Designers Michael Kors, Marchesa and Delpozo dazzle at Fashion Week -PHOTOS

Looks from Michael Kors, left, Boss Women, center and Marchesa, right, show that it pays to think (and design) outside of the box.

Rules were made to be broken.

The age-old guidelines about never mixing patterns and stripes, clashing colors or using fur beyond coats and stoles are so over.

Instead, New York Fashion Week’s fall collections are racing to come up with the most innovative combinations – and the designers are not afraid to do whatever it takes to win.

Take Michael Kors, for example, where the best pieces were menswear-inspired and combined everything that he could weave into them.

 Plaid and patterns mix and match effortlessly for posh looking ensembles. Capes were highlights, particularly a wool tweed number, as were the trench and tuxedo-style evening gowns.

Josep Font’s Delpozo was all about new and different takes on the column shape.

The collection’s primary color palette was made all the more powerful for being shown on a white catwalk through a forest of white trees.

There were gorgeous reds, blues and greens shaped into scene-stealing dresses, suits and coats.

Sprinkles of floral beading provided more than enough accessory, and we coveted the wrapped and stacked shoes.

With muses on the mind, Bibhu Mohapatra’s inspiration was W. B. Yeats’ unrequited love for the gorgeous Maud Gonne.

The pieces were romantic in nature, as you’d expect, but with a modern edge. The silhouettes were slim – long coats and dresses, and well-fitted trousers – but the interest was in the fur.

Rather than treating it as special (read: boring), this designer used mink, broadtail and other skins as fabric by draping, pleating and insetting them how you would any lux material.

Punk plaids for uptown girls was Designers showed off a playful side at Nanette Lepore, left and Jeremy Scott, center, and Bibhu Mohapatra, known for his red carpet-ready dresses, branched out to chic separates.

Rather than treating it as special (read: boring), this designer used mink, broadtail and other skins as fabric by draping, pleating and insetting them how you would any lux material.

Punk plaids for uptown girls was what Nanette Lepore was aiming for, and she stirred up just enough trouble to make it exciting.

With bright rose, marsala and deep blues dominating the line, it also had its own interpretation of fall’s go-to black pieces by adding fringe, bold embellishments and lace, keeping them simple but still in tune with the “secret rebel girls club” theme.

Jeremy Scott, always a big kid at heart, took a page from Dr. Seuss with his playful babydoll dresses (with babydolls printed on them) and adult-sized baby bonnets, which Kanye West eyed (possibly for North) from the front row.

The whimsical collection also mixed candy-colored stripes and plaids.

Fall for Marchesa was imagined through an opium haze. While the collection was not the most evenly designed, these women really know their way around statement gowns.

Anna Sui was a romantic romp that had lots of wild furry looks, velvet moccasins and boots and a couple of Viking horns, in honor of the Lunar New Year.

Gimmicks aside, she designed a charming collection chock full of mixed looks.