Show notes at Christian Dior.

Painted faces and matching rose hats at Alexis Mabille.

Giambattista Valli second couture show.

The model board at Armani Prive.

Despite the power of price, some designer mass retailer collaborations have faired better than others. And they certainly all haven’t been runaway hits. Missoni for Target was a sensation, selling out and crashing Target.com. Lanvin for H&M was a bonafide hit. On the other side of the spectrum, despite its hoopla, Karl Lagerfeld for Macy’s didn’t fare so well.

It’s hard to ascertain what drives a successful designer mass retailer collaboration. Name recognition alone of the designer certainly doesn’t do it. The product itself, of course, has a lot to do with it. The most successful collaborations have felt inspired by the designer’s main line, fashion forward and at the same time, don’t try so hard within the price constraints. A great cut and patterns usually do well in this space.

What do you think of what you’ve seen of Jason Wu for Target so far? Will you be lining up? See a selection from the collection below.

Polka dot pieces are available at all price points from H&M to Lanvin, so whatever your budget you have no excuse not to invest in this trend.

–Clare Mukherjee

Follow Clare on Twitter @ClareMukherjee

Leave it to Miuccia Prada to set the trend for Spring 2012. She riffed on Grease and the 1950s, but the results were entirely modern. Be prepared to see a lot of pastels, car prints and pleated skirts come spring.

2. LOUIS VUITTON

By all accounts Marc Jacobs is leaving his post at Louis Vuitton and heading over to Christian Dior. If this is Jacobs’ last hurrah at Vuitton, it was a good one. Sweet, pretty, Parisienne — these are the kind of clothes that you would want to spend the day in wandering around the Left Bank. And while there were a sea of pastels being offered up this season, Jacobs did the trend best.

3. GIVENCHY

Let’s call this collection Riccardo Tisci’s coming out effort as a major force to be reckoned with at Givenchy. Thanks to pitch perfect tailoring, these clothes have “it” factor written all over them.

What collections made your list?

–Leah Bourne

Follow Leah on Twitter @fromthefrontrow

1. The Rodarte sisters get inspired by an Impressionist master. Rodarte duo Kate and Laura Mulleavy took inspiration from Van Gogh for their Spring 2012 collection including the Sunflower Series and Starry Night. The result was wearable and inventive cocktail dresses I would give an arm for.

2. Seeing Valentino sing “Unforgettable”, unforgettable. Barneys hosted a party for Carine Roitfeld at the nightclub the Westway with a karaoke theme this fashion week. No one expected unexpected guest Valentino to take to the microphone to sing Unforgettable. It’s a moment I will never forget.

3. What is that fabric? Designers were all about innovative fabrics this season. Nylon gazaar at Theyskens’ Theory. Techno reflective gingham at Marc Jacobs. It left me scratching my head thinking, what is that fabric, while simultaneously making the mental note to buy, buy, buy come spring.

4. Supermodels take to the runway. I love a good super, but let’s face it, they don’t take to the runway that often. Karolina Kurkova walked in more than a few shows this season (J.Mendel, Altuzarra, Marchesa to name a few). Hilary Rhoda walked in Alexander Wang. Crossing my fingers Kate Moss will make a New York appearance next season. A girl can dream.

5. Sherbert hues make me yearn for summer. Everybody did pastels this season. But no one did them quite as well as Phillip Lim. Sign me up for the whole collection, which felt both city slick and optimistic.

6. I’m not in college anymore, or am I? No one throws a party quite like Alexander Wang. This season’s had a frat party theme with Playstations and jello shots to boot. Oh, and Christina Ricci made an appearance. I guess it wasn’t quite like my college days.

7. Beyonce, need I say more? Even the most jaded fashionistas were in a tizzy when Beyonce made an appearance at J.Crew’s presentation. Then she sat front row at Vera Wang. And then Rodarte. B, you are welcome at fashion week anytime.

8.Thom Browne’s 1920s cocktail soiree. Some designers show their clothes on a runway. Some have presentations where models stand still. Thom Browne did something a little more creative for his Spring 2012 presentation at the New York Public Library hosting a 1920s themed soiree where models clinked glasses and mingled. Oh, and the clothes were pretty fabulous.

9. Finding my go-to outfit at Wes Gordon’s presentation. Wes Gordon presented his fourth collection this New York fashion week and needless to say I was in love with just about everything. This rococo print silk organza tee shirt paired with a red etched lace print silk organza skirt made me stop in my tracks in particular. I am pretty sure I would and could wear this everyday.

10. Seeing purple at Prabal Gurung. One of the standout shows at New York fashion week this season was Prabal Gurung. While the designer usually has a love affair with red, this season he was seeing purple. Oh, and did I mention I sat behind Nicki Minaj at the show?

