Having only been showing at New York Fashion Week for three years now, little country New Zealand’s big success Karen Walker continues to keep her Northern Hemisphereans on their toes. Past Fall collection themes have included thirties comic book superheroines and Victorian Edwardian meets grunge street. This year Walker presents to us a collection in tune with the current fall of the economy: She’s Cracked. The show was very cleverly ordered starting off with more classic neutral looks with splashes of colored accessories here and there hinting at the trouble to come.

To emphasize the recession innuendos of cracked leather, toward the middle of the show models began donning outfits with prints of shattered china and broken pearls. Pants went from cigarette and cropped to baggy and gathered. As is typical of all Karen Walker collections, this one was no exception in that it featured unique headwear but this time in the form of frumpy hats capable of being worn so low as to cover one’s eyes. Gray was a dominant color in this collection, perhaps suitably so to reflect the Fall [in all senses of the word]. And don’t let the matte light gray nail polish slip your mind’s eye, it is sure to be a staple look this Autumn and a pleasant, more discreet change from those boring black dipped fingers.

Backstage at the show, the designer stated a love for the beauty that comes out of catastrophe and also for the brittle nature of things. Hey, if the economy falls apart, our wardrobes need not fall apart along with it.