NY Fashion Week: B&W;, Printed All Over

" The story of New York Fashion Week has been told in mostly black and white — making it that much harder to ignore all the unusual prints on the runway, even if they, too, were color-free.

Marc Jacobs put out oversized black-and-white and red stripes on Monday a day after stripe-happy Tommy Hilfiger, whose red stripes were inspired by rope.

Carolina Herrera showed an abstract geometric print on Monday, while Elie Tahari took his prints from Palm Beach, mixing palm leaves, leopard skin and tropical flowers.

In earlier previews, Thakoon Panichgul had playful birds, Suno had a retro cell phone print and Jason Wu had prints reminiscent of an X-Ray. At Rebecca Taylor the print was Hawaiian, with fish scales at Monique Lhuillier and "space clouds" at Nicole Miller.

"Prints are personality, they have emotion, they tell a story," said Stacey Bendet, designer of Alice and Olivia — herself wearing a leopard-print dress on Monday to present a collection that included a variety of florals — from digital prints to painterly and candy-colored.

Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week continues through Thursday before the fashion crowd heads to London, Milan and Paris "

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