While it’s highly debated whether Paris or Milan is the fashion capital of the world, this week it is New York City. The city celebrated Mercedes Benz Fashion Week, which ran from Feb. 6 and continues until Thursday. It exhibits all the new and latest trends for fall 2014.

The schedule is jam-packed with famous designers like Max Azria, Rebecca Minkoff, Monique Lhuillier, DKNY, Diane Von Furstenburg, Tommy Hilfiger, Tory Burch, Zac Posen and so many more.

The event attracts fashionistas from all across the globe and many famous faces, like Anna Kendrick, Emmy Rossum, Diane Kruger and Kelly Rowland, who are in NYC this week to have an exclusive first look at fall fashion.

While fall is usually a time for neutrals and muted colors, many designers stunned with a lot of bright colors.

Kate Spade’s collection featured colors ranging from bright pink, blue, green and yellow in the form of blouses, skirts, pants and even jackets. Alexander Wang also displayed a pretty large color palette, from a yellow trench coat to a lime green sweater.

Neither of these collections is fully in color; black, gray, brown and navy have been presented in nearly all shows thus far.

But it was nice to see some brighter colors peppered in to many of the designers’ collection, giving fall 2014 just a little something extra.

Trends that designers are clearly not over are sheer, lace and cutouts. Victoria Beckham, Christian Siriano and Lhuillier all had various evening gowns with a lot of sheer, either in the form of paneling or completely sheer halves of dresses. While some are growing tired of the trend and may have wished it gone altogether, it is definitely here to stay.

Probably the biggest trend that has been taking over the runways is patterns – and a lot of them.

Pants, shirts and jackets are clad in various prints and patterns, many of them reminiscent of the 1960s.

Diane Von Furstenburg displayed many ‘60s patterns, most displayed on her signature wrap dresses. A surprising trend is mixing and matching extremely bold patterns. As Stacy London from TLC’s “What Not to Wear” used to say, items don’t necessarily have to match, but they must “go” together.

That seems to be just what the many designers of NYFW had in mind.

Von Furstenburg wasn’t the only brave soul to mix patterns. Carolina Herrera, Jay Godfrey and Vivienne Tam also jumped on that trend. While this bold style is not for the meek, mixing and matching equally intriguing patterns will be interesting to watch for in the fall.

But there definitely is an art to it; similar colors create consistency between different designs, which is something to be aware of.

There needs to be a part of the outfit that allows the pieces to flow together.

Anyone interested in following the latest NYFW shows could head to the website mbfashionweek.com and check out the previous and upcoming shows.

SAMMIE JANIK

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