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

The bread is excellent (a little tip: make sure to ask for the sweet butter as opposed to the chive butter). For appetizers the farro risotto is a great non-traditional take on a typically heavy dish. Light and loose, the wild rice is tossed with roasted foraged mushrooms, sautéed with porcini broth and truffle emulsion. Other delectable autumn choices include the crispy duck confit salad (served atop mesclun greens, butternut squash, honey-roasted peanuts, asian pears and scallion-shiitake relish), the seared Atlantic salmon celeriac purée with sweet baby carrots, pearl onions and hen of the woods mushrooms and the lobster bordelaise. Appetizer and entrée portions are small so be sure to order accordingly.

The dessert selection was surprisingly gourmet. Molecular gastronomy techniques were employed for the sweet corn ice cream with white-chocolate cornmeal cake, molasses popcorn, caramel sauce, lime powder, and corn tuile. Another unique and popular choice is the goat cheese pannacotta plated with stone pine liqueur-roasted figs, and quinoa tuile.

Bergamot

–Melissa Matarese

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

Food trucks have long been a staple feeding the hungry lunchtime masses in cities like Philadelphia and Portland. And while New York has always had its share of hot dog hawkers and coffee carts, it wasn’t until 2008 that the City’s food trucks began to take on a gourmand element of their own. Once shunned as the rejects of the of the “real” culinary world, in the past two years, food trucks have moved into the culinary fast lane with gourmet fare such as foie gras and pork belly. Even the most quintessentially traditional of trucks — the ice cream truck–has evolved thanks to Coolhaus’ Ginger-Wasabi ice cream sandwiches and the Big Gay Ice Cream Truck’s Olive Oil and Sea Salt soft serve. The arrival of haute cuisine heavyweights like Michelin-starred chef Anita Lo’s Rickshaw Dumpling Bar and former Le Cirque Pastry Chef Jerome Chang’s Dessert Truck has helped to stymie the stigma which once accompanied food trucks and effectively quashed the common cart connotations of stale pretzels and shriveled hot dogs once and for all.

Abetted by the combination of layoffs, the lower start-up costs of a truck relative to a traditional brick-and-mortar box, and budget-conscious consumers seeking gourmet food experiences at a fraction of the cost of a sit-down fine-dining establishment, the food truck boom was a natural extension of recent economic downturn. Providing a natural substitute for the multitude of independent restaurants forced to shutter in light of the rapid decline in consumer demand for once highly sought-after trifles such as $5 cupcakes or $20 burgers, the proliferation of the food truck revolution was further facilitated by Facebook and the growing importance of social media. With Twitter becoming an increasingly quotidian communication medium, it has become quite easy to start a food truck and gain widespread advertising at a fraction of the cost of a traditional media campaign.

It was into this streetscape that Mexicue first hit the road last year, seeking to carve out a niche for itself amongst the already scores of trucks which had cropped up. While the accessibility and widespread popularity of the taco has lent itself to a number of Mexican fusion trucks, ranging from the Korean-Mexican Korilla to the Turkish Pera, Mexicue was the first, and to date the only, barbeque-Mexican fusion truck in the City.  The combination of American comfort food with the intricate and complex flavors of Mexican fare has created a powerful combination which has struck a chord with a wide cross-section of New Yorkers, helping Mexicue to become a favorite of both foodies and fiery-food-ophobes alike.

As Mexicue celebrates its one year anniversary and the opening of its first brick and mortar store, View from the Front Row sat down with Thomas Kelly, co-founder of Mexicue, to talk about the company’s rapid growth trajectory and what to expect over the coming year.

Rachel Horowitz: Whose idea was the truck and how did you guys get your start?

Thomas Kelly: When I moved to New York, I started off doing marketing for local publications and I also started working in kitchens in New York. I was very curious about that world and have always loved food. I have been cooking for a long time and was trying to determine whether I wanted to get into the fine dining world in New York, so I started working at Craft as an intern. I worked at Craft and then Hearth for six to seven years — unpaid the whole time — and would go for five or six hours after work, which was a great experience and taught me that food was my passion, but also taught me that the fine dining world in New York was not for me, both because of the lifestyle and the whole culture of fine dining in New York. I decided that I definitely wanted to be doing something in food though, and I pursued those parallel paths for seven or eight years until [co-founder] Dave [Schillace] approached me about a year and a half ago with the idea for starting a food truck.

