For Pre-Fall, Pamella Roland's idea was to weave animal prints into her formalwear world, a tricky stunt to say the least. After all, those kinds of spots and stripes traditionally work best on demure items such as ballet flats and cashmere cardigans.

Roland was able to pull it off by using them in slightly abstract ways. "There's a newness to it," said David Rodriguez, the brand's VP of design and brand development. A zebra print, for instance, was rendered in ruby and black on day-to-dinner dresses that shimmered just enough to make them feel worthy of a party. (One was a more romantic fit-and-flare, the other a no-nonsense shift.) The real winner was a knee-length frock with a crisscross back, done in a dove gray leopard-print jacquard that almost looked like it was painted on.

Things got a little more complicated when it came to a copper-and-black sequined minidress, which had leopard spots going down the front and stripes on the sides. A bit too wild. Also going too faralbeit in another directionwas a one-shoulder minidress made up of a patchwork of purple, gray, and black sequins. Sequins are Roland's signature, so they should be part of her most exciting pieces. This just felt out of place. Roland and her team are at their best when their designs are unfussy, as in the case of a gray V-neck jumpsuit that was both simple and dressy at once.
Lauren Sherman

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Things are rolling along at a nice clip for Andreas Melbostad at Diesel Black Gold. First came the news that he'll take on the men's range, and then the announcement that it will get its debut next month at Pitti Uomo in Florencepretty much the biggest menswear stage in the world. And there's also a new store in the works in London, set to open early 2014. Nearly a year into his tenure at the label, Melbostad continues to sharpen its point of view. By now you know to expect lots of leather, denim, and studs. He had all of that and then some; this is a label shoppers should learn to think of first when in the market for a biker jacket. His have great details, and, more important, a great fit. The goal moving forward is to build a more comprehensive collection around those key pieces. Picking up where things left off for Spring, there are sweet, lace-edged slipdresses in a hybrid camo-animal print, and he's adding other soft items to the lineup, like intarsia sweaters, as well as more tailoring. A crisp, stripe-y button-down with camo-print shoulders looked cool. Also interesting: a pair of stovepipe jeans with a finish that appeared silver-leafed. Melbostad said we should expect to see more metallics for Fall.
Nicole Phelps

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In Texas, they don't do anything small. Neither does Chanel. It's been a mutually beneficial match since way back in 1957, when Neiman Marcus' Stanley Marcus, having embraced Coco Chanel's 1954 comeback collection even as the French rejected it, gave Chanel the store's Award for Distinguished Service in the field of fashion. Tomorrow, Neiman's will present Karl Lagerfeld with the same honor. The full-circle moment gave Lagerfeld the theme for his fabulous new Mйtiers d'Art show, dubbed Back in Dallas, as well as the spectacles that preceded and followed it.

A giant ice storm made getting to the city more than a little difficult, but by 6:30 this evening, nine hundred guests had poured into Dallas' Fair Park, home of the 1936 Texas Centennial Exposition and a National Historic Landmark. Inside, they were greeted by a built-to-fit drive-in movie theater complete with seventy-four restored vintage automobiles parked in front of four giant screens. This reporter watched Lagerfeld's short film from the front seat of a red convertible Chevrolet Chevelle. The Return stars Geraldine Chaplin as a wary yet still brazen Coco on the eve of her 1954 show, the one that was celebrated by the Americans and panned by the French"you can hardly call that couture," says Arielle Dombasle in the movie. "I don't think her name will last forever."

The U.S. of A. got that one right. There are but a few global brands that can spend on the scale that Chanel does. (Team KL built a saloon for the after-party, installing a mechanical bull and the British electronic music band Hot Chip.) No other fashion house can lay claim to the various ateliers that Chanel has acquired in recent years. With Dakota Fanning, Lily Collins, and Kristen Stewart, who will star in the ad campaign for this collection, in the stands, Lagerfeld showcased the company's Mйtiers d'Art to vivid effect with clothes that trumpeted the American WestCowboys and Indians clichйs and all. Historically, Ralph Lauren has owned this fashion territory. Lagerfeld seized upon it with gusto but also with characteristic deftness.

"It's a reinvention of something I don't really know, but that I like to play with," he said. The classic Chanel suit has become a bit boxier, the skirt longer and fuller, and it's worn with boots. For the Lone Star State: a cocktail dress and matching jacket embroidered with thousands of red and silver stars. Houndstooth coats with fur sleeves the size of, well, Texas. Blanket skirts and high-necked prairie blouses. And miles and miles of fringe, accenting everything from a knit poncho and skirt set to a silky dress Jerry Hall might've worn to Studio 54 to a swaggeringly gorgeous navy cape in suede and leather.

