For Gianna Reisen’s 16-minute “Play Time” and for the evening’s final dance, Kyle Abraham’s “Love Letter (on Shuffle),” the big story has been the costumes. Both works premiered at last fall’s tenth fashion gala and took to heart the occasion. For “Play Time,” Alejandro Gómez Palomo, of Spain, designed wide-shouldered, narrow-waisted pinstriped suits of various hues for men and some women, with Swarovski crystals delineating single every pinstripe. Some of the men’s suit-pants had wide, jodhpur-like hips, and some women wore box constructions jutting out from their hips. The whole was as impractical as any outré runway but, as models do, the dancers carried off the look. When the curtains parted on a compact pyramid formation that sparkled like a diamond to focus the vast SPAC space, they looked glamorous, not garish, and elicited gasps.

The simultaneous innovations in costume, music (Solange Knowles), and choreography seemed, however, to have had a hampering effect on the whole. The eye-catching costumes were not further deployed beyond the first showstopping look, while steps and notes and phrases tended to match one-to-one. Though the dancers were distinguished by costume color, it was hard to fully appreciate the movement patterns.

The evening’s third work was the 2003 “Liturgy” by Christopher Wheeldon, to Arvo Pärt, with NYCB orchestra’s Kurt Nikkanen as violin soloist. Sara Adams and Jovani Furlan were seamless in the work’s partnering, which was complex yet never seemed merely a manipulation of bodies. Their intent, nearly impersonal attention to each other created a third being, the dance. At the end came a standing ovation.

“Love Letter (on Shuffle)” (music by James Blake) was, at 38 minutes, the anchor of the evening. Like “Play Time,” its costumes had drawn much attention. By the British Giles Deacon, who also designs for Abraham’s own company, A.I.M., they were eclectic. Most were unitards of dark mottled patterning with ruffle treatments at the necks; there were also exquisitely made tutus in both short and romantic lengths for some women, bloomers for some men, and sweeping spiky headdresses for two men, the last two reminiscent of Deacon’s designs for Abraham’s 2018 “The Runaway,” also for NYCB.

The 16 dancers, listed alphabetically, were clearly enjoying Abraham’s sinuous, nearly boneless and non-balletic movement. Towards the end, though, a passage of nearly pure ballet appears, with the dancers moving in unison through basic classroom exercises of tendu and épaulement, as in signature Balanchine leotard ballets. Earlier, three dancers in tutus trotted across the back of the stage in “Swan Lake’s” famous steps for its cygnet quartet. It will be interesting to see how Abraham further investigates classical ballet.