Perhaps an enduring legacy of "Project Runway" is that the fast-paced fashion competition left Andy South with a warped sense of time in which seconds become days and days stretch into weeks.

So, three weeks before the Hui Makaala Fashion Show, in which he is a headline designer along with Fighting Eel and Sonny Ching by Paradisus, I asked him when we could we get together to shoot some photos of his spring collection. His fall show, presented in March, had already hinted at a flowing, chartreuse spring collection to come. But in the midst of delivering his fall collection to retailers earlier this month, he admitted he didn’t have anything ready for spring.

Having lived through Season 8 of the reality TV series "Project Runway," the designer’s sense of time is irrevocably different from that of the rest of us mere mortals. While we sweat over looming deadlines, he had embraced Tim Gunn’s "make it work" spirit, even if it meant pulling everything together the week — no, make that days, if not hours — before the show.

Even with his ideas set, he said he’s still figuring out how to keep up with the pace of the fashion calendar, when fall retail delivery coincides with spring presentations and vice versa. "This is a small company, so I’m still trying to balance everything and find the right flow of things," he said.

Last Thursday, in his Chinatown studio, South was the picture of calm at his sewing machine and had a few promising pieces to show in the form of knotted rope bracelets and belts finished with dark, earth-colored sequins.

In early March he had envisioned a spring collection based on a girl emerging from the ocean, a vibrant Hawaiian Venus. But that vision turned dark in the days following the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan later that month and while watching news reports of the devastation. "They were interviewing people who lived through the tragedy, and a story about what the tsunami did to Japan came to my mind," South said. "One older gentleman said it was as if the waves had washed away development and technology, and he said, ‘We’re starting all over again.’"

Now South imagined a woman emerging from mud and muck, the dripping sequins representing a swirl of debris and garbage strewn by the storm, before a cleansing and revitalization of spirit.

His concept will come to life via contemporary separates that do not stray far from his fall collection in terms of draped ease and lean silhouettes. His palette includes earthy linen and bark tones, ocean-inspired indigos and white, with shocks of electric yellow. He’s always experimented with dyes as a way of customizing his palette, and it served him well when he was designing pageant gowns and needed just the right color to enhance a woman’s skin. This time, he’s creating many of the blues himself, experimenting with ombre silks and shibori dyeing.

His rope accessories are inspired by Japanese fishermen and the idea of handmade nets. "It’s another kind of craft, and I’m always drawn to things like that," he said.

On his inspiration board is a piece of knit mesh he made himself to resemble netting, but it’s hard to say whether anything similar will appear in the show. Maybe this is part of South’s grand scheme. Leave people guessing, then put on a show to remember.