Phillip Lim's layered fall collection riffed on the sheer textural layering of his spring collection.

Where there had been sheer chiffons, now there was "liquid patent," which looks just like it sounds. The designer injected an illusion of depth into clothing by adding stripes down trousers or setting off sleeves in a contrasting colors from the bodice of dresses and blouses.

The colors, ranging from a springy Kelly green to cobalt blue to praline, popped against the gray walls of the runway space, a feat sure to translate well on the streets of New York and other cities.

The new fabrics, such as the liquid patent and bonded silk, are a "hint to the future," Phillip Lim said. "I call it sensitive technology. If anything is done too much, it's not approachable. What we try to do is disguise, and weave, and trick the eye, like tricksters, so people can approach these fabrics."

"These fabrics hold their form," he said. "It was a lot of research to find bonded silk that fuses with synthetic fibers, neoprenes that would act like silk, gazars that would act like neoprenes."

One of the guests who watched the collection from the front row was famed author Salman Rushdie.

"I know he's supposed to be very talented. I've never seen a show of his," the author said before the show. "My friend Jihae here is a friend of his, so she dragged me along. I'm looking forward to it."

Asked to describe his own personal style, Rushdie drily said, "My personal style? Pathetic. It's old-fashioned, unoriginal, tedious."