Ralph Lauren takes a fashion safari

NEW YORK (AP) — With Fashion Week moving into its final day, some of the design world's biggest names were set to show their spring 2015 collections on the runways.

Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein and Marc Jacobs all were presenting on Thursday, as eight days featuring shows by approximately 200 designers came to a close.

Among the highlights:

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RALPH LAUREN TAKES A FASHION SAFARI

If you're the woman who savors a luxurious candlelit dinner while on safari — or maybe just wants to channel a safari while at a dinner party closer to home — Ralph Lauren hears you.

The designer's spring 2015 collection was heavy on khakis, safari jackets and cargo pants, and played with the notion of safari as it moved into evening wear, too.

Lauren described the collection as "about an exotic kind of luxury, the spirit of a romantic safari emboldened by luminous colors played against the heritage of pure khakis in sleek and modern shapes. "

And his final item was the starkest example: a sage green silk taffeta evening dress, which looked like a safari jacket on top, only with a skirt billowing out like an evening gown on the bottom.

Lauren's show, which always comes on the final day of Fashion Week, is one of the highest-profile as well. In the front row Thursday was actress Julianne Moore, a Lauren fan.

"Oh my gosh — what's not to love?" the actress said. "I mean classic, American style. When I first moved to New York City, the Ralph Lauren store on Madison Avenue was the first one I went to, I used to wander around and wish I could afford the things that were there! "

—Jocelyn Noveck and Gina Abdy

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SNAKES ON A RUNWAY AT PROENZA SCHOULER

Designers Lazaro Hernandez and Jack McCollough — the duo known as Proenza Schouler — love contrasts.

Proenza's runway on Wednesday featured their usual inventive uses of fabric and texture, especially in leather and in knitwear, in ultra-modern, sophisticated pieces.

"We're really attracted to leather, especially for spring, so we wanted to perforate the leather and make it almost sheer — like the sheerness of chiffon," said Hernandez in a backstage interview. Some of the most striking designs were in what they called a "leather crochet" — leather, but almost diaphanous.

The duo also used python, in belts and in all kinds of trim, in various colors: blue, black and white, and most strikingly, orange, in a coat. "We always like a bit of animal, a bit of something savage," McCollough said.

The show began with more buttoned-up silhouettes, with long-sleeved dresses buttoned to the neck, roomy coats, and jackets with hoods. As it progressed, the shapes started dissolving. In the end, dresses appeared with long fringes, as if, well, deconstructed.

Hernandez said the duo's creative inspiration this time was "the ideas of classic American sportswear, taking those ideas and filtering them through our vision, so in the end they're a little more abstract, I guess a little more twisted than real classics."

—Jocelyn Noveck

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