Reuters - Imaginative styles evoking journeys to far-off lands dominated New York fashion shows this week, with experts saying the spring lines reflect consumers' economic woes and desire to escape uncertainty.

Fashion Wire Daily - Vera Wang's runway backdrop featured two dramatic slabs of a faceted mirror sculpture in homage to the whimsical art of Niki de Sainte Phalle, the free-spirited woman whose life and work as a sculptor, painter and architect was the muse of Wang's Spring 2009 collection, which she showed in Bryant Park on Thursday, Sept. 11.

Fashion Wire Daily - The models in the Calvin Klein show on Thursday, Sept. 11, did not so much walk down the catwalk as waft; their clothes as light and insubstantial as a heat haze, their fabrics creased and folded like rumpled bed sheets.

Reuters - The final six contestants on U.S. television's "Project Runway" showed their design collections on Friday, hoping to become the hit show's winner and someday join the professionals on the fashion show circuit.

Fashion Wire Daily - A flock of limousines floated outside the Chelsea Museum on Wednesday, Sept. 10, to see Marchesa's latest collection attesting to the pulling power of Georgina Chapman, whose main claim to fame has been creating red carpet looks for the sort of people who star in her husband's, movie mogul Harvey Weinstein's, films.

AP - How does a seemingly unusual trend — to wit, harem pants — end up on almost every runway at New York Fashion Week?

AP - Christian Siriano means business.

AP - Rob Thomas says he spends more time primping than his wife, model Marisol.

AP - At New York Fashion Week on Wednesday, the designers weren't just looking to their muses for inspiration — they were raiding the muses' closets.

Reuters - It's not trendy, it's "on trend," and if clothes are really good, they're "fierce" or "dope." Don't like the lingo of fashion? Whatever.

Fashion Wire Daily - Michael Kors turned up the color and championed bold, graphic prints in his Spring 2009 collection, shown in New York on Wednesday, Sept. 10. Glamorous beach bum by way of Portofino or Malibu was the look for one of the most forward-looking sportswear collections from Kors in recent memory.

Fashion Wire Daily - For true-blue supporters of the party of Abraham Lincoln the ideal designer for any First Lady is surely Oscar de la Renta, who presented the classiest collection in New York on Wednesday, Sept. 10.

AP - Heidi Klum, Lindsay Lohan, Elizabeth Banks and Kristin Davis toasted "Project Runway" judge Nina Garcia as she celebrated her new job as fashion director for Marie Claire magazine at a west side studio.