hello, beautiful!(fashion shows, trends)

Byline: Andre Leon Talley

What do women really want? It's something known as beautiful. Beautiful could be the sheer simplicity of head-to-toe white; beautiful could be an inverted tulip skirt of pink faille (don't call it a pouf!) worn with a simple white T-shirt. If you are asking, as my favorite TV pundit, Nancy Grace of Court TV, does, "What the hay is going on?"-well, beautiful is going on.

The New York spring collections were all about full-stop optimism and hope, all things bright and beautiful: the softest makeup palettes; hair that moved gently like there was a breeze in the room; and a whole lot of really pretty dresses.

The word beautiful crystallized in my mind as I walked from the West Side Highway to Marc Jacobs's show space on Pier 54: Ten thousand white roses, in industrial buckets and bins, lined the pathway. Inside, the party planner Raul Avila had constructed an archway from 500,000 more pink and white roses. Through the archway strutted Marc's girls, in strapless dresses with the smoothest construction and most brilliant colors. Christina Aguilera sang out over the sound system, over and over again: "I am beautiful no matter what they say. . . ."

RITES OF SPRING

It was a season of outstanding collections from the Old Masters-Ralph Lauren and Oscar de la Renta-as well as New School mavericks and rebels like Jack and Lazaro of Proenza Schouler (who in one collection crossed the threshold from young designers to a grown-up brand that speaks to the needs of grown-up women).

Ralph Lauren soared like an American eagle across the fashion horizon with a sensational show based on the refinement and glamour of the Hollywood screen legends: Carole Lombard, Jean Harlow, a little Myrna Loy as Mrs. Nick Charles (without Asta), and a lot of frosty, flattering pastel pinks, blues, and vanilla ices. Though Lauren evoked glittering moments of 1930s film, the show didn't sink into a referential pilfering of studio-days costuming. In any other hands, this would have been a retro romp through a scrapbook of Adrian's costumes for The Philadelphia Story, but Lauren made the 1930s look fresh and new. The show opened with a smashing take on tennis whites: a chalk cashmere polo coat worn over a belted sweater and easy, loose satin shorts. Lauren struck a perfect balance between bias-cut elegance (the long gowns, the easy fluid skirts) and sporty modernity (Jacquetta Wheeler suddenly walking out in a full-legged pant of beaded denim, with a sharply tailored jacket and a beaded beret).