He was doing medical device sales but was done with the corporate world and wanted to do something more entrepreneurial. He didn’t have a restaurant or culinary background but was intrigued by the trend of food trucks and he approached me about helping to develop a menu and we started cooking in my kitchen in Prospect Heights. At that point, I ended the media marketing part of my career, and at the time was doing some social media and online marketing, which ended up being a perfect segue into the marketing we do for Mexicue, which is so heavily tied into social media.

RH: Have you been thinking about opening a brick and mortar store for a while, or was the truck more of the focus at the outset?

TK: I think brick and mortar was always at the back of our minds. We wanted to take advantage of the whole food truck trend and get ourselves out there and see how the model unfolded first and the truck was a great way to get out there and test the market and see if people would take to this type of food. The truck helped out with that so we were sure that there would be enough demand to justify a brick and mortar store. I think it also helped us build a following so that once we did open an actual store, we already had an established customer base.

RH: How did you come up with the idea to do Mexican barbecue?  What was the inspiration for the concept?

TK: In terms of the decision to do Mexican barbecue, that’s something that I have been cooking at home for a long time. I am from Minnesota originally, but I have always loved both types of food and growing up we cooked a lot of Southern-style barbecue and then I cooked a lot of Mexican in college. I think we also decided to go with Mexican barbecue because both foods are really accessible and have mass appeal. However, we took two accessible styles of food that people like and then elevated them, so we are doing things that you can’t get at your average Mexican or barbecue restaurant.

RH: Why do you think the food truck craze caught on in New York City, and more specifically, amongst the dozens of trucks which have popped up over the past two years, why do you think Mexicue has been such a tremendous success?

TK: I think food trucks really took off because they are providing good quality food at really reasonable, accessible prices. I think the other side of it is the service side. There is an inherent interaction with the customer that you have in a truck that you don’t have in a typical restaurant. One of the challenges with the [bricks and mortar] store is going to be maintaining the same level of interaction with the customer. The popularity of social media has also been critical, because it helps to create an open dialogue with the customer which is reinforced at the truck itself.  In terms of why we have been so successful, our products are really unique and I think one of the things that has helped us is that there is really nothing else like us out there. We’ve also created a brand that people have become really attached to.

RH: Did you anticipate this type of demand when you first started?

TK: Definitely not. We thought that we would be able to cook out of our first kitchen, which was extremely small, for the first three months at least, but the demand was so much greater than we expected that we outgrew it in just three weeks. After that, we had a series of kitchens but had to keep moving because each time the demand kept outpacing our new space because we were growing so quickly. We thought we would do well but we had no idea that we would have lines around the block or be featured on every food blog out there, and given the nature of the food truck industry and the impact of social media, once you begin to get featured, it really snowballs, so we grew a lot faster than we ever would have thought.

RH: To have that type of demand from the get-go is pretty incredible. Given your social media background, did you start generating demand and building a name for yourself before the truck launched?

TK: Not really. We were really excited to have that type of demand, but at the same time, we really weren’t ready for it. It was great but it was a little too much too fast at the beginning.

RH: Has it been difficult to manage the growth given how fast it came?

TK: Yeah, our kitchen crew has grown very quickly. We have 18-20 people up on Seventh Avenue, we have a catering staff of about 10-15 people that do corporate catering, music festivals, private parties, art gallery and film openings, fashion shows and other events, which at this point is about a third of the business. We will have three people at the new store and all-in, we will be 40-50 people.

RH: Wow, it’s incredible to think that just a year ago you were three people operating out of a truck and today you are almost 50 operating out of three locations. Does it ever become difficult to manage all of those people?

TK: We have actually been incredibly fortunate with all of the people we have brought on. Dave and I are friends, but we are actually great business partners as well because we have very complementary skill sets and different risk thresholds. Dave is more open to risk, while I am more risk-averse so we balance each other out well. He’s our CEO and handles a lot of the day-to-day operations and business development, while I oversee all of our product development, working with our chef in the kitchen, recipe and product development, and our marketing. I think the key for us has been bringing on people who are skilled in areas that Dave and I know we are not as knowledgeable in, and who are hard-working, smart and love food. We always look for people that are smarter than we are and who are incredibly passionate, and have been really fortunate to find a ton of great people.  Julia Collins is a great example of that. Julia joined us as our CFO last fall after working for Union Square Hospitality Group. Not only does she have a solid understanding of restaurant finance and operations, but she’s a huge food lover and passionate about Mexicue. And we love that.

RH: Let’s shift gears to the truck specifically. From a logistics perspective, how do you decide how long to take the truck out for, where to put it, etc. on a day-to-day basis?

