—Maya Singer

Jeremy Laing

An artsy and stylish crowd, including Hope Atherton, Terence Koh, and Hanneli Mustaparta, invaded Chelsea for Jeremy Laing's Fall show, and the designer showed clothes to match. The Toronto native had decided to be "more honest" with himself, fusing his love for Japanese design (particularly the work of Yohji Yamamoto) with his passion for poetry and art. The result? A collection with a sensuous, post-goth minimalism that was less intimidating than last season's, and completely wearable. For the first time, the focus shifted from dresses and jumpsuits to layered, tailored separates, like the knit molded-shoulder sweatshirt and zip-back vest in bleach print velvet.

Laing managed to work in his signature architectural flare, but this time took a more malleable approach. Long kelp cotton and antique leather overcoats and shift dresses were done with full back zippers, transforming into capes and tunics when layered over leather leggings or pants in denim velvet (a new fabric for Fall). Laing creatively incorporated chain detailing to mimic Edwardian dandies, whom he imagined never left home without their pocket watches. And although last season's digital prints were nowhere to be found, subtractive bleach-stained designs, such as the "black lilies" pattern on an easy-to-wear wool and linen dress with leather sleeves, were dispersed throughout the collection.

Models walked the runway to music by seventies punk band Siouxsie and the Banshees, which accented the post-goth mood of the show and was perhaps Laing's way of tying in his desire to make his collection more accessible to "mothers and daughters." "I just want them both to think it's cool," he said. We suspect they will.
—Jessica Minkoff

Jeremy Scott

Faulkner famously said, "The past isn't dead. It isn't even past." Today, in his own way, Jeremy Scott said it, too. He was thinking of the persistence of the past in the perma-present culture of the Internet, when anything and everything is just a Google search away. "Things don't ever go away now," he said backstage. "Deleting history isn't really possible."

The rainbow spectacle he staged today looked back to the nineties, and at moments it seemed to glance at the way the nineties looked to the seventies, and, well, if you took out your magnifying glass, you'd, like, find a little bit of whatever you happened to look for. That's the conceptual bit. More literally, there were sweat suits, stretch dresses, and leggings printed with computer screen shots and instant-message emoticons. "We use them to communicate our emotions," Scott explained. "I'm angry, I'm happy, I'm horny, I feel kind of flirty. That's now a legitimate answer." He sounded a little rueful, actually, as he mimed pressing a button. "Boop!"

Is Jeremy angry? Happy? Feeling kind of flirty? Though he mentioned the euphoria of all those rainbows, the collection didn't seem to show his hand. It was more of a skittering LOL through the way we live now. (Though there's luxe lurking beneath the candy-coated exterior. Scott's rainbow chubby was Saga Fur; the rainbow-wig coat, 100 percent human hair. As Faulkner's fellow Southern folklorist Dolly Parton once said, "It costs a lot of money to look this cheap.") It wasn't Scott's most wearable offering, but it did confirm him once again as a provocateur—and maybe a more thoughtful one than he sometimes gets credit for. He, in turn, paid homage, with a series of knits, to one who came before. The nineties' original bad boy: Bart Simpson.
—Matthew Schneier

Jill Stuart

For Fall, Jill Stuart channeled "the dark, magical world of Nick Cave's women." Speaking backstage before today's show, she reeled off a list of the singer's sometime collaborators and lovers, including PJ Harvey, Lydia Lunch, and his wife, Susie Bick. "They all have this mysterious nonchalance about them," she said.

The designer achieved this kind of noir charm with rich floral-embroidered lace (seen on the opening long-sleeve frock worn by current campaign model, Daphne Groeneveld), berry-hue chinoiserie silks, and vampy patent platform boots. While this lineup was a cool departure from Stuart's typically sunny fare, she never lost sight of her ultrafeminine customer base. Youthful yet prim-collar peplum tops and oversize schoolgirl peacoats kept the look identifiably lighthearted.
—Brittany Adams

Jil Sander

The audience stood and cheered for Raf Simons as he took his final bow at Jil Sander today. Then they continued to stand and cheer until the designer, overwhelmed by emotion, reappeared on the catwalk. An ovation and an encore: That is the very definition of a hard fashion act to follow.

Which is exactly as it should be, given what Simons has achieved in his seven years at Jil Sander. Never mind that this was the best collection he'd presented for the label. In light of the week's events, there was an unwittingly bitter irony to the story it told. After last season's women's-world scenario, Simons wanted to celebrate a day in the life of a relationship, the pure and simple pleasure of two as one. But Raf's no Pollyanna. He was equally engaged by the hard work it takes to maintain such an ideal. So he introduced chaos into his dream world. The most graphically significant element in his collection might have been the slash of shine that split open Julia Nobis' strapless matte black sheath. Thus are hopes and dreams splintered.

Before that climactic moment, however, there was a seamless parade of peerlessly beautiful dresses and coats. A grace note was struck from the moment models entered clutching their coats closed. In Raf's day-in-the-life scenario, these might have been bathrobes, just as insinuations of slips and nighties crept in later. A palette of blush pink, coffee, and pale gray underlined an early-morning feel. The soundtrack was Mazzy Star's "Fade into You" and Sonic Youth's version of the Carpenters classic "Superstar," both songs where love is lorn. Can melancholia be uplifting? Here be proof, compounded by Smashing Pumpkins' "Tonight, Tonight," one of Simons' favorite songs. It sounded like an envoi to the Sander years.

He called his previous three seasons for Sander his "couture trilogy," and even before this week's shock announcement that he was departing and the house's namesake founder was returning, Simons had decided he wanted to unhinge the perfect universe he'd created. The leathered-up menswear collection he showed here in January cued a dark finale for his womenswear, where black leather and PVC threw a fetish wrench in a perfect day. Again, irony, in that the complete control of his Spring collection implied that chaos is a shot away. And here it finally was. Good luck to his successor. She'll need it.
—Tim Blanks

Jil Sander Navy

The sporty couture look we've been seeing the past three seasons at Jil Sander has been passed down to the brand's more affordable Navy line for Fall. Crisp shirtdresses came in numerous incarnations of hammered satin, bright plaid taffeta, or jacquard with an Arabian nights print, and were decorated with graphic embroidered collars or grosgrain bow belts. For every beautiful dress, there was a sharply engineered coat to go with it. Noteworthy in particular were the astrakhan wool versions with detachable mink collars and hook-and-eye closures, and the après-ski cropped puffers, which nicely juxtaposed with the pervasive midcentury femininity here. Accessories like the geometric cube backpacks and chunky rocker platforms added another shot of modern minimalism for an overall impact that was vintage-flavored yet still thoroughly twenty-first century.
—Brittany Adams

John Galliano

Bill Gaytten was well within his comfort zone at John Galliano this season: historicism, romanticism, and a healthy swag of sheer bias-cut chiffon. His muse for the collection—an "aristocratic heiress" at large on her estate—meant there were hints of riding jackets and capes, but Gaytten also introduced the proto-Art Nouveau style of nineteenth-century illustrator Aubrey Beardsley into the mix.

It's surprising that this was a first for the house, given that the decadently erotic languor of Beardsley's drawings is such a perfect match for the Galliano look. The dramatic final look in the show—a flowing chiffon cape over little black underpinnings—could have been lifted straight from the pages of The Yellow Book, the literary journal that Beardsley co-founded and illustrated. So, for that matter, could the first look, with its ruffle neck and linear graphic-ism.

In between, Gaytten gave his own spin to the traditional Galliano codes. What this meant in practice was a certain safeness. It may seem odd to say that in the context of clothes so extreme in their proportion and coloration, but the Galliano bar is set high. So the undoubted commercial spirit at work in windowpane-checked dresses, or blurry blanket-stripe coat-dresses (even if they were micro) felt like the kind of compromise this business needs to grow. Likewise, the pieces that had a distinct forties influence. They formed part of a relatively sober continuum that pointed toward the new realities for Galliano, minus its wellspring.
—Tim Blanks

John Rocha

Our review will be posted shortly. See the complete collection by clicking the image at left.

Jonathan Saunders

Jonathan Saunders' show took place 20 or so floors above London's business district, with a panoramic view of the city's tallest buildings in the setting sun, looking as Blade Runner-ish as they ever will. The analogy isn't as arbitrary as it sounds. Rachael the replicant was proper but twisted. So was Saunders' new collection. He started with the tone-iest of all associations—buttoned-up equestrian chic, starkly embodied here by a classic white stock-tie blouse—but his raw material was a peculiar Japanese photograph, which set him on a course to coloring his tailored coat-dresses and riding jackets with the extraordinary, off combinations that are a Saunders signature. For Fall, he's very taken by brown, lilac, and red. They were the incongruous anchors for the acid geometries that are another Saunders signature. The country-clubbiness of prim, long-sleeve shirtdresses; flared, box-pleated skirts; and sporty striped sweaters (occasionally paired with golfing visors) was equally subverted by palette and pattern. Though Saunders envisaged "a wealthy young woman" in his clothes, there was a definite through-line to the narcotized Sun Belt suburbanite of his Spring collection.

The designer made more play of texture than ever before, particularly with the embossed effect on coats, jackets, and skirts. It was another way to unbutton the equestrian spirit. But not all the collection cleaved to this subversive blueprint. Toward the end, a set of pieces embroidered with white star flowers had the delicacy of japonaiserie. One outfit, which paired an embroidered skirt with a green checkered sweater, had the appealingly elegant idiosyncrasy that saw Saunders' audience today once again turned out en masse in his clothes. And, Fall though it may be, the final red dress was a sweet invitation to the sun.
—Tim Blanks

Joseph

Joseph's grunge-inspired Resort collection came out of pretty much nowhere to become a blockbuster for the brand: Those checks and diaphanous florals have been in stores for a while now, and the demand for them shows no signs of abating. The Joseph collection for Fall seems to have been designed using the same formula that made Resort such a winner: In place of the grunge toughness, there were biker leathers and a military inflection; rather than the feminizing florals, there were ruffles and lace. And as always with Joseph, the collection was studded with top-notch knits and the kind of coats and jackets you wear to the point of disintegration.

One of the fresh ideas that designer Louise Trotter introduced this season was sweater dressing: The collection was full of ribbed tops, dresses, and skirts that were made to be layered. Another new element was ponyskin, which looked particularly good in a muted leopard print used in coats, pencil skirts, and bags. Elsewhere, Trotter traded in the punchy, Joseph-signature intarsia handknits for Peruvian-inspired ponchos and fringed sweaters with a more muted charm. All in all, this was a collection well stocked with knockout pieces—curly coats and camo fur, zigzagged angora-blend turtlenecks, ruffled dresses, and track pants in a soft gray lace-printed silk—that were delivered with the typical Joseph understatement. But this time, when the collection starts flying out of stores, no one is going to be surprised.
—Maya Singer

Josie Natori

Josie Natori insists that her three-season-old ready-to-wear line has the "same DNA" as her signature lingerie collection, which marks its 35th anniversary this year. But beyond the embroidery and lace, the designer's contemporary clothing proves to be a richer, more exotic beast. Leaving behind last season's Indochine inspiration, Natori chose this time to focus on the colors and terrain of the Mongolian desert. The verdict? Traveling north was a good choice.

The looks at today's presentation, which were styled by Annabel Tollman, offered something meatier and more textured than the jersey gowns and simple jackets from Spring. Kimono-style wrap dresses and sequined maxi skirts were paired with imperial red clutches; high-heel boots with embroidered lace appliqué matched cocoon coats with the same detailing. For a more structured look, belted tops constructed of perforated leather were tucked into jacquard skirts. Natori also expanded upon her jewelry, this time using semiprecious stones such as amethyst and smoked quartz to make necklaces that did double duty as belts. The best look? The finale's long black gown with a sheer, beaded back that was sexy, sophisticated, and a far cry from a set of lace underwear.
—Jessica Minkoff

Juan Carlos Obando

Resort was a game changer for Juan Carlos Obando, whose shockingly bright silk dresses—much like the "Miami" pink one Viola Davis wore earlier this week at the Academy Awards Nominations Luncheon—nearly sold out at Barneys across the country. "It's nice to have your bread and butter find you," said Obando in reference to his successful electric color palette. The designer has capitalized on the moment and started selling Fall in L.A. before today's show in order to accommodate the ongoing awards season. This move seems to have worked out, as today's finale number has reportedly been tapped for the Oscars.

Naturally, those blockbuster brights showed up on the runway, but they shared space with more experimental pieces. These were inspired by motocross daredevils in the arid Salton Sea area of California, who rage to the Chemical Brothers while riding out over the dunes, and "combine the natural with the artificial," according to Obando. The designer aimed to re-create that balance here with a brocade skirtsuit etched in neon lime on a sand-colored background, as well as brocade wrap skirts and biker jackets. On another synthetic note, Obando created faux pieces like a full-on "mink" coat that looked like real fur and will set you back a comparatively reasonable $1,200. Other looks ventured too far into the test kitchen, with melted industrial Swarovski paillettes and shredded tulle. But overall, this lineup was a step forward for Obando. He beamed, "I feel like I'm riding a wave right now." Surf's up, JC.
—Brittany Adams

Juicy Couture

Juicy Couture might be a bit like the most popular girl in your high school class. She earned a reputation for being uninhibitedly feminine and assertive—with a penchant for the color pink. But get to know her a bit better, and you'll realize that there's substance behind the Juicy girl's velour jumpsuit facade. Chief creative officer LeAnn Nealz has been working hard for several seasons to build up the contemporary label's fashion credibility, and there was plenty to be optimistic about at yesterday's Fall presentation, which drew a turnout of starlets including Emma Roberts, Kate Mara, and Anna Faris. Nealz described the youthful collection as "Sunset Strip in the seventies meets London mod squad." The eye jumped from printed paisley silk trousers to a peppy floral, slightly padded jacket with matching skinny jeans to a full-on Technicolor brocade pantsuit that hit on one of the season's biggest trends. Outerwear was a focus here, with swingy bell-shaped coats and faux fur capes adding a polished touch. Of course, Juicy nodded to its bread-and-butter leisurewear but smartly traded in those over-and-done-with sweats for leather track pants that we could imagine both casual Californians and their New York counterparts wearing for weekend errand runs.
—Brittany Adams

Julien David

The journey on Julien David's runway went from the great outdoors of snowy slopes to the great-there's-a-taxi outdoors of city streets. The collection was more overtly thematic than usual, but he mostly managed it with typical cleverness. In the well-worn aprés-ski territory, David turned puffa quilting into tiny circles on a silver party frock, and if you looked closely at the Fair Isle he pieced into anoraks and cut into chic little hooded blousons and skirts, you'd see city skylines and Hummers. "Our eyes are so used to seeing those Tyrolean patterns that you don't really see the difference," David explained.

The axis that spun country toward town was a crisp white shirtdress printed with two views—one mountains, the other a cityscape—abstracted as if seen through shutters. (In the urban glare and blare, the Tyrolean motif shrank into shirt collars, and there David's sneakily avant-garde tailoring was what stood out. It came in what he called a "bidirectional" houndstooth, which subtly zigzags from left to right. It's custom-made for him, as most of his fabrics are, in Japan. It's easy to see why David's coats are the thing that sell most at his longtime retailers like the Webster and Colette, and now at new supporters like Browns, Lane Crawford, and tough-to-crack Susan of Burlingame. Coolly elegant street wear is David's strength, and logically his comfort zone. Credit him for leaving it, but knowing when to come home.
—Meenal Mistry

Junya Watanabe

David Lynch's new album Crazy Clown Time skewers familiar musical genres—just like Mulholland Drive was a forensic dissection of film noir cliché—and that makes it some kind of aural analogy for Junya Watanabe's work in fashion. So it was purest logic that Lynch's sweet-sour music joined with Junya's clothes today in a celebration of the severely hybrid.

The designer mutated fundamental menswear codes. Everything from pinstripes to Prince of Wales checks, Oxford shoes to riding boots, camel coats to military capes—to create bold new forms. A trenchcoat became a funnel-neck cape; cuffed pants were opened out into the trailing tails of a pinstriped jacket. The ingenuity of such pieces was practically confounding.

Equally confounding was the passage of dévoréd, flocked, latticed apronlike dresses that closed the show. Colored in rose and mustard and burgundy, they had a deconstructed dustbowl-chic feel. That might suggest another of Junya's outsider analyses of Americana. As in, you put together the mutation and the deconstruction and you've got yourself a thumbnail of a society in the throes of collapse.
—Tim Blanks

Just Cavalli

Quite what the rundown tenement backdrop had to do with Roberto Cavalli's collection of clothes for 24-hour party people was unclear. Maybe that's Just Cavalli, a not-always-explicable law unto himself, just as the label says. In much the same obtuse way, the designer talked about "creating a new wonderful sound inspired by an old '78 vinyl." He didn't actually go quite that far back for inspiration. Instead, it was the spirit of London in the sixties that infused long-sleeved, drop-waisted dresses, often with fluttery scarf hems. Typical was a black and white group of striped georgette, mixed up with an exploded houndstooth and swirling op art patterns. These initial monochrome looks were steadily infected by leopard, Lurex, silver, and gold as the show wore on.

All of those ingredients are Cavalli signatures, and his renewed focus on them has helped make his main line a highlight on the Milan fashion calendar of late. Here he kept things short and sporty, bearing in mind that this collection targets his younger constituents. He also added tightly laced denims. So far, so focused. Then the focus blurred with knobbly knitwear and PVC pants. Oh well, at least Cavalli got the vinyl in there somewhere.

Speaking of which, a delightful soundtrack of ZE Records' greatest hits took us back on an aural trip to a time when it seemed like the party would never end. Good Time Cavalli is doing his best to keep the memory alive.
—Tim Blanks

Kanye West

Kanye West can't wait to carve his niche in the fashion hierarchy. At least that's how his choice of show venue—the same space Alber Elbaz used to celebrate a decade at Lanvin a few days earlier—translated to some skeptics in tonight's audience. And, truth be told, skepticism was rife after West's inauspicious Paris debut as a designer last season. But the element of surprise has always been one of the secret weapons of his music, and it popped up in his sophomore fashion effort by simple virtue of the fact that West won a much-improved badge.

He reduced his first collection's profligacy to a more concise statement in leather, velvet, and astrakhan, most often in black and always wrapping a legging or pencil-skirted lean silhouette. It was a declaration that West is learning self-discipline in design, and he amplified it aggressively with the martial music, the harsh makeup, the gladiatorial footwear, the odd croc collars. The show's tight edit left little room for anything beyond this core statement, but the hard edge still had some light and shade: the use of dévoré, for instance, the more relaxed sweatshirt shapes, and the clutch-coat decorum of the final outfit.

West unleashed his showmanship with a finale that featured gothic go-karts speeding out of the darkness of the Halle Freyssinet. Later, Azealia Banks performed at his party, just as she had at Karl Lagerfeld's dinner a month or so ago. Like Lagerfeld, West has always known how to make worlds collide, in his music, at least. How that talent might translate into an asset for his fashion remains up in the air.
—Tim Blanks

Karen Walker

Karen Walker was definitely the envy of New York fashion week today: As the designer explained before her show this afternoon, she'd wrapped up preparations a day early, and treated herself to ten—yes, ten—hours of sleep. That's the kind of rest pretty much every other designer dreams about, or would if they ever had the chance to go to bed.

Walker's relaxed pre-show state speaks to more than the fact that she lucked into a fashion week lie-in, however. As the collection she showed today proved, yet again, Karen Walker is a designer entirely at ease with her brand; season after season, she settles into its slightly offbeat, sweet tomboy idiom like it's an old pair of slippers. This season, bouncing way off the Jules Verne novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea , she added grace notes of bourgeois Victoriana and Brian Jones-esque peacock mod to her signature look.

In practice, the Victoriana translated into ruffled collars and trim naval notes of natty wool bouclé and gold hardware; and a fair amount of gold fabric. Boxy coats and jackets in a gold wool-blend material with a black undertone were particularly good, as were the pieces in a brighter gold wallpaper flock. The mod end of the spectrum was capably represented by A-line dresses, paisley prints, and Chelsea boots. Fuzzy sweaters and Walker-signature boyish trousers in yellow and orangy red gave the whole thing a modern pop. It was an eclectic mix of ideas, but Walker tied them together seamlessly..
—Maya Singer

Kelly Wearstler

Kelly Wearstler has a new book coming out this summer featuring seven recent interiors projects. But at a presentation of her Fall ready-to-wear line, she admitted that she's scaled back her decorating work somewhat. Fashion, as any designer will tell you, is a full-time job.

Wearstler's collection just turned one, so it's no surprise that she is still defining her niche. Prints, colors, and textures have counted for a lot since the beginning, but the sweet sensibility that characterized her debut a year ago has for the most part been replaced by eccentricity, edginess, and more than a twinge of nostalgia for the eighties. Wearstler launched denim this season, but you won't find basic blue jeans at her Melrose Avenue shop. Instead, think acid wash in six different colors. Knits are new for Fall, too, and, again, the same rule applies. There were yarn-fringed shoulders and a blue and black pattern inspired by a vintage tapestry she owns. Even an otherwise plain cashmere V-neck came in searing yellow.

In a savvy bit of timing with the upcoming Costume Institute show dedicated in part to Elsa Schiaparelli, Wearstler inserted some surreal motifs into the lineup. A burnout sweatshirt in an abstracted lip pattern might've been the simplest, easiest thing about the collection. It was also the best.
—Nicole Phelps

Kenneth Cole Collection

Kenneth Cole's company will be turning 30 next year, and the founder of the global brand is reflecting on its heritage with a new, higher-end line. "Kenneth Cole Collection is made for our same modern, urban customer," the designer explained at a launch preview last night, "but elevated in quality of construction, materials, and styling." The presentation at Cedar Lake featured life-size video installations of models along with recordings of their voices delivering the kind of bons mots that Cole has made his calling card over the years. "Some are attractive. Some are sexy. Few are available," said one. Highlights for women included a slick patent leather bomber jacket, deep oxblood haircalf pencil skirts and peplum belts, and a crocodile-print shift. On another exotic note, a cobalt blue python backpack was sporty chic at its best. The street-ready menswear had a slight military influence to it, seen in quilted wool parkas and lace-up leather boots. Few contemporary labels manage to strike the on-trend-but-not-too-trendy balance as well as Cole has here.
—Brittany Adams

Kenzo

It's official. In a mere two seasons, Humberto Leon and Carol Lim have turned Kenzo into one of the hottest shows on the Paris calendar. Diddy was there today. So was Francesco Vezzoli, Jean-Paul Goude, and just about every international cool kid and editor in chief—sardined onto three acid-hued levels in the space-age atrium of the Université Pierre et Marie Curie. "We wanted a venue that had never been used before," said Lim after the show. "We saw this space and we were like, let's definitely push it to the limit."

Push it they did. With models taking escalators to walk a full round on three levels, the staging could have tried a weary showgoer's patience. But these 50—yes, 50—looks kept the energy pumping. The theme, loosely, was interiors, thus the prints of marble tile floors and bunches of grapes. (Add resin-covered walnut jewelry, a collaboration with Delfina Delettrez Fendi, for a healthy sartorial snack.) The cool, slouchy, open-knit sleeves on tweed coats were meant to echo an afghan laid over a couch. One skirt and blouse looked embroidered with curtain tassels.

Leon also stressed tailoring, which showed up in fresh little skirtsuits of blouson jackets with full, flippy skirts, as well as in a narrow, high-waist, ankle-length skirt that was slit up the back. Overall there was a more polished, less street-wear vibe than Spring, and if it didn't have quite the same focus as their last outing, that was in keeping with Leon's notion of "a girl dressing up in her closet, playing with different types of clothing." More looks means more to sell for these merchandisers extraordinaire. It wouldn't be a surprise to see their logo tiger sweater, a revived house code, everywhere in a few months.

In general, the days of the fun fashion happening would seem to be bygone. But between the Magnolia cupcakes left on each seat—made by bakers flown in expressly for the show—and the Kenzo model army taking its final formation to major applause, this felt like a new incarnation of that spirit.
—Meenal Mistry

Kevork Kiledjian

There's a reason Helmut Newton never gets old as a point of reference for womenswear designers: The photographer was simply nonpareil at capturing the power of female sexuality, the mastery in feeling desire, and also knowing one is desired. To put Newton's trick in academic terms, his women are both subjects and objects, and for that reason, his work makes for very good source material for a designer like Kevork Kiledjian. Three seasons out, Kiledjian has developed an idiomatic sexiness; with this collection, it seems he's finally caught on to the fact that the women he's designing for want to feel in powerful in their sexuality, rather than beholden to it.

Kiledjian's starting point was a Newton portrait of Charlotte Rampling gazing languorously, yet hard-eyed, into the camera. There were echoes of the photo in the collection's pops of red, and especially in his excellent shadowy red furs; more generally, Newton hovered over the runway in the harnessing motif used in several looks. As is usual in Kiledjian's collections, the clothes were formfitting; this season, he went for a long, narrow silhouette, enunciated by tight leggings that extended over the ankle.

This time out, though, he was atypically circumspect, showing a minimum of skin. The silhouette got same-y after a while, and the silver-ball embellishment was overused, but the designer had a strong theme going with his architectural cutaways, and the jacquards and tonal color-blocking added a nice variety of color and texture. Where the collection really shone was in its outerwear: Alongside the furs, Kiledjian turned out some truly excellent motorcycle jackets, in particular the versions in cherry red and quilted black leather. All in all, a big step forward.
—Maya Singer

Kimberly Ovitz

If every unsmiling girl in a motorcycle jacket is compared to Lisbeth Salander this week, it will be enough to make the biggest Steig Larsson fan turn to violence. But hey, it's still early, right? In a phone call a few days before her show, Kimberly Ovitz revealed that she had been inspired by warriors this season—and who better embodies a modern-day warrior than Larsson's disciplined and vengeful heroine? The hacker would have fit right in among Ovitz's all-black-clad crew of toughies, though she would have stuck with the collection's structured outerwear and drawn the line at the draped dresses.

That divide marked the polarities at play—structure versus fluidity. They both came through in the moto jackets, which evinced a relaxed, lived-in drape despite their heft. Less successful was a knit body-con dress with armorlike embellishment that fell awkwardly between hard and soft. A gauzy chiffon column in white printed with a shock of wolf fur toed the line with much more sophistication. The best looks combined a mix of textures and tones: layered under a chunky oatmeal knit, a fluid olive jersey dress with a black faux fur necklace slung over one shoulder like an artillery belt was arresting and wearable. Sexy and fresh, it more than held its own against the hacker chic.
—Alison Baenen

Kinder Aggugini

By all rights, today's Kinder Aggugini show should have been a total mess. Its theme was "appropriation," according to the show notes; in practice, that meant that this collection was a cheerfully postmodern mash-up of cowboy motifs, baroque wallpaper, traditional menswear silhouettes and fabrics, Delftware, kids' TV icons, and more. How all of these references came to be sharing space in the hothouse of Aggugini's brain is a question for another day, but they formed a kooky unity on the runway.

The standout pieces were the ones in cowboy-dappled prints, in particular the sculpted minidresses and short skirts that had been treated with an acid to dislodge stray fibers. Aggugini aggressively mixed prints and materials, and the effect was chaotic, but appealingly so. There was an eccentric schoolgirl vibe here, one accentuated by the designer's integration of rolled-up tweed short shorts and oversize Melton wool coats into the mix; as with last season, you got the sense that his muse was that girl rummaging around in thrift-shop bins and getting inspired. The looks closing the show had a more grown-up affect: Aggugini turned out several pieces in a black tulle embroidered in wallpaper flock-patterned sparkles; he gamely played the material against a black silk printed with sculptures, and another in navy and white polka dot. Again, these looks should have been a mess, but Aggugini's artful juxtapositions gave the clothes a disheveled elegance.
—Maya Singer

L.A.M.B.

With quirky statement sweaters securely in place as front-row staples and street-style bait, we're sure to be seeing more of them from designers with a sense of humor. Gwen Stefani's contribution to the genre was a taupe crewneck with houndstooth-print arms that had the word "punk" emblazoned across the chest in sulfur green and hot pink. It was Stefani herself distilled in one piece: A retro sweater girl with a rebellious streak, all dolled up in acid hues and a dash of black-and-white check.

Those elements appeared throughout the collection, which, over email, Stefani said had been influenced by the original rock 'n' roll girls of the early sixties. The models' sky-high beehives and demarcated Twiggy lashes took you back; the collection's bold hues and digital prints brought you up to date. As for the silhouette, a familiar polarity was at play: Narrow pants and printed jumpsuits had a boyish appeal, while flared miniskirts and cropped cocoon coats provided a girly edge. Whichever gender they called to mind, the pieces paired a welcome ease with a pert punch. Punk, but pretty.
—Alison Baenen

L'Wren Scott

Ralph Lauren might have played the series theme song, but it was L'Wren Scott whose show more closely evoked Downton Abbey. Citing England from the 1900's to WWII as reference, she called the collection Tea Time, though that didn't come close to conveying its high drama. There were lean velvet and satin gowns pinned with estate jewels for a proper dinner, and even a floor-sweeping black cape—the perfect thing for eloping with the chauffeur. A gold brocade cape came with a huge bow at the nape of the neck and was lushly lined in royal purple feathers.

The clothes seemed as rich as the lunch: a tin of Petrossian caviar served with a baked potato, chives, and crème fraîche. Just try to sneak past an Occupy Wall Street protester in a purple brocade jacket over a matching ponyskin skirt and fuchsia chiffon blouse trimmed with velvet bows. Scott explained that her fabrics were so expensive that she took it easy on her typically heavy embellishment.

It's worth noting that several seasons ago Scott's first lunch was held for a super-elite group of 30 people, while today's guests numbered around 120. (It's still a relatively tough ticket to score for those lucky enough to rub shoulders with Mick, Daphne, and co.) She's come a very long way from making a few fab body-hugging dresses and jeans that make your legs look a mile long; her range of offerings has grown along with the guest list. There were jeweled clutches to expand on the handbag line she launched last fall and a rainbow of cage sandals from her shoe line, not to mention loosened silhouettes like the printed tea dresses with swishing skirts. The trick now will be to maintain her distinct point of view. So far, so good.
—Meenal Mistry

Lacoste

The runes suggest there's a waft of Andre Courreges' Pop style in the air. Felipe Oliveira Baptista certainly seemed downwind of it with his Fall collection for Lacoste, which made a feature of abbreviated rugby dresses that were ski-suit lean over tights whose side stripes made the silhouette look even leaner. Skiwear was, in fact, one of Baptista's inspirations—specifically, the uniforms Lacoste designed for the French national team in 1966. So there was a sleek downhill aerodynamism to the geometric graphics that helped define the collection. The zips, too: They were a key detail. Sleeves zipped open to create an attenuated cape-like effect, particularly striking in black leather.

But Baptista had also found pictures of a 1930s mountain motoring expedition in Lacoste's archives, so there was a subtle retro theme threading through his mondo moderno. It was most obvious in the menswear, but it also emerged in ski sweaters reconfigured with rows of Lacoste crocodiles, or pieces that were lightly quilted like something you'd see in an old photo, or the long skirts with flared hems. A lattice print was actually a thirties tweed writ large.

What united Baptista's inspirations was his ongoing commitment to the urbanization of Lacoste. The muted color palette—blues, grays, and whites—was concrete and steel. Camel and red accents were classically classy.
—Tim Blanks

Lanvin

There was the merest snatch of "You Don't Own Me," Lesley Gore's classic anthem of fuck-offery, on the Lanvin soundtrack today, but that was enough to cue the sense of triumph that must be powering Alber Elbaz in this, the tenth anniversary of his tenure at the house. There were the years when things didn't go quite right, when the YSL dream job turned nightmare, when he felt like the eternal outsider in fashion's sleek inner circle. But here he is a decade later, A-number one, top of the list, king of the hill, and somewhere deep inside, there must be a voice cooing to Elbaz that revenge is sweet.

The clothes he showed today certainly were. But not sweet like the pyramids of cakes that greeted guests at the after-show party. No, these outfits were suh-weet in their body-enhancing shape; their intense, delicious color; their feeling of wayward fun. Elbaz has always exalted womanliness (tonight he even confessed that he'd be happy to be considered a designer who reshaped women), and here there was a generous emphasis on the curve. Roundness too, especially in skirts that flared from hips.

