NEW YORK, Feb 16, 2002/ --- Her front row is always stellar, her taste impeccable and her sense of style something most women would die for.

But the best thing about Diane von Furstenberg’s catwalk show Sunday evening in the West Village was the way the collection offered so much more than her trademark wrap dresses that tended to dominate her presentations of late.

Entitled Crosstown Traffic, the fall 2002 collection captured the energy of New York with graffiti prints, punk splashes and baroque patchwork, allied to Diane’s self-assured sense of sophisticated femininity.

Not that her signature wrap dresses were nonexistent: Von Furstenberg did open with some of them, in matte jersey or exotic animal and collage prints, yet always with a sense of humor – like sending out Devon Aoki in a top featuring Andy Warhol’s famed image of herself as a youthful jet-setter.

The DVF wardrobe for fall also includes great roller disco jackets with jacquard stripes and mannish multi-patch pantsuits and tweed knit cardigans in bold colors.

For evening, she showed beautiful mini caftans with digital Art Deco designs and embroidered white alpaca coats and pants.

Slick styling by Rebecca Weinberg, youthful hair looks by Frederic Fekkai and some amazing stocking boots and multi-stripe stilettos by shoe genius Christian Louboutin combined to give the show a brilliantly polished finish.

Powered on by a wittily sampled soundtrack by DJ Onda, the models clearly enjoyed wearing the clothes.

The collection might have done with a little more editing.

We understand that knickerbockers are making a comeback but they really don’t look that good with peasant chiffon blouses or lace cape tops, and one felt we could really have done without the carpet print jumpsuits.

These minor quibbles aside, the show felt like a cool celebration of modern femininity and sexual emancipation.

And the audience, including a front row of Susan Sarandon, Ellen Barkin, Jeremy Scott, Pat Field and the ever-present Hilton filles, gave it a standing ovation.

As a beaming, ever spontaneous Diane took her bow, she suddenly grabbed up her granddaughter Antonia, inspiring even louder applause.

Diane Von Furstenberg

Diane Von Furstenberg

Diane Von Furstenberg

Diane Von Furstenberg