TK: Until a few months ago, Dave was managing that whole process and then we brought on one of our guys, Adam Johnson, to manage the truck full-time. To be honest, it’s a lot of trial and error in terms of hours, location, etc. We started off doing a really solid Monday through Friday lunch and we moved around to different locations but there are a lot of issues that factor into the decision of where to park the truck. We think about where we will be busy, but we also think about other restaurants — which we want to be sensitive to — and parking regulations. It’s a lot of trial and error to find the right spots which have all the characteristics we are looking for.

RH: Speaking of being sensitive to other restaurants, some of the tensions between food trucks and brick and mortar restaurants, food trucks and the City, and even amongst food trucks themselves have been well documented. Have you encountered any hostility and how have you navigated those situations?

TK: We have made a lot of effort to develop good relationships with everyone around us and we actually haven’t encountered that much hostility as a result. We are definitely sensitive to brick and mortar restaurants and when we want to park our truck somewhere, we go in and check with them first and make sure its OK with them before we park. It’s really critical to have respect for everyone around you in this industry. Most of the trucks and owners that we have dealt with are very respectful, and I think all these “issues” that people are talking about will resolve themselves because finding a solution is in everyone’s best interest. There is a food truck association — which we are a part of — and I know they are moving forward carefully and respectfully with the City to find a solution to some of these issues and I think they are productively finding solutions that will benefit all of us.

RH: What do you think about the emerging food truck “lots” of trucks gathering together as they do in other cities to address some of the parking issues? Would you welcome the idea of being stationary and located so close to your competitors, like a food court in a brick and mortar shopping mall?

TK: We love them. We do those types of things all the time and whenever we do them it benefits all of [the trucks].  [The lots] generate a critical mass and customers tend to flock to them because they can choose from many different types of food. As our CFO likes to say “a rising tide lifts all boats.”

RH: Looking back on the past year, what has been your favorite part the job?

TK: I think the customer interaction is probably my favorite part of the job. Unlike when I was working as a pastry chef in fine dining, where I was stuck in the kitchen all the time, our business really gives us the opportunity to interact with our customers every day and hear what they have to say about the food. I think this is one of the best things about the whole food truck movement — it allows people to really become part of their dining experiences. We do things like the menu contest, where we engage our customers and poll them to see what they want on the menu. Social media is really a natural fit for food trucks because it really allows you to talk to your customers virtually, which is then reinforced with the face-to-face customer interaction in the actual truck. We have also used social media to poll our customers and to respond to their comments. For example, we respond directly to every complaint we see, which helps us to build stronger customer relationships and create long-term loyalty.

RH: How about any regrets looking back on the past year. Is there anything you would have done differently?

TK: We have been incredibly fortunate and are pretty pleased with most of the stuff we have done from a big picture perspective and I don’t really have any regrets. One interesting thing we learned early on was with catering, where we deviated from our core product a bit in order to grow that business more quickly. We learned that we are going to be most successful when we stick to our core product line and our business strategy and who we are.

RH: Do you think there will be a tipping point where there will be too many food trucks and people get tired of them?  How do you expect the food truck movement to evolve going forward?  Do you think we are currently experiencing a food truck “bubble”?

TK: I do think there is a lot of frenzy surrounding food trucks right now, some of which will likely subside, but the basic trend I think is here to stay. Food trucks are a great contribution to the culture of the City and they really help to create a more democratic food experience and make great cuisine available at much more accessible price points.

RH: You guys have had an incredible 12-months. What can we expect out of the Mexicue team over the next year?

TK: Dave and I have a few other concepts that we have tossed around but Mexicue is really our focus for now. The brick and mortar stores and catering will become a lot more important to the overall business and the truck will become a smaller piece. The trucks will not keep up with that growth because it’s just too difficult.  A lot of people think that the trucks are easier to operate but people definitely underestimate the costs and the level of work required to maintain the truck. You have to deal with permitting issues, the truck breaking down, weather, etc. There are a lot of unique challenges and costs that come along with operating a truck. It’s a lot easier to start a truck but a lot harder to maintain. Going forward, the truck will be more of a marketing vehicle than anything else. We will be opening [the Lower East Side] restaurant in the late summer or early fall and we would like to do other stores afterwards. After our truck experience and all of the challenges we have dealt with there, we definitely feel that we are prepared to handle the challenges [that come with] brick and mortar stores. We would ideally like to open a few more brick and mortar stores in the city and then perhaps replicate the process with trucks and then stores in other markets.

To learn more about Mexicue visit Mexicue.com and follow them on Twitter @Mexicue

–Rachel Horowitz

–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