Simon Spurr, whose expert tailoring is often showcased alongside denim, had a surprise for us, just minutes before his show began at Milk Studios on Sunday: “There’s not a single jean in the collection this season,” he revealed. Instead, Spurr offered a crisp, business-like selection that took its cues from a Robert Frank photograph of London in the 1950s. Spurr said he was striving for “a more elevated look.”

Spurr achieved his aim. With Joe Jonas and Kellan Lutz seated in the audience, the show began with pieces tinged with mauve, and small, glistening touches. Silver buttons on his jackets glimmered along with umbrella handles, helping his looks cut a cool, collected path down the runway. The designer keenly focused on fabric this time around, flaunting his new found love of mixing materials (leather sleeves on a wool suit) and patterns (a check meeting a hound’s tooth). The British proclivity for overbearing checks, stripes and prints came to fore only rarely, and these instances were easily surmounted by the conservatism displayed by the resolutely “elevated” items that far outnumbered them.

Since his first collection in Spring 2011, Brood‘s Serkan Sarier has been steadily rising the ranks to become one of fashion’s most promising stars. And his Fall 2012 collection has only solidified the designer as a major player (or player-to-be) in the industry.

The show’s “moving presentation” with mini-fashion shows staged every 15-20 minutes, was set at the Lori Bookstein Fine Art gallery–fitting because the collection certainly owed a lot, in terms of aesthetic, to fine art. Particularly, the prints, which were reminiscent of abstract painting (and the galleries conceptual runway design) as were oh-so-pretty.

Katie Ermilio just keeps getting better and better. She took her signature feminine simplicity to the next level with this tightly edited and utterly drool-worthy assortment of flirty, yet sophisticated wears. That perfect dress for a special occasion is what you can count on from Ermilio season after season. And there were plenty of those. [...]

Best known for her über girly yet super quirky mix-and-match style, Lepore’s adorable fall offering captured the essence of her usual design aesthetic. Packed full of stylish, versatile pieces that are perfect for layering, the sixties-inspired collection consisted of lace, satin, tweed, and velveteen fabrics fashioned into fun flouncy skirts, cool cigarette pants, sharp boxy jackets, and shape-skimming shift dresses in vibrant in-your-face hues like chartreuse, cobalt, cyan, and tomato, which popped vividly against muted tones of gold lamé, mulberry, pumpkin, and forest green.

And of course Lepore’s pattern-play this season was far ou: her pretty beaded prints felt one-part psychedelic-chic, two-parts gypsy glam, and 100% wearable. A celeb-packed front row including Stanley Tucci (a long time fan), Kristin Chenoweth, and Kelly Rutherford will attest to that.

Overheard last night backstage at the Nomia presentation at The Box at Lincoln Center at 6:53 P.M.: “Girls, keep your outfits on—we’re going to do it again!” chirps designer Yara Flinn, as a couple of models with blunt ponytails who’ve just glided down a mini runway shed their sleek silk carapaces. “Sorry,” she says, turning to us. “I’m totally the crazy mom right now.”

In keeping with her arty reference points, Flinn, who for spring built her collection around Georgia O’Keeffe, took inspiration from installation artist Dan Flavin’s fluorescent light fixtures. “Last season was the first time I used color,” said the designer clad in head-to-toe black of her work in a desert bloom color palette. “This season I was like, ‘I’m going to go out completely.”