Nicky Hilton's Latest Line: Nicholai (Fashion Wire Daily)

Culver City - What a difference a season makes! Last season when celebutante-turned-designer Nicky Hilton showed her clothing line (that one was named "Chick"), her sister Paris was nowhere to be seen. But this time at the Mercedes-Benz LA Fall Fashion week, Paris was front and center, with a retro Twenties look of short curly sideswept hair paired with a bright red dress and fingerless black driving gloves. She greeted their parents, Rick and Kathy, then spent most of the show snuggling with musician Benji Madden, her latest conquest.

Nickys line is also completely different than her Spring collection; perhaps that is why she changed the name? Although the name "Nicholai" was nowhere to be seen on the runway, which sported a giant NH/Nicky Hilton sign. This time Hilton has gone to the horses, right down to showing her designs paired with riding crops, hats, and boots. She began with a wool vest paired with leather jodhpurs, followed with a cheezy-looking black patent-leather cropped jacket paired with white "mod shorts," micro shorts with black accents. In fact, much of Hiltons collection suffered from what stylist George Blodwell characterized as "using materials that are only acceptable to the low-end mass market."

She showed plain leather trench coats in red and black, flouncy red leather micro minis, and black leather pants, as well as more patent leather, both in a motorcycle jacket and used as insets on pencil skirts and as trim on a three-quarter sleeve houndstooth coat. All suffered from an obvious lack of quality, both in the materials and the construction.

Hilton was much more successful with her mod knit dresses, with a form-fitting black-white-and-red mini dress, with nice stripe contrasts and red trim, and a color-blocked black-and-white mini sheath that drew applause despite touches of that inexpensive-looking leather trim.

Other looks, done mostly in black, red, grey, or white, included silk blouses paired with skintight, iridescent dark leggings and boots; sleeveless belted tunics over tiered houndstooth miniskirts; and an assortment of little black dresses.