New York's Dream Can get a way of a good dress

At some point, everyone in this town has a dream of "New York" - brightness, opening night, the promise of a more glamorous life. And so, on Tuesday night, we climbed the stairs to the striking heights of the Russian Tea Room. Photographer Steven Klein, carrying her baby son Ace (and a bottle of formula in the hip pocket), was at my side. Lady Gaga and Naomi Campbell soon be together. We had come for the thrill of wunderkind Brandon Maxwell.

For the most part, he did not disappoint. Maxwell understands the value of performance and establish a sense of intimacy with their audience. He packed the room, leaving enough space for the models move through solid curtains of black, beige, olive and pink paler. The clothes were dramatic, too: elegant pants suits, cocktail dresses Strapless with folded blouses, backless and drag yards precious silk pink blush.

However, expert did or not, the collection is missing something. There is no mystery, no special understanding of court or body of the woman who makes clothes so different from the work of a large number of designers, past and present. In a way, depending on the drama around them for their appeal - and, inevitably, people wise. Maxwell, who is still young and obviously talented, might want to temper the dream and get to something more personal and demanding.

"I was thinking I wanted to take away the artifice of fashion," said Sophie Theallet, explaining his decision to skip a show and instead of making presentations of one-on-one in his office Garment District. "I'd rather take the time to go back to what I learned in Paris."

Actually, Theallet knows what is in your fingertips. You can access an idea so quickly, or so it seems - in the proportions of their clothes; in the harmony of the way it combines fabrics such as linen washed with, say, a raffia wax; and their simple but seductive ways. His clothes reflect the slower work of his mentor, Azzedine Alaia, but his style is yours. And you never know what to expect from Theallet. This season, a botanical drawing of a yarn became the basis of an impression that, when enlarged and turned upside down, looked like a spear or motif fleur de lis. He used to skirt a cotton dress she fenced with a broad band of dark brown waxed raffia. He reappeared in relief in tissue sticking point, and a small, more abstract version of a mini-dress chiffon wonderful exploded with petticoats. Theallet zippers with great effect, putting them on a strip of raffia on a bias cut, sleeveless dress brown and ivory striped linen, so you could peel open from shoulder is also used. Or not.

She did something similar with a loose-fitting long-sleeved tunic that resembled a sweatshirt, except in glossy black silk. Shedding irregularly over the body of the model and captured by a band of black fabric Running point hem, that would be the envy of any hipster-celebrity designer.

"It's beautiful because of the simplicity of the fabric," Theallet shrugged.

Narciso Rodriguez made a similar magic with his material, and his powerful understanding of minimalism that makes the Olsen sisters row are as maximalist. His first model wearing thin white pants, a white shirt with ribs, and a matching pair of suede flats that looked very much like sneakers. A moment later, a model appeared in a white robe silk straight featherlight, cut like a jacket roomy point. A series of dresses in shades of mercury and combined light aluminum and brightness in a wonderful way, but my favorite was the silver line running down the front of a layer of another black level way - like a ray of light glimpsed in a street full of people at night, and then disappeared.

If Rodriguez needs only two or three items to make a look, the opposite could be said of Stuart Vevers coach. Each team in his show pumped-up - complete with rusty vintage cars that looked as if they had been retrieved from a demolition derby - had seven or eight components: dresses pure slip, rose printed pants sockets leather, handkerchiefs , denim. And that was, well rivets and bottle caps on jackets and leather bags. Still, the show was fun - a mash-up rockabilly for the Merch-obsessed.