When designer Alvin Valley began working on his 2007 spring collection — which makes its debut at Fashion Week, starting today — one question was on his mind: What ever happened to Baby Jane?

As in Jane Holzer — the uptown debutante who became a darling of the downtown art scene in the 1960s.

“I became kind of infatuated with her after reading ‘Party of the Century’ by Deborah Davis,” Mr. Valley said in his Broadway showroom in Greenwich Village during a run-through of the show last week. “The writer was comparing Jane with her friend Amanda Burden who was very uptown, very proper. … and Jane was the first sort of Park Avenue girl who would come downtown and party with Warhol.”

Mr. Valley sought out the former actress, now in her 60s, who appeared in several Warhol films and was a charter member of the artist’s Factory mob.

“We had dinner together and she wasn’t just talking about the clothes she was wearing, or the image she [portrayed], but about her experiences. My collection references that era and that attitude and that innocence — really Jane’s personality.”

“The girl I’m designing for is comfortable in both worlds,” he said. “She’s young and she’s interested in sex. … She’s in the middle of it. She’s having fun, is extremely confident and has a lot of freedom. She’s not a 9-to-5 girl.”

For his Fashion Week presentation, Mr. Valley will unveil his sporty “off-the-rack” collection: mostly separates that the client who wore one of his ready-to-wear gowns the night before might wear to brunch the next day.

The designer enlisted his long-time collaborator, makeup artist James Boehmer, a senior stylist with Nars cosmetics, to create the exact look to complement his tailored daywear. The ensembles adroitly merge masculine and feminine elements. He will display tapered trousers, sheer chiffon shirts, structured ’60s-inspired jackets, and pleated skirts at the show.

Mr. Valley likes to call it “hyper-constructed,” using details such as raffia trimming to give his favorite fabrics, like matte linens, a bit of shine and trim without getting too precious.

“I know his clothes so well and I know how he works,” Mr. Boehmer, who started out doing makeup in independent films and television, said. “The makeup finishes the story that the designer starts with the clothes. The presentation is the end result of the vision and the makeup is the fine tuning.

“This woman has a purpose. Maybe she didn’t take all her mascara off from the night before. But if something’s a little messy, she wanted it messy. It’s a glamorous mess because this woman is always camera-ready.”

Mr. Boehmer’s starting point was mascara — lots of it. He applied five or six coats for a dramatic effect.

“I didn’t want to do liner. I didn’t want it to feel too retro or too ’60s or too literal,” he said.

Next, Mr. Boehmer applied a pewter-colored cream shadow on the eyelid, followed by an icy, mint-green eye shadow in the inner corner of the eye. To make the eyes pop even more, he used a mint pencil on the inner rim.

He said he chose mint instead of the usual ’60s-era white inner eyeliner to make the look more modern, while still referencing the past.

“A lot of the colors that Alvin uses are linens and naturals and beiges, so I wanted it to be not so graphic as white, a little creamy. It’s all about minty green with really warm, pretty skin and lips.”

For the complexion, Mr. Boehmer kept it mostly natural with just a hint of color, using a cream blush in a soft, natural coral. He layered a honey-beige lip gloss on top of a matte coral lip color, merging the past and the present with sublime results.

“If you’re using an old reference like the ’60s, you have to figure out a way to make it seem new,” he said. “If the jacket has a very specific ’60s reference, and the hair or makeup is very referenced as well, it can be costumey all of a sudden. If the collection is completely vintage in style, you would want to do something more modern for juxtaposition.”

For the final touches, the Nioxin hair care team moved in, headed by stylist Laurentius Purnama. He used a root-lifting serum and then a round brush to dry the model’s long hair, followed by a healthy dose of teasing.

“The hair needs to be full and beautiful, not poker-straight. I didn’t want it to be too stiff and retro. If you look at Alvin’s clothes, they have the influence, but they’re really younger and cooler, not so pristine or manicured,” Mr. Purnama said. “And the hair and makeup need to have those qualities too.”