After three whirlwind fashion weeks in a row I made the conscious decision to scale things down this year and treat my trip to New York like a vacation. I know what you’re thinking: what the hell is she thinking? Fashion weeks are supposed to be madness! If 2011 was the year my fashion blog blew up, then 2012 was time for me to focus on *real* life. I graduated from DePaul with a Master of Science in Management (go me!) and began a real career as an advertising copywriter, which was actually my only goal for 2012. So you know what? I was tired. I needed a vacation. And so I took one!

Karlie Kloss

Rag & Bone was one of two shows I attended this year, along with MM6 Maison Martin Margiela. Both fit into the schedule I planned with family & friends and are two of the brands I wear the most. I wear one of my 6 pairs of Rag & Bone jeans nearly every day and wore my Margiela sneakers religiously for the past year. I really wanted to cover presentations for designers I not only adore, but ones that fit into my life in a very real way. Plus, I’d rather go to no shows at all than shitty ones and feel obligated to throw the photos up on my blog. I learned that lesson…

Rag & Bone is a heavyweight show, and the scene didn’t disappoint. An ice cream truck on a patio? Why not. Anna Wintour striding through the venue, magically parting the front-row crowd like the Red Sea with nothing more than her presence. Oh, and that guy I saw running around who looked like Thom Yorke was actually Thom-fucking-Yorke. I mean, of course it was. But I literally couldn’t believe my eyes, so it wasn’t until the music came on – and I realized it was Radiohead playing – that it was him. He DJed the show using prerecorded tracks for his friends, designers Marcus Wainwright and David Neville. I’ve been listening to Radiohead religiously since early high school so this was truly a fashion show I’ll never forget.

Enough of me blathering on – to the clothes!

This green knit dress with an Alaia-style silhouette was undoubtedly the standout piece of the collection. If the engineer striped dress below was a more literal interpretation of the designer’s inspiration – the Paris-Dakar rally – then this dress was the concept rendered abstract. Cut in a deep, techno green (not a gimmicky fluorescent, colors which frankly feel tired after several years), the streamlined, body-hugging silhouette and swinging hem elicited a feeling of speed and motion.

Although this dress is more literal than Rag & Bone tends to design, it illustrates precisely the saleability of Neville & Wainwright’s brand. Straddling the demands of the magazine editors with the buyers on the sales floor is not an easy task, and Rag & Bone nails it. No matter how obscure the reference, Rag & Bone collections are wearable. And at the end of the day, what fashion brand can survive with clothes that don’t sell?

Below, the same dress was shown in honeysuckle pink:

Crackled leather doused in the same acid green color of the knit dress above, this swoon-worthy piece is continuing the trend of oversized motorcycle jackets with a boxy silhouette. Last year, I purposely bought my Allsaints leather jacket 2 sizes too big because I liked the way it looked better than close fit of my own size. This might just be runway styling and the jacket produced for stores might be closer to a true fit, but that’s the beauty of a versatile piece. Wear it how you want!

A desert-themed collection wouldn’t be complete without some tan, now would it?