By Jennifer Glickel
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
LINCOLN CENTER — Manhattan designers Betsey Johnson and Marc Jacobs took center stage at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Monday night with runway shows on opposite sides of the island and the spectrum of couture.
Jacobs went retro with a severe and styled look at his Park Avenue Armory show. Johnson brightened up Fashion Week with funkier designs and an even spunkier runway show at Lincoln Center.
"It's bright, it's clear, it's energy," Patricia Field, the New York stylist from "Sex and the City," said of Johnson's fall/winter 2011 collection that was full of floral patterns and animal print, sometimes on the same pieces. "It was a great mix of Victorian, hippie, and chick in the jungle."
Johnson also introduced her new lower priced line during the second half of the show with "real" women (and a few men) as her models.
Her more affordable line, called the Diffusion Collection, came down the runway on 50 of Johnson's employees who sported figures of all shapes and sizes. The employees also hit the runway wearing platinum blond wigs as an homage to Johnson.
Pieces for the Diffusion Collection will be sold for between $30 and $130.
Meanwhile, Jacobs' collection was a study in retro-50s looks and, as the New York Times put it, "an almost absurd fascination with style."
The designer told the paper he was looking to create a sense of order and control with his designs.
"I kind of like what’s strict and disciplined right now," he told the paper. "I’m tired of everything being all over the place."