But if you were to attempt to plumb Elbaz's appeal—and the sheer joy that seemed to animate tonight's audience shows how deep it runs—it might be the fun element that hits first. His ten years at Lanvin have given women a license to dress up, get down. The party section of the collection announced itself with gold brocade, then quickly leaped to glittering appliqués, beaded sheaths, exuberant prints, and intarsia-ed furs.

The models literally had diamonds—OK, sparkles—on the soles of their shoes. And when Aymeline Valade worked the runway in a black dress with a huge white ruffle coiling around her body, it brought back memories of those purely pleasurable fashion moments when catwalk divas like Pat Cleveland shamelessly strutted in the name of style.

Elbaz remembers those good times. Hence, the carnival atmosphere of his show closer and everything that came afterward. Alber himself crooned "Que Sera, Sera," with a backing group of signal figures from his past. ("Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Joey Arias on vocals, Miss Kim Hastreiter on xylophone.") But the fizzy fabulosity of the evening kicked another thought pattern into gear. All parties must come to an end, and maybe that melancholy prospect is a less acknowledged element in the appeal of Elbaz's clothes. Underneath all the dazzle, he gives you depth and a hint of darkness.
—Tim Blanks

Lela Rose

Architecture buff Lela Rose says that her latest collection was inspired by a recent trip to Dallas, where she became besotted with Santiago Calatrava's Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge. As the designer explained over the phone a few days before her show, her aim was to translate Calatrava's undulating, linear sensibility into a collection that married both romanticism and functionality. There were elements of both, in a pretty, wearable collection that benefitted from Rose's flattering tailoring.

The palette called to mind the patina that construction metals acquire over time—deep rust, darker magenta, and saturated blacks and grays. From afar, the surface of a pomegranate-pink tiered fil coupé dress looked like flowers; at closer range, it resembled patches of peeling rust. Befitting a collection inspired by urban buildings, the silhouette was attenuated and lean. Pronounced seaming gave shape to the clothes, but in a nod to Calatrava's swooping, soaring structures, woven fabrics created the effect of undulating lines. Coats were collarless and dresses' subtle pleats allowed for plenty of movement. For cocktail hour—or a lucky girl's prom—a classic silk cloque dress in ivory had chic linebacker's shoulders: They were sparklingly embellished with cool metal embroidery and pearls. In the past, some of Rose's pieces have suffered from too heavy a hand. Fall's restraint made for a solid foundation.
—Alison Baenen

Libertine

When Johnson Hartig relaunched Libertine a year ago, he did it with a bang: That Fall '11 collection had real finesse, with the screen-printing and embellishment Hartig applied to his vintage finds expressing a clear, poetic vision (at least with regard to the womenswear.) Then, last season, he returned with a collection that felt disappointingly dashed-off. The Fall '12 clothes Hartig showed this evening fell somewhere in the middle of that range: On the one hand, a lot of work went into this season's heavy hand-beading and -studding, and there were some stunning pieces on the runway; on the other hand, this collection was pretty much just the sum of its parts. And for every dazzling item—like the full, Alaïa-esque knit skirt with blue metallic paillettes woven through, or the show-opening black cape gleaming with studs—there was another look that came off belabored and literally heavy. All in all, a mixed bag. A very disco mixed bag, with a lot of cool floral dresses and A-line check coats redolent of heyday Blass.

On the men's end of things, it's fair to wonder how seriously Hartig takes the clothes on his catwalk. This reviewer's guess: not that seriously. Sometimes Hartig's playfulness works, as in motorcycle and varsity jackets bedazzled with punchy messages and skulls and crossbones on the back. Mostly, though, the menswear came over as an afterthought.
—Maya Singer

Limi Feu

"I have a feminine heart," Limi Feu said fiercely, as she pounded her chest. Then she dissolved into hoots of laughter. She is, after all, a designer whose collections have often been based on a gender-neutral, teddy-girl proposition. So her latest show, with the Marilyn Monroe-ish fluffiness of its hair and makeup, felt like a step forward—or at least, to some other place.

"The fifties, romantic, feminine," she said. OK, if you say so, Limi. The opening looks had a convent-girl severity, with a touch of blush pink to add inconvenient sensuality, but then that bulky-cocoon Edwardian thing that blights Japanese design insinuated itself into the silhouette. It was a blessed relief when Limi dropped in some fiercely corseted looks to restrict her voluminous white poet shirts. Better yet when an army green subtext snuck in. It is exactly that kind of unpredictable left-field touch that gives her collections the kick to carry you through the inevitable asymmetric, funereal longueurs. And if the only feminine heart that army green brings to mind is Private Benjamin's, then Limi may be on the right track after all.
—Tim Blanks

Loewe

Stuart Vevers has been at Loewe four years already, and if it hasn't exactly been one of fashion's high-profile bells-and-whistles collaborations, today's show was proof of how much a designer can achieve with a quiet commitment to his craft and an empathetic relationship with the 166-year-old Spanish house where he is creative director. Vevers' quest to find new things to do with Loewe's mastery of traditional leather-working techniques came together beautifully in a finale of leather outfits embossed with "phantom" details like belts and pockets. It was an artful trompe l'oeil effect that appropriately left you wanting more at show's end.

Before that, Vevers had found other creative ways to fuse past and present. Claiming inspiration from the Royal Andalusian School of Equestrian Art in Jerez, he gave drama to items of formal riding attire like cutaway jackets and britches by cutting them from skins, then adding those key embossed or tooled details, particularly the half-belts that held jackets in back. But there was also a more casual story—varsity jackets worn with circle skirts, a utility jacket, a peacoat—which elaborated on another aspect of the interplay between masculine and feminine elements that defined the collection.

With so much of it using glossily black, textured calf's leather, the danger was that a dark, tough chord would drown out Vevers' more refined notes, like the little tucks that drew in a shift dress or the scrolling baroque prints. It was touch-and-go at the start, but ultimately, Vevers struck a balance. And that finale brought it all home.
—Tim Blanks

Louise Gray

Louise Gray sent out only 23 looks, but they packed such an in-your-face visual punch, it seemed like much more. "It's just dresses," she said innocently backstage. But the designer also had a full plate of references, from the punk band Rubella Ballet's vocalist, Zillah Minx, to the cubist works of Fernand Léger and David Hockney's eighties-era opera sets. Toss in Debbie Harry and Diana Vreeland, and a sort of logic starts to form around Gray's hyper-graphic pastiche.

Then again, logic isn't really the goal. Particularly driven by Nasir Mazhar's fantastic and crowd-pleasing sideways Mohawk hats, the eye-popping print-on-print-on-print DIY layers, sometimes embellished with what looked like an entire jewelry box of random earrings, had an intended club-faring look. But there was also something a bit sweetly old-fashioned, like the look of a silver-black graffiti brocade skirtsuit shown with matching bar code-print boots—from longtime collaborator Nicholas Kirkwood under the Pollini label—and a matching handbag. Within the mad mixes, it was hard to pick out Gray's great Scottish cashmeres, but they were there in softly marled yarns with a bright contrast band of color and a cuff or hem. Her show notes stated that this collection was about "everything, all the time," and as such that excess did succeed. On the other hand, just one of those knits might make someone a happy girl.
—Meenal Mistry

Louis Vuitton

How do you follow up a merry-go-round? If you're Marc Jacobs at Louis Vuitton, you get your people to build an old-fashioned train car. From scratch. The steam engine it was attached to pulled into the Cour Carrée a few minutes after ten this morning. One by one, Jacobs' models de-boarded wearing outfits straight out of the golden age of railroading, followed by porters carrying as many as three bags per girl. The news on the bag front this season is their oversize proportions and exotic fabrications. "It's just a trip," Jacobs said afterward, but you could tell even he was chuffed by the grand spectacle of it all.

Longtimers in the crowd remembered a John Galliano couture show for Dior, the one where a train stuffed with supermodels steamed its way into Paris' Gare d'Austerlitz. The more interesting echo today was with Miuccia Prada's show in Milan, where she too put skirts, dresses, and coat-dresses—likewise embellished with enormous crystals—over cropped pants and platform pumps. Here, as there, the elongated silhouette created by all that layering was quite strong—Stephen Jones' squashed hats added a good six inches of height.

Even if the look didn't strike you as a modern proposal, there was plenty to marvel at, from the kangaroo leather swatches patchworked together into a checkerboard of matte and shine to the kaleidoscopic application of holographic baubles on brocade. Only a house with the high-techiest technologies at its disposal could pull off that kind of embroidery.

During a post-show interview conducted on board the train, Jacobs said he was interested in "things looking like they were from another time." The exhibition Louis Vuitton—Marc Jacobs, opening at Les Arts Décoratifs tonight, which tells the tale of the two men's contributions to the megabrand, clearly had Jacobs thinking about the company's nineteenth-century origins and travel heritage—and how to make the synergistic most of them.

Fifteen years into his tenure at Vuitton, he's not just one of the world's most fanciful designers and extraordinary showmen, he's also a damn smart businessman.
—Nicole Phelps

Luisa Beccaria

It's always party time chez Luisa Beccaria. Her sugar-coated version of the good life persists from season to season, but she continues to expand her repertoire—not necessarily moving beyond cocktail hour and after-dark, yet adding categories nonetheless. If a quilted velvet trench won't keep you dry in the rain, it will keep your shoulders warm in your guipure lace frock. A Lurex-shot bouclé tweed skirtsuit had a newness factor too, as did a fine-knit turtleneck sweater worn with a to-the-floor accordion-pleated skirt.

That maxi skirt in particular felt more fashion-y than typical Beccaria fare. In fact, the designer and her daughter Lucilla Bonaccorsi might be paying too much attention to recent Valentino runways. The echoes were strong here, not only in those pleats, but also in the eyelet pieces and the floral embroidery on a long-sleeve tulle dress with a full skirt. Another tulle number in a watercolor print of crystals had no progenitors we could think of, and was better for it.
—Nicole Phelps

Lyn Devon

The Lyn Devon girl is in love. Spurred by her imagination of what New York was like in the fifties, Devon designed a collection for a sophisticated uptown type falling for the city. A cozy, fuzzy angora coat in deep blue—"my version of fur," the designer said—was easy enough to wear with trousers and a tee. Dress it up for a date to dinner with any of the wool jersey dresses that left the shoulders bare and kissed the neck with a twist. Hand-painted, lilac-colored lovebirds were one of two great prints. The other was a repeated motif of roses—purposefully kitschy, Devon said, and perfectly charming, we'd add. The love story ends happily with Devon's heroine tying the knot at City Hall. She wears a snug white angora sweater for the occasion and a tea-length duchesse satin skirt, comfortably chic with pockets. Inspired by a bygone era when women dressed for the movies, Devon's clothes could have looked out of step. Instead, they felt fresh—just the thing, in fact, for stepping out in.
—Alison Baenen

M.Patmos

It was an exciting Fall outing for Marcia Patmos. The designer has successfully transitioned away from her knitwear comfort zone and is integrating more pieces like cool tweed "pas de deux" skirts, which can be styled several different ways by unzipping the front flap. This same convertibility also showed up on a reversible leather-trim tunic that can double as a T-shirt by detaching at the waist.

Color and texture gave the lineup a shot of energy. Nubby checkerboard jacquard trousers and bright orange and pink looks ("they go together like black and white," she said) were inspired by portraits of American Indian matriarchs from the early 1900's found in Edward Curtis' book The Women. "These ladies came across as so modern, with their graphic plaid trading blankets and wooden jewelry." Patmos worked with Tenthousandthings to re-create similar statement necklaces and tusk earrings from reclaimed wooden beams found in an old Brooklyn warehouse. She also continued a collaboration with Manolo Blahnik on vegetable-tanned leather shoes, which drove home her sustainable, stylish message.
—Brittany Adams

Maison Martin Margiela

At a Maison Martin Margiela show it can occasionally feel like the design team is ticking off boxes: Deconstruction? Check. Wacky tailoring? Check. Face-obscuring trick? Check. Last season it was the models' own hair wrapped around their heads. Today it was turtlenecks that reached almost up to their eyeballs. A new, exaggerated volume was the collection's central conceit. But if the work sticks pretty much to a formula, there's still plenty to like about it.

The tuxedo jackets that opened the show were faultlessly constructed; their matching pants appeared entirely normal from the front until the models turned and you realized that the hems were several inches shorter in back. A pair of capes also played the trompe l'oeil card. It wasn't until they breezed on by that it became apparent that their rounded, cocoonlike shape was created by sleeves stitched into pockets.

Deconstruction took two forms. In one case, the designers cut up and reassembled printed kimono fabric, and in the other they sliced away portions of pleated maxi skirts at the hip. The former was more thought-provoking.

Still, the greatest success of this collection was its no-brainers: A pair of double-breasted, stand-up collar coats, one in navy and the other camel, had a straight-up appeal that was hard to argue with.
—Nicole Phelps

Maiyet

For Fall, Maiyet turned away from the faintly bohemian vibe of last Spring for something darker and sharper. Backstage, creative director Gabriella Zanzani explained the inspiration was Santiago Calatrava, both in details like embroidery and appliqués as well as architectural silhouettes. That's partly the natural progression of things for a cold-weather season, but possibly also an attempt to skirt the crunchy, ethical-fashion pigeonhole. After all, Maiyet is both luxury label and geopolitical experiment, attempting to stabilize regions of the world by employing their local artisans.

Those production locales were called out by country on the run of show. But Maiyet's ethos is both the point and not the point. Meaning: It is if you care. For those who don't, this collection still had things that might make them take notice at Barneys New York, where Spring just made its exclusive debut. Outerwear was easily the strongest category, like a lean little military car coat with felted appliqués, made in New York and India, or a chic burgundy cocoon with a narrow shawl collar and single button. Simple blouses were also chic, as was most of the jewelry, but some of the dresses with contrasting shoulders and experiments in piecing together tailoring with free-flying Indian block-printed chiffon felt less than sophisticated.

At the show, company president Kristi Caylor reported that the first season was a success, making it onto store racks in spite of tough production logistics, and making it off of them. Reorders may even be in the offing. Caylor also explained that Maiyet is ensuring smooth expansion by partnering with Indian NGO NEST to upgrade and grow their artisans' skills. All good news, but as Maiyet matures and continues to show on a Paris runway, it would be nice to see a clearer point of view also come into focus.
—Meenal Mistry

Mandy Coon

Mandy Coon loves bats, so much so that she was delighted to find them in her hotel—a renovated Spanish colonial—on a recent vacation to Nicaragua. The country's flora and fauna provided the inspiration for Fall, and the collection's sole print was derived from the pattern on a moth's wings.

In her showroom, Coon explained that her cold-weather collections always have a dose of Man Ray and Helmut Newton, too. That came through in the nipped waists and slightly roomy pleated pants. Pleats were a recurring motif. A short navy circle skirt with a panel of black leather pleats was sexy and fun, the best kind of take on naughty schoolgirl. The moth wing print had a kaleidoscope effect on a paneled stretch and knit wool dress; worn with a detachable peplum (a no-brainer accessory) it narrowed the frame and added length—good things, most wearers would agree. When it came to positives, the collection was full of them.
—Alison Baenen

Manish Arora

Manish Arora did street style. Not the kind you're used to, but the scrappy pop visuals of graffiti and street art, merged with his own OTT sensibility, highly detailed workmanship, and the classic couture silhouettes he tapped into last season. Appropriately, Fall's mise-en-scène was an industrial open-air space on the river where a hoodie-clad crew—Parisian graffiti artists Rude, Vizion, and Broke—spray-painted the backdrop as models walked on by. (Be thankful Style.com isn't yet scent-enabled. Those fumes were a shock to the brain cells.)

What Arora does is still quite happily a bit cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. He's a guy who could out-Gaga the Lady herself. But this new injection of relative reality—which last season he attributed to wanting to let his freak flag fly at his other job as Paco Rabanne's creative director—can make his ideas and meticulous execution shine. Take the polished little satin skirtsuit or cocoon coat printed all over with surreal highlighter-hued faces and appliquéd with cherry blossoms (the motif was the work of Brooklyn street artist Judith Supine, whose images Arora found while researching, and which were used throughout). Or a New Look-ish skirt in iridescent laser-cut leather paired with a tulle blouse dotted with flowers, with not a golden ribcage in sight. A touch more reality: Arora's continuing collaboration with Notify Jeans.

For his typically grand finale, a parade of ten models in crinoline-puffed graffiti-print dresses marched out to pose in front of the freshly sprayed-on handiwork, which ended up reading "Life Is Beautiful." In Arora's world, it's fun too.
—Meenal Mistry

Mara Hoffman

"Shaman gauchos" was the theme of Mara Hoffman's latest lineup. The designer, known primarily for her lively prints ("that's how we tell our story"), did presentations the past few seasons, but decided to up the ante for Fall and "give the clothes the movement they deserve on the runway," she explained backstage before today's show. There is always a mystical intention behind Hoffman's work, so meteorite patterns, tapestry motifs, and "third eye" symbols appeared on signature screened silk dresses and intarsia knits. And a jewelry collaboration with All For The Mountain featured complementary Mayan calendar talismanic charm necklaces.

But what might sound like a pastiche of spiritual inspirations actually made for breezy looks that you could picture any bohemian bombshell wearing on a relaxing weekend afternoon. A cozy shawl-collar wrap coat and graphic beaded tweed cloak, in particular, made a case for the outerwear offerings here. Naturally, Hoffman threw in a few more editorial pieces, like a sheer, floaty "dashiki" dress, and is reportedly pulling out all the magical stops when she designs pal Pamela Love's wedding gown for a ceremony in May.
—Brittany Adams

Marc by Marc Jacobs

The rarely umbilical connection between Marc Jacobs' two collections was made even less so today by a Marc by Marc Jacobs show that literally scoured away every physical trace of the extravagant melancholia of last night's signature presentation. Not one solitary shred remained of Rachel Feinstein's extraordinary set in the Lexington Avenue Armory. True, it's always been that way with Jacobs' dual presentations, but there seemed something especially brutal about the way the fragile mood of one show was so rapidly unhinged by the stentorian stomp of another.

Brutal, but also significant, in that the collection today had a dark, martial theme. Frederic Sanchez's soundtrack was all Front 242 and Public Image Ltd's This Is What You Want…This Is What You Get, marching music for a new model army. The shoes were flat boots, the headgear was little drummer boy hats, the men wore military coats and felt officer's pants, the women were clad in somber wives-at-the-front dresses with stiff black underskirts peeking out below dark floral prints. Of course, that wasn't the whole story. The strictness was softened by outbreaks of bouclé, mohair, Lurex, lamé, and perforated velvet, which, like the sparkly-buckled pilgrim shoes in which Jacobs took his bow, pointed to pleasures beyond the regimented pale. Maybe the designer was, after all, reiterating last night's message: In the end, fashion is all about fantasy.
—Tim Blanks

Marchesa

There were four dresses at the Marchesa show that literally swept the toes of the front row, one of which even threatened to carry away Ingrid Sischy's phone, which she accidentally dropped on the runway. (She picked it up in the nick of time.)

That said, Georgina Chapman and Keren Craig's second time showing their dresses in motion continued to take them in a more realistic direction. Reality is, of course, relative when you're making dresses for galas and Oscar ceremonies, but there was lots in the shorter and lighter category. Two lovely caped dresses probably had thousands of dollars worth of lace embroidery, but they had an almost girlish sweetness. There was even a cap-sleeved wool dress that could work for (gasp) day.

Chapman and Craig's touchstone was late-nineteenth-century French painter William-Adolphe Bouguereau's A Soul Brought to Heaven, which depicts two angels spiriting a young woman through the clouds. You saw the inspiration in the winged embroideries and all manner of feathers, but also in the intimations of mortality.

This darker side could be seen in the dresses worn over skeleton-embroidered tulle bodysuits, the laser-cut black leather dress (with nary a sparkle or puff), and the engineered embroideries that traced the anatomy. Those elements lent the collection some invaluable bite.
—Meenal Mistry

Marc Jacobs

Marc Jacobs earned his reputation as New York fashion's consummate showman and then some tonight. The set was spectacular and huge. Dreamed up at the designer's request by his friend, the artist Rachel Feinstein, the construction paper folly looked like a broken castle. "Marie Antoinette's version of ruins," she said. A pretend fountain was perched halfway down the curving runway.

But we weren't in eighteenth-century France. Seventeenth-century Plymouth Rock meets the twenty-first-century street-style scene is more like it. Jacobs' models wore pilgrim shoes, of both the flat and stacked heel variety, affixed with giant rhinestone buckles. And their wild outfits, the designer said backstage, were inspired by the likes of Anna Piaggi and Lynn Yaeger, fashion eccentrics of the first order and mash-up artists long before the Sartorialist arrived on the scene.

Piaggi has never gone anywhere without a hat, and Jacobs had some doozies on the runway. Made of multicolored mink, they tilted this way and dipped that, like something out of Dr. Seuss. The getups were just as off-kilter: Wool stoles were buttoned over wool coats worn on top of patchwork skirts above cropped pants. Colors were all over the map; prints ranged from oversize paisleys to floral pencil doodles, and holographic appliqués dripped off dresses. Tinsel turned up everywhere. And volumes, in marked contrast to his strict, severe collection of a year ago, were turned up, too.

Padded hips? Prepare yourselves, ladies.

It was fearless, just like Piaggi, Yaeger, and co. And it made you fall in love with fashion and Marc Jacobs all over again.
—Nicole Phelps

Marco de Vincenzo

The fashion cognoscenti turned up en masse at Marco de Vincenzo's show tonight. They picked a good season to acquaint themselves with the Roman designer. Last season's ombré painted cable-knit dresses were a breakthrough, but the optical effects he achieved here were more sophisticated, and the overall takeaway more polished.

Backstage de Vincenzo said he was "looking at the beauty I know"—Rome, in other words. The geometric splices and the cabochon studs on the show-opening slim leather pencil skirt were taken from paneled doors found in his hometown. Later on, he created a similar motif on a leather coat with hand-painting. The coat's graphic pop was unique, but what made it truly special was the sheared fur lining.

Other pieces that had the editors in the room busily scribbling notes: a molded leather jacket with vertical seaming that produced its hourglass shape, a pair of black trousers with skinny ivory triangles inset below the waistband, and a long, pleated dress with a swirling marble print. De Vincenzo has a strong eye, but a subtle touch.
—Nicole Phelps

Marios Schwab

One of the inspirations for Marios Schwab's latest collection was Marlene Dietrich. He said he was drawn to her loneliness, a suitably film noir quality for the femme fatale Schwab was once again celebrating in his designs. With her face shadowed by a cloche or wide-brim hat, in a sheath with elbow-length gloves, in a lacquered lace cocktail dress or leather trench, she was, according to Schwab, "the woman you don't know who you fall in love with." Preferably in a city like Budapest. To the designer's credit, the cinematic "woman of mystery" kitschiness of such a notion never got in the way of a collection that was a logical but spectacular extension of his Spring show's dark glamour.

Fusing science and sensuality (a signature fusion, come to think of it), Schwab decorated his body-conscious shapes with mathematical patterns inspired by spirographs and harmonographs. The equation printed on his invitation was the golden ratio, the mathematical equation whose perfect balance is a symbol of perfect beauty, but what the designer insisted he was after was something "biomorphic," almost alien, with dresses molded to skin. Again, it was Dietrich who inspired him, especially the "naked" dresses Jean Louis designed for her cabaret tours in the fifties and sixties. Schwab re-created the effect with evening dresses that featured sequined sheaths glimmering under chiffon veiling, like fish scales viewed through water. They were beautiful. But the same biomorphic effect was realized in more subtle ways elsewhere, with the attention to necklines, for instance.

The lasting impression of a Schwab collection is as deliciously sinister as the narcotic green accents he used in this outing. And kudos must be paid to his musical collaborators, Wladimir Schall and Rafael Wallon-Brownstone, whose dramatic, string-drenched soundtrack incorporated snatches of Mahler, Bernard Herrmann, and the Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby." "All the lonely people, where do they all belong?" In Schwab's Fall fantasy, they'll be walking the boulevard of broken dreams in supremely stylish solitude.
—Tim Blanks

Mark Fast

Mark Fast's show today represented a welcome return to form for the designer. Put simply, the clothes here were realistic: Though Fast didn't stint on the skintight, barely there dresses for which he's best known, and though he did allow himself a few oddball embellishments, he also sent out a plethora of pieces that had universal appeal. Chief among these were the many knit garments in Fast's variegated stripes. The crop tops and fitted skirts had a sporty mien that lent a new dimension to his signature sexiness; meanwhile, the stripes added a graphic edge to the cozy, oversize wool cardigans and jackets. Elsewhere, the designer asserted some discipline over his feral fringes, saving the look for cool, hairlike shrugs and a few voluminous coats. Despite all the layers, this collection had a cleaner look than that of recent Fast seasons, and the clothes appeared better fitted and finished. The trademark hedonism remained intact, but it was expressed with a nice sense of refinement.

—Maya Singer

Markus Lupfer

What with his affection for loudmouth graphics and his co-dependent relationship with his BeDazzler, Markus Lupfer sometimes gets written off as a young person's designer. Now, the kids do love Markus—and chances are they're the customers keeping his line in the black—but Lupfer's latest outing deserves a look-see from grown-up girls, too. The best part of the new collection comprised tailored dresses, cigarette pants, and circle skirts made from rich, jewel-colored brocades and cut with a sporty mien. The material played well with Lupfer's black leather looks and slightly hallucinogenic oil-spill print, too. Per usual, the collection wasn't short on punchy knits—sequined, this time out, in sayings like "Carpe diem"—and they gave the collection some of that signature Lupfer comic kick. All in all, though, this felt like a pretty sophisticated affair.
—Maya Singer

Marni

Maybe it was Paul Hanlon's Vidal Sassoon-influenced, heavy-banged, dead-straight dolly-bird hair that cued the response, but there was a 1960s edge to the Marni collection today. It was helped along by the white stockings, drop-waist silhouettes, and decorative elements like metallic discs and the big rhinestone brooches that defined a neckline. Two coats—one red leather, the other butter yellow patent—had a pop art zing. Mind you, against that relative rigor, there were also Orientalist red accents, gold brocades, a lean black tunic with slit sides over three-quarter-length pants, and red kabuki-soled shoes with gold metal toe caps, all of which looked like they'd been borrowed from Suzie Wong's closet. But that too was a sixties reference.

Those associations may have reared their heads because Consuelo Castiglioni was brooding on a linear, architectural statement about volume with her new collection. That line of thought was a really big deal in the sixties, and the bold blocks of color here fitted with it. The extravagant print stories that are a usual Marni signature were noticeably absent. There were prints, but the graphic presence was confined to a tulip pattern and a naïve floral tracery.

This time, the strength was in the shapes: the oversize shoulders of a snakeskin coat, the drape of another in a gold-flecked rockabilly tweed, the swing of a cape. It meant the collection was much more straightforward, maybe more restrained than usual. One interpretation: Castiglioni's collaboration with H&M had allowed her to get a lot of classic Marni out of her system, offered her pause for reflection, and pointed her toward a possible future. Expect more changes.
—Tim Blanks

Martin Grant

This season Martin Grant opted for a presentation on mannequins instead of a show: Judging from these clothes, it was a switch that suits him well. Though Grant claimed he designed the collection just as he always does, the lineup had a quietly grounded and focused sensibility that made it pleasing for an editor but a bigger-than-usual dream for the designer's ever-satisfied retailers.

That seemed partly due to the increase in daywear. Those narrow, straight black trousers that started things off were beautifully cut. Paired with a shawl-collar coat or a houndstooth intarsia turtleneck with skinny ribbed sleeves, casual and slightly cool elegance never came so easy. Grant rejected the idea that his lack of needing to make a big runway statement turned things casual, but he did drop down another notch with the sporty, almost lounge-like element of silk jumpsuits pieced with ribbed knit.

The beauty of a static presentation was seeing Grant's details up close, like the sculpted petal-like sleeves on a little nipped-waist black wool gazar dress, or the almost surgically precise piecing of leather and wool on the shift with the blown-up houndstooth motif. Grant said he felt he was going back to his roots, and that made sense. There was a sense of highly refined staples—the perfect LBD, the perfect black gown, the perfect black coat. His rarefied clientele will likely take the opportunity to stock up.
—Meenal Mistry

Mary Katrantzou

Mary Katrantzou's thank-yous today included a shout-out to Antony Price, the British fashion legend whose claims to fame included dressing Roxy Music and their cover girls. Price was a specialist in the dramatic silhouette, and Katrantzou had clearly been doing her homework, because she recaptured that drama. "I'd already done the peplum and hourglass," she said backstage. "So I was looking for different silhouettes to emphasize embroidery and embellishments." And, Katrantzou scarcely needed to add, to frame those extraordinary prints that have propelled her lickety-split to the top of the London fashion class. Hence a godet skirt, so difficult to engineer print-wise that she made only four of them. Or frothing torrents of chiffon. Or a strictly corseted shape she'd extracted from some historical research (specifically Elizabethan England) without, she was quick to add, "crossing into the territory of costume."

Katrantzou also extended her repertoire in other ways. For the first time, she focused on a single color top-to-toe, like the crayons on her invitation. And she'd chosen deliberately banal subject matter to match the colors. Green meant grass, for instance, rendered as an ornamental lawn working its way down a floor-length gown. Yellow was expressed in a mandala of No. 2 HB pencils, erasers attached. They were rendered in rubber by the Lesage embroidery atelier in Paris—not only the first time Lesage's artisans had worked with such stuff, but also their first collaboration with a London designer. Clocks, hedges, telephones, spoons, and forks also provided source material. The bodice of a rococo red velvet dress featured a red typewriter, its keys providing a coiling abstract geometry on the skirt.

The serial patterning was so intense at times that it made you feel like the one person who couldn't make out the 3-D image in those Magic Eye pictures that were a minor craze a few years back. As everyone else shouted, one after another, "Oh, yes, I see it now," you'd be chewing on your eyeliner in a blind rage. But Katrantzou's conceits were so beautifully conceptualized—here never more so than with the bathtub that foamed with crystals and pearls—that her elevation of the quotidian to the sublime was, once again, easily one of the finest pieces of theater in London fashion week.
—Tim Blanks

Matthew Williamson

The square sequin embroideries at Matthew Williamson looked almost exactly like circuitry. And though the reference didn't always hit you over the head, a sort of space-age chill settled itself over Williamson's traditional embellishments, color, and glamour. Though when it comes to a bona fide chill, there wasn't much here in the way of things to keep you warm. If only a girl could afford the go-for-broke fabulous pastel rainbow fox coat that opened the show. Then again, this year New Yorkers have all but skirted a real winter. You have to ask: Are coats always necessary in a Fall collection?

Williamson's cocktail dresses are his bread and butter. Here they came in two shapes, a great straight-cut organza T-shirt with those circuit sequins, sometimes turned slightly more casual layered over a long-sleeve top. On the sexier, more structured side was a silhouette with slashes at the ribcage and a skirt that was cut into and paneled like a machine. It was an idea that reached its full potential in a blessedly unadorned but sparkly midnight jacquard.

Williamson is celebrating his 15th anniversary this year, which perhaps accounts for his futuristic focus. At times it was a clunky marriage of worlds—see the brocade skirt pieced with gold leather and worn with a Star Trek-like turquoise turtleneck and organza T-shirt. A gold silk blazer over ice blue trousers, in contrast, hit the right note. When it came to evening, Williamson splashed swishing gowns in baroque prints with great zigs of bright comic-book color. It made his models look like superheroines, about to take flight to the ball.
—Meenal Mistry

MaxMara

Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Querelle got a shout-out in MaxMara's program notes, and the cult film's theme song, "Each Man Kills the Thing He Loves," played on the soundtrack. Movie buffs were bemused. There's a major disconnect between the smart, urban style of this Italian brand and Fassbinder's stylized adaptation of Jean Genet's homorerotic novel Querelle de Brest.

And yet, this was a strong outing for MaxMara, focused on the power suiting and outerwear for which it's known. Exaggerated volumes have become a big story for Fall, and the design team experimented with them here, slinging crocodile belts low across the back of great coats to create a blouson effect above them. Peacoats, likewise, had soft, cocoonlike shapes.

