“It was summer dreams in New York,” said Luca Orlandi backstage after his Spring 2007 collection, which debuted Monday, September 11th in the Promenade at Bryant Park.

That would explain the mostly black-and-white color scheme, the starkness of which was punctuated only occasionally by poppy embroidery and fire engine red discs on the mod felt necklaces that accessorized a few of the looks Orlandi sent out to an audience of socialites and celebrities such as Nicky and Paris Hilton, Michelle Trachtenberg, Kanye West, Maria Menounos, Emmy Rossum, Damon Dash, Rachel Roy, Carmen Electra and Thalia.

With such a hip, MTV crowd in the front row, perhaps it wasn’t so surprising that the designer traded in his more traditional ladies-who-lunch frocks for clothes with an edgier, more youthful feel.

Orlandi’s designs still skew ladylike and are fashioned from super luxe materials, mind you, but this time around he toughened up draped chiffon cocktail dresses by layering them over plain white tanks, offered easy-to-wear linen trapeze minis and kept the beading to a minimum. The embellishment he did offer was presented in a fresh way, such as the crystal Iron Cross splashed across the front of a white jersey v-neck.

And, like many designers this week, Orlandi played with scale and proportion, most successfully in a voluminous paperbag waist skirt that ended just under the model’s bust line, the strapless empire dresses whose tight bodices encased the bosom like an Ace bandage fanning out to a flattering and forgiving pouf skirt, and the fitted-and-flared high-waist gowns whose hems curved higher in front than back to provide ease of movement for Luca Luca’s girls-on-the-go.