Thakoon Panichgul

The phrase "modern elegance" often calls to mind tired interior design tropes, but that's not the case with Thakoon Panichgul's Pre-Fall 2013 collection.

In this offering, the designer tried to reinterpret what elegance means right now and found that "for elegance to make sense in a modern, working context, it has to be speedier." That means casting aside opera gloves and costume jewels in favor of clothing women could run around in.

It explains the easy-to-wear A-line dresses, made out of everything from gray wool to pink leather. Some of the coats were generously tailored, too, and one featured a cotton-field print that's used in a variety of garments. There's also plenty of texture: Mongolian fur vests and navy-blue leather pieces gave the collection a luxurious edge.

The season was in full bloom at Thakoon Panichgul's Spring 2013 outing. And what a breath of fresh air. Drawing on a floral theme, the designer offered up a delicate garden motif (complete with hummingbirds and butterflies) that felt like a nice treat after all the more serious collections on offer elsewhere this week.

Floral prints wound their way up fluid charmeuse dresses and then turned up elsewhere as embroidery on loose-fitting tops and A-line skirts. Silhouettes had a vaguely Asian feel, with extended shoulder seams and loosely nipped waists. A sweet palette of canary yellow, bright blue, and pastel hues looked fresh against crisp black and white solids, while a series of airy layered looks in tulle, chiffon, and laser-cut silk further lightened the mood.

Check out all the pictures from Thakoon's Spring 2013 collection and come back soon for our full review.

>> A palette just right for Valentine's Day dominated Thakoon Panichgul's Fall 2012 collection. In red, fuchsia, crimson, and purple, these were vibrant, punchy clothes in streamlined, easy silhouettes. However, Thakoon is known for his whimsy — and there was also plenty of that here. Shifts, full skirts, boat-neck tops, and coats were full of surprising details: paperbag waists, ruffled ruching, and lacquered fabrics, as well as leopard-print inserts and key-hole cutouts. "I was feeling something a bit more romantic," the designer explained of the collection.

With rouge lips and heels to echo his bold red leather and pink color pairings, Thakoon honed in on a dramatic palette and rich detail to deliver a feminine Fall '12. We expect Thakoon Panichgul to veer toward the ethnically themed; this time, he steered clear of more exotic references to focus on a re-imagining of ladylike charm. Demure silhouettes were manipulated in patent, colored leather, ruching, and covered in rich hues of Mongolian fur to ensure that every look fell outside the boundaries of "pretty" dressing. There's quirk and humor in every take — a playful pop of print on the collar of a camel coat or a fuchsia fuzzy to complete a sweetheart-take on colorblocking. But if you don't subscribe to the girly-girl look, Thakoon's Fall is not also without sexier side; whether it's an overt nod to sex appeal with a black patent dress or a subtler play in a slinky black halter, there's a sense of womanly dressing even in all his girlish references.

• Trends: Feminine dressing, colorblocking, colored fur, colored leather.
• Colors: Red, fuchsia, gray, camel, black.
• Key Piece: Ladylike silhouettes redone in slick red leather.
• Accessories: Red pumps, dramatic knee-high lace-up boots, crisscross pumps.
• Who Would Wear It: Women who like ladylike shapes, but not without a little intrigue.

>> Pastel camouflage prints and standard-issue olive green were the motifs of choice in the Pre-Fall 2012 outing of Thakoon's lower-priced Addition line. The designer himself described the oversize-pocketed full skirts and swing jackets as "flirty, cheeky military."

>> Thakoon's nude and pastel-filled Pre-Fall 2012 collection is a window into where he might be going for Fall 2012, he explains, calling the offering "a starting point for fall. We have such a short amount of time between the two collections that we work on them concurrently." Panichgul riffed on classic knits, turning out a cableknit dress and giving a mélange knit coat fuzzy Mongolian lamb pockets.

>> Beginning with the Resort 2012 season, Thakoon Panichgul is really blowing out his Thakoon Addition diffusion line. Which means: For starters, showing it separately than mainline Thakoon; and secondly, lowering the price point to the upper end of the contemporary market (Panichgul says he plans to continue filling out the collection with lower-priced items.). With the easy cuts and colorful prints, this new iteration of Addition could very well give Marc by Marc a run for its money.

>> Avoiding the so-far pervasive surf trend, Thakoon Panichgul instead went “a little bit gypsy, but taking it to the street” for his Resort 2012 collection. And by that he means, he explained: "I didn't want to do a literal gypsy. I wanted to do something that was a bit sportier, a bit more New York." Thus, folky detailing popped up on pieceworked dresses in mixed cottons, eyelet patchworks, peasant blouses, and in a red-and-white pattern based on traditional Croatian embroidery.