Querelle was a sailor, which explains the abundance of striped marinière tops and the military accoutrements that went with them. Swishy sailor pants in silk jersey and substantial jumpsuits in army green double-face cashmere landed on the plus side, but there's not much call for suspenders in a professional woman's life, nor for caps and ankle-to-knee leather spats. In the end, these were really just a styling trick, and they weren't bothersome enough to distract from the collection's great-looking coats.
—Nicole Phelps

MaxMara Atelier

Inspired by The V.I.P.s, a 1960's celluloid curiosity in which Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton find themselves stranded in a luxurious airport lounge, this collection was aimed at today's jet-setters. Classic outerwear made up the show's very important pieces. Whether in a trench, A-line, fitted, or big-collared style, they all earned their status.

For this, MaxMara's more rarefied sister line, the materials have clearly enjoyed an upgrade. Coats came in either double-face cashmere or a mix of camel hair and cashmere, finished with unthreaded and natural fur. With its well-cut, well-made pieces, this collection is for a customer who, like la Taylor, appreciates the finer things in life.
—Marina Larroude

McQ

Right away, a question presented itself at the McQ show this evening. Guests were still taking their seats, crunching the catwalk's carpet of faded autumn leaves underfoot, and suddenly the thought occurred: Hey, it's not fall anywhere right now. Where did those leaves come from? Did the Alexander McQueen team have them specially aged for the show in a gradually cooling greenhouse? Is there a prop house in London that keeps bags of leaves lying around for just this kind of event?

Backstage, after the show, the leaves question was posed to Alexander McQueen's creative director, Sarah Burton. She asked around, and got back the following answer: The leaves came from trees.

Sometimes the answer to a seemingly knotty question is staring you right in the face. So it is with McQ, a brand that has coexisted uneasily with Alexander McQueen since its launch not quite six years ago. Tonight, showing McQ on the catwalk for the first time ever, Burton resolved everything that had been vexing about it: As she explained, the way to make McQ work was to start with the assumption that clothes should be beautiful, at any price. The clothes on the leafy runway were indeed beautiful; Burton shook out the key elements of the McQueen aesthetic—the romance, the dark glamour, the mind-blowing tailoring—and, rather than dumbing them down, expressed them in an accessible way. The showstoppers were the nipped-waist evening dresses, appliquéd with multicolor flowers and floating on a sea of tulle, but even the simplest pieces were refined in their construction and felt luxe in their details. To wit, in the collection's group of military-inspired menswear, a Persian lamb collar on a trench gave the coat a sense of specificity and richness, while the battered knit of an army crewneck provided the sweater with that McQueen grace note, a sense of time.

Unsurprisingly, the women's looks were more fanciful. The show started on a note of plainness, with felted wool outerwear in blocked combinations of tan and hunter green. But the drama in the womenswear amped up quickly, with heavily embroidered sculpted skirts and coats giving on to bustier-chested evening dresses topped with gothic black lace. Even the outerwear silhouettes became more vivid: One excellent look was the precisely tailored coat in Black Watch plaid with its dramatic flare. Finally, the last look appeared: a New Look-style dress in white, which nearly matched the pallor of the model wearing it. That model was Kristen McMenamy, and she proceeded to give a little dumb play, seizing a rope from under the leaves and pulling it to lead her to the slowly illuminated forest that had been created at the back of the runway. There was a small building set amid the trees—a woodshed perhaps? Or a mausoleum?—and McMenamy followed the rope all the way into it and disappeared. Just when you were thinking this was some kind of metaphor for death, a neon light flipped on in the cabin: the Core Club. A four-on-the-floor dance beat picked up. Are they raving in heaven? A question for another day.
—Maya Singer

Meadham Kirchhoff

How did this happen? Once upon a time, Ed Meadham and Ben Kirchhoff were the angry young men of English fashion. They used their runway as a stage for expressing feminist rage, romantic torpor, alienation. Now they're hosting an interplanetary disco. What?

None of the above should be read as a complaint. Quite the contrary: For Meadham Kirchhoff, jubilation is its own kind of political stance, a way of telling all the depressed, enraged, alienated misfits out there to screw the world and come join the party. There's no revenge sweeter than turning a frown upside down. After today's show, Kirchhoff described the new collection as being inspired by the club he wants to go to, if only it existed; he and Meadham used their slot on the fashion calendar not only to illustrate that fantasy but to enact it. There were colored lights on the runway, models throwing glitter in the air, and an audience of Meadham Kirchhoff cultists jamming along in the seats. It would have been fitting if the show had concluded with a spontaneous dance-off.

OK, the clothes. There was a lot to take in here, and the obvious highlights included the rainbow-hued chiffon dresses, the sequin bustiers, and the showstopping, paradigm-shifting multicolored furs. The furs worked almost like an intarsia knit, with cartoon insignia made by piecing together various cuts of dyed fur. Yet the most impressive thing about this collection may have been its deep bench of accessible pieces, like the denim with cartoon appliqués, or the silvery brocade tailoring, or the nubby graphic sweaters, or the trousers in a yellow and black lumberjack check. There seemed to be a rationale beyond the commercial in these pieces; namely, Meadham and Kirchhoff are extending a hand to all the people for whom a dress made out of tinsel, say, is a bit de trop. It's their party, and seriously, everyone's invited.
—Maya Singer

Michael Angel

Digital prints have long been Michael Angel's modus operandi, and it seems the rest of the fashion world has caught up: Mirrored head-to-toe prints have been having a moment. But Angel remains focused on personal progress, and this season he's limiting himself to just one pattern (as opposed to more than a few, typically): wispy, feminine feathers that simultaneously "look mechanical and tough, like shards of razors."

There was a new emphasis on outerwear for Fall, with cocoon-shaped, masculine-inspired bomber jackets and drop-shoulder topcoats shown over straight and narrow shift dresses. Angel also added knitwear to his offerings. A massive sweater woven from ropelike strands of merino wool was strictly editorial, but the stiff wide-leg trousers with an inverted box pleat were an on-trend example of how Angel is wising up when it comes to sales, and featuring more practical items that still show off his unique approach.
—Brittany Adams

Michael Kors

Michael Kors had a very good day on Wall Street yesterday, with his company's shares rising 27.5 percent. The collection that put him in the spotlight again this morning won't be slowing that upward trajectory. After 30-plus years in the business, Kors has his formula down cold. Today he conjured images of a rustic-luxe cabin in the woods in wintertime—one exceedingly well stocked with buffalo check and fox fur. His trick, as always, was to filter it all through his glamorous yet practical lens.

There's a story Kors loves to tell, about a client who buys the designer's clothes in multiples, one for every house. These, too, will play as well in Manhattan as they will in Aspen. Especially the furs—shearling, Mongolian lamb, raccoon. Their envy-inducing potential would go to waste in the wilderness. For women who prefer their outerwear on the tamer side, he showed tartan chesterfields and striped blanket ponchos with deep fringe.

Daywear was all about the unexpected mix: an almost conservative midi-length skirt paired with a knit lace tank bustier, or black leather adding edge to a gray plaid dress. Cocktail hour continued to match country with city—see the ivory fisherman sweater and the gold lace skirt. But high evening was highly polished. The crystal-beaded stretch jersey gowns in red and black with keyhole backs were stunners. We wouldn't mind seeing an Oscar nominee wear either one of them.

His menswear played a call-and-response with the women's offerings. He might have done better by skipping the man-furs and a tartan crombie and matching trousers topped by a leather harness, and showing some elegant formalwear instead.
—Nicole Phelps

Michael van der Ham

Click sometime soon on Net-a-Porter, and you can catch a milestone of Michael van der Ham's young career. His Spring collection scored him that retail big whale for the first time, quite something for the Central Saint Martins grad whose first collection wowed the fashion set but seemed virtually impossible to produce. Since then, van der Ham's work has been to refine the cacophonous but clever collaging he's made his distinct signature and to nudge it forward. For Spring, he told the story with prints. This season he explored knitwear, another highly sellable category, which helped streamline his ideas, as in a color-blocked T-shirt and skirt, both with wavy stripes.

Van der Ham cited Veronica Lake and the Ziegfeld Follies as inspiration. Perhaps that old Hollywood gloss accounts for the amped-up luxury here. It stood out most in all the metallic—the gold lace that was appliquéd on a semi-sheer jacquard in soft skirts and burnished silver bouclé tops. As for those Follies, they came through in the blousy drama of the abstract prints worked into some dresses, and you struggled a little to let these grip you in the way that van der Ham's work can do. That wasn't an issue for the chic trio that closed the show; their components of top, skirt, and back of dress had an easier-to-parse simplicity. But not all was as it seemed. As two walked by you, you saw a flash of bright underskirt through a slit. They were like the three wise women, leading the way to a promising new direction.
—Meenal Mistry

Miguel Adrover

The symbolism was impossible to avoid. At 5 p.m. this evening, Alexander Wang debuted his latest collection to a packed house in midtown. At 6 p.m.—or thereabouts, since it was a long, traffic-jammed drive between venues—Miguel Adrover returned to the fashion stage with a show at Teatro Latea on the Lower East Side, where he presented his famous Quentin Crisp collection 12 years ago. Today, Wang is the paradigm of up-and-coming New York designers: A commercial juggernaut, with his supply chain and streetwise merchandising firmly in hand. A dozen years before, the paradigm was Adrover, a pauper stitching together garments from an old mattress. Times—needless to say—have changed.

Adrover's goal this evening was an ambitious one: More or less, he wished to stage a fashion revolution, one inspired by the fresh leaves being turned over in the Middle East. As he put it after the show, he wanted "to lose contact with fashion as it is now, and to set forth a new vocabulary." It's hard to argue with a guy who comes over as a cross between Jesus and Pan, but it seems fair to point out that the clothes he showed tonight had a pretty familiar vocabulary, one he essentially established himself. That said, it was nice to be refreshed on it; more than a few designers, Wang included, have played with Adrover's ideas over the years, but seeing his dresses made from backwards button-downs, suit jackets, and baseball caps was like sitting in on a deconstruction master class. Adrover is an incomparable imagineer, as they say at Disney; he sees potential for interesting volumes in the most mundane garments, and uses all his marvelous skill as a tailor and patternmaker to bring those visions to life.

But the most intriguing pieces on the runway tonight were the ones that witnessed Adrover's contact with street style, both local and far afield. There were his drooped, hip-hop redolent trousers and stacked baseball caps; and eerily beautiful, brightly colored burka dresses. It would have been nice to see him pursuing more of those experiments, rather than, say, sending out a tunic covered with sock-puppet cats. (Attack! Attack!) Another quibble: the models tossing out Cuban peso notes as they sidled down the catwalk. This is the kind of thing that gives fashion people a reputation as un-deep thinkers. Adrover isn't glib, but in some ways his critique of the commercialization of fashion felt thin, and the strewn bills underlined that impression. Rage against the machine, by all means, but the leveling blow will always come from the rager who's worked to understand it.
—Maya Singer

Milly

Unexpected volumes were the big story on today's Milly runway. Michelle Smith showed a fresh Fall collection full of couture-inspired shapes that felt imaginative and different for the brand that built itself on ladylike designs with an edge.

Cases in point: the shocking-pink, structured jumper dress with origamilike loop details; and a techno taffeta miniskirt with padded hips. But fear not, ladies. While padded hips may sound like an unflattering fashion trap for those who aren't sample size, Smith assured us backstage after the show that she had all the girls on her team (with a variety of body types) try out the look, and now they're reportedly total believers. The key is balancing out the dramatic lower half with a slim top like the on-trend turtlenecks worn here.

Less experimental Milly fans will also find plenty of classic, flirty merch with endless layering possibilities, like leather circle skirts and quilted nylon vests.
—Brittany Adams

Misha Nonoo

A couple of weeks ago, Misha Nonoo won the womenswear prize at the Fashion Group International's 15th Annual Rising Star Awards. She split it in a tie with Wes Gordon, but still, it gave the designer an extra dose of energy just before her presentation. Milk Studios also offered the designer a space at the Standard Hotel, where she showed 17 looks from her French-inflected collection last night.

Nonoo started her line a little over three years ago with a partner, and their focus was coats, which were admired for their special details. This time around, the collection lacked an equally strong point of view. Printed pants paired with peplum jackets and wool ruffled skirts matched with lace chiffon tops felt a little bit like déjà vu with other designers. Establishing a foothold in the competitive contemporary market is no easy task, but paying too much attention to collections like Carven and 3.1 Phillip Lim certainly isn't the answer. Coats and jackets are still Nonoo's forte and were no doubt the strongest items she showed.
—Marina Larroude

Missoni

Angela Missoni's collaboration with Nature, the greatest designer of all, worked out well for the family business today. The backstory was a girl who wants to lose herself in the wild but is stuck living in the city. By applying Missoni's techniques to nature's textures, Angela wove an urban wardrobe out of wood, stone, fur, tree bark, and mica-sparkled minerals. The union made perfect organic sense, even if the show itself, with its drawn-out staging, could have benefited from some judicious man-made editing.

Befitting the inspiration, the collection was full of evocative details. One sinuous sheath was infested with beading that looked like pine needles. Another had a copper-colored design creeping across it, like a mineral seam running through soil. A dress was over-embroidered to look like wood grain, but it could just as easily have been the patterning produced over years by decaying leaves on a forest floor. The dégradé stripes on a shirtdress suggested sedimentation, another pattern evoked spreading mold. One of the most dramatic effects had a typical Missoni multicolored knit overwhelmed by creeping gray, like smoke spreading across a dawn sky.

A subtext to the story was protection. According to Angela, the Missoni girl needed to keep her heart warm, so there were stoles that tightly wrapped shoulders, as well as big fur collars. And Missoni has discovered needle-punching, which meant knits and lace were hybridized with animal skins to produce new effects. For some time, Missoni's creative energy has been directed toward reconceptualizing the label's signatures, which had become familiar to the point of cliché. This collection was a genuine push in a different direction. Still, there are so many people who are in love with easeful cliché that an ambivalent response is to be expected.
—Tim Blanks

Miu Miu

The big message at Miu Miu was pantsuits. "After years of skirts, they're the one thing I find exciting at the moment," Miuccia Prada said after her show. She wore the black astrakhan two-piecer with the purple crystals that Magdalena Frackowiak modeled in her Prada show two weeks ago. Fresh off his own second show of the season, Marc Jacobs offered her congratulations and told her how great she looked.

On the runway, the cuts were more butch: Oversize men's jackets and high-waisted floods were paired with seventies collared shirts, frilly ties, and clashing ascots, and came accessorized with chunky belts and even chunkier loafers. As for the suit fabrics, they ranged from street-ready solids with a bit of a sharkskin sheen to only-for-the-bravest Art Nouveau-ish florals. Some jackets had this season's capelike back.

Will Miuccia's pantsuits generate excitement in Miu Miu fans? Tough to say; they love their dresses. Then again, the matching-print pantsuit is one of Fall's key trends. Either way, the show ended with an insurance plan: tiny A-line dresses affixed with mirrored appliqués big enough to see your reflection in.
—Nicole Phelps

MM6 Maison Martin Margiela

MM6 Maison Martin Margiela, not unlike the house's signature collection, takes a humorous approach to fashion. In the Fall lineup, you'll find a dove gray sweatshirt with unique Fair Isle-patterned laser cutouts, light wash jeans with skinned-knee-proof leather patches, and a range of whimsical accessories featuring neon "scooby strings" accents that should bring you right back to the arts and crafts table at summer camp. But having a laugh is just part of the MM6 MO. The collection is chock-full of practical, multifunctional daywear. The bottom of a puffy parka coat, for example, zips off to create an alternative, cropped look; apparently, with a little imagination, you can also style the detached part as a scarf. The functionality extends to footwear, too. Another serviceable zipper transforms a pair of comfortable wedge booties into knee-high numbers. The only off note: exaggerated, thick wool pullover sweaters that seemed quite cumbersome compared to the collection's clever, utilitarian pieces.
—Brittany Adams

Moncler Gamme Rouge

Moncler gives good show. Today, a couple inches of artificial snow dusted the runway; above it, designer Giambattista Valli had a working chairlift installed. Moon boot-ed male models stomped around the lift, toting skis, shopping bags, and suitcases. You got the sense that if Valli could've figured out how to fit a mountain inside the Couvent des Cordeliers venue, he would've had fun doing that, too.

Instead, he printed piqué fabric with photos of snow-capped peaks and cut it into the cocoon coats he's been making for the Gamme Rouge label for several years now—which, by the way, happen to be the shape of the season. The models wore their hair in massive sixties-style bouffants or donned equally oversize Mongolian lamb hoods that matched their fluffy boots.

Other toppers came in a blue-and-red windowpane check on ivory bisected by swathes of shearling, or in black bouclé. The most interesting part of the collection was the white group. Valli chose glistening fabrics that expertly mimicked the way sun reflects off frosty snow. That became especially clear when the models plopped themselves down under the spotlights and propped open their tanning reflectors.
—Nicole Phelps

Moncler Grenoble

For three seasons now, Moncler Grenoble has made New York its playground. Last winter, it headed to Chelsea Piers' driving range, for Spring it staged an impromptu dance party in Grand Central Terminal, and tonight, Remo Ruffini and his considerable resources brought the traveling show to Central Park's Wollman Rink. It was nearly freezing, even with the heat lamps and waiter-delivered cups of cider, hot chocolate, and mulled wine, which for a skiwear brand showing at an ice rink seemed perfectly apropos. Even the weather seemed dramaturgically in step with the proceedings. Now those are production values!

And production values are what Moncler's Grenoble line has made itself about. Suffice it to say that the company makes very nice, very luxurious down parkas, ski pants, and a few knits. It will need to suffice to say it because the performance that ensued—incorporating speed skating, synchronized skating, on-ice line dancing, and a children's choir—made it rather difficult to see it. Still, with spectaculars like these, it'd be Grinchy to complain. There was a red section, a white section, and a blue section—the French tricolore in action. Old Glory, too. By the second cup of mulled wine, you could start to see the whole thing as an international gesture of good vibes between France (home of Moncler) and the U.S. Then "Rhapsody in Blue" came over the stereo speakers, and after that, the children's choir launched into "New York, New York." They don't make Franco-American love letters like this anymore—not since Lady Liberty herself.
—Matthew Schneier

Monique Lhuillier

For Fall, Monique Lhuillier envisioned a tougher girl than Spring's counterpart. "Darker," the designer said in her showroom a few days before hers how. "More sultry." The palette was red and black—"It is the Year of the Dragon," she pointed out—and prints were inspired by lava and volcanic stones. One of Lhuillier's goals was to create an illusion of linearity, so she used waist-narrowing leather corset belts to deflate volume throughout. Overall the silhouette was lean and long—thanks, in part, to the teetering, patent-heeled Manolo Blahniks that played up the collection's bondage feel. Long sleeves were a constant, too, skinny enough that they required zippers for getting in and out. How's that for foreplay?

Back to the prints. The fiery pattern on the opening dress had been printed directly onto lace (much to the consternation of the Italian mill), stripping the fabric of all its dainty connotations. Sequins accounted for other embellishments. They formed the shimmering gold epaulets on an evening-appropriate jumpsuit with a sheer mesh back. The jumpsuits were part of Lhuillier's effort to expand her non-gown offerings, but fear not: There were lava-hot dresses, too. Leather and organza strips made up the skirt of one while metallic paillettes in the shape of licking flames glittered along the entire length of another. A gown with a red organza skirt that was anything but linear closed the show. Celebrity stylists, get on your marks.
—Alison Baenen

Moschino

Rossella Jardini has opted out of Milan's somber trend. That should hardly surprise anyone; this is Moschino we're talking about. "We're throwing a parade," she announced backstage. "We want a good time." With marching drums on the soundtrack, she sent out a lively, leggy, and young-looking collection. Skirts were cheerleader-short over platform ankle boots, and dresses came drop-waisted like those of a little girl. There were even giant bows in the models' hair, holding their French twists in place. And colors were straight out of a Crayola box: red, sunshine yellow, and cobalt blue, in addition to plenty of black and white.

A parade takes all types, so Jardini threw in sport elements in the form of color-blocked ski pants and complementary ski sweaters and added edginess via quilted black leather pieces. Naturally, given the show's starting point, there were some bandleader jackets as well. It sounds pell-mell, but it held together. She even managed to get a laugh or two out of the crowd with a helmet made from black ostrich feathers. At a 9 a.m. show, yes, a few giggles counts as a good time.
—Nicole Phelps

Moschino Cheap And Chic

Once you consider it, the answer to the question "Why is Moschino Cheap And Chic showing in London?" quickly becomes another question: "Why wasn't Moschino Cheap And Chic showing in London all this time?" The kooky-cute Italian label and the city's kooky-cute fashion crowd are a perfect match.

Before the show, creative director Rossella Jardini explained that she wanted international glamour and an international point of view. It's not clear whether the endgame is a generally higher profile—like the one Miu Miu got by breaking away from the Milano mother ship to Paris—but the move still says something about London's current energy.

The collection was named Make Up Your Life, a double entendre for actual makeup and a sort of exhortation to choose your own adventure through clothing. "It means mash up your clothes to find your style," said designer Francesca Rubino. "And find the life you like. Times are hard, so we have to use clothes to have some fun."

That mission was accomplished here, where the look assumed the general outlines of a fifties-era lady's wardrobe, but in patchwork lace, Muppet-y rainbow fur, candy-bright pleated chiffons, and what looked like a fancy silk gazar printed with scattered makeup pots. There were typical wink-nudge moments of visual wit, like the single black-sequined mustache on a shift printed with lipsticked faces. You have to marvel at the effect of context—the whole thing made perfect sense here. And when the denizens of go-go London go forth, ply their influence, and get photographed—our bet for Most Likely to Be Papped are the afghan-trimmed knits—that context could expand. Jardini and co. just might be on to something.

—Meenal Mistry

Mother of Pearl

Mother of Pearl impresario Maia Norman is out to curate your closet. Each season, the brand creates a collection that adapts the work of a different artist: Recent seasons have seen MoP taking on Jim Lambie, Keith Tyson, and Fiona Banner; next year, with the launch of pre-collections, Norman is set to invite emerging artists into the fold. This time out, the artist in the house is Fred Tomaselli—a smart choice, given that Tomaselli's hallucinogenic collage paintings practically beg to be turned into prints.

This Mother of Pearl did with verve, turning Tomaselli's ornithological murder spree Birds into pretty silk prints and cashmere intarsia knits and extracting rich, kaleidoscopic patterns from his Millennium Phosphene Bloom. Tomaselli's Hang Over and Night Music for Raptors got some play here as well, and more generally, the glittering surfaces of his wood panels inspired the collection's well-judged crystal embroidery. A cashmere sweater that was intarsia-knit to look strung with gems, for instance, took on extra punch courtesy of the addition of crystals and pearl beads, while bronze dresses and gauzy blouson tops were topped, chicly, with a crystal choker.

The artist focus at Mother of Pearl has a way of distracting from the fact that this brand is increasingly well designed. There's a savvy strategy at work: Season to season, the actual look of the clothes stays reasonably consistent, with sporty pieces and simple yet refined tailoring providing a canvas for endless reinvention. It's worth noting, though, that while a pair of slim track pants looked terrific in a print from Tomaselli's Phosphene, they were pretty sharp in plain plum-colored silk, too. Ditto the unadorned leather jackets and wide-leg trousers. To exit the realm of art, for a moment, and employ a music metaphor, the Mother of Pearl signatures operate as a kind of rhythm section, and a very good one, that sets the beat and the bass line for the melodies you remember.
—Maya Singer

Mugler

Since getting hired at Mugler over a year ago, creative director Nicola Formichetti and his head of women's design, Sébastien Peigné, have pointed their compasses forward, relying as much on the power of Formichetti's celebrity, and that of his pal Lady Gaga, as the name of the brand. They've had mixed-to-middling results doing so, which must be why tonight's show was their most ambitious yet.

It was also their most intimate. For the last two seasons, Mugler's large, elevated catwalks kept the models and the clothes at a remove from their audience. Here, the setup was reversed—the models walked just inches front the front row—and it made a difference. So, too, did the scope of the collection. Formichetti and Peigné divided the show into sections, bookending it with a series of white looks in sculptural cashmere and neoprene with fluted peplums and fox-fur sleeves to start, and mostly sheer black "ninja" outfits to end.

The strongest pieces came in between, mostly because they were the result of careful study of the Mugler oeuvre, a not insignificant body of work. Few designers created as potent and recognizable a vocabulary as he did. The superheroine shoulders, the body-loving cut, the optimism inherent to his eighties heyday—they came together best in a yellowy-orange stretch jersey dress. A pair of sheer dresses with their appliqués of python and crocodile will find their way into Gaga's traveling trunks before long, but there was also a trio of white coats that you could imagine seeing in a department store. All in all, a positive step ahead for team Mugler.
—Nicole Phelps

Mulberry

Early this morning, Mulberry announced its new bag, the Del Rey, inspired by much debated singer-slash-muse Lana Del Rey. That elicited groans from a few editors. But hey, isn't fashion all about manufactured image? A perfectly lovely structured leather flap bag with a top handle doesn't need indie cred.

At today's show, Del Rey was only one spot in the celebrity power strip of Elizabeth Olsen, Michelle Williams, Downton Abbey's Michelle Dockery, Bill Nighy, and Lagerfeld-approved rapper Azealia Banks. It's arguably one of the best front rows in the city (Burberry gives it a run for its money), and the soup-to-nuts staging of the season's inspiration is like buying a ticket to luxury Disney World.

For Fall, it was Where the Wild Things Are, which gave you shaggy black sheepskin-covered benches and two inflated Wild Things standing like sentries on either side of the runway. And on it, the look was deliciously autumnal and appropriately furry. There were beastly Mongolian coats and skirts, rabbit-trimmed hooded coats, and knitted fur pieces—gilets and a full dress—that looked light as air. Even the Maisie messenger bag was recast in black shearling. Those textures mixed it up in belted layers with bright tweeds, big chunky hand-knits, tiger prints, lace, and slick lacquered wool. As for bags, the surprisingly simple Del Rey came in sparkly blue embossed croc and a gold snake print, and joining it were new versions of classics like the Lily and the Alexa, some made to coordinate with the clothes.

You sometimes sit at Mulberry calculating how much the accessories behemoth might have spent on the full runway production, the adorable food and drinks, the wrangling of A-listers. Then the Muppets song "Mahna Mahna" closes the show and it all falls away. Ultimately, you have to hand it to a brand that delivers its infectious message in such a watertight and frankly fun way.
—Meenal Mistry

Naeem Khan

"It started with a dot," Naeem Khan said backstage after his opulent show (which boasted the week's best celeb, Matt Damon, in the front row). By "a dot" Khan meant a bindi—the decorative mark or jewel worn by Indian women to ward off evil or signify marriage—which he co-opted as the jumping-off point for an exploration of Indian body art.

Using evening coats and gowns in a palette of taupe, sand, and black as stand-ins for actual skin, Khan beaded, threaded, and appliquéd the collection's pieces with geometric prints and classic Indian paisleys. The embellishments followed the garments' seams or played elegantly off the body's lines and curves. They created allover prints that looked beautifully organic. Where there wasn't pattern, there was texture. A black pouf of ostrich feathers made for a buoyant skirt on a cocktail dress with a top made of black, ivory, and silver beads. Another—a breezy, dropped-waist dress in silk faille—was decorated with both abstract felt appliqués and small mirrored discs.

Sounds busy, but it was far from fussy. Despite all their adornment, the dresses were enticingly sinuous: A slightly relaxed silhouette, courtesy of plunging necklines and low backs, kept the surface treatments from feeling heavy. As the Academy Awards approach and stylists start their bidding wars, Khan's collection should be at the top of their wish lists. A long-sleeve, open-back gown covered in dense gold paillettes actually looked like a walking Oscar statuette, and it was one of many that would dazzle on the red carpet.
—Alison Baenen

NAHM

A girl can only own so many shirtdresses. So while NAHM remains focused on its foundational staple, Ally Hilfiger and Nary Manivong are giving their customer further options to round out her wardrobe for Fall. Floor-sweeping palazzo pants, a skirted wool tuxedo coat (which looked fresh over a maxi skirt), and a plush velvet cape were a few of the pieces that gave this lineup a previously missing multidimensionality. The design duo had in mind, as Hilfiger put it, "strong, powerful women who are fearless when it comes to mixing and matching prints on prints on prints," this season.

True, you need a pretty brazen sense of humor to pull off the waggish Prince of Egypt pattern here, which was taken from a vintage blouse of Hilfiger's. Additionally, there was an allover twenties floral, often accented with delicate pastel lace, that was cleverly camouflaged against the presentation's backdrop. Loeffler Randall sampled this wallpaper motif on funky mirrored platforms created especially for the collection. Now just three seasons old, NAHM already has a strong, intuitive sense of identity that should pay off going forward. It's difficult to get psyched about a new shipment of shirtdresses every few months, but Hilfiger and Manivong have found a way to keep us guessing what's next.
—Brittany Adams

Nanette Lepore

"My customers were missing the beading," Nanette Lepore said backstage after her Fall show. "They want that kind of crafty prettiness again." So Lepore listened to her girly fan base and brought back beads in a modern way—as a mirrored curlicue pattern on a vibrant chartreuse background that faded out into rich burgundy. "What a ballbuster of a print that was," she laughed, having reportedly spent many a late night trying to engineer the print just right (and also making it work for her contemporary price point, as she pointed out).

It was a high point in the collection, shown on slim trousers, flirty frocks, as were colorful metallic accessories like structured briefcase satchels and flat loafers. Other artisanal-inspired looks were less successful and strayed too far into seventies gypsy territory. But overall, it was a well thought-out, youthful, and wearable lineup for Lepore.
—Brittany Adams

Narciso Rodriguez

Narciso Rodriguez introduced new shoe and handbag collections at his show. They mixed precious materials like alligator, lizard, and python with suede in geometric ways. His clothes for Fall share a similar sense of being spliced together. A neat-and-trim charcoal tweed peplum jacket was patchworked on one shoulder and the opposite hip. And a pair of fab beaver fur coats were color-blocked in warm autumnal shades. (The show's color palette was moody and gorgeous.) Coats had bell-like volumes, blossoming out below the waist or, less successfully, falling in A-line tent shapes from the shoulders. Things weren't quite so mathematical on a good deal of the ready-to-wear. Rodriguez's minimalism is a sensual minimalism; at his best he lets the body lead.

So day dresses draped around the torso, where the interplay of matte and shiny fabrics accentuated natural curves. Both a double-layer tweed and flannel bustier and a tank stitched from black lace and embroidered silk looked slightly askew, and sexier for it. Rodriguez applied that same lesson to narrow, bias-cut silk evening skirts with fluttering trains that gave runway wind machines a good name.

Pants haven't been getting much play this week, and they weren't the main thing on Rodriguez's mind, either, but the trousers he did show had a sporty yet polished ease.
—Nicole Phelps

Neil Barrett

"Neil Barrett should be better known than he is," said a fellow editor after the designer's presentation today. We'd agree with that. Barrett is a top-notch tailor, capable of synthesizing the trends without being obvious about it. For Fall, he's gone oversize as other designers have, cutting crombies, duffels, and even furs in the generous, rounded proportions of mid-century haute couture. "It's like taking XXXL men's sizes and cutting them back onto girls," he said of the process that lent the coats such dramatic shapes. They gave good profile as the models marched past in the Rue du Mail showroom. Sweatshirts and sweaters were scaled up too, and an engineered wool chalk-stripe dress had extra volume in back.

His suits, in contrast, remained streamlined. One pair of pants was made from a wool loomed together from a check and a tiny houndstooth. Somewhere around the knees the two patterns melted together. "It's my answer to embellishment," he said, "and it makes it harder to copy." The copy artists shouldn't even bother with a military coat designed so you can wear it over your shoulders without it slipping off. Its clever inner vest construction is High Street-proof.
—Nicole Phelps

Nicholas K

With Georgia O'Keeffe on her mind this time around, designer Nicholas Kunz painted a promising picture of Nicholas K's evolution. While keeping her line's cool, utilitarian signatures—a desert palette, outerwear focus, draped knits and jerseys, heavy layering—on display, Kunz pushed her men's and women's clothes in a more geometric direction, and went some distance toward elevating the tone of the 9-year-old brand.

