Marc Jacobs puts colour back into NY Fashion Week

The trend setter is always keenly awaited and even more so at this autumn-winter 2013 show, given scheduling problems that forced him to reshuffle the calendar.

His first appearance featured his Marc by Marc Jacobs diffusion line, a taster before the main course that will take place on Thursday.

The show at Lincoln Center was filled with vivid colors, geometric or floral prints, retro cuts, mini dresses and trousers cut above the ankles for the ladies, with boldly shaded silk wool satin suits for the men.

Earlier Monday, Carolina Herrera showed why at 74 she's still on top of her game.

The Venezuelan-American designer's catwalk show opened with model Karlie Kloss in a long silk dress with a velvet collar.

Shoulders were slightly lifted, silk dresses fell to the floor, and collars sometimes appeared in amethyst-colored fox fur. In fact, fur was everywhere: on belts, sleeves, coats, and dresses, sometimes in brown, but also green or red.

Composer Tom Hodge, who provided music for the Lincoln Center show, "retook the Kreutzer, Beethoven's sonata for violin and piano, which is one of my favorites, and he rearranged it for the show," Herrera told AFP.

The result, "Capriccio for Carolina," matched the clothes, or perhaps it was the other way around.

"I was inspired especially by this piece of music," Herrera said. "That's why everything at the beginning was very light and then it is going into a crescendo" -- into glamour, satins and color.

Along with the Beethoven-inspired elegance were accents from the 1940s, with "a tiny waist, and the shoulders, and the movement of the skirts. All the dresses move a little bit," she explained.

It's for "the woman of today who likes to be dressed up... Women are sometimes afraid of being called elegant or glamorous."

In an immense warehouse-like space in a massive downtown Manhattan post office, Phillip Lim sent his women onto the runway in head-to-toe leather, creating a decidedly urban silhouette.

His first look, an embossed neoprene overcoat in a bright grapefruit color with a leather mini-skirt and black over-the-knee boot sandals, set the tone for the show. Black and cognac dominated the color palette.

Ample overcoats, seen on other New York runways, were layered over leather jackets. Short skirts and biker jackets are also a must for the Lim woman.

"Fall 2013 embodies the nonchalant ease and eclectic style of the partners, girlfriends and lovers of the racer generation," explained the American designer, who was born in Thailand to Chinese parents.

Late Sunday, Zac Posen, a favorite of Hollywood A-listers who recently launched a contemporary wear line, was able to indulge in his bent for sculptural, red-carpet-ready dresses.

The show at the luxury Plaza Hotel was aimed at the "unconventional woman who enjoys and flourishes in the codes, the historical codes of luxury," he said.

Women wearing his clothes should feel "the regality of femininity, the beauty of it," he said, praising the "individual woman. She's strong, she's powerful, but yet feminine."

After Victoria Beckham's show on Sunday, there was another whiff of British style on the catwalks with Tommy Hilfiger's women's collection, which the fashion house described as "Savile Row meets Ivy League."

Hilfiger, known for a decidedly preppy collegiate look, sent out a winter line of mini-skirts, double-breasted coats and short jackets, all made of Prince of Wales or houndstooth check.

New York Fashion Week, which runs through Thursday, features more than 300 shows and presentations of autumn-winter collections for 2013-14.