–Leah Bourne

Follow Leah on Twitter @fromthefrontrow

–Leah Bourne

Follow Leah on Twitter @fromthefrontrow

Athletic inspired looks are in for the boys this season, see Carter Cramer’s picks

Mod references were all over fall’s runways, see Rebecca Malinsky’s picks`

Sometimes it’s all about going collegiate, see Clare Mukherjee’s picks

Classics with a twist are having a moment, see Jennifer Sung’s picks

We’d love to hear from you! What’s on your fall shopping list?

I see them during the day prepped up and tucked into white skinny jeans or worn knotted with vintage floral minis and flats. At night I have witnessed the chambray shirt unbuttoned low, with sleeves rolled and paired with either leather shorts or sequin skirts. Grab Madewell’s Perfect Chambray Ex-boyfriend Shirt ($68, madewell.com) if you haven’t already!

–Clare Mukherjee

Follow Clare on Twitter @claremukherjee

Yuan Zhang, one of the founding members, recently sat down with View From the Front Row to discuss how the idea for ShopNear.me emerged, the importance of working with the right team and how growth in the smartphone industry has brought the experience of shopping both online and offline closer to consumers than ever before.

Jennifer Sung: What problem are you addressing with ShopNear.me?

Yuan Zhang: ShopNear.me is a location-based shopping application for your iPhone that lets you search items near you — not only stores, but also products carried in those stores. It’s for shoppers who might be limited on time or might be searching for specific items. We are also solving a huge problem for local boutiques and their marketing efforts. Right now, their outreach is basically by word of mouth or traffic on the streets. Smaller boutiques might be able to create a Facebook page but many don’t have a big budget to push a huge marketing campaign like bigger brands — so most of their shoppers only come from people walking by their physical store. We provide locally targeted marketing for them.

JS: You were originally working on a startup called Lookville. Can you talk about your original idea and how that evolved into what you are working on now?

YZ: Lookville, which launched last year, is basically a crowdsourcing feedback website for fashion. People can upload pictures of themselves and get instant feedback from the online community. We have built a community of over 30,000 users and we still have 500 to 1,000 users coming to our site everyday. People use it for a variety of reasons — there are designers who are using it to get feedback on their upcoming collections and boutiques uploading pictures of clothing they are selling in their stores. So people are using it in very creative and different ways.

Lookville was the first project for our team. We wanted to see how it would be received by the online community. A lot of feedback we got was, “This would be great on a mobile device” so that’s how we started looking into the mobile space. We quickly realized that mobile related a lot to local businesses. At that point, we sat down and asked ourselves, “Do we want to just create a mobile version of Lookville?” And we decided that we wanted to do something more and that’s how ShopNear.me was born. Right now we don’t have a community yet but Lookville will eventually be built into our mobile app where you will be able to discuss your reviews on different stores or on items they carry.

JS: How do you imagine users engaging with ShopNear.me when they are shopping?

YZ: So imagine you are in Union Square and you open up ShopNear.me. It will show you all of the nearby stores and allow you to browse through them — we have captured beautiful pictures of each store. You can also see what products they are carrying and look up the directions to take you there. Or if you are interested in a specific item, you can call them directly to reserve an item. So it really helps you with the decision process around where to go and what to get in an instant.

JS: Would you describe ShopNear.me as more of a store discovery app or an app that allows for searches on specific items?

YZ: Both — it depends on how familiar you are with the city you are shopping in. So if you know the local boutiques already and are looking for a specific pair of black shorts, then you can find which stores carry it. Or, if you’re new to a city as a visitor, it can be a discovery app that helps you find stores you might not otherwise know about. You can also follow different stores that you like and get updates about new arrivals and sales.

JS: As you roll out more features, will you allow users the ability to purchase directly from your application? What else can we expect in terms of added features?

YZ: Right now, we are working on the ability to create a point of purchase option on our application. We are also thinking about a reservation system that allows you to hold an item so you can try it on when you get to the store.

JS: So right now, are you focused more on adding small boutiques or larger brands?

YZ: We are focusing on small boutiques because mobile technology is readily available for big brands. For local stores, it’s tougher to build a mobile app. We think this is a great way for them to market to a newer audience. Plus, many of the smaller stores carry independent designer clothing that would be great to share with those outside of their existing customers.

JS: How do you plan on monetizing?

YZ: Our front page always has a featured shop, which a store can pay to be featured on. Another thing we are thinking about is a paid personalization feature where we can recommend different stores or items for purchase based on your previous history. Finally, we can take a cut if someone purchases an item through ShopNear.me.

JS: Why is now the perfect time to launch something like this?

YZ: Five years ago, big brands were still in the early stages of coming online but in the last few years, there has been so much innovation happening and it has been picking up. We still think it’s a big market with lots of gaps that need to be filled.

JS: What metrics do you most closely follow when you are evaluating your success?