Kunz's inspiration for the season was the Taos artists of the twenties and thirties, and it proved to be a smart one. It related easily to Nicholas K's desert fixation, and it hewed the collections, slightly, to the larger Depression-era narrative shaping up for Fall. Kunz has sometimes found it a challenge to integrate current trends, but the Taos theme allowed her to add to her brand's vocabulary, pulling in both western and Deco references. One of Kunz's most interesting ideas was to tie the two together through the use of fringe; the western part of that worked, resulting in easy, fringed dresses with crochet detailing and sharply cut leather jackets jangling with fringe. The more evening-oriented beaded, flapper-ish stuff, meanwhile, felt a little forced. Kunz had more success with her lightly printed silks, iterated as clean and sexy bias-cut dresses and tops.

The menswear collection made its own move into more formal territory, notably with the inclusion of soft, oatmeal-colored suiting pieces. (In general, the tailoring for both men and women looked good and relevant—more of that, please.) Kunz also nicely worked the western theme into the men's clothes, especially with her application of horsehair to jackets and parkas.

A last word re: parkas. At a time when many fashion houses have gone parka-crazy, it bears mentioning that Nicholas K has been turning out excellent versions of the hooded jacket for a while now, and there were more expert examples on the runway this morning. Together with Kunz's razored leather jackets, the parkas proved that outerwear is this brand's enduring strength.
—Maya Singer

Nicolas Andreas Taralis

Add Nicolas Andreas Taralis to the growing number of designers turned on by Asian martial arts this season. Maybe it's the unsettling times we live in, but everyone's talking about protection. "Kurosawa meets Blade Runner" was the shorthand Taralis used to describe coats and jackets with quilted lapels that called to mind both karate gis and obis. The cut of his tailoring, as usual, was close to the body, but for Fall, it's also asymmetrical. Some pieces were quite literally cut in half, with straps buckling around the side of the torso that was missing. It's not easy to reinvent the jacket, but with this idea, Taralis managed to give it a sexy new life as an evening piece.

What was happening below the waist in this show wasn't quite as imaginative or as successful. Many of the models who wore skirts or dresses had to carry them in their hands because they were so long they would trip otherwise. The look just didn't jibe with Taralis' talking point backstage. The fact that the skirts and dresses were so often sheer will compound the problems they present to retailers. In the past, Taralis has proven himself quite handy with denim and leather—it would've been nice to see some street-worthy pants with all those tough-looking toppers.
—Nicole Phelps

Nicole Farhi

Nicole Farhi didn't exactly make a fuss over the fact that today's show marked the 30th anniversary of her brand. Sure, there was some confetti on the clothes, but in general Farhi saw fit to inaugurate her fourth decade in business by doing exactly what she's been doing for much of the past three. To wit, the new Farhi collection was a typically accomplished affair, rich in accessible, adult clothes made from luxe, technically innovative materials. Why rock the boat?

Farhi's theme this time out was turn-of-the-century Vienna and the French Art Nouveau, and that translated into a mood of dour glamour. There was an overcast palette of white, dirty-white, smoke, and almost-black gray, a mannish slouch to the knits and the tailoring, and an emphasis on high necks that gave the collection a particularly covered-up mien. There was even something subdued about Farhi's Klimt-influenced fugue of metallics: The metal sequins she used were matte, and had a mineral feeling; a gorgeous bronze jacquard had a mottled look, like a fading penny. Elsewhere, Farhi tamped down the metals by asserting a geometric discipline, as in a paneled party dress, or tossing on an oversize knit. The confetti skirts had pop, though.

—Maya Singer

Nicole Miller

Bell-bottoms. A-line minis. Vests. Suede, velvet, and patchwork leather. At first blush, you'd have figured that the era Nicole Miller was channeling at today's show was the Sgt. Pepper-era sixties. But not so fast: The snake of fashion reference is set to tuck into a meal of its own tail. Upon inspection, this show revealed itself to be a throwback to the nineties—specifically, that decade's thrift-shop retread of the late sixties and early seventies. Another random thought, jotted down at this evening's show: "Gack! Handkerchief hems! Gypsy sleeves! Not yet!"

Still, the collection had charm, despite the bruising memories of those boho hems and sleeves. Miller updated her sixties-by-way-of-the-nineties looks with a jolting application of digital print, most appealingly in a bright tweed pixelated pattern liberally applied to velvet. Elsewhere, she did well with her minidress and shorts in patchwork leather, and with the collection's alpaca-trimmed outerwear. All in all, a pastiche, but a successful one.
—Maya Singer

Nina Ricci

Designers have been sizing up all season long. Nina Ricci's Peter Copping got in on the act tonight, conjuring a scene of young girls playing dress-up in their mother's and grandmother's clothes. Sleeves extended below the fingertips; too-large skirts were suspended from braces or hung slackly from the hips; and dresses were gathered at the torso, as if they'd been pinned to accommodate tiny waists. The collection had a sense of dishabille altogether different from last season's. There was a lot more bare skin on display for Spring, but this outing wound up seeming more provocative—like Lolita, but in French lingerie instead of 1950's American polyester.

Copping gave a lot of the pieces a DIY spin, from slipdresses patched together with tweed and lace to tweedy jackets that had a relaxed, almost sporty feel, thanks to insets at the sides in semi-sheer silk. A coat was embroidered in a naïve, connect-the-dots style. Some pieces came off a little too undone, like a printed chiffon skirt that seemed to expose a couple of inches of pantyhose, but others retained their typical polish. A streamlined black coat was still chic, despite the fact that its blush pink fox collar was askew.

Given Copping's chosen theme, you missed the grand evening looks he's known for when they didn't make their expected exit at the end of the show. Among the party confections he showed, a sheer black dress that revealed the outline of its slip underneath was best.
—Nicole Phelps

No. 21

Alessandro Dell'Acqua is busily going about re-creating himself as a designer for the street-style crowd. His No. 21 collection is just over two years old, and what defines it is its young, fresh mind-set. Hems are miniskirt-short above towering platform sandals; this season's requisite bomber jacket made multiple appearances in tweed; and an otherwise straightforward black dress came embellished in gobstopper-size jewels at the waist. The irony here is that he was apparently inspired by the idea of Queen Elizabeth in her garden. The pieces that will reap the most "I love that"s, followed quickly by a "Whose is it?" are the hologram paillette-encrusted sweatshirt and carwash-flap skirt. Dell'Acqua's collection is just under-the-radar enough to retain its anonymous quality. Which may be another way of saying that it hasn't quite fully realized its own identity yet.

Elsewhere, Dell'Acqua revisited some of the lingerie tropes he liked to use when he designed under his own name. Those of us who predate the street-style phenomenon recall his fondness for exposed bra tops and guipure lace. He used the latter to charming effect on a minty green slipdress. Ultimately, though, this collection felt a bit too lightweight to redress No. 21's lingering anonymity issue.
—Nicole Phelps

Norma Kamali

What with her 3-D fashion films and online innovations, Norma Kamali's lens seems to be perpetually focused on be the future, or at least the leading edge of the present. So it was surprising to hear the designer cite 1939 as the spark for her Fall collection. The year, she explained, had a particularly forward-looking spirit, perhaps best crystallized in the World's Fair. Its slogan? "Dawn of the New Day."

There were shades of Marlene Dietrich—a frequent name-check this week—in jersey siren gowns and a natty sharp-shouldered, wide-leg jumpsuit. Kamali's usual pop of black-and-white came in an oversize houndstooth (adorable in a lean midi dress) and a sweet polka-dotted boiled wool (in a belted coat as soft as a sweater). A body-con black dress with diamond cutouts running up the sides is something you could see a cool girl like Giovanna Battaglia picking up; the same for a tricolor faux fur chubby, which was just beastly good fun.

There's always a sense with Kamali that you've seen these clothes before. (Working a forties-era reference into clothes rooted in the eighties isn't much of a leap.) But wowing the fashion set with a new vision every season has never been her priority. Start the designer talking and she's got a million things to say about making women's lives better, whether it's through her Wellness Café or her new nice-price venture KamaliKulture, which sells basics from swimwear to skirt suits, all under $100. It's all sold online and not just for a limited time. New days indeed.
—Meenal Mistry

Ohne Titel

Count Ohne Titel's Alexa Adams and Flora Gill among the several designers playing with the idea of protection this week: clothing as shield against harsher elements. Underlining the idea of cocooning, smooth black caps, a collaboration with Albertus Swanepoel, were pulled low over models' eyes while faces were often half buried in funnel-like circular scarves.

After venturing in a more colorful and feminine direction last season, Adams and Gill proclaimed a return to something tougher and architectural. The overall look was sleeker, harkening back to their urban-warrior roots and the fierce luxury of tops pieced out of shearling, leather, and fur that snapped insiders to attention a few seasons ago.But there was evidence here of attempting to bridge the difference. The zippered jacket on the first look out, for instance, had the feel of an armored doublet, but turned a bit sweeter with a pleated skirt.

Keeping to a tight color palette of mostly black and white—an idea inspired by textile artist Sheila Hicks, who wove newspaper into some of her work—the designers used their wicked knitting skills to create great graphic jacquard textures, an element that was the highlight of this show. Knitting nerds take note: The technique required a special machine. Another sweater-y standout: The poor-boy-style knit with rippling stripes in a cardigan and calf-length dress.

When it came to wovens, the duo continued their successful run of slouchy pull-on pants, here in a great feathery animal print, and tailored jackets. In the end, it was only the silk dresses, like the two that closed the show, that felt like a work in progress. Call it a case of stiff competition.
—Meenal Mistry

Opening Ceremony

Two seasons in, it was tempting to wonder whether Humberto Leon and Carol Lim's commitment to Kenzo would suck any of the creative energy out of Opening Ceremony. But as the brand's latest outing proves, O.C. commands a seemingly bottomless reservoir of ideas. This wasn't necessarily a standout collection, but it was so full of the usual charm and so well stocked with desirable pieces that it would be mean-spirited to complain.

Typically, there was a lot going on here, with the key themes being chunky knits, felted wools, quilted and puffer-style outerwear inspired by Patagonia, sporty piping and color blocking, and a wide variety of metallics, including some very good metallic leathers. The real story, though, was texture. The Opening Ceremony team has developed a fetish for all things nubby and fuzzy: Fur made an appearance in the classic O.C. flare coat, and there were tufted fabrics everywhere. One of Lim and Leon's more interesting ideas was to use a fuzzy fleece material in tailored pieces such as a body-hugging dress with a mesh inset. The tactility extended to those chunky knits as well as to shiny brocades and pieces dappled with coinlike paillettes. Meanwhile, O.C. continued to explore Argentina, its country of choice this year, via gaucho pants and a winning painterly print abstracted from an aerial photograph of the Andes. All in all, this collection may have erred a little too much toward "cute"—Lim and Leon may indeed be saving their more sophisticated creations for Kenzo. Then again, given that Opening Ceremony just opened its second store in Japan, that was probably a canny, or perhaps kawaii, choice.
—Maya Singer

Organic by John Patrick

John Patrick named his collection A Beautiful Vision, after a Julia Margaret Cameron photograph of her niece Julia Duckworth. You could trace the sepia-toned line to the floral print on his lovely double-faced silk dresses, which looked like Victorian wallpaper through just-woken-up eyes. The enveloping greatcoat silhouette here was cut in trench-appropriate khaki, but in wool it would have been just the thing to beat a damp draft circa 1880. Though a less direct connection to that hazy romance, leather was also a big part of the story. "Inspiration doesn't have to march in lockstep," said Patrick. At times, as in the case of a fetish-lite black leather hooded duffel coat, it worked to counter the rosy-cheeked sweetness of Patrick's slouchy layered looks with their half-tucked shirttails. But it also served to upgrade the staple-driven collection from casual to luxury status. The fuzzy hand-loomed knits and sturdy outerwear that rounded out the English countryside feel did the same. One smart outerwear spin was to merge two heritage elements, herringbone tweeds with the quilted Barbour. In all, after last season's homage to Gap, this collection gave you more to chew on.

As ever at Organic, there's a tale of sustainability to tell. This season's came courtesy of Raleigh Denim, with whom Patrick collaborated on the collection's raw denim jeans, apparently made from recycled TV-dinner trays. A respected buyer pointed out that denim sans stretch is a tough sell these days. Alas, the good fight was never easy.
—Meenal Mistry

Oscar de la Renta

A sticker on Oscar de la Renta's show program was the first clue we were in for something different. It read "#THEBOARD: Submit inspiration to the board for our next collection. Oscar and his assistants will be watching live in the studio for new content daily." The clothes, like the invitation to contribute ideas, seemed pitched at a new generation.

The youthful feeling came through in any number of ways: the mostly short, full-skirted silhouettes; the baby pinks and powder blues; the ribbons affixed with gobstopper crystals that the models wore in their hair. But mostly it was the photo prints of jewels that gave this show its irreverent streak. They were facsimiles of the real bijoux that dangled from pieces like a Nile blue silk faille dress or a black double-face cashgora, but blown up to positively eye-popping proportions. Cheeky.

Don't get us wrong; these clothes were still plenty precious—as is the de la Renta way. And he didn't neglect to include skirtsuits and twinsets for the Park Avenue set, either, but they weren't the focus. The playful mood continued into evening, where the emphasis was on cocktail dresses. The draped tulle gowns at the end were more debutante than doyenne. Oscar turns 80 this year. Eighty years young.
—Nicole Phelps

Osman

Osman Yousefzada keeps barreling forward into uncharted territory. Last season, his rigorous shapes softened into something looser and sexier, and this time he allowed himself the high drama of highly decorative fabrics.

He started small. The first look out was a typically austere ensemble of a crisp white shirt and pants with mere glints of rich brocade in the collar and in a pair of lace-up booties. You imagine that the power woman who loves Yousefzada's talent for making precise, Philo-esque smart clothing might allow herself such a flourish, or perhaps the flash from the lining of a properly minimal crepe and leather pop-over dress. But credit the designer for keeping lines sharp even when he let fly from head to toe in the more baroque fare, such as a portrait-collar jacket or cape with chic little matching cropped pants.

Backstage, Yousefzada cited as inspiration the photographic collection of philanthropist Albert Kahn, who sent bands of photographers all around the globe between 1909 and 1931 to create a visual record of the world. But in a way, this brocade-centric collection mirrors Yousefzada's own story as a British-born son of Afghan immigrants, both traversing the same Silk Road. He pared everything away at the beginning of his career to give himself a fresh slate and avoid the ethnic pigeonhole. But this squaring of his East–West exchange is a welcome evolution.
—Meenal Mistry

Paco Rabanne

Aside from the phenomenon of Karlie Kloss' walk, there was no grand finale at Paco Rabanne. An omission by design. After a high-drama debut last season, creative director Manish Arora wanted the big surprise to be the lack of a big surprise. He set wearability as his goal and looked for cues in heyday-era fans like Françoise Hardy and Brigitte Bardot. In fact, some of the freshest dresses were re-creations of Bardot's iconic stripey metal shift, a testament to the power of Rabanne's codes. Arora's versions are lightened up with discs in silicon and even royal blue ponyskin, a testament to his skill in updating them.

But his role as the new creative blood in a storied French house is probably one of the hardest of its kind. That's partly because of the specificity of what Rabanne did. You can easily shoot too far out of the Rhodoid park or stay stiflingly close to it. Arora seems to have a sense of balance, and a bottomless bag of new ideas. Some work, like the discs woven into highly wearable cardigans and pullover knits, and some don't, like the paneling of fluttery silk over metal disc dresses.

But it seemed like what sometimes weighed down this collection was Arora's attempt at a streamlined space-age sensibility, particularly in tailoring. It came across as less youthful than the Rabanne spirit should be. And a move into seventies disco decadence eventually turned a bit retro and convoluted.

Though for a good night out, Arora's Le 69 bags, now in gold and iridescent clutches, seem like just the thing. Sure enough, last season the bag business far outpaced the ready-to-wear at an enviable slate of stores. Arora will surely change some of those ratios with this collection, but the shift remains a work in progress.
—Meenal Mistry

Patrik Ervell

Patrik Ervell couldn't have chosen a more topical theme than the friction between repression and revolt, so it seemed rather "fashion-y" of him to deny any political context for his new collection. The way he was pitching it, his theme was really his way round a new take on the aesthetic of the uniform. "What authority looks like now," he explained. "You disarm it by referencing it." Still sounds pretty political, but what-evs—it fortunately made for a strong, even radical showing.

The authority Ervell referenced was a police state. The uniforms were those of urban commandos. The opening outfit—a sweater in nylon-patched electric blue baby alpaca, matched to pleated flecked wool pants—set the tone: a Blade Runner -ish combo of tech and retro. Ervell's womenswear made the point with most clarity, like the outfit that layered a long coat over a silk dress. It had a vintage make-do feel, the sort of repurposed outfit you might expect from girls gone underground when the crackdown kicked in. But clarity ultimately didn't count, because the menswear was more interesting. Ervell talked about "moments of protest that emerge through the cracks and edges of a heavily policed state" and he found a striking visual metaphor in the gold ribbing on a nylon top, or the gold trim on a fleece jacket: hardcore function unhinged by a subversive flicker of luxury.

Where once he had shivering latex as his trump card, here Ervell used hand-painted silk in shirts, skirts, and a "SWAT jacket." It was such a poetic touch that his notion of disarming authority suddenly made sense. Political power may grow out of the barrel of a gun, but Patrik Ervell's poetry made a police state pretty for one mad moment.
—Tim Blanks

Paul & Joe

After Sophie Albou completed her men's collection in January, she found herself trying on the jackets and coats, and rather liking what she saw. Et voilà, the seed of her women's collection was born. "I thought it was cool," Albou said backstage. "Why do we need to do something so complicated for women?" Why, indeed.

Around the runway, every square inch of wall was covered in a photograph of woods in full autumnal glory. Albou cited the arboreal Edens around Paris, like the Bois de Boulogne, as a source for the rich auburn and ocher shades, but overall the look distinctly paid homage to the English countryside.

Albou mixed mannish tweed coats and trousers and sweeping trenchcoats with sequins, jeweled satins, and ditzy floral prints. Sure, it's not revolutionary, but her spin had its own fizzy fun, as seen in the pop of a velvet jacket and baggy pants in hunter's orange, or in subtle but effective hits of leopard. But what made this a solidly good collection was the fact that all that tailoring—jackets with strong shoulders and skinny sleeves and slouchy, hip-slung trousers—simply looked great, both well-fitting and well-made.

Compared to last season's motorcycle mama, there was a welcome sense of polish. And it felt more in line with the trends and what girls want, or will be wanting when September rolls around. Pajama silks? Check. Baggy trousers? Check. All that's left is for Albou to open the New York boutique she's been planning for ages.
—Meenal Mistry

Paule Ka

The presentation at Paule Ka was set up like an airport gate, one that recalled a more pleasant era of flying. It served as backdrop to Serge Cajfinger's Fall story: a groovy clique of English girls who've stolen their parents' credit cards, raided their families' wardrobes, and are now off on an adventure.

The general feeling was sweet and sixties, with lots of standaway silhouettes. (You almost expected Roger Sterling to come strolling by and commence a witty flirtation.) To them Cajfinger added a dollop of characteristic quirk. It came partly from mixes of what he called "rich and poor," like the simple felt dresses, skirts, and little straw bags trimmed in chunky jewel beading, or the acid-bright mink collars that set classic coats in wool and vinyl nicely off-kilter.

There were also some unlikely pairings, like a cozy striped oversize pullover with a satin pleated skirt that Cajfinger called "the brother's sweater with the mother's skirt." The idea really shone in a surreal-cute sweatshirt printed with the still life of a potted plant paired with a satin skirt printed with a matching leaf motif. That's surely nothing that existed in 1964.

Cajfinger's cocktail teetered skillfully between girlish and elegant, and provided something for both sides—no mean feat when you're playing with eclectic mixes and complicated narratives. This collection should have Paule Ka fans right on board, preferably without having to commit felonies to do so.
—Meenal Mistry

Paul Smith

How do you know you've made it as a designer? Here's an interesting thought experiment for up-and-comers: On an off day, are you still selling clothes? Sir Paul Smith has incontrovertibly made it, and the proof is that, despite the fact that his new collection represented something of an off day for the Paul Smith brand, there were still more than a handful of looks at today's show that were readily desirable. Paul Smith at status quo does just fine, and it's to Smith's credit, really, that he continues to experiment.

First, the good. Smith sent out his usual complement of natty menswear-inspired looks; alongside the predictably charming boy-cut trousers and jackets, there was a new winning silhouette in wide-leg pants cropped a little bit short and worn with a matching long coat. Smith executed the look in a gray checked wool that he set off with elegant black trim. Elsewhere, there were pretty painterly prints, punchy knits, a smattering of pajama-inspired pieces, and a few evening looks overlaid in mesh, all nice. Smith was on shakier ground with his velvets: Some of the simpler looks were good, if unremarkable, but the velvet-faced leggings with long back zips were a bit off. And a few of his artsy pieces, like a gray suit that looked as though it had been sprayed in neon paint, only generated a kind of "hm?" response. All in all, this show made for something of a disappointment after several solid seasons from Paul Smith, but there was still plenty to like.
—Maya Singer

Pedro Lourenço

What stands out in memory about last season's Pedro Lourenço collection is how three-dimensional it was: Stiff collars reached up to the ears, waists were accented with squares of beads, and skirts were made from swishy fringe. For Fall, all of the young Brazilian's work is on the flat plane.

A black coat was bisected from one bold shoulder to the opposite hem by a great curving swoop of bright yellow leather, and a long-sleeve dress with a simple basic structure was pieced together from brick red leather, a matte black material, silk organza, and a silvery aluminum organza (not unlike the "ghost fabric" from Christopher Kane's Spring show). Lourenço must've driven his patternmakers crazy to get results so striking.

In keeping with the two-dimensional nature of his embellishments, Lourenço made prints—TV static, plaids, horse heads—based on the work of the Russian video artist Kon Trubkovich. Printed on two layers of fabric, they created dizzying optical effects as the models walked by in their asymmetric dresses.

This new outing shows Lourenço's growing commercial savvy. Minus all of last season's elaborate constructions, these clothes will ring up for less at the register. But what really resonated were two coats. Black leather puffers in the front and charcoal wool flannel from the back, with fur trim at the collar, they got the ambition/desirability equation just right.
—Nicole Phelps

Peter Jensen

"Thelma" was the title on the invitation for Peter Jensen's latest presentation, and given his predilection for idiosyncratic muses, the imagination ran riot. A straw poll came up with a draw between Thelma of Thelma & Louise fame and the fifties character actress Thelma Ritter. But Jensen was actually looking much closer to home, at Thelma Speirs, who for the last three decades has been half of the formidable millinery duo Bernstock Speirs, and also a DJ girl about town. "I love being around her," Jensen said before the show. "She'll wear jeans and a mink coat during the day, then dress for dinner at night." She also posed naked for a magazine last year, so right away there was that subtext of subverted propriety that is Jensen's own specialty.

His muse was parked front-row center, so it was easy to compare his version with the real thing. All the models sported gray hair, like Thelma's. The first outfit was a cropped jacket worn with cuffed jeans, just like she was wearing. A sweater in Jensen's signature rabbit graphic paired with plaid pants also featured Speirs' non-gender-specific style of daywear. As far as dressing for dinner went, Thelma was very taken with the final dress, a column in cream and black crepe, accessorized with a "necklace" of flocked headphones attached by a string of pearls to the bodice of the dress. (The pink flocked loafers were a quintessential Jensen touch.) Bernstock Speirs—who else?—provided the rabbit-ear hats.

But where Thelma ended and Jensen began faded into unimportance as the show rolled on, simply because the aesthetic that the designer has so painstakingly evolved over his years just outside the spotlight was perfected here. Familiarity with it definitely helps. What might otherwise seem utilitarian (choose any smock-over-long-sleeve-shirt silhouette) and even schoolmarm-ish prim was continually undercut by an amused lightness of touch, surreal little flourishes (glittery belts; a gold fringe; a scatter of beading; a log cabin print; a beaded, flocked white shirt collar doing double duty as a necklace), and a twisted color palette that went deep on brown, chartreuse, and fuchsia.

Jensen is a generous designer, or at least kind. There has always been the sense that he might be dressing the girls no one else pays much attention to. No longer. Alexa Chung was at the presentation. She immediately picked an outfit—a black velvet dress with a beaded chiffon insert over a cream crepe blouse—to wear to the Brit Awards tonight. And she swore she'd be back for everything else.
—Tim Blanks

Peter Pilotto

Spring/Summer 2012 was a breakthrough season for Peter Pilotto, and you could hardly blame designers Christopher De Vos and Peter Pilotto for wanting to repeat its success. There were times, though, early on in today's show, when you wondered whether Pilotto and De Vos were repeating themselves a bit too much: The first looks that appeared on the catwalk this morning came off like stretched-out, streamlined versions of last season's clothes. Even the prints appeared identical. But as the show progressed, and new ideas integrated themselves into the collection, you began to appreciate the wisdom of the Pilotto boys' decision to begin with the overtly familiar, and build. This collection articulated a thought process and affirmed the designers' steady, incremental approach.

The new ideas, this time out, mainly manifested themselves in print—the Peter Pilotto stock-in-trade. Inspired by recent trips to Asia, they created a pattern based on Japanese "light trucks," vehicles studded with thousands of lights, and another one abstracted from Chinese opera masks. The latter had a floral sensuousness, and made for some uncomplicatedly gorgeous garments; the light-truck print was trickier, but it looked good set off by swathes of deep blue velvet. Along with attenuating their silhouette, Pilotto and De Vos also developed last season's wrapped and haltered bodices by playing with more intricate crisscross and cutout effects. And there was another update in the beading of the garments—a three-dimensionalizing of the print, as Pilotto put it—that followed on last season's more dappled embroidery. The most interesting new ideas in the collection, however, came in the form of its furs and puffer coats. The laminated wool puffers were done in the signature Pilotto prints and made in collaboration with the Austrian outerwear brand Schneiders; the fox furs came vibrantly striped, and they were really striking. All in all, this collection didn't set forth any dramatic new proposition, but it was a confident elaboration of the Pilotto look.
—Maya Singer

Peter Som

If you came to Peter Som seeking whimsy, you had to settle in until look 19: a sleeveless silk shirt tucked into matching pants, both printed with cartoon green-eyed cat heads. (Almost literally the cat's pajamas. Ba-domp-bomp!) Otherwise, it was a very different offering from the designer whose typically colorful and kooky elegance appeals to would-be Little Edies on the Upper East Side.

"I wanted a precision and crispness," explained Som in a preview. "At the end of the day, everyone wants to feel strong and sexy." No question, he delivered on his goal. For strength, see the sculptural minimalism of rounded linebacker shoulders and neo-forties peplums that flared from trim waists. As for sex, it came in banded sheer organza skirts and dresses, which played a sleek peekaboo, while jackets came with a (removable) frilled boudoir-ish trim.

No doubt there were elements here that many recognized from other recent runways, but the well-executed shift in emphasis seemed to elicit raves. Still it's always interesting when a designer aims for a mark outside his wheelhouse. Is he courting a different customer or pushing along his existing clientele? Not that the choice is mutually exclusive. The Som woman might find a grainy-textured belted camel coat rather drab, but she'll thrill to the emerald version in bonded wool and satin with its new New Look silhouette. Or perhaps she'll split the difference in a jacket made of black bonded eyelet lace and wool. The dichotomy wasn't so stark. The sleek, thigh-slit peplum dresses in jewel-toned satins, for instance, would appeal to a variety of sensibilities, provided you have the body to pull them off. And a pair of kaleidoscopic furs, which interrupted the tight palette of four colors, were a pure delight for all (and pure Som), whether or not you care for the arty-cool reference of Nick Cave's "Soundsuits."

It was certainly an unexpected move for Som to side with mean and clean. What'll be interesting to see is where the designer goes from here.
—Meenal Mistry

Philosophy

The models at the Philosophy di Alberta Ferretti show entered and exited the runway by escalators on either end of the Grand Promenade inside Avery Fisher Hall. Ferretti said that she had designed the collection imagining futuristic clothes for a very chic researcher or academic, and the staging made you think of perfect ladylike androids on a conveyor belt.

There was a sort of sharp, clinical Gattica glamour in the HD-sharp silhouettes of skirt suits, shifts, and coats, many drawn in at the waist by clear Perspex belts. And there was, not surprisingly, a focus on technical fabrics. That's a direction that can easily go awry, like a shift dress with crystal beading all sandwiched in PVC or another entirely made from plastic-coated wool. (Be honest, when's the last time you wanted to wear plastic?) But there were some beautifully made and quite luxurious clothes that made the point more subtly: a lovely reversible coat made of ivory leather bonded with bouclé, for example, or another chic coat, created with a needle-punch technique, that seamlessly melded stripes of camel wool and mohair with a nubby tan bouclé.

Overall, it was more work than play. Philosophy is known for a good party dress, but there were few here. The many who loved last season's beaded twenties romp may find themselves slightly disappointed on this go-around.
—Meenal Mistry

Piazza Sempione

Piazza Sempione's 20th anniversary celebrations over, and a short-lived partnership with Tommaso Aquilano and Roberto Rimondi similarly done and dusted, the label's Fall lineup was presented at its showroom today. The low-key affair matched the efficient, understated nature of the clothes. Piazza Sempione makes no claims to trendsetting, and that's just fine with its clients. Still, the new collection made glancing references to hot topics like peplums (theirs are on the subtle side, naturally) and head-to-toe prints. In fact, Piazza Sempione's print isn't a print at all, but a tweed made from wool and a paperlike silk. Their short-sleeve parkas came with built-in knit undersleeves, stretchy enough to squeeze a suit jacket under—not a bad idea.
—Nicole Phelps

Pierre Balmain

The diffusion line Pierre Balmain seems to have settled comfortably into its role as little sister to Balmain. Well, perhaps second or third cousin might be more apt. The new Fall collection skews even more to the essential, basics side of things than the label's debut last season, making it a rather distant relation to the entirely nonessential, go-for-broke luxury of the main line. One of the few bling-y flourishes amid the polite street wear was a nailhead embroidery, quite chic in pencil skirt or leggings, and quite skippable in a draped and sheer body-con dress. It tried too hard, and that doesn't seem to be what this line is about. What the girls will clamor to buy: a perfect motorcycle jacket in black leather, and another version in ivory wool lengthened into a car coat with a shearling hem. No piggy bank busting necessary.
—Meenal Mistry

Ports 1961

Backstage before the Ports 1961 show, Fiona Cibani distilled the season's message: "Strong, but not aggressive." Using simple, straightforward silhouettes and rich textures, Cibani showed a focused collection that derived its strength from its luxurious fabrics. The first model out wore a lustrous, boxy, color-blocked top that curved away from the body, just skimming the long cashmere sweater it was layered over. Throughout, cashmere sweaters and dresses made up the looks' foundations; they added nicely to the texture play. The shiny opening top and similar pieces that followed were fine, if slightly unflattering. Better was a series of coats and tops in sheared mink. Understated but still special, they had the good-life quality this label is known for.
—Alison Baenen

PPQ

The idea of 2012 as the end of the world seemed to run out of steam last year, but let's face it, creative minds will always love the drama of an apocalypse. Unsurprisingly, PPQ's Amy Molyneaux and Percy Parker imagined all known existence ending in a single, smashing night out. That accounted for all the eveningwear here, which ran the gamut from head-scratchingly straightforward draped chiffon dresses to the head-scratchingly head-scratching. Those diaper-bottomed bodysuits, for instance. Our pick for the last night on earth would be the swingy Little Black Riding Hood coat, which framed the face in a spooky-mystical arrangement of chunky gold beading.

With the Veronica Lake hairdos and all kinds of peplum waists, slim midi-length hems, and dramatic collars, there was a clear retro thread. Molyneaux politely dismissed the notion, calling focus instead to the intricate draping tailored into sleeves and shoulders. While we're on the topic of construction, it's worth mentioning that no one comes to PPQ for fine craftsmanship, but seeing models hobble painfully down the runway in ill-fitting dresses spoiled some of today's fun.

