NEW YORK — Porsche Design sounds like a place to buy a sporty car with fine German engineering. But it's actually a luxury fashion brand that recently opened a store in The Galleria. "It's a good market for us because it's a luxury market," said Kerstin Hamann, director of marketing and public relations for Porsche Design of America. "It makes sense for us to be in Houston."

The fashion brand, which was established in 1972 in Austria by Ferdinand Alexander Porsche, the grandson of the founder and designer of the Porsche 911, has been known mainly for designing and manufacturing high-quality men's sunglasses, watches and writing pens.

But under creative director Thomas Steinbruck, who formerly worked as creative director at Elie Saab, the label has branched into men's and women's fashion, with the debut of its spring 2013 collection in a light-filled space near the Hudson River during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week.

For inspiration, Steinbruck looked to Bauhaus, the minimalist style of architecture, to create a collection he calls "Neo-Bauhaus." It's sleek, modern and luxuriously-crafted without a hint of frills; the antithesis of Saab's embellished womenswear.

Working in shades of beige, white and black, with leather and a fabric called RawTech that can be washed and cut without sewing, Steinbruck created jackets and car coats for both sexes in high shine and matte finishes with welded zippers and asymmetrical lines, as well as pencil skirts, slacks and bustiers for women and shirts with flap pockets, cardigans and slacks for men.

All have the minimalist modern look of a Mission Impossible movie, where the hero jumps into a fancy Porsche and speeds away.

Also on tap for spring, the Porsche Design twin bag, a women's handbag with a handle that can extend into a shoulder bag. Nifty.