NYC Highlights: Fall 2012 Ready-to-Wear

(upbeat heavy-percussion music)

Some of the pieces, I really like,

and some of the pieces, I didn t quite understand.

It may be raining now but New York Fashion Week

was all sunny inside.

It was a great week with a very interesting dialogue

between realism and surrealism.

You have the fall, you have the winter, you have

Fashion Week and you get to celebrate other fellow artists.

It s just a really nice energy and fun to

see amazing clothes that people have worked so hard on.

(upbeat techno music)

What s on my mind this week is really how amazing

these advanced contemporary collections have been.

People like Tory Birch, Faskins, Theory.

I think it s amazing the kind of detail

and styling that they re doing for the price

and that that s really where the future of fashion is going.

There s an enormous bend towards China

and this fascination with really shiny gold fabric.

Lotta China. Lotta gold.

All of those pieces, I don t think,

on the rail will jump out at you

and go, Oh that s a Chinese themed collection.

They re still very much New York attire.

(heavy-bass electronic music)

I think it s been a good week.

I thought that Joseph Altuzarra had a break through moment.

Probably my favorite show of the week.

Prabal, for sure. People are going bonkers over that.

No one s beat Jason yet.

I love the Marc Jacobs show.

Everything was a surrealist dream I think.

Very much probably one of the themes of the season.

[Interviewer] Do you have surrealism

on your mind at the moment?

Always have, always. It s all part of the same world.

The prints are very surrealistic.

Just a little bit of surrealism.

Sometimes we re interested in real things.

Sometimes we re more interested in things

that are a little more imaginary and fantasy based.

We wanted to do something in the middle,

something that felt like a heightened reality somehow.

To me it s fantasy. It s romanticism.

It s never about one thing. It s layers.

No it is a real fantasy for me.

Well you can t have a show without a little high drama.

I don t separate...

What s real?

Clothing is escapist and magical.

If people are gonna shop,

they want something that makes them feel spectacular.

Thank god for the theatricality of it all.

[Man] It s something that

we ve heard a few times this week.

Bringing back fashion as fantasy.

I think we got too real again.

It s time for something glamorous and outstanding

and memorable.

It s funny cause you think back

to the days of the recession and everybody

was moaning about how we were gonna be

consigned to a world of sensible clothes,

and fast forward, the reality couldn t be further from that.

It just felt like a pause, a moment, take stock,

have some fun, and then maybe next season we ll move on.

(uptempo electronic music)