New York Fashion Week kicked off on Friday, Feb. 1 and designers unveiled their collections… New York Fashion Week kicked off on Friday, Feb. 1 and designers unveiled their collections for this fall with a seemingly endless amount of shows, soirees and spectacles. And while I am always eager to see what’s up next, I often find after browsing the collections I am left feeling that the hot off the runway looks are absolutely ridiculous, simply unwearable or just plain ugly.

And I know others echo this sentiment. Countless times, I’ve heard friends while looking at fashion spreads in magazines mumble, “Who would wear that?” And while, yes, it’s highly unlikely you are going to walk the streets of Oakland with six-foot-high teased hair and black eyeliner smudged beyond your eyebrows while wearing your bra on the outside of your shirt accessorized with metal-plated leggings carrying a bag so huge you could fit a German Shepherd inside, I’ve started to learn that runway shows are meant to be just that – shows.

They are meant to entertain, shock and hopefully inspire. Most of the time shows are very theatrical with sets and music designed to create a certain effect. Designers normally don’t expect their clients to walk the streets in a head-to-toe runway look from their fashion house. I’ve heard designers say they are inspired when they see the way a girl who mixes high with low and new with old to create her own look.

So this year when I quickly took a glimpse at a few collections for fall 2008, I tried not to get too overwhelmed and tried to focus on key elements, or pardon my pun, common threads, throughout the shows to try to draw out trends for fall. It’s very easy to have a mini-fashion panic attack by thinking, “Where will I find clothes like this in Pittsburgh?” or “People in Pittsburgh don’t dress like this! I’ll be laughed at!” or “These are what the fashionable people will be wearing next fall? Ha!”

However, by focusing on individual pieces you see on the runway, it’s easy to get an overall feel about what you can be expecting to see in stores next fall and how you can add them to your wardrobe to make them work for you. I like to focus on popular colors, shapes of dresses, fits and washes of pants and jeans, whether or not most models are wearing tights with dresses, cuts of coats and jackets, themes in patterns and the size of bags.

While I’m not planning to actually purchase anything I’ve seen on the runway, it’s exciting to see where fashion is headed and search for affordable pieces similar to the ones seen on the models. And the looks shown by designers will definitely impact mass-market retailers eventually.

In one of my favorite scenes in “The Devil Wears Prada,” Meryl Streep’s character puts her assistant, played by Anne Hathaway, in her place after she giggles about a “huge decision” being made over two seemingly identical turquoise belts for a fashion shoot which are deemed to be “so different” by the editors. But as Streep’s character explains to Hathaway, she may think that fashion has nothing to do with her and her clothes, but it’s all a trickle down effect. Inspiration from high-end designs will eventually land in a strip mall sandwiched between a KFC and a Dollar Tree, but not before those at the top of the fashion food chain have moved on to the next big thing.

So getting back to fall clothes, which admittedly is a little hard to focus on when all I want to do is jump on the next plane that flies to anywhere that I can wear a bikini. But I was ecstatic to see a plethora of opaque tights peeking out from underneath autumn dresses. While basic black leg-wear was a standard at Marc by Marc Jacobs, he left room for fun skirts and jackets to shine. Anna Sui mixed things up featuring a ton of tights with funky patterns and colors paired with bright print dresses and knee-high boots. Good to know that our legs won’t be freezing walking to class in the name of fashion next fall.

My new favorite color for fall is orange. Not jack-o-lantern orange, but a pretty reddish-orange that’s perfect for fall. Karen Walker, my favorite collection, featured a ruffled shirtdress in this exquisite hue. Gray also continues to be a favorite in many collections. Lacoste started its show with numerous head-to-toe gray looks before finishing off with fun pops of color in neon shades.

Belted cardigans and dresses used in Diane von Furstenberg’s and Derek Lam’s collections look popular again this season and help to achieve a more polished lady-like vibe quite nicely.

But this is just the beginning. London Fashion Week wraps up today, signaling the start of Milan’s fashion week tomorrow followed by the grand finale of Paris Fashion Week Feb. 24 through March 2. And what better time to let fashions heavy-hitters like Balenciaga, Chanel and Yves St. Laurent entertain your sartorial sense than the last dull days of February while patiently waiting for spring to bloom.