Ultimately, PPQ is one of those Pied Piper London labels that manufactures energy and brings the kids along. It's tailor-made for collaborations, like their newest one with Rule Style Bikes, as well as easy-to-sell accessories like the oversize glossy cases that many of the models carried today. If you saw the bananas scene of paparazzi shooting the front row, you'd know that energy is one product the duo isn't skimping on.
—Meenal Mistry

Prabal Gurung

Hell and heaven. Prabal Gurung's Fall collection made that journey, starting off all black, traveling through a blue period, and culminating in a finale of gold and ivory worthy of the pearly gates. Beforehand, the designer talked about his own spiritual quest, about embracing both the dark and the light within.

On the runway, that translated into dueling impulses. On the one hand, Gurung is an expert tailor with a keen skill for creating a sleek, sexy silhouette: See his sleeveless, body-hugging dress made in part from stretchy iridescent neoprene or a pantsuit pieced together from shiny and matte black fabrics. The new louche trousers he showed came in a low-slung, skinny flare shape.

On the other hand, Gurung is a dressmaker who's seen his profile skyrocket with celebrities like Zoë Saldana wearing him on the red carpet. (She was sitting in his front row today in a peacock green jacket and coordinating print pants from Spring.) Last season's can't-ignore-me engineered prints were a hit with retailers; Gurung recently landed Bergdorf Goodman, so he revisited the idea here, creating designs that combined Japan's coveted blue roses and Georgia O'Keeffe's cow skulls, and later recasting the print in lemony gold.

This half of his offering wasn't without pitfalls, though. Once he'd added ruffles and sheer insets and bug jewelry, it started to feel like way too much sugar for a dime (not to mention a bit too Tisci-tinged). The evening number with the most zing was much simpler by comparison: a long white gown made with sheer, delicately bejeweled sleeves and a bullion-embroidered train—lovely.

So which of the designer's dueling impulses came out on top? In our book: the sleek, unfettered side.
—Nicole Phelps

Prada

It is entirely typical of Miuccia Prada that a collection which, for her at least, was a celebration of fashion at its purest, should read in photographs like an assault on the very notion she was attempting to exalt. With their hair and makeup, Guido Palau and Pat McGrath endeavored to project "virtual princesses," avatars of fashion's digital age. On the catwalk, the models looked a little like a replicant army, even more so in photos. It was a powerful image, which dovetailed neatly with the statement about power that Miuccia made with her men's collection in January. But that wasn't actually the message she wanted to communicate. The canapés that were served before and after the show (and remember, these are significant markers of the essence of every Prada collection) included sweet-treat meringues and chocolates topped by crystallized violets. "Pleasure," Miuccia explained. "Everyone has a theory about their collections these days, but I'm sick of theory. This collection is about the pleasure of fashion."

In her eyes, the designer was making a statement about the enduring human aspiration to beauty, inspired, in part, by the natural world around us. Beauty, Prada style, is a sui generis proposition. The elements Miuccia chose read, in some respects, like a Prada's greatest hits: the mutated menswear, the bad-taste jacquards, the pajama dressing, the embellishment (and maybe even the Numanoid electronica from soundtrack architect Frederic Sanchez that underpinned the whole shebang). But such reduction can never do justice to the depth of fascinating thought and research that go into a Prada collection. The show-opening black coat-dresses, for instance, looked like hybrid morning coats, which harked back to the antique diplomat formality of the Prada men's show. But that also reflected Miuccia's conviction that the fashion of the future will take refuge in the past. (That's hardly a new notion—just look at Blade Runner, a movie that may have been a reference here.) Then there were the embroideries. As precious as they appeared, they were actually multilayered constructs of Plexi and sequins, but what they conveyed, said Miuccia, was "importance." She felt that was a more significant message for women than mere power. In its own way, it was oddly seductive. The imposingly stern quality of these clothes will likely lay out an influential new path for womenswear.
—Tim Blanks

Preen

Justin Thornton and Thea Bregazzi go for evolution over revolution, building each collection on the last. Spring's exploration of femininity and streamlining of silhouettes barreled forward for Fall. As for muses, they stuck with the Victorians, turning from Virginia Woolf to illustrator and conservationist Beatrix Potter, both her work and her life. "She was quite progressive in her time," said Thornton backstage. "There was a group who used to sit at home and embroider, but she's one of the ones who traveled and sketched and went off onto the moors."

For the strong women of today, Thornton and Bregazzi cut the inevitable high romance of botanical flower and butterfly prints by paneling them into dresses with sharp blocks of a very flat matte fabric they referred to as scuba wool, and generally manipulating them by printing the motifs on sequins and embroidering over them with tarnished silver beading. The effect was far from sugary. At times, it was nearly minimal—a successful dance with feminine codes. The brushstroke print mid-show that came from looking at Abstract Expressionists like Jasper Johns provided a sort of interlude.

The trompe l'oeil construction that was Thornton and Bregazzi's calling card for many seasons has all but disappeared, which could be the natural course of things as well as a bid for more business. Let's face it, a Frankenstein-ed look of, say, a half-skirt over a longer skirt and attached blouse has more limited appeal than a dress with a straightforward silhouette. However, here, the precise collaging of fabrics—especially in standouts like look 35—from op art and floral prints to lace to daisy-patterned sequins and even little chunks of crystal beading, was sophisticated enough to hold your interest. We'll trust this duo to not become so streamlined as to lose their distinct point of view and look like everyone else.
—Meenal Mistry

Pringle of Scotland

In 1986, when Alistair Carr was 12 years old and living in Glastonbury, he had a girlfriend who dressed, he recalled, as a combination of skinhead rebel and Nan Kempner chic. She recently contacted him again, and that got Carr thinking about what she'd be like now. (He is still a little trepidatious about making actual physical contact.) So he styled a collection around Miss X. The models had hair tipped in intense color, like a punky dye job grown out. Here was her skinhead bomber jacket in textured red-orange leather, and a twisted twinset, the kind of outfit a small-town girl might adopt as an unwitting homage to big-city style. The box pleats of Miss X's school uniform were duplicated in skirts, jackets, and coats. Maybe she'd had a Princess Diana moment, because there was also a jumper with a piecrust collar, and a dress with a ruffle knit on sleeves and skirt.

This being Pringle, there was a lot of knitwear, from a classic cashmere rollneck (still the company's bread and butter, and looking smart in tandem with matching cashmere pants), to the trompe l'oeil cardigan effects that opened the show, to the chevron-patterned jacquards, which were influenced by the 1980's design group Memphis. Some of the most appealing pieces in the show were fuzzy candy pink and mint angoras lined in merino wool.

Carr toyed with color in a subtle but confident way, attaching a mint faux-astrakhan collar to a camel coat, color-blocking navy and orange in another coat. It was odd enough to successfully complement his inspiration, whomever and wherever she may be. A genius finishing touch was the baked bean cans in silver, created by the jeweler Husam el Odeh to wrap around the heels of Chrissie Morris' shoes. With a pair of those, you'd be living in the love of the un-common people.
—Tim Blanks

Proenza Schouler

Last season saw Lazaro Hernandez and Jack McCollough looking backward. Fall finds them looking forward with a collection that had its genesis in the idea of protection. The designers were vague backstage about what got them interested in the notion, but it doesn't matter. This was a daring show, in which they proposed new silhouettes, recommitted to the artisanal tendencies that have become a brand hallmark, and headed East for inspiration—think karate, kimonos, and Yoko Ono. Mrs. John Lennon circa 1970 provided the screeching soundtrack. "It's Asian," said Hernandez, describing the collection's look, "but in a New York way."

The designers opened with a series of boxy collared shirts that snapped closed at one shoulder and loose-fitting pleated trousers. Oversize is a look we've seen elsewhere this season, but Proenza Schouler has made it official—it's a trend. The tops and pants came in stiff white cottons, like karate gis, or in waxy black leather. Leather was a major element, and the way the designers worked it—by weaving thin strips of navy, black, and white, say, into a tiny grid for a side-zip jacket—was astounding. The handwork was equally impressive on a pair of quilted-satin varsity jackets embroidered with pheasants on the chest; ditto for the woven paillette skirts with which they were paired. Jack and Lazaro also endorsed brocade, another NYC undercurrent, for long-sleeve dresses that, with their complex construction, looked like jackets and flippy miniskirts.

The remarkable thing about the show was its evolution. Those scaled-up jackets and trousers at the beginning will be challenging to retailers. But by the end, the quilted-satin cocktail dresses with the bird embellishments (a callback to Hernandez and McCollough's breakthrough Spring 2010 collection) had the crowd raving. Their confidence is persuasive, and so is their skill.
—Nicole Phelps

Rachel Comey

"Normally for Fall we dive into print and pattern and color," Rachel Comey said over the phone the day before her show. "This time, I pulled all of that out and cleared the air." Comey girls, take a deep breath: The charmingly off-kilter quality that characterizes the designer's work is still in evidence, but a new straightforwardness lent a maturity to the new collection. Classic silhouettes came in neutral shades, and a parade of LBDs finished the show.

With prints taking less of a starring role, Comey sprang for fabrics from specialty mills and called on unusual fabric treatments to take their place. Perforated cotton and wool felt—hole-punched with a laser—lent a lightness to tops and bodices, while the shiny plastic finish on a sexy, full-skirted dress provided the right kick of Comey quirk. The few prints and jolts of color, like a nubbly coat in caution orange and a dress covered in attenuated hearts in shocking pink, were swift visual punches that landed. Aside from a few unflattering sack silhouettes, this collection was solidly retail-friendly, a boon given that Comey revealed that she expanded on the higher end of her price point this season (see: those specialty mills). As the designer's vision matures, it follows that her customers will grow with her; if not, there was plenty here to entice a new crop of sophisticated admirers.
—Alison Baenen

Rachel Roy

Rachel Roy has been preoccupied with modern landscapes after watching an independent documentary called Women in the Dirt, which spotlights eight female architects who have designed groundbreaking outdoor spaces that blur the line between nature and the man-made. With this in mind, Roy balanced linear silhouettes with an organic palette of granite, eucalyptus, sapphire, "foliage" orange, and garnet. Borrowing from the elements, there was a washed silk color-blocked blouse that gave the impression of sunlight reflected on water and a graphic rose-print shirtdress with a tuxedolike tail. The biggest crowd-pleaser (which happened to be Roy's favorite as well) was clearly the striking fuchsia set with slim trousers and a high-neck, open-back top that looked like a vest worn in reverse. Aside from that standout, the collection was perhaps too down-to-earth and lacked the creative layering and pizazz we've come to expect from Roy in recent seasons.
—Brittany Adams

Rachel Zoe

There's no slowing Rachel Zoe down. The celebrity stylist-turned-designer who already produces handbags, shoes, and ready-to-wear recently announced plans to launch jewelry and cold-weather accessories. And today, she graduated to the runway after several seasons of presentations. In her enthusiasm, Zoe showed 46 looks. While she could've made her point about the glamorous late-sixties London style of Mick and Marianne in fewer, there were some gems in the mix, starting with the white jacquard pantsuit and faux fur coat she opened with. The blazer and tapering trousers were well-cut in a way that will belie their price tags, and the coat looked believably real. Pantsuits have become a Zoe signature, and we liked the look of another one in a charcoal gray with a stiffness that made it look like denim. Most of the tailoring, however, could've done without the cardigans thrown on top, even if Ms. Faithfull liked a knit sweater slouching off one shoulder.

Marianne's side of the story included sequined dresses both long and short, though they didn't have the personality of a slinky printed number worn underneath a sergeant's coat with its sleeves pushed up above the elbows. The rock muse would approve.
—Nicole Phelps

RAD by Rad Hourani

Following his "study of blue" last season, Rad Hourani made his new collection a study in green. He must not have found much to interest him about the color; only two shades of green appeared on the runway, a soft khaki and a hunter green. Mostly, in fact, there was a lot of black, with the greens appearing as a contrast color, sometimes peeking out of an otherwise all-black look in origami folds and sometimes cropping up as geometric insets on garments. Aside from the debut of green in Hourani's palette, there wasn't much to say about this show that hasn't been said of Hourani before: The lines were strict and the silhouettes were skinny and vertical, with leggings and narrow tunics and skirts shown for both men and women. The outerwear was uniformly nice—cool, thinly padded coats in wool and leather—but as a whole, the collection was a bit of a comedown after Hourani's relatively adventurous collection for Spring. That prior outing saw him integrating shirting and denim into his look, but this time out, he didn't seem to add much to the vocabulary of his brand.
—Maya Singer

Rag & Bone

Where India and England intersect was the apparent starting point for the new Rag & Bone show. It didn't necessarily come through in the clothes, but so what? David Neville and Marcus Wainwright's strength as designers is understanding their own here-and-now and the style habits of cool, urban women. It helps that they're married to two of them. Wainwright's wife just gave birth to their third baby this morning (it's a girl!), and she let him leave the hospital for the duo's menswear show at noon—talk about cool. But we digress.

Having lived through many New York winters by now, the English expats are well acquainted with the cold. This particular winter has been easy, but the R & B gal will be ready for whatever next December throws her way, because this collection, like all of their Fall outings, was a study in layers: a tile-motif jacket over paisley pajama pants, or a sweater and jacket on top of a draped skirt and slim leggings, with another blazer thrown on for good measure. They weren't shy about mixing herringbone with arrow prints with polka dots with stripes.

Outerwear was a strength. Especially a red, army green, tan, and black wool blanket stripe coat and a floral tapestry jacket with fur details (OK, that one put you in mind of the subcontinent). They both added needed jolts of color to a lineup that was predominantly black and white and shades of gray. This collection lacked some of the visual punch of Spring. But there's no arguing with its streetwise vibe, just the way their girls like it.
—Nicole Phelps

Ralph Lauren

The soundtrack from Downton Abbey came over the loudspeaker at Ralph Lauren and you could sense a crowd worn down from a long week of runway shows perking up. The TV program has become such a phenomenon that you half-knew this moment would be coming sooner or later, and it was no shocker to see it arrive at Ralph. Still, hunting plaids aside, the references to World War I England weren't all that literal in this collection.

For example, the first part of the show was devoted to boy-for-girl suits. Downton's Lady Mary was rather forward-looking in her thinking, but you never saw her wearing pants. (It would take another several years for the modernizing influence of Coco Chanel to assert itself in Yorkshire, no doubt.) If anything, this felt like Lauren revisiting and reworking his own oeuvre. The trip down memory lane wasn't one of the designer's blockbusters, but it produced some strong outerwear, from a houndstooth greatcoat to a glen plaid double-breasted style. Among the many suits on display, a burgundy silk velvet three-piecer had the most snap.

The after-dark portion of the collection—a study in gold and black, with a pair of bright fuchsia satin gowns injected into the mix—felt quite different from where we'd started out. Here, the Roaring Twenties were an obvious influence on a beaded flapper number and black column dresses picked out in gold and platinum Art Deco embroideries. Nonetheless, the evening looks as a whole felt modern.
—Nicole Phelps

Rebecca Minkoff

Fashion's favorite hip-hop hipster, Theophilus London, kicked off today's Rebecca Minkoff show with his familiar hit, "I Stand Alone." Gliding up and down the runway with his patented swagger, London, who was dressed in head to toe studded leather and ample bling, had the packed house spellbound before the first model even stepped out. The bold clothing that followed—jewel-tone brocade biker jackets and celestial sequined pants, for starters—kept the energy level up. On-trend, oversize boyfriend blazers with dropped shoulders (much like the one the designer herself was wearing at a showroom preview earlier this week) exemplified Minkoff's brand of assertive femininity. Ditto the finale number: a kaleidoscope-print long silk shirtdress with coquettish cutouts around the collarbone.

And while R.M. did introduce a few successful new ideas, like blanket wrap coats and shorthair shearling T-shirts, it seems likely that most avid Minkettes will be avoiding the so-called Yeti coats and dresses here, and will instead continue to scoop up the label's signature bombers and best-selling bags.
—Brittany Adams

Rebecca Taylor

You can usually count on Rebecca Taylor for girly, floral frocks, but things were a bit moodier chez Taylor this season. "Our girl has a slightly darker heart," the designer said backstage before her show, by way of explanation for the plum, navy, and charcoal hues that made up her latest collection. As for those new graphics? "Our prints were feeling a little stale, so we took Rebecca Taylor staples and digitized them," she said. The results played well in the charmingly layered mash-up of fabrics. There were angora and ponte knits for comfort, chiffon and jacquard for romance, and—new this season—shearling for snuggling. The resulting cozy coats, raglan sweaters, sheer tops, and tough-chick leggings (they came studded with nail heads) made for a winning tomboy attitude. The Taylor girl did get dressed up a bit—a velvet burnout dress was slouchy and sexy—but she seemed most at ease in oversize bombers and piled-on protection from the cold. Chalk it up to that dark heart.
—Alison Baenen

Red Valentino

Pier Paolo Piccioli and Maria Grazia Chiuri have been as successful co-designers as they could be. At Valentino, the duo is creating one of the most desired lines of the moment with a strong cast of followers, from Hollywood starlets to members of the Euro jet set. For Red Valentino—"their baby," as their PR director points out—they also have big plans. By the end of 2012, they hope to begin opening stores in Asia.

In Piccioli's words, the diffusion collection is a romantic idea of a young girl thinking about fashion: mixing something new with something vintage with something couture. The result is full of charm: tulle ruffled cocktail dresses that look as sweet as they sound, fitted pants with cashmere capes for day, and for evening, a very on-trend brocade jacket. With a simple and feminine color palette—blacks, off-whites, and shades of blush—it has the potential to be as popular as its big-sister collection. And with so many items to pick from, we'd love to see a store in the U.S. soon.
—Marina Larroude

Reed Krakoff

"Body-conscious" is not a term we ever thought Reed Krakoff would utter in connection with his designs. But he said it backstage today before a Fall collection that proved to be a subtle yet smart evolution of his signature minimalist style. Now in his fifth season on the runway, Krakoff has discovered the waist. Notably: a cordovan brown polished leather coat nipped in at the midsection before falling in an A-line shape to the knee. It might be the sexiest thing Krakoff's ever done, followed closely by a black python bandeau that gave shape to a chiffon blouse and trousers.

That's not to say he's gone completely hourglass on us. Krakoff still believes in pantsuits, and they worked best here when they stood on their own, without the unnecessary bulk of the cropped, hooded vests he showed with some of them. The two ivory styles toward the end of the show made a big impact. Knits are another important part of his burgeoning business. Fur patches on the sleeves of one and a leather front panel on another upped the special factor.

Two categories were mostly absent on his runway. He showed only three bags in 30 looks—all of them in alligator. And he opted out of cocktail attire and evening dresses entirely. No matter: His daywear held up to the added scrutiny.
—Nicole Phelps

Reem Acra

The show began with an impossible proposition: Keep the descending swarms of showgoers off the uncovered runway. A human wall of volunteers and a man with a Swiffer did their valiant best, but more than one audience member's heel scuffed the catwalk before the lights went down. Why all the fuss? Who knows, but Acra presumably wanted a gleaming surface for her girls to walk on, an acceptable enough reason for a collection based on "feminine power." That phrase was Acra's, issued backstage, where she explained that she wanted to convey a sense of power through strong, second-skin silhouettes.

For day, Acra got her slinky message across with a strong-shouldered, nipped-waist leather jacket and matching pencil skirt in wine red. Snug, embellished skirt suits in metallic tweed and herringbone hewed close to the body. Another leather jacket had the contained volume of a puffer coat, but it cinched the waist, flared out to a peplum, and flaunted a high, protective collar—not a coat you'd want to mess with.

Some of the air was released from the silhouette for night. A few Deco-beaded flapper dresses slid by, welcome respites from all the hourglasses. But there was more skin to be seen, and three gowns featured major peekaboo cutouts that slashed the body with wide zigzags. The trompe l'oeil effect was more disturbing than delightful, and would likely pose problems for anyone with a décolletage. There was a red-carpet winner, however, in the show's closer: a one-shouldered silk crepe gown, taut across the bodice, that opened to a sheer, beaded skirt allowing for plenty of movement. Clothes that let you walk where you want sounds like feminine power to us.
—Alison Baenen

Revillon

It was easy to miss the first look at Revillon's intimate show. There was no music or pomp. But once you realized the show had started, it was hard to look away from the 23 exits of ultra luxury making the rounds in the fittingly exquisite Salon des Aigles in the Hôtel de Crillon.

Today's show was the debut of the furrier's new creative director, Andrew Heather, who spent 13 years working at Givenchy, having been originally hired by Alexander McQueen. Heather's most recent focus was haute couture. That showed in his ability to innovate techniques, for instance, replacing typical satin linings (one of his main fur pet peeves) with tweed that's sewn painstakingly onto the fur to make it, in effect, a double-faced fabric.

"I tried bonding, but it turned into cardboard," he explained. "This keeps the suppleness. Then you can do all sorts of things." One of those things was tailoring, cutting fox and sable into little peplum jackets, and piecing sheared mink with hair calf into narrow coats.

Heather's post was most memorably held by Rick Owens, who gave Revillon an edgy relevance. Heather's refreshed but still elegant vision takes a subtler route. That front-to-back contrast piecing with leather, hair calf, or even velvety sheared mink lightened things up both physically and in terms of flashy statement. Though it upped the sexiness factor on leather or shaved astrakhan pencil skirts backed in a body-hugging black ribbed punto di Milano. Lighter still were the lacquered tweeds Heather developed to play off the texture of all those pelts.

He may be a fur newbie, but Heather is quickly becoming a master. See the symmetrically engineered lines on the skunk coat that closed the show. "A skunk doesn't actually do that," he sighed.
—Meenal Mistry

Richard Chai Love

During a preview, Richard Chai was straightforward about a desire for the straightforward. "It's not about tricks for the show," he said. "I want it to be clean and crisp, accessible and believable." That read as self-admonishment for experiments past, but hey, what would fashion be without a gamble here and there?

Inspired by a Bruce Davidson subway photograph of "a fragile-looking man" wearing a sturdy chesterfield coat, Chai's mantra was "handsome femininity." That's certainly a return to roots, as mens-for-women—or boys-for-girls, depending on your view— is a longtime fascination of his. Sure enough, the collection's biggest impact was sartorial—a great-looking navy and charcoal striped tweed, which he developed with an Italian mill. It fell prey to awkward proportions in the suit that was the first look out, but was a smart and polished winner in nearly every other iteration. Even as that crispness intentionally gave way to the abstraction of Chai's signature prints and a Lurex striped wool, the sense of believability didn't flag. Instead the designer concentrated on refinement, with details like the very flattering waist-defining suede yokes and the taffeta banding that finished skirts and dresses. And he kept his penchant for complex layers in check.

Chai's big news of late is that he's the new creative director of venerable outdoor gear label Filson, whom he had approached in order to collaborate on men's outerwear. There was a woodsy element to the womenswear, but it was in the men's that it really took shape. For that matter, the menswear also seemed to soak up most of the melancholy of the soundtrack's "How Soon is Now?" by the Smiths. In their gawky cropped pants, rubber-soled Palladium high-tops, and city/country hybrids like a funnel-neck nylon windbreaker under a checked suit, the boys looked like young runaways trying to hitch a ride out of the provinces to spite the world. Goodness knows that oversize Filson duffel backpack, (surely destined for a men's magazine near you) is tailor-made for such a venture.
—Meenal Mistry

Richard Nicoll

You can be guaranteed that Richard Nicoll will use the word "pragmatic" at least once when he is talking about his latest collection. Sure enough, at his presentation today it emerged in tandem with "authentic" as a guideline for the spirit of utility that steered him through his recent turmoils. When Style.com last sat down with Nicoll, he was feeling burned out, unsure of whether he could even be bothered doing another show. Pragmatism dictated a presentation instead. And what a smart move that turned out to be. Not only did it provide Nicoll with an opportunity to simultaneously shoot his lookbook and offer a sly comment on the fashion industry (he turned the shoot into a production line, where the designer and photographer were factory workers and the models and clothing the product), but the presentation also gave him the confidence to do something plain and simple. "And it's my favorite collection ever," he exulted.

The production line was actually the theme of Nicoll's new work. He called it Modern Times, after Charlie Chaplin's silent cog-in-the-wheel classic. He was also thinking about Play Time, Jacques Tati's take on the same subject, and the clothes that emerged were influenced by the idea of clothes for work, everything from the boilersuit to the smock to the suit. Lines were straight, silhouettes unfussy (a blessing after Spring's hoops). Nicoll mentioned "modesty" as a keynote, and there was certainly a decorum in his pleated shifts, and sweater and box-pleated skirt sets—except for the fact that the modesty was contradicted by a look-at-me color palette of hazard orange, safety yellow, and electric blue. And the sweater in that set was cashmere, the skirt usually leather. Nicoll's attention to the body led to suggestive interplays of sheer and solid, as in a gray skirt with a stripe of sheer running up the thigh, or a boilersuit with a sheer top.

The bag that accompanied the collection was also plugged in to the idea of work. London fashion week sponsor Vodafone has developed with the designer a tote that recharges mobiles, thus closing the door on one more excuse to go off-grid.
—Tim Blanks

Rick Owens

An audience with Rick Owens could leave you feeling like a seal who's been thrown a bucket of red herrings. Before his show today, he was relating his new collection to brutalism, the architectural movement that gave the world a wealth of anonymously squat concrete skyscrapers. Backstage, the models in filleted ski masks were a glimmer of what he might possibly mean, even if Owens clarified that the masks were, for him, "a brutalist veil," and, to counteract the harsher implications of a Lecter-like face hugger, he'd insisted on classically beautiful makeup: a pale face, a red lip. The soundtrack for the show, on the other hand, was Zebra Katz's savagely minimal "Ima Read." That at least had an unambiguously brutalist vibe. So did the set, with bars of fire blazing like a sacrificial pyre while the models walked.

And then, against all that, Owens had to go and unload the most lyrical, un-brutal collection he's ever shown, in an act of fierce self-contradiction that underscored his assertion that the story slowly "emerges" each season for him. In other words, even he isn't quite sure what it is he's just done.

There is certainly enough in Owens' work to suggest that he is unwittingly channeling something deep and meaningful. He is, however, clued in enough to provide a clear context. He's a Hollywood baby, for instance, so if there were freaky glimmers of Fred Astaire in his men's show in January, here there were refractions of Marlene Dietrich in her Jean Louis-gowned cabaret appearances (and how unlikely is it that the very same reference popped up with Marios Schwab in London).

It was actually the pilled-chiffon dresses that were most suggestive of Dietrich's "naked" gowns to Owens himself, which was maybe an ellipse too far. If he's not sure about what he does, how can we be? Still, when Owens reeled off Dietrich's assets—"control, beauty, discipline"—they were all consummately expressed in his collection, never more so than in the serenely elegant gowns partnered with cropped lantern-sleeve leather jackets. Those same jackets also appeared with huge, capelike shearling collars.

Duly enchanted, it was easy to move on to Owens' explorations of new graphic possibilities: blanket checks, patchworked furs, color-blocking (although the colors were a panoply of monotones).

Discussing the architectural influences on his latest collection, Owens mentioned that he'd progressed from last season's Marcel Breuer ("soft" brutalism) to Frank Lloyd Wright, the most organic of architects. So it was Wright's elementalism that ultimately shaped Owens' Fall. All those soft, round, flowing volumes were the very opposite of brutalism's angles. Thank God Rick Owens is a stranger to himself.
—Tim Blanks

Roberto Cavalli

Before his show, Roberto Cavalli paraded around the catwalk with Lupo, his German shepherd. It was an outlandish image, but not as outlandish as the tiger pattern on the catwalk (which was composed of 40,000 flowers). And not nearly as outlandish as the clothes that subsequently made their way through the flowers. In its more-is-never-enough excess, this was the most impeccably styled, luxurious collection Cavalli has ever shown. But it also mastered the power of illusion to achieve a de trop, Fellini-esque grandeur. So when Naomi Campbell sailed down the catwalk barely harnessed into a waterfall of purple sequins, it seemed like the only appropriate full stop to a show that had turned nature on its head, painting python with big cat motifs, printing mink with python, turning glossy ponyskin into scaly croc, creating, in other words, an extraordinary new menagerie, one worthy of Nero himself.

The artisanship was such that the clothes needed to be seen close up, and better still, felt. The bubble skirts that opened the show, for example, were made up of fur that was pieced together like feathers. They were shown with T-shirts so densely beaded they could have been a new kind of reptile skin. By the time the skirts reached the floor, they were mink lasered to look like croc (mocodile?), or python painted in tiger stripes. There were a couple of other major silhouettes. The first consisted of extremely feminine tiers of mousseline. (One dress seemed to re-create a crocodile skin in glitteringly glazed scales, but who would be crazy enough to dare such an eyeball-straining piece of embroidery? Need we ask?) The second was a rock 'n' roll dandy-tailored suit, with peaked shoulders and long, flared legs. Every outfit was a book—or at least a movie.

Cavalli has created his own fashion vocabulary. Sometimes he whispers it, other times he screams. Today's show was one long, sustained holler of unholy glee. He was exuding it backstage, clearly happiest when he's making some noise.
—Tim Blanks

Rochas

The Fall Rochas show was a swirling kaleidoscope of graphic, geometric prints inspired by the pottery of the Swedish ceramicist Wilhelm Kage. Designer Marco Zanini collects his pieces; still, he was surprised when he found himself using them in his own work. He usually starts with an image of a woman or a movie.

Well, the change did him good. Despite what Zanini called the collection's "certain disregard for quiet good taste," there were many good, wearable pieces for both day and evening. Unlike his show for Spring, which had a formal fifties couture look, this one had a cooler seventies vibe. Jacquard pants were deeply flared and nearly grazed the floor despite the models' stacked heel sandals. And the collection's "ugly" prints (including those on the clashing tights) reminded some in the crowd of nineties Prada, when Miuccia herself was taking a closer look at the seventies. Zanini was extra proud that they were painted by hand, without the use of a computer. An interlocking diamond pattern that looked like stained glass on a button-down shirt and on matching flares was particularly compelling.

However, it wasn't all prints, all the time. A mustard ribbed sweater (one of the collection's many excellent knits) was paired with silk pants in a slightly different shade of yellow, giving the eyes a chance to rest. Zanini's finale ball gowns came in warm fall colors like that, but not before he sent out a trio of floor-length dresses fearlessly enlivened with pattern. Who needs good taste?
—Nicole Phelps

Rodarte

For at least a year now, Kate and Laura Mulleavy have been experimenting with ways to take their idiosyncratic vision in a more commercial direction. It hasn't been easy—these sisters are American fashion's dreamers, referencing Days of Heaven one season, and Disney's Sleeping Beauty the next. This time around, though, they got the art and commerce balance right.

The Australian Outback was their starting point, they said backstage. That meant it wasn't so far removed in spirit from last Fall's homage to Terrence Malick. But whereas back then the Mulleavys sent out somewhat challenging floor-scraping prairie coats, here they showed black and white shearlings you could believably see strutting city streets. In fact, we're sure we'll be coming across plenty of them this time next year.

Retailers were undoubtedly just as pleased to see a pair of black leather dresses with hand-tooled appliqué details that faintly recalled aboriginal motifs, as well as cropped alpaca fisherman sweaters worn with high-waisted wool pants; remember, Oz is an island. Tailored coats and jackets worked too, especially a dusty blue double-breasted style that looked like something out of Nicole Kidman's wardrobe in Baz Luhrmann's Australia.

Longtime fans of the duo's eccentric point of view needn't worry, though. The finale evening gowns with their cave-painting handprints were as unconventional as ever. Same goes for their new shoe collection. That was sand inside the Plexiglas heels.
—Nicole Phelps

Rogan

As a general matter, Rogan and Chanel aren't brands with much in common. This season, however, Karl Lagerfeld and Rogan Gregory have found themselves plowing the same furrow, creating collections that are crystal-inspired and knitwear-focused. Weird. Anyway, if Chanel's extravaganza in Paris was the maximalist, über-luxury expression of those themes, the new Rogan collection gave us the affordable, minimalist flip side. The crystal reference was primarily elaborated here via brushstroke prints, the best of which was done in black and white on crepe georgette; Gregory played with layering the print against itself, creating palimpsest effects. That made for several striking pieces. Elsewhere, the standouts were the collection's draped knits, in particular a long, asymmetric skirt, and a clever halter-neck sweater that flashed decorous amounts of skin. Gregory's tailoring was also quite strong this time out, with taut dresses featuring paneled construction and natty takes on outerwear staples such as the trench and frock coat.

