"This season we really wanted to zone in on pieces that women will want to wear every day," Suno designer Erin Beatty explained. While that may translate to relaxed silhouettes and easy downtown separates — boxy jackets, flared skirts, wide-legged trousers, slouchy shifts — it also means plenty of pieces that serve as excellent canvases for showcasing what Beatty and partner Max Osterweis do best: that is, creating dreamy, eye-popping prints. For Resort 2013, those prints come in a delightful array of colors and sizes, from rose-hued florals to jumbo graphics — all enticingly mixed and perfectly paired.

Prabal Gurung said he "wanted to bring together a juxtaposition of florals and severe angles" when he designed his Resort 2013 collection, and he managed to do just that. Inspired in part by artist Aaron Moran, whose work repurposes decaying found materials, Gurung paired floral prints with sharp lines, both in the graphic elements on his garments and in the way those garments were cut. A number of brightly colored dresses feature hemlines with wedges sliced into them, while the flowers on skirts and other dresses are separated by bands of solid color or have graphic prints superimposed over them. The collection is bold, striking, and, in Gurung's words, "not too cute, not too sweet."

Though a recent trip to Singapore — and the elegantly attired women who reside there — served as inspiration for Zac Posen's Resort 2013 collection, the designer also looked closer to home this season, focusing on what he called "the American heritage of dressing and dressmaking." To that end, there was a refined opulence at play. All the Posen signatures — curve-defining suits, asymmetrical fishtail gowns, pintucked blouses — were present, of course, but a crisp palette of ivory, plum, wine, and ink let the designer's flair for dramatic tailoring and skillful seaming really shine through. "Structure is juxtaposed with fluidity, and incorporative construction becomes the decorative element," Posen explained.

For Z Spoke's Resort 2013 collection, Zac Posen focused on creating eveningwear that's more affordable than what he offers in his main collection. "I wanted my girl to get the man and not go broke on the way there," Posen said of a new capsule collection of 25 dresses priced around $1,000 each. Those dresses — like the rest of the Resort line — focus on elevating cost-effective fabrics with Posen's signature details. The evening gowns, in bonded lace and stretch duchesse satin, feature the designer's telltale seaming. Daywear ranges from feminine suits (a white shawl collar jacket paired with wide-legged pants, for instance) to flirty skirts and tops with bows that tie at the neck. The dog lover among Posen's customers will appreciate perforated leather bags primed for carrying the family pooch.

For Resort 2013, Nicolas Ghesquière looked to the ballet costumes designed by his house's founder in the '30s. Updating those pastel-hued vintage pieces with a few well-placed flourishes — and adding deeper colors like rust and navy blue — yielded a line of fluid, feminine clothing with decidedly modern edge. Second-skin sleeveless tops got cutouts shaped like hearts and teardrops, while a few flared dresses and skirts were injected with movement by way of ruffles stitched to their hemlines. Unexpected leather elements like skirts and harnesses helped those sweeter pieces feel right at home next to more masculine pinstripe pants and boxy jackets. And as if to underscore his balletic inspiration further, Ghesquière paired the looks with gladiator boots accented by stacks of bows.

Ocelot spots, tropical leaves, and floral paisley patterns dominated the prints in Giambattista Valli's urban jungle-themed Resort 2013 collection. But while the prints were animalistic, the clothes were a great deal more refined: a slim white coatdress was trimmed with a delicately ruffled white lapel, while multiprint sheath dresses got updated with short peplums. Valli's customary floor-length, one-shoulder evening gowns made appearances and so did an assortment of very short shorts. Perfect for keeping cool in the city — or in the jungle for that matter.

This August, Lanvin celebrates the joyeux 10th anniversary of Alber Elbaz at its creative helm with the release of a limited-edition accessories collection. Titled Happy, the collection features 10 mini sets — each containing a shoe, a bag, and a jewel — all designed around a specific, Elbaz-centric theme. The minicollection Les Dessins d'Alber, for example, fetes the designer's signature doodles: each piece is covered with a cartoon face or eye. Similarly, the Diamante Heart set features the house's iconic heart motif, while the Grosgrain set features grosgrain-trimmed items meant to call to mind the dapper designer's trademark bow tie.

An in-depth look at the entire collection, here in the slideshow.
Photos courtesy of Lanvin

Joseph Altuzarra's considerable talent for seamless multicultural mixing continues for Resort 2013. This time around, the designer looked beyond Fall 2012's Morroccan-tinged blend and focused his attention — and CFDA Swarovoski Award-winning — skills on India, Jamaica, and the Maasai tribes of East Africa. The result? Tailored jodhpurs, safari jackets, straight skirts, capes, and body-hugging shifts — all deftly tailored, nipped at the waist, and lushly adorned with folded peplums, ikat prints, Rastafarian stripes, and rich artisanal embroidery.

Photos courtesy of Altuzarra

Remember the $8 million, specially built locomotive Marc Jacobs sent barreling down the Fall 2012 Louis Vuitton runway? It's back, and this time, it serves as the backdrop of the house's Fall 2012 ad campaign. "We wanted to continue the journey we started with the fashion show — the glamour of travel and the romance of going somewhere," Jacobs explained. To do so, the train was deconstructed and shipped to a New York studio where it was rebuilt, filled with models, and photographed by Steven Meisel. "We wanted to maintain the comfortingly luxurious and old-fashioned journey that the collection represented. Opulence, the brocades, the beautiful cuts of the suits, and I guess, the distant romantic glamour of travel," Jacobs said.