Zac Posen returned to the tents at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in a saucy mood Saturday night — and with a thought-out plan for success.

Showing in the official home of fashion week for the first time in several seasons, Posen featured his less-expensive Z Spoke collection, a frothy concoction of prints dotted with images of faces, dancing ladies and fruit cocktail, colorful coats, ruffled pants and blouses, stretch jumpsuits and plaid rompers as the Katy Perry double entendre song, "Peacock," and his fragrance, 12.29 for Z Spoke, wafted through the room.

"It's the beginning of pop optimism," Posen said at a party in his honor at an outdoor garden in Lincoln Center after the show. "Everybody now wants to be a star and we're going to make the wardrobe to dress them. In this day and age it's really about having a wardrobe that's fun, playful and easy."

Posen said he designed his show with three different women in mind.

"We opened with the intellectual pop Americana sportswear girl. Then we went to our humor, with the 'fucked-up femme.' We deconstructed ruffles and made all the clothing as if we were making millinery hats, so we could get an American quilting pant into the collection. And then we went to the sexy woman. She's definitely red-headed and went to acting school. And that's where the '40s influence came in. They're all different takes on my personality, of who I am."

After a decade in the fashion business, the 29-year-old Posen has crafted a plan for the future. Fresh off of showcasing the sportswear-oriented collection in New York, he will unveil his higher-priced, more expertly-crafted designer collection in Paris late next month.

"It's so thrilling to come to the tents and put on a show that is about fashion-tainment. In New York it's about sportswear at lower price points. This is about industry and market and that is what American fashion is about. That's where it started from," he explained.

"Technique and luxury and innovation happen in Paris," he continued. "I was in Japan early in spring and had a one-on-one dinner with Yohji Yamamoto. He looked at two pieces of my clothing and said, 'There's no reason for you to ever show this kind of clothing in New York. He said this is a dialogue (you should have) with France.....I am really excited to be able to take that creative risk."

To help finance his operation, Posen plans a new capsule collection, which he calls "our sex dresses," priced from $850 to about $3,000 per gown.

"This is what we can build the business in. This is creating the next Christian Louboutin, but it's in dresses. These are things that are in key iconic shapes that support, seduce and seduct, give weight, lift her boobs, in great cosmetic colors, nudes and black. This is about bringing the sexy and the glamour of our brand at an accessible price point, architectural and anatomical."

While Posen was talkative, his good friend, actress Claire Danes, was tight-lipped. Danes, who has a history of snubbing the press at fashion week events — she once was ridiculed for telling reporters "I'm not doing press tonight" at a fashion show while she sat on the front row — rolled her eyes when asked if she had time for a couple of questions before grudgingly consenting.

Here's how the conversation went:

Q: What did you think of the show?

A: I thought it was wonderful. It was really young and energetic and I loved the colors. I thought it was great.

Q: Since I last saw you (at a fundraiser at the Houston home of John and Becca Cason Thrash) you are now married and you've won an Emmy. Your life sounds pretty good.

A: It's all right. Yeah. I'm not complaining.

Q: There are big ads of you everywhere promoting the eyelash-lengthening drug Lattise. Does it work?

A: It works. It really works. I have to go.

Then she walked away to get a glass of wine at the bar.

But I couldn't help but notice that her eyelashes looked unusually long.

Far more talkative was Austin paralegal Allison Luxenberg, who was one of five winners — and the only one from Texas — in a nationwide recipe contest sponsored by Bertolli. The manufacturer of Italian olive oil and pasta sauces had transformed the Lincoln Center garden into an outdoor Italian ristorante and served bite-size portions of Luxenberg's walnut pumpkin ravioli with ricotta and Bertolli Vidalia onion pasta sauce as part of the menu.

Luxenberg was thrilled to have won the trip to New York and the opportunity to see her first Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week show.

"TV does not do it justice," she said about Posen's show. "It's the coolest thing I've ever seen."

She was also excited to be seated 20 feet from Carmen Electra at the fashion show and meet celebrity chef Rocco DiSpirito at the party.