In terms of the men's collection, Gregory didn't do much to advance on his signatures. That said, his hemp cotton jerseys will find a lot of takers, and the plaited cotton shawl-neck sweater and low-waist short mac made for nice refinements of his relaxed take on urbanity.
—Maya Singer

Roksanda Ilincic

Last spring, Roksanda Ilincic took a sporty approach to classically elegant clothes. Today, she did the mirror reverse: an elegant eye cast upon sporty clothes. As a description, "sporty" might even skew a bit formal. After the show, Ilincic described her source material as "weekend or leisure wear, the kind of thing you put on when you're cozy at home."

The humble and often maligned sweatshirt and sweatpants had a moment to bask in their cozy glory. The former came in charcoal jersey pieced with navy silk and often a luscious fox hood. In one look, she turned it into a blouson and paired it with a matching New Look-ish jersey skirt, and in another, it was a hoodie tucked into a skirt with a blue-gray astrakhan panel in front and a dyed-to-match fox hem. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Juicy. Elsewhere, she shot navy melton through with gold thread and cut it into a jacket with puffer sleeves. And in keeping with the puffer panoply on the rest of London's runways, Ilincic did one with gracefully rounded shoulders in a silk ink slash print. There were few of her signature dresses on display—and little in the way of serious evening—though she assured that the sales collection back at the showroom is massive.

Luxed-up comfort is undeniably a crowd-pleaser. Who doesn't love being able to wear your slouchy Sunday afternoon digs to Friday night dinner? But these ideas were easily best when administered with a light hand—a crepe dress with raglan wool sleeves or a blouson bomber paneled with a bit of astrakhan. Often, the concept—and an excessive amount of fur—threatened to overpower Ilincic's inherent sense of elegance. For exhibit A of said elegance, see the exceedingly simple white wool dress that closed the show, a winner any day of the week.
—Meenal Mistry

Roland Mouret

The New Look is getting a new lease on life for Fall. At his show today, Roland Mouret modified the silhouette that Christian Dior made famous in 1947. The jacket peplums weren't as generous, the skirts weren't half so ample, but the general feel was there. That meant Mouret put a stronger emphasis on tailoring than usual. As the designer of the world-famous Galaxy dress, he must feel pressure, both internally and externally, to stay focused on the proverbial one-piecer. But he was interested in the idea of multiples this season. In fact, he mentioned the Great Freeze of 1947, one of Europe's coldest winters on record, as the impetus for his focus on layering. Jumpsuits, for instance, were designed to look like a gilet belted over full-legged pants, but they were actually attached by a vertical zipper in the back.

There was a lot of drama when it came to the rear view. Origamilike folds accented the shoulders of a smart checked jacket with a leather collar, and sleeveless coat-dresses turned and revealed themselves to be not coats but vests cropped above the waist. A lot of thoughtful consideration and fine craftsmanship went into these pieces. You couldn't help but think, though, that what will ultimately seduce his customers was the slip-it-on-and-go, modern sex appeal of the stretchy asymmetric dresses that closed the show.
—Nicole Phelps

Rue du Mail

Rather than articulate a theme, Martine Sitbon preferred to describe her imagined muse for the season. "She's a bit more androgynous and she has a strong attitude," said the designer. "But at the same time, she prefers something softer." In essence, the answer to "What do women want?" is "Everything." (Chris Rock would have a field day.) But somehow the Parisienne traverses that divide with more agility—the hard coexisting peacefully and stylishly with the soft. In no-nonsense black and white, Sitbon's variegated knits looked cozy but telegraphed the idea of protection. A shift in crafty macramé lace and laser-cut bouclé was armorlike but quite chic. A fab full-sleeve trenchcoat had black lapels running the length of it that were belted open to create a kind of barrier that looked nearly bulletproof.

When women want to feel strong, sporty streetwear is a sure route. Sitbon upped the ante on hers, putting raglan sleeves on a loden bouclé coat with a subtle hit of Lurex, and creating her version of the varsity jacket skirtsuit—a ripple from last Fall's Tisci stone toss—in a silk watercolor print with crocheted collar and cuffs. For pure softness, Sitbon—a master frockmeister—knows it's all about a dress. But most girls would race past the ones pieced in satins that tried to have it all, and head straight for the jewel-hued chiffon beauties with open smocking that closed the show. They're the kind of bohemian Sitbon special that make a good percentage of the female population go gooey, and sometimes that is everything.
—Meenal Mistry

Ruffian

Last season it was Saratoga Springs. For Fall, Brian Wolk and Claude Morais visited a different kind of horse country: the English countryside. For a second, we could've sworn we were in Downton Abbey, what with one model's long, narrow skirt in black wool flannel, matching smoking jacket, and frilly white blouse. But the impression didn't last long. Chalk that up to her thoroughly modern purple velvet manicure; those nails are going to drive the beauty bloggers wild.

There was a lot to like about the clothes here, too. Two parallel rows of black buttons down the back of a blue-gray wool melton chesterfield made it a coat to remember. On the sportier side, an olive green wool twill field coat with leather shoulders had an appealing A-line swing. And a hunting jacket in glen plaid with patch pockets in a contrasting check was a reminder that the Ruffian boys are snappy tailors. The feminine side of their formula wasn't as fully realized. A stretch velvet dress, for instance, felt out of step with the rest of the collection, but there was on-message charm in a cameo pink blouse with white lace collar and cuffs.
—Nicole Phelps

Sacai

"All the models want the clothes," reported stylist Karl Templer, working with designer Chitose Abe for the first time, after today's show. It's little surprise. Abe makes clothes that somehow turn the conceptual into something that could actually hit a city street. And desire for her clothes isn't limited to the young, beautiful, and thin. To wit, she recently had to close the second floor of her newish Tokyo boutique because she just ran out of product to fill it.

Abe explained that this season focused on menswear. It's a motif carried over from Spring, but in heavier cold-weather fabrics it took on a more Victor Victoria vibe. A dark chesterfield, worn over a prim white button-down, turned to reveal flaring pleats inset with royal blue knit; motorcycle jackets spilled collars of ruffled shearling, which snaked around the waist to form a peplum. Abe doesn't often use prints, so it was nice to see a rich sartorial paisley scarf print, particularly great in a narrowish skirt collaged with a red satin and lace slip and layered with red chiffon.

The outerwear was strong, but dresses sang too. One standout merged the classic oxford blue shirt and camel skirt with a siren gown by picking out the silhouette of its sweetheart neckline and curvy waist in sequins. When it made the turn, you saw the rest of the lace and satin slip that peeked out from its hem via a high and wide slit meant to give the impression that the model forgot to zip her skirt. It sounds excruciatingly tricky on paper, but in reality, it works. That was part of the beauty of the collection.

It's nice to see Abe on ever-bigger stages, like her substantial shop-in-shop at the new Dover Street Market in Ginza, not to mention a well-attended runway show with a high-ticket stylist. But she's a quiet powerhouse who took years to grow and learn before entering the spotlight. Young designers should take note of a business model that stands the test of time.
—Meenal Mistry

Sachin + Babi

Sachin and Babi Ahluwalia staged their first runway show today, a major moment for the husband-and-wife design duo (not to mention a nice way to spend Valentine's Day together). After seeing the first few looks in motion on the catwalk, it became clear that this season was not only an upgrade for Sachin + Babi's presentation format, but also for the clothing itself. Backstage after the finale, Sachin explained that for Fall, they wondered, "What would a love child between between Jim Morrison and Kate Beckinsale look like? And more importantly, how would she dress?" So needless to say there was a lot of leather here. "But she isn't a tough girl with this hard exterior," Babi clarified. "We wanted to show the more delicate side of leather." A lipstick red lambskin shift dress, for example, was broken up by pleated chiffon on the torso and hemline. And an embossed crocodile suede flared skirt was balanced out with a gauzy T-shirt and plush navy fox fur jacket. S + B ramped up its eveningwear offerings this time around, too—perhaps to attract more of a Hollywood clientele. We wouldn't be surprised to see Gwyneth Paltrow (or any A-lister fond of flaunting her toned gams) turn up on the red carpet in one of the saturated jewel-tone gowns with double thigh-high slits. Overall, this collection indicated a new, more refined direction for the two-and-a-half-year-old contemporary label.
—Brittany Adams

Salvatore Ferragamo

Toward the end of the Salvatore Ferragamo show, a song came over the loudspeakers that summed up designer Massimiliano Giornetti's new direction for Fall. Kate Bush's "Army Dreamers" said everything there was to know about a fine collection that married the rigor of military clothing with the romance of chiffon and lace.

Having worked on Ferragamo's men's collection before assuming the reins on the women's side as well, Giornetti is a practiced, subtle tailor. There was real finesse in an officer's jacket that combined black leather and sheared astrakhan. The same goes for a black leather blazer belted snug at the waist and its matching pencil skirt, as well as a fatigues-green flannel suit worn with its pants tucked into knee-high boots. Snug sweaters embroidered in bullion kept the military motif going.

The femme side of the Ferragamo story featured off-the-shoulder dresses in crocheted silk interwoven with ribbon; peasant tops tucked into high-waisted pencil skirts; and chiffon gypsy dresses edged in gold. "Lots to wear," said a fellow editor on her way out of the show. Agreed.
—Nicole Phelps

Sea

Competence is an underrated virtue. Surely we all keep a mental list of those people in our lives who just plug along quietly, demonstrating excellence on deadline. They come in handy, those folks. Count Monica Paolini and Sean Monahan among the competent ones: As the designers of Sea, Paolini and Monahan make clothes that are well made, well priced, and dependably appealing. They waste zero effort trying to be fashion stars and have built a sizable business pretty much on their own and almost completely under the radar.

Anyway, they've earned some kudos. This season's Sea collection was a predictably solid affair, composed largely of easy-to-wear patterned knits and silk pieces in a variety of scarf prints. There was a new emphasis on handknits and outerwear, all of which served to further elaborate Sea's tomboy-cute aesthetic. A few pieces stood out as really special: A boxy coated canvas coat, for instance, had a directional slickness; ditto the micro-pleated leather skirt. Meanwhile, the folk Russian scarf print in dark jewel tones looked rich, especially so in a simple tank with a ruffled hem. These pieces and others suggest that Monahan and Paolini are ready to rise to the challenge of refining their line and attacking it with a bit more ambition.
—Maya Singer

See by Chloé

The little-sister line to Chloé took its first (virtual) steps onto the runway today. See by Chloé became the second label, after the relaunched ICB by Prabal Gurung, to strut into the online ether as part of Digitalfashionshows.com, which allows an invite-only crowd to screen prerecorded shows. It's hard to imagine Chloé ever making such a move—especially as it gears up to celebrate its 60th anniversary this year—but little sisters are often more adventurous than their elders. Especially when they've got parents in high places pushing them along. "It felt right to support this strong and directional collection and to promote See by Chloé via an innovative and new digital platform which allows optimum visibility to the label," Chloé CEO Geoffroy de la Bourdonnaye said.

As a move to up visibility, the decision was a success. (Case in point: You're reading about it here.) With greater visibility, however, comes greater scrutiny. Chloé's Clare Waight Keller is not the creative force at the helm of See, and in fact, the company doesn't identify a designer or team behind the line. Maybe that's why the collection itself feels more anonymous than it might. The See aesthetic riffs on that of the Chloé main line, especially in its emphasis on long, fluid lines, soft volumes, and a pretty, feminine bent. For Fall, the femme got flirty with an emphasis on sheer mesh tops and dresses in silk georgette, viscose, and silk, fineness that played off the roughness and slouch of oversize outerwear and tailored pieces in denim and wide-wale corduroy. Piece by piece, you could see items that should energize customers on the sales floor, but overall, the message wasn't as distinctive as the medium.
—Matthew Schneier

Sharon Wauchob

You'd never guess that Sharon Wauchob's micro print, which looked like city lights from a plane window, was inspired by early video games. "It's not the era that I'm from," she said backstage. "I was visiting it for the first time." Otherwise, the Irish-born designer was in familiar territory, figuring out how to make luxury and exquisite femininity for a modern woman, as she does each season. Today that made for some of the most polished and beautiful clothes Wauchob has shown to date.

She began with pleats, working with her usual French experts, experimenting with fabric weights, either by layering silks or piecing organza with wool and leather and re-pleating the whole shebang. It sounds complicated—and in a few collaged numbers it was—but the result had immediate appeal. A black wool dress, pieced with mink and leather and slashed to reveal a swingy panel of sheer pleats, was beautiful enough to garner audible approval as it glided by. Mink and leather on a dress? It may sound a bit much in theory, but it worked. Overall, there was a greater sense of luxury than is usual with Wauchob, most overt in sleek coats with lush, half-draped fox collars. Wauchob has used fur before, but these provided an unaccustomed sense of pure pleasure. As day turned to evening, there was a touch of pixilated sparkle in clusters of tiny crystals. They skewed sci-fi on tailored jackets and pants, but on a couple of dresses that mixed various types of lace, they twinkled like a perfect starry night.

With so much looking backward by designers in recent seasons, it isn't easy trying to create modern clothes that don't leave you cold. But here was a finely balanced proposition.
—Meenal Mistry

Simone Rocha

Just when you thought that London fashion week couldn't possibly fit another must-see young designer onto its show calendar, along comes Simone Rocha. Though she graduated Central Saint Martins less than two years ago, Rocha has already made her presence felt on the local fashion scene: She presented as part of Fashion East for two seasons, designed a six-piece capsule collection for Topshop last year, and found herself with a cult phenomenon shoe on her hands, in the shape of a brogue with a Perspex sole. And this afternoon Rocha affirmed her position as London's hottest up-and-comer with her fantastic first runway show.

The first thing that jumps out at you about Rocha is that she's an innovator with textiles: Her new collection featured a plethora of unusual fabrications, such as mirror-bright silver leather, Linton tweed veiled in tulle, wools tufted onto clear PVC, and wild mohair. But Rocha isn't myopic about her materials; she uses them, cannily, to serve her street-inflected yet strangely dreamy point of view. The creamy veiled tweed pieces were a case in point: Rocha used the material in sharply cut minidresses, short skirts, and peplum blouses; the tulle overlay, meanwhile, gave the looks an otherworldly quality. Detachable crochet collars added an unexpectedly feral element, as well—one echoed in the dense hand-knit pieces that showed up later. There was something monstrous about Rocha's PVC dresses with mountains of thick wool sculpted in the front, but the look grew on you. Elsewhere, the boyish coats and jackets had a more readily palatable urchin glamour; the jacket in mirrored leather is going to be on a lot of editors' pre-order lists, without a doubt. Ditto Rocha's shoes, purposefully clunky flats kitted out with her now signature Perspex sole. Long story short, get on board with Rocha now, because she's about to take off.
—Maya Singer

Skaist-Taylor

First things first: Skaist-Taylor, the new label from Juicy Couture founders Gela Nash-Taylor and Pamela Skaist-Levy, is not going to appeal to hardcore fashion freaks. If you're the kind of person who has ever described the cut of a pair of trousers as "Yohji-esque," or got into an eye-searing print because its mix of colors was pleasingly offensive, you're probably not in the market for a one-shoulder gold lamé minidress. But no hard feelings, because there are plenty of women out there for whom Skaist-Taylor is going to be catnip. Who are these women, the ones going to stores in search of vintage-inspired peasant blouses, paisley maxi dresses, oversize python clutches, and foxtail bag charms? One word you might use to describe them is: shoppers.

As they proved at their debut Skaist-Taylor presentation today, Nash-Taylor and Skaist-Levy haven't lost their sixth sense for the mainstream fashion id, and with that in mind, they've designed an unapologetically accessible collection boasting day-to-night dresses in flattering cuts, shrug-on knitwear, cotton-cashmere blend sweatshirts, and a variety of vaguely boho accessories. They've also returned with new styles of velour pants—much dressier than the old Juicy sweatpants, and designed, as Nash-Taylor explained, "to make women look great." They're going to make a fortune. Another one.
—Maya Singer

Sonia Rykiel

If the first few looks at Sonia Rykiel struck you as uncharacteristically subdued, your fashion Spidey sense was right on. The gist of Fall was to create a wardrobe of classics, described in the show notes as nonchalant, "familiar yet surprising" with an "offbeat twist." Though in the charming world of Paris' redheaded fashion matriarch—now translated by creative director April Crichton—the essentials can mean a fine navy pea jacket with contrasting royal sleeves as much as an orange Creamsicle shearling cocoon coat.

There was in fact quite a bit that any woman might love to have as staples in her closet, whether she subscribes to a wink-and-smile Rykielian philosophy or not: madly cozy knit skirtsuits; matching intarsia pullovers and pencil skirts; and the very chic, airy smocked dresses in a faint sweet ivory print or sexy sheer black.

As always, there were offbeat twists, like a long ribbed mohair cardigan split in the front to look like two pieces, or the surreal erotic hardware in the shape of a breast on belts and polished, ladylike bags. But the cheeky fun factor was toned down. Perhaps it was because these clothes and bags mean business. The House That Sonia Built sold an 80 percent stake to Fung Capital just two weeks ago. Still, on their final walk the models smiled as big as ever, matched by Crichton and Nathalie Rykiel, who took a bow hand in hand.
—Meenal Mistry

Sophia Kokosalaki

Sophia Kokosalaki is back in Paris for the second season after a year-and-a-half absence. As of January, she was preparing to do a runway show, but Kokosalaki, like her fellow Londoner Phoebe Philo, is pregnant, and she opted for one-on-one appointments. All the better to understand where the designer is coming from now.

"It's always a mix of Greece and London," she said, describing her new collection. A jumpsuit in black silk that looked like leather evoked London in the early eighties, and a fitted, long-sleeve dress in a metallic lamé tweed looked like London today, but overall we saw more of the designer's roots in this collection. A white silk blouse buttoned up to the collar above a thick leather belt and slim black pants gathered at the ankle was something she saw on a man last summer in Crete, "but with the folklore subtracted." Same goes for a draped white goddess dress that still had an edge: "Everybody's had a go at the poor Grecians," the designer said. "It's important to make it cooler."

Kokosalaki has always been best known for her cocktail dresses, so the daywear felt fresh. Sweaters hand-knit by a Scottish women's collective that she trimmed in leather for added cool factor looked and felt great. And a pair of knit jersey pants had editors asking to place special orders.
—Nicole Phelps

Sophie Theallet

Sophie Théallet's Fall muse sounded like a fun girl. "She's an aristocratic woman of today," the designer explained. "She was disowned by her family because she was eccentric." Théallet's millennial Edie Beale (sans cats, you hope) is ruined but still has the wherewithal—"education," as she put it—to be resplendent, spending her tiny pension on fashion, while forgoing the heat in her decaying mansion.

It might suffer from neglect, but that proud house was the source of the collection's main print—a Victorian-ish wallpaper motif that gave things a welcome tilt toward the bohemian side of Théallet's oeuvre. The pattern was actually at its best when laid on thick, layered up in fab intarsia knits and satins in slightly off-kilter, mismatched colors. But Théallet is all about dueling forces. Her counterpoint to the soft and eclectic came in big gestures, like the va-va-voom red satin dresses, and small ones: a skinny line of red piping on a rich gold-flecked chocolate cloque party frock. The shock of red satin straps you saw when a sugary dotted ivory chiffon halter dress turned the corner could qualify as medium. Nonetheless, Théallet sets out her work to create the necessary tension that keeps prettiness from boring you, and mostly succeeds.

In the end, Théallet admitted that her can-do muse was a bit closer to her heart than she originally let on. "It's also a metaphor for when you have a fashion brand and you don't have all the resources," she said. "But I am eclectic and I have education and I do the best I can."
—Meenal Mistry

Sophomore

Social magnet-turned-creative director Chrissie Miller is the kind of easygoing girl we'd love to karaoke with, and Sophomore's Fall video just might be the next best thing. In the two-minute short, a band of Miller's gal pals, including Jessica Stam, Lonneke Engel, and Cory Kennedy, take turns belting out Fleetwood Mac's sing-along staple "Dreams." The assorted group—let's just say there's a wide range of both musical talent and personal style represented here—models the downtown label's latest lineup of casual jersey separates. This season, Miller and head designer Madeleine von Froomer updated their standard T-shirts and maxi dresses with celestial screen-prints. Other mystical motifs included a Ouija board and one look that could be described as Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon cover meets the Star of David. Sophomore continues to add and experiment with pieces like a dip-dyed, washed silk tube skirt with a high slit as well as oversized henleys, but at the end of the day, fans come back to Sophomore for its novelty tees.
—Brittany Adams

Sportmax

Like Proenza Schouler in New York, the Sportmax team took inspiration from martial arts for Fall. The quilting on coats, the rounded shapes of shoulders and sleeves on turtleneck sweaters, and the sporty cut of the technical-fabric pants all had their origins in the uniforms of karate, judo, and other elegantly dressed forms of fighting. Knotted black belts tied the collection together.

Coats were a central conceit, no surprise for this Italian sportswear brand. They had a butch swagger, with boxy, masculine cuts; popped collars; or bold fur lapels. Dresses, on the other hand, accentuated the feminine, thanks to the curving, ergonomic contrast seams running up and down the sides.

The edgy and urban look was something of a departure for Sportmax, but Asia is a big theme for Fall, which positions the label well going forward. Still, the NC-17 lyrics for accompaniment on the soundtrack were a tacky step too far. Especially with the starlet Chloë Moretz, just turned 15, sitting front-and-center with her mom.
—Nicole Phelps

St. John

The late Loulou de la Falaise has been on George Sharp's mind of late. "She was obviously a style icon for everybody in fashion," he said backstage before his show at the posh Ukrainian Institute of America on the Upper East Side. "She had a way of throwing things on and looking effortless and chic." In the spirit of Loulou, the sweaters were loose and the pants were wide-legged, making for a much different silhouette than the one St. John spokeswoman Kate Winslet was rocking in the front row. (Short, tight, and to-the-point, Winslet's black leather dress was more femme fatale than free spirit.)

Bursts of red and a pop of leopard print in an otherwise subdued palette were two of Sharp's nods to his muse. A black and red color-blocked cashmere sweater fell insouciantly off one shoulder, while a fuzzy, slightly boxy, faux-fur top in the animal print looked cozy and rich paired with elbow-high leather gloves; this season's St. John woman may be nonchalant, but she's still very well appointed. For evening Sharp offered a free-form red satin V-neck gown with deep pockets; on anyone other than a model it might look like a (luxurious) muumuu, but it did capture the mood of effortless elegance Sharp was going for. A long-sleeve, drape-neck gown covered in matte brown paillettes would take more effort to wear, but it would be worth it. Clinging to curves without seeming to, it performed just the sort of sartorial trick de la Falaise would have admired.
—Alison Baenen

Stella McCartney

Stella McCartney's on a roll. There's the new store in New York's Soho and a second London boutique opening this week. There's the Olympics, for which she's designing the British team's uniforms. There's the string of recent red carpet coups—an hourglass Kate Winslet comes to mind. And today there was her new collection, which captured how women want to dress now.

Backstage McCartney talked about merging city and country, and day and night. "The Stella woman is about balance," she said. After nearly a month of fashion shows, the women in her audience this morning are all craving some of that. Well, sorry, ladies, but you'll have to wait several months to get your hands on the polished yet easy pieces in this collection.

Coats are always a highlight at McCartney's Fall shows—you can pass the time waiting for papa Paul to take his seat counting examples from the previous year. The standouts here were a side-zip style with the season's bolder proportions in a vivid blue, and a tailored number with a sporty knit collar and the padded hips we've been seeing all around town. She dressed up her tailoring with graphic, botanical embroideries (white and black on that same vivid blue) or embossed the same pattern on double crepe. Jackets were slightly oversize and pleated pants slouched from the hips.

Maybe with an eye to the coming Olympics, McCartney ended her collection on a sporty beat. Long-sleeve dresses with kicky hems were pieced together from stretch tweed and ergonomic blocks of blue and white. Plenty sexy, but more covered-up than her frocks have been lately. Gymnasts? Tennis players? Cheerleaders? They had a cheering section in her front row.
—Nicole Phelps

Stephen Burrows

"It's all about a chevron," Stephen Burrows said backstage before his show. Sometimes a chevron is just a chevron, but the designer imbued the motif with more significance. "We have ups and downs in our life," he said. "We have peaks." Burrows is definitely having a peak: The Museum of the City of New York announced today that they're hosting a retrospective of his work early next year.

The chevrons showed up on knit dresses. Oversize and red, they called to mind Charlie Brown's signature sweater, but they delivered a graphic punch that was much more grown-up. Skintight jeans in a python print—part of a collaboration with Raven Denim—were super-foxy; if the barely-there tops were a bit too sexy, Burrows had other offerings in his signature knit jersey with the same exuberance, but less exposure. High-spirited, sweetly campy, and very fun, these are the sorts of clothes for turning a down day into an up.
—Alison Baenen

Steven Alan

The unemployment rate may be falling, but to judge from Steven Alan's presentation this morning, we're heading into a depression. Alan's Fall collections for both men and women riffed on thirties-era aesthetics, with an emphasis on worn tailoring and a gray and sepia-toned palette straight out of Dorothea Lange.

The cited inspiration was Diego Rivera—another icon of the up-with-labor, bread line era. Alan channeled the Rivera influence into newly emphasized handknits made in South America, as well as striped jackets and waistcoats redolent of Mexican blankets. For women, the blanket theme was extrapolated as well, into items like a mid-calf, contrast-striped jersey dress.

The menswear collection saw Alan continuing to develop his dressier pieces—there were soft tailored suits in a variety of interesting fabrications, such as moleskin and washed wool, and narrow trousers with a subtle slouch. Elsewhere, he turned out some nice adaptations of closet staples, such as a navy anorak in leather.

The women's collection, meanwhile, riffed on the men's. Many of the menswear materials repeated themselves, notably the herringbone tweed, while girlier items such as a pleated skort (skort!) and appealing full skirts were executed in mannish checks and foulard prints. Metallic brocade provided a nice counterpoint to the general low-key atmosphere. All in all, there were no real surprises here from Alan, but the collections had a strong, cohesive point of view and boasted lots of salable, easy-to-wear clothes.
—Maya Singer

Suno

At a preview, Suno's Erin Beatty and Max Osterweis talked about two divergent goals for Fall: One, to evoke a "childlike glee," and two, to enhance the collection's wearability. It's a testament to their skill that they pulled them both off. Upping the glee factor was easy for this print-loving duo: They whipped up a dress covered in naïve Edward Gorey-esque doodles, and created a black and white pattern of trees for another frock that, upon close inspection, revealed tiny creatures hidden among the leaves. There was also pleasure to be found in a sweet evening jacket and dress in colorful beaded flowers embroidered on a background of shimmery black sequins.

Where the designers stretched themselves was with their outerwear. A houndstooth and camel jacket had a masculine, military influence that provided a strong counterpoint to the knit dress underneath it. And the multicolor stripes that opened the show likewise had a bold, graphic feel.

It wasn't all hits. A blue and red geometric motif wrap dress looked more like DVF than quirky Suno. But mistakes like that aside, the important thing is they're figuring out ways to ensure that their relevance lasts longer than fashion's current fascination with print.
—Nicole Phelps

Surface to Air

It's never been just about the clothes at Surface to Air. Since its beginnings in 2000, the cult Parisian creative collaborative has offered its urban hipster clientele an appealing lifestyle brew that is equal parts fashion, music (S2A has partnered in recent seasons with artists like Kim Gordon, Kid Cudi, and Justice), interior design, and film. For brand founder Jeremie Rozan, the video he directed for the latest lineup is just as important as the merchandise itself.

Shot on a walkable roller coaster in Duisburg, Germany, and set to the Rapture song "Roller Coaster," the short film depicts a young couple chasing after each other along the ride's empty tracks. The girl is dressed like any insouciantly cool university student—picture, for example, Léa Seydoux in the 2008 French flick La Belle Personne. She wears rugged yet refined parka jackets, slick stovepipes, and platform sneakers from Fall. There are flashes of both grunge and glam in the form of beanie hats and Bowie-esque silver leggings. According to creative director Aldric Speer, the S2A customer never wants to appear as though her style is too studied or deliberate. She stays current by taking in new exhibitions and bands, instead of taking cues from the glossies. Still, the new collection nodded to a few of-the-moment trends, including coats and the still-happening varsity jacket.
—Brittany Adams

Tadashi Shoji

Tadashi Shoji's name was on a lot of people's lips following the Golden Globes and the SAG Awards, where best supporting actress winner Octavia Spencer turned heads in pastel gowns from the designer's Spring 2012 collection. But if Spencer plans to make this label her red carpet go-to, she may have to commit to a less soft-hued look, as Shoji has moved on from last season's tulip inspiration.

The mood of today's collection was a more somber one. As the designer put it himself a few days before his show, "The feeling is ominous, as if something is coming." Shoji, who was born and raised in Japan, drew inspiration from another corner of the Far East, specifically the Golden Age of Shanghai. Standouts included a black gown of Chantilly and Venetian lace with a high neckline, which the designer deemed "covered up but still sexy," as well as a series of drop-waist dresses done in digital floral prints taken from a Chinese painting. Julia Nobis closed the show in a striking black velvet number with beaded lace embroidery at the neck, a reminder of Shoji's knack for detail. Scalloped sequins and chiffon "shutters" lent the dresses a couture hand.

Overall, the collection, which was styled by Tina Chai, proved a bit more cohesive than the last. Still, Shoji continues to offer his audience a wide variety of colors and silhouettes, which is presumably important when catering to an international customer base that spans Russia, Poland, Brazil, and now China. (Shoji will be opening stores in Beijing and Shanghai come spring.) There is no denying that the designer has his feet in the right places when it comes to retail support (Neiman Marcus' Ken Downing was in the front row). And with the Oscars less than three weeks away, the dresses he showed today should put him in position to score another red-carpet coup.
—Jessica Minkoff

T by Alexander Wang

Fall was full of firsts for T by Alexander Wang, which continues to expand to offer a more comprehensive wardrobe. Believe it or not, T has never done full-on leather pants before, and the downtown staple made its debut this season (although ringing up at $995, these might be more than you bargained for from the lower-priced line). Another introduction was print: a muted, wallpaperlike one meant to mimic jacquard, which appeared on soft button-ups and signature maxi slipdresses. One thing you can always expect from T is fabric innovation. The raw-edged, scuba-esque neoprene here (echoing the main collection's recent sporty theme) looked fresh on pleated short skirts and racer-neck dresses that were layered with cropped, chunky knits. And speaking of knits, we can't get enough of Wang's must-have take on the oversize, borrowed-from-the-boyfriend topper, which looks substantial but is actually sweater-weight—perfect for freakishly warm winter days like those we've been having recently.
—Brittany Adams

Temperley London

A folk-y Slavic thing seems to be a micro-trend. Alice Temperley steered her particular bohemian leanings in an opulent direction for a look she called "polished folk." The first look out nicely illuminated that description. It had a bright floral embroidery in neat panels on ivory dotted tulle, and its long and lean shape—with sheer long sleeves that somehow still evoke the royal wedding—gave way to a bit of fluid swish at the hem. With fur hats on nearly every look, it made you think of a parade of young czarinas. (There was also a touch of Cossack warrior in a lean double-breasted officer's coat and another high-shouldered one in navy satin with proud gold buttons.) Lose the hat, however, and a lace-paneled blouse and bronze jacquard skirt cinched with a jeweled ribbon belt were pure modern-day oligarch-ette.

But even that girl's viewpoint has changed considerably in the past decade, which made some of Temperley's intended decadence (crystal beading, lace, velvet, loads of costume jewelry) feel weighty. There was a drag to looks like a long shearling jacket and matching pencil skirt, or a navy satin gown with chunky jeweled straps crisscrossing its open back. Perhaps the problem wasn't the excess itself, but the fact that it was a vision less than exquisitely drawn. After a couple of strong and very polished seasons chez Temperley, we've come to expect more.
—Meenal Mistry

Ter et Bantine

Manuela Arcari's manifesto—"casual and concise as the anti-uniform of a revolt"—was so contrary as to immediately intrigue. The gift horse of anarchy should never be looked in the mouth.

