NEW YORK, United States — Echoing the intimate, spare presentation of the previous season, Derek Lam introduced his Autumn/Winter 2017 collection to a select congregation of editors with a short diatribe on what it is to be an American designer today.

For him, he explained, it means developing an easy intimacy with the client, and offering her a one-stop shop of wardrobing for day and night, from occasion wear to elevated ath-leisure separates. But not basics, he insisted.

That raison d'être rang true in Lam's rigorous balance of quiet, minimalist clothes and bursts of eye-watering colour — in this case a racy violet skirt or smooth vermillion leather trench sliced through his demure tobacco, white, dove grey and navy separates, as did an opulent brocade.

Lam successfully married the a-line structure of his tailored coats and flared trousers with a rich warmth via cocooning knit shapes, lines of pearly buttons or stud hardware. The effect was polished and concise, though the cherry picking of references from the European runways may not escape his more clued-in clientele.