It's that time of year again: fashion month is upon us. The spring-summer 2019 season kicked off in New York over the weekend. Next, editors and influencers will head to London, Milan and Paris. Although New York Fashion Week might have been missing some big players – particularly Victoria Beckham, who has decamped to London, and Alexander Wang, who opted to show in June – there was still plenty of interest.

Wrapping up on Wednesday in an explosion of colour, frills and fun, NYFW saw greater inroads into diversity, with models spanning age and race at Sies Marjan, Ralph Lauren, Chromat and Prabal Gurung shows. It was also a celebration of firsts, movement and endurance in the tricky world of fashion.

Ralph Lauren marked his 50th anniversary with an extravagant show and party, Wes Gordon made his runway debut as creative director of Carolina Herrera, and then there were the comeback kids, with Rodarte and Proenza Schouler returning to New York after dalliances in Paris. There were lessons in print mixing at Self-Portrait and in tempered tailoring at Tibi, and at Tom Ford the sensual master himself even made neutrals look sexy.

As the fashion set flits to Europe – London Fashion Week starts on Friday – here are our favourite looks from New York.