Reminder: This week the PurseBlog team is busy attending the shows and parties of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week New York. While we continue to cover the shows both with reviews and exclusive images, make sure to follow our updates on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Our Instagram name is: purseblog. We have photos of what we are wearing, carrying, and photos taken live from the shows.

Images via Vogue.com

Whether you like it or not, Alexander Wang is bound and determined to make backpacks happen. And if he has his way, golf bags, too. Or, at the very least, leather backpacks so long that they look like they might hold a set of junior-size clubs. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Alexander Wang Spring 2012 Handbags is a collection full of backpacks both great and small.

Those are the kind of bags that I always think surely will never hit retail but always somehow end up in stores anyway. I’m not certain why buyers think anyone but the most hardcore Wang fans want a backpack that goes down to the backs of their knees, but those who do can call the designer’s store to get it. As for the regular-sized backpacks, sign me up immediately.

You guys, I forgot yesterday was Sunday. I forgot it was any day that normal people have off, because the endless parade of Fashion Week means that I’ve worked nine days straight and will work at least three more before I get a day off. Them’s the breaks. Not only did I not write a recap of last night’s Real Housewives of New Jersey, but I forgot it existed. And maybe it’s better that way?

At any rate, you guys still deserve a place to talk about it if you see fit, so that’s what we have right here. I’m going to make every effort to watch the episode on DVR tonight and add my thoughts in the comments when I do, but until then, feel free to discuss whatever it was that happened last night. I’ll try to do better for the Beverly Hills housewives tonight. Really, I will. I’m not saying the end result will be better, but I’ll at least remember that the show’s on. Swears.

I need a coffee the size of my head.

Images via WWD.com

Even though the notes for Diane von Furstenberg’s Spring 2012 runway show at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week New York indicated that the inimitable DVF had been inspired by modern Africa, the clothes that can down the runway felt a lot more like early-1960s California to me. Between the soft color palette (the show opened with white, a first for von Furstenberg), the midcentury modern floral prints and the models with beehive hairdos, I could have sworn we were all in Palm Springs.

Regardless of location, though, this collection is where I want to be in my mind. It looks like a place of relaxation and chic comfort, and even though lavender flowers on an ivory background have precious little to do with my personal style, DVF pulls it off so well in some of these looks that I can’t resist. After all, who works with pattern like she does?

Today marked the tenth anniversary of 9/11, a day no one in America will ever forget. While Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week New York consumes the style world right now, the aura at the shows today was different. Everyone attending remembered what this great city and country faced ten years ago today, and DKNY Spring 2012 remembered this day in a special way. The scene of the show was in a warehouse on 26th street, filled with dark floors and exposed brick walls. The seats all contained the usual press kit on the seat, but Donna Karan made sure to address the significance of the day with an important message on the front page.

When the lights went down, the models entered from the street into the space, with a NYC taxi as their backdrop. The music filled the room with songs like “American Woman”, which was so perfectly fitting not only for the symbolism of the day but also to match the collection itself. So let’s get to the show, shall we?

Just because Gwen Stefani was missing from the LAMB Spring 2012 presentation at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week New York (she’s a musician first, after all) didn’t meant that her stylistic influence wasn’t felt heavily. The colors and patterns that ran through the collection all felt like something she would wear, and perhaps more importantly, they felt like something a lot of girls will want to wear.

The striped brights were the clear standout for me, with the other bold patterns playing a close second. LAMB tends to do well when it goes bold, and the prints mixed with several very sharp leather biker jackets were all I needed to see to be convinced. These are fun casual clothes for young women, which is what Gwen and her team do best. A full gallery, after the jump.

All images via Style.com

Monique Lhuillier is a collection that I always enjoy seeing but never expect to surprise me; the designer’s roots in bridal always portend beautiful dresses both short and long, plus lots of red carpet options. Lhuillier’s collections are generally pretty in a way on which everyone can agree. But Monique Lhuillier Spring 2012 at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week New York was something more than that. The cocktail dresses were lean and athletically inspired; the ball gowns were patterned or wrapped in leather.

There was plenty of the Lhuillier we know and love to be found with the classic proportions of the evening dresses, but the mood seemed altogether more modern and, to use an overused word, slightly edgier than you might expect from the bridal maven. These dresses might appeal more to the fashion set than the red carpet set, but here’s hoping that someone’s brave enough to wear one of the patterned (Is it tie-dye? Splatter print?) ball gowns to some sort of public event in the near future.