Ten years after the first iPhone was released and in a time when the thought of dial-up internet is positively nostalgic, it seems like the time is just right to have a fond look back at recent history. Robert Rodriguez’s spring collection, presented at New York Fashion Week, was full of allusions to artist and stripe aficionado Daniel Buren’s body of work, but in the millennial mind, it reads as an homage to all the stripes, dots, and gradient fills of a circa 1990 Macintosh Classic.

A post shared by Robert Rodriguez (@robertrodriguezstudio) on Sep 13, 2017 at 11:07am PDT

More Apple Watch than vintage Mac though, Rodriguez, an ApparelMagic client, used many of the graphics Buren is famous for, making them totally up to date by adding them to classic sportswear shapes. Simple shirts were updated with mismatched stripes that went vertical on one side and horizontal on the other. White-on-black polka dots covered a shirtdress with a daring slit. The suiting went a similar route, like the oversize white plastic buttons sewn across an indigo double-breasted jacket. This is the eighties through a very flattering filter.

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Rodriguez’s vision for the season kept the shapes simple and direct, but these artful mashups made for visual statements much stronger than each idea on its own. In one look, a simple dotted slip dress was worn casually over cropped pants. Another dress deftly combined a harsh yellow-green with black stripes. These elements should not go together, but with Rodriguez’s eye for juxtaposition, they look spot on for spring.

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It’s only a pipe dream for many fashion designers to show a collection in Paris, the undisputed capital of fashion, but for New York-based ApparelMagic client Thom Browne, it’s now reality. Relocating his seasonal presentations to the French capital gives his inventive designs the creative context they deserve, and, if his first collection is any indication, catapults his brand even farther into the land of pure imagination.

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Showing in the opulent reception hall of the Paris Hôtel de Ville, Browne orchestrated a nighttime fantasy that he imagined takes place in young girls’ heads as they nod off. This was dreaming in the very literal sense, with discordant images of fantasy creatures flittering through the subconscious, from a trio of interpretive dancers dressed like Venuses of Willendorf in voluptuous suits of latex and lace, to a mermaid dress taken at its word, with the skirt parting at the feet to form two scaly flippers in periwinkle tulle. Another look cocooned the wearer and framed her face like a deep-sea cephalopod colored in by Gustav Klimt.

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In easier to digest, but no less ingenious propositions, Browne’s signature suiting showed up for a turn down the runway, but only after being filtered in a somnambulant haze, like his traditionally wool pleated skirt here in fuzzy Mongolian lamb or a colorful madras jacket here sparkling with rows of sequins. An exploded check topcoat sat over a zippered button-down in another look, proving that Browne is a master of putting a spin on a staple.

By the end of the show though, the message was clear. Browne is a fantasist first and foremost, and he closed on a high note: a life-size unicorn puppet, lead by three attendants in head-to-toe sheer organza.

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For ApparelMagic client Zero + Maria Cornejo’s show at New York Fashion Week, the conversation is squarely on the body. How do we cover ourselves? Should our clothes encase us tightly, following every muscle and curve, or should they sit around us, forming silhouettes entirely separate?

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Cornejo played with both of these ideas, finding a happy medium as she is seemingly able to do with all things. With opening numbers mixing pink, red, and tangerine satins, she made loose volumes that generously encircled the body like the folds of an Indian sari. A jacket in an off-white neoprene seemed to rigidly float on top of the body when at rest, but in motion it creased gently at every limb’s movement.

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Using black and white natural fibers in other looks, Cornejo and her team moved between these two ideas seamlessly. Some dresses stayed taut against the front of the body but in the back hung in deflated ovoid shapes.

Beyond contours, the designer used surface decoration to her advantage too. Words were scrawled in indigo across dresses and draped diagonally across the body. Candy stripes in red or blue covered some of the looks, like a long column dress with a band of ruching from shoulder to ankle.

Commanding in her implementation of all of these ideas, Cornejo knows what women want from her. Luckily her brand, now in its twentieth year, knows exactly how to do it with aplomb.

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After last season’s nineties grunge theme, Nicole Miller took on something totally different for spring. Under a moody canopy of tropical flora, her collection at New York Fashion Week was a vision of a jungle paradise where the ground is hard enough for heels and the heat bearable enough to layer a cute leather jacket. In short, less Tarzan and more Jane.

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Miller’s models looked like explorers in their many-pocketed jackets and utilitarian belts. Rendered in traditional olive drab and khaki gabardines, these safari separates were refreshed with peplums and well-tailored shorts. Beyond the cargo pockets there were palm-print dresses and a black lace take on Yves Saint Laurent’s famous “Saharienne” dress.

Other looks stole the bright colors of exotic rainforest blooms, like an orchid print in eighties laser show pink and teal. Another paired those orchids with leopard’s spots, parrots, and a resist-dyed border in a knowing mashup of rainforest clichés.

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Perhaps the most interesting of Miller’s garments were her cocktail dresses, like one in sheer white chiffon with macrame overlays or another that was covered in what looked like stripes but turned out to be many grosgrain ribbons cinched with expedition style D-rings. Miller designs clothes to make the perfect statement at any event, even when it’s a jungle jamboree.

A post shared by Nicole Miller (@nicolemillernyc) on Sep 8, 2017 at 7:10pm PDT

2018 is going to be a year of reflection for ApparelMagic client Jill Stuart. Since her line’s inception in 1993, it has been a consistent power player at New York Fashion Week.

For the label’s 25th anniversary, Stuart took a look back at the archives. Stuart has plenty of material to draw from, with iconic looks like Alicia Silverstone and Stacey Dash’s unforgettable plaid school-girl looks in the 1995’s Clueless movie.