Maybe Arcari meant her catwalk would be awash with individuality, anti-uniforms. Wrong. What she offered was a consistent dark-bordering-on-Gothic vision. Casual it wasn't—there was far too much serious structure for that. But it was definitely concise. The designer displayed her usual facility with couture shapes: Amidst the A-lines, a black-and-white baby doll stood out. A huge jumpsuit, gripped by a half-belt in back, also had the one-off vibe of a couture piece. And Arcari exploded an animal print to create a nu-couture camouflage, in a suit composed of an A-line jacket over a wrap skirt.

That sophisticated structure was tempered with a shaggily textural fur and leather subtext. Did Arcari picture the bonded leather breastplates as a stylish option for her neo-revolutionaries? There were echoes of Rei Kawakubo's elegant refusal in the way Arcari subverted silhouettes with, say, an asymmetric panel of fur, or a bib of ruffles. Same with the shaggy shoes, except they were shown with ankle socks. The oblique suggestiveness of that combination was a perfect counterpoint to Arcari's manifesto.
—Tim Blanks

Tess Giberson

Tess Giberson started her collection by looking at some of the earlier works of Christo, when he was content to be wrapping smaller fare like books and motorcycles. "I like that idea that you don't really know what's underneath," she explained backstage.

Her collection, pithily called Wrap, expressed the idea by layering various textures, both tactile and slick—an art at which Giberson excels. It came across best in looks that were covered up neck-to-toe, like a white knitted lamb vest-cum-scarf draped over a sequined tunic and lean but fluid bias-cut skirt, or a similar iteration, a cobalt satin puffer scarf with handy pockets and mohair tunic. But the scarier unknown comes from without: thus the attendant idea of protection, which took more literal form in a silver-plate harness bib—a collaboration with Jill Platner—but also in the city-girl armor of black tailored jackets and leather leggings.

It's easy to forget that Tess Giberson existed in a time we'll call P.P.S. (pre-Proenza Schouler), when the likes of Susan Cianciolo and Tara Subkoff staged arty fashion shows with clothes that had a hazy future beyond the downtown venue they were shown in. It's a testament to her that she's still here, and thriving. (She reports that her newest stockist is Saks Fifth Avenue.) What's interesting is how Giberson has nimbly managed to structure her business so that her new contemporary status doesn't preclude selling special pieces like the great cable sweater inset with chainlike crochet at a designer price. Even if this collection was missing some of the crisp viewpoint of her Spring show, it was still evidence that progress chez Giberson continues apace.
—Meenal Mistry

Thakoon

At the center of Thakoon Panichgul's Fall mood board was Ed and Nancy Kienholz's installation re-creating Amsterdam's red-light district, The Hoerengracht. The piece gave the designer not only his photo print (neon tube lights) and color palette (red, fuchsia, and raspberry), but also the show's kinky undercurrent. His silhouettes were rooted in the conventional—Audrey Hepburn in her prime was on the mood board, too—but he tweaked them, adding padded hips to accentuate the hourglass curve on a gray knit dress and inserting black leather basket weave, "like a confessional screen," into the bodice of an LBD. A pair of trenchcoats with cutouts at the throat were worn as dresses with nothing underneath.

Panichgul has explored this erotic territory before—remember the rose leg prints he did with Laurie Simmons a few years back? This time around, though, the theme gave him a bit of trouble. Knit Mongolian lamb sweaters are a great idea (we're surprised we haven't seen them before), but accompanied by a paper bag-waist skirt, their boxy shape didn't do anything for the models. A ruffle-front jacket and A-line duchesse satin skirt, meanwhile, looked like a relic from Hepburn's heyday. That said, a silk jacquard with hearts of the real and the Valentine variety had a clever charm, and a black leather blazer with a built-in hood? Just plain clever.
—Nicole Phelps

Thakoon Addition

For his main Fall collection, Thakoon Panichgul was inspired by neon, but there was darkness lurking under that light: It was the glow of Amsterdam's red-light district, as reimagined by the artists Ed and Nancy Kienholz for their piece The Hoerengracht, that provided the juice. There were peacock-feather prints and appliqués—for pride and vanity, cardinal sins both—and a basket weave detail lifted from confessional screens. That girl's all grown up, and naughty, too. But at Addition, Panichgul's kid-sister line, things are still sweet and nice. "It's a little groovier this season," the designer said in his showroom, and patterned poncho tops, culottes, and wide-legged jumpsuits backed him up.

There were echoes of the main line in some of the shapes, like the high-waisted, wide pants, but overall the muse was Addition's usual gamine. For Fall, she'll wear "teddy bear" faux furs (the best of them in a bomber, trimmed with military-trench details); ultra-fitted blazers with asymmetrical, slightly flaring backs; and loose silk dresses, whose prints mimic knit stitches. There was more leather than ever before, in response to buyers' demands: a single-breasted blazer in cadet blue on one hand, and tiny, quilted short shorts on the other—the sort you might get if you had your old 2.55 retooled into hot pants. The collection continues to expand, and so does the brand: Panichgul revealed that he'll soon be in need of more space than his current digs afford, thanks largely to the sales of Addition. And the showroom buzzed with buyers. Addition's not grown up yet, but it certainly is growing.
—Matthew Schneier

The Lake & Stars

The big news for fans of Maayan Zilberman and Nikki Dekker's meticulously fashioned underthings is this season's addition of outer-things. While some of the duo's faithful have long been happily sporting The Lake & Stars' bras as tops, the word from buyers was that less brazen women were clamoring for actual apparel. So Zilberman and Dekker added a small ready-to-wear capsule to their line for Fall, designing separates and dresses that work with or without the label's underwear. In fact, a few of the tops and dresses were constructed with built-in bras, positioning the capsule as a collection in its own right.

As for the lingerie, it walked the saucy line between demanding and demure that's characteristic of the team's work. Inspired by Japanese action film heroines and video games, the pair used perforated microfiber—reminiscent, they said, of the pixelated dots in a comic book—on a pair of boy shorts and a matching bra. The sporty, tech-y fabric vitalized the pinup staples and upped the ante on the old game of conceal and reveal. Herringbone trim lent a menswear accent to a few pieces, and true underwear nerds will be pleased to know that all the garters came with vintage-model hardware.

If Zilberman and Dekker continue to pay attention to details like these while slowly expanding their offerings to meet their clients' needs, we'll surely be seeing more of their pieces on girls in the know. Or, in some cases, we'll have to take those girls' words for it.
—Alison Baenen

The Row

Just as they did at their first-ever runway show two years ago, Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen accessorized their latest collection with flat ribbon sandals. Their clothes have both remained the same and evolved in beautiful ways. The sisters still believe in monochrome dressing; this season they used black, navy, ivory, and a range of browns. They still love the look of a clean, unfussy silhouette. It doesn't get any less complicated, or more elegant, than a strapless cotton-silk cady away-from-the-body dress with a slash pocket high on the torso. And luxury remains an essential part of the brand DNA. On several of the looks they treated fur as a textile, using mink as a bib trim on a bishop-sleeve chiffon blouse, or "knitting" a ribbed sweater from the stuff (actually, the fur was sheared in panels to create the ribbed effect). A double-face hammered cashmere coat with alligator trim and pocket details was equally plush—not flashy in the least, but nonetheless quite special.

Asked beforehand for some words on the new collection, Mary-Kate said, "It's about a feeling, really." Two years ago we called that feeling "utterly simple and anonymously chic." Now, we'd add serene, even timeless. Chaste is too strong a word, especially with the sheer black chiffon, so we'll stick with refined.

Bonus points, then, for the setting: the historic Bemelmans Bar at the Carlyle Hotel, complete with live piano accompaniment and breakfast goodies on every table.
—Nicole Phelps

Theyskens' Theory

What the editors in this office were talking about after Theyskens' Theory was a gold beaded knit jacket. And it turned out there was more sparkle where it came from. As he did for pre-fall, Olivier Theyskens used a print inspired by rock crystal. It rubbed off, in a manner of speaking, on a little bolero that looked dusted with gold glitter, and on snug zip-front jackets in metallic tweed. Sheer was another big theme; when this designer was at the forefront of the trend a couple of years ago, it was hard to imagine it sticking. But stick it has, and Theyskens' long see-through black skirt still looked cool with short shorts and one of the designer's signature slim blazers.

The news here: the pants. The corduroy flares Theyskens put on his runway last February have become a fashion phenomenon. A year later, you still see them all over the front rows. Retailers love that kind of devotion, and there were tons of them at the show today looking for another hit. The designer's big idea was pleats. They gave both overdyed denim shorts and dark printed trousers stuffed into mid-calf boots a loose, slouchy fit. Too soon to say if they'll be as easy a sell as those sexy flares, but good to see Theyskens pushing the boundaries he's established for the contemporary brand.
—Nicole Phelps

Thomas Tait

Desperately seeking stability. Thomas Tait sought to battle the unease he felt as a young person starting a company through his Fall collection. Thus the solid earth of a grass runway and the appearance of rough suede and raw denim, less rarefied materials than Tait usually uses. That was half the story. The designer proclaimed this his most technically complex collection to date. The work was to merge his painstaking construction with what he called "something more obvious": those long-distance runners of the wardrobe like the varsity jacket, the white button-down shirt, the peacoat, the turtleneck.

As with past collections, what stood out here were the coats with rounded shoulders and angled curved hems, all either elegantly collarless or with collars that flipped high and framed the face. He does a beautiful navy, but a moss green popped nicely, particularly paired with marigold leather trousers. It won't be surprising to see a few of his varsity jackets show up in the front row next season. In place of knit ribbing at the cuffs, hem, and neckline, he used finely pleated leather, a technique continued from last season.

You could call it "obvious," but that's not entirely fair; season after season Tait maintains his vision while increasing his relevance in terms of what women want to and can wear. And he knows how to add that one certain thing to throw off his quest for perfection just so. Here it was the men's workwear gloves. "I wanted them to be big, just like Mickey Mouse hands," he explained.

Speaking of vision, up until two days ago Tait's runway show was meant to be a presentation. He went rogue on the fashion calendar, dropping himself into a slot between two shows. "Thomas designs for a runway show," his publicist said by way of explanation. It apparently ruffled a few BFC feathers. What spoke volumes: Everyone still came.
—Meenal Mistry

Thom Browne

Jeff Buckley hymned "Hallelujah" on the soundtrack, while flickering candles barely illuminated a wood-paneled room in which ten coffins had been arranged in a row. They held the bodies of "ten beautiful girls who died for fashion," according to the gray-suited female rector who introduced the scenario.

No one could ever say Thom Browne is incapable of setting a scene. In the past, once he'd done that, he proved himself perfectly capable of sailing on into extremes scarcely logical. The boldness-bordering-on-lunacy of such an approach has exposed him to ridicule time and again. Admittedly, today's spectacle of a roomful of coffins was scarcely encouraging. But wonders never cease in the merry-go-round world of fashion. Browne's scenario called for his victims to be reanimated by their love of fashion. They clambered out of their coffins and stood sentinel-like while models meandered around them. So far, so macabre. But the notion of rebirth actually worked in a deeply metaphorical way, because what Browne showed was far and away his most convincing women's collection to date.

In fact, it touched on emotions his often contrived work has never plumbed. It may be as simple as this: These gilded, ethereal clothes were felt, not thought.

For one thing, there were none of the gratuitous volumes that Browne is so attached to. Elegant elongation ruled, with the emphasis on a narrow waist. Exaggerated peplums and bustles heightened that emphasis. Although the designer insists he is absolutely influence-proof, there were inescapable echoes of haute couture's golden age in such silhouettes. Same with a pleated cocoon, or sack-backed dresses. Then there were architectural constructs, with swoops of fabric that suggested the more outré reaches of classic couture. A mink bolero, sparkly tweeds, and fur-trimmed camel were ingredients in a headily luxe stew.

The one element that most obviously harked back to Browne's past indulgences was the body modification. The designer exaggerated any point where the body naturally protuded—shoulder, elbow, knee, breast. It was that kind of flourish that made Rei Kawakubo a point of reference. But the soundtrack, drawn from Tim Burton movies, was maybe more relevant. The arena in which Thom Browne operates isn't fashion, it's the same rich, private world of fantasy that Burton explores on-screen. The world needn't be what it is, the designer says. And here's the proof.
—Tim Blanks

Threeasfour

Recent Threeasfour collections have seen designers Gabi, Ange, and Adi applying themselves to the task of making their idiosyncratic aesthetic relatively more digestible and commercial. This was not one of those collections. That's not a bad thing: The most intriguing Threeasfour collections always seem to emanate from deep within the designers' private sphere of reference and inspiration. This season was a particularly insular outing: Threeasfour has long been known for its spherical construction, and the new collection saw the designers investigating circularity through varying iterations of arcs, swirls, and whorls. On its own terms, the collection was a smashing success. In the normal terms of a fashion review, it was difficult to evaluate. Were the clothes wearable? Well, yes, insofar as they were worn. Did they relate, in an interesting way, to brewing seasonal trends? Er, not really. Were they expressive of an original point-of-view? Emphatically yes.

There were three key motifs at the show today. One was garments overlaid with a laser-cut leather lace; another was triangle-shaped coats with huge collars that were vaguely suggestive of the kind of thing some nomadic people of the Himalayas might wear for ceremonies. The third theme, and the most fully extrapolated, was to apply three-dimensional shapes to skintight minidresses. The dresses with spirals and curlicues of leather came off as just the kind of compelling but offbeat thing you expect from Threeasfour; the ones with shards of tapestry fabric bearing woodland scenery felt like something new. Were these practical items of clothing? Not so much, but the charm of Threeasfour is their commitment to the possible, rather than the practical.
—Maya Singer

Tibi

Amy Smilovic unabashedly loves the minimal nineties. Backstage before her Fall runway show, the Tibi designer explained how this season she combined her favorite decade—"the Narciso-wearing Gwyneth Paltrow, not the leg-baring Pucci Gwynny"—with the swinging Beatles sixties. A crisp cropped pantsuit in a Catholic schoolgirl tartan plaid, for example, came layered over slim, Celine-esque turtlenecks. Tailored maxi skirts with trouserlike back welt pockets put a nice spin on the still-going menswear phenomenon.

Texture was a big story, and the coolest looks got an extra kick from unexpected fabrics like reflective, jewel-tone polyurethane, Lurex brocade, and matted-down micro-paillettes. In keeping with the label's evolving identity, there was nary a dress in sight here, but based on reported sales, it seems the subtly stylish Tibi customer doesn't mind trading out a flirty frock for a smart pair of pants.
—Brittany Adams

Timo Weiland

Backstage before their show, Timo Weiland and Alan Eckstein talked about the adventure and exoticism of the post-punk era New York City, when "artists were really able to be artists," as Weiland put it. "We feel connected to that." Rose-colored as that view may be, it gave the pair a rebellious platform to jump off of.

A partnership with Saga allowed the label to experiment with fur for the first time. A long navy coat came with a removable fox-pelt waistband; another, in white, featured removable raccoon cuffs. These add-ons were definitely more luxe than punk, but they provided a nice textural volume to the layered knits and silk prints. The emphasis on layering, along with a smattering of plaids and a few velvet maxi skirts, called to mind yet another music era: grunge. Add a slipdress, a few cropped sweaters, and a fusty-kitsch floral print, and most of the women's looks landed solidly—and wearably—in the nineties.

The menswear was less idiosyncratic. Subtle tweaks on solid classics—like pants with a tuxedo stripe on the inside of the thigh, as opposed to out—made the label's hooded sweatshirts, duffel coats, and fitted work shirts the ideal foundation pieces for a casual, well-tailored wardrobe. Were there incendiary fashion moves afoot here? No. But hip prints, quality fabrics, and a great fit are plenty to get fired up about.
—Alison Baenen

Todd Lynn

Kitsch makes for an odd title for a Todd Lynn collection. Glancing at the show notes today, you had to wonder what Lynn—a disciplined craftsman who traffics in the emphatically clean—might have to do with, say, Hello Kitty key rings or "Hangin' in there!" cat posters. It was interesting to contemplate. Further study of the show notes revealed that this season the designer was taking inspiration from the wonderfully named Norwegian painter Odd Nerdrum, and by extension his Renaissance-referencing paintings and influential kitsch manifesto. Nerdrum's philosophy on kitsch is too dense to unpack here—Wikipedia it if you like—but it involves an affirmation of the forcefully individual self. That's a take that sits easily with Lynn's look.

The Hello Kitty collection will have to wait for another season, in other words. Today's show was another Lynn exercise—and a particularly strong one—in forceful simplicity. Per usual, the key elements of the collection were strict suiting, architectural draping, and absurdly well-cut leathers; the suiting looked especially good, boasting terrific wide-leg trousers and pencil skirts paired with jackets that were circle-seamed or made with origami folds. The angled leathers were also a clear winner. Lynn's draped pieces were nice, but the only real standout was one burnt orange dress with a dramatic cape effect. His big new idea this season was to make garments faced in different materials, front and back; he made a lot of use of a raffialike jacquard in ocher for these pieces, and the material gave the look punch. It was good to see Lynn working with so much color here, and he used it well. There was also a nice additional texture in the collection's decayed lace, a fabric that made too few appearances on the runway today. On the whole, though, this was a top-notch collection for Lynn. The clothes didn't expand his brand's vocabulary too much, but they reaffirmed his acknowledged strengths.
—Maya Singer

Tom Ford

Tom Ford has a lot of past to make peace with. He conceded as much following a showroom walk-through of his Fall collection during London fashion week. Perhaps the concession was due to his awareness that the strength of the clothes derived in large part from their echoes of former triumphs. Intense color, erotic edge, sensuous silhouette, sculptural hardware…ah, those good old Gucci glory days. But they're long gone, and the real success of this collection was that, for all the echoes, it didn't dwell. Instead, it was Ford's sharpest elucidation yet of his cinematic vision for women. "Russian spy," he laughed about the second-skin black leather looks accessorized with knee-length boots and huge shades. A black velvet column with a metal corset belt reminded him of Metropolis. There was some Bond girl in a leather jacket bonded with sheared beaver or a stretch tulle and feather column with sheer detailing, and a hint of noir heroine in a gray flannel suit with a tweed coat thrown over it, the whole outfit actually cut from cashmere. Gwyneth's Oscar cape and gown, Ford's own favorite from his collection, was Golden Age of Hollywood artifice at its most glamorously precise.

It was a reminder that Ford's speciality is the grand, almost theatrical gesture, in fashion at least. (His directorial debut was, by comparison, a delicate chamber piece.) Forget shrinking violet; this time you got chrome yellow and fire engine red, in fuzzy alpaca fur layered over black leather. Snake and crocodile were broken down to their component scales, which were painstakingly applied by hand to stretch jersey to make serpentine tops, dresses, and full-length sheaths. Effortful? Absolutely. But where that effort has been distancing up to this point—making the clothes easy to admire but difficult to like—it felt that, with this collection, Ford managed a critical switcheroo. His clothes used to wear his women. Now he's got it the right way round.
—Tim Blanks

Tommy Hilfiger

Town and Country. That was the name of Tommy Hilfiger's Fall collection, which broadened his preppy girl's world to include the horsey world of the hunt club in addition to Park Avenue. It's an inspiration you'd expect to yield a polished look, but seeing how this collection very closely traced his military-themed menswear collection shown a few days ago, the result was supremely precise. The trio of high-necked, double-breasted coats with bullion trim that opened the show almost demanded that you stand at attention.

The show was at its best when Hilfiger remixed the various elements of the upper-class equestrienne's world. The quilted suede of a field jacket was fashioned into a slyly sexy skirt with a semi-attached panel of colored leather. Fisherman's cables were printed on silk dresses, and an actual cable-knit sweater came trimmed with quilted suede on the shoulders and little buckles at the sleeves. The highlight? A trio of scarf-printed dresses with bridle motifs that had a loose, seventies sex appeal. They stood apart from various looks that were, by turns, schoolgirl prim or a bit stuffy. When taken piece by piece, the collection's luxurious materials and, yes, precision, were beyond reproach. But after a few strong seasons with this team at Hilfiger—stylist Karl Templer and designer Peter Som—we had gotten used to having a little bit more fun.
—Meenal Mistry

Topshop Unique

Kate Phelan brought 18 years of experience at British Vogue to Topshop's in-house design team when she joined the retail behemoth as creative director last June. It showed in today's collection. The way that structure and slouch were combined to create something edgy but accessible had the fingerprints of an expert stylist all over it. "Relax it, mix it up" were Phelan's straightforward goals, and the design team took them to heart. The khaki officer's coat that opened the show set the pace for dramatically scaled outerwear with a strong utilitarian bent. But the scale carried over into big shirts slipping off shoulders, and full hip-slung skirts. Outfits mixed fabrics—like the pants that were leather in front, wool in back, or the green felt dress with the leather bodice. The element of surprise was a distinct asset.

The utility theme was elaborated on in military and workwear touches, like the serried ranks of crosses that were the collection's major visual motif, or the thick-soled, spike-heeled "army" boots, or the dungaree details. Phelan said another aim was "From runway to reality," and the forceful, somber-colored looks shown here could certainly have marched straight off the catwalk and onto a big city street. But it was actually a blessed relief to be thrown a frivolous bone at show's end, when a handful of glittery party dresses eased on down the road. A backless sequined shift with a netting overlay had a poppy little kick of the sixties, to go with the Jane Birkin hair. That, too, spoke of the seasoned stylist's eye for detail.
—Tim Blanks

Tory Burch

The narrative that Tory Burch spun on her show notes sounded awfully familiar: a prim and proper girl who falls for the wrong guy—in a hotel no less. Despite the current simmering conflict with ex-husband Chris Burch, Tory disavowed any notion that it was autobiographical, explaining that the spark was cinematic. "I had just seen [Wong Kar-wai's] film In the Mood for Love," Burch said. "I was just thinking about the idea of being polished and put-together, and sexy but not overtly sexy."

It was polished and then some, like the ladies who might have inhabited Burch's stomping grounds of the Pierre a few decades ago. The models wore gloves, hosiery, and neat-as-a-pin pointy spectator pumps, and nearly every girl carried a handbag. Hint, hint. While some of the bags were covered in whimsical translucent paillettes, they tended toward surprisingly alluring structured old-school shapes, luxed up with tortoise trim and gold chain straps.

What took the clothes to the next level was the sureness Burch displayed in twisting her highly embellished, lady-fied source material. Sure, some saw shades of Prada (call it an homage), but the witty little bits of subversion and eclectic mixes that crescendoed over the course of 42 looks were impressively confident. Burch could easily serve her prettiness straight up and walk away with a mint, but she has her eyes on ever bigger horizons, whether that's ringing the bell at the New York Stock Exchange (if you believe the speculation about an IPO) or just continuing her enviable skyward arc of growth, wrong guys be damned.
—Meenal Mistry

Tracy Reese

"She knows where she's going this season," Tracy Reese said backstage of her customers after her Fall show. From the opening beats of Azealia Banks' high-octane hit "212" (we've got a hunch that this designer has known about fashion's new It-girl rapper longer than Karl Lagerfeld), it was clear that Reese and her girls are feeling confident lately. Shrunken peplum jackets, draped silk "cocoon" blouses, and sparkly lamé party frocks came in traffic-stopping bright colors ranging from tomato red to juniper green to ultraviolet.

You'd certainly turn heads in the printed jacquard pants with side tuxedo stripes and graphic hourglass coat. Styling is always key at a Tracy Reese show, and each look here was accessorized with a felted-wool trucker hat and futuristic sunglasses, which underscored the bold energy of this collection.
—Brittany Adams

TRIAS

Inspired by the American sculptor Leonardo Drew's moody and textured work, Joaquín Trías was feeling apocalyptic for Fall. However, Trías, a former tennis player turned self-taught designer, has the bouncy enthusiasm of a golden retriever. It's hard to imagine him having a dark day, let alone enough fodder for an end-of-days collection. Perhaps that accounted for the somewhat mixed result.

A big part of the story was a play of textures, as in the double-face Japanese tweed backed with crinkle cotton, which had a nice homey chic. A black foil-printed chiffon with a zebra print, on the other hand, might have seemed like a good idea, but in practice felt a bit girls-night-out cheap. Trías played it off straightforward chiffon in dresses with petal sleeves and waist-exposing cutouts. There was yet more slicing and dicing; Trías, after all, has a hazily architectural ethos. The problem is that it's not always convincing, for instance in the little black dress that came wrapped with a sort of asymmetrical lamé half-shrug.

The buttery black leathers—Trías tapping into his Spanish heritage—were easily the high point, particularly in a pencil skirt with whipstitch detail snaking up the side. But there was nothing you couldn't live without, and nothing you couldn't find elsewhere. Often, TRIAS collections seem to end up between being "just clothes," with little defining purpose or customer, and arty pieces that seem to satisfy their creator's ego more than relate to what women want to wear. Last season, Trías decided to start showing in Paris instead of New York, but without a sharp point of view that decision seems like pure indulgence.
—Meenal Mistry

Tribune Standard

Tawfik Mounayer compared his label's current position to that of a bird taking flight. "Last season we were at the edge of the nest," he said during his well-attended presentation. "Now I feel like we're soaring." Tribune Standard recently added Nordstrom to its retail roster (its first big department store), so the brand is certainly on the rise.

Taking the avian theme further—and giving a winking nod to his own confidence—Mounayer created Tribune Standard's own "status print": a rich pattern of cognac and russet pheasant feathers that popped on a sweet silk blouse for day. For night, the plumes morphed into dripping paillettes; hanging off the bottom of an ivory silk column dress, they created the impression of being half-dipped in quills—in a sexy, Black Swan sort of way. Noting the saucy tassels on a belted, cinnamon-hue bib dress, Mounayer mentioned a subtle Marrakesh-in-the-seventies vibe, but it was subtle, indeed. The collection was more ladylike than louche, and felt, happily, timeless.
—Alison Baenen

Trussardi

Trussardi's program notes, not to mention the market stall packed with fresh fruits and vegetables at the end of the runway, promised a trip to the Peruvian countryside—straight up to the top of Machu Picchu. At another house, that might've meant all types of native dress, but under Umit Benan's new leadership, this Italian brand is becoming known for strong, sharp tailoring. Benan designed menswear first; his own evocative show is usually among the highlights of Milan's men's week.

As with his debut here last season, the focus was on structured but not strict jackets, collared shirts, and well-cut trousers with an ease about them. (A few of the suits were three-piecers.) The only obvious nods to the Andes came in the form of wide-brim hats with rounded crowns, and oversize backpacks in exotics, and to a lesser extent perhaps the asymmetric hem of skirts worn over pants. Benan can't help himself, he designs clothes suited for women who negotiate the wilds of modern cities. A coat in shearling and snakeskin was made to attract attention, not repel the elements, while shirtdresses in leather or silk had a relaxed sense of chic. In all, this felt like a solid follow-up to Benan's strong debut at Trussardi, but you sense that, if he really buckled down to the task, he could push things further here.
—Nicole Phelps

TSE

Brian Reyes got off to a strong start as the creative consultant to TSE with his inventive and sophisticated line-up for pre-fall. That collection hit all the right notes: The clothes were clean and urbane with a flirty kick, and Reyes was gently pushing TSE's cashmere knits in an interesting, architectural direction. This season, though, the designer appears to have felt some pressure to make a statement, and his ambition occasionally threatened to get the better of him.

Reyes' modus operandi at TSE, he explained today, is to treat knit material the same way he would a woven, thus freeing himself to play with pattern and tailored or sculptural silhouettes; more specifically, this season Reyes was exploring layering and glasslike textures. All of that is to the good, and the strategy resulted in some singular fabrications, such as a knit jacquard that came off like chiffon-appliquéd tulle, and a technical knit that looked as though it were covered in paillettes. But the tiered silhouettes, with long narrow skirts girding almost every look, were a touch awkward. And the two structured faille gowns he showed had you wondering why? It's possible to imagine a woman coming to TSE for more formal looks, like the Lurex-threaded bouclé cashmere pieces shown today, but there isn't exactly a void in the ball-gown market, never mind one that needs to be filled by a brand known for cashmere knit sportswear.

Reyes gets the sense of ease that women look to TSE to provide—his pre-fall collection proved that. Going forward, he'd do well to remain focused on the brand's core identity as he looks for ways to develop his own take on it.
—Maya Singer

Tsumori Chisato

Siouxsie Sioux turned Swiss Miss. That was the broad outline of Tsumori Chisato's Fall collection, inspired by a holiday in Switzerland. The backdrop of a ski slope was rendered in neon squiggles, and there were bright slashes of color on the high sides of models' back-combed hair.

The clothes merged a DIY spirit with classic après-ski. The punky checkerboard print, mixed with intarsia ski sweaters, looked painted on, and Chisato's new version of the Fair Isle cardie came with naïve little appliquéd flowers, the kind of thing a melancholy but industrious teenager might do in her bedroom.

Then there's Chisato's personal touch, quite literally DIY. Her personal tic was an obsession with the gondola cars of ski lifts, knit into intarsias and lovingly picked out in sequins on a sweater dress. And all the photo prints of chalets, snow-covered treetops, and slopes—on dresses and one fab pair of jeans—were the designer's vacation snaps.

Chisato was a touch less cartoony than she's been in seasons past, but there was no lack of her infectiously charming eye for detail that make her clothes stand out. You aren't likely to find a crocheted V-neck with abstracted evergreen motifs and dotted with tiny crystals like snowflakes. Tropical islands last season, Alpine slopes this one, Tsumori Chisato has been in a peripatetic state of mind. Wherever the next journey takes her, her fans will be ready for its unique crop of souvenirs.
—Meenal Mistry

Tucker

There's something insistently cheerful about Gaby Basora's line Tucker. Basora specializes in eye-popping prints, which she uses in easy-to-wear clothes, typically made from silk, that have a slightly vintage mien. She's leveraged that design strategy into a pretty booming business, and the psychology of the Tucker clothes has a lot to do with that: Basora makes pieces that, no matter how low a girl is feeling, are keen to paste a smile on her face. Bad breakup? Maybe it's this season's track pants in a pastel wallpaper floral that will do the trick. Job got you down? A tea dress in a bright doe print ought to cushion the blow of yet another endless spreadsheet. Rain again? Throw on a robelike coat in a painterly pink and purple print. Etc. Tucker collections are like a closet pep squad.

Do they need to be more than that? Not really. And Basora doesn't complicate matters by attempting any particularly challenging silhouettes. This season, she emphasized longer lengths and ladylike cuts and detailing. In general, with the exception of a tailored pencil skirt or a sleek silk jumpsuit, she erred—as usual—on the side of clothes that are eminently toss-on-able. Also as usual, she's done a grab bag of eye-opening prints, ranging from the trendily twee (that pastel floral) to a Marni-esque graphic check. All in all, a typically boisterous outing.
—Maya Singer

Twenty8Twelve

Last month Sienna and Savannah Miller parted ways with the label they started with Pepe Jeans in 2007. Coincidentally, that was a year that saw the launch of several celebrity lines: Sarah Jessica Parker's now defunct budget line, Bitten; Kate Moss for Topshop; DVB, the denim and sunglasses label that preceded Victoria Beckham's très chic dresses; and un-celebrity label The Row.

The Miller sisters never won serious fashion adulation like Moss, the Olsens, or, later, Beckham, save the sparky prospect of seeing Jude Law at a show, but their label did survive. Still, even as Sienna's role waned in recent seasons, and Savannah turned the brand into a contemporary business with solid footing, it would seem that the Millers themselves remained the hook.

Of course, that doesn't mean that Twenty8Twelve can't survive and thrive without them. It might just do both. At today's presentation Pepe Jeans managing director Nish Soneji was on hand to assure people that it would. He reported increased sales, and plans to add stores in New York, Paris, and a few cities in China.

New creative director Elsa Elphick, who had worked with the Millers since the launch, was similarly optimistic. She had reason to be. There was something a bit meatier to these clothes, inspired by the sixties-era mockumentary Primitive London and Pop artist Allen Jones, among other things. A pink micro-bouclé shift had a peplum that zipped all the way off, and a pair of cool seamed skinny trousers in the same material wore like neoprene leggings. Collarless V-neck jackets were well tailored and not so basic, and a knit waffle-weave skater dress with a gold zip up the back seemed like the kind of thing you might find at Carven. In all, it was direction with promise. One suggestion: Lose the baby dolls. Sienna has left the building.
—Meenal Mistry

Uniqueness

A season into her new endeavor, Uniqueness.it, Alessandra Facchinetti has discovered two things about her online shoppers. They're most inclined to buy (1) dresses and (2) T-shirts.

