Gardens, flowers power fashions of Valley designer

Associated Press

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FLOWERS EVERYWHERE: The spring 2009 Nanette Lepore collection featured lots of florals, including this colorful dress. But flower designs also showed up on cargo pants and in many unexpected places.

By Samantha Critchell

Nanette Lepore previewed her new collection at Fashion Week in New York.

NEW YORK — Like many of the more than 100 designers at New York Fashion Week, Nanette Lepore, the designer from Youngstown, found inspiration in the garden, previewing on Wednesday a new collection full of florals.

But Lepore must have done her wandering through the greenery in the evening as her prints had a more delicate, dustier tone, tempering the teal, lime, red and hibiscus pink that dominated the palette.

She was aiming for “sultry femininity,” Lepore said in her notes to the audience that included familiar faces from “The Hills,” Lauren Conrad and Lauren Bosworth.

The silhouette generally was the loose and easy shape that has become a signature of the spring collections, and she alternated between casual linen fabrics and jazzy beads as favorite materials. She successfully mixed prints — stripes, florals and animal prints — in single garments.

One of the best outfits mixed a predominantly aqua beaded vest, a ruffled floral blouse and crisp cream-colored shorts.

She also tapped into the asymmetrical trend, which added an ethereal goddess vibe to many of the dresses, even a leather dress that had a ruffle down one side.

“My inspirations for the show were lush gardens — florals, poppy, hibiscus, leaf and stone,” Lepore said.

But Lepore’s runway wasn’t just about the clothes this time. She has taken on a hot-button industry issue to encourage designers, suppliers and manufacturers to keep their businesses in Midtown, so when she took her bow at the end, it wasn’t in one of her feminine frocks.

Instead, she wore a black flapper skirt and a T-shirt that said “Save the Garment District.”