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But as tempting as referencing that cultural touchstone must have been, the designer came at her previous work from another angle, creating a collection that looks like it was pulled from some paradise of a vintage store where they sell only the hits.

Using much of the spring ’18 line to play with opacity and layering, Stuart combined sheer shirtwaist dresses with floral shirts and accessorized lacy cocktail wear with clear plastic belts.

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Sticking to a very seventies theme, the prairie dresses harkened back to Picnic at Hanging Rock, and the suiting was Annie Hall perfection. With polka-dotted pussy bow shirts and wide-leg trousers looser than we saw in years, spring’s looks are a throwback in the best possible way.

If Jill Stuart’s first 25 years in the industry are any indication, she’ll still be moving fashion forward 25 years from now.

A post shared by JILL STUART (@jillstuart) on Sep 9, 2017 at 10:17am PDT

In an age when the fashion world is transitioning away from skinny jeans, cigarette pants, and bodycon dresses, Sea by designers Monica Paolini and Sean Monahan knows exactly what’s next. Volume, volume, volume.

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The label, an ApparelMagic client, took advantage of the runway’s trend towards wider widths and presented roomy, easy clothes for a contemporary woman in their spring look book. Here it meant relaxing the waists of eyelet dresses and letting them fall freely from the shoulders, cinching a pair of cropped terra cotta pants with a paper bag waist, and sizing up on all the tops. High and tight is over, and Sea is leading the charge.

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Paolini and Monahan are never the types to just style up basics, and this season had them experimenting with flamenco ruffles. Thrown asymmetrically over a dress here, or fitting a flouncy peplum to a denim jacket there, they were modernized with the label’s signature ease.

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It wasn’t all feminine though. Indeed, Sea’s strongest looks are often in their daywear separates, and a section of pieces in a cream windowpane check stood out from all the rest. Imagining the fabric in a jumpsuit, blouse, suit, and dress, the designers at Sea showed how they are masters at making a trend their own.

It’s all about high drama with Naeem Khan. Taking to the runway with a balletic spring collection at New York Fashion Week, the ApparelMagic client essentially dismissed the everyday in favor of eveningwear at its most extreme.

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For a designer who has dressed nearly every star, royal, and woman of power (see Beyonce, Kate Middleton, and Michelle Obama,) Khan knows a thing or two about making a statement on special occasions, and the spring collection was 40 statement looks, no filler.

A post shared by Naeem Khan (@naeemkhannyc) on Sep 15, 2017 at 11:06am PDT

Girlish tutus on one side, raffia-trimmed flapper dresses on the other, Khan had a creation for every type of event. Among the best were body-hugging gowns in sheer knitted mesh that sparkled with thousands of sequins. Prefer pants? The designer offered up formal track pants paired with formal kimonos left untied over lace bustier. Definitely a look that can get a starlet launched onto a thousand best-dressed lists.

A post shared by Naeem Khan (@naeemkhannyc) on Sep 18, 2017 at 5:12am PDT

You won’t have to look far for any of the show-stopping dresses on the movie premiere and award ceremony circuit because these are clothes that get noticed. In fact, actress Laverne Cox has already worn one of the metallic silver numbers at the Emmys red carpet.

“This is not a jacket.” So read a sleek white jacket with the quote along a sleeve in the style of René Magritte. An embroidered hand holding a rose sat on the center of the piece with bright red fingernails forming the buttons. With Elizabeth Kennedy, what you see isn’t necessarily what you get. Operating strictly within the eveningwear sphere, the designer and ApparelMagic client took her spring collection at New York Fashion Week as an opportunity to test the boundaries of her chosen field.

Standard Oscars dresses these were not, though inevitably a few of them will end up on discerning starlets that appreciate an art history reference when they see one. Other looks, though not directly labeling themselves played with expectation. Some gowns had trompe l’oeil ribbons tied across the breast, forming nostalgic sweetheart necklines. Another was beaded to mimic the texture of an uneven dupioni silk.

The most stunning of the evening dresses had to be the ones with heavily-boned bustier tops. Wide, layered skirts appeared to be have been peeled off of them and draped in deshabille style around the hips. Elizabeth’s dresses might be all illusion, but her success from here on out will be 100% reality.

A post shared by Elizabeth Kennedy (@elizabethkennedynewyork) on Sep 10, 2017 at 8:47am PDT

ApparelMagic client Badgley Mischka’s spring show offered a breath of fresh air direct from the French Riviera.

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Set in a polished black warehouse during New York Fashion Week, Mark Badgley and James Mischka dreamed up an airy, sun drenched collection evoking Capri by way of Boca Raton.

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Two show stopping bathing suits all ruffles and rosettes a set the tone for a retro jaunt to the sea or a pool party straight from a Slim Aarons photograph.

For day, the designers set their sights on the workaday shirtdress, imagining it in tangerine linen or fuschia lace, dividing it into separates, or, in one of the closing looks, sewn into a full-length brocade number.

Walking the line between poolside cover-up and luncheon staples, the spring line was by turns modish and strikingly elegant. Swingy minidresses and caftans alternated with satin cocktail dresses trimmed in marabou feathers and bejeweled necklines.

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Other highlights included a sleek, long column of white guipure lace with bell sleeves and a couple of red-carpet-ready dresses entirely in sequins.

The designers, never strangers to occasion dressing, embellished a body-skimming white gown with floral beading. Worn with a casual up-do and drippy earrings, the dress begged for a picturesque wedding in the south of France.

The bride who ends up wearing that dress, by the way, might as easily dress her whole bridal party in this collection. Bridesmaids’ dresses, a suit for the mother of the bride, and even something short and white when it comes time for dancing at the reception: Badgley Mischka is an absolute crowd pleaser.