Glamour gowns grace Fashion Week runways

It must be red-carpet day at New York Fashion Week.

The collections presented Thursday by J. Mendel and Badgley Mischka were among the most glamorous to grace the catwalks at the fall previews so far.

Don't be surprised if some of the gowns, especially Badgley Mischka's platinum lame and crystal gown or J. Mendel's stone-colored satin gown with a sexy cowl back and a mermaid hem, turn up on an A-list star sometime in the very near future.

Fashion Week is entering its homestretch, ending Friday, but several top designers, including Ralph Lauren and Donna Karan, have yet to take their turn on the runway.

Badgley Mischka: The Badgley Mischka dresses put into fabric a feeling that editors and retailers in the front row have been talking about all week _ it's a season of change. The favored silhouette moves away from volume and becomes more fitted, but it's not a seismic shift to an ultra-slim body, either.

One beautiful smoky-gray gown had a jeweled halter neck and a formfitting bodice but then flowed gracefully from a yoke at the knee. And a sophisticated cocktail dress combined a tight claret-colored sheath with a billowy sheer black overlay.

In their daywear, Mark Badgley and James Mischka emphasized the trend of using menswear fabrics for feminine shapes. The show opened with a chocolate-colored glen-plaid dress, worn with a turtleneck underneath. This was soon followed by a toffee-colored tweed jacket with a round neck and tie at the waist, paired with slim dark denim jeans _ one of the few appearances of denim on the runway this season.

J. Mendel: Designer Gilles Mendel was striving for a look of old-fashioned elegance and polish to then propel into the present, he explained in his notes.

He succeeded _ and he made it look easy.

The wild-type mink kimono coat, kept close to the body with a satin trenchcoat belt tied in an obi, set the tone that this line would be luxurious but not the slightest bit fussy. A black satin blouse with chiffon panels, worn with a long black pencil skirt, and a black-and-white tweed minidress, also with the obi sash, were the confirmation.

For evening, there was a stunning black chiffon and silver lame gown with jet crystals on the bodice and fur cap sleeves. For those who are not fans of fur, a black satin gown with an asymmetrical neckline, oversized sequin pocket and gathered sleeves was equally noteworthy.

The front row did have some potential celebrity shoppers, including Celine Dion, who wears J. Mendel in her Las Vegas stage show, Natasha Richardson, Cynthia Nixon and Piper Perabo.

Linda Fargo, women's fashion director at luxury department store Bergdorf Goodman, raved over designer Gilles Mendel's "classic chic French sensibility."

"It was sensual, yet there was an aggressive spirit," Fargo said.

Anna Sui: There's always a familiarity to Anna Sui's designs; you know they'll be bouncy and playful. In this case, reliability is a good thing.

Fashion is so often about the newest, hottest thing, but being able to count on Sui to produce clothes that are both fun and fashionable is actually refreshing.

Wednesday night, she presented her latest take on hippie chic, including loose minidresses in kitschy prints, such as one that looked like a newspaper and another one covered in safety pins; a few even had tassels at the hem. Only Sui could get away with that.

She did use the popular palette for fall _ brown, black, gray, purple and metallics.

She opened with a cool pewter parka with bubblelike smocking, and the next few models wore ski-themed outfits, even black ski pants with stirrups. (Sui's pal, Marc Jacobs, also had stirrups on some of his pants this week, but his were subtle. These were not.)

Models also wore black fur hats that appeared to mimic the hairstyle of rocker Joan Jett, who sat in the front row.

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