Erin Wasson, a native Texan, carried bottles of Chanel No. 5 in her holsters. Bang, bang, Karl did it again.
Nicole Phelps

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Mark Badgley and James Mischka say their clients like to buy formalwear for the fall parties before they leave for the summer holidays. Which means Pre-Fall is all about glamorous dresses at Badgley Mischkaeven more so than in other seasons.

This time around, they looked to the opulence of Romewhere they recently took a belated honeymoonto inform the look of the gowns. The silhouette was mainly long and leaneven a ball skirt in a beautiful bordeaux red and black jacquard was pretty narrow. A stretchy crepe column was embellished with an armorlike jeweled collar, while the standout beaded nude chiffon number was studded just at the neckline with golden brooches. The duo were most successful when they pinned heavy brooches on wispy fabrics. "It's the contrast that makes it interesting," Mischka said. It's true.
Lauren Sherman

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Boho-Chic is the name of Nicole Miller's Pre-Fall game. She looked to the 1974 book Native Funk & Flash for inspiration, along with the more recent Hippie Chic, based on this past summer's exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. But the results didn't feel like an archive. Instead, Miller used styles that were popular in the ninetiesslipdresses, skinny T-shirts, lots and lots of plaidto add some funk. "I wanted it be about the individual, to give her lots of different options," Miller said. She did that without going too far off track. Despite the seemingly endless combination of embellishments, from beaded plaid chiffon tops and pants to Indian embroidery on skirts and blouses, it all threaded together nicely, in a magpie sort of way. A standout piece was a plaid cropped top decorated with fabric flowers. It was a lot, but not too much.
Lauren Sherman

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Oscar de la Renta may have canceled the runway shows he once put on for inter-season collections and pared back the invitation lists of those he still stages, but it's hard to say he's pared back. An Oscar collection caroms from black and white to flamingo pink and citrine green, from smart-suit daywear to full-on ball gowns in lamй. For Pre-Fall, the inspiration points were just as varied: some shapes borrowed from Japanese fashion; vivid colors from Zurbarбn, the great Spanish Golden Age painter. A parrot was embroidered onto a mikado pencil skirt. "I travel a lot," de la Renta chuckled, then added drily, "in a chair." Even so, he added, "You feel so sorry for the clothes that are not being shown." He gestured around the showroom at the racks. Put each on a model and, like a couture show of yore, you could be here all day.

It's hard to blame de la Renta for his profligacy. Pre-collections have a long life on the floor, covering multiple seasons and, in a global marketplace, multiple climates. When you want to speak to all and sundry, as Oscar does100 percent of the 1 percent, as it wereyou have to have a lot to say. The new presentation style, of small-group vignettes, helped clarify the strongest messages. Bright, bold tailoringa royal purple skirtsuit with a double-faced cashmere/angora bomber jacket, or an elongated gilet over matching forest green trouserswas snappy. But if you're not a woman for color, there were plenty of graphic options in classic black and white, in guipure lace and mйlange tweed. For the rara avis: more-is-more multicolored gowns in silk taffeta and silk faille, the most photographed of which tied at the back, like a Christmas present, with an enormous bow. And for the femme fatale: an embroidered lamй gown, wrapped as tight around the bust as a bath towel. In the otherwise silent presentation, it made an appealing jingle as it went. If you were cynical, you might call that the sound of money in the bank. But de la Renta, though many things, isn't a cynic. "At the end, it's about making beautiful clothes for women to fall in love with," he said. So put it another way: music to his ladies' ears.
Matthew Schneier

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Erdem Moralioglu did himself no favors by dressing his Spring Erdem collection as some kind of break with his past. The clothes were too obtuse to communicate a clear message. His Pre-Fall, on the other hand, had a crisp clarity that didn't need any verbiage from the designer. The collection was a sharp distillation of what people love about Erdem: exquisite cocktail dresses, eerie florals, a sweet-turned-sour sophistication. He said he imagined "a schoolgirl in a kilt wearing her grandmother's coat." There were paintings by Balthus and John Currin on his mood board that perfectly embodied that skewed notion. His mastery of propriety gone wrong found perfect expression in a kinky trench in forest-green eel skin. (Nicholas Kirkwood's pointy flats were the consummate accessory.) Same with a miniskirt in boiled wool crepe with matching bustier and, best of all, an asymmetrical slipdress in burgundy silk crepe, delicately suspended from spaghetti straps and embroidered with a big black dahlia. There are few flowers with such a bad vibe, and it was entirely in keeping with Moralioglu's twisty ethos that he would make it the motif of his collection. He is, after all, the guy who eternally exalts the "wrong" in his work.

