The Daily Gamecock

Issue date: 9/21/06 Section: The Mix

Something very special happened in New York City - Fashion Week. Fashion Week took place in the city from Sept. 8 - 15 with 129 shows featuring top designers in the fashion world featuring spring 2007 collections. The most popular collections were Calvin Klein, Vera Wang, Zac Posen, Michael Kors, Marc Jacobs, Anna Sui, Badgley Mischka, Betsey Johnson, and Oscar de la Renta. For Project Runway fans out there, Fashion Week featured collections of the four final contests: Uli Herzner, Laura Bennett, Jeffery Sebelia and Michael Knight. Past contestants from previous seasons have used the show to catapult their careers.

The collections this year had a wide variety of styles. Many were featured around accessories. Vintage inspired sunglasses were a huge hit among designers such as Diesel and Proenza Schouler, as well as stilettos and handbags by Zac Posen. Badgley Mischka featured an amazing gold metallic mini-duffle. Diesel also had some of the best bags in gold and white leather featured with every outfit in their collection.

Every year there is a certain color that is "in" for the season, and this year it is all about the metallics, especially gold. Gold dresses, skirts, tops, bathing suits, bags, shoes, you name it, it was designed in gold this year. Designers such as Marc Bouwer, Nicole Miller, Badgley Mischka, and Marc Valvo's collections featured a metallic platelet throughout their whole collections.

Anna Sui stuck primarily to black, white, and red for her graphic collection. But the queen of the runway, Betsey Johnson, topped them all. Her collection featured polka dots, gingham checks, and stripes filling up the catwalk.

The best part to her show, besides of course the clothes, was the cheekiness of the models and the catwalk theme; Betsey Johnson knows how to entertain the crowd. No need to fear, there is always a theatrical aspect to Fashion Week to keep people on their toes just in case they get bored.

If not seeing over 129 fashion shows during one week of fashion was not good enough, then how about the fact that the clothes this year look liked they could have been worn right off the runway. Shorts with blouses and heels, T-shirt dresses and smocks, and straight-legged pants were the hits on the runways; we can thank Michael Kors for this.

After observing the shows, it is right to presume that spring 2007 is going to be über chic. There is going to be bold patterns, earth-toned colors, heels, shorts with cuffs, dresses, and clean lines.

Be prepared to retire the ragged T-shirt because this spring is going be about dressing to impress. The main question - after walking away from seeing eight days of the best lines in America - is will the American Fashion Week be able to stand up to the European Fashion Week? We will have to wait until the Europeans take the runway, so stay tuned.

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