Article: DECLARATIONS OF INDEPENDENCE; SOME DESIGNERS AND HOUSES PREFER TO CHART THEIR OWN COURSES, REGARDLESS OF PREVAILING WINDS. THAT WAS THE CASE AT HABITUAL, WHERE NICOLE AND MICHAEL COLOVOS STAYED TRUE TO THEIR SKINNY-JEANS COOL, WHILE, AT TESS GIBERSON, THE LOOKS GET SIMPLER EACH SEASON AND AT PROJECT ALABAMA, THE LINE FEATURED LEAF-SHAPED APPLIQUES AND IVY VINES.

Habitual: Even from the outset, Vogue/CFDA Fashion Fund runners-up Nicole and Michael Colovos had a distinctive aesthetic. It's a louche strain of cool that doesn't try too hard to be sexy, tough, chic or smart -- but is somehow correct portions of all of those. It's undeniably theirs, but never obvious. While fall's silhouette of skinny jeans, layered thin silk and jersey tops wasn't a revelation, it was all quite happily consistent. Instead of reinventing, the designers refine. They continue to play with subtle details -- the velvet piping on a jacket sleeve, the slight ruche of a T-shirt's neckline or the flash of grommets in the back pleat of a chocolate twill ...

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