Curiously, the element he singled out here as most wrong was a clutch of pieces slathered in coppery sequins. They had a Halston-dresses-Liza jazziness, particularly the sequined top and tuxedo pants that were Erdem's alternate offering for evening. A little less formal maybe than the flower-embroidered column with the starchy white shirt collar ("glamorous governess" might once have been Erdem's classic default position), but then, de-formalized dressiness was actually the essence of the collection. The designer achieved this effect with a front-and-back proposition. A little black dress in macramй lace looked formal from the front, but in back, it sensuously molded to the spine with a neoprene-like jersey. A lace jumpsuit, backed in silk cady, sported a solid black T-shirt pocket. A little thing, you might think, but it undoubtedly defused the dressiness. And there was something that Moralioglu did with his cutting that was equally effective, sloping side seams forward so that the body's stance shifted slightly, emphasizing the hips. Simple, elegant, lovely.
Tim Blanks

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Though "put a bird on it" has become shorthand for a kind of hipster-endorsed brand of twee, there are still creative, unsettling ways to put the avian into fashion. Angela Missoni's investigations into ornithology pointed the way. Birds made their first appearance on her runway for Spring, where, in abstract print, they flapped over dresses, lending a bit of Hitchcockian creepiness. For Pre-Fall, there was less menace, but still something otherworldly about the way she cut jacket sleeves above the elbow to resemble folded wings, and layered tiers of scallop-shaped petals, like the rounded edges of feathers, to make skirts, tops, and shrugs.

Overall, the Pre-Fall collection found Angela more in her element than she was during the experiments of Spring. Shapes emphasized movement and swing: trapeze dresses and A-line coats; wide, swishy trousers; and long, pleated skirts. The brilliant colors that are a Missoni hallmark were dimmed a bit, to an array of blacks, whites, and grays, touched up here and there with coral and turquoise. But texture and pattern stepped into the void. A long, ombrй shift in guipure lace worn over Missoni's famous space dye gave an effect that looked to be sparkling and dissolving at once. It was slightly surreal, which was fitting, given one of the collection's inspirations: the bird-woman paintings of the great German surrealist Max Ernst. Therein lies the Italia/Portlandia difference. Missoni's women aren't wearing birds, they're half bird themselves. With fur hoods atop their heads and fur-tufted gloves covering arms, it wasn't hard to believe.
Matthew Schneier

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Generously embellished frocks and kicky separates are what Alice + Olivia has built a growing business on (fifteen boutiques and counting), but for the brand's Pre-Fall offering, designer Stacey Bendet was keen to showcase something else: "Everyone knows about our party dressing, but this was about showing our tailoring." And while high-brow, Helmut Newton-esque androgyny this ain't, the line's flirtation with menswear is an agreeable one. Bendet paid homage to her husband's slacks with a slimmer take on the peg-leg trouser. A blazer and trenchcoat featured a sweeping, feminine peplum and skirt, respectively. A particular standout was a suit in gray pinstriped wool flannel with a peplum top and mannish pants that would have made Katharine Hepburn proud.

There was an emphasis on transitional dressing, not only of the summer-to-fall variety, but also day to night. Catering to the "New York City girl who's working all day and running around at night," Bendet outfitted A-line dresses with plunging backs, and teamed them with smart little jackets to be doffed after hours. The va-va-voom factor of an otherwise modest sleeveless black sheath skyrocketed thanks to a decidedly PG-13 slit and a close-fitting ponte knit.

It was an offering largely bereft of A+O's usual jewel tones, but there was plenty of cream, red, and camel (though the latter was an appropriately "off" camel that bordered on mustard). Lest Bendet's fan base thinks things are getting too staid, there were girlish bows galore, in intarsia trompe l'oeil or dappling a black pullover, and even a pair of beaded unicorn d'Orsay flats.
Kristin Anderson

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Our review will be posted shortly. See the complete collection by clicking the image at left.

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