YZ: Right now we are in the process of getting feedback from local boutiques and our users. So we look very closely at what buttons they are clicking on, how they are interacting with our app, how many people are opening it and using it. Basically, we are trying to narrow down the features that are most useful that our users can’t live without.

JS: Has anything surprised you about the way the app is being used?

YZ: It’s very interesting. During testing, people interacted with it in very different ways. Some people just followed different stores to get updates or others knew exactly what they were looking for and were searching for it through our app. One change we made based on feedback was to create the ability to search by item.

JS: How do you plan on marketing to shoppers interested in using your app?

YZ: Some of it will be press. We are also working closely with the stores featured in our application. Many of the boutiques have Facebook followers already that we can reach out to and we are also going to give out fliers to each of the stores.

JS: Overall growth in the smart phone industry has been nothing short of incredible over the last few years. Applications including Foursquare, Foodspotting, and Instagram allow people to incorporate geo-tagging and interact in totally new ways that were not even possible just a few years ago. How do you foresee this shift impacting the shopping experience?

YZ: That’s exactly what we are trying to address. Imagine walking down 5th Avenue in New York City and when you walk into your favorite store, you are immediately notified with an alert about specific items based on your location or events happening at that moment. That’s the new shopping experience we are trying to build.

JS: Who are you most nervous about from a competitive standpoint?

YZ: There are a few online competitors that are trying to address local stores but we don’t know anyone doing the same thing in the mobile space. However, it’s possible for a company to copy what we are doing if we’re successful. We just always try to keep innovating and stay two steps ahead.

JS: You previously worked in finance. Can you talk about how you made the jump into entrepreneurship?

YZ: My background is in finance and mathematics. Before this, I worked at a big company and quickly realized it wasn’t for me. I always knew I was going to do something on my own — it was just a matter of timing. After having my son a few years ago [in 2009], I realized that I was only going to get busier, so I decided I needed to just make the jump.

JS: Who else is on the ShopNear.me team?

YZ: Ben Wong and Steve Xu are our programmers. Loc Ngo is our designer. Ben and Loc have both gone through the Y-Combinator program and started a company in 2008 called Startuply. Steve and I have known each other for over seven years — he was a programmer for Lolapps, a social gaming company. My role at the company is marketing and business development.

JS: What has been your biggest challenge?

YZ: Working with local businesses is certainly not easy — we definitely have some challenges but it has also been a pleasant surprise to learn how tech savvy many of them are. For example, many already have Facebook pages and are uploading new items to their pages regularly. So the barriers to entry are actually lower than we originally thought. Faceook really changed how people do business. In many ways, local boutiques are actually quite similar to us — they are each building their own business.

JS: Why is there such a big opportunity in the mobile space?

YZ: The opportunity is definitely huge. Nowadays, people are using mobile devices like their personal computers. Over 200 million people already use Facebook on their mobile phones. I use mine to check my email or even buy items. I am fascinated by how a little device can do so much.

For ShopNear.me, we want to seamlessly connect the offline shopping experience to the online experience. Fashion is so unique because 70% of fashion is still bought offline today — the offline experience is hard to beat online. The experience of walking into a store, feeling the fabric and trying it on is completely different and just can’t be captured online. Now, if you have a mobile device to connect both of these experiences, that’s incredible.

JS: What has your experience been like as a woman entrepreneur?

YZ: I think I’ve been pretty lucky to have met such a great team and met supporters who have introduced me to other great people in Silicon Valley. I don’t think there’s a huge difference between being a male or female entrepreneur, but as a woman at a fashion startup, I do have a very different point of view from men on the shopping experience — and that’s an advantage. Shopping is ultimately a woman’s market. In Silicon Valley, some investors don’t quite understand the fashion space because they don’t understand the female perspective of shopping. So I think I can bring a lot to the table in that way.

JS: If you could start over again, what would you have done differently?

YZ: I’ve made mistakes but I wouldn’t have done anything differently. I remember early on, I had a product idea that I thought was great but I didn’t know a programmer. So I thought to myself, “I can just hire a contractor.” I’ve learned that the single most important thing is the people you are working with. If you are working with the right team, you can build anything. If you don’t have the right team, your idea might be great but it won’t be executed well. Now I am fortunate enough to have a team that is equally excited as I am about the product and with the expertise to execute our vision. So find the right people to work with. It’s all about the people and relationships you have.

JS: What is the best piece of advice you have ever given or received?

YZ: If you want to start something on your own, don’t wait. Start now. You’re never going to find the perfect time to launch something. People always say they’re waiting for the right moment to do something. You can always come up with reasons to wait, but don’t make excuses. You can’t start early enough. If think you want to do entrepreneurship, then just do it.

To learn more about ShopNear.me visit ShopNear.me

–Jennifer Sung

Follow Jennifer on Twitter @Changingtide

Alexis Mabille

Giambattista Valli

–Leah Bourne

Follow Leah on Twitter @Fromthefrontrow