For Spring 2013, Tommy Hilfiger returned to his classic Americana roots, offering up crisp, nautically tinged separates and dresses in a patriotic palette of good ol' red, white, and blue. Stripes, another classic bit of American symbolism, were present too; they touched everything from double-breasted suits to floaty tent dresses and belted one-piece swimsuits. A series of shirt-dresses with tie-knot fronts, as well as a few wax-coated tops in navy and white, were especially appealing.

There was a new maturity in the Spring 2013 show Alan Weckstein and Timo Weiland designed for Weiland's namesake label, a joint men's and women's collection that drew inspiration from the oft-referenced artwork of Keith Haring.

Fashion visits and samples from Haring's opus frequently, and sometimes literally, but these young designers didn’t claim any of the artist's graffiti images for their own. Instead, they let Haring's use of black and white inform the beginning of their collection, pairing staples like a white baseball jacket with a dark blue button collar shirt, and drawing a dark gray line along the sleeves of a simple long-sleeved cotton t-shirt.

While the men's looks stuck with a sporty theme that touched militarism — at times incorporating floral prints and jackets and pants in olive drab — the women's clothing evolved into a sophisticated selection of garments that employed multicolored stripes and herringbone prints to allude to Haring's graffiti. A beige coat was accented with a zoomed-in version of the suiting pattern in neon yellow, while a white-and-gold cocktail dress was elevated with an attached black tulle halter and a crystal-studded collar.

The glamorous severity that has been present in Zac Posen's last several collections melted away for Spring 2013, a brilliant spectacle of modeling star power (Naomi Campbell opened the show; Coco Rocha closed it) and a selection of dresses, suits, and gowns that got prettier and softer as the show progressed.

Posen's skilled hands sculpted floral prints into almost sweet, body-hugging frocks with sweetheart necklines and flirty hems. His customarily intricate seam work in these pieces was gentler this season, its lines obscured by the visual softness of chiffon or by mismatched edges of prints coming together. Jackets were embellished with pleats, peplums, or draped lapels, while a few tulle pieces were sheer enough to show their boning — but sufficiently opaque to leave something to the imagination.

But Posen is a gown man through and through, and he displayed his mastery of technique and craft when he sent his floor-length creations down the borrowed balcony of Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall. Embroidery, draping, and pleating abounded in this section of the show. A cascade of blue pleated organza overflowed from the bottom of a satin gown, and the floral prints from earlier in the show turned into embroidery. Erin O'Connor, who last appeared in Posen's Resort 2013 lookbook, walked down the runway in a jade green gown that combined satin and tulle. The designer's final look, a white tiered organza creation — the only dress Rocha will wear during New York Fashion Week — spoke to the tradition of ending haute couture shows with a bridal gown. If this was Posen's way of asserting that he deserves a place among the pantheon of the world's couturiers, it couldn't have come with a better collection.

We asked Derek Lam, Karen Walker, Brad Goreski, Peter Som, Cushnie et Ochs, and many more: What are you currently listening to and (even better) which songs define your Spring 2013 collection? Listen to the complete playlist below, then click through the slideshow to find out who's listening to what, who's listening to the same thing (you'll never guess), and which songs might just feature heavily on this week's catwalks. 

"In the world right now, fashion is sh*t," said Yohji Yamamoto backstage at his 10th anniversary show for Y-3. "It's too sexy, it’s too cheap-looking. I want the future — new street fashion."

What's new for Yamamoto is a selection of refreshed classics that will undoubtedly help move the sportswear conversation forward without necessarily reinventing the wheel. The garments themselves spoke to a refined athleticism — some in straightforward black and white, others wildly multicolored. The women's clothing, from double-breasted jackets to elegant printed dresses, was cleanly tailored, but sporty enough to perform if the occasion called for it. The men's clothing at times carried a comfortable slouch, most noticeable in an oversize short sleeve mesh hoodie.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the collection, though, were the many ways Yamamoto used the iconic Adidas three-stripe logo: everything from women's blazers and knee-high socks to men's trousers and printed t-shirts were decorated with it.

Leave it to Diane von Furstenburg to bring a little levity to New York Fashion Week. Her models actually smile and flirt with the crowd at her shows.

The CFDA president and captain of industry sent an eye-popping array of modern bohemian wear down her Spring 2013 runway, and most of it was drenched in dialed up hues and whimsical adornment. The idea here was '60s exoticism; it turned up in the form of floaty caftans, drapey harem pants, and sarong-wrapped dresses — silhouettes that call to mind the billowing shapes of places like Marrakech or Jaipur. In fact, it was the designer's early travels to those cities that formed the starting point of the collection. "With the polish of a princess and the heart of a gypsy, she is an aristocratic dreamer…" the show notes explained.

She may be an aristocratic dreamer, but she's also got one eye on innovation — literally. This season the designer partnered with Google Glass to film a behind the scenes video of her runway show and thus models came down the catwalk sporting techy-looking Google camera glasses. It was quite a sight to behold, especially when Von Furstenberg herself took her final bow decked out in them as well.

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.

It was a laid-back tableau of Cali cool that met visitors to Jonathan Simkhai's Spring 2013 presentation at Milk Studios. The designer took his inspiration from the '70s-era Venice Beach surfers that, thanks to massive droughts and low tides, were forced to take up skateboarding in Los Angeles's waterless pools. Thus Simkhai's models posed on steps stenciled with "no diving" and wore iridescent mirrored shades. There was even a shirtless surfer-skater model dude standing in the corner.

But even if Simkhai's inspiration was straight out of the West Coast, these were clothes that would also work quite nicely on the streets of New York; for every sunset hue or palm tree print, there was a downtown jacket or slouchy top in cool, slick leather.

You want prints? Calla has prints galore. Designer Calla Haynes presented everything from abstract patterns to watercolors to florals for Spring 2013. Colorful prints injected major sass into bustier dresses, maxis, shirtdresses, motorcycle jackets, high-low dresses, crop tops, trench coats, and more. The only solid pieces were a flirty red skater skirt and the platform pumps the models wore. Sheer black mesh found on a couple pieces was the only hint of a dark color found in this collection so black lovers need not apply.

Pieces from the extensive art collection of Frances Lasker Brody, a founder of the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, combined in an arresting visual harmony for Susanne Ostwald and Ingvar Helgason's Spring 2013 collection. Picasso's cubism was splashed around as a decoration, and the leaves from a Matisse mural that Brody commissioned for her home in Los Angeles turned into a print. A few dresses made from diagonal panels of differently colored fabrics called Ellsworth Kelly's lithographs to mind. The clothes themselves were youthful in color and cut: nothing fell below the knee, and bright pinks and greens abounded. But a collection inspired by some of the world's great artists (and sourced from the same fabric mills where Christian Dior orders its couture fabrics) can get away with a little childish frivolity.