My favorite part of any fashion week tends to be the dresses. I can’t help it, I’m such a girl!

Everyone needs a little (or a lotta) black dress. These were some of my favorites from the catwalk…

Clockwise: Pleated and simple from Calvin Klein, gorgeous frills from Dennis Basso, a simple but classy style from Lela Rose, and beautiful folds from Zac Posen.

Loving the velvets from Derek Lam – so well done! Deco lines from Zac Posen, and lacy goodness from Naeem Kahn.

Or, you can go for a little color and pattern with these dresses…

Gorgeous browns from Badgley Mischka, bands of green from Carlos Miele, simple neutral stripes from Jason Wu, and a sassy little number from Tuleh.

Love the peacock-esque pattern from Behnaz Sarafpour, sweet and sassy from L’Wren, my favorite yellow from Temperly, and a fabulous floral combo from Michael Kors.

For those of you who have been following my blog for a while now, you already know how much I feel that fashion and interior design influence each other. So, you can probably guess what I was doing all last week…

(Red gown by Marchesa, Red room via Desire to Inspire)

That’s right, friends. It was Fall RTW Fashion Week! So, here I am ready to give you the best of the best (in my most humble opinion). Instead of doing a daily update on my favorites like I did for the Spring RTW shows, however, I decided to wait and do a few posts after seeing all the collections.

Today, we’ll talk trends. The good: metallics, fur, blacks and neutrals with pops of serious color, plaids, gloves, cinched waists, adorable hats and other toppers, and many more. The bad: Trends circa 1990 – boxy cuts for suits and jackets that look horrible on everyone, grungy influences like bad plaid, clunky chunky boots, pasty pasty models, and more pieces that made me wonder if some of these designers had been spending too much time in Seattle… (don’t get me wrong, I love that city dearly, but a fashion capitol it is not).

So, we’ll leave out the bad, and stick with the good. There’s only so much room, after all… (PS ~ My apologies for the small groups of photos, but if you click on them, they will get bigger so you can see the detail on these gorgeous pieces!)

Fur!

Faux or real, it was everywhere on the runway. Fur coats, trims on dresses, vests, hats, lining, you name it. These were a few of my favorite ensembles including fur. From left to right… Dennis Basso with a dreamy creamy look, Malandrino cinched up her grey to give it shape and paired with with silver pants for a classy look, loved the off-the-shoulder fur in all black from Douglas Hannant, a cute combo of textures and shapes from Malo incorporating a fur vest (lots of great fur and designs in this collection), and another jacked from Malandrino that might be in the yummiest warm taupe color ever.

I also fell in LOVE with these two designs from Matthew Williamson who used a lot of color in his collection. The texture in the grey and seafom colored dress is especially gorgeous.

Black & White:

Lots and lots of black on the runway this season. Black and grey, black and white, black and black… but these pieces were the ones that really popped on the runway for me. A feathery concoction from Bill Blass, gorgeous construction from Luca Luca, Zac Posen doing what he does best with ruffles and texture, and a flowy ikat-printed dress from Naeem Khan.

Menswear Fabrics

I don’t know if we can really classify this one as a trend, but I love the mix of menswear fabrics – herringbone and plaids – in these pieces. From left to right: a simple look from Abaete, a slouchy suited mix from DVF, a crisp button-up from Lacoste accented with a bold scarf, a cozy herringbone dress from Malo, a mix of plaids from Peter Som looks adorable with a bit of ruffle at the bottom, and a funky mix from Thakoon is topped of with a punch of yellow.

Metallics

Yes, they’re still here. Metallics aren’t leaving anytime soon, and there was an abundance of them on the runway from the brightest silvers to the addition of deep coppers, and everything in between. From left to right: A sassy little dress from Preen, a deco inspired sequined dress from Douglas Hannant, a pop of sequins in a slouchy ‘suit’ ensemble from Lela Rose, another Douglas Hannant piece in a striking silver, a Badgley Mischka stunner, and a lovely flowing dress from Michael Kors.

And there’s more! Gorgeous gold squares from Brian Reyes, a simply structured piece from Derek Lam, one of my favorites from Oscar de la Renta, a unique flowy button-up dress from Isaac Mizrahi, a deep copper from J. Mendel, and finally, a pop of copper from Brian Reyes.

Plaids

The truth about plaid is that its a fine line for me between well done, over done, and just plain trashy. So many designers incorporated plaid into their collections that you’ll see it in all of my selections, but this piece from Carolina Herrera was probably my favorite. So, today I leave you with that bit of inspiration. More tomorrow!

Gorgeous image from photographer Michael Eastman…

Beauty from the run down yet hauntingly amazing Cuba… have an inspirational weekend