New York Fashion Week: Could Ohne Titel be the next Donna Karan?

The most exciting thing I saw on the runway Saturday was the Ohne Titel collection. Bringing a new kind of cool to draped silk, velvet and washed leather separates by working them with athletic mesh and knit, designers Flora Gill and Alexa Adams challenged the boring vernacular of office suiting.

Could we be looking at the next Donna Karan?

The designers, who met at Parsons School of Design and have stints at Helmut Lang and Karl Lagerfeld between them, launched their line in 2006, and they have been on an upward trajectory ever since, garnering nominations and awards from the Ecco Domani Fashion Foundation and the Council of Fashion Designers of America.

New York Fashion Week: Rising star Prabal Gurung Needs to Stay Grounded

For some reason this season, Prabal Gurung was anointed the new kid to watch. When he staged his first runway show in the Tents on Saturday, everyone was there -- department store buyers, magazine editors, even a celeb or two.

Why? Who knows. Oprah's a fan, the designer has a quirky name (pronounced Praa-ball) and a cute face, he grew up in Katmandu, started his career in India, and was design director at Bill Blass for five years. Sculpted coats and skirts in camel, black and white wool cashmere with curvilinear seams had a Blass feel to them, but a bit too much bulk, and the floating panels, peplums and double layers weren't incorporated well enough into the designs.

One-shouldered silk gazar dresses, distinguished by sculptural ruffles, didn't feel that special either. The best look -- a motocross-inspired minidress that was a patchwork of metallic oxidized lace and wool faille. Too bad he didn't stay focused on that technique a little longer.

New York Fashion Week: Jason Wu, a Case of Outsized Ambition

Jason Wu's fall collection was a case of outsized ambition. On the one hand, menswear-inspired separates strayed too far from the designer's comfort zone. On the other, couture-inspired Chantilly lace ball gowns (some with padded hips) overwhelmed his tiny, poorly lit runway.

Daywear fell flat with boxy jackets in too-heavy mohair, fold-over-waist pegged trousers and unremarkable draped wool plaid skirts. Only his cocktail dresses hinted at what could have been, the best in a blush-colored gauze that looked like spun sugar.

New York Fashion Week: Alexander Wang, the Coolest thing in N.Y. Fashion

The zipper sunglasses, the studded-base handbags -- Alexander Wang is the coolest thing in New York fashion right now. And this season, he let loose his tough 'n' trashy aesthetic on the men's suit. 

 

Although we've seen this exercise in deconstruction many times before (Jean Paul Gaultier, Junya Watanabe), Wang gave it his own pseudo-Goth night-crawler spin with the addition of velvet thigh-highs and lace-trimmed swallow-hemmed dresses. (And let's not forget his more accessible price point.)

Fashion Diary: Technology meets Fashion Week

Gossip, first impressions, trends in the making, celebrities and style setters.

 

This is shaping up to be the season when the runway comes to you.

Hundreds of designers will present their fall collections during the monthlong runway circuit that kicked off Wednesday in New York and ends in mid-March in Paris with a stop in Milan along the way. And although the runway shows used to be exclusive events -- closed to all but select editors, store buyers and stylists -- fashion houses increasingly are extending the reach of their blockbuster productions by using the Internet. 

For several seasons now, fashion show attendees have been taking their own amateur video and photos and posting them online using Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. So it was only a matter of time before designers got on the bandwagon. Giorgio Armani, Ralph Lauren and Dolce & Gabbana are among those who have experimented with bringing their runway shows to the digital space.

New York Fashion Week: BCBG Max Azria, Cynthia Rowley Explore the Urban Jungle

The urban tribal aesthetic we saw last season at Proenza Schouler and Balenciaga is starting to turn up in the fall collections in New York this week. First, it was at BCBG Max Azria on Thursday morning, where neutral-colored, draped silk dresses in geometric cuts were shot through with blocks of vibrant blue and yellow. And it continued at Cynthia Rowley, where models had bright color woven into their hair and the band Preacher and the Knife struck a tribal beat.

New York Fashion Week: Chado Ralph Rucci's Tools for Seduction

Ralph Rucci moved his runway show from the Bryant Park Tents downtown to his SoHo showroom this season. If he was letting loose a little bit, it showed, first in his eclectic front row -- Whoopi Goldberg and Andre Leon Tally, '70s songwriting duo Ashford and Simpson, Fran Leibowitz, Martha Stewart and Deeda Blair -- it doesn't get much more wild and crazy than that. And then in his opening song, "White Rabbit." Pass the mink-covered hooka, dude!

In all seriousness, there has been a sexual charge surging through Rucci's Nipponese-serene style of late, and this superb collection kept it going. Every piece was a potential tool of seduction, from the matte black sequin screen siren gown, to the mink lined rain coat with decorative "scarring" at the hem and cuffs.

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