Fashion's Safari

What is American style? It's getting more difficult to define by geographical borders, especially at New York fashion week, where so many designers of so many different nationalities are now showing off their Spring 2008 collections. Increasingly the ideas that come from the runways here are inspired by the itinerant lifestyles of multi-national designers — many of whom frequently travel around the world to visit factories, stores, suppliers, and pattern-makers-that inspires the clothes they send down the runway.

Tia Cibani is the Canadian-born designer of Ports 1961, a line designed and produced in China, but shown in New York. (Pretty soon it will also be sold out of Milan, where they have just opened a showroom). Cibani spends her time flying back and forth between New York City and the southern Chinese city of Xiamen where she works with her sister, Fiona, on the collections. So it makes sense that each season Cibani devotes the theme of the show to a different international destination. This season she ventured to Eastern Africa and the theme of her light, romantic show was simply "Safiri" (or safari, which means to travel). The result was a beautiful group of draped dresses with graphic African-inspired prints punctuated by sharply tailored safari jackets in soft nude colors.

Other designers are also hitting the road. Vera Wang took her cues this season from Ancient Rome and showed an equally romantic collection of toga-inspired dresses in deep olive and creamy white. At the afternoon show of Thakoon Panichgul, a young, New York City-based Thai designer who has made a name for himself with sharply tailored, wearable pieces and interesting fabric mixes, the newness came in traditional folded and dyed Japanese Shibori prints on tunics, parachute dresses, and cardigans.