New York Fashion Week is off to a quick and giddy start and trends for the season are already beginning to emerge.  The hard-edge glam of the 90s is back (perhaps recent news of economic recovery is driving up hemlines?), sportswear is in (maybe winter weather was on the mind while designers developed their lines) and designers are playing with layered tonal ensembles. For every designer who embraces these trends, there is another bucking them completely (pattern on pattern Granny chic at Suno.)

Alexander Wang Fall 2011 RTW

Alexander Wang, the go-to designer for New York’s crop of young urban sophisticates, presented layers of fur, leather, and jersey in monochromatic palates of black, blush, grey. By limiting his outfits to one or two tones at most, Wang prevented the luxurious materials from becoming ostentatious. Exposed zippers and pockets kept in line with the luxe-sportswear look, while bold make-up complemented the strength and confidence of the clothes. Strong, dark eyebrows were the focus of otherwise nude faces. Nails were left buffed and natural hair was parted in the middle or scraped back from the face in loose ponytails.

Wang’s woman for the fall is bold and confident—the type who leaves the house in the morning in an outfit that will last through dinner and drinks. After a season or two of wandering, Wang proves once again that he knows what silhouettes, pieces, and colors his clients want to wear with his Fall 2011 collection.

Kimberly Ovitz also delved into monochrome layering; however, her work had a somewhat edgier take on solid colors. Models’ faces were smeared with acid-yellow paint, their hair roughed up and tossed to the side, leaving the viewer to look directly at the clothes. Touches of the same highlighter tone appeared throughout the clothes, uniting an otherwise somewhat disparate group of pieces. As usual, Ovitz signature draping and jersey cutouts sustained her collection. Particularly strong were her urban warrior-esque neon and grey tights with grey draped sweater and her grey suede jacket with cream lining over an all grey ensemble.

Kimberly Ovitz Fall 2011 RTW

Also exploring tonal layering was Victoria Bartlett at VPL. To open her show, Bartlett composed more than a dozen brown and camel looks, followed by a neat chromatic progression into a warm grey and then more golden tones. Monochrome color schemes balance her play with proportions. Voluminous sweaters meet narrow skirts, giant bracelets hang from the wrists of models clad in the grey. Toward the end of the show, her offerings become more conceptual. Her forays into latex lingerie, although fantastically weird and original, will undoubtedly be too off-beat for mass appeal but it does affirm Bartlett’s loyalty to VPLs tagline of “underwear, outerwear, anywhere.”

VPL Fall 2011 RTW

What unites these three collections beside their use of monochrome palettes and luxurious materials is their wearability. These are clothes made by designers who know their audience. With the exception of occasional forays into conceptual makeup, Wang, Ovitz and Bartlett understand the urban female that makes up their market. They grasp the need for workable separates in muted tones that are wearable from day to night. Sometimes pragmatism can diminish creativity, but in the case of these early shows, it seems that understanding their consumer has given each of these designers a concerted focus that has translated well into designs.