The invitation offered a champagne lunch with a peek/pique preview of Donna Karan’s Fall Collection at Saks 5th Avenue in San Francisco.  We turned up right on time, taking seats in the front row, “we” being myself, my friend who lived in Paris for many years,  and her ’14 going on 20′ daughter,  tall, slim, beautiful, and bilingual.

Flutes of champagne appeared on silver trays , as did bite-sized beef sliders,  remoulade  rounds,  vegetarian wraps, and similar dainties.  I attend a lot of events that provide what used to be called hors d’oeuvres ( a friend of mine translates that as ‘hours of work’) in lieu of the complications of a sit-down meal. I know there are many considerations that go into catering for an unknown quantity of people you don’t know whose tastes/food issues/allergies one cannot know, but I do wish that  the criteria for the selection of the menu included ‘easy to eat in public.’  The ladies who lunch — and go to fashion shows — bonded over wry grimaces while fishing bits and crumbs out of their fashionably-attired laps.

The Fall Collection was notable for elegant dresses and a series of mix-and-match pieces in New York colors — black and a rich dark brown.  Karan doesn’t sketch; she drapes.  Her designs are realized as she wraps fabric around a fitting model to get the line she likes.  The goal is to make the client look taller and slimmer without heavy construction or foundations.  Many of the dresses were elaborately draped to minimize the midriff, waist,  and hips, with a long fluid line leading to a swaying asymmetrical hem.  Her ‘cold shoulder’ top is as well-bred and sexy as a woman who drops her eyes demurely on meeting  an interested glance; the moderator pointed out that shoulders do not generally gain weight in an unbecoming manner.  DK’s body pants are carefully seamed both for a slim line and for comfort.  Indeed,  comfortable would be a fair description of  most of the pieces despite the fact that fashion and comfort have a long tradition of not being seen in the same room at the same time.   Lambskin collars framed the face and  turtlenecks covered the neck in a manner that would have delighted Nora Ephron — her last book was titled ‘I Hate My Neck’.

Favorite pieces included a lambskin three-quarter length coat with a fur-lined hood — the lamb treated to look like a gorgeous fur, leather from the shoulder through the torso, with a six-inch edging of the same fur-look at the hem.   The look is rich, luxurious fur; the reality is politically correct.

The show lasted an hour and ended on a high note: a showing of vintage celebrity red carpet dresses.  The Paris contingent yearned for a magnificent burgundy-colored silk gown with a sweeping half-train while the teen longed for a cream-colored leather dress decorated with a silver floral pattern that on closer inspection turned out to be made of 3-inch safety pins.

The photos here are all the work of the teen — Alessandra Rio, working her first assignment.  To see the 2013 Donna Karan Fall Collection,  please go the Donna Karan website at:

http://DonnaKaran.com