Photo: Susan Kirschbaum

While Americans prepared for the Thanksgiving holiday, Tel Aviv kicked off its first official fashion week at the Hatachana pavilion in Neve Tzedek with two dozen shows and a special guest appearance by Italian designer Roberto Cavalli, who re-staged his spring 2012 show. The mixed bag—offering everything from cut up fetishistic tee shirts to belly dancers—verged on caricature at times. The local spice, however, failed to distract from the (mostly) serious designers. We spotted four who have what it takes to break out of the Mediterranean enclave in the coming year:

Sasson Kedem
The 47-year-old Kedem is a Sephardic Jew with Egyptian roots who credits his ethnicity, big family, and one year at the Ecole Mizrad Avoda in Tel Aviv with inspiring his architectural dresses of varying layers and lengths. Dress as art sculpture—think Issey Miyake or Comme des Garçons—comes to mind when looking at his mostly black and white collection. Details included white piping on black collars, sharp angles and dotted leggings, and a surprise ivory pocket on a fitted black shirt (pictured after the jump).

Alembika
Designer Hagar Alembik Hazofe collaborated with anthropologist Dr. Judy Fadlon on the collection of brightly colored, easy to wear draped dresses seen above. They ranged from body hugging silhouettes to billowing, post-holiday perfection and came topped with vests and capelets. Stripes, checks, and work shirts turned into the kind of dress one wears to work, and then out to dinner. To top it off, Alembika collaborated with Rem Koolhaas’ shoe line, United Nude, on a series of structured pumps.

Photo: Susan Kirschbaum

Dorin Frankfurt
Frankfurt studied fashion design in Paris and sold dresses in Covent Garden before making her way to Tel Aviv fashion week. Club girls in Tel Aviv might opt for crazy prints and micro minis, but Frankfurt’s pumping out clean simple shifts and shapes, well cut jackets, skirts, and this season’s must have—the cropped pant—in white, black, natural, and tangerine.

Pas Pour Toi
There’s an irony in the French name Pas Pour Toi. In English, it means, “Not for you,” but the Israeli actress turned desinger, Dorit Bar Or, is primed to dress her fair share of fashion forward Israelis. Bar Or, known as “Dodo,” is starring as Peggy Bundy in the Hebrew version of Married with Children, but off camera she’s considered one of this country’s most stylish women; her fashion debut was dedicated to Golda Meir, Israel’s only female prime minister. The looks—all black with gold embroidery done by an Orthodox rabbi—work strictly for ladies with a dramatic flair. Who else could pull off Seventies style plunging necks with leaf motif? Bar Or spiced up her runway with a crew of Arabic musicians and a belly dancer, right before hiring a major New York fashion PR firm.