NYFW 2014 Runway Report

Fashion can often seem like an alternative cosmos, or a trip through the looking glass — say, when you are standing in Central Park and a three-story hologram of a runway appears, like it did Monday at the Ralph Lauren Polo show. Or when a Mad Hatter’s garden party is held, complete with girls dressed as shuttlecocks and badminton rackets and daisy chains, as it was at Thom Browne.

 

Carolina Herrera took flowers as her starting point for Spring, as she’s no doubt done countless times before. This go-round was different. Where once she might’ve been content to create something merely pretty, here she seemed eager to push the boundaries, sample new fabrics, embellish with unexpected materials, and marry the natural world with technology. It was eveningwear as conversation piece.

 

After a dark and monastic fall collection, Angel Sanchez looked to the light for spring inspiration. “I wanted to explore day, lunch, afternoon — but these are not work clothes,” Sanchez said backstage before his show. Looks ranged from black-and-white Neoprene mesh dresses to a bright pink faille coat worn over a bandeau and shorts.

Reem Acra spends a lot of time in Paris, and this season she was inspired by the draping and detailing mastered by mid-century couturiers. “I wanted to imagine that woman today,” the designer said backstage before the show. “What would she be wearing?”

 

We all have our happy place-Vera Wang went to hers with a series of highly worked L.B.B.D.’s (little baroque black dresses), black trouser suits with pleated or  peplums and flowing tentlike evening gowns, but this seascape was somewhere to settle.

 

Oscar De la Renta found inspiration in the outdoors, setting the scene with oversize gingham in pink, baby blue, or black, before launching into florals, which were everywhere—pinned to the neckline of a stunning petal pink dress; or  hand-tatted in bright shades of yellow and red on an airy crocheted shift. Oscar De la Renta’s three final looks were all in a bright key lime green, with Kloss closing down the show in a glamorous ivory silk gown, shorter in front, with green organza leaf embroidery.