It may have featured the season's requisite decorations and used its popular materials (sequins, paillettes, mesh, sheer fabrics, and their ilk), but Antonio Berardi's Spring 2013 collection was more about exploring shape than it was about chasing trends.

"Everything was incredibly geometric, the idea was that it was architectural, even the silhouettes," Berardi said backstage after the show — and he wasn't kidding. Most of the skirt hems in his collection fell to two severe points after cascading in wide arcs off his models' hips. Jackets featuring generous extensions of the peplum featured the same effect. Meanwhile, sequins snaked down from the shoulders of jackets and dresses or up from the cuffs of trousers and sleeves to create a graphic appeal. That these bits of shiny stuff had an iridescent quality is worth noting: it's something we've seen from more than one London designer at this point.

In the space of one season, Pringle of Scotland has gone from a having a high-profile creative director and full-scale runway shows to an in-house design team dressing models for an intimate presentation in a hotel suite. How has the absence of Alistair Carr affected the venerable knitwear house's offering for Spring 2013? Gone are Carr's rambunctious neon prints and asymmetrical cardigans, replaced by straightforward cocktail dresses, pleated skirts, and an update on the argyle print the house is known for.

"The collection was a soul-searching mission, and we delved back into our heritage," said the label's CEO, Jean Fang. Most of the knitwear, in some of the finest cashmere the house has ever produced, was made in Scotland, with a smidgen coming from mills in Italy. But never mind that; this collection examined the work Pringle produced in the '50s, but updated it with contemporary tailoring and decoration. One short-sleeved, cobalt-blue sweater was richly decked out with baby-blue-and-pink rhinestones, and a boxy gray cotton jacket was affixed with a knit collar and sleeves. The skirt that went with it — like many of the skirts and trousers in this collection — had its seams brought forward to the hips to create interesting pleats.

Giles Deacon played with an array of fabrics for Spring 2013: leather, silk, satin, and even denim. Laser-cut leather dresses were one of the standouts in the leather department, while denim suits and bustier-style dresses lent an air of casualness amid fancy fabrics. The color scheme was mainly black and white, with pops of tan and soft blue. All the models wore bright pink lipstick, giving each look a playful touch. Dresses ranged from ethereal and flowy to retro and flared, to all-out poufy. At the close of the collection, embellished maxi and mini gowns shined bright and stole the show, as did a few over-the-top hats that the late Isabella Blow would have no doubt gushed over.

Fringe was a huge story on the Mark Fast Spring 2013 runway, but not in the way you would expect it. Fringe has never been so funky — floor-sweeping fringe capes, fringe vests, fringe wraps, bell-sleeve fringe minidresses, and sheer fringe dresses dominated. Other standouts included a high-low anorak, colorful cutout minidresses, netted skirts, sheer dresses, and matching cardigan and miniskirt sets. Gaudy gold baubles, including chain necklaces and oversize hoop earrings, as well as short frowy hairdos added to the unapologetic drama.

That didn't take long. Less than a week after its debut in the Spring 2013 show, the Proenza Schouler Record bag — a flat envelope shoulder purse sporting some serious hardware — is already available for preorder on proenzaschouler.com. And though the expected delivery date of March 31st may sound far off, we're willing to bet that this bag — with its clean-lined silhouette and sharp, geometric prints — is so chic it may just be It come next season.

This season, Christopher Bailey's never-ending quest for inspiration via the Burberry archives yielded a century-old image of capes and, believe it or not, corsets. The result was a sassy lineup that referenced both — and it came slickly packaged in an array of high-shine, candy-colored hues.

The label's signature trench coat was reimagined in sateen, lace, leather, metallic, and plastic, while bright berry, kelly green, electric blue, and fiery copper gave the collection a playful edge. Standout pieces were dresses and coats cut in corset-like silhouettes; with the addition of boning, they felt sexy and fresh.

Liberal splashes of neon and wide swaths of python snaked their way into Erdem Moralioglu's Spring 2013 collection, largely replacing the deep blues and somber purples this designer has used in his past few outings.

The resulting lineup of dresses might have been a bit loud if anyone else had designed them, but these were pretty verging on confectionery and unabashedly feminine — as Moralioglu's designs usually are. Plenty of lace helped ground the wild new elements in that feeling: A long-sleeved shirt made from a light blue version of the material was paired with a yellow box pleated skirt that revealed panels of snakeskin as the models came down the runway. Neon orange and pink embroidery showed up as accents on garments of all types, and the sheer shoulder of one yellow dress was dotted with baguette-shaped neon yellow plastic accents.

Speaking of sheers, Moralioglu may have mastered their use in a transparent shift dress embroidered with pink stones that covered up a baby blue bralette top and hot pants, or as a horizontal panel on a full-skirted cocktail dress that exposed the lining beneath.

A casual observer of Christopher Kane's Spring 2013 show might not believe it was inspired by Dr. Frankenstein's monster — until he or she saw the nuts and bolts holding some of its dresses together, that is.

Kane confessed that he loves "that book by Mary Shelley," and he showed his love with a collection pieced together from seemingly disparate elements. White quilted jackets with soft shoulders opened the show. These led to suiting buttoned up with clear bolts and dresses in a palette of pale pink, yellow, white, and gray that got the bolted treatment, too. The bows that topped a few of these dresses were made into prints on other pink and brown dresses devoid of any hints of Kane's monstrous influence. But the inspiration popped back up toward the end of the show, on a sleeveless shirt that had the monster's face screen-printed on the front and a pink dress whose white embroidery was affixed with what looked like black electrical tape.