Appropriately, that's where the former Gucci and Valentino designer put her focus for the new collection she showed today, which is already available on her site. "It's not based on trends; it's what I like," she said of the silk crepe frocks in styles that merged the unconstructed silhouettes of the twenties with eighteenth-century filigree prints. Study them closely and the patterns revealed themselves to be double U logos, along with roses, wings, and other typical tattoo motifs.

There wasn't anything here that looked like it had enough It factor to become an Internet sensation, but the polka-dot pajama pants that Facchinetti herself was modeling did key into a current fashion fad. For that reason, it's a good bet they're where her potential Web customers will invest their money.
—Nicole Phelps

United Bamboo

If there was one surefire hit in this season's United Bamboo collection, it had to be the neon green parka. Or maybe the cobalt blue parka. And possibly the orange one. Frankly, United Bamboo designer Thuy Pham is sick of making the damn parkas, as he admitted at a walk-through of the collection. But he keeps at it. "The people I know mostly want to wear clothes that are nice but, you know, a little boring," Pham said. "So I keep myself interested by playing with the details."

When Pham and his partner Miho Aoki get the details right—as they did, a few seasons back, with their now signature parka—they knock it out of the park. And there were more than a few looks here that, if not quite home runs, made for solid plays. Riffing off preppy—and more specifically, the way English punk kids wore their preppy school uniforms back in the day—Pham and Aoki turned out a number of strong, precisely tailored pieces in green and red plaids, and elaborated the theme in plaid knits. Super-dense and nicely oversize, the knits were a definite winner. Elsewhere, Pham and Aoki integrated some femme into the look with waterfall ruffles and microdot silks. The punchiest pieces were done in a hand-painted landscape print. Overall, as Pham would acknowledge, there was nothing too groundbreaking here, just a nicely twisted take on the conventional.
—Maya Singer

Valentino

There's some irony in using folk costume as inspiration for clothes as haute as the ones Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli make at Valentino. The fashion on their runway today was of the people, but not for the people—it's for a rarefied, very lucky few.

For Fall, the designers wove an enchanting, globe-trotting story through the sweetly feminine silhouettes they've established as their own over the last few ready-to-wear and couture seasons. Pasolini's Medea was on their mood board, along with other photos of women in native dress torn from film, fashion editorials, and real life. A white coat-dress was stitched with red and blue thread in a native motif—Russian maybe, or Greek, the mix was the message. Another was made from a densely woven jacquard that looked like an Oriental carpet. A lot of craft went into the pieces, but they weren't craftsy. In fact, black leather gave the duo's by-now familiar dresses and jumpsuits a new edge; it was characteristically softened with macramé seams and passementerie details.

Daywear was the distinct emphasis here with smart-looking frog-closure coats and Aran sweaters dotted here and there with crystals. For evening, Chiuri and Piccioli proposed long, loose-fitting shorts in black leather with a sheer beaded tunic and an embroidered velvet vest—black tie, but with a modern kick. Their other after-dark ideas had a more demure look thanks to above-the-ankle hems and, more often than not, long sleeves. The best came in multicolor crystals that reproduced that carpet pattern. Talk about a magic carpet ride.
—Nicole Phelps

Vanessa Bruno

The character Vanessa Bruno drew for Fall was a magical, pixielike girl, but one who prefers city streets and anime to enchanted forests and fables. That gave a mix of dark fairylike charm to the proceedings, in its delightfully witchy palette of bottle greens and violets suspended in a sea of black. Bruno's counterpoint to the floatier side of her notion was a relatively minimalist approach to the silhouette. The broad outlines were smart: a rounded coat or jacket over jaunty cropped trousers, or a dress with tight long sleeves and a flaring skirt. A cool, chunky-heeled motorcycle boot was the finishing touch.

When filling things in, Bruno was at her best with a very light hand. You often wanted her interesting effects of jewel-hued techno fabrics and sweaters knitted and embroidered with Lurex to have their moment to shine. And by show's end, it was as if a fashion Tinkerbell had granted your wish. Bruno ended on a strong note with a group of dresses whose embellishments sparkled against their black fabrics, and were a sweet take on the season's generally darker direction.
—Meenal Mistry

Vena Cava

Sophie Buhai and Lisa Mayock have new business partners in Li & Fung (the global trading group that backs Rachel Zoe, among other brands), but the arrangement hasn't altered their approach to their eight-year-old Vena Cava label. Young women familiar with the designers' modern-vintage sensibility will recognize the forties-by-way-of-the-seventies silhouettes—the strong shoulders, the high waists, the maxi lengths. Buhai and Mayock cited 1970's neo noir films, "even Drive," as inspiration this season, specifically those movies' "sunny facades and dark undertones." Mostly, though, the light won out here. The lineup's most resonant pieces came in a graphic floral print—vibrant yellow and turquoise on a ground of black. And there was optimism, too, in a black crepe tuxedo with big gold studs, the jacket of which featured a zip above the hips. With tails or without, the girl who wears it is practically guaranteed to be the life of the party. Tailoring plays a bigger role than ever in this VC collection, which should serve Buhai and Mayock well given the direction of the season as a whole. Still, it's their way with a little dress that's gotten them this far. For Fall, the standout comes in marigold, with a nipped waist and short sleeves.
—Nicole Phelps

Vera Wang

Last season Vera Wang went through the looking glass, showing an Alice in Wonderland-inspired collection that, though lovely, didn't have a firm grasp on the real-life needs of women. The designer hasn't quite planted her feet on terra firma for Fall: The soaring arches of cathedrals provided the show's architectural photo print, and, more crucially, there were some of the same troubling issues with transparency. But there were other indications here that she'd absorbed the criticisms and was moving on.

The show started on a promising note. Look 2 included an oversize nude wool parka with a detachable hood and great-looking tailored flare pants—definitely a first chez Wang. And there was more cool, creative outerwear later on, in the form of sleeveless jackets with swooping raccoon collars—just the things to wear over cashmere sweaters when the weather starts to turn cold. A sleeveless sheath in a steely gray jacquard, meanwhile, looked right up the alley of Oscar nominee Viola Davis, who sat in the front row.

What worked less well were the sheer dresses, be they in nude net lace or vault-print silk chiffon. The peplums the designer put on top of them just didn't lower the risqué factor far enough. Wang is a proven problem solver (see any number of the beautiful bridal gowns she's designed over the years). She should tap into that store of knowledge in her next ready-to-wear collection.
—Nicole Phelps

Véronique Leroy

Volume is one of the season's big stories. That puts Véronique Leroy, who has quite a way with all things oversize and full, right in the thick of things. Leroy doesn't seem to design a collection as much as construct one, particularly with the heftier fabrics of fall and winter. Her narrative this time conjured a rebellious girl who's trying to become a productive member of society. Her solution is to co-opt her elegant mother's clothes. The happy ending: She gets a job and merges mumsy's wardrobe with her punk sensibility.

Would you read that in the tea leaves of these 36 looks? It's doubtful, but that's not a bad thing. Even as the show cycled from melancholy blacks to proper tweeds and, eventually, ladylike pastels, there was a real cohesiveness in the boxy, sixties-tinged shapes. The story provided the element of tension in, for instance, all those skirtsuit-y silhouettes worn with platform-wedge combat boots and blackened silver floral necklaces and cuffs, or the layering of coats and cardigans that Leroy saw as her muse's main mode of sartorial rebellion.

As ever with Leroy, her fabrics, like trompe l'oeil fake furs made out of mohair and wool, and the great bouncy nylon jacquard knits, were worthy of note. But it's the slightly off-kilter yet alluring proportions that gave this collection its strong point of view.
—Meenal Mistry

Versace

The couture collection Gianni Versace presented in Paris in July 1997 marked a new direction for the designer, a darker, more stringent, more modern vision whose promise was brutally curtailed a few days after the show when Versace was murdered in Miami. Taking up his legacy, his sister had to live with the sense of optimism tragically truncated. Clearly, there were times when she could cope, times when she couldn't. But it was only with her show today that Donatella felt she could finally, as she put it, face her demons. That meant taking on the unrealized promise of her brother's last collection. A bold move, but everything about Donatella's momentum of late has suggested she's shed her insecurity and embraced her iconic status. She's ready to rock.

Hence, a show that ramped up the gothic elements of Gianni's last collection—the crucifixes, the monochrome severity—with a hard-core energy that tapped Rooney Mara's crazily influential stint as The Girl. It wasn't only the high bang (that's what hairstylist Guido Palau called that fugly fringe) and makeup artist Pat McGrath's sepulchral eye socket. It was also the seamed, studded leather; the long-sleeve, throat-tight coat-dresses; the armorlike corsets; the chain mail clashing with opulent astrakhan—all of it shouting out protection and defiance. In the same spirit, Donatella hit hazmat orange and chrome yellow hard as accents that sparked in the dark.

Reanimating her couture collection in Paris last month had obviously steered Donatella toward a heightened sense of construction. The built-out hip put in a reappearance, but it looked so much better as part of a vibe-y little dress, rather than an Occasion Gown. Donatella saved those for last with shimmering plasticized columns of paillettes. As much as the season has been dragon-tattooed to this point, it's also been in thrall to Fritz Lang's darkly dystopian Metropolis. Donatella certainly brought down the curtain on robotic retro-futurism.
—Tim Blanks

Versus

"We're in Camden," Donatella Versace said backstage after the Versus show. For the non-native speakers, Camden is London's original punky, funky hipsterville and home to a legendary and grungy market. Christopher Kane, Donatella's right-hand man at the Versace diffusion line, quickly added: "She's a rebellious, tough, angry, modern girl." In other words, the sweet, sporty attitude of Versus' Spring collection has been replaced by something darker—dirtier, even.

T-shirts were slashed to ribbons, dresses were held together with black leather lacing, medallion-print boots reached up to the mid-thigh hemlines of medallion-print minis, and jeans that almost slouched off models' hips were tie-dyed. More than any of Kane's collections for Versus so far, it captured the make-do looks of the council estate girls who were an adolescent fascination and continue to be an adult inspiration for him. Aspirational? Not quite. In fact, the collection rather celebrated the downbeat way things really are. But there was an offhand sexiness in that, which means that girls will continue to seek it out.
—Nicole Phelps

Victoria, Victoria Beckham

At her presentation today, Victoria Beckham reported that her first collection for Victoria, Victoria Beckham enjoyed 100 percent sell-through on Net-a-Porter before it was even online. "They said it was unprecedented," she added. That's the power of celebrity. But it's also the power of a good dress.

Her Spring frocks were as eccentric as they were effortless, covered in cats, clouds, or moons. The 20 looks she showed for Fall retained the charm of last season's debut; there was a "Frockerella" print of dress sketches on one, and swans on the collars of others. But the sensibility was more sophisticated. The somewhat slimmer silhouettes and shrunken shoulders were contributing factors, as was the more muted color palette. The clothes were also more ambitious. The collection's standout number was made from a woven jacquard that looked like parallel strips of different fabrics but was in fact two single pieces of material front and back.

Technical details like that aren't what's making a success of the label, though. Rather, it's the dresses' simplicity, their smart price points, and, perhaps most importantly, pictures of VB looking fab in them.
—Nicole Phelps

Victoria Beckham

"I'm not pregnant anymore; these are the dresses I want to wear now," said Victoria Beckham after her excellent show today. The former pop star is so petite and in such great form you'd never guess she's had four babies. The models on the runway showed off equally trim mid-sections, but Beckham opted out of using the corsets that were an early hallmark of her label in favor of dense rib jerseys, canvases, and quilting techniques that suck it all in with the same power as old-fashioned boning and lacing.

The silhouette was familiar: long and as lean as you can get. But the collection's look was sportier, with contrast polo collars at the neckline of some dresses and bold stripes encircling the torso of V-neck styles. You can chalk up the new sensibility to her son Romeo's baseball outfits, Beckham explained. Toward the end of the show's 22 looks, a few shorter frocks with flippy cheerleader skirts marched out on flat ankle boots. It'd be a surprise to see the designer stomping around in that footwear, for sure, but the dresses' appealing, everyday ease felt of a piece with Beckham's elegant, sophisticated signature. A great-looking coat in olive green with black python collars and lapels was an argument for more outerwear next time around.

With the Oscars coming up later this month, choosing not to include any long evening dresses seemed like a missed opportunity. One possible explanation? Maybe she's working on something exclusive for Hollywood's big night.
—Nicole Phelps

Viktor & Rolf

The Viktor & Rolf show began with the photographers in the camera pit howling at an enormous moon at the back of the runway. That set the stage for what was to follow. Decorous draped silk pajama sets were printed with animal motifs, and understated, almost middle-of-the-road black and white tailoring was trimmed along the seams with strips of mink, echoing the models' fur pompom pumps.

On other pieces, the danger was a little bit closer to the surface. Voluminous fur coats, for instance, were shaved in wide curving lines, as if their owners had been swiped by giant claws and lived to tell about it. And a long dress in sheer black tulle (which made it abundantly clear that the model wasn't wearing panties) abided by its own kill-first, ask-questions-later policy.

Hunters or prey? Heavenly creatures or sexy beasts? Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren's ideas about womanhood are overly simplistic, and that can prove frustrating at their runway shows, where they emphasize their art over wearability. Their pre-fall collection tred similar babes-in-the-woods ground with all-around more successful results.
—Nicole Phelps

Vionnet

Barbara and Lucia Croce have replaced Rodolfo Paglialunga at Vionnet. Their style is more minimal than that of their predecessor—you won't be seeing the flowers, stars, and butterflies Rudy did for Spring while the twin sisters are at the label. Another thing that was new for the house was the focus on daywear, especially pants. Trousers aren't necessarily a part of the Madeleine Vionnet oeuvre, but they're pretty essential to modern women's lives, so the young duo was savvy to include them in their presentation. To keep them on brand, they showed them with tunics cut on the square in the classic Vionnet style.

Paglialunga's path to success had been to concentrate on evening, especially looks for the red carpet, where he had started to gain some traction with the celebrity set. The Croce sisters have aimed their sights at professional women who have just as much need for a hammered satin jacket and georgette palazzo pants, or a cool fur coat made from fox and beaver, as they do for an evening gown. That seems like a good business plan: There are more of us than them.
—Nicole Phelps

Vivienne Tam

Shangri-La, the fictional utopia dreamed up by James Hilton in his 1933 novel Lost Horizon, was the place Vivienne Tam's world-traveler touched down for Fall. She called the collection "Shangri-La Remix," and it combined the Himalayan textiles and shaggy fur Tam's traveler picked up on the road with familiar pieces from back home. The mix, at times, was a little overdone, but most of the individual items were worth digging out.

Strongest was the outerwear. In roomy menswear silhouettes, pieces featured the groovy prints you'd most likely find on a trip somewhere far away. A black and green wool jacquard wrap skirt with a diagonal motif had the same found-object quality; it had a simple sexiness that was obscured by the mandala appliqué on the coat worn with it. Tam is at her best when she keeps things simple, and she's still finding her footing when it comes to dependably solid separates. Fall was a step in the right direction.
—Alison Baenen

Vivienne Westwood

It may be time to recognize the Westwoodian Dimension. After all, Dame Viv seems to exist on a temporal plane all her own, one that looks back to centuries-old costume history while fighting the good fight of today and beyond. It's also one that celebrates her own decades-old history while simultaneously embracing the future of the next collection. In her Fall show, called simply London, she did all that.

The show opened with green lasers spinning and searching across the runway but soon delved headlong into the classical beauty of a corseted coat in chocolate shadow-stripe silk. Westwood found herself looking at the seventeenth century: in her words, "the age of the amateur…rugged individualist and adventurer." But also mixed up in her bouillabaisse were suits with multiple triangular Klaus Nomi-esque shoulders and corseted Dickensian tweeds worn with crinolines and matching newsboy caps. There was a Granny Takes a Trip de-con marabou chubby with a crocheted hobble skirt, a ghostly white New Romantic dress, and jewel-encrusted Baroque corsets worn with matching gloves and not much else. Oh, and loads of elevator platforms. Is it any wonder that the designer's final walk with her husband and creative conspirator Andreas Kronthaler and her crowd of models always seems like a party? You know, the good kind where anything goes.

But not everything goes. Along with the designer's push into ethical fashion, one new cause—advertised on an oversize statement tee with a rich iridescent silk skirt—is to save energy by having London's office buildings turn their lights off at night when they're empty. That makes sense in any context.
—Meenal Mistry

Vivienne Westwood Red Label

In past seasons, the tribal makeup, wild hair, and fiery attitude at Vivienne Westwood Red Label shows have gone a long way toward disguising the fact that the clothes on the runway are generally pretty tame. This season, however, there was a new sense of circumspection at Red Label. Maybe that feeling had something to do with the fact that Westwood had chosen to show in a more intimate venue than usual; certainly it related to the atypically quiet styling, and the relatively taut edit of the collection itself. Stripped—to a degree—of theatrics, today's show actually made a rather compelling case for the Red Label clothes.

Englishness, in its present polyglot incarnation, was the theme du jour. That isn't a new concern of Westwood's, but her take on it felt realistic and freshly relevant, no little thanks to the fact that menswear-inspired suiting, sculptural construction, and check are all rising trends for Fall. Westwood is a practiced hand at all that, and she didn't need to stretch herself to turn out strong looks. A fitted asymmetric suit in gray tweed and cropped, wide-leg trouser cut shown in plaid were especially good; so too the short pencil skirt with a kick of pleats along the hemline. Elsewhere she showed attractive, if familiar, draped silk jersey dresses and some winning tonal intarsia knits with a vaguely tribal motif. Nothing shocking here, in other words, just an uncharacteristically cogent expression of the Red Label signatures.
—Maya Singer

VPL

The VPL collection shown today represented a strong return to first principles for designer Victoria Bartlett. With the Michael Clark dance Mmm as her jumping-off point, Bartlett was moved to reconsider the movement of the body, and the way material twists, turns, and releases against it. In practice, this meant that a lot of garments wrapped around the bodice and fell away at soft angles. The collection was heavy on dancers' stretch materials, notably a dense délavé in a rocky gray, and slick draped jerseys.

The other idea Bartlett took away from Mmm was its play of light and shadow, a theme she worked through in a variety of back-to-front color-blocked pieces, such as a longish dress draped with shiny plum-colored jersey in front, and matte cream-colored jersey in back. The light/shadow meme also meant that Bartlett adhered, even more than usual, to her palette of neutrals—alongside her traditional skin tones (looking very fresh, at present), she showed a lot of white, silver, gray, and black. Less traditional for VPL, there were a lot of dagger-hem leather jackets and mannish coats on the runway; the leather, it turned out, was faux. But it was totally convincing.

The real winners in the collection, however, were this season's knits, in particular Bartlett's shrugged-on, oversize sweaters in mottled bouclé and marled wool, and the dense black sweater, fitted to the body, with knit-in braid and armored shoulders. The knit emphasis was reaffirmed in the show's finale, which included a plethora of elaborate garments that should see a lot of editorial action come fall.
—Maya Singer

Wayne

Wayne Lee will not deny her inclination to study industry veterans Rick Owens and Ann Demeulemeester for inspiration. But after today's show, it's clear that the new mom knows how to make her collection look and feel like her own. Lee stuck with the "Wayne DNA" (she's trying to build a lifestyle brand) yet her signature separates in black, gray, white, and the occasional brown were infused with surprising pops of neon on the shoulders of tanks and the tails of coats, and for the first time, the designer used snakeskin. Lee worked the glossy reptile leather into shirts and dresses, and used an abstract cobra print to create free-flowing silk wide-leg pants that were paired with a chunky cable-knit sweater.

Also new for Fall was a sporty theme. Baseball tees with leather sleeves, hooded jackets, pinstriped leggings, and monochrome low-top Converse sneakers ruled the runway. But from the way Amanda Brooks and Mark Lee of Barneys (which the designer says has always been her biggest supporter) snapped pictures from the front row, it seemed that the last look, a long black coat with a raccoon collar, was what earned the designer a home run.
—Jessica Minkoff

Wendy Nichol

Wendy Nichol operates her studio out of a room at the back of her Soho boutique—a room so petite, it's hard to believe the amount of stuff that comes out of it. Nichol designs jewelry and bags, and as of last season, clothes; the fact that she sees fit to spin all those plates out of a small, serviceable space is telling, somehow. Simply put, she doesn't have room for the extraneous.

The designer's new collection of ready-to-wear is thus appropriately concise. In general, she's focused on outerwear, all studiously well cut. A sharp black trench trimmed in leather, with a detachable lining embroidered in a crocodile pattern, was a standout; so too the blanket coat, with its high collar, and the fringed cream leather blazer. Elsewhere, Nichol refined and updated a few of her key silhouettes from Spring, including her apron dress and boyish button-downs. Her clothes don't jump out at you—even a sheer shirtdress in French lace had a quiet, almost monastic quality—but their details make them sing. To wit, that blanket coat, which was done in a very rich cashmere blend, trimmed in leather, and fully lined in wool taffeta. You get the sense that Nichol is so committed to keeping her range of product small because she wants to give each individual piece its due. That's an admirable stance.
—Maya Singer

Wes Gordon

At his Fall presentation, Wes Gordon was continually encircled by a crush of fans chorusing "amazing" and "obsessed." A security guard at the venue gestured at the young designer and remarked, "That's probably what Justin Bieber feels like all the time." Gordon has quickly made a name for himself in the industry, and recently tied for the Fashion Group International's Rising Star Award. But he's far from complacent, and is continually setting the bar higher. This season was Gordon's largest yet.

"It's darker, grander, and more romantic, with a more disheveled elegance than in the past," he said, going on to reference Rooney Mara and Charles Dickens heroines as inspirations. Looks including a chain-mail tank paired with a belle-of-the-ball saffron cutaway skirt and a majestic Edwardian cashmere coat brought to mind a modern fairy tale, while duchesse satin T-shirts and brocade flared pants kept things youthful and effectively grounded the collection. You're not about to see Gordon's luxe clothing on every downtown hipster—these pieces are better suited for special occasions and regular gala goers like Olivia Chantecaille, who stopped by today to show her support. But it's refreshing nonetheless to see a 25-year-old up-and-comer who keeps the fantasy in fashion, and doesn't necessarily want to be the next Alex Wang.
—Brittany Adams

Willow

Butterflies were the theme du jour at Willow, though you wouldn't necessarily get that just from looking at the clothes. As designer Kit Willow explained, the inspiration was mainly a conceptual one, but it trickled down into the collection's circular seaming, cocoon shapes, and monarch butterfly palette of orange and black. The construction here was interesting: jackets made using only three arcing seams, drop-waist skirts with a kind of skeleton of rounded pleats, long dresses with a winglike flap. Willow's strongest pieces relied on her very cool French tweed. Two particular standouts were the cocoonish, dress-up/dress-down coat, faced in leather, that cleverly set the tweed's stripe against itself, and a seriously chic dress with a fitted, long-sleeve top and skirt that fell in an off-center cascade. Elsewhere, Willow used her signature seed beading to graphic effect, and she cut some very sharp boot-leg trousers. All in all, this was a very grown-up outing from Willow: The pieces were less flirty than usual but ultimately very seductive.
—Maya Singer

Y-3

It was literally and figuratively a magic carpet ride at Y-3, with a runway layered in Persian rugs and a collection that imagined Westerners on a stylishly rugged global trek. "We wanted to have this very visible element of Yohji Yamamoto in Y-3," said creative director Dirk Schönberger backstage after the show. "And as we know, Mr. Yamamoto is always about a journey." True enough. The master himself has taken us from Outer Mongolia to Edwardian England, not to mention from Tokyo to Paris and back again.

This, of course, was slightly different. The boys and girls here would seem to be an eclectically bundled-up band of travelers, working the sartorial exotica—kaffiyeh scarves, Peruvian knits, Central Asian ikat trims—into their sporty kit. (There was also a preponderance of leopard print in the mix. Perhaps the exotica of the First Arrondissement?)

For womenswear, early on in the show you saw Yohji-isms like a leather jacket with a shaped hourglass waist, and for men, the folded Japanese fisherman's pants. But overall, the pieces skewed more functional than poetic. Not that the two elements didn't coexist here. In fact, this particular blend of Yohji and Adidas felt like being in Baby Bear's bed—exactly right—and not a moment too soon: Y-3's 10th anniversary is looming large next season.

Many of these pieces had the most straightforward and immediate appeal we've seen yet at a Y-3 show. Lots of editors could be heard raving about the outerwear. In fact, worn in combination with the naturalistically constructed getups, the parkas were exactly what many of the fashion insiders, heading to their next show, would want to wear against the bitter winds tonight.
—Meenal Mistry

Yigal Azrouël

Françoise Hardy was the cited inspiration for the collection Yigal Azrouël showed this afternoon, and if that's not exactly a novel choice of muse, Azrouël made up for it by seizing on a compelling aspect of Hardy's personality. "I was really interested in her sense of privacy," the designer explained after the show. "There was an attitude with her, even when she was out in public, that there was a part of herself she kept hidden." To capture that sense of private-publicness, Azrouël produced a collection more covered up than usual for him. Dress and skirt silhouettes were modest and narrow; key looks included a floor-length, python-print silk gown with long sleeves, and an aubergine wool pencil dress, likewise long-sleeve, with some suggestive (and forgiving) volume about the hips. The look was very clean.

Elsewhere, Azrouël did nice work with his signature leathers—an evergreen-toned leather suit, in particular, looked simultaneously easygoing and slick—and with fur. The long fur parka had a winning casual air. But the most interesting pieces at today's show were the ones Azrouël made from a cool, compressed wool, such as that aubergine dress. The material lent itself to sculpting, and the designer took advantage of that to give familiar silhouettes an unexpected kick. To wit, his white hooded sweatshirt and slouchy trouser combination came off, in the wool, like the world's most elegant tracksuit. It's hard to imagine Françoise Hardy wearing that look, but she surely would have appreciated its insouciant glamour.
—Maya Singer

Yohji Yamamoto

The set on the runway at Yohji Yamamoto was a rectangle of thin scaffolding. Painted bright red, it suggested something sporty. As the first looks came out, the suggestion took on substance. Draped jersey dresses had a streetwise edge with flat combat boots and dip-dyed punk hair, and looked like the kind of designer riffs on athletic gear that were big in the nineties. The graphic punch of those black and red knits, wrapped a bit helter-skelter about the body, echoed Yamamoto's work at Y-3, a reference you saw last season as well.

But really, this show would seem to be about contrasts and halves, covering the body, and uncovering it to reveal…something. One long, cowled sweater had a whipstitched seam all the way up the front like a scar, and then on the turn you saw its cutaway back, with skin and pants unobscured. Elsewhere, models seemed to be instructed to hold on to their clothes, as if one false move would drop them all to the floor. Even the invite came with a curtain of sheer black fabric that had to be pulled back to get at its practical truths.

All that coy revealing leads logically to sex, which is rarely traversed territory for Yamamoto. There were corseted satin teddies under great, sturdy felted wool capes, and an exquisite lipstick dress with curved pleats like petals that fell open as the model walked, a bit like, well, you can guess what. The show ended in a strange bit of theater, with a group of skimpy spaghetti-strap frocks trimmed with stripper tassels. The models wearing them halfheartedly shimmied by a pole before taking their walk. The message? Mixed. But perhaps that's just a woman's prerogative.
—Meenal Mistry

Yves Saint Laurent

Stefano Pilati couldn't have known his days as the house's designer were numbered when he presented his men's collection for Yves Saint Laurent in June, but the way he dipped into YSL's dark side—the one personified by the designer's relationship with the arch-decadent Jacques de Bascher—prophetically hinted at an end game.

And Pilati extended that same mood into his women's collection, the last he'll show for Saint Laurent. The wasp-waisted, fetishistic discipline, the leather, the martial strictness of Guido Palau's slicked-back hair combined with the vampiric gloss of Pat McGrath's blood-red lip were components of a powerful, hard-edge dominatrix fashion fantasy. Backless dresses in a chain mail made of metal and rubber were the ultimate expression of Pilati's hypersexualized vision. So he naturally picked the calla lily, Roman symbol of lust, as the floral accent for the collection. (Ironic footnote: Calla lilies were also the flowers laid on the graves of those who suffered an untimely demise.)

The burnished backdrop, the gold paneling on the walls, established a kind of imperial, pagan tone against which Pilati could parade his broad-shouldered nightlife Amazons. There is something inevitably glamorous about that look. Many kids like Pilati were conditioned by adolescences spent poring over pictures of YSL, Warhol, and their gang idling away glittering nights. But there'd always be a grim, hard-lit dawn. And yet with that dawn would also come the promise of a new day. Maybe that's why, when he appeared to a stomping ovation, Pilati seemed so cheerful.
—Tim Blanks

Zac Posen

Ten years ago to the day, Style.com covered Zac Posen's first big New York show. Our reviewer then said that his dresses "pushed the notion of glamour to the extreme." That's not a bad description of what he did tonight at Lincoln Center's David H. Koch Theater with a new collection of sculpted skirtsuits and gala gowns. Posen has had his fair share of ups and downs in his decade-long career. He's in the midst of another reinvention, one that's found him focusing on what's called "occasion dressing" in the biz. It was fitting that Dita Von Teese—a woman who turns every outfit into an event—was posing for photographers from her perch in the front row.

Posen gave his Fall collection a Japanese theme. There were peony jacquards, Tokyo reds, and Imperial blues on his program. One model carried a bejeweled, pagoda-shaped minaudière. For the most part the craftsmanship was unassailable, but the dressiness of the clothes tended to come off old-fashioned and costumey, especially on the outfits that featured oversize obis in kimono prints. The audience, however, did perk up a few times toward the end: an alabaster jacquard cocktail number and a gold duchesse satin bustier dress with a blossoming skirt had a simplicity that gave them a youthful kick. As for drama, nothing beat a strapless silk faille gown in midnight blue.
—Nicole Phelps

Zero + Maria Cornejo

It's not surprising that Maria Cornejo returns to the theme of identity in her collection. Her personal history crisscrosses the globe, and even as the brand grows, there remains something quite intimate about it. Her designs are tied to her own wardrobe, and even her prints are usually based on quick snapshots on her iPhone, like abstracted postcards from her life. Having recently gotten her American citizenship, Cornejo found herself pondering her journey once more.

This idea of plumbing her past to push into the future isn't so different to what Cornejo does each season, refining the codes she's created while offering her faithful fan club something new to love. Here, for instance, the fluttery bright silk of her signature dresses evolved into blouses tucked into narrow, longish skirts. Another nice leap: splitting it into a matching top and skirt, which made for a highly appealing casual take on evening. The slimmed version of the cocoon coat, which seemed to wrap around the body sans fasteners, is also one to put on your list.

Happily, Cornejo reports that business is good. Her pre-fall sales were up by 35 percent, and she's noticed that special pieces are outpacing staples—thus the uptick in evening looks today. The wrapped-up look for Fall wasn't what you'd call opulent, but she did approach the L-word, luxury, however gingerly. "It doesn't have to mean a branded bag," she said. "Luxury can be quirky and individual." Which brings things back around to the importance of identity. If you consider the story behind those beautiful blanketlike knits (the pixelated motif is a picture Cornejo took at home while watching an old movie, and they're hand-knit by a women's cooperative in Bolivia), a sense of ostentation becomes something else.

The show closed on a high note with a bonded "scuba" wool jacket that garnered comments from editors as they filed out—a strong candidate for inclusion in the Cornejo canon.
—Meenal Mistry

Z Spoke by Zac Posen

Now in its sixth season, Zac Posen's lower-priced Z Spoke line has come of age. The look of the collection has matured way beyond those blaring, fruity prints from his first show. More and more, Posen is applying the strengths established with his namesake label to everyday sportswear. The constructed seaming found in the designer's evening gowns, for example, appears here on sharp, shrunken jackets ("it's all about putting the line in the right place," he said) as well as on pleated, wide-leg satin pants with "karate stitching."

At times, the lineup had a slight nineties vibe to it, which Posen described as "Americana gone to the dark side." Sweaters came with slashed sleeves, and there was a burgundy velvet tank dress worthy of Alicia Silverstone circa Clueless. Z Spoke's noteworthy accessories, including matte leather satchels with tough, tonal hardware and a silver fox clutch, were fresh finishing touches that won't break the bank.
—Brittany Adams