5 Minutes With: Rachel Comey

Her Spring 2010 looks was as playful as we'd hoped -- lots of mixed prints, chunky platforms, and -- interestingly enough -- raincoats. Thankfully, however, the rain stayed away and we got to ask the designer about the inspiration behind the collection.

Well, luckily the rain stayed away -- we even got some sun! -- but some folks were saying it might have been kind of awesome if it really had rained.

Yeah, well, we had about 50 umbrellas for the editors just in case. We figured the models would be okay. [Ed note: Many were wearing rain coats!]

What's your connection with St. Vincent, who sang during the runway show?

Actually, I just met her recently. She'd also been wearing a lot of my clothes, so we reached out to her. She's really great -- her new album's called "Actor."

We noticed a lot of backpacks, fanny packs, and so forth on the runway -- is this stuff coming back?

Well, I'm a big fan of pockets, period! I put them on everything. Actually a lot of the collection is a cross with trekking influences -- you'll see the symbols on one of the clutches -- and the pockets seem like a nice accessory. Some of the pockets can actually be removed, so you could, like, check  your coat but take your pocket with you!

The prints, as usual, were a major element in the collection -- can you tell us a little about them?

I do the majority of them myself. This season, two of the prints are from Leanne Shapton. Then there's one that's actually an archive print from the 1920s. All the others we made in-house -- I do my prints pretty much every year.

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