The Associated Press: New York Fashion Week starts with a message: Relax

When the economy is so dangerous and with the eerie matters ongoing all environing the world, one gets inspired to conceive a firm benign of beauty," designer Narciso Rodriguez told The Associated Press before the shows began. He promised an "anti-stress" group next in the week.

On Friday, BCBG's fresh-faced models had the air of waking up behind at a humble beach resort, tossing on whatever was nearby. Perry Ellis had two paragraph for its beach-bound customer & x2014; "leisure suits." And Elie Tahari dressed the glamorous couple on a coast vacation, sipping frosty cocktails with melting sand between their toes. When the economy slumps, some designers turn to fulgent colours and moxie beyond basics to lure customers into stores.

However this Fashion Week, labels were further counting on currency-rich non-native buyers to receipts overhaul of the exhausted dollar. Mercedes Benz Fashion Week runs finished Sept. 12, with besides than 100 shows over eight days.

BCBG Suppose a fashion designer in his studio, draping material on a pattern and delicately pinning it up here and there as a labour in progress. That's where Max Azria stopped with his spring BCBG collection. The consummation was informal elegance.

Slim pants and short-shorts rompers were mixed loose chemise dresses & x2014; bountiful of them one-shouldered to create the models contemplate approximating Amazonian goddesses. Various jumpsuits were included, some fitter than others.

An high wide-leg jumpsuit in a wine colour with an elaborate crisscross halter top looked else approximative a inviting maxi dress in the spirit of the 1970s with a latest edge, while the skinny-leg disco chronicle seemed another dated.

A handful of looks had aggrandized of a hard-rock edge, including a nigrous glossy vest over a high-sheen woolly dress and ankle boots. Otherwise the palette was deeper tonal, with Azria's favourite shades of stone prominently featured, along with flashes of argent orange and blue. PERRY ELLIS Perry Ellis designer John Crocco presented two contents that take all sorts of stuff & x2014; "leisure suits." Still on the runway the loose, jacket-and-pant combinations stood absent as a style price stressful attached spring.

JULIE HAUS Julie Haus staged her first-ever runway instruct Friday as detail of Contemporary York Fashion Week, attracting a front row that included Molly Sims, Jamie-Lynn Sigler and Leighton Meester. Meester, of TV's "Gossip Girl," was enervating a story of a dress shown in low on the catwalk. It was one of the chief looks of the collection, with a ruffled halter neck and naked back.

Haus, however, didn't proposition as assorted of her signature delicate cocktail dresses as one would expect. The adolescent woman Haus imagines is decided sufficiently to espy the environment on her own, borrowing bits of her glad eye from Japan, China, Just out York and Paris. She wears rock 'n' roll T-shirt dresses, 1980s Day-Glo colors and further a lovely pastel petite entrenchment coat.

ELIE TAHARI Elie Tahari was ready to first step the Dewy York Fashion Week party: His modern collection, shown Thursday on the previous evening of the authorized kickoff of spring previews, is for the glamorous couple on vacation.

A category of Sanchez's dresses were done in the washed pinks and browns & x2014; with pops of ocean fed up & x2014; that one would contemplate looking down at the beach. The finest beholding was a sheath covered in the sheen of pailettes. The contrast came from the eye-catching offensive used on diverse of the evening gowns.

A ball Thursday showing off styles by the likes of Christian Louboutin, Manolo Blahnik and Roger Vivier had as its centerpiece one of five pairs of slippers designed for the 1939 movie by MGM costume designer Adrian Greenberg. Stuart Weitzman thinks the Judy Coronet film is a favorite of most shoe designers, including himself. Hosted by Copyright © 2008 The Associated Press.