Nicky Hilton proves herself as a designer

Fashion Week Day 5

updated 7:29 p.m. ET Sept. 12, 2007

NEW YORK - If fall’s gray palette seems a bit depressing, get ready for a dose of fashion Prozac.

The spring collections shown at New York Fashion Week were full of optimism, featuring bright colors and bursts of gold. Donna Karan showed a graffiti print in hot pink for her DKNY line on Sunday, while Michael Kors took on a disco theme.

Throughout the week, there’s been hardly a hint of black, if you ignore the audience.

Kors’ collection featured sunny gold, as did those of Proenza Schouler and Ralph Lauren — the toast of one of the week’s highlights, his 40th anniversary celebration on Saturday.

And if there wasn’t enough celebrity-spotting at that black-tie event or in the runway’s ront rows, Sunday marked the debut of Nicky Hilton’s line, Nicholai. Sister Paris was notably absent.

New York Fashion Week lasts eight days, previewing the spring-summer looks of 100 or so designers.

Nicholai (Nicky Hilton)
To be taken seriously as a designer, Nicky Hilton had to show that she was not just another celebrity who wanted to see her name on a collection — despite the success of her handbag line in Japan and the sportswear collection she launched three years ago.

She showed she was serious Sunday night with her collection Nicholai (which is her real name). With her parents beaming from the front row, models pranced down the runway in outfits alternating between bourgeois — including a black silk cape over a white dress shirt paired with mini-shorts — and flirty, such as a black strapless dress wrapped in tulle.

She mixed it up with bandeau bikinis, summer dresses in bright colors, such as tangerine and fuschia, and silk jersey evening gowns.

Big sister Paris was not at the show. The collection, her father said, was all Nicky.

Phillip Lim
A pearl-embellished, nude-colored minidress told the whole story at the Phillip Lim fashion show Sunday, held inside the New York Public Library.

Lim previewed the collection for his 3.1 Phillip Lim label as part of New York Fashion Week.

Slide show New York fashion week Betsy Johnson, Zac Posen, Calvin Klein, Marc Jacobs and more spring collections. more photos

“He is such a master of the great dress that you can wear in the summer and wear all summer,” said Linda Wells, editor in chief of Allure. She said she personally looks for all-day, all-occasion dresses — and she spotted a few of them on the Lim runway.

The fashion industry considers Lim a top up-and-comer and he won the emerging talent award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America earlier this year.

He owes some of his success to creating outfits that go from day to night, offering affordable prices — by designer standards, and by adding a touch of embellishment to almost everything, according to Wells. “Everyone likes a little bit of that,” she said with a laugh.

Some of those decorated items in the new collection were a sand-colored silk dolman-sleeve top with macrame around the neck, a black cocktail dress with silk dupioni fringe around the neckline and wide back opening, and a crystal-covered cheetah patchwork dress.

Not everything, though, needed bells and whistles. A stone-colored belted caftan was elegant and his “P.I.” trench coats were as chic as they were practical.

It was Lim’s menswear that seemed to run a little more extreme. One has to wonder how many men — other than a model at a fashion show — would wear a gold lurex sweater, bow-tie shirt and black scout shorts.

Michael Kors
An explosion of color rocked the tents with Michael Kors’ spring collection.

For all the lovely dainty dresses that retailers, fashion editors and stylists have seen over the first half of Fashion Week, Kors offered the opposite in splashy and sunny clothes, ranging from a form-fitting rainbow color-blocked sweaterdress to a floral ruffle bikini in a print done in the spirit of the artist Seurat.

The audience, which included Jessica Simpson, got into the joyous spirit of the show when a glittery pink dress came down the runway to the soundtrack of “Xanadu.”

He didn’t forget, though, that his fans also depend on him for their daily dose of luxury. He delivered that with a gold brocade tunic and a black-crystal jersey jumpsuit with a halter top.

DKNY
Mix it up. That was the message Donna Karan conveyed as she presented her spring DKNY collection at her downtown studio.

Outfits alternated between crisp white tailored looks, including a coatdress with a portrait collar, and soft stretch cotton T-shirt styles. A navy-and-orange striped dress from the latter group would have been the perfect thing to wear on an Indian summer weekend day.

DKNY is Karan’s more casual, contemporary line, and for this cool customer, there were the long, loose sundresses that are everywhere at New York Fashion Week.

Karan also continued with the color-blocking trend and embraced a bit of a peasant look with flowing bodices, off-the-shoulder necklines and bell sleeves.

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