Donna Karan: City and beach collide

A cityscape collided with nature on Donna Karan’s runway Monday, where the designer rolled two of her passions -- NYC and the beach -- into one stunning collection. Her inspiration was light – reflections off the glass and steel in the city, and the illumination of the sand, sky and water at the beach.

The models here, made up with red-rimmed eyes and donning sculpted Lucite headpieces, looked like gorgeous creatures from a parallel universe wearing Karan’s hushed shades of water blues, sea greens, sunset pinks and oyster.

For day, spiraling, sculpted, curved separates – such as a paper-light cropped shell, and a molded cotton jersey dress that virtually floated off and around the body as if they were aerodynamic. How’d she do it?

The transition to evening started with an icy blue silk shirtdress and moved on to achingly beautiful more formal looks of silk and handkerchief linen – some with draped folds or pearlized embroidery. A few pieces were sheer enough to reveal a bodysuit, short or bandeau beneath. An embroidered, pale green gown with a light-handed dollop of sequins was positively devastating (in a good way).