Hasta La Ideas

I can’t think of a more festive precursor to Valentine’s Day than a red-carpeted runway show graced with an array of gorgeous crimson gowns — all for the sake of healthy hearts! The Heart Truth’s Red Dress Collection, fashioned by a throng of top designers and shown off by a number of notable female celebrities and athletes, has become the traditional New York Fashion Week fall-preview opener with its collaborative and charitable fashion show aimed to help promote heart disease awareness. The wide variety of stunning ruby-hued gowns and cocktail dresses, designed by the likes of Carmen Marc Valvo, Nicole Miller, Betsey Johnson, Donna Karan, and Max Azria (and many more!), were worn by a parade of proud women celebrities including Katie Couric, Amanda Bynes, Jennie Garth, and Olympic gold medalists Nastia Liukin and Kristi Yamaguchi, who all set their nerves aside to strut down the ramp for the cause. Even attendees who came without a Valentine found it difficult to not give in to the occasion and fall in love with the stunning sheaths!

Colors: ruby reds and deep crimson
Silhouettes: all styles from tiny tube dresses to flowing evening gowns!
Celebs: (aside from the star-studded runway) Christian Siriano, Kellie Pickler, Miss J. Alexander
Photo Credit: Getty Images for Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week

The Fall/Winter 2009 Adam by Adam Lippes show was simply sensational and brought a burst of fun to this woeful economic season. The collection was inspired by a show the designer attended featuring 19th century hand-tinted Japanese photographs. The images, from cherry blossoms to samurai warriors and geishas, served as the foundation upon which this collection emerged. Vibrant colors, graphic prints, and glitzy sequins abounded on this runway giving each look a fun and funky flair but in a wearable, not crazy and over-the-top sort of way. I absolutely loved the play on proportions and mixing and matching of textures and styles, like the sequined number topped off with sharp blazers that ranged from over-sized and slouchy to cropped and sharply tailored. Cuts and shapes were all over the map — we saw loose and billowy styles as well as those that were form-fitted and sleek. Some looks were all about the loaded-on layers while others were minimal and fuss-free. Overall, this collection was a hit from start to finish.

Colors: Fuchsia, Grey, Purple, Black, White, Topaz
Trends: Colored Tights, Sequins, Plaid, Slouchy Styles
Celebs: Whitney Port, Joy Bryant, Jennifer Love Hewitt
Photo Credit: Getty Images for Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week

Without a doubt, the Calvin Klein label is well-known for its minimalism. So when I saw the first couple of looks in Calvin Klein’s menswear collection for Fall 2009, I wasn’t that impressed. Sure, I love these streamlined, no-frill suits, but I wasn’t at the edge of my seat. In fact, I was nodding off. Right when I was about to let out a yawn from my drooling sleep, a handsome blue suit made an appearance on the runway. This caught my attention. The suit itself is signature Calvin Klein, but the color made it interesting and tickled my inner Don Draper. From there, the show started to hit its stride. Sporty space-age jackets and pristine lines on pants, shirts and coats weren’t groundbreaking, but they were clean and refreshing. The shimmery garments (which included a suit and a couple of tops) added a small wave of change in the sea of simplicity. The basic hue of the collection was like eating a palate-cleansing sorbet. It was refreshing, unsoiled and straightforward. At first, I may have been ready to take a cat nap, but as the collection unfolded, I started to pay attention – and there’s nothing wrong with going the simple route every once in a while.

Colors: shiny black, charcoals, shades of blue
Silhouettes: classic menswear, simple sports coats, clean lines
Celeb Sightings: Kanye West, Jared Leto, Chase Crawford, Patrick Wilson
Photo Credit: Imaxtree

San Francisco’s Academy Of Art University fashion students have been graced with the unparalleled opportunity to showcase their pieces at Mercedes-Benz New York Fashion Week since 2005, and this year, the recent graduates’ designs were no less impressive! This year’s collaboration between SF’s Britex Fabrics and fifteen students proved to be a great success, yielding a number of stylistically and colorfully cohesive looks that seemed to channel the current gray, gloomy weather and spit it out in the form of shimmering striped dresses, cloud-fluffy mohair coats, and dusky printed sweaters. While student design duo Emily Melville and Ivanka Georgieva are said to have stolen the show by closing it off with their series of fluid dresses and wool coats, many of the show’s other hobo-chic layered pieces reminded me of a high fashion rendition of Oliver Twist! If only all vagabonds could look this good…

Colors:black, white, creamy tan, charcoal grays & blues
Silhouettes: draped dresses, bulky coats, sheer shimmery tunics, long over-sized sweaters
Celeb Sighting: Nia Long

Check the slideshow for a selection of some of the runway’s most interesting looks!
Photo Credit: Getty Images for Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week

What Nicole Miller’s Fall 2009 collection lacked in color choices, it more than made up for in creativity with cuts. This new line highlighted the designer’s excellence in creating atypical solutions to the structure of the common mini dress. Unique adaptations to sleeves and necklines were the stand-out elements of the almost-entirely-black collection, and and tribal-like patterns epitomized the art within the bold motif of dark colors and strategically-placed strips of bright color. While sleeve styles appeared in a variety of lengths on the runway, many of them were embellished with sheer and contrasting accents, and others were flared, Jetson-style. Asymmetry was well-played with the use of slits, zippers, stitching, and draping sashes, but not overdone to a space-aged extreme. The the line’s assortment of necklines were a feast to the eye as they introduced high, v, criss-crossed, and more uncommonly shaped necklines and curves in ways that have never looked so becoming. The collaboration of distinctly different fabrics together with these fresh, free forms of frocks epitomize the sleekness so signature to the Nicole Miller name.

Colors: black, plum, bold, red and blue accents
Celeb Sightings: Natasha Henstridge