Karan Layers It on With Her New Line

NEW YORK — A first look at what designers are presenting in a week of spring fashion shows here prompts a trip to the fashion dictionary. Ugly and fierce acquired fresh connotations last year. Now “layering” describes something different than it once did. And so many designers seem to have forgotten that trends are fashion’s one-night stands--never meant to blossom into lasting relationships.

Donna Karan has been busily consulting her dictionary, and since taking her company public earlier this year, she has restructured. In its infancy, DKNY made outfits for women who aspired to wear the savvy Donna Karan collection, but couldn’t afford it. During the secondary line’s brash adolescence, DKNY ranged from sophisticated to silly, as if suffering from the mood swings of puberty.

The existing DKNY collection is now splitting into four labels: DKNY will look familiar, still aimed at a young customer interested in everything from suits for work to unconventional alternatives for dressing up. DKNY Classic will produce the kind of basic sportswear pieces that are the backbone of a wardrobe. DKNY Active is the sports brand, and DKNY Jeans, where the company’s logos go to rest, supplements everything denim with khakis, casual T-shirts and sweats.

A new label called D for DKNY has been added as well. Karan calls it an “affordable designer collection,” and she launched it on the runway Sunday night. To stores, bridge is a category of clothing a notch below designer in price and styling. Popular bridge collections like Emanuel and Tahari serve the needs of working women. In part, they are profitable because they’re aesthetically middle-of-the-road. Among fashion aficionados, that commercialism has earned them contempt on the order of what Barry Manilow has known in the music industry. With D, Karan’s trying to fill a niche just above bridge, where dresses priced from $225 to $450 and jackets that sell for $415 to $625 can exhibit the adventurous styling usually found in more expensive designer collections. The quality of fabrics and workmanship will be higher in D than DKNY.

And how does the latest Karan baby look? New and different, for starters. The core of the collection is the tube skirt or dress introduced last year, the basis for a system of layering that’s refreshingly anarchic. A hot pink stretch organza T-shirt was worn under a navy jersey one-shoulder top, with a navy knee-length tube skirt. (When dressing in this mode, leggings or a long, sheer skirt could be added too.) Another combination featured cropped silk and spandex leggings providing a lining under a sheer port silk organza skirt printed with wispy flowers. On top, a silk turtleneck sweater was delicate enough to reveal the camisole beneath.

When form follows function, layering provides a way to adjust to changing temperatures. The old method was to pile a sweater on over a shirt and T-shirt when it was cold, or to eliminate a jacket and strip down to a tank dress in a stuffy restaurant. The sort of layering seen in D has little to do with climate. It offers a woman the maximum opportunity to individualize her look and constantly reinvent her wardrobe.

When skirts are pulled under dresses and even shorter dresses are added to longer ones, the colors, necklines, sleeve lengths and degrees of transparency all change. Many of the mixable pieces are stretchy and sheer, so the contours of one layer show under another. By combining elements in the way Karan suggests, a woman can highlight features she likes, and camouflage others. A short tunic over a long, sheer skirt leaves pretty legs on display, an asymmetrically cut top under a strapless dress directs the eye to a lovely shoulder.

Women will decide whether they enjoy playing with Karan’s lean, body-clinging pieces to create an effortless effect. The designer, true to her history, continues to be innovative, cleverly reconsidering the ways in which clothes can be used.

The illusion of layering was created at Versus, Gianni Versace’s youngest, least expensive line, designed by his sister Donatella. A wonderful, filmy mustard dress wasn’t really worn over a plum one, but the deeper color peeking out at the hem and shoulder gave that impression. The mismatched patterns that are the hallmarks of the label were again on view, softened this time with floral embroidery and pale, honeyed colors.

It’s worth noting that the skirts in a number of hip, young collections presented here are definitely not minis. They stop anywhere from just above the knee to the top or bottom of the calf. When a skirt at Versus is a slink of eggplant satin, slit at the side and paired with a skinny knit camisole and towering ankle-wrapped wedgies, it doesn’t have a prayer of looking dowdy, even when it stops just below the knee. Once again, covering up is sexier than baring all.

Just because we revisited the ‘70s, style-wise, for the last year or so, doesn’t mean we want to relive the whole decade in real time. Bringing back hip-huggers and loud Qiana shirts with big collars, in all their exuberant awfulness, was a funny idea that challenged the boundary between good and bad taste. But the smart designers have moved on from that decade’s excesses, retaining its slender silhouette and celebrating the way it reintroduced bright colors into the closets of the formerly funereal. A trend is, by definition, short term. It begs to be evanescent, is meant to be replaced by the next hot thing. So it was unfortunate that Nicole Miller and D&G;, Dolce & Gabbana’s second line, trotted out more clashing cheesy prints, waitress and manicurist’s uniforms and Naugahyde coats over bell-bottoms.

At least Betsey Johnson is on to this year’s trends. She brought nightgowny-dresses and lingerie out into the daylight, letting orange lace underwear peek out from beneath sheer dresses. Johnson is also introducing a new collection, called Ultra, which will feature better fabrics and more elaborate styling, and will be priced up to $500. The sequined slip dresses with fishtail hems in her regular line, which is priced less than $350, will undoubtedly make the